she might; he would be glad. So he walked on, down the river-road,
his long-repressed, stifled hope and love out of bonds at last.

A sound fell on his dulled ear, and brought him back to reality; it was
a footstep. "I had better not be seen," he thought, and, climbing up the
bank, he kept on through the thick hillside-forest. After a moment or
two, around the curve came John Royce, walking as if for a wager; two
pistols gleamed in the belt he had hastily buckled around his waist, and
the wrinkle between his eyes had deepened into a frown.

"It can not be possible!" thought Wainwright. But rapid reflection
convinced him that, impossible as it seemed, it might be true, and that,
in any case, he had not a moment to lose. He was above Royce, he was
nearer the trail to Brother Bethuel's, and, what was more, he was
familiar with all its turnings. "Not to be able to save Eliot!" he
thought, as he hurried forward over the slippery, brown pine-needles.
And then it came to him how much he had relied upon that to hold Honor,
and he was ashamed. But almost immediately after rose to the surface,
for the first time in his life, too, the blunt, give-and-take feeling of
the man as a man, the thought--"You are doing all this for her; she
_ought_ to repay you." He hardly knew himself; he was like Bothwell
then, and other burly fellows in history; and he was rather pleased to
find himself so. He hastened across a plateau where the footing was
better; he had turned farther up the mountain-side, so that Royce could
not by any possibility hear him as he brushed hastily through the
undergrowth, or stepped on crackling twigs or a rolling stone. The
plateau soon ended, and the slanting hillside slanted still more
steeply. He pushed on, keeping his breath as well as he was able,
running wherever he could, climbing over rocks and fallen trees. He was
so far above the road now that he could not see Royce at all, but he
kept his efforts up to the task by imagining that the young man was
abreast of him below--which was true. He began to pant a little. The
sleeve of his flannel coat had been held and torn by a branch; he had
tripped on a round stone, and grazed his knee. He was very tired; he
began to lope as the Indians do, making the swing of the joints tell;
but he was not long enough to gain any advantage from that gait. At last
he met the trail, and turned up the mountain; the ascent seemed steeper
now that he was out of breath. His throat was