lustration: "LOIS STOLE INTO THE ROOM"]

Far over on what must have been the other side of the track, they
occasionally saw the light of a house; at one place there seemed to be a
little hamlet, from the number of lights. They were clearly on the wrong
bank; they should have crossed over at the station. The only house they
came to was the skeleton of one, the walls blackened and charred with
fire. There was only that endless line of wire fencing along which they
pushed forward painfully, with dragging step; instead of passing any
given point, the road seemed to keep on with them, as if they could
never get farther on. Wire fencing, and moonlight, and silence, and
trees. Trees! They became night-marishly oppressive in those dark,
solemn ranks and groups--those silent thicknesses; the air grew chill
beneath them; terror lurked in the shadows. Oh, to get out from under
the trees, with only the clear sky overhead! If that road to the house
of Eugene Larue had seemed a part of infinity in the dimness of the
unknown, what was this?

They sat down now every little while to rest, Dosia's voice coaxing and
cheering, and then got up to shake the earth out of their shoes and
struggle on once more--bending, shivering, leaning against each other
for support; two silent and puny figures, outside of any connection with
other lives, toiling, as it seemed, against the universe, as women do
toil, apparently futile of result.

Once the loud blare of a horn sent them over to the side of the road,
clinging to the wire fencing, as an automobile shot by--a cheerful
monster that spoke of life in towns, leaving a new and sharp desolation
behind it. Why hadn't they seen it before? Why hadn't they tried to hail
it when they _did_ see? To have had such a chance and lost it! Once they
were frightened almost uncontrollably by a group approaching with
strange sounds--Italian laborers, cheerful and unintelligible when Dosia
intrepidly questioned them. They passed on, still jabbering; two
bedraggled women and a baby were no novelty to them. Then there was more
long, high fencing, and moonlight, and silence, and shadows, and
trees--and trees----

"Do you suppose we'll _ever_ get out of here?" asked Lois at last,
dully.

"Why, of course; we can't help getting out, if we keep on," said Dosia,
in a comfortingly matter-of-fact tone.

It was she who was helper and guide now.

"Oh, if I had never left Justin! Why, why did I leave him? How far do
you