rymen give us something
over," he said with a smile in recognition of Northwick's nationality.

"Yes; that's all changed, now," returned Northwick. "Do I look so very
American?" he asked.

"Oh, I don't know that," said the broker, with an airy English
inflection. "I suppose it's your hard hat, as much as anything. We all
wear fur caps in such weather."

"Ah, that's a good idea," said Northwick. He spoke easily, but with a
nether torment of longing to look at the newspaper lying open on the
counter. He could see that it was the morning paper; there might be
something about him in it. The thought turned him faint; but he knew
that if the paper happened to have anything about him in it, any rumor
of his offence, any conjecture of his flight, he could not bear it. He
could bear to keep himself deaf and blind to the self he had put behind
him, but he could not bear anything less. The papers seemed to thrust
themselves upon him; newsboys followed him up in the street with them;
he saw them in all the shops, where he went for the fur cap and fur
overcoat he bought, for the underclothing and changes of garments that
he had to provide; for the belt he got to put his money in. This great
sum, which he dared not bank, must be carried about with him; it must
not leave him night or day; it must be buckled into the chamois belt and
worn round his waist, sleeping and waking. The belt was really for gold,
but the forty-two thousand-dollar notes, which were not a great bulk,
would easily go into it.

He returned to his hotel and changed them to it, and put the belt on.
Then he felt easier, and he looked up the landlord to ask about the
route he wished to take. He found, as he expected, that it was one very
commonly travelled by lumber merchants going down into the woods to look
after their logging camps. Some took a sleigh from Quebec; but the
landlord said it was just as well to go by train to St. Anne, and save
that much sleighing; you would get enough of it then. Northwick thought
so too, and after the early dinner they gave him he took the cars for
St. Anne.

He was not tired; he was curiously buoyant and strong. He thought he
might get a nap on the way; but he remained vividly awake; and even that
night he did not sleep much. He felt again that pulling of his mind, as
if it were something separate from him, and were struggling to get
beyond the control of his will. The hotel in the little native village
was very good in its w