as brushed, and folded, and mended in a
fashion such as its owners had never thought possible. She was utterly
untiring in her labours, and in the process of them she steadily moved
on towards the thing she craved for herself.

The men realised the tremendous effort of it all. And Bull Sternford,
for all his absorption in his work, had watched with troubled feelings.
His love for Nancy had perhaps robbed him of that vision which should
have told him of the necessity, in her own interests, for that which the
girl was doing. So there were times when he had protested, times when he
felt that simple humanity demanded that she should not be permitted to
submit herself to so rough a slavery. But Nancy had countered every
protest with an irresistible appeal.

"Please, please don't stop me," she had cried, almost tearfully. "It's
just all I can do. It's my only hope. Always, till now, I've lived for
myself and ambitions. You know where they have led me--Ah, no. Let me go
on in my own way. Let me nurse him back to health. Let me do these
things. However little I'm able to do there's some measure of peace in
the doing of it."

So the days and weeks had dragged on, and now the time of Nancy's
imprisonment was drawing to its inevitable close. With Spring, and the
coming of the _Myra_, she would have to accept her freedom and all it
meant. She would be expected to return to her home in Quebec, and to
those who had employed her and sent her on her godless mission. She
understood that. But she had no intention of returning to Quebec. She
had no intention of returning to the Skandinavia.

During the long hours of her labours she had searched deeply for the
thing the future must hold for her. It was the old process over again.
That great searching she had once done at Marypoint. But now it was all
different. There had been no sense of guilt then, and the only man who
had been concerned in her life had been that unknown stepfather, whom,
in her child's heart, she had learned to hate. It had been simple enough
then. Now--now--

But she had faced the task with all the splendid, impetuous courage that
was hers. There was no shrinking. Her mind was swiftly and irrevocably
made up. She would abandon the Skandinavia for ever. She would abandon
everything and follow those dictates which had prompted her so often in
the past. Father Adam's self-sacrificing example was always before her.
The forests. Those submerged legions which peopled the