I stretched my legs to the stirrup's length in sweetest
content.

Down through a fragrant birch-grown road, smelling of fern and
wintergreen and sassafras, we moved, the cool tinkle of moss-choked
watercourses ever in our ears, mingling with melodies of woodland
birds--shy, freedom-loving birds that came not with the robins to the
city. Ah, I knew these birds, being country-bred--knew them one and
all--the gray hermit, holy chorister of hymn divine, the white-throat,
sweetly repeating his allegiance to his motherland of Canada, the great
scarlet-tufted cock that drums on the bark in stillest depths, the
lonely little creeping-birds that whimper up and down the trunks of
forest trees, and the black-capped chickadee that fears not man, but
cities--all these I listened to, and knew and loved as guerdons of that
freedom which I had so long craved, and craved in vain.

And now I had it; it was mine! I tasted it, I embraced it with wide
arms, I breathed it. And far away I heard the woodland hermits singing
of freedom, and of the sweetness of it, and of the mercies of the Most
High.

Thrilled with happiness, I glanced at Elsin Grey where she rode a pace
or so ahead of me, her fair head bent, her face composed but colorless
as the lace drooping from her stock. The fatigue of a sleepless night
was telling on her, though as yet the reaction of the strain had not
affected me one whit.

She raised her head as I forced my horse forward to her side. "What is
it, Mr. Renault?" she asked coldly.

"I'm sorry you are fatigued, Elsin----"

"I am not fatigued."

"What! after all you have done for me----"

"I have done nothing for _you_, Mr. Renault."

"Nothing?--when I owe you everything that----"

"You owe me nothing that I care to accept."

"My thanks----"

"I tell you you owe me nothing. Let it rest so!"

Her unfriendly eyes warned me to silence, but I said bluntly:

"That Mr. Cunningham is not this moment fiddling with my neck, I owe to
you. I offer my thanks, and I remain at your service. That is all."

"Do you think," she answered quietly, "that a rebel hanged could
interest me unless that hanging smirched my kin?"

"Elsin! Elsin!" I said, "is there not bitterness enough in the world
but you and I must turn our friendship into hate?"

"What do you care whether it turn to hate or--love?" She laughed, but
there was no mirth in her eyes. "You are free; you have done your duty;
your brother rebels will reward you.