unpenitent thief.

"And what is it you want to buy from me?" she asked evenly.

He did not notice, and he could not realize that ominous thing in her
voice and face. "I want to be friends with you. I want to see you here
in the woods, to meet you as you met Ingolby. I want to talk with you,
to hear you talk; to learn things from you I never learned before; to--"

She interrupted him with a swift gesture. "And then--after that? What do
you want at the end of it all? One cannot spend one's time talking and
wandering in the woods and teaching and learning. After that, what?"

"I have a house in Montreal," he said evasively. "I don't want to live
there alone." He laughed. "It's big enough for two, and at the end it
might be us two, if--"

With sharp anger, yet with coolness and dignity, she broke in on his
words. "Might be us two!" she exclaimed. "I have never thought of making
my home in a sewer. Do you think--but, no, it isn't any use talking! You
don't know how to deal with man or woman. You are perverted."

"I did not mean what you mean; I meant that I should want to marry you,"
he protested. "You think the worst of me. Someone has poisoned your mind
against me."

"Everyone has poisoned my mind against you," she returned, "and yourself
most of all. I know you will try to injure Mr. Ingolby; and I know that
you will try to injure me; but you will not succeed."

She turned and moved away from him quickly, taking the path towards her
own front door. He called something after her, but she did not or would
not hear.

As she entered the open space in front of the house, she heard footsteps
behind her and turned quickly, not without apprehension. A woman came
hurrying towards her. She was pale, agitated, haggard with fatigue.

"May I speak with you?" she asked in French. "Surely," replied Fleda.

CHAPTER XV. THE WOMAN FROM WIND RIVER

"What is it?" asked Fleda, opening the door of the house.

"I want to speak to you about m'sieu'," replied the sad-faced woman.
She made a motion of her head backwards towards the wood. "About M'sieu'
Marchand."

Fleda's face hardened; she had had more than enough of "M'sieu'
Marchand." She was bitterly ashamed that she had, even for a moment,
thought of using diplomacy with him. But this woman's face was so
forlorn, apart, and lonely, that the old spirit of the Open Road worked
its will. In far-off days she had never seen a human being turned away
from a Romany tent, or dr