you will be able to remain."

"Only to-night," she said in haste. More and more nervous, she was
losing hold on the sequence of her facts. "I'm like mortal life, here
to-day an' there to-morrer. In the mornin' I sha'n't be found." ("But
Isabel will," she thought, from a remorse which had come too late, "and
she'll have to lie, or run away. Or cut a hole in the ice and drown
herself!")

"I'm sorry to have her lose so much of your visit," began the parson
courteously, but still perplexing himself over the whimsies of an old
lady who flew on from the West, and made nothing of flying back. "If I
could do anything towards finding her"--

"I know where she is," said Isabel unhappily. "She's as well on 't as
she can be, under the circumstances. There's on'y one thing you could
do. If you should be willin' to keep it dark't you've seen me, I should
be real beholden to ye. You know there ain't no time to call in the
neighborhood, an' such things make talk, an' all. An' if you don't speak
out to Isabel, so much the better. Poor creatur', she's got enough to
bear without that!" Her voice dropped meltingly in the keenness of her
sympathy for the unfortunate girl who, embarrassed enough before, had
deliberately set for herself another snare. "I feel for Isabel," she
continued, in the hope of impressing him with the necessity for silence
and inaction. "I do feel for her! Oh, gracious me! What's that?"

A decided rap had sounded at the front door. The parson rose also,
amazed at her agitation.

"Somebody knocked," he said. "Shall I go to the door?"

"Oh, not yet, not yet!" cried Isabel, clasping her hands under her
cashmere shawl. "Oh, what shall I do?"

Her natural voice had asserted itself, but, strangely enough, the parson
did not comprehend. The entire scene was too bewildering. There came a
second knock. He stepped toward the door, but Isabel darted in front of
him. She forgot her back breadth, and even through that dim twilight the
scarlet of her gown shone ruddily out. She placed herself before the
door.

"Don't you go!" she entreated hoarsely. "Let me think what I can say."

Then the parson had his first inkling that the strange visitor must be
mad. He wondered at himself for not thinking of it before, and the idea
speedily coupled itself with Isabel's strange disappearance. He stepped
forward and grasped her arm, trembling under the cashmere shawl.

"Woman," he demanded sternly, "what have you done with Isabel Nor