e."

"That's what I complain of. Suppose I pull the thing off, and make a
success of myself somewhere else, how should I communicate with you
again?"

"Why should you communicate with me at all?"

"To pay you back your money, for one thing--"

"Oh, that doesn't matter."

"Perhaps it doesn't from your point of view; but it does from mine. But it
wouldn't be my only reason in any case."

Something in his voice and in his eyes warned her to rise and interrupt
him.

"I'm afraid we haven't time to talk about it now," she said, hurriedly.
"We really must be going on."

"I'm not going to talk about it now," he declared, rising in his turn. "I
said it would be a reason for my wanting to communicate with you again. I
shall want to tell you something then; though perhaps by that time you
won't want to hear it."

"Hadn't we better wait and see?"

"That's what I shall have to do; but how can I come back to you at all if
I don't know who you are?"

"I shall have to leave that to your ingenuity," she laughed, with an
attempt to treat the matter lightly. "In the mean time we must hurry on.
It's absolutely necessary that you should set out by sunset."

She glided into the invisible trail running down the lakeside slope of the
mountain, so that he was obliged to follow her. As they had climbed up,
so they descended--the girl steadily and silently in advance. The region
was dotted with farms; but she kept to the shelter of the woodland, and
before he expected it they found themselves at the water's edge. A canoe
drawn up in a cove gave him the first clear hint of her intentions.

It was a pretty little cove, enclosed by two tiny headlands, forming a
miniature landlocked bay, hidden from view of the lake beyond. Trees
leaned over it and into it, while the canoe rested on a yard-long beach of
sand.

"I see," he remarked, after she had allowed him to take his own
observations. "You want me to go over to Burlington and catch a train to
Montreal."

She shook her head, smiling, as he thought, rather tremulously.

"I'm afraid I've planned a much longer journey for you. Come and see the
preparations I've made." They stepped to the side of the canoe, so as to
look down into it. "That," she pursued, pointing to a small suit-case
forward of the middle thwart, "will enable you to look like an ordinary
traveller after you've landed. And that," she added, indicating a package
in the stern, "contains nothing more nor less than sand