he dreadful violence of which she had
thought.

For hours--it seemed--they went through underbrush and swamp-land,
stopping from time to time at Hawk's command while he listened and got
their bearings. Beth had never been in this part of the woods, but she
had an idea, from the crossing of the road and the character of the
trees, that they were now somewhere in the Lower Reserve and not very
far from the lumber camp. It was there that Peter Nichols was. Her heart
leaped at the thought of his nearness. All memory of the heliotrope
envelope and of its contents seemed to have been wiped from her
consciousness by the rough usage of this enemy to them both. It seemed
to matter very little now who this woman was that Peter had known. She
belonged to a mysterious and unhappy past--for he had hinted at
that--which had nothing to do with the revelation that Beth had read in
his eyes as to the meaning of the wonderful present for them both. She
knew now that he could have explained, if she had given him the chance.
Instead of which she had rushed heedlessly to misfortune, the victim of
a childish pride, plunging them both into this disaster. That pride was
a pitiful thing now, like her disordered hair and her bedraggled frock,
which flapped its ribbons, soaked and muddy, about her knees.

But as long as she was still alive and in no immediate danger, she tried
to hope for some incident which would send Peter back to Black Rock
earlier than Hawk had expected, where, at the Cabin, he would guess the
truth as to her meeting with Hawk and what had followed. But how could
he guess all that? The difficulty dismayed her, He would hunt for her of
course as soon as he learned of her disappearance, but clever as he was
there seemed no way in which he could solve the mystery of her flight,
still less, having guessed Hawk Kennedy's purpose, follow any trail
through the wilderness by which her captor had led her.

Even in the apparent hopelessness of her situation, she had not reached
the point of actual despair. Youth and her customary belief in all that
was good in the world sustained her. Something would happen--something
_must_ happen.... As she trudged along, she prayed with her whole heart,
like David, to be delivered from the hand of the oppressor.

That prayer comforted her and gave her strength and so when they came
out at the edge of the swamp some moments later she obeyed his
instructions more hopefully. There was a path along t