evangelist must have heard a report of the scene at Nettleton; then she
saw the absurdity of the supposition.

"I on'y wish't I had any to lay!" she retorted, with one of her fierce
flashes of self-derision; and the young man murmured, aghast: "Oh,
Sister, don't speak blasphemy...."

But she had jerked her arm out of his hold, and was running up the
branch road, trembling with the fear of meeting a familiar face.
Presently she was out of sight of the village, and climbing into the
heart of the forest. She could not hope to do the fifteen miles to the
Mountain that afternoon; but she knew of a place half-way to Hamblin
where she could sleep, and where no one would think of looking for her.
It was a little deserted house on a slope in one of the lonely rifts of
the hills. She had seen it once, years before, when she had gone on a
nutting expedition to the grove of walnuts below it. The party had taken
refuge in the house from a sudden mountain storm, and she remembered
that Ben Sollas, who liked frightening girls, had told them that it was
said to be haunted.

She was growing faint and tired, for she had eaten nothing since
morning, and was not used to walking so far. Her head felt light and she
sat down for a moment by the roadside. As she sat there she heard the
click of a bicycle-bell, and started up to plunge back into the forest;
but before she could move the bicycle had swept around the curve of the
road, and Harney, jumping off, was approaching her with outstretched
arms.

"Charity! What on earth are you doing here?"

She stared as if he were a vision, so startled by the unexpectedness of
his being there that no words came to her.

"Where were you going? Had you forgotten that I was coming?" he
continued, trying to draw her to him; but she shrank from his embrace.

"I was going away--I don't want to see you--I want you should leave me
alone," she broke out wildly.

He looked at her and his face grew grave, as though the shadow of a
premonition brushed it.

"Going away--from me, Charity?"

"From everybody. I want you should leave me."

He stood glancing doubtfully up and down the lonely forest road that
stretched away into sun-flecked distances.

"Where were you going?'

"Home."

"Home--this way?"

She threw her head back defiantly. "To my home--up yonder: to the
Mountain."

As she spoke she became aware of a change in his face. He was no longer
listening to her, he was only looking at her, wi