naway, too, if you like. I have been in trouble. I would not betray
you if I could: that I cannot, goes without saying. Now, will you
shelter us for this night?"

"Yes," said the man, his face clearing. "As you say, you couldn't do us
harm if you would, seeing that masters, and d--d overseers, and
bloodhounds are at the world's end for us. We are beyond their reach.
Bring up the lady. Joan, here, will see to her."

An hour later the woman and Patricia sat side by side upon the doorstep
in the long mountain twilight. At their feet the little child crowed and
clapped its hands, and plucked at the golden-rod growing about the
door. Below them, beside the placid stream, the owner of the hut and
Godfrey Landless paced slowly up and down, now disappearing into the
shadow of the trees, now dimly seen in the open spaces, while the Indian
lay at full length beneath the maples, with his eye upon the blackness
of the ravine down which they had come.

"It is fair to look upon, and peaceful," Patricia said dreamily, "but
Danger lives in these dreadful mountains. Why did you come here?"

"We came because we loved," the woman said simply.

"But why into the very land of the savages, so far from safety, so far
from the Settlements?"

The woman turned her eyes upon the beautiful face beside her and studied
it in silence.

"I will tell you," she said at last, "for I believe you are as good as
you are beautiful, and you are as beautiful as an angel. And, though I
can see that you are a lady, yet you are woman too, as I am, and you
have suffered much, as I have, and have loved too, I think, as I have
loved."

"I have never loved," said Patricia.

The woman smiled, and shook her head. "There is a look in the eyes that
only comes with that. I know it." She gathered the child to her, and
beating its little hand against her bosom, began her story:--

"It is four years since I signed to come to the Plantations, to become
the servant of an up-river planter--and to better myself. It was a hard
life, my lady, a hard life--you cannot guess how hard.... One day a
neighboring planter sent a message to my master, and I (for I served in
the house) took it from the messenger. The messenger was one that I had
known in the village at home, in England. He had left home to make his
fortune, and I had not heard of him for a long time. They used to call
me his sweetheart. When I saw him I cried out, and he caught my hands in
his.... After that we