the discourtesy of his former attitude to her, was startled and not
a little hurt. His plain, lean face, that seemed to have grown still
plainer and leaner under the lashing of the rain, set again in its
habitual expression of repugnance; hers paled suddenly to a lighter
sallow than before; the hand she had given to him withdrew itself in
terror from his touch. He drew himself up stiffly, raising a hat
that was no hat but a gutter, and the train crawled out of the
station.

He stood yet another minute staring at the naked rails, two shining
parallel lines that seemed to touch and vanish, over the visible
verge, into the gray fringe of the infinite where the rain washed
out the world.

And then he saw nothing but Frida Tancred, sitting on the edge of
the fir plantation and gazing into the distance; he heard his own
voice saying to her, "Let yourself go, Miss Tancred; let yourself
go!"

And she was gone.

XIII

All that Durant got out of Polly was the privilege of driving her
home, through mud and rain, at a melancholy trot. True, he was in no
hurry to get back; so he let her take her own pace, in pity for her
trembling limbs and straining heart. Polly had done all she knew
for her mistress in that frantic dash for freedom and the express;
and, when he thought of what Frida Tancred's life had been, he
guessed that the little animal was used to carrying her through
worse storms than this.

The storm was over now; it had driven the clouds into the north,
where they hung huddled and piled in a vast amphitheater; other
clouds, charged with light now instead of darkness, were still
rolling up from the south, east and west, their wings closed till
the sky was shut in like Whithorn-in-Arden, ringed with its clouds
as Arden with its woods; above, beneath, there rose the same
immense, impenetrable boundary, green on the earth and gray in
heaven.

And Frida Tancred had escaped from these confines, would never come
back to dwell in them again; she had said so, and he believed her.
To be sure, she had shown weakness at the last, she had been driven
to juggle with the conscience that would not let her go; had she not
persuaded it that she was leaving the Colonel for the Colonel's
good? But once gone, once there, away over the border and safe in
the promised land, she would see clearly, she would realize her
right to be happy in the glorious world.

Not that these things could have happened without Georgie
Chatterton.