k to that dreadful day. She
could not bear to think that Billy Dale's blood lay on her and Monohan,
neither could she stifle an uneasy apprehension that something more
grievous yet might happen on Roaring Lake. But at least she had done
what she could. If she were the flame, she had removed herself from the
powder magazine. Fyfe had pulled his cedar crew off the Tyee before she
left. If aggression came, it must come from one direction.

They were both abstractions now, she tried to assure herself. The
glamour of Monohan was fading, and she could not say why. She did not
know if his presence would stir again all that old tumult of feeling,
but she did know that she was cleaving to a measure of peace, of
serenity of mind, and she did not want him or any other man to disturb
it. She told herself that she had never loved Jack Fyfe. She recognized
in him a lot that a woman is held to admire, but there were also
qualities in him that had often baffled and sometimes frightened her.
She wondered sometimes what he really thought of her and her actions,
why, when she had been nerved to a desperate struggle for her freedom,
if she could gain it no other way, he had let her go so easily?

After all, she reflected cynically, love comes and goes, but one is
driven to pursue material advantages while life lasts. And she wondered,
even while the thought took form in her mind, how long she would retain
that point of view.

CHAPTER XX

ECHOES

In the early days of February Stella had an unexpected visitor. The
landlady called her to the common telephone, and when she took up the
receiver, Linda Abbey's voice came over the wire.

"When can I see you?" she asked. "I'll only be here to-day and
to-morrow."

"Now, if you like," Stella responded. "I'm free until two-thirty."

"I'll be right over," Linda said. "I'm only about ten minutes drive from
where you are."

Stella went back to her room both glad and sorry: glad to hear a
familiar, friendly voice amid this loneliness which sometimes seemed
almost unendurable; sorry because her situation involved some measure of
explanation to Linda. That hurt.

But she was not prepared for the complete understanding of the matter
Linda Abbey tacitly exhibited before they had exchanged a dozen
sentences.

"How did you know?" Stella asked. "Who told you?"

"No one. I drew my own conclusions when I heard you had gone to
Seattle," Linda replied. "I saw it coming. My dear, I'm not blin