when I am far away."

The hardness passed from Farwell's face. Something like relief replaced
it, and he said slowly:

"My God! what a woman you will make if they do not harry you to death."

"They will not!" The white, tired face seemed illumined from within.
"Last night made me so sure--of myself. It showed me how weak I was,
and how strong. Do you know"--and here a flush, not of ignorance,
but of strange understanding, struck across Priscilla's face like a
flame--"women like my mother, all the women here in Kenmore, do not
understand? They just let people take from them what no one has a right
to take, what only they should give! It's when this something is taken
that they become like my poor mother--afraid and crushed. If I live and
die alone and lonely, I shall keep what is my own until I--I give it
gladly and because I trust. I am not afraid! But if I had married
Jerry-Jo because of--of--what he and my father thought, then I would have
been lost, like my mother, don't you see? I--I can--live alone, but I
will not be lost."

"But, great heavens! you are a woman!"

"Is it so sad a thing to be a--woman? Why?"

To this Farwell made no reply. Shading his gloomy eyes with his thin
hand, he turned from the courageous, uplifted face and sighed. Finally he
spoke as if the fight had all gone from him.

"Stay here. The thing you want isn't worth the struggle. There is no use
arguing, but I urge you to stay. The In-Place is safer for you. What is
it that you must have?"

Priscilla laughed--a wild, dreary little sound it was, but it dashed hope
from Farwell's mind.

"I want my chance, a woman's chance, and I cannot have it here. I'm not
going to hide under Mrs. McAdam's wing, or even yours, Master Farwell.
I've left all the comfort with my poor mother that I can. Never let her
know the truth, now I am going--going to start on My Road! I do not care
where it leads, it is mine, and I am not afraid."

In her ignorance and defiance she was splendid and stirred the dead
embers of Farwell's imagination to something like life. If she were
bent upon her course, if his hand could not rest upon the tiller of her
untested craft when she put out to sea, what could he do for her? To whom
turn?

"Is there not one, Master Farwell, just one, out beyond the In-Place,
who, for your sake, would help me at first until I learned the way?"

The question chimed in with Farwell's thought.

He leaned across the table separating him fro