man's deed, and
her heart was like a flint, her tone as cold as ice as she answered
him.

"You do not understand," she said, "you have not yet heard my story.
When you have, whatever I may owe you, you will not press me again."

"Tell me the story then," cried Ainley in a voice hoarse with passion.
"And for God's sake, be quick about it!"

CHAPTER XXIII

A SURPRISE FOR AINLEY

"I will," answered Helen coldly, and without further preamble began the
narrative of all that had befallen her from the time she had left her
uncle's camp to inspect the beaver colony. Ainley listened for a long
time without interruption. Much of the story he already knew, though
the girl was unaware of the fact; much more he had guessed, but some
things were unknown to him, and when she gave the account of Stane's
accident at the deadfall and of the camp she had made there, he broke
out in chagrin: "That explains how it was we never found you. We must
have passed within a very few miles of you."

"You were once within a quarter of a mile of me."

"How do you know that?" he cried.

"Because I saw you and the Indian Joe pitch your camp on the shore of
the lake."

"You saw----" he began, and then stopped staring at her with
incredulous eyes.

"Yes! I watched you make your fire, and then I went back to camp, and
put out my own fire."

"Why?" he demanded harshly, though he had already guessed.

"Because I was afraid you would discover me," answered the girl calmly.
"And I, with a joyful heart, watched you departing in the morning."

Ainley rose suddenly to his feet. "Helen," he cried hoarsely, "do you
know what you are saying? You are telling me that you were glad to be
left alone in this god-forsaken wilderness with a man who was a
discharged convict? I wonder what our world would think of that
confession?"

"I do not care what our world, as you call it, would think about my
action. These few months in the wilderness have made me think little of
those conventions which have such rigid observance in the letter but
are outraged in the spirit every day."

"Our acquaintances would say----" he began, with a note of bitter
malice in his voice, but Helen interrupted him.

"I wonder what our acquaintances would say if they knew everything
about the crime for which Hubert Stane became a convict?"

As she dealt this blow the girl looked at him with ruthless eyes. Now
she was defending, not herself alone, but the memory of the ma