The Wild Olive

mediate horizon. The care with which she foresaw his wants, the ingenuity with which she met them, the dignity and simplicity with which she carried herself through incidents that to a less delicate

s "not his type of girl," in order to confine his

e had never offered him a sign of her belief in his innocence. For this reason he took the first oc

money had hindered work. He narrated the disasters that had left him at the age of two-and-twenty to begin life for himself-his father's bankruptcy, followed by the de

the relatives and time-servers who hoped ultimately to profit by his favor. Norrie Ford neither flattered nor feared his powerful kinsman, but he hated him with the best. His own instincts were city born and bred. He was conscious, too, of that aptitude with which the typical New-Yorker is supposed to come into being-the capacity to make m

ept under his great-uncle's roof and ate at his table, but the sharp tongue made the bed hard to lie on and the bread difficult to swallow down. Idleness reawakened the propensity to vicious habits wh

ld man's servants for thirty years. Their faithfulness put them beyond suspicion. The possibility of their guilt, having been considered, was dismissed with few formalities. The conviction of Norrie Ford became easy after that-the more respectable people of the neighborhood being agreed that from the evidence presented no other deduction could be drawn. The very f

lanations in his own defence she followed listlessly. Though she leaned back in her chair, and courteously stopped painting, while he talked so earnestly, the light in her eyes faded to a lustreless gleam, like that of the black pearl.

, in a tone which begged for some expression of he

ed you just the same, wheth

ference to you," he cried, impat

e admitted, slowly, "if

ink?" he pleaded--"

t I have to give my mind to getting you away. It

nd a better exit. The means of his ultimate escape engrossed him even more than the theme of his in

ime has come f

ce it. The pose of his body, the lines of his face, the

ed, just aud

morr

ow

ll you t

t you tel

u wouldn't raise objectio

re objections

an of escape that won't expose you to a good many

ell to be prepa

If that seems mysterious to you now, you'll know what I mean by

content, spending a sleepless night and an

her dog. The only change in her appearance he could see was a sh

through the wo

made the path." As she spoke she surveyed him. "You'll do," she smiled at last. "In those f

excitement of the moment; for he could see that she had the spirit of adventure. Perhap

u needn't take anything fr

er the familiar hills, now transmuted into a haze of amethyst under the westering sun. A second later he heard her q

e was an underbrush so dense that no one but a creature gifted with the inherited instinct of the woods could have found the invisible, sinuous line alone possible to the feet. But it wa

w, Champlain was spread out in great part of its length, from the dim

minute here," she

, jacinth, chalcedony, emerald, chrysoprasus, were suggested by the still bosom of the lake, towered round by light-reflecting mountains. The triple tier of the Vermon

e twenty-eighth, and from Quebec on the twenty-ninth. From Rimouski, at the mouth of the river St. Lawrence, s

g which he tried to absorb

to Rimouski?" h

eplied, with a gesture toward

long, rainbow-colored lake, up to the faint line of moun

then, "but I don't see

l a suite, and I've done it for this reason. They're keeping a lookout for you on every tramp ship from New York, on every cattle-ship from Boston, and on every grain-ship from Montreal; but they're not looking for you in the most expe

't be," he

f course; and I've brought it. You'll n

t toward him. He looked at it, redde

as far as that," he

ther. He would have liked to do it. He would have wanted me to do it. They keep putting it in the bank for me-just to spend-but I never need it. What can I do wit

aw in him a touch of emotion The phlegmatism by which he had hitherto concealed his inward suffering seemed suddenly to desert him. He looked a

reply to his astonishment, "I've forwarded all the trunks and boxes that came to me from my father. I told my guardian I wa

to refuse them, a

ion arising from your sailing without luggage. Every little thing of that sort counts. The trunks have 'H.S.' painted in white letters on them; so that you'll ha

er curiosity, beginning to take

It's just a name-any name. You can loo

she would move, b

. So your name

many others

t me go away without knowing it. Y

you'd see what

hat harm ca

of you, I've done what almost any really nice girl would have shrunk from. There are plenty of people who would say is was wrong. And in a way-a wa

-what

is over, it will be better for us both-for you as well as for me-to know as little about it as possible. The danger isn't past by any means; but it's a kind of dan

hing off, and make a success of myself somewhere

u communicate

ck your money,

t doesn'

view; but it does from mine. But it w

d in his eyes warned her

lk about it now," she said, hurri

t would be a reason for my wanting to communicate with you again. I shall want t

better wa

but how can I come back to you at

n attempt to treat the matter lightly. "In the mean time we must hu

up, so they descended-the girl steadily and silently in advance. The region was dotted with farms; but she kept to the shelter of the woodland,

niature landlocked bay, hidden from view of the lake beyond. Trees leaned

o take his own observations. "You want me to go o

miling, as he thought

rt, "will enable you to look like an ordinary traveller after you've landed. And that," she added, indicating a package in the stern, "contains nothing more nor less than sandwiches. Those are bottles of mineral water. The small objects are a

yes. The nonchalance of her tone had not deceived him

no reason why you shouldn't pass for an ordinary sportsman. All the same, you had better rest by day, and go on again in the evenin

show that he

that it will take you past the little French-Canadian village of Deux Etoiles. You can't mistake it, because there's a lighthouse, w

ment with her again

ake them as a landmark, because immediately opposite them, on the mainland, there's a stretch of forest running for a good many miles. There you can land finally. You must

eak. Again the sight of his emotion braced her

a train to Quebec.... The road begins nearly opposite the two little islands I spoke of.... I don't think you'll have any difficulty in finding it.... It's about seven miles to the st

s the lake the mountains of Vermont were receding into deep purple uniformity, while over the crimson of the west a veil of filmy black was falling, as th

ispered. He began to move

e. As a matter of fact, I don't know how to do it-adequately. But if I live at all, my life will belong

id, hastily, "but I'll

e present I can only hope for the

moved by a sudden impulse she leaned to him and kissed him. Then, releasing the light craft, she allowed it to glide out like a swan on the tiny bay. In three strokes of the paddle it had passed between the low,