that aptitude with which the typical New-Yorker is supposed to come into being—the capacity to make money. He would have preferred to make it on his own ground and in his own way; and had it not been for the counsels of those who wished him well, he would have replied to his great-uncle's offer with a courteous "No." Wiser heads than his pointed out the folly of such a course as that; and so, reluctantly, he entered on his apprenticeship.
In the two years that followed he could not see what purpose he served other than that of a mark for the old man's poisoned wit. He was taught nothing, and paid nothing, and given nothing to do. He slept 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 which he thought he had outlived, while the rough society of the lumber camps, in which he sought to relieve the tedium of time, extended him the welcome which Falstaff and his comrades gave Prince Hal.
The revolt of his self-respect was on the eve of bringing this phase of his existence to an end when the low farce turned into tragedy. Old Chris Ford was found dead in his bed—shot in his sleep. On the premises there had been but three persons, one of whom must have committed the crime—Norrie Ford, and Jacob and Amalia Gramm. Jacob and Amalia Gramm had been the old 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 fact that the old man, by his provocation of the lad, so thoroughly deserved his fate made the manner in which he met with it the clearer. Even Norrie Ford's friends, the hunters and the lumbermen, admitted as much as that, though they were determined that he should never suffer for so meritorious an act as long as they could give him a fighting chance for freedom.
The girl listened to Ford's narrative with some degree of interest, though it contained nothing new to her. She could not have lived at Greenport during the period of his trial without being familiar with it all. But when he came to explanations 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. His perception that her thoughts were wandering gave him a queer sensation of speaking into a medium in which his voice could not carry, cutting short his arguments, and bringing him to his conclusion more hurriedly than he had intended.
"I wanted you to know I didn't do it," he finished, in a tone which begged for some expression of her belief, "because you've done so much to help me."
"Oh, but I should have helped you just the same, whether you had done it or not."
"But I suppose it makes some difference to you," he cried, impatiently, "to know that I didn't."
"I suppose it would," she admitted, slowly, "if I thought much about it."
"Well, won't you think?" he pleaded—"just to oblige me."
"Perhaps I will, when you're gone; but at present I have to give my mind to getting you away. It was to talk about that that I came this morning."
Had she wanted to slip out of giving an opinion on the subject of his guilt, she could not have found a better exit. The means of his ultimate escape engrossed him even more than the theme of his innocence. When she spoke again all his faculties were concentrated into one keen point of attention.
"I think the time has come for you to—go."
If her voice trembled on the last word, he did not notice it. The pose of his body, the lines of his face, the glint of his gray eyes, were alive with interrogation.
"Go?" he asked, just audibly. "When?"
"To-morrow."
"How?"
"I'll tell you that then."
"Why can't you tell me now?"
"I could if I was sure you wouldn't raise objections, but I know you will."
"Then there are objections to be raised?"
"There are objections to everything. There's no plan of escape that won't expose you to a good many risks. I'd rather you didn't see them in advance."
"But isn't it well to be prepared beforehand?"
"You'll have plenty of time for preparation—after you've started. If that seems mysterious to you now, you'll know what I mean by it when I come to-morrow. I shall be here in the afternoon at six."
With this information Ford was obliged to be content, spending a sleepless night and an impatient day, waiting for the time appointed.
She came punctually. For the first time she was not followed by her dog. The only change in her appearance he could see was a short skirt of rough material instead of her usual linen or muslin.
"Are we going through the woods?" he asked.
"Not far. I shall take you by the trail that led to this spot before I built the cabin and made the path." As she spoke she surveyed him. "You'll do," she smiled at last. "In those flannels, and with your beard, no one would know you for the Norrie Ford of three weeks ago."
It was easy for him to ascribe the glow in her eyes and the quiver in her voice to the excitement of the moment; for he could see that she had the spirit of adventure. Perhaps it was to conceal some embarrassment under his regard that she spoke again, hurriedly.
"We've no time to lose. You needn't take anything from here. We'd better start."
He followed her over the threshold, and as she turned to lock the cabin he had time to throw a glance of farewell over the familiar hills, now transmuted into a haze of amethyst under the westering sun. A second later he heard her quick "Come on!" as she struck into the barely perceptible path that led upward, around the shoulder of the mountain.
It was a stiff bit of climbing, but she sped along with the dryad-like ease she had displayed on the night when she led him to the cabin. Beneath the primeval growth of ash and pine there 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 was there, and she traced it—never pausing never speaking, and only looking back from time to time to assure herself that he was in sight, until they reached the top of the dome-shaped hill.
They came out suddenly on a rocky terrace, beneath which, a mile below, Champlain was spread out in great part of its length, from the dim bluff of Crown Point to the far-away, cloud-like mountains of Canada.
"You can sit down a minute here," she said, as he came up.
They found seats among the low scattered bowlders, but neither spoke. It was a moment at which to understand the jewelled imagery of the Seer of the Apocalypse. Jasper, jacinth, chalcedony, emerald, chrysoprasus, were suggested by the still bosom of the lake, towered round by light-reflecting mountains. The triple tier of the Vermont shore was bottle-green at its base, indigo in the middle height, while its summit was a pale undulation of evanescent blue against the jade and topaz of the twilight.
"The steamer Empress of Erin," the girl said, with what seemed like abruptness, "will sail from Montreal on the twenty-eighth, and from Quebec on the twenty-ninth. From Rimouski, at the mouth of the river St. Lawrence, she will sail on the thirtieth, to touch nowhere else till
