gazing at nothing over the ragged collar of her cape, and stood so, musing. And after a while she seemed to come to herself, wearily, and she cast a tragic upward glance at me. Then, dropping her eyes, and with the slightest inclination of her head, not looking at me at all, she started across the trampled grass.

“Wait — — ” I was by her side again in the same breath.

“Well, sir?” And she confronted me with cool mien and lifted brows. Under them her grey eyes hinted. of a disdain which I had seen in them more than once.

“May I not suitably express my gratitude to you?” I said.

“You have already done so.”

“I have tried to do so properly, but it is not easy for me to say how grateful to you we men of the Northland are —