“That’s what I complain of.  Suppose I pull the thing off, and make a success of myself somewhere else, how should I communicate with you again?”

“Why should you communicate with me at all?”

“To pay you back your money, for one thing—­”

“Oh, that doesn’t matter.”

“Perhaps it doesn’t from your point of view; but it does from mine.  But it wouldn’t be my only reason in any case.”

Something in his voice and in his eyes warned her to rise and interrupt him.

“I’m afraid we haven’t time to talk about it now,” she said, hurriedly.  “We really must be going on.”

“I’m not going to talk about it now,” he declared, rising in his turn.  “I said it would be a reason for my wanting to communicate with you again.  I shall want to tell you something then; though perhaps by that time you won’t want to hear it.”

“Hadn’t we better wait and see?”

“That’s what I shall have to do; but how can I come back to you at all if I don’t know who you are?”

“I shall have to leave that to your ingenuity,” she laughed, with an attempt to treat the matter lightly.  “In the mean time we must hurry on.  It’s absolutely necessary that you should set out by sunset.”

She glided into the invisible trail running down the lakeside slope of the mountain, so that he was obliged to follow her.  As they had climbed 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, and before he expected it they found themselves at the water’s edge.  A canoe drawn up in a cove gave him the first clear hint of her intentions.

It was a pretty little cove, enclosed by two tiny headlands, forming a miniature landlocked bay, hidden from view of the lake beyond.  Trees leaned over it and into it, while the canoe rested on a yard-long beach of sand.

“I see,” he remarked, after she had allowed him to take his own observations.  “You want me to go over to Burlington and catch a train to Montreal.”

She shook her head, smiling, as he thought, rather tremulously.

“I’m afraid I’ve planned a much longer journey for you.  Come and see the preparations I’ve made.”  They stepped to the side of the canoe, so as to look down into it.  “That,” she pursued, pointing to a small suit-case forward of the middle thwart, “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 corkscrew, a glass, a railway timetable a cheap compass, and a cheaper watch.  In addition you’ll find a map of the lake, which you can consult tomorrow morning, after you’ve paddled all night through the part with which you’re most familiar.”

“Where am I going?” he asked, huskily, avoiding her eyes.  The nonchalance of her tone had not deceived him, and he thought it well not to let their glances meet.