That evening, as the dusk was coming on, Hester Charner walked on the path along the lake, round toward the forest, and suddenly in a shaded place she met the unkempt stranger of the boat She started back and almost screamed.  His face had a dark look that scared her.

“Is it you, Mr. Meadow?” she entreated.

“No,” he answered:  “Meadow’s dead—­drowned in the lake for ever, I hope to God.”

The girl drew back with a little cry.  “Then he did kill him?” she wailed.  “Oh, I wish I might die!  I wish he’d killed me!”

“Oh, you false girl!” Field broke out.  “But he did not kill him.  I killed him myself.  He would if I hadn’t, and served him right, too.  But he did not put a finger on him.  I saved him from murder—­him and me.  Yes, you—­don’t shrink—­you drove him to it; and you would have been the guiltier of the two.  You were as good as promised to him—­you know you were—­and you should have been proud to be.  He would have given his life for you any day, and you broke your faith for a smooth—­faced, brazen fop, who played with you to your peril, and despised you in his heart all the while for a false jade.  You may thank Trapp all your life for cutting that short when he did, and thank God you can yet be an honest wife to an honest man.”

As he thus spoke there came a watery feeling into his eyes, and a yearning to take the girl to his heart and brave all the world for her sake.  He hated the long fellow as he had never done before, and cursed him in his heart while he praised him with his lips.  But he kept his thoughts upon a picture of a gray old farm-house by the water-side, and a bent old man and woman therein, and went on playing his game, and won it.

Her face paled, and she clasped her hands.  “Where is he?” she asked eagerly.

“He’s lying to-night in Aleck Jarley’s cabin, back of the haystack.”

She was turning away, but he stopped her.  “Wait a minute,” he said.  “Here is some money belonging to Trapp:  you can give it to him.”

The money was in her hand before he had finished speaking.  She folded her shawl across her breast and turned away in the direction he had indicated.

The next morning Field started for home.  He had just one dollar in his pocket and two hundred miles of ground to get over.  He walked, caught a ride now and then, got a lift on a canal-boat two or three times, ate bread and drank water and slept in barns or under grain-stacks.  He came walking into Colman’s office one morning looking cheerful but somewhat disreputable.  Colman did not know him at first.  When they had shaken hands.  Colman looked in his friend’s shaggy face and asked, “Is it all square, Dan?”

“All square, Phil,” answered Field, looking the other as straight in the eyes;

“Well, I’m glad you pulled through, Dan,” said Colman; “but you’d better have come home with me.”

“Well, I don’t know, Phil,” Field answered musingly:  “I’m not sure whether I’m sorry or glad.”