In spite of her will the tears came.  At the sight of them the woman shuffled off.  Evidently tears were too much for Samanthy Hobbs.

“I’ll leave you a candle—­no, I guess I had better jest raise the lattice, and if you wants anything I’ll hear you if you knocks.  Don’t you worry, dearie.  Samanthy Hobbs ain’t no—­well, she ain’t, that’s all!”

Then Dorothy was alone—­all alone in the stuffy room.  Could she escape; get out of a window—­anything to be in the free open air, and to run—­run back to dear old camp?

She tried every crack, every window, the old door, even the hole that opened out on the slant roof.

Barred!  Locked!  Everything was locked against her!

“Oh, must I die here?” she murmured.  Then she fell back on the bed, on the red and white quilt.  Sobbing, too weak to cry, too weak to think, but not too weak to know!

CHAPTER XIV

TAVIA’S MISTAKE

Meanwhile Tavia Travers, the light-hearted, reckless Tavia, realized that she had made a dreadful mistake.  It was the second afternoon since she had left the camp, and she was at the railroad station, waiting for something unforseen to develop that would enable her to get back to her friends.

It was such a lonely place—­away out there in the woods, and she had spent one awful night locked up in that station!

“I’ll walk,” she declared, “if I cannot get away from here before dark!”

Walk!  Fifteen miles to Innernook!  With hardly a chance of a single town in between!

It was at the little rustic bridge that she had met the man, according to the appointment made under the harvest apple tree.

“Come with me and I will prove to you that what I say is absolutely correct,” he declared.  “I have an old uncle out at Breakaway, and he will tell you about the fortune with his own lips—­I shall make him do so.”

“But is it far?” Tavia had demurred, for she did not just like that glassy stare in the man’s eyes, handsome though he was.

“Only a pleasant little train ride—­it will do you good to get away from this place.  They call it camp—­I would call it ‘cramp,’” and he chuckled at his attempted joke.

Tavia had not been inclined to go.  He had seen that she hesitated.

“Well, if you think I am not brotherly enough, I can take you to my sister Belle.  She is surely sisterly enough—­she will meet us at Durham.”

This had convinced Tavia.  Surely if they met his sister at the first station, there could be no harm in her going.  And though the story about the fortune might be vapory, it was fun to have had such an experience—­to actually run away!

Poor foolish Tavia! Was it fun to run away?

At the station, of course, there had been no sister Belle, but Tavia could not turn back now.  This man seemed so compelling—­so completely her master!  What was his strange power?