"I hadn't time to shock her; she took me up wrong, and thought her husband was dead. Help me, and I'll get her into my waggon and make tracks for home. I think she's ill by the look of her, and finding every one curious about her would make her worse. I must get her home to my wife; she'll manage her." With his friend's help, he got Janet out of the station, and into his light spring-waggon, where they made her as comfortable as possible. She had revived a little by this time, and obediently swallowed something hot which Brett brought for her. But before they had passed over the fifteen miles of rough road which lay between Gattigo and "Old Man's Ferry," she was almost unconscious; and in that state she lay for hours. Even when this passed off, and she seemed more alive, she never spoke, nor looked as if she knew what they were doing to her. Mrs. Gray, a bright-looking little French Canadian, who, without a single really good feature except her dark, vivacious eyes, was a very pretty woman, was lost in admiration of Janet's regular features and white skin. "But you never told me that your sister was so pretty, Gilbert?" "I declare, I never thought about it," he answered. "Poor mother used to be very proud of her looks, and her good marriage, poor child!" "Gilbert, is there no chance that we may keep them here? Now that she is getting better, we ought to settle what to say to her." "You wish to keep them?" "Well, think of our long, lonely winters! Even the children would be glad of two new companions. And for me, a woman like her—ah, what a comfort!" "But, Aimée, the hotel notion won't work—not with Rayburn as manager; he's done for that plan." "I suppose so; but, should you try it with another manager, you would want help here, and so should I. And you would have to drive to Gattigo much oftener than now. You could trust him?" "Well, I hope so." "Why, Gilbert, you always say you think him innocent." "Yes; but he failed to convince the court of it. It is a tangled skein, Aimée, and we can settle nothing till we have him here and Janet well again." He got up and walked once or twice up and down the long, low room, with a cooking-stove at one end and an open grate for burning wood at the other. Coming to a standstill near the stove, at which Aimée was busy, he said, as if to himself— "And one thinks of the disgrace, too." "Now, Gilbert, the case went against him, no doubt; but there were many who, like you, believed him innocent of all but careless folly. It would be forgotten in time if he works steadily here, and makes people like him." "To like him would be easy; he's a taking kind of fellow enough. Whether he has it in him to bear up under all this misfortune, and live it down, is a different question." "He would have a better chance here, under your eye, than in any other place." "That is true. Anyhow, I have Janet and the two boys to think of."