Patsy thanked them for both; but it was not until they were well out of earshot that she spoke to the tinker: "They are good folk, but they'd never understand in a thousand years how we came to be traveling along together. What folks don't know can't hurt them, and 'tis often easier holding your tongue than trying to explain what will never get through another's brain. Now put that lunch into your kit; it may come in handy--who knows? And God's blessing on all kind hearts!" Whereupon the tinker nodded solemnly. They had tramped for a mile or more when they came to a cross-roads marked by a little white church. From the moment they sighted it Patsy's feet began to lag; and by the time they reached the crossing of the ways she had stopped altogether and was gazing up at the little gold cross with an odd expression of whimsical earnestness. "Do ye know," she said, slowly, clasping the hands long shorn of the vagabond gloves--"do ye know I've told so many lies these last two days I think I'll bide yonder for a bit, and see can Saint Anthony lift the sins from me. 'Twould make the rest o' the road less burdensome--don't ye think?" The tinker looked uncomfortably confused, as though this sudden question of ethics or religion was too much for his scattered wits. He dug the toe of his boot in the gravel of the church path and removed his cap to aid the labor of his thinking. "Maybe--" he agreed at last. "An' will I be waitin' for you--or keepin' on?" "Ye'll wait, of course," commanded Patsy. She had barely disappeared through the little white door, and the tinker thrown himself down with his back to the sign-post which marked the roads, when a sorrel mare and a runabout came racing down the road over which they had just come. There were two men in the runabout, both of them tense and alert, their heads craned far in advance of the rest of them, their eyes scanning the diverging roads. "I cal'ate she's gone that way." The driver swung the whip, indicating the road that ran south. "Wall--I cal'ate so, too," agreed the other. "But then again--she mightn't." They reined in and discovered the tinker. "Some one passed this way sence you been settin' there?" they inquired almost in unison. "I don't know"--the tinker's fingers passed hurriedly across his eyes and forehead, by way of seeking misplaced wits--"some one might be almost any one," he smiled, cheerfully. "Look here, young feller, if you're tryin' to be smart--" the driver began, angrily; but his companion silenced him with a nudge and a finger tapped significantly on the crown of his hat. He moderated his tone: "We're after a girl in a brown suit and hat--undersized girl. She was asking the way to Arden. Seen any one of that description?" "What do you want with her?" "Never mind," growled the first man.