Lois lay there without stirring. Far off in the stillness, there came the murmur of the brook they had passed in the train—so long since, it seemed! The moon hung higher above now, pouring a flood of light down through the arching branches of the trees upon her beautiful face with its closed eyes, and the tiny features of the sleeping child. Something in the utter relaxation of the attitude and manner began to alarm the girl. “Lois, we must go on,” she said, with an anxious note in her voice. “Lois! You _mustn’t_ give up. We can’t stay here!” “Yes, I know,” said Lois. She struggled to her feet, and began to walk ahead slowly. Dosia, behind her, flung out her arms to the shadow-embroidered road over which they had just passed. “Oh, why _don’t_ you come!” she whispered again intensely, with passionate reproach; and then, swiftly catching up to Lois, took the child from her, and again they stumbled on together, haltingly, to the accompaniment of that far-off brook. The wire fencing ceased, but the road became narrower, the walls of trees darker, closer together, though the soil under foot grew firmer. They had to stop every few minutes to rest. Lois saw ever before her the one objective point—a dimly lighted room, with Justin stretched out upon the bed, dying, while she could not get there. Hope was crushed out. Death and ruin—that was the end. The end! There are paths one walks along in life that seem only to end in the barrier of a stone wall, with “No thoroughfare” written on it; there is no way beyond. Yet, when one gets close to that insurmountable, impenetrable barrier, how often there is seen to be some hitherto unnoticed aperture, some little postern-gate by which one can pass on into the highroad! “Hark!” said Dosia suddenly, standing still. The sound of a voice trolling drunkenly made itself heard, came nearer, while the women stood terrified. The thing they had both unspeakably dreaded had happened; the moonlight brought into view the unmistakable figure of a tramp, with a bundle swung upon his shoulder. No terror of the future could compare with this one, that neared them with the seconds, swaying unsteadily from side to side of the road, as the tipsy voice alternately muttered and roared the reiterated words: “For I have come from Pad-dy land, The land—I do adore!” They had fled, crouching into the bushes at the edge of the path, and he passed with his eyes on the ground, or he must have seen—a blotched, dark-visaged, leering creature, living in an insane world of his own. They waited until he was far out of sight before creeping, all of a tremble, from their shelter, only to hear another footfall unexpectedly near—the pad, pad, pad of a runner, a tall figure as one saw it through the lights and shadows under the trees, capless and coatless, with sleeves rolled up, arms bent at the elbows, and head held forward. Suddenly the pace slackened, stopped. “Great _heavens_!” said the voice of Bailey Girard.