At the conclusion of their race Paul had got a color in his cheeks, and felt somewhat less like an icicle than before.
Then Tom paused, and looked Paul in the face quite seriously.
"Come down here among the hemlocks; I want to talk to you where the boys can't hear. We might do it in French, you know—you and I—but mebby we'd better have it out according to the spelling-book."
Paul smiled, and followed his friend to the bank of the river, where they sat down under the sheltering hemlock boughs. Tom shivered a little, but he shook the weakness off, and broke forth at once into the subject that was on his mind.
Tom's head was full of Katharine Allen and her troubles, a subject upon which he and Paul had held many earnest conversations, interspersed by mysterious hints about Rose Mason and Tom's unhappy state of mind regarding her absence in some unknown country.
"Paul, how is Katharine Allen this morning?" he said, abruptly.
Paul shook his head sadly by way of answer.
"Not any better?" asked Tom. "Wal, I'm sorry for her, anyhow. Little Rose liked her, and she was always good to Rose. It scares me to death to think what they're going to do to her."
"Who?" asked Paul.
"Why the law, of course," replied Tom, shocked at his friend's ignorance. "You know they're going to take her to prison as soon as she's well enough to be carried there."