"But, great heavens! you are a woman!"
"Is it so sad a thing to be a—woman? Why?"
To this Farwell made no reply. Shading his gloomy eyes with his thin hand, he turned from the courageous, uplifted face and sighed. Finally he spoke as if the fight had all gone from him.
"Stay here. The thing you want isn't worth the struggle. There is no use arguing, but I urge you to stay. The In-Place is safer for you. What is it that you must have?"
Priscilla laughed—a wild, dreary little sound it was, but it dashed hope from Farwell's mind.
"I want my chance, a woman's chance, and I cannot have it here. I'm not going to hide under Mrs. McAdam's wing, or even yours, Master Farwell. I've left all the comfort with my poor mother that I can. Never let her know the truth, now I am going—going to start on My Road! I do not care where it leads, it is mine, and I am not afraid."
In her ignorance and defiance she was splendid and stirred the dead embers of Farwell's imagination to something like life. If she were bent upon her course, if his hand could not rest upon the tiller of her untested craft when she put out to sea, what could he do for her? To whom turn?
"Is there not one, Master Farwell, just one, out beyond the In-Place, who, for your sake, would help me at first until I learned the way?"
The question chimed in with Farwell's thought.
He leaned across the table separating him from Priscilla Glenn and asked suddenly: