only by a shifting of the feet, a tapping of the fingers, a turning
of the shaggy head--in such a man slight tokens are significant. The
silence deepened with the shadows drawing about the single lamp, while
Virginia attempted to maintain a breathing advantage above the flood
of strange emotions which the personality of this man had swept down
upon her.

"It does not seem--" objected the girl in bewilderment, "I do not
know--men are often out in this country for years at a time. Long
journeys are not unknown among us. We are used to undertaking them."

"But not _la Longue Traverse_," insisted the young man, sombrely.

"_La Longue Traverse_," she repeated in sweet perplexity.

"Sometimes called the Journey of Death," he explained.

She turned to look him in the eyes, a vague expression of puzzled fear
on her face.

"She has never heard of it," said Ned Trent to himself, and aloud:
"Men who undertake it leave comfort behind. They embrace hunger and
weariness, cold and disease. At the last they embrace death, and are
glad of his coming."

Something in his tone compelled belief; something in his face told her
that he was a man by whom the inevitable hardships of winter and
summer travel, fearful as they are, would be lightly endured. She
shuddered.