"Fences would naturally be obnoxious to you. But we have some here."

"They're generally built loose, of split-rails, and not nailed. An
energetic man can pull off a bar or two and stride over. If it's
necessary, he can afterward put them up again, and there's no harm done."

"Would you do the latter?"

Vane's expression changed.

"No. I think if there were anything good on the other side, I'd widen the
gap so that the less agile and the needy could crawl through." He smiled
at her. "You see, I owe some of them a good deal. They were the only
friends I had when I first tramped, jaded and footsore, about the
Province."

Jessy was pleased with his answer. She had heard of the free hospitality
of the bush choppers, and she thought it was a graceful thing that he
should acknowledge his debt to them. She was also pleased that she could
lead him on to talk unreservedly.

"Now at last you'll be content to rest a while," she suggested. "I dare
say you deserve it."

"It's strange that you should say that, because just before you came out
of the house I was thinking that I'd sat still long enough. It's a thing
that gets monotonous. One must keep going on."

"Take care that you don't walk over a precipice some day when you have
left all the fences behind. But I've kept you from your meditations, and