But he could
see no excuse for this presumptuousness in himself. If she was in
distress it was not of a physical sort for which he might have suggested
his services as a remedy. She was neither hungry nor cold, for there was
a basket at her side in which he had a glimpse of broken bits of food;
and at her back, draped over the seat, was a heavy beaver-skin coat.
He rose to his feet with the intention of returning to the smoking
compartment in which he had left Father Roland. His movement seemed to
rouse the woman. Again her dark eyes met his own. They looked straight
up at him as he stood in the aisle, and he stopped. Her lips trembled.
"Are you ... acquainted ... between here and Lac Seul?" she asked.
Her voice had in it the same haunting mystery that he had seen in her
eyes, the same apprehension, the same hope, as though some curious and
indefinable instinct was telling her that in this stranger she was very
near to the thing which she was seeking.
"I am a stranger," he said. "This is the first time I have ever been in
this country."
She sank back, the look of hope in her face dying out like a passing
flash.
"I thank you," she murmured. "I thought perhaps you might know of a man
whom I am seeking--a man by the name of Michael O'Doone.
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