xpath select from variable xpath

I don't understand why the following gives results
myNavigator.Select("myrun/exe/item[type='cett']/group/grouping[@itemval='e:\\eel.exe']/..")

but this doesn't
myNavigator.Select(myClass.xpathVal)
myClass.xpathVal equals exactly the same value.


edit: I think I just found out its because in the variable the escaped backslash each are escaped again so in my string variable its
e:\\\\ instead of e:\\
how do I resolve this? I'm getting the xpath string from a file and its needed to it to have \\