eemed so clumsily big and gaunt, never had
his clothes seemed so unpressed and shapeless, while his soft gray
hat, to which he still clung religiously, appeared hopelessly out of
place in contrast with the slim prettiness of the girl. She wore a
black straw hat, turned back from her face, with a single big red
flower at the side of it; her dress was a tailored gray tweed. The
same distinction between their clothes was in their faces, the finely
modeled prettiness of her features and the big, careless chiseling of
the features of Bill Gregg.

Ronicky Doone did not wonder that, after her first fear, her gesture
was one of disdain and surprise.

Bill Gregg had dragged the hat from his head, and the wind lifted his
long black hair and made it wild. He went a long, slow step closer to
her, with both his hands outstretched.

A strange scene for a street, and Ronicky Doone saw the girl flash a
glance over her shoulder and back to the house from which she had just
come. Ronicky Doone followed that glance, and he saw, all hidden save
the profile of the face, a man standing at an opposite window and
smiling scornfully down at that picture in the street.

What a face it was! Never in his life had Ronicky Doone seen a man
who, in one instant, filled him with such fear and hatred, such
loathing and such dread, such scorn and such terror. The nose was
hooked like the nose of a bird of prey; the eyes were long and
slanting like those of an Oriental. The face was thin, almost
fleshless, so that the bony jaw stood out like the jaw of a
death's-head.

As for the girl, the sight of that onlooker seemed to fill her with a
new terror. She shrank back from Bill Gregg until her shoulders were
almost pressed against the wall of the house. And Ronicky saw her head
shake, as she denied Bill the right of advancing farther. Still he
pleaded, and still she ordered him away. Finally Bill Gregg drew
himself up and bowed to her and turned on his heel.

The girl hesitated a moment. It seemed to Ronicky, in spite of the
fact that she had just driven Bill Gregg away, as if she were on
the verge of following him to bring him back. For she made a slight
outward gesture with one hand.

If this were in her mind, however, it vanished instantly. She turned
with a shudder and hurried away down the street.

As for Bill Gregg he bore himself straight as a soldier and came back
across the pavement, but it was the erectness of a soldier who has met
with