the matter?" she said again. "Is anything the matter?"

"Oh, no, no," he said, and he gave himself a little shake like a man
wakening from deep sleep and trying to remember where he was.

"Well, then," she said.

"I found Mr. Clive," he said hardly and abruptly. And he repeated again:
"Yes, I found him."

They remained standing close together and facing each other, and he saw
her as through a veil of red, and it was as though a red mist enveloped
her, and where her shadow lay the earth was red, he thought, and where
she put her foot it seemed to him red tracks remained, and never before
had he understood how utterly he loved her and must love her, now and
for evermore.

But he uttered no sound and made no movement, only stood very still,
thinking to himself how dreadful it was that he loved her so greatly.

She was not paying him, any attention now. A rose bush was near by, and
she picked one of the flowers, and arranged it carefully at her waist.

She said, still looking at him:

"Do you know--I wish you would shave yourself?"

"Why?" he mumbled.

"I should like to see you," she answered. "I think I have a curiosity to
see you."

"I should think you could do that well enough," he said in the same low,
mumbled tones.

"No," she answered. "I can only see some very untidy hair and a pair of
eyes--not very nice eyes, rather frightening eyes. I should like to see
the rest of your face some day so as to know what it's like."

"Perhaps you shall--some day," he said.

"Is that a threat?" she asked. "It sounded like one."

"Perhaps," he answered.

She laughed lightly and turned away.

"You make me very curious," she said. "But then, you've always done
that."

She went back to her seat by her mother, and he walked on moodily to the
house.

Mrs. Dawson said to Ella:

"How can you talk to that man, my dear? I think he looks perfectly
dreadful--hardly like a human being."

"I was just telling him he ought to shave himself," said Ella. "I told
him I should like to know what he was really like."

"I shall ask father," said Mrs. Dawson sternly, "to make it a condition
of his employment here."

CHAPTER XVII. A DECLARATION

Dunn knew very well that he ought to give immediate information to the
authorities of what had happened.

But he did not. He told himself that nothing could help poor John
Clive, and that any precipitate action on his part might still fatally
compromise his plans, which were no