e stood out.

"Him!" she echoed ungrammatically.

Then: "Where is he? Let me downstairs."

But the widow closed the door swiftly behind her and leaned her
comfortable bulk against it.

"You ain't goin'," she asserted. "You ain't goin', leastways not till
you got time to think it over."

"I haven't time to think. I--he--"

"That was the way with me," nodded Mrs. Sommers, and her eyes were
tragic. "I went ahead and married Johnny in spite of everything, and
look at me now--a widder! No, I ain't sorry for myself because I was a
fool."

"Mrs. Sommers," said Betty, "will you please step out of my way?"

"Honey, for heaven's sake think a minute before you go down and face
that man. He's dangerous. When I opened the door and seen him, I tell
you the shivers went up my back."

"Is he thin? Is he pale?" cried Betty Neal. "How did he get away? Did he
escape? Did they parole him? Did they pardon him? Did he--"

"Let me get down!" she cried.

Mrs. Sommers flung away from the door.

"Then go and marry your man-killer!"

But Betty Neal was already clattering down the stairs. Half way to the
bottom her strength and courage ebbed suddenly from her; she went on
with short steps, and when at last she closed the parlor door behind
her, she was staring as if she looked at a ghost.

Yet Vic Gregg was not greatly changed--a little thinner perhaps, and
just now he certainly did not have his usual color. The moment she
appeared he jumped to his feet as if he had heard a shot, and now he
stood with his feet braced a little to meet a shock, one hand twitching
and playing nervously with the embroidered cloth on the table. She did
not speak; merely stood with her fingers still gripping the handle of
the door as if she were ready to dart away at the first alarm. A wave of
pain went over the face of Vic Gregg and remained looking at her out
of his eyes, for all that his single-track, concentrated mind could
perceive in her was the thing he took for fear.

"Miss Neal," he said. His voice shook, straightened out again. He made
her think of one of her big school boys who had forgotten his lesson and
now stood cudgeling his memory and dreading that terrible nightmare of
"staying after school." She had a wild desire to laugh.

"Miss Neal, I ain't here to try to take up things that can't be took up
ag'in." Apparently he had prepared the speech carefully, and now he went
on with more ease: "I'm leavin' these here parts for some place un