o whom she had been talking. A look of disgust
came upon his face as he drew her away, his hand on her arm.

"In Heaven's name, why did you talk to that man?" he said. "You ought not
to have trusted yourself near him."

"What has he done?" she asked. "Is he so bad?"

"I've heard about him. I inquired the other day. He was once in a better
position as a ranchman--ten years ago; but he came into some money one
day, and he changed at once. He never had a good character; even before he
got his money he used to gamble, and was getting a bad name. Afterward he
began drinking, and he took to gambling harder than ever. Presently his
money all went and he had to work; but his bad habits had fastened on him,
and now he lives from hand to mouth, sometimes working for a month,
sometimes idle for months. There's something sinister about him, there's
some mystery; for poverty, or drink even--and he doesn't drink much
now--couldn't make him what he is. He doesn't seek company, and he walks
sometimes endless miles talking to himself, going as hard as he can. How
did you come to speak to him, Grace?"

She told him all, with a curious abstraction in her voice, for she was
thinking of the man from a standpoint which her companion could not
realize. She was also trying to verify something in her memory. Ten years
ago, so her lover had just said, the poor wretch behind them had been a
different man; and there had shot into her mind the face of a ranchman she
had seen with her father, the railway king, one evening when his "special"
had stopped at a railway station on his tour through Montana--ten years
ago. Why did the face of the ranchman which had fixed itself on her memory
then, because he had come on the evening of her birthday and had spoiled
it for her, having taken her father away from her for an hour--why did his
face come to her now? What had it to do with the face of this outcast she
had just left?

"What is his name?" she asked at last.

"Roger Lygon," he answered.

"Roger Lygon," she repeated, mechanically. Something in the man chained
her thought--his face that moment when her hand saved him and the awful
fear left him and a glimmer of light came into his eyes.

But her lover beside her broke into song. He was happy with her.
Everything was before him, her beauty, her wealth, herself. He could not
dwell upon dismal things; his voice rang out on the sharp, sweet, evening
air:

"Oh, where did you get them, the bonn