llain! The scoundrel!
What business had he to betray me? Well, I could settle with him. The
man who lays a hand upon a woman, save in the way of kindness, is
justly disliked by society; so the woman Muspratt, culpable as she
was, was safe from me. But what of the man Hawk? There no such
considerations swayed me. I would interview the man Hawk. I would give
him the most hectic ten minutes of his career. I would say things to
him the recollection of which would make him start up shrieking in his
bed in the small hours of the night. I would arise, and be a man and
slay him--take him grossly, full of bread, with all his crimes,
broad-blown, as flush as May; at gaming, swearing, or about some act
that had no relish of salvation in it.

The demon!

My life--ruined. My future--gray and blank. My heart--shattered. And
why? Because of the scoundrel--Hawk.

Phyllis would meet me in the village, on the Cob, on the links, and
pass by as if I were the invisible man. And why? Because of the
reptile--Hawk. The worm--Hawk. The varlet--Hawk.

I crammed my hat on and hurried out of the house toward the village.

A CHANCE MEETING

XVI

I roamed the place in search of the varlet for the space of half an
hour, and, after having drawn all his familiar haunts, found him at
length leaning over the sea wall near the church, gazing thoughtfully
into the waters below.

I confronted him.

"Well," I said, "you're a beauty, aren't you?"

He eyed me owlishly. Even at this early hour, I was grieved to see, he
showed signs of having looked on the bitter while it was brown.

"Beauty?" he echoed.

"What have you got to say for yourself?"

It was plain that he was engaged in pulling his faculties together by
some laborious process known only to himself. At present my words
conveyed no meaning to him. He was trying to identify me. He had seen
me before somewhere, he was certain, but he could not say where, or
who I was.

"I want to know," I said, "what induced you to be such an abject idiot
as to let our arrangement get known?"

I spoke quietly. I was not going to waste the choicer flowers of
speech on a man who was incapable of understanding them. Later on,
when he had awakened to a sense of his position, I would begin really
to talk to him.

He continued to stare at me. Then a sudden flash of intelligence lit
up his features.

"Mr. Garnick," he said.

"You've got it at last."

He stretched out a huge hand.

"I want t