feet, her face
reddening, her lips parted, a frightened look in her eyes. The shoe
was on the other foot, with a vengeance.

He saw all this, and without compunction, seized his advantage.
With a grim smile he threw the reins over the pony's head, swung
himself out of the saddle, and stepped toward her. As he came on he
removed his dilapidated hat with a gesture that made her forget it
was dilapidated,--a mocking, insolent gesture though it was. In
spite of her embarrassment she let none of his features escape her
quickening interest. She saw that he was tall, erect, alert; handsome
in some strange and half-repellent way, with his pale dark face,
rather long in contour, and with his black, curly hair matted on
the broad forehead. But she almost recoiled when, on his drawing
nearer, she saw for the first time--it had been hidden by the shadow
of his slouched hat--an ugly scar that ran from the outer corner of
his left eye down to the jawbone below the ear. It gave to one
side of his face a singularly sinister expression that vanished when
he turned and disclosed a profile that was not without nobility
and charm.

Then suddenly her mystification was complete. Their eyes met, not as
before, but very near, so close had he come to her, still smiling. And
instantly, instinctively, she lowered hers; for she felt as if she had
been caught peering through a window at something she had no right to
see. Yet the next instant she was looking again, half-guiltily, but
irresistibly drawn. The eyes were of a curious color,--smoky black, or
dark gray-blue, or somber purple,--liquid and deep like a woman's,
but with a steady, dull glow in their depths that was unlike anything
she had ever seen or imagined. What was it that burned there?
Suffering? Hunger? Evil? Sorrow? Shame? It gave her something to think
about for many a day and night. Meanwhile--

"I see you have heard of me," he said mockingly.

She had no reply. She was realizing slowly that she had trespassed,
that she had perhaps seriously compromised her cousin, and, most
humiliating of all, that she had assumed quite the wrong attitude
toward the man.

"You really didn't know you were on my land?" he demanded, with a
little less offensiveness in his tone.

"No," she answered weakly.

"And Huntington didn't send you here?"

"No."

"I believe you, of course. But it's rather queer. How did you
happen--if you don't mind--"

She did not mind in the least--was eager, i