Nothing much, I reckon. I've been a bit down all day. I
really don't know why, myself. I've had a queer presentiment, as if
something were going to happen. As if something terrible were coming
to me."

"Well, I'm sorry. You've no occasion to feel like that, I'm sure."

"All right, if you say so. What train shall we take?"

He stretched out one hand to take the small bag she carried.

She shrank back instinctively, and withdrew the bag. He must have felt
rather than seen the movement, it was so slight.

His hand fell to his side.

Still, he persisted.

"I'm dead done up, Dora. I need my dinner, come on!"

"Then you'd better take the 6.00 train. You've just time," she said
hurriedly.

"All right. Come on!"

He laid his hand on her shoulder with a gesture that was entreating.
It was the first time he had touched her. A frightened look came into
her eyes. He did not see it, for he was still avoiding her face. It
was as if he were afraid of reading something there he did not wish to
know.

Her red lips had taken on a petulant expression--that of one who hated
to be "stirred up." In a childish voice--which only thinly veiled an
obstinate determination--she pouted: "I'm not going--yet."

The words were said almost under her breath, as if she were fearful of
their effect on him, yet was determined to carry her point.

But the man only sighed deeply as he replied: "I thought your dancing
lessons were over. I hoped I was no longer to spend my evenings alone.
Alone! Looking round at the things that are yours, and among which I
feel so out of place, except when you are there to make me forget.
God! What damnable evenings I've spent there--feeling as if you were
slipping further and further out of my life--as if you were gone, and
I had only the clothes you had worn, an odor about me somewhere to
convince me that I had not dreamed you! Sometimes that faint,
indistinct, evasive scent of you in the room has almost driven me out
of my head. I wonder I haven't killed you before now--to be sure of
you! I'm afraid of Hell, I suppose, or I should have."

The woman did not look at all alarmed. Indeed there was a light in her
amber eyes that spoke of a kind of gratification in stirring this
young giant like that--this huge fellow that could so easily crush
her--but did not! She knew better why than he did--but she said
nothing.

With his eyes still fixed on space--after a pause--he went on: "I was
fool enough to believe t