a brave front of it.
"But I do not think it was you that I called to. Keep away, please.
Don't come any nearer. What do you want?" "Well, I'll take that blessed
'and-bag to go on with; and if there aren't no money in it--tumble it
out--let's see--lively now! I'll feed for the rest of this week--Gawd,
yuss!"

She made no reply, no attempt to obey him, no movement of any sort. Fear
had absolutely stricken every atom of strength from her. She could do
nothing but look at him with big, frightened eyes, and shake.

"Look 'ere, aren't you a-goin' to do it quiet, or are you a-goin' to mike
me tike the blessed thing from you?" he asked.

"I'll do it if you put me to it--my hat! yuss! It aren't my gime--I'm
wot you might call a hammer-chewer at it, but when there's summink
inside you, wot tears and tears and tears, any gime's worth tryin' that
pulls out the claws of it."

She did not move even yet. He flung the spent match from him, and made a
sharp step toward her, and he had just reached out his hand to lay hold
of her, when another hand--strong, sinewy, hard-shutting as an iron
clamp--reached out from the mist, and laid hold of him; plucking him by
the neckband and intruding a bunch of knuckles and shut fingers between
that and his up-slanted chin.

"Now, then, drop that little game at once, you young monkey!" struck in
the sharp staccato of a semi-excited voice. "Interfering with young
ladies, eh? Let's have a look at you. Don't be afraid, Miss
Lorne--nobody's going to hurt you."

Then a pocket torch spat out a sudden ray of light; and by it both the
half-throttled boy and the wholly frightened girl could see the man who
had thus intruded himself upon their notice.

"Oh, it is you--it is you again, Mr. Cleek?" said Ailsa with something
between a laugh and a sigh of relief as she recognized him.

"Yes, it is I. I have been behind you ever since you left the house in
Bardon Road. It was rash of you to cross the heath at this time and in
this weather. I rather fancied that something of this kind would be
likely to happen, and so took the liberty of following you."

"Then it was you I heard behind me?"

"It was I--yes. I shouldn't have intruded myself upon your notice if you
hadn't called out. A moment, please. Let's have a look at this young
highwayman, who so freely advertises himself as an amateur."

The light spat full into the gaunt, starved face of the young man and
made it stare forth doubly ghastly. He had