felt a definite sickness, and,
wishing for death, went forth upon the streets to walk and walk. He
cared not whither, so that his feet took him in any direction away from
Milla, since they were unable to take him away from himself--of whom he
had as great a horror. Her loving face was continually before him, and
its sweetness made his flesh creep. Milla had been too sweet.

When he met or passed people, it seemed to him that perhaps they were
able to recognize upon him somewhere the marks of his low quality.
"Softy! Ole sloppy fool!" he muttered, addressing himself. "Slushy ole
mush!... _Spooner!_" And he added, "Yours forever, kiddo!" Convulsions
seemed about to seize him.

Turning a corner with his head down, he almost charged into Dora Yocum.
She was homeward bound from a piano lesson, and carried a rolled leather
case of sheet music--something he couldn't imagine Milla carrying--and
in her young girl's dress, which attempted to be nothing else, she
looked as wholesome as cold spring water. Ramsey had always felt
that she despised him and now, all at once, he thought that she was
justified. Leper that he had become, he was unworthy to be even touching
his cap to her! And as she nodded and went briskly on, he would have
given anything to turn and walk a little way with her, for it seemed to
him that this might fumigate his morals. But he lacked the courage, and,
besides, he considered himself unfit to be seen walking with her.

He had a long afternoon of anguishes, these becoming most violent when
he tried to face the problem of his future course toward Milla. He did
not face it at all, in fact, but merely writhed, and had evolved nothing
when Friday evening was upon him and Milla waiting for him to take her
to the "band concert" with "Alb and Sade." In his thoughts, by that
time, this harmless young pair shared the contamination of his own
crime, and he regarded them with aversion; however, he made shift to
seek a short interview with Albert, just before dinner.

"I got a pretty rotten headache, and my stomach's upset, too," he said,
drooping upon the Paxton's fence. "I been gettin' worse every minute.
You and Sadie go by Milla's, Albert, and tell her if I'm not there by
ha'-pas'-seven, tell her not to wait for me any longer."

"How do you mean 'wait'?" Albert inquired. "You don't expect her to come
pokin' along with Sadie and me, do you? She'll keep on sittin' there at
home just the same, because she wouldn't ha