an arm on the
parapet at her side.

"Looks peaceful, doesn't it?" he said quietly.

The girl's head rose with a jerk, and she stared at him, startled.
The words had been deftly chosen to match her own thoughts; and for
the while she failed to recognize in this tall young man the
sprawling figure of the slumberer in the Tuileries Gardens.

"I, I who are you?" she stammered. "What do you want?"

He was able to see now that her pale composure was maintained only by
an effort, that the strain of it was making her tremble. He answered
in tones of careful conventionality.

"I'm afraid I startled you," he said. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have
ventured to speak to you at all if you hadn't--" He paused. "You don't
happen to remember me at all?" he asked.

"No," said Annette. "If I hadn't, what?"

He slipped a hand into his pocket and drew forth the five-franc
piece. The broad palm it lay on was still grimy from the workshop.

"I happened to fall asleep in the Tuileries this afternoon," he said.
"Idiotic thing to do, but--."

"Oh!" The color leapt to her face. "Was that you?"

Raleigh nodded. "You had hardly moved away when a man who had been
watching you tried to pick my pocket and woke me in doing so. He told
me what he'd seen and pointed you out."

Annette gazed at him in tired perplexity. When he was on his feet,
the condition of his clothes and hands and the absurd black patch on
his chin were noticeable only as incongruities; there was nothing now
to suggest the pauper or the outcast in this big youth with the
pleasant voice and the strongly tanned face.

"I, I made a mistake," she said. "I saw you sleeping on the bench and
I thought a little help, coming from nowhere like that you'd be so
surprised and glad when you found it." She sighed. "However, I was
wrong. I'm sorry."

"I'm not!" Raleigh put the money back in his pocket swiftly. "I think
it was a wonderful idea of yours; it's the most splendid thing that
ever happened to me. There was I, grumbling and making mistakes all
day, playing the fool and pitying myself, and all the time you were
moving somewhere within a mile or two, out of sight, but watching and
saying: 'Yes, you're no good to anybody; but if the worst comes to
the worst you shan't starve. I'll save you from that!' I'll never
part with that money."

Annette shook her head; weariness inhabited her like a dull pain. "I
didn't say that" she answered; "you weren't starving, and you don't
underst