ding at the foot of the gangway. Something in his face,
however, warned her of the grim mood that burned within him. She
pitied him, not for his suffering, but for his blindness.

"Don't follow me!" she muttered, between her teeth, as she swept
unbetrayingly by him, and hurriedly made her way out past the customs
barrier. It was not until she had reached the closed carriage Keenan's
steward had already ordered for her that she realized how apparently
cursory and precipitate had been that hurried word of warning. But
there was time for neither explanation nor display of emotion. It
could all be made clear and put right, later.

She heard the nervous trample of hoofs on the wooden flooring, the
battle of truck-wheels, the muffled sound of calling voices, and she
leaned back in the gloomy cab and closed her eyes with a great sense of
escape, with a sense of relief tinged with triumph.

As she did so the door of her turning cab was opened, and the sudden
square of light was blocked by a massive form. She gave a startled
little cry as the figure swung itself up into the seat beside her.
Then the curtained door swung shut, with a slam. It seemed like the
snap of a steel trap.

"Hello, there, Frank!--I've been looking out for you!" said the
intruder, with a taunt of mockery in his easy laugh.

_It was MacNutt_. She gaped at him stupidly, with an inarticulate
throaty gasp, half of protest, half of bewilderment.

"You see, I know you, Frank, and Keenan doesn't!" And again she felt
the sting of his scoffing laughter.

She looked at the subdolous, pale-green eyes, with their predatory
restlessness, at the square-blocked, flaccid jaw, and the beefy,
animal-like massiveness of the strong neck, at the huge form odorous of
gin and cigar smoke, and the great, hairy hands marked with their
purplish veinings. It seemed like a ghost out of some long-past and
only half-remembered life. It came back to her with all the
hideousness of a momentarily forgotten nightmare, made newly hideous by
the sanities of ordered design and open daylight in which it intruded.
And her heart sank and hope burned out of her.

"You! How dare _you_ come here?" she demanded, with a show of hot
defiance.

He looked at her collectedly and studiously, with an approving little
side-shake of the bull-dog, pugnacious-looking head.

"You're the same fine looker!" was all he said, with an appreciative
clucking of the throat. Oh, how she hated him