in half-dusk through country byways, were two different things.
She was destined to be reminded of the difference.

"Can you help a poor man, lady?" said a whining voice behind her, when
she had a quarter of the way yet to go. She turned to see a big tramp, a
terrifying brute with a half-propitiating, half-fierce look on his
heavy, unshaven face. She was desperately frightened. She had been
spoken to once or twice in the city, but there there was always a
policeman, or a house you could run into if you had to. But here, in the
unguarded dusk of a country lane, it was a different matter. The long
gold chain that swung below her waist, the big diamond on her finger,
the gold mesh-purse--all the jewelry she took such a childlike delight
in wearing--she remembered them in terror. She was no brown-clad little
working-girl now, to slip along disregarded. And the tramp did not look
like a deserving object.

"If you will come to the house to-morrow," she said, hurrying on as she
spoke, "I'll have some work for you. The first house on this street that
you come to." She did not dare give him anything, or send him away.

"Won't you gimme somethin' now, lady?" whined the tramp, continuing to
follow. "I'm a starvin' man."

She dared not open her purse and appease him by giving him money--she
had too much with her. That morning she had received the check for her
monthly income from Mr. De Guenther, sent Wallis down to cash it, and
then stuffed it in her bag and forgotten it in the distress of the day.
The man might take the money and strike her senseless, even kill her.

"To-morrow," she said, going rapidly on. She had now what would amount
to about three city blocks to traverse still. There was a short way from
outside the garden-hedge through to the garden, which cut off about a
half-block. If she could gain this she would be safe.

"Naw, yeh don't," snarled the tramp, as she fled on. "Ye'll set that
bull-pup o' yours on me. I been there, an' come away again. You just
gimme some o' them rings an' things an' we'll call it square, me fine
lady!"

Phyllis's heart stood still at this open menace, but she ran on still. A
sudden thought came to her. She snatched her gilt sash-buckle--a pretty
thing but of small value--from her waist, and hurled it far behind the
tramp. In the half-light it might have been her gold mesh-bag.

"There's my money--go get it!" she gasped--and ran for her life. The
tramp, as she had hoped he would, das