lade, he paused
suddenly. Out there on the grass, so small that she had not shown
above the lowest bushes, there was a little girl--a child of about
five, in a tattered pinafore, picking daisies and making a daisy
chain. Breathless and with a beating heart, he watched her, and he
dared not move forward into the sunlight or backward into the shade.
She had not seen him yet. She was playing with the chain of flowers--a
small wood goblin sprung out of nowhere, a little black-haired devil
fired up from hell through the solid earth and out into this empty
glade to squat there right in his track. Then she stood upon her feet,
and admired the length of the chain as she held it dangling.

Then she dropped the chain, gave a little cry like the note of a
frightened bird, and scampered away--never looking back.

Never looking back. But she had seen him. He tried to hope that she
had not seen him.

He was hungry now. His provisions were exhausted; he had eaten nothing
since last night, and he felt excited and fretful. He said to
himself: "If to-day my enemy is not delivered into my hands, I must go
out into the open and seek him at all risks, at all costs." It was a
dominant idea now. Nothing else mattered.

But that day the man came. When the day was almost over, when the
whole wood was fading to the neutral tints of dusk, he came. He was on
horseback, sitting easily and proudly, and his chestnut horse paced
daintily and noiselessly over the moss.

Dale took off his hat. Then presently he came out of the bracken into
the ride, gripped the horse by its bridle, and spoke to the rider.

"Halloa! Dale? But, my good fellow, what the deuce--Damn you, let go.
What are you trying to--"

"I'll show you. Yes, you"--and violent, obscene, incoherent words came
pouring from Dale in a high-pitched querulous voice. All his set
speeches had been blown to the clouds by the blast of his passion. All
his plans exploded in flame at the sight of the man's face--the eyes
that had gloated over Mavis' reluctant body, the lips that had fed on
her enforced kisses. But what did the words matter? Any words were
sufficient. They could understand each other without words now.

He was holding the bridle firmly, pulling the horse's head round; and
he grasped Mr. Barradine's foot, got it out of the stirrup, and
jerking the whole leg upward, pitched him out of the saddle. The
horse, released, sprang away, jumping this way, that way, as it dashed
through