"In Heaven's name, why did you talk to that man?" he said. "You ought
not to have trusted yourself near him."

"What has he done?" she asked. "Is he so bad?"

"I've heard about him. I inquired the other day. He was once in a
better position as a ranchman--ten years ago; but he came into some money
one day, and he changed at once. He never had a good character; even
before he got his money he used to gamble, and was getting a bad name.
Afterwards he began drinking, and he took to gambling harder than ever.
Presently his money all went and he had to work; but his bad habits had
fastened on him, and now he lives from hand to mouth, sometimes working
for a month, sometimes idle for months. There's something sinister about
him, there's some mystery; for poverty or drink even--and he doesn't
drink much now--couldn't make him what he is. He doesn't seek company,
and he walks sometimes endless miles talking to himself, going as hard
as he can. How did you come to speak to him, Grace?"

She told him all, with a curious abstraction in her voice, for she was
thinking of the man from a standpoint which her companion could not
realise. She was also trying to verify something in her memory. Ten
years ago, so her lover had just said, the poor wretch behind them had
been a different man; and there had shot into her mind the face of a
ranchman she had seen with her father, the railway king, one evening when
his "special" had stopped at a railway station on his tour through
Montana--ten years ago. Why did the face of the ranchman which had fixed
itself on her memory then, because he had come on the evening of her
birthday and had spoiled it for her, having taken her father away from
her for an hour--why did his face come to her now? What had it to do