'What in hell are you doing here?' he asked.

'Walking home-along. She wouldna let me bide the night over. And my
foot's blistered in a balloon and blood on my dress.' She choked with
sobs.

'What's your name?'

'Hazel.'

'What else?'

With an instinct of self-protection she refused to tell her surname.

'Well, mine's Reddin,' he said crossly; 'and why you're so dark about
yours I don't know, but up you get, anyway.'

The sun came out in Hazel's face. He helped her up, she was so stiff
with cold.

'Your arm,' she said in a low tremulous voice, when he had put the rug
round her--'your arm pulling me in be like the Sunday-school tale of
Jesus Christ and Peter on the wild sea--me being Peter.'

Reddin looked at her sideways to see if she was in earnest. Seeing that
she was, he changed the subject.

'Far to go?' he asked.

'Ah! miles on miles.'