"Lean toward him, if so you will, and place your two hands upon his neck!" She wanted to cry out at the recklessness of the thought, and in vain she appraised her own cleanness and culture and balanced all that she was against what he was not.

She glanced about her and saw the others gazing at him with rapt attention; and she would have despaired had not she seen horror in her mother's eyes--fascinated horror, it was true, but none the less horror.

This man from outer darkness was evil.

Her mother saw it, and her mother was right.

She would trust her mother's judgment in this as she had always trusted it in all things.