At sight of him, Nance bent her head and tried to shrink into herself as
she hurried past.
But Tom had seen her, and the sight of her alone with Gard at that time
of night roused the virtuous indignation, and other more potent spirits,
within him.
He sprang down into the road, shouting what sounded like a spate of
curses in the patois.
Gard stopped and turned, with a keen recollection of the same thing
having happened before. He remembered too how that occasion ended.
But Nance laid an entreating hand on his arm.
"Please--don't!"
Her voice sounded a little strange to him. If he had been able to see
her face now he would have found it pallid, in spite of its usual
healthy brown bloom.
She stood entreatingly till he turned and went on with her.
"He is evidently aching for another thrashing," he said grimly, as he
stalked beside her.
And presently they were in the cutting, and the unnerving vastness of
the gulfs opened out on either side. Gard felt like a blindfolded man
stumbling along a plank.
He involuntarily put out a groping hand and took hold of her cloak.
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