Mabel’s eyes seemed to glance inward, and she made no reply. She honestly believed she had never knowingly encouraged a man to become her victim; yet she had heard of men doing very silly things when they thought themselves disappointed in love. She cast a look of timid inquiry at her host. “Oh, perfectly safe, if you like,” said the general. “The fellow is at the door, and several of our guests are in the hall.” Miss Fewne looked serious, and hurried to the door. She saw a man in shabby clothing and with unkempt beard and hair, yet with a not unpleasing expression. “Madame,” said he, “I’m a loafer, but I’ve been a gentleman, and I know better than to intrude without a good cause. The cause is a dying man. He’s as rough and worthless as I am, but all the roughness has gone out of him, just now, and he’s thinking about his mother and a sweetheart he used to have. He wants some one to pray for him—some one as unlike himself and his associates as possible. He cried for his mother—then he whispered to me that he had seen, here in Smithton, a lady that looked like an angel—seen her driving only to-day. He meant you. He isn’t pretty; but, when a _dying_ man says a lady is an angel, he means what he says.” Two or three moments later Miss Fewne, with a very pale face, and with her brother-in-law as escort, was following Brownie. The door of the saloon was thrown open, and when the Enders saw who was following Brownie they cowered and fell back as if a sheriff with his _posse_ had appeared. The lady looked quickly about her, until her eye rested upon the figure of the wounded man; him she approached, and as she looked down her lip began to tremble. “I didn’t mean it,” whispered Baggs, self-depreciation and pain striving for the possession of his face. “If I hadn’t have been a-goin’, I shouldn’t have thought of such a thing, but dyin’ takes away one’s reg’lar senses. It’s not my fault, ma’am, but when I thought about what mother used to say about heaven, _you_ came into my mind. I felt as if I was insultin’ you just by thinkin’ about you—a feller such as me to be thinking about such a lady. I tried to see mother an’ Liz, my sweetheart that was, just as I’ve seen ’em when my eyes was shut, but I couldn’t see nothin’ but you, the way you looked goin’ along that road and makin’ the End look bright. I’d shoot myself for the imperdence of the thing if I was goin’ to get well again, but I ain’t. Ther needs to be a word said for me by somebody—somebody that don’t chaw, nor drink, nor swear—somebody that’ll catch God’s eye if He happens to be lookin’ down—and I never saw that kind of a person in Smithton till to-day.” Mabel stood speechless, with a tear in each eye. “Don’t, if you don’t think best,” continued Baggs. “I’d rather go to—to t’other place than bother a lady. Don’t speak a word, if you don’t want to; but mebbe you’ll _think_ the least thing? God _can’t_ refuse _you_. But if you think t’other place is best for me, all right.”