Hawkins walked on halfway along the block, erect, with a quick, firm step, his head high, smiling into every face he met--and turning to smile again, conscious that people as they passed had turned to look back at him. And then very gradually Hawkins' pace slackened, and into his face and eyes there came a dawning anxiety, and the smile was gone. “I'm kind of forgetting,” said Hawkins presently to himself, “that it ain't just that I'm getting my little girl. I--I'm kind of forgetting her 'rouble. There--there's Crang.” The old man's face was furrowed now deep with storm and care; he walked still more slowly. He began to mutter to himself. At the corner of the street he raised an old gnarled fist and shook it, clenched, above his head, unconscious and oblivious now that people still turned and looked at him. And then a little way ahead of him along the street that he must go to reach the one-time pawn-shop of Paul Veniza, his eyes caught the patch of light that filtered out to the sidewalk from under the swinging doors of the familiar saloon, and from the windows in a more brilliant flood. Hawkins drew in a long breath. “No, no!” he whispered fiercely. “I will never go in there again--so help me, God! If I did--and--and she knew it was her daddy, it would just break her heart like--like Crang 'll break it.” He went on, but his footsteps seemed to drag the more now as he approached the saloon. His hand as he raised it trembled; and as he brushed it across his brow it came away wet with sweat. The saloon was just a yard away from him now. There was a strange, feverish glitter in the blue eyes. His face was chalky white. “So help me, God!” Hawkins mumbled hoarsely. It was five minutes of eight. Hawkins had halted in front of the swinging doors. CHAPTER ELEVEN--THE RENDEZVOUS |PAUL VENIZA, pacing restlessly about the room, glanced surreptitiously at his watch, and then glanced anxiously at John Bruce. John Bruce in turn stole a look at Claire. His lips tightened a little. Since she had been told nothing, she was quite unconscious, of course, that it mattered at all because it was already long after eight o'clock; that Hawkins in particular, or any one else in general, was expected to join the little evening circle here in what he, John Bruce, had by now almost come to call his room. His forehead gathered in a frown. What was it that was keeping Hawkins? Claire's face was full in the light, and as she sat there at the table, busy with some sewing, it seemed to John Bruce that, due perhaps to the perspective of what he now knew, he detected a weariness in her eyes and in sharp lines around her mouth, that he had not noticed before. It was Crang, of course; but perhaps he too--what he had said to her that afternoon--his love--had not made it any easier for her. Paul Veniza continued his restless pacing about the room. “Father, do sit down!” said Claire suddenly. “What makes you so nervous to-night? Is anything the matter?”