He was too rugged to be really handsome, she thought, but he wouldn't have to start digging in his wallet to get a girl to change tables, either. Guiltily she remembered Joe, now it could only be Joe. Then she saw Joe enter the room. He was deathly pale and he was coming straight toward her between the tables. Without pausing to weigh his chances of staying alive he passed a man and a woman who relished Mike's company enough to make them eager to act ugly for a daily handout. They did not look up at Joe as he passed but the man's lips curled in a sneer and the woman whispered something that appeared to fan the flames of her companion's malice. Mike had friends--friends who would never rat on him while their police records remained in Mike's safe and they could count on him for protection. She started to rise, to go to Joe and warn him that Mike would be coming back. But despair flooded her and the impulse died. The way Joe felt about her was a thing too big to stop ... Joe saw her slim against the light, and his thoughts were like the sea surge, wild, unruly. _Maybe Mike will get me. Maybe I'll be dead by this time tomorrow. Maybe I'm crazy to love her the way I do ..._ Her hair against the light, a tumbled mass of spun gold. _Always a woman bothering me for as long as I can remember. Molly, Anne, Janice ... Some were good for me and some were bad._ _You see a woman on the street walking ahead of you, hips swaying, and you think: I don't even know her name but I'd like to crush her in my arms!_ _I guess every guy feels like that about every pretty woman he sees. Even about some that aren't so pretty. But then you get to know and like a woman, and you don't feel that way so much. You respect her and you don't let yourself feel that way._ _Then something happens. You love her so much it's like the first time again but with a whole lot added. You love her so much you'd die to make her happy._ * * * * * Joe was shaking when he slipped into the chair left vacant by Mike and reached out for both her hands. "I'm taking you away tonight," he said. "You're coming with me." Joe was scared, she knew. But he didn't want her to know. His hands were like ice and his fear blended with her own fear as their hands met. "He'll kill you, Joe! You've got to forget me!" she sobbed. "I'm not afraid of him. I'm stronger than you think. He won't dare come at me with a gun, not here before all these people. If he comes at me with his fists I'll hook a solid left to his jaw that will stretch him out cold!" She knew he wasn't deceiving himself. Joe didn't want to die any more than she did. The Man from Time had an impulse to get up, walk over to the two frightened children and comfort them with a reassuring smile. He sat watching, feeling their fear beating in tumultuous waves into his brain. Fear in the minds of a boy and a girl because they desperately wanted one another!