The woman shrank back as if he had struck her in the face, and in a flash she became a snuffling suppliant. “There, there, dearie--don’t you look at me that way!” she whimpered. “Of course I ain’t sellin’ nobody’s soul. You pay me what it cost to fetch her here and take her along.” And she named the amount. He counted the money out and gave it to her; after which he stepped to the hall telephone and twisted the crank until he got a connection with a near-by hack stand. By the time he had brought the girl down, a hack was at the curb. Sending the driver up for the trunk, Philip led the girl to the door. As he did so, the Goguette had recovered herself sufficiently to give a parting flick of the whip. “Good-by, girlie,” she said. “When he gets through with you, you know where to come.” “Don’t answer her,” said Philip in low tones; and when the man came with the trunk he got a curt order: “To the Union Depot, and be swift about it.” At the station Philip again glanced at his watch. There was still time enough, and he took the girl to the depot restaurant, tipped a waiter for a rush order, and told her she must eat. While she was at supper he bought a ticket and a sleeping-car berth and checked the shabby little trunk. Afterward, he went to sit with her until she finished eating, telling her to take her time; that he would see to it that she did not miss her train. Now that she had bathed her face and eyes and made herself presentable, he saw that she was, not pretty, perhaps, but wholesomely comely; and though she did not talk, the look in the big blue eyes that were evidently an inheritance from her Swedish or Danish ancestry was almost dog-like in its affection and gratitude. When he took her out to the waiting eastbound train, the Denver & Rio Grande express from Pueblo and Colorado Springs had just pulled in, and if he had looked aside he would have seen Bromley welcoming a group of debarking travellers, with Stephen Drew carrying a hand-bag for one of them--a very beautiful and statuesque young woman with a peach-blow complexion and hair like spun gold. Also, he might have seen that, in the procession of the group toward the station egress, Bromley lagged behind, with an eye for himself and the girl standing at the steps of the eastbound sleeper. “You will find some money in this envelope with the tickets,” he was saying to the girl, “and there is no string tied to it. Just go back to your people and thank God you’ve got the best part of your life before you yet.” It was then that Harry Bromley, glancing back over his shoulder, saw a thing that he immediately wished he had not seen. The girl had tucked the ticket envelope into her bosom and put up her arms. “I wish you’d let me kiss you, just once,” she said chokingly. “I never knew there was ever such a man as you on top of God’s green earth!”