"
"Oh, but you are good," she said tremulously--"you are good!"
"I love a good woman," he answered gravely.
And with that he turned and left her alone in the firelight with her
romance.
II
It was early on a dark November day that the prison gate at Barren Hill
opened to allow a convict who had just completed twelve years' penal
servitude to pass out a free man.
A motor car was drawn up at the side of the kerb as he emerged, and a
man in a long overcoat, with another slung on his arm, was pacing up and
down.
He wheeled at the closing of the gate, and they stood face to face.
There was a moment's difficult silence; then the man with the motor
spoke.
"Mr. West, I think?"
The other looked him up and down in a single comprehensive glance that
was like the flash of a sword blade.
"Certainly," he said curtly, "if you prefer it."
He was a short, thick-set man of past forty, with a face so grimly lined
as to mask all expression. His eyes alone were vividly alert. They were
the bluest eyes that Babbacombe had ever seen.
He accepted the curt acknowledgment with grave courtesy, and made a
motion toward the car.
"Will you get in? My name is Babbacombe. I am here to meet you, as no
doubt you have been told. You had better wear this"--opening out the
coat he carried.
But West remained motionless, facing him on the grey, deserted road.
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