Who is to know when Satan--or a more benevolent spirit--will be hiding
behind the hedge to play good folk a marriage trick? And Richard had
been warned. Once, in Calcutta, price one rupee, a necromancer after
fullest reading of the signs informed him that when he met the woman who
should make a wife to him, she would come upon him suddenly. Wherefore,
he should have kept a brighter watch, expecting the unexpected.

Richard's gaze went following two rustical people--clearly bride and
groom. In a cloudy way he loathed the groom, and was foggily wondering
why. His second thought would have told him that the male of his
species--such is his sublime egotism--feels cheated with every wedding
not his own, and, for an earliest impulse on beholding a woman with
another man, would tear her from that other one by force. Thus did his
skinclad ancestors when time was.

However, Richard had but scanty space wherein either to enjoy his blunt
hatred of that bridegroom or theorize as to its roots. His ear caught a
muffled scream, and then down the wide staircase in front of him a
winsome girl came tumbling.

With a dexterity born of a youth more or less replete of football,
Richard sprang forward and caught the girl in his arms. He caught and
held her as though she were feather-light; and that feat of a brutal
strength, even through her fright, worked upon the saved one, who,
remembering her one hundred and thirty pounds, did not think herself
down of thistles.

"Are you hurt?" asked Richard, still holding her lightly close.

Richard looked at the girl; black hair, white skin, lashes of ink, eyes