"I don't think they'll trouble me for all their threats," he said.
"For that matter, I rather hope they will try something of the sort
on. They need a lesson."

"Oh, I do hope you'll be careful," the girl exclaimed.

He laughed again and made another lightly-confident, almost-boastful
remark, to the effect that he did not think any one was likely to
interfere with him.

For a minute or two longer they lingered, chatting together as they
stood in the gas-light on the veranda and from his hiding-place Dunn
watched them intently. It seemed that it was the girl in whom he
was chiefly interested, for his eyes hardly moved from her and in
them there showed a very grim and hard expression.

"Pretty enough," he mused. "More than pretty. No wonder poor
Charles raved about her, if it's the same girl--if it is, she ought
to know what's become of him. But then, where does this big chap
come in?"

The "big chap" seemed really going now, though reluctantly, and it
was not difficult to see that he would have been very willing to
stay longer had she given him the least encouragement.

But that he did not get, and indeed it seemed as if she were a
little bored and a little anxious for him to say good night and go.

At last he did so, and she retired within the house, while he came