straight from a pair of gently sloping shoulders,
clearly outlined beneath the light muslin frock
that covered them. He could see that she was
tastefully, though not richly, dressed, and that she
walked with an elastic step that revealed a light
heart and the vigor of perfect health. Her face,
of course, he could not analyze, since he had
caught only the one brief but convincing glimpse
of it.

The young woman kept on down Front Street,
Warwick maintaining his distance a few rods
behind her. They passed a factory, a warehouse
or two, and then, leaving the brick pavement,
walked along on mother earth, under a leafy
arcade of spreading oaks and elms. Their way
led now through a residential portion of the
town, which, as they advanced, gradually declined
from staid respectability to poverty, open and
unabashed. Warwick observed, as they passed
through the respectable quarter, that few people
who met the girl greeted her, and that some others
whom she passed at gates or doorways gave her
no sign of recognition; from which he inferred
that she was possibly a visitor in the town and not
well acquainted.

Their walk had continued not more than ten
minutes when they crossed a creek by a wooden
bridge and came to a row of mean houses standing