She did not answer, but half of her color left her face.

“Upon my word of honor there is no danger to a woman in the town.”

“But some of the ruffians of Lord Nick—­”

“If they dared to even raise their voices at you, they would hear from him in a manner that they would never forget.”

“Then you don’t wish to go?”

She was very pale now; and to Donnegan it was more terrible than the gun in the hand of Lord Nick.  Even if she thought he was slighting her why should she take it so mortally to heart?  For Donnegan, who saw all things, was blind to read the face of this girl.

“It doesn’t really matter,” she murmured and turned away.

A gentle motion, but it wrenched the heart of Donnegan.  He was instantly before her.

“Wait here a moment.  I’ll be ready to go down immediately.”

“No.  I can’t take you from your—­work.”

What work did she assign to him in her imagination?  Endless planning of deviltry no doubt.

“I shall go with you,” said Donnegan.  “At first—­I didn’t dream it could be so important.  Let me get my hat.”

He left her and leaped back into the cabin.

“I am going down into The Corner for a moment,” he said over his shoulder to George, as he took his belt down from the wall.

The big man strode to the wall and took his hat from a nail.

“I shall not need you, George.”

But George merely grinned, and his big teeth flashed at the master.  And in the second place he took up a gun from the drawer and offered it to Donnegan.

“The gun in that holster ain’t loaded,” he said.

Donnegan considered him soberly.

“I know it.  There’ll be no need for a loaded gun.”

But once more George grinned.  All at once Donnegan turned pale.

“You dog,” he whispered.  “Did you listen at the door when Nick was here?”

“Me?” murmured George.  “No, I just been thinking.”

And so it was that while Donnegan went down the hill with Lou Macon, carrying an empty-chambered revolver, George followed at a distance of a few paces, and he carried a loaded weapon unknown to Donnegan.

It was the dull time of the day in The Corner.  There were very few people in the single street, and though most of them turned to look at the little man and the girl who walked beside him, not one of them either smiled or whispered.

“You see?” said Donnegan.  “You would have been perfectly safe—­even from Lord Nick’s ruffians.  That was one of his men we passed back there.”

“Yes.  I’m safe with you,” said the girl.

And when she looked up to him, the blood of Donnegan turned to fire.

Out of a shop door before them came a girl with a parcel under her arm.  She wore a gay, semi-masculine outfit, bright-colored, jaunty, and she walked with a lilt toward them.  It was Nelly Lebrun.  And as she passed them.  Donnegan lifted his hat ceremoniously high.  She nodded to him with a smile, but the smile aimed wan and small in an instant.  There was a quick widening and then a narrowing of her eyes, and Donnegan knew that she had judged Lou Macon as only one girl can judge another who is lovelier.