They were almost upon the pedestrian before Lorna saw the bandage about his head and that he carried his left hand in a sling. The noise of the stopping car made him look around.
Ralph had certainly fulfilled his promise. He had so greatly changed Conny Degger's facial appearance that only from the rear was he to be easily recognized.
Besides his swathed forehead he had one rainbow-colored eye and a bruise on his cheek that gave him the appearance of carrying what the children call an "all-day-sucker" in that side of his mouth. When he opened his lips to speak to Lorna the absence of two teeth made an ugly gap in an otherwise perfect upper set.
"Mercy's sake!" gasped Lorna. "What has happened to you, Mr. Degger?"
For the second time since she had known him, Lorna gained a look right into the very soul of the fellow. She had seen him display cowardice in the face of danger. She scorned him for that, yet realized that he was a landsman and—unlike Ralph and herself—was unused to the more boisterous phases of the sea.
Here was something different. He did not sneer. It was a positively wolfish snarl that he displayed in reply to her question. The blood rushed into his face, making the whole of it almost as dark as though his bruises were a complete mask.
"So you haven't heard the glad news?" he lisped through his missing teeth.
"What do you mean, Mr. Degger?" she demanded. "Get in here. I wish to speak with you. Oh! is your arm broken?"
"My finger. When I hit him," said Degger, with a harsh laugh. "I guess he carries the mark. Haven't you seen him?-"
"Seen whom?"