“No, Miss Lorraine, I cannot stay. And I’ll see them, but I won’t let them see me and I will remain dead to everyone but you just the same. I will roam about dear old Farleigh and see the changes, and I won’t hurry, but—I’ll go back presently. This is only a vacation,—a sight-seeing trip on the part of John Converse.”
“Back to what?” asked the girl imperiously.
“Back to being a good, honest day-labourer, if you say so, Miss Lorraine,” he assured her.
“Well, but I don’t say so,” she retorted. “I want you to be a musician. I want you to have your old house back and to build——”
Her voice broke. He was silent a little. Then he reached forth his hard, beautifully shaped hands.
“Look at those—hoofs! On nearer view do they look like a musician’s?” he asked.
“The hands do and you could easily soften the skin,” she declared.
“I learned cobbling in prison and did it for two years,” he remarked, and the girl paled sensitively, and her eyes fell.
“And my job now is work in a shoe factory, and so it must be for——”
“So it must not! No such thing!” she interrupted.