Norton loosed the cords and led old Peeler to his house. As the fat, wobbling legs mounted the steps the younger man paused at a sound from behind and before he could turn a girl sprang from the shadows into his arms, and slipped to her knees, sobbing hysterically:
"Save me!—they're going to beat me—they'll beat me to death—don't let them—please—please don't let them!"
By the light from the window he saw that her hair was a deep rich red with the slightest tendency to curl and her wide dilated eyes a soft greenish grey.
He was too astonished to speak for a moment and Peeler hastened to say:
"That's our little gal, Cleo—that is—I—mean—of—course—it's Lucy's gal! She's just home from school and she's scared to death and I don't blame her!"
The girl clung to her rescuer with desperate grip, pressing her trembling form close with each convulsive sob.
The man drew the soft arms down, held them a moment and looked into the dumb frightened face. He was surprised at her unusual beauty. Her skin was a delicate creamy yellow, almost white, and her cheeks were tinged with the brownish red of ripe apple. As he looked in to her eyes he fancied that he saw a young leopardess from an African jungle looking at him through the lithe, graceful form of a Southern woman.
And then something happened in the shadows that stood out forever in his memory of that day as the turning point of his life.
Laughing at her fears, he suddenly lifted his hand and gently stroked the tangled red hair, smoothing it back from her forehead with a movement instinctive, and irresistible as he would have smoothed the fur of a yellow Persian kitten.
Surprised at his act, he turned without a word and left the place.