“No,” she answered.
“It’s just up that lane about a mile. Only a matter of five minutes to you.”
“Can you get him into the car?” asked Billie, noticing that this rather sinister looking stranger had only one arm; also that his right eye was out and there was a long scar across his upper lip.
“Easily,” he replied, and without another word he expeditiously supported his friend to the motor car and lifted him into the back seat.
“Poor fellow,” exclaimed Billie sympathetically. “It’s well I happened along.”
The sick man was indeed a wretched looking object, with a thin, lantern-jawed face, hollow feverish eyes and a sunken chest. Occasionally he coughed behind his hands apologetically.
“Down the lane, did you say?” she asked.
“Yes, miss, you can just see the house. It’s the gray one up near the woods.”
“I’ll have him there in a few minutes,” she answered, putting on all speed.
The little machine flew along the hard sandy road like a redbird on the wing. Billie occasionally glanced over her shoulder at the sick man and each time her eyes met his, which seemed to burn like coals of fire. She had not liked the looks of the other man. His one remaining eye was much too close to his hooked nose; but the sick man appealed to her sympathies. Billie’s nature was not a suspicious one. She had encountered many people in her life, and it is only people who have lived out of the world who are apt to suspect strangers.