Boy stopped.

His face was less bloated, his appearance more tidy than of old.  It was clear he had been drinking less.

“What d’you think of him?” she asked.

The tout threw a critical eye over the foal.  There was no question that Joses knew a thing or two about a horse.

“Ugly but likely,” he said, with the deliberate air of a connoisseur.  “What they call in France a beau laid.”

The girl demurred to the proposition.  Her foal was not bow-legged.

“His legs are all right,” she said, somewhat tartly.  “He’s a bit on the leg; but he’s sure to be at that age.”

“How’s he bred, d’you know?” asked the other thoughtfully.

Boy was on the alert in a moment.  That was a stable secret, and not to be disclosed.

“I’m not quite sure,” she answered truthfully.  “We picked up the dam from a gypsy.”

The fat man nodded.  He seemed to know all about it.  Indeed, it was his business to know all about such things.

“She was a Black Death mare, that, no question,” he said, and added slowly, his eye wandering over the colt:  “Looks to me like a Berserk somehow.”  She had a feeling he was drawing her, and kept her face inscrutable in a way that did credit to the teaching of Monkey Brand.  “If so, you’ve drawn a lucky number,” continued the other.  “Such things happen, you know.”

Boy moved on, and was aware that he was following her.

She turned and saw his face.

There was no mischief in the man, and fluttering in his eyes there was that look of a hunted animal she had noticed in the Gap.

She stopped at once.

“What is it, Mr. Joses?” she asked.

She felt that he was calling to her for help.

“I beg your pardon, Miss Woodburn,” he began.

“Yes, Mr. Joses.”

Her deep voice was soft and encouraging as when she spoke to a sick creature or a child.  Those who knew only the resolute girl, who went her own way with an almost fierce determination, would have been astonished at her tenderness.

“That little mistake of mine on the cliff,” muttered the man.

A great impulse of generosity flooded the girl’s heart and coloured her cheek.

“That’s quite all right,” she said.

It was clear he was not satisfied.

His eyes wandered over heaven and earth, never meeting hers.

“You’ve not said anything to the police about that?”

“No!” she cried.

“Nor that gentleman?”

“Mr. Silver?”

“Yes.”

“I’m sure he hasn’t.”

The other drew a deep breath.

“It wouldn’t help me any if he had,” he said.

He looked up into the deep sky, that was gathering the dusk, and still alive with the song of larks.  “I wouldn’t like to see ’em in a cage,” he said quietly.  “It wasn’t meant.  Never!”