CHAPTER XXXIII

BEAU-NEZ He returned to the Moot to find little Alice crying in the door. A pathetic little shrimp of a creature she looked, huddled against the door-post, her face hidden, her shoulders quivering, her back to the hostile world. Some children who had been mocking her drew away on Ernie's approach. "What's up, Lal?" he asked tenderly, bending over her. She would not look up. "It's nothing, daddy," she sobbed and crept away up the street, like a wounded animal. Ernie went in. Ruth was sitting alone in the kitchen …