dreading to appear. The slight growth of adolescence was gone from lip and chin, and Thryng was amazed and satisfied.
"Good," he cried. "You've done well."
The youth smiled shamefacedly, yet held his head high. With the heavy golf stockings, knee breeches, and belted jacket, even to himself he seemed another man, and an older man he looked by five years.
"Now keep your nerve, and square your shoulders and face the world with a straight look in the eye. You've thrown off the old man with these." David touched the heap of clothing on the floor with his foot. "Hoyle is here. He says the men are on their way here and have stopped at the house."
Instead of turning pale as Thryng had expected, a dark flush came into Frale's face, and his hand clinched. It was the ferocity of fear, and not the deadliness of it, which seized him with a sort of terrible anger, that David felt through his silence.
"Don't lose control of yourself, boy," he said, placing his hand gently on his shoulder and making his touch felt by the intimate closing of his slender fingers upon the firmly rounded, lean muscles beneath them.
"Follow my directions, and be quick. Put your own clothes in this bag." He hastily tossed a few things out of his pigskin valise. "Cram them in; that's right. Don't leave a trace of yourself here for them to find. Pull this cap over your eyes, and walk straight