well as he could, and asked if he had examined
the book.
"No," said the clerk. "Nobody just like that had the register while
I've been about; but now I think of it, a man who might meet the bill
stood by while another looked at the last page." Then he indicated a
figure near the revolving door, "There! that's who he was with!"
As the man pushed the door round Foster saw his face, and knew him for
the stranger who had occupied the chair in which he had expected to
find Daly. He thanked the clerk and went back thoughtfully to his
place, because it looked as if Daly had been there and the other had
helped him to steal away. If this surmise was correct, they might be
trying to follow Featherstone; but he was, fortunately, out of their
reach, and Foster decided that he must not exaggerate the importance of
the matter. After all, Daly might have come to Montreal on business,
and the rotunda of a Canadian hotel is something of a public resort.
Still, he felt disturbed and presently gave the clerk the fur coat,
telling him to deliver it when asked for. He felt it a relief to get
rid of the thing.
Next day he sailed on an Empress liner, and on the evening after he
reached England left the train at a lonely station in the North. It
was not yet dark, and for a moment or two he stood on the platform
looking about. There had been rain, and the air had a damp freshness
that was unusual in Canada. In the east and north the sky was covered
with leaden cloud, against which rounded hilltops were faintly marked.
Rugged moors rolled in long slopes towards the west, where the horizon
was flushed with vivid saffron and delicate green. Up the middle of
the foreground ran a deep valley, with blue shadow in its bottom and
touches of orange light on its heathy sides. There were few trees,
although a line of black firs ran boldly to the crest of a neighboring
rise, and stone dykes were more common than the ragged hedges. Foster
saw no plowed land, and nothing except heather seemed to grow on the
peaty soil, which looked black as jet where the railway cutting pierced
it. Indeed, he thought the landscape as savage and desolate as any he
had seen in Canada, but as he did not like tame country this had a
certain charm.
While he looked about a man came up. He was elderly and dressed with
extreme neatness in old-fashioned dark clothes, but he had the
unmistakable look of a gentleman's servant. Though there was a small
car in the
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