s sister. Having failed to
force that issue, he bided his time, sensing with melancholy portent
the certainty that he would soon be confronted with the stark and
hateful actuality. Thus he wore somewhat away from his grim resolve
to kill Swann. That adventure on the country road, when he had
discovered Swann with Helen instead of Lorna, had somehow been a boon.
Nevertheless he spied upon Lorna in the summer evenings when it was
possible to follow her, and he dogged Swann's winding and devious path
as far as possible. Apparently Swann had checked his irregularities as
far as Lorna was concerned. Still Lane trusted nothing. He became an
almost impassive destiny with the iron consequences in his hands.

Days passed. Every other afternoon and night he spent hours with Bessy
Bell, and found a mounting happiness in the change in her, a deep and
ever deeper insight into the causes that had developed her. The
balance of his waking hours, which were many, he passed on the
streets, in the ice cream parlors and confectionery dens, at the
motion-picture theatres. He went many and odd times to Colonel
Pepper's apartment, and took a peep into the club-rooms. Some of these
visits were fruitful, but he did not see whom he expected to see
there. At night he haunted the parks, watching and listening. Often he
hired a cheap car and drove it down the river highway, where he would
note the cars he passed or met. Sometimes he would stop to get out and
make one of his scouting detours, or he would follow a car to some
distant roadhouse, or go to the outlying summer pavilions where
popular dances were given. More than once, late at night, he was an
unseen and unbidden guest at one of the gay bathing parties. Strange
and startling incidents seemed to gravitate toward Lane. He might have
been predestined for this accumulation of facts. How vain it seethed
for wild young men and women to think they hid their tracks! Some
trails could not be hidden.

Toward the end of that protracted period of surveillance, Lane knew
that he had become infamous in the eyes of most of that younger set.
He had been seen too often, alone, watching, with no apparent excuse
for his presence. And from here and there, through Bessy and Colonel
Pepper, and Blair, who faithfully hunted him up, Lane learned of the
unfavorable light in which he was held. Society, in the persons of the
younger matrons, took exception to Lane's queer conduct and hinted of
mental unbalance. T