d be obliged to go in order to find her.
As he now saw into her mind, she had left New York with the intention of
hiding herself in the remote village to which she had ordered her mail
sent under the name of Elvira Brown, whom she evidently knew; but
hearing, either on the car or in the hotel, where she was detained, the
plea which was being made for workers in the factory on the east side of
the river, she had modified her plans to the extent already known, only
to return to her original intention as soon as the attempt to provide for
herself in this independent way had proved a failure.
He would proceed then in her wake, conscious of the fresh disappointment
which awaited her in the loss, through Miss Brown's sudden death, of the
asylum she counted upon. Could he have gone on foot like herself, he
might have been tempted to do so, for a trail is best followed slowly and
with ear and eye very close to the ground. But as this was beyond his
strength, he must wait till an automobile could be procured, and possibly
till Sweetwater should arrive--for Perry was no man for this job. There
were no automobiles in this small town, and it might be necessary to send
up or down the river some distance before one could be found capable of
carrying them over the precipitous road they would be obliged to take in
order to avoid the washout which had driven them to this extremity.
But all would come right in time; and with Sweetwater at his elbow, the
journey would be made and the woman caught, soon enough for him no doubt,
hard as he felt it to wait. Why so hard, he might have found it difficult
to say, since hitherto he had found it easy enough when the goal seemed
sure and it was only with time he had to reckon!
XXV
TERROR
A woman fleeing from publicity as one flies from death--a refined woman,
too, whose life had hitherto been passed in the open!
When Antoinette Duclos, after a night and morning of unprecedented
fatigue and extraordinary fears, with little to upbear her in the way of
food, stepped from the train which brought a few local passengers into
the quiet village of Rexam, she hardly would have been recognized by her
best friend, such marks may a few hours leave upon one battling with
untoward Fate in one supreme effort.
She seemed to realize this, for meeting more than one eye fixed
inquiringly upon her she drew down the veil wound about a sort of cap she
wore till it concealed not only her features b
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