who had taken him away, and where was he now? He looked toward the house, so solid and dignified, with its façade of lighted windows. He remembered his cozy dinner in the kitchen; he thought of the orderly life going on there.

It was impossible! Yet it was true. He had seen that dead man with his own eyes. He had touched him.

Who else knew? Surely Amy; but it was obvious that she had some one to help her in all emergencies. Mrs. Jones? Ross believed that Mrs. Jones had been well aware of the man’s presence in her room. Eddy? Eddy’s behavior had been highly suspicious.

He refused to go on with this profitless and exasperating train of thought. He was sick of the whole thing. Amy had said that she would “explain everything” to him the next day. Not for a moment did he believe that she would do anything of the sort, but he did hope that at least she would tell him a little. And, anyhow, whatever she told him, whatever happened or did not happen, he was going away—back to normal, honest, decent life.

“I said I’d help her, and, by Heaven, I am!” he thought. “After tonight we’re quits. I’ll hold my tongue about all this; but—I’m going!”

He whacked his stiff arms across his chest.

“Hotel Benderly, West Seventy-Seventh Street,” he said to himself. “I’m going there tomorrow.”

For he no longer saw Phyllis Barron as a danger. He was considerably less infatuated with liberty after these two days. It occurred to him, now, that to be entirely free meant to be entirely alone, and that to be without a friend was not good.

He wanted some one to trust, and he trusted Phyllis. No matter that he had known her only five days; he had seen that she was honest; that she was steadfast, and, loveliest virtue of all, she was self-controlled. He knew that from her one need never dread tears, fury, despairs, selfishness and cajoleries.

Out there, in the cold and dark of his unhappy vigil, he thought of Phyllis, and longed for her smile.

“She’d never in her life get a fellow into a mess like this!” he thought. “But Amy—”

His distrust for his Cousin Amy was without limits. There was nothing, he thought, that she might not do. She was perfectly capable of forgetting all about him, and then, in the morning, if he were found frozen to death at his post, she would pretend to 

 Prev. P 45/90 next