"Laura!" It was Farvel, calling from the back-parlor. "Laura! Laura!
Where are you?"

Sue met him as he rushed in. "What----?"

"She's not there!" He ran to the hall door, calling as before.

"She's gone?" Sue went the opposite way, to look from the rear
back-parlor window that commanded a small square of yard.

Mrs. Milo ceased to weep.

"Laura! Laura!" Farvel called up the stairs.

"Hello-o-o-o!" sang back Tottie.

"Laura! Laura!" Now Farvel was on the steps outside. He descended to
the sidewalk, turned homeward, halted, reconsidering, then hurried the
opposite way.

CHAPTER VIII

Hat in hand, and on tiptoe, Clare slipped from her room to the hall,
and down the stairs leading to the service-entrance beneath the front
steps. Her coat was over an arm, and a Japanese wrist-bag hung beside
it. As noiselessly as possible, she let herself out. Then bareheaded
still, but not too hurriedly, and forcing a pleasant, unconcerned
expression, she turned away from the brownstone house--going toward the
Rectory.

Across the street, waiting under steps that offered him the right
concealment, a man was loitering. In the last hour he had seen a
number of people enter Tottie's, and five had left--the child and Mrs.
Colter, a fat man and a slim, and a quaint-looking girl with her hair
in pig-tails. He had stayed on till Clare came out; then as she fled,
but without a single look back, he prepared to follow.

But he did not forsake his hiding-place until she had turned the first
corner. Then he raced forward, peered around the corner cautiously,
located her by the bobbing of her yellow head among other heads all
hatted, and fell in behind her at a discreet distance.

Now she put on her hat--but without stopping. She adjusted her coat,
too. At the end of the block, she crossed the street and made a second
turn.

Once more the man ran at top speed, and was successful in locating the
hat tilted so smartly. And again he settled down to the pace no faster
than hers. Thus the flight and the pursuit began.

At first, Clare walked at a good rate, with her head held high. But
gradually she went more slowly, and with head lowered, as if she were
thinking.

She did not travel at random. Her course was a northern one, though
she turned to right and left alternately, so that she traced a Greek
pattern. Presently, rounding a corner, she turned up the steps of a
house exteriorally no different from To