ng made an inquiry of a
hackman, had started along the street, and, after a moment's thought,
Bassett fell into line behind him. He was extremely interested and
increasingly cheerful. He remained well behind, and with his newspaper
rolled in his hand assumed the easy yet brisk walk of the commuters
around him, bound for home and their early suburban dinners.

Half way along Station Street Gregory stopped before the Livingstone
house, read the sign, and rang the doorbell. The reporter slowed down,
to give him time for admission, and then slowly passed. In front of
Harrison Miller's house, however, he stopped and waited. He lighted a
cigarette and made a careful survey of the old place. Strange, if this
were to prove the haven where Judson Clark had taken refuge, this old
brick two-story dwelling, with its ramshackle stable in the rear, its
small vegetable garden, its casual beds of simple garden flowers set in
a half acre or so of ground.

A doctor. A pill shooter. Jud Clark!

IX

Elizabeth had gone about all day with a smile on her lips and a sort of
exaltation in her eyes. She had, girl fashion, gone over and over the
totally uneventful evening they had spent together, remembering small
speeches and gestures; what he had said and she had answered.

She had, for instance, mentioned Clare Rossiter, very casually. Oh
very, very casually. And he had said: "Clare Rossiter? Oh, yes, the tall
blonde girl, isn't she?"

She was very happy. He had not seemed to find her too young or
particularly immature. He had asked her opinion on quite important
things, and listened carefully when she replied. She felt, though, that
she knew about one-tenth as much as he did, and she determined to
read very seriously from that time on. Her mother, missing her that
afternoon, found her curled up in the library, beginning the first
volume of Gibbon's "Rome" with an air of determined concentration, and
wearing her best summer frock.

She did not intend to depend purely on Gibbon's "Rome," evidently.

"Are you expecting any one, Elizabeth?" she asked, with the frank
directness characteristic of mothers, and Elizabeth, fixing a date in
her mind with terrible firmness, looked up absently and said:

"No one in particular."

At three o'clock, with a slight headache from concentration, she went
upstairs and put up her hair again; rather high this time to make her
feel taller. Of course, it was not likely he would come. He was very
b