His face was fiery red, and he cast so keen a look at me that I almost thought he had discovered he was betraying himself.

"It was lucky I was in New York when Louis wired us she had flown," he continued--I omit the oaths which punctuated his phrases. "Lucky I had my men with me, too. I didn't think I'd need them here, but I'd promised them a trip to New York--and then comes Louis's wire. I put them on the track. I guessed she's go to Daly's--old Duchaine was mad about that crazy system of his, and had been writing to him.

"He used to know Daly when they were young men together at Saratoga and Montreal, and in Quebec, in the times when they had good horses and high-play there. I tell you it was ticklish. There was millions of dollars worth of property walking up Broadway, and they'd got her, with a taxi waiting near by, when that devil's fool strolls up and draws a crowd. If I'd been there I'd have----"

A string of vile expletives followed his last remark.

"They got on his track and followed them to the Merrimac," he continued. "And they never came out. They waited all night till nine this morning, and they never came out. My God, I thought her a good girl--it's awful! Who was he? Say, how much do you know?"

His face was dripping with sweat, and he shot an awful look at Jacqueline as she bent over the suit-case. I could hardly keep my hands off him, but Jacqueline's need was too great for me to give vent to my passion.

I remembered now that, after sending Jacqueline to the clerk's desk alone, she had gone to a side entrance and I had joined her there and left the hotel with her in that fashion. At any rate, Simon's words showed me that his hired men were not acquainted with the rest of the night's work.

I gathered from what he had said that the possession of Jacqueline was vitally important both to Leroux and to Tom Carson, for some reason connected with the Northern Exploitation Company, and that they had endeavoured to kidnap her and hold her till the man Louis arrived to advise them.

"How much do you know?" hissed Simon at me.

"Leroux," I said, "I'm not going to tell you anything. You will remember that I was employed by Mr. Carson."

"Ain't I as good as Carson? What are you going to do with her?"

"You'd better go back to the office and wait, unless you want to spoil the game by letting her see you," I said.

I was sure he was hiding from her intentionally, and I could see that he believed I was working for Carson, for though he scowled fearfully at me he seemed impressed by my words.

"I don't know whether Tom's running straight or not," he said huskily; "but let me tell you, young man, it'll pay you to keep in with me, and if you've got any price, name it!"

He shook his heavy fist over me--I believe the clerks thought he was going to strike me, for they came hurrying toward us. But I saw Jacqueline approaching, and, without another word, Leroux turned away.

Jacqueline caught sight of his retreating figure and her eyes widened.

I thought I saw a shadow of fear in them. Then the memory was effaced and she was smiling again.

I instructed the store to call a messenger and have the suit-case taken at once to the baggage-room in the Grand Central station.

"Now, Jacqueline, I'm going to take you to lunch," I said. "And afterward we will start for home."

Outside the store I looked carefully around and espied Leroux almost immediately lighting a cigar in the doorway of a shop. I hit upon a rather daring plan to escape him.

Carson's offices were in a large modern building, with many elevators and entrances. I walked toward it with Jacqueline, being satisfied that Leroux was following us; entered about twenty-five yards before him, and ascended in the elevator, getting off, however, on the floor above that on which the offices were.

I was satisfied that Leroux would follow me a minute later, under the impression that we had gone to the Northern Exploitation Company, and so, after waiting a minute or two, I took Jacqueline down in another elevator, and we escaped through the front entrance and jumped into a taxicab.

I was satisfied that I had thrown Leroux off the scent, but I took the precaution to stop at a gunsmith's shop and purchase a pair of automatic pistols and a hundred cartridges. The man would not sell them to me there on account of the law, but he promised to put them in a box and have them delivered at the station, and there, in due course, I found them.

But I was very uneasy until we found ourselves in the train. And then at last everything was accomplished--our baggage upon the seats beside us and our berths secured. At three precisely the train pulled out, and Jacqueline nestled down beside me, and we looked at each other and were happy.

And then, at the very moment when the wheels began to revolve, Leroux stepped down from a neighbouring train. As he passed our window he espied us.

He started and glared, and then he came racing back toward us, shaking his fists and yelling vile expletives. He tried to swing himself aboard in his fury despite the fact that the doors were all shut. A porter pushed him back and the last I saw of him he was still pursuing us, screaming with rage.

I knew that he would follow on the nine o'clock train, reaching Quebec about five the following afternoon. That gave us five hours' grace.

It was not much, but it was something to have Jacqueline safe with me even until the morrow.

I turned toward her, fearful that she had recognized the man and realized the situation. But she was smiling happily at my side, and I was confident then that, by virtue of that same mental inhibition, she had neither seen nor heard the fellow.

"Paul, it is _bon voyage_ for both of us," she said.

"Yes, my dear."

She looked at me thoughtfully a minute.

"Paul, when we get home----"

"Jacqueline?"

"I do not know," she said, putting her palms to her head. "Perhaps I shall remember then. But you--you must stay with me, Paul."

Her lips quivered slightly. She turned her head away and looked out of the window at the horrible maze of houses in the Bronx and the disfiguring sign-boards.

New York was slipping away. All my old life was slipping away like this--and evil following us. I slipped one of the automatics out of my suit-case into my pocket and swore that I would guard Jacqueline from any shadow of harm.

Each minute that I spent with her increased my passion for her. I had ceased to have illusions on that score. One question recurred to my mind incessantly. Could she be ignorant that she had a husband somewhere? Would she tell me--or was this the chief of the memories that she had laid aside?

I opened one of the newspapers that I had bought at the station bookstand, dreading to find in flaring letters the headlines announcing the discovery of the body.

I found the announcement--but in small type. The murder was ascribed to a gang battle--the man could not be identified, and apparently both police and public considered the affair merely one of those daily slayings that occur in that city.

Another newspaper devoted about the same amount of space to the account, but it published a photograph of the dead man, taken in the alley, where, it appeared, the reporter had viewed the body before it had been removed. The photograph looked horribly lifelike. I cut it out and placed it in my pocketbook.

For the present I felt safe. I believed the affair would be forgotten soon. And meanwhile here was Jacqueline.

I turned toward her. She was asleep at my side, and her head drooped on my shoulder. We sat thus all the afternoon, while the city disappeared behind us, and we passed through Connecticut and approached the Vermont hills.

Then we had a gay little supper in the dining car. Afterward I walked to the car entrance and flung the broken dog collar away--across the fields. That was the last link that bound us to the past.

Then the berths were lowered and made up; and fastening from my upper place the curtain which fell before Jacqueline's, I knew that, for one night more, at least, I held her in safe ward.

CHAPTER V

M. LE CURe

The very obvious decision at which I arrived after a night of cogitation in my berth was that Jacqueline was to pass as my sister. I explained my plan to her at breakfast.

There had been the examination of baggage at the frontier and the tiresome change to a rear car in the early morning, and most of us were heavy-eyed, but she looked as fresh and charming as ever in her new waist of black lace and the serge skirt which she had bought the day before. It seemed impossible to realize that I was really seated opposite her in the dining car, talking amid the punctuating chatter of a party of red-cheeked French-Canadian school children who had come on the train at Sherbrooke, bound for their home on the occasion of the approaching Christmas holidays.