CHAPTER XXX. SHADOWING HER.
It had been some months since Cherokee and Marrion had met. But he still loved and was guarding her reputation. The little bit of treachery, villainy, or whatever Frost might have meant, he proposed to see through.
It was an awful day, that Friday, rain had been falling since early morning. But nestling his beardless chin into the broad collar of his storm coat, he walked the opposite side of the street from the studio of Willard Frost.
In breathless amazement, he saw a woman pass by the very window. She walked back and forth a time or two, and then she and Frost stood together. The gown was violet, with gold trimmings; he had seen Cherokee wear a dress like that; but he felt there must be some mistake, or everyone is of dual existence. By this one woman he measured the goodness of the world; if there was no truth in her, then it followed with him that there was no truth in the world.
When the woman, heavily veiled and warmly wrapped, came down the step and turned down the street, he followed her. All that had passed was like a dim bewildering vision. All that he saw in the streets of the city—the faces he beheld—all was like a monstrous nightmare. It did not seem that anything was real.
He still shadowed the woman who went directly to the elevated train, and when they came to the station where he knew Milburn got off, he anxiously watched the woman.
She got up, and, without looking to right or left, hurried out of the coach. It had stopped raining, but she raised her umbrella and went on.
Marrion walked behind her until there was no one near, then he stepped up:
“I must speak to you,” he said.
She turned upon him an unmerciful stare.
“How dare you, sir?”
“Forgive me, but I must understand it all,” he exclaimed, excitedly.
“But what right have you, Mr. Latham, to shadow me, or question?”
“To save Robert Milburn’s home—that’s what. I should think you, who owe so much to his friendship, would not dare to do this.” He caught her by the hand:
“Come with me where we can talk it over alone, or you will never regret it but once, and that once will be always.”
She consented reluctantly, and they walked off together.
So complicated are the webs of fate, that this step, though hastily taken, gained a secret of the most vital moment to him and to Robert Milburn.