"He idled about the neighborhood for as much as an hour, Miss Hilman, and I did all that I could think of to keep him in view without exposing myself. The man is a fiend with a million eyes! But wait, I'll tell you. At last he moved along, and, of course, I followed faithfully, noting every turn, that I might be able to go again by the same way if possible, or at least to the same place, wherever that might be. For in spite of my care I don't know what was his destination, if he had any. It is for this reason that I say I may have prevented him from some fresh villainy.
"At last, in a street to which I could readily return, he paused. I was across the way from him, and I slipped into a doorway, where I was wholly in the dark. I could see him, though, and for a long, long time he paced slowly back and forth, never once speaking to anybody, or looking about, or getting out of my sight. It didn't matter to me. I would have stayed on till I starved in my tracks, but eventually he crossed the street directly toward me. He could not see me, of that I am certain, but of course he had seen me—and—I am a helpless, good-for-nothing fool, Miss Hilman!"
"Why say that?" asked Clara kindly.
"Because he came straight into the doorway, put his hand lightly on my shoulder and said in that deep, scornful voice of his: 'It is enough, Nicholas Litizki. Let us now go home,' and he laughed disagreeably."
Litizki stared aside with an expression of utter self-contempt.
"I weakly said to myself that it was a ruse to get rid of me, and I followed again as he walked briskly away. He took a street car and went straight to his room in Bulfinch Place. It was past midnight, and so I came this morning, Miss Hilman."
[CHAPTER XIV.]
A NEW DEPARTURE.