"Certainly, when you write to-morrow you can say what you please about it. Just for to-day I wish you wouldn't. I'll come down early to-morrow morning, and perhaps I will be able to tell you a great deal more than you know now, more than any of us know."
"I do hope you will hear something definite," said Mrs. White, "for you can't tell how much easier I am to know that Lizzie's settled somewhere, that she's alive and in a home. If you only knew that Mr. Strobel was sick in a hospital, now, it would be better, wouldn't it?"
"Nothing is so dreadful as uncertainty," replied Clara; "you'll be very careful what you write then?"
"As for that, Miss Hilman, I don't see that I need to write at all to-day. It's only a day more, and if you say it won't make any difference to you what I say to-morrow, I'll put it off till then if you like."
"I should be so much obliged! Have you seen Mr. Litizki to-day?"
"No, nor the dark gentleman, either. Mr. Litizki's shop is not far from here, if you'd like to see him."
Clara inquired the way, and soon after the young ladies set out for the little tailor's place of business.
Litizki was his own master in business, and he employed two or more fellow-countrymen as assistants, the number varying with the demands of his enterprise. On this day there were several men in the shop, but they were not there as workmen. Most of them had come to talk with Litizki about the Strobel case. He was not very communicative, but that was his way. Nevertheless he had some things to say, and for this reason his acquaintances found that he talked much more freely than usual.
"I tell you," he insisted, his dull eyes glowing with hate, "Alexander Poubalov is in Boston. I am not one to be mistaken in that man, and his presence here means trouble for any, perhaps all of us."
"What could he wish to do against poor Russians, Nicholas Litizki, who have no intention of revisiting their native country?" asked one of the group.