Betty alighted at her corner and walked swiftly off toward the North Drive without a backward glance, but her acute ear told her that the taxicab had turned and was trailing slowly in her wake.
Deliberately she slackened her pace and the machine stopped, hastening on she heard it start again. The first cross street was but a few yards away, and on a sudden inspiration Betty started to run, turning the corner sharply, and darting into a narrow tradesman's alley between two houses. There she crouched motionless while the taxicab veered around the corner, stopped with a harsh grating of brakes and then chugged uncertainly on and out of sight.
Betty's face was scarlet, and her eyes ablaze, but her heart was turned to lead within her breast, for her pursuer had leaned for an instant from the cab window and she had recognized the face of Herbert Ross.
CHAPTER XII.
The Fangs of the Wolf.
"Misfortune seems to be treading upon the heels of our friends more relentlessly this season than before." Doctor Bayard looked up from his salad with a sympathetic sigh. "Our poor dear Professor dying in Chicago, Mortimer dangerously ill, and yet another gone down under the strain of financial worries and cares."
Betty glanced quickly at his grave ascetic face crowned with its wealth of snowy hair and then her eyes wandered to her employer.
Mrs. Atterbury was sitting very straight in her chair, her expression as immobile as ever, but the girl fancied that a shade of weariness had clouded the glitter of the keen, black eyes and the fine lines had deepened about the firm, chiselled lips.
"Professor Blythe will recover." There was a finality in her tone which brooked no argument. "He has been in a far more critical condition than this and regained his health almost miraculously."
"But consider the attendant circumstances, my dear Marcia." Wolvert's voice, coolly ironical, intervened. "The previous illnesses must have weakened his constitution, and—er—complications may set in at any time."