Scarcely had they accomplished the manoeuver when Grace exclaimed below her breath, "There he is!"
Sure enough, Robert Clinton stood at the narrowest point of their way. He was clinging to an upright, and while thus lifted above the heads of the multitude, sought to scan every face.
"I don't think he has seen us," muttered Hamilton Gregory, instinctively lowering his head.
"We can't get out, now," Grace lamented. "No, he hasn't seen us—yet. But that's the only place of—of escape—and he keeps looking so curiously—he must have been to the store. He knows I'm away. He may have gone to the house."
It was because every side-show of the carnival company had insisted on occupying space around the court-house, and because this space was meager, that the country folk and excursionists and townsmen showed in such compressed numbers at every turn. In reality, however, they were by no means countless; and if Robert's eagle glance continued to travel from face to face, with that maddening thoroughness—
"We'd better separate," Gregory hoarsely whispered. "We'll meet at the station."
"No. If he sees us, what would be the use? Anyway, he'll have to know to-morrow…everybody will know—to-morrow! No," said Grace, overcoming a slight indecision, "the important thing is not to be stopped, whoever sees. Come this way."
"But there's no chance out, that way," Gregory returned, with the obstinacy of the weak. "And if he does see us, it won't do to be seeming to try to hide."
"But we are hiding," Grace said definitely.
"Possibly we can keep moving about, and he will go away."