"The man who stole your car did yeoman service for me. I promised him five times this amount. He may never dare appear to get his money. Kindly step in. Will you drive the car yourself?"
"No, thank you," she murmured, obeying because of his masterly manner.
"But really, I hardly know——"
"Please say nothing further about it," he once more interrupted. "I am sorry to have been in any manner connected with an event which has caused you uneasiness; but I am very glad, indeed, to be instrumental in returning your property and relieving your worry. Where do you keep your car?"
She told him the place. It was up in the neighborhood of Columbus Circle. Twenty minutes later the car was "home"—where it would never get away on false pretenses again, and the news of its coming began to go hotly out by wire.
Garrison heard the men call his fair companion Miss Ellis. He called a cab, when she was ready to go, asked for permission to escort her home, and was driven in her company to an old-fashioned house downtown, near Washington Square. There he left her, with a nice old motherly person, and bade her good-by with no expectation of ever beholding her again, despite the murmured thanks she gave him and the half-timid offer of her hand.
When he left and dismissed the cabman he was face to face with the problem of what he should do to find his "wife." His worry all surged back upon him.
He wondered where Dorothy had gone—where she could go, why she had fled from him—and what could he do but wait with impatience some word of her retreat. He had felt her innocence all but established, and love had come like a new great tide upon him. He was lonely now, and thoroughly disturbed.
He had warned her she must go to live in some other house than her own; nevertheless she might have proceeded to the Ninety-third Street residence for things she would require. It was merely a hope. He made up his mind to go to the house without delay, aware that the Robinsons might make all haste to get there and gain an advantage.
Half an hour later he was once more in the place. The housekeeper alone was in charge. No one had been there in his absence.
He had no intention of remaining long, with Dorothy to find, although he felt inclined to await the possible advent of Theodore and his father, whom he meant to eject from the place. As yet he dared not attempt to order the arrest of the former, either for Dorothy's abduction or the crime attempted on himself in the park. The risk was too great—the risk to the fictional marriage between himself and Dorothy.