But Grace lingered. "That looks like him now," she thought. "He is just leaving the train. He seems to be waiting for some one."
She stood in the shadow of the station watching the man. Then she saw another man rapidly approaching. The newcomer walked straight up to the stranger and shook hands with him. Then the two men turned and she obtained a full-face view of them both.
Grace gave a little gasp of surprise, for the newcomer who had shaken the hand of the crook was Henry Hammond.
CHAPTER XX
MARIAN'S CONFESSION
Grace reached home that night with her head in a whirl. She could think of nothing save the fact that she had seen Henry Hammond warmly welcome a man whom she knew in her heart to be a professional crook. It formed the first link in the chain of evidence she hoped to forge against him. She had become so strongly imbued with the idea that Hammond was an impostor that the incident at the station only served to confirm her belief.
The Phi Sigma Tau were besieged with questions the next day, and at recess the five members held forth separately to groups of eager and admiring girls on the glories of the visit.
"Where is Marian Barber?" asked Grace of Ruth Deane, as they were leaving the senior locker-room at the close of the noon recess.
"She hasn't been in school to-day," replied Ruth. "I suppose what happened Friday was too much for her."