We were a very silent party as we came away from the hospital. June Jenrys looked as if the word 'heartless' were yet sounding in her ears. I was assuring myself that it was best not to speak of what the surgeon had told me, and the little Quakeress was evidently quite lost to herself in her thoughts of, and for, others. As I took my leave of them, Miss Ross put out her hand, and, after thanking me for my escort, said:
'I will not trouble thee to accompany me to-morrow; I know the way perfectly, and can go very well by myself. Indeed I prefer to do so. I shall not even let June here accompany me—at first.'
CHAPTER XX.
'WE MUST UNDERSTAND EACH OTHER.'
The next morning brought a telegram from Boston, in reply to my wire asking instructions about the rooms on Madison Avenue. It read:
'Hold rooms until we come. Short delay. Unavoidable.
'Trent.'
The second day after our visit to the hospital the photograph of Gerald Trent was received by Miss Jenrys, and at once turned over to me, I, in my turn, putting it into the hands of an expert 'artist,' with orders to turn out several dozen copies as rapidly as possible.
These I meant to distribute freely among specials, policemen, the Columbian Guards at the Fair City; and others were to be furnished the chief of police for use about the city proper, for I meant to have a thorough search made in the hotels, boarding places, furnished rooms, and in all the saloons and other haunts of vice and crime, wherever an officer, armed with one of these pictures and offering a princely reward, could penetrate.