CHAPTER XXIII.
'YOU ARE SUFFERING IN MY STEAD.'
It was useless to argue, and how could I refuse? For the first time, and greatly to my amazement, I saw that self-contained and sweetly reasonable young woman deaf to reason, and in that strange condition which, for lack of power to understand, we men call 'hysterical.'
I went, and in spite of myself I left her presence feeling somehow aroused and watchful—quite prepared, for a little time, to see an assassin at every corner and beneath every tree.
'Do not overtake him,' had been her last command. 'It might offend him. Only see him safe at his own door.'
I was not five minutes behind Lossing, and he could not, or would not, I knew, walk rapidly. I expected to come close upon his heels before I had reached the first corner.
That he would take the most direct and nearest route, I felt, was a matter of course. In fact, he knew no other, or so I thought.
The direct route was straight north to Fifty-seventh Street, and east to the entrance gate; but though I walked fast, and then almost ran, I could see nothing of Lossing and nothing of Dave Brainerd.
What did it mean? When I had reached the end of the first block, without a sight of Lossing, I hastened across the intersecting street and hurried on another block, and still no Lossing. I paused, looked around me, and seeing and hearing nothing, increased my steps almost to a run.
At Fifty-seventh Street I paused, before turning, to look about me and to listen. After the first block, going east, this street became quite densely shaded by the trees on either side.