Sent her away? What in the world did he mean?
"Don't you understand?" she faltered; "I needed someone to talk to; I had to come to you! Aren't you glad to see me, Mr. Mapy?"
Mr. Mapleson wet his lips. Whatever it was that had troubled him seemed again to have laid its burden on his soul; for when he spoke it was with difficulty, his words clacking brokenly between his teeth.
"Then nothing's happened—nothing up there? They are kind to you? You are happy?" A half-dozen questions came dragging from his lips. After that, of a sudden Mr. Mapleson held out his pipelike arms to her. "Bab, Bab!" he cried. "Tell me you are happy!"
"Oh, happy enough!" she answered dully.
Then she told him what she herself had been told. After that what happened at Mrs. Tilney's was swift.
That evening, as Varick came down the stairs to the L road station on the corner and trudged briskly up the side street toward Mrs. Tilney's, a curious thing occurred. Across the way, as he approached, two men had come out from the shadow of a doorway; and after a sharp glance at him they had followed him, matching their step to his. The night before, the same thing had happened, and the night before that too. What was more, when he had left the bank a moment that morning he had seen one of the pair standing on a corner across Broad Street. What did they want with him? It hardly could have been a coincidence, his seeing them; for on reaching his room he drew the curtain to look and they still were there. Just then a hand rapped at Varick's door; and his face grim, curiously thoughtful, he turned away from the window.
"I beg pardon," said Mr. Mapleson. His manner hurried, he looked about him sharply. "You are alone?" he inquired. "You have a moment you can spare?"
Varick stared at him fixedly. His expression was, in fact, singularly hard and penetrating for one of his usual kindliness; and when he spoke his tone, too, was no less uncompromising.