His wife accounted for it to the friends about her by stating that Joe had been overworking himself lately, and that morning he complained of a severe headache.
She did not seem to suspect that she had given him cause for his breakdown.
None are so blind as those who refuse to see. It might be this or innocence that caused her to ignore the truth.
He had seen Lillian join the others, and the trio gave him a strange feeling.
“So fair, and yet so false. How can a man trust a woman when he has such a terrible example before his eyes—and her sister too.”
He soon forgot all this. Something else attracted his attention, and he found that there was need of his care. A couple of sinister-looking men passed the house and looked in.
He saw them conversing eagerly together a minute or two later just beyond.
At first an idea sprang into his head that they might be men hired by Prescott to create a disturbance and delay pursuit after the latter had succeeded in reaching his carriage with Lillian.
If this were so, he must take them into his calculations and watch them closely. That their conversation concerned the house where the little gathering was taking place was beyond all doubt, for their motions attested this.