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Page 12
"Why--why have you told so much to me, an absolute stranger?" she
asked, searching his face. "Might I not hand you over to the
detectives who, you say, will soon be looking for you?"
"You might," he answered quickly, "but you won't."
There was a note of appeal in his voice as he pursued slowly, not as
if seeking protection, but as if hungry for friendship and most of
all her friendship, "Mrs. Dunlap, I have heard what the people at
the hotel say is your story. I think I understand, as much as a man
can. Anyhow, I know that you can understand. I have reached a point
where I must tell some one or go insane. It is only a question of
time before I shall be caught. We are all caught. Tell me," he asked
eagerly, bending down closer to her with an almost breathless
intensity in his face as though he would read her thoughts, "am I
right? The story of you which I have heard since I came here is not
the truth, the whole truth. It is only half the truth--is it not?"
Constance felt that this man was dangerously near understanding her,
as no one yet had seemed to be. It set her heart beating wildly to
know that he did. And yet she was not afraid. Somehow, although she
did not betray the answer by a word or a look, she felt that she
could trust him.
Through the door of escape from the penalty of her forgeries, which
Carlton Dunlap had thrown open for her by the manner of his death,
Constance had passed unsuspected. To return to New York, however,
had become out of the question. She had plenty of money for her
present needs, although she thought it best to say nothing about it
lest some one might wonder and stumble on the truth.
She had closed up the little studio apartment, and had gone to a
quiet resort in the pines. Here, at least, she thought she might
live unobserved until she could plan out the tangled future of her
life.
There had seemed to be no need to conceal her identity, and she had
felt it better not to do so. She knew that her story would follow
her, and it had. She was prepared for that. She was prepared for the
pity and condescension of the gossips and had made up her mind to
stand aloof.
Then came a day when a stranger had registered at the hotel. She had
not noticed him especially, but it was not long before she realized
that he was noticing her. Was he a detective? Had he found out the
truth in some uncanny way? She felt sure that the name on the hotel
register, Malcolm Dodd, was not his real name.
Constance had not been surprised when the head waiter had seated the
young man at her table. No doubt he had manoeuvred it so. Nor did
she avoid the guarded acquaintance that resulted in the natural
course of events.
One afternoon, shortly after his arrival, she had encountered him
unexpectedly on a walk through the pines. He appeared surprised to
meet her, yet she knew intuitively that he had been following her.
Still, it was so different now to have any one seek her company
that, in spite of her uncertainty of him, she almost welcomed his
speaking.
There was a certain deference in his manner, too, which did not
accord with Constance's ideas of a detective. Yet he did know
something of her. How much! Was it merely what the rest of the world
knew? She could not help seeing that the man was studying her, while
she studied him. There was a fascination about it, a fascination
that the human mystery always possesses for a woman. On his part, he
showed keenly his interest in her.
Constance had met him with more frankness as she encountered him
often during the days that followed. She had even tried to draw him
out to talk of himself.
"I came here," he had said one day when they were passing the spot
where he had overtaken her first, "without knowing a soul, not
expecting to meet any one I should care for, indeed hoping to meet
no one."
Constance had said nothing, but she felt that at last he was going
to crash down the barrier of reserve. He continued earnestly,
"Somehow or other I have come to enjoy these little walks."
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