"Say, there, driver," the Senator cried, "why don't you go ahead? What do you want to halt along here for? I don't want to hurt your feelings, you understand, but I could have more than walked there by this time. Drive up, please." We were now near the hotel. I drew up at the curb, jumped down and opened the cab door. The Senator got out. I did not look at him. I did not dare to feed my hungry eyes upon her face. He took her hand, and when she had stepped upon the pavement, she turned about. "Oh, wait a moment," she said, "my dress is caught. No, it isn't." "I will settle with you in a moment," he remarked, looking back at me, as with haste, though with most gallant gentleness, he urged his daughter toward the door, out of the rain. I looked hard at her now, with my heart full of another night, when she had glanced back at me; I waited, gazing, enchained by her grace, until she reached the door, and then I sprung upon the cab and drove away. The Senator shouted, but I did not look around, until, turning a corner, I glanced back, to see him standing bare-headed in the rain, waving his hat at me. CHAPTER XXV. DOWN A DARK ALLEY. She had wondered where I was, and the soft echo of her sympathy filled my heart with a psalm. Surely she could not have suspected me of Estell's blood. But the Senator--why did he break in as if impatient of my name? Had he grown weary with hearing it? But his interruption, it was not hard to believe, was more of a sorrow than an impatience. I was near the stable now, but I stopped the horse, almost of a mind to turn back, to touch her hand, even if compelled to run away to hide again in fear and shame. I glanced down at my mean garb, I thought of the fierce aspect of my beard-gnarled face, and pride, not fear, forced me to hesitate. "But I will go early in the morning," I mused, as I drove on, still debating, the horse slow under the restraint of my sullenness. "I will shave my face and--" A man stepped out from the shadow into the light and raised his hand--the man who had put me in a tremor of fear. "I want to see you a moment," he said. I was near the sidewalk, at the mouth of an alley, and without a moment of speculation as to what the fellow might mean I leaped from the cab and darted into the alley. He raised a cry and I heard another noise, a pistol shot, perhaps. I plunged through an opening and scrambled over a great pile of scrap-iron; I tore open a frail gate and came out upon a street. People were passing, but they paid but little attention to me. I crossed the street, entered another alley, made as quick time as I could, and came out near the river.