“Well, don’t be worrying about it,” Blount insisted soothingly. “Just be on your guard, and if you have to stay in town late any night, let me know and I’ll come and pick you up. Or, if I can’t do that, stay in town yourself. Go to one of the big hotels, where you’ll feel thoroughly safe.” For several days Gregory, to avoid being a nuisance, returned to the hotel early. Also he secured a permit, and weighted his hip pocket with an unwieldy weapon which he resented, but which he nevertheless kept under his pillow at night. His uncertainty worked on his imagination to such an extent that he began to note suspicious moves on the part of nearly everybody. Any new character about the hotel annoyed him. He felt certain that there was a group of people connected with Mrs. Skelton who were watching him, though he could not prove it, even to himself. “This is ridiculous,” he finally told himself. “I’m acting like a five-year-old in the dark. Who’s going to hurt me?” And he wrote laughing letters to his wife about it, and tried to resume his old-time nonchalance. It wasn’t quite possible, however, for not long after that something happened which disturbed him greatly. At least he persuaded himself to that effect, for that was a characteristic of these incidents--their openness to another interpretation than the one he might fix on. In spite of Blount’s advice, one night about nine he decided to return to Triton Hall, and that without calling his friend to his aid. “What’s the use?” he asked himself. “He’ll be thinking I’m the biggest coward ever, and after all, nothing has happened yet, and I doubt whether they’d go that far, anyhow.” He consoled himself with the idea that perhaps humanity was better than he thought. But just the same, as he left the train at Triton and saw it glimmering away over the meadows eastward, he felt a little uncertain as to his wisdom in this matter. Triton Station was a lonely one at nearly all times save in the morning and around seven at night, and to-night it seemed especially so. Only he alighted from the train. Most people went to and fro in their cars by another road. Why should he not have done as Blount had suggested, he now asked himself as he surveyed the flat country about;--called him to his aid, or stayed in the city? After all, hiring a car would not have been much better either, as Blount had pointed out, giving a possible lurking enemy a much sought point of attack. No, he should have stayed in town or returned with Blount in his car, and telling himself this, he struck out along the lonely, albeit short, stretch of road which led to the hotel and which was lighted by only a half dozen small incandescent globes strung at a considerable distance apart.