"Don't feel nervous," he said in a low tone. "I will see that no one harms
you. Just walk into the station as if you were my friend. You are, you
know, a friend of long standing, for we have been to a dinner together. I
might be escorting you home from a concert. No one will notice us.
Besides, that hat and coat are disguise enough."
He hurried her through the station and up to the ladies' waiting-room,
where he found a quiet corner and a large rocking-chair, in which he
placed her so that she might look out of the great window upon the
panorama of the evening street, and yet be thoroughly screened from all
intruding glances by the big leather and brass screen of the "ladies'
boot-black."
He was gone fifteen minutes, during which the girl sat quietly in her
chair, yet alert, every nerve strained. At any moment the mass of faces
she was watching might reveal one whom she dreaded to see, or a detective
might place his hand upon her shoulder with a quiet "Come with me."
When Dunham came back, the nervous start she gave showed him how tense and
anxious had been her mind. He studied her lovely face under the great hat,
and noted the dark shadows beneath her eyes. He felt that he must do
something to relieve her. It was unbearable to him that this young girl
should be adrift, friendless, and apparently a victim to some terrible
fear.
Drawing up a chair beside her, he began talking about her ticket.
"You must remember I was utterly at your mercy," she smiled sadly. "I
simply had to let you help me."
"I should be glad to pay double for the pleasure you have given me in
allowing me to help you," he said.
Just at that moment a boy in a blue uniform planted a sole-leather
suit-case at his feet, and exclaimed: "Here you are, Mr. Dunham. Had a
fierce time findin' you. Thought you said you would be by the elevator
door."
"So I did," confessed the young man. "I didn't think you had time to get
down yet. Well, you found me anyhow, Harkness."
The boy took the silver given him, touched his hat, and sauntered off.
"You see," explained Dunham, "it wasn't exactly the thing for you to be
travelling without a bit of baggage. I thought it might help them to trace
you if you really were being followed. So I took the liberty of 'phoning
over to the club-house and telling the boy to bring down the suit-case
that I left there yesterday. I don't exactly know what's in it. I had the
man pack it and send it down to me, thinking I might stay all night at
the club. Then I went home, after all, and forgot to take it along. It
probably hasn't anything very appropriate for a lady's costume, but there
may be a hair-brush and some soap and handkerchiefs. And, anyhow, if
you'll accept it, it'll be something for you to hitch on to. One feels a
little lost even for one night without a rag one can call one's own except
a Pullman towel. I thought it might give you the appearance of a regular
traveller, you know, and not a runaway."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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