"
"Why," I exclaimed, "what the devil is there to protect you from?"
"Jack--Mr. Foe, that is--has been watching this house for days.
He haunts the pavement opposite, all the hours he is off duty.
Mamma is sure that he means evil, and I wish I was sure that he
didn't. He has gone under, Roddy. It is awful to look out, as
Furnilove draws the blinds, and see that figure there stationed,
reproaching us--yet for what harm that we have done him? He is even
ragged. . . . I should not be surprised to hear he was starving.
Yet what can we do?"
"Tell me his address," said I.
She hesitated. "Why should you suppose that I know his address?" she
asked, shading her face.
But I took her up bluntly. "I am sorry," I said, "to be discharging
apophthegms upon you to-night: but you must hear just one other.
Every woman follows and traces a man who has once laid his heart on
her altar. I am sorry, Con, to call up an instance from so far back
in the past: but you knew where to 'phone even for me, this morning.
. . . So own up, child, and tell me, where is Foe?"
"I believe," she answered after a while, the handscreen hiding her
face, "he has found work in one of these emergency hospitals they are
putting up.
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