“We’ll go out for breakfast.
This place down here doesn’t appeal to me very much.”
“All right,” said Carrie.
They went out, and at the corner the commonplace Irish individual was standing, eyeing him.
Hurstwood could scarcely refrain from showing that he knew of this chap’s presence.
The insolence in the fellow’s eye was galling.
Still they passed, and he explained to Carrie concerning the city.
Another restaurant was not long in showing itself, and here they entered.
“What a queer town this is,” said Carrie, who marvelled at it solely because it was not like Chicago.
“It Isn’t as lively as Chicago,” said Hurstwood.
“Don’t you like it?”
“No,” said Carrie, whose feelings were already localised in the great Western city.
“Well, it isn’t as interesting,” said Hurstwood.
“What’s here?” asked Carrie, wondering at his choosing to visit this town.
“Nothing much,” returned Hurstwood.
“It’s quite a resort. There’s some pretty scenery about here.”
Carrie listened, but with a feeling of unrest.
There was much about her situation which destroyed the possibility of appreciation.
“We won’t stay here long,” said Hurstwood, who was now really glad to note her dissatisfaction.
“You pick out your clothes as soon as breakfast is over and we’ll run down to New York soon.
You’ll like that.
It’s a lot more like a city than any place outside Chicago.”
He was really planning to slip out and away.
He would see what these detectives would do — what move his employers at Chicago would make — then he would slip away — down to New York, where it was easy to hide.
He knew enough about that city to know that its mysteries and possibilities of mystification were infinite.
The more he thought, however, the more wretched his situation became.
He saw that getting here did not exactly clear up the ground.
The firm would probably employ detectives to watch him — Pinkerton men or agents of Mooney and Boland.
They might arrest him the moment he tried to leave Canada.
So he might be compelled to remain here months, and in what a state!
Back at the hotel Hurstwood was anxious and yet fearful to see the morning papers.
He wanted to know how far the news of his criminal deed had spread.
So he told Carrie he would be up in a few moments, and went to secure and scan the dailies.
No familiar or suspicious faces were about, and yet he did not like reading in the lobby, so he sought the main parlour on the floor above and, seated by a window there, looked them over.
Very little was given to his crime, but it was there, several “sticks” in all, among all the riffraff of telegraphed murders, accidents, marriages, and other news.
He wished, half sadly, that he could undo it all.
Every moment of his time in this far-off abode of safety but added to his feeling that he had made a great mistake.
There could have been an easier way out if he had only known.
He left the papers before going to the room, thinking thus to keep them out of the hands of Carrie.
“Well, how are you feeling?” he asked of her.
She was engaged in looking out of the window.
“Oh, all right,” she answered.
He came over, and was about to begin a conversation with her, when a knock came at their door.
“Maybe it’s one of my parcels,” said Carrie.
Hurstwood opened the door, outside of which stood the individual whom he had so thoroughly suspected.
“You’re Mr. Hurstwood, are you?” said the latter, with a volume of affected shrewdness and assurance.
“Yes,” said Hurstwood calmly.
He knew the type so thoroughly that some of his old familiar indifference to it returned.
Such men as these were of the lowest stratum welcomed at the resort.
He stepped out and closed the door.