At last, when over half an hour of expectancy had been marked off by the big clock overhead, his suspense came to an end.  He saw Father Forbes’ erect and substantial form, standing on the car platform nearest of all, balancing himself with his white hands on the rails, waiting for something.  Then after a little he came down, followed by a black porter, whose arms were burdened by numerous bags and parcels.  The two stood a minute or so more in hesitation at the side of the steps.  Then Celia descended, and the three advanced.

The importance of not being discovered was uppermost in Theron’s mind, now that he saw them actually coming toward him.  He had avoided this the previous evening, in the Octavius depot, with some skill, he flattered himself.  It gave him a pleasurable sense of being a man of affairs, almost a detective, to be confronted by the necessity now of baffling observation once again.  He was still rather without plans for keeping them in view, once they left the station.  He had supposed that he would be able to hear what hotel they directed their driver to take them to, and, failing that, he had fostered a notion, based upon a story he had read when a boy, of throwing himself into another carriage, and bidding his driver to pursue them in hot haste, and on his life not fail to track them down.  These devices seemed somewhat empty, now that the urgent moment was at hand; and as he drew back behind some other loiterers, out of view, he sharply racked his wits for some way of coping with this most pressing problem.

It turned out, however, that there was no difficulty at all.  Father Forbes and Celia seemed to have no use for the hackmen, but moved straight forward toward the street, through the doorway next to that in which Theron cowered.  He stole round, and followed them at a safe distance, making Celia’s hat, and the portmanteau perched on the shoulder of the porter behind her, his guides.  To his surprise, they still kept on their course when they had reached the sidewalk, and went over the pavement across an open square which spread itself directly in front of the station.  Hanging as far behind as he dared, he saw them pass to the other sidewalk diagonally opposite, proceed for a block or so along this, and then separate at a corner.  Celia and the negro lad went down a side street, and entered the door of a vast, tall red-brick building which occupied the whole block.  The priest, turning on his heel, came back again and went boldly up the broad steps of the front entrance to this same structure, which Theron now discovered to be the Murray Hill Hotel.

Fortune had indeed favored him.  He not only knew where they were, but he had been himself a witness to the furtive way in which they entered the house by different doors.  Nothing in his own limited experience of hotels helped him to comprehend the notion of a separate entrance for ladies and their luggage.  He did not feel quite sure about the significance of what he had observed, in his own mind.  But it was apparent to him that there was something underhanded about it.