She was too exhausted to feel triumphant over her conquest.  The only sensations she realized were a dead weariness that hung on her spirit and body like a palpable weight, and, far down in her heart, something that smouldered and burned like a live ember, ready to burst forth and blaze at a touch.

She had walked but a block or two when, through her numbness, crept a dim little shadow of dread.  At first it was nothing more than an inner suggestion to hasten her steps, but gradually it became a conscious impulse to outstrip something or some one behind her—­some one or something whose footfalls, resounding faintly through the deserted street, kept such accurate pace with her own, that they sounded like their echo.

It was not until she had quickened her steps, and found that the other’s steps had quickened, too, not until she had slowed down to almost a saunter, only to discover that the one behind was lagging also, that she acknowledged to herself she was being followed.

Then, from out the far reaches of her memory, came the words of Aunt Amelia’s formula:  “Sir, you are no gentleman.  If you were a gentleman—­” But straightway followed Martha’s trenchant criticism.

“Believe me, that’s rot!  It might go all right on the stage, for a girl to stop, an’ let off some elercution while the villain still pursued her, but here in New York City it wouldn’t work.  Not on your life it wouldn’t.  Villains ain’t pausin’ these busy days, in their mad careers, for no recitation-stunts, I don’t care how genteel you get ’em off.  If they’re on the job, you got to step lively, an’ not linger ’round for no sweet farewells.  Now, you got your little temper with you, all right, all right!  If you also got a umbrella, why, just you make a combine o’ the two an’—­aim for the bull’s eye, though his nose will do just as good, specially if it’s the bleedin’ v’riety.  No!  P’licemen ain’t what I’d reckmend, for bein’ called to the resquer.  In the first place, they ain’t ap’ to be there.  An’, besides, they wouldn’t know what to do if they was.  P’licemen is funny that way.

“They mean well, but they get upset if anythin’ ‘s doin’ on their beat.  They like things quiet.  An’ they don’t like to run in their friends, an’ so, by the time you think you made ’em understand what you’re drivin’ at, the villain has got away, an’ you’re like to be hauled up before the magistrate for disturbin’ the peace, which, bein’ so shy an’ bashful before high officials, p’licemen don’t like to blow in at court without somethin’ to show for the way they been workin’.”

It all flashed across Claire’s mind in an instant, like a picture thrown across a screen.  Then, without pausing to consider what she meant to do, she halted, turned, and—­was face to face with Francis Ronald.

Before he could speak, she flashed upon him two angry eyes.

“What do you mean by following me?”