The San Francisco call., 1909-09-05

its window and see Flora Gilsey
sitting trembling within. The
hack wheezed and cramped, and all at
once she heard it scrape the curb. Then
she was lost! She looked up, brave in
her desperation, ready to meet Harry's
eyes. She saw the back of his head
For a moment it loomed directly above
her. then it moved. He was separating
from his companion. With one stride
he vanished out of the square frame of
the window, and there remained full
fronting her. staring in upon her, the
face of his companion.
Back flashed to her memory the gold
smiths shop-dull hues and odors all
at once-and that wide, unwinking
stare that had fixed her from the other
side of the counter. The blue eyed Chi
namanl In the glare of white light, in
his terrible clearness and nearness, she
knew him instantly.
The hack plunged forward, the face
was gone. But she remained nerve
less, powerless to move. frozen in her
stupefaction, while her vehicle pursued
its crazy course. 1t was Gathering up
Sutter street toward Kearny, where at
this hour the town was widest awake,
and the crowd was crowd she knew
At any instant people she knew might
be going in and out of the florists
shops and restaurants, or passing her
in carriages. And what of Flora Gilsey
in her morning dress and garden hat,
in a night hawk of a Telegraph hill
hack, flying through their midst like a
mad woman? They were the least of
her fears She had forgotten them.
The only thing that remained to her
was the memory of Harry and the blue
eyed Chinaman together on the street
corner.
She had been given glimpse of that
large scheme that Harry was carrying
forward somewhere out of her sight
such a glimpse as Clara had given her
in the rifing of her room, as Ella had
shown in her hystericar revelation.
Again she felt the threat of these omi-
nous signs of danger, as a lone general
at a last stand with his troops clus
tered at his back sees in front, and be-
hind, on either side of him, the glitter
of bayonets in the bushes.
She was in the midst of the tangled
traffic of Kearny street. Swimming
lights and crowds were all around
her. She peered forth cautiously upon
it. She saw florid face, woman she
knew casually-and there her eyes
fastened, not for the womans brilliant
presence, but for what she saw direct
ly in front of it, thrown into relief
upon its background short and
shabby figure, foreign, equivocal. reti-
cent, the figure of blue eyed China
man.
He was standing still while the
crowd flowed past him. This time he
was alone. He seemed to be wait
ing, yet not to watch, as If he had
already seen what he was expecting
and knew that it must pass his way.
1t was uncanny, his reappearance, at a
second interval of her route, standing
as If he had stood there from the first,
patient, expectant, motionless. It was
worse than uncanny.
All at once an idea, wild and i1logi-
cal enough, jumped up in her mind.
Couldn't this miserable vehicle that
was numbering like a disabled bug
move faster and rattle her on out of
reach of the glare, the publicity, the
threat of discovery, and, above all. of
her rsdiscomforting notion? She breathed
out relief as the carriage dipped into
the comparative quiet again, and she
felt herself being driven on and up
gently rising street between block
apart, lone gas lamps. She thrust
her face as far out of the window as
she dared, looking back at the lights
and traffic which were drifting behind
her. At this distance she could single
out no one figure from the crowd,
and no figure, which could possibly be
that of the blue eyed Chinaman was
moving up the street behind her. There
only remained disquieting memory Of
him on the corner with Harry. To-
gether they made combination, to
her mind, threatening to the man she
loved for whom she SO desperately
feared.
II ever she had felt herself helpless
it was in this moment passing along
the half lit, half empty street. BY
what she knew, by what she wore
around her neck, she was separated
from all peace abiding citizens-she
was outlawed. Every closed door and
shaded window ESQ many she had
opened or looked out ofD now seemed
shut and shaded against her forever.
Night and the reticent gray city, avert
ing their eyes, let her slip through un-
regarded.
She was passing that section of large,
old fashioned mansions. cupolaed, tow
cred, indistinct at the top of their
high broad steps, or back among the
trees of their gardens. Along the front
Of one stretched a high hedge of lau-
restinas black as a ribbon of the night
capacious of shadows; and it seemed to
Flora that all at once shadow de-
tached itself. She looked with start
It flashed along the pavemsnt-if