Page:Harvey O'Higgins--Don-a-dreams.djvu/175

 They met in the middle of a block. Conroy drew him into a doorway.

"They—they wouldn't cash it," he gasped. "He telegraphed them to stop payment. He must know. They must have written—from the University. He'll be coming himself. What'll I do?"

Don wiped his forehead; the walking and the running had made him hot, and this new catastrophe brought the perspiration out on him like a fear. "I can buy the tickets," he said faintly. "You'd better go and stay with Pittsey. He'll not find you there."

"What'll we do?"

"What? Why, well go to New York, I suppose. There isn't anything else to do now."

"He'll follow us."

"Well, if he can't find you here, how will he—I don't know. Ask Pittsey. Go and ask Pittsey." He disliked the part of a plotter.

Conroy saw himself cast off, like a drowning man, to his own frantic struggles. "You—you won't leave me?" he faltered.

Don asked plaintively: "Why should I leave you? I'll see you to-night. Stay with Pittsey." He found himself looking to Pittsey's high spirits as an intoxicant against depression. He added guiltily as he helped Conroy aboard another car: "I'll hide your things under your bed—in case he comes."

He came.

And he must have come hard on the heels of his telegram, for he arrived at the boarding-house soon after midday, and mounted heavily to the boys' room