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 blew he probably took another couple that we saw for Gerald and me. Otherwise, I believe, he would have jumped off."

"By the time he found out his carelessness he couldn't. However, if he had met you in New York, my lad, and prevented your coming here to me he could yet get hold of that money. Down at one or the other passenger-station I don't doubt that he hung about waiting for you. We'll find out if your telegrams were called for. George can go and ask about that for us."

"After we had met him in New York, sir, he would have robbed us?"

"Certainly, if he couldn't manage it before. He could have taken you to his quarters. (Likely they are handsome enough, as he said, and they may be not far from where we sit tonight.) There he would have given you, probably, a better supper than I have, added a dose to insure your sleeping, robbed you, and found means to get rid of you, very likely without injuring you, before morning." (Mr. Hilliard did not choose to suggest any other notion than that "very likely without injuring you;" but he had others.) "He would contrive it so that you could never have him traced out. It's not