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