What strange influence could this man Hobart exercise over the girl? To
West's judgment he was in no way the sort of man to appeal to Natalie
Coolidge. He was of a low, cunning order, with some degree of outward
polish, to be sure, yet inherently tough, and exhibiting marks of a
birth-right which indelibly stamped him of a social class far below her
own. Surely, she could not love the fellow, yet unquestionably he
possessed a mysterious power over her, difficult to explain through any
other hypothesis. If West had not known the young woman under different
conditions, he might have accepted this theory, and dismissed the whole
matter from mind. But it was the haunting memory of that earlier Natalie
Coolidge, the mistress of Fairlawn, which would not permit his complete
surrender. She had seemed all that his dream of womanhood called for.
Unconsciously, he had given her his heart, and he could not tear the
remembrance from mind. There was something wrong, terribly wrong; what it
was he had no means of knowing, yet, there in the dark, he determined he
would know, would never be content until he learned the whole truth. All
his hope, all his future, depended on the answer.
Hobart and Turner were absent for some little while; the sound of their
voices ceased, but the distant flicker of the lantern enabled West to
trace their progress up the alley, and then back again. They returned in
no pleasant humour, convinced that their expected victim had escaped
safely, but made no further effort to search the yard.
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