The Mission of Poubalov — page 107: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

a Me WHAT BECAME OF LITIZKI. 103 CHAPTER XIII, WHAT BECAME OF LITIZKI, Clara retired before her uncle returned, and when at last he appeared, it was only to pack his bag and hurry _ away to catch the midnight train for New York. ‘‘I may be gone a week,’’ he told Louise, ‘‘and I may get back in two days. Telegraph me at the Travelers’ Ho- tel, if Iam wanted for anything.’’ Mr. Pembroke’s departure was a great disappointment to Clara. She reproached herself that she had not made an opportunity to tell him about her conversation with Pou- balov and Litizki; it was his right to know everything | that could possibly bear upon the case, and could she have told him, she would have besought him to advise her. _— == ser = ae She was now in a bewildering maze of doubts and uncer- tainties. Billings had lied to her; she was almost as sure of that as if she had already proved it; but at what part of his story the falsehood began she could only guess. _ There was no doubt that Ivan had taken Billings’ carriage. So Bo Did he give the driver orders to go to the Park Square Station? Did Billings drive to the station? The latter _ question she could answer with some degree of satisfac- — ——_ = tion by inquiry of the man O’Brien, and that seemed the first thing to do; but what then? Poubalov had called to say something, and had not only - gone away without saying it, but had gone in such wise « a as to leave no reasonable doubt that he dared not face the driver of the closed carriage. Was it not an inevitable in- _ ference that Billings had been hired by the Russian? It was with evident difficulty that Billings had stumbled through the story as it was. Would not Poubalov, recog- nizing the driver’s mental inferiority, have argued that if (COLA OOKS OUMN (C(O mn