The Mission of Poubalov — page 98: what you’re looking at

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

94 STRANGE EXIT OF POUBALOYD. this in spite of the black pictures that Litizki and Pa Palovna had drawn of him. “I am delighted, Miss Hilman,’’ he said, ‘‘to observe that you endure your sorrow and your remarkable vom so well.’’ ‘‘I am told that nothing escapes you,’’ replied Clara, ‘‘and so I suppose you know all about my search for the driver of Mr. Strobel’s second carriage.”’ ‘Miss Clara,’’ said a servant at the hall door, “a man who says his name is Billings wishes to see you.”’ ‘‘Show him into the library, please,’’ answered Clara, then to Poubalov—‘‘Will you pardon me? This is the man of whom I was speaking, and I must see him.”’ ‘‘Pray do,’’ responded the Russian; ‘‘my message can ) well wait until he has gone.’’ Clara at once crossed the hall into the library. The min- ute she was out of the room Poubalov went to the door and cautiously opened it a little way. He closed it quickly - and reflected. Clara had left the door from the hall to the library wide open, and the street door would be easily in view to anybody in the library. Poubalov went from one to another of the several win- dows and looked out. From one at the side of the room he saw a few yards of turf bounded by a low hedge, and be- yond that the park-like grounds surrounding a large dwelling. This window was partially open. | The spy looked once more toward the hall door. He had given his hat and stick to the servant, and they had heen placed somewhere in the hall. He shrugged his shoulders, pushed the window further up and stepped out. A moment later, Louise, who was idly gazing out of the dining-room window, was considerably startled to see a man, whom in the gathering dusk she could not recog- nize, leap over the hedge into the adjoining grounds, and disappear behind the shrubbery. (E(0) boo cS (ef 0) _——— a eee