Page:Hugh Pendexter--Kings of the Missouri.djvu/38

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Chapter II

AT TILTON'S PLACE


TURNING in from Main to Pine Street Lander loitered along until he reached a position under some garden bushes which rose high above a fence and afforded a deep splotch of shadow. Two houses below was the home of Jean Baptiste Tradeau who tutored the youth of St. Louis. The lover's gaze was directed through the dusk over the way he had come, for the Parker home was beyond the intersection of Main Street, and it lacked fully fifteen minutes of the hour.

When he halted by the bushes he had the street to himself but now he heard steps and the low murmur of voices from the direction of the Tradeau house. He gave these sounds no attention, as he was now glimpsing a slim, erect figure gowned in white, passing through the shaft of light of a window up the street. His heart began

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