Then two men came hurrying past without paying any attention to the denizens of the neighborhood who were sitting in the gloom on the stoop.  The street light revealed the faces of the men as it had shown to them the girl’s features.  One was Richard Dodd.  Unmistakably, they were following the girl.  Farr heard Dodd say:  “Slow up!  Give her time to get there.  She’s headed all right.”

And Farr stared after those men, more than ever amazed.

One of them was obtrusively a clergyman—­that is to say, he was cased in a frock-coat that flapped against his calves, wore a white necktie, and carried a book under his arm.

Dodd was attired immaculately in gray, and as he walked he whipped a thin cane nervously.  They began to stroll soon after they had hurried past the stoop, and were sauntering leisurely when they turned into Rose Alley.

“I now say two ba gars!” exploded Etienne.  “Because I been see the jailbird, Dennis Burke, all dress up like minister, go past here with the nephew of Colonel Dodd.  And they go ’long after la belle mam’selle.”

“A jailbird!”

“He smart, bad man, that Dennis Burke.  But he was hire by the big man to do something with the votes on election-time—­so to cheat—­and he get caught and so he been in the state prison.  But he seem to be out all free now and convert to religion in some funny way.  Eh?”

“Etienne, are you sure of what you are talking about?” demanded Farr.  His voice trembled.  The visit of that handsome girl to that quarter of the city—­those men so patently pursuing her—­there was a sinister look to the affair.

“Oh, we all know that Burke.  He hire many votes in this ward for many years.  He known in Marion just so well as the steeple on the hotel de ville.  And that odder—­that young mans, we know him, for his oncle is Colonel Dodd.  Oh yes!”

“Good night, Etienne—­and to you Miss Zelie!” said Farr, curtly, walking off toward the entrance of Rose Alley.  He did not ask the old man to go with him.  He was drawn in two directions by his emotions and stopped after he had taken a few steps.  This seemed like espionage in a matter which was none of his concern.  It was entirely possible that the confidential secretary of Colonel Dodd and the nephew of that gentleman might have common business even in Rose Alley and at that time of evening.

But the matter of that masquerading ballot-falsifier, just out of state prison, overcame Farr’s scruples about meddling in the affairs of Kate Kilgour.

He turned the corner into the alley in season to see the two men far ahead of him; they passed out of the radiance shed by a dim light and he saw no more of them.  He walked the length of the alley and was not able to locate any of the party.  At its lower end the alley was closed in by houses, and it was plain that the people he sought had not passed out into another thoroughfare.  He marched back, scrutinizing the outside of buildings, trying to conjecture what business the handsome girl and the two men could have in that section at that hour, and where they had entered to prosecute that business.