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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14835 ***
+
+[Illustration: The Burglar]
+
+
+
+
+The Burglar and the Blizzard
+
+_A CHRISTMAS STORY_
+
+BY ALICE DUER MILLER
+
+
+AUTHOR OF “THE BLUE ARCH,” ETC.
+
+WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
+CHARLOTTE HARDING
+
+Hearst’s International Library Co., Inc.
+
+
+1914
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+Contents
+
+ Chapter I
+ Chapter II
+ Chapter III
+ Chapter IV
+ Chapter V
+ Chapter VI
+ Chapter VII
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+
+
+ The Burglar
+ “It was a young lady who disposed of the silver”
+ “Good God,” he cried, “what a night you have had”
+ He let McVay out of the closet
+ She was dressed in his sister’s sables—ready for departure
+ “Please move a little back, Holland,” he said, “I want to get nearer the fire”
+ “My dear fellow—pray allow me”
+ “I have here a slight token, in honor of the day”
+
+
+
+
+The Burglar and the Blizzard
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+Geoffrey Holland stood up and for the second time surveyed the
+restaurant in search of other members of his party, two fingers in the
+pocket of his waistcoat, as if they had just relinquished his watch. He
+was tall enough to be conspicuous and well bred enough to be
+indifferent to the fact, good looking, in a bronzed, blond clean-shaven
+way, and branded in the popular imagination as a young and active
+millionaire.
+
+At a neighbouring table a man lent forward and whispered to the other
+men and women with him:
+
+“Do you know who that is?—that is young Holland.”
+
+“What, that boy! He doesn’t look as if he were out of school.”
+
+“No,” said one of the women, elaborating the comment, “he does not look
+old enough to order a dinner, let alone managing mines.”
+
+“Oh, I guess he can order a dinner all right,” said the first man. “He
+is older than he looks. He must be twenty-six.”
+
+“What do you suppose he does with all that money?”
+
+The first thing he did with it, at the moment, was to purchase an
+evening paper, for just then he snapped his fingers at a boy, who
+promptly ran to get him one.
+
+“Well, one thing he does,” answered the man who had first given
+information, “he has an apartment in this building, up stairs, and I
+bet that costs him a pretty penny.”
+
+In the meantime Holland had opened his paper, scanned the head lines,
+and was about to turn to the stock quotations when a paragraph of
+interest caught his eye. So marked was the gesture with which he raised
+it to his eyes that his admirers at the next table noticed it, and
+speculated on the subject of the paragraph.
+
+It was headed: “Millionaires’ Summer Homes Looted,” and said further:
+
+“Hillsborough, December 21st. The fourth in a series of daring
+robberies which have been taking place in this neighbourhood during the
+past month occurred last night when the residence of C. B. Vaughan of
+New York was entered and valuable wines and bric-a-brac removed. The
+robbery was not discovered until this morning when a shutter was
+observed unfastened on the second story. On entering the watchman found
+the house had been carefully gone over, and although only a few objects
+seem to be missing, these are of the greatest value. The thief
+apparently had plenty of time, and probably occupied the whole night in
+his search. This is the more remarkable because the watchman asserts
+that he spent at least an hour on the piazza during the night. How the
+thief effected an entrance by the second story is not clear. During the
+past five weeks the houses of L. G. Innes, T. Wilson and Abraham
+Marheim have been entered in a manner almost precisely similar. There
+was a report yesterday that some of the Marheim silver had been
+discovered with a dealer in Boston, but that he could not identify the
+person from whom he bought them further than that she was a young lady
+to whom they might very well have belonged. The fact that it was a
+young lady who disposed of them to him suggests that the goods must
+have changed hands several times. The Marheim family is abroad, and the
+servants....”
+
+Here a waiter touched his elbow.
+
+“Mr. and Mrs. Vaughan have come, sir,” he said.
+
+“Send up to my apartment and tell Mrs. May we are sitting down to
+dinner,” returned Holland promptly, and advanced to meet the prosperous
+looking couple approaching.
+
+“I’m afraid we are late,” said the lady, “but can you blame us? Have
+you heard? We have been telegraphing to Hillsborough all the afternoon
+to find out what has gone.”
+
+“You are not late. My sister has not come down yet. I was just reading
+about your robbery. Have you lost anything of value?”
+
+“Oh, I suppose so,” said Mrs. Vaughan cheerfully, sitting down and
+beginning to draw off her gloves. “We had a Van Dyke etching, and some
+enamels that have gone certainly, and Charlie feels awfully about his
+wine.”
+
+“Yes,” said Mr. Vaughan gloomily. “I tell you he is going to have a
+happy time with that champagne. It is the best I ever tasted.”
+
+“Upon my word,” said Geoffrey, “they are a nice lot of countrymen up
+there. Four robberies and not so much as a clue.”
+
+“_You_ need not be afraid,” said Mrs. Vaughan rather spitefully. “In
+spite of all your treasures, I don’t believe any thief would take the
+trouble to climb to the top of your mountain.”
+
+Holland’s selection of a distant hilltop for his large place pleased no
+true Hillsboroughite. As an eligible bachelor he was inaccessible, and
+as a property-holder he was too far away to increase the value of
+Hillsborough real-estate by his wonderful lawns and gardens.
+
+Mrs. Vaughan’s irritation did not appear to disturb Geoffrey, for he
+laughed very amiably, and replied that he could only hope that the
+thief was as poor a pedestrian as she seemed to imagine as he should
+not like to lose any of his things; and he added that in his opinion
+Vaughan ought to be starting for Hillsborough at once.
+
+“Pooh,” said that gentleman, “I can’t go with the market in this
+condition,—would lose more than the whole house is worth.”
+
+“You would go duck-shooting in a minute,” said Holland, “and this would
+be a good deal better sport.”
+
+Mr. Vaughan ignored this remark. “The thing to do,” he said, “is to
+offer a reward, a big enough reward to attract some first-class
+detective.”
+
+“All right,” said Geoffrey readily, “I’ll join you. Those other fellows
+ought to be willing to put up a thousand apiece,—that will be five
+thousand. Is that enough? We can have it in the papers to-morrow. What
+shall I say? Five thousand dollars reward will be paid for information
+leading to the conviction—and so on. I’ll go and telephone now,” and
+with a promptness which surprised Mr. Vaughan, he was gone.
+
+When he came back his sister was in her place and they were all
+discussing the burglary with interest. Mrs. May, who was somewhat older
+than her brother, had some of the more agreeable qualities of a gossip,
+that is to say she had imagination and a good memory for detail.
+
+“For my part,” she was saying, “I have the greatest respect and
+admiration for him. Do you know he could not find anything worth taking
+at the Wilsons’,—after all his trouble. I have often sat in that
+drawing-room myself, and wondered if they should offer me anything in
+it as a present, whether I could find something that would not actually
+disgrace me. I never could. He evidently felt the same way. The Wilsons
+make a great to-do about the house having been entered, and tell you
+how he must have been frightened away,—frightened away by the
+hideousness of their things! Those woolly paintings on wood, and the
+black satin parasol that turns out to be an umbrella stand.”
+
+“My dear Florence,” said her brother mildly, “how can a black satin
+parasol be an umbrella-stand?”
+
+“Exactly, Geof, how can it? That is what you say all through the
+Wilsons’ house. How can it be! However it is not really black satin,
+only painted to resemble it. The waste paper baskets look like trunks
+of trees, and the match boxes like old shoes. Nothing in the house is
+really what it looks like, except the beds; they look uncomfortable,
+and some one who had stayed there told me that they were.”
+
+“Dear Florence,” said Mrs. Vaughan, “is it not like her kindness of
+heart—it runs in the family—to try and make my burglary into a
+compliment, but really though it is flattering to be robbed by a
+connoisseur I could forego the honour. You see you have taken away my
+last hope that my very best escaped his attention.”
+
+“No, indeed, the best is all he cared for. Honestly, Jane, haven’t you
+an admiration for a man of so much taste and ability? Just think, he
+has entered four houses and there is not the slightest trace of him.”
+
+“There must be _traces_ of him,” said Geoffrey. “The Inness house was
+entered after that snow storm in the early part of the month. There
+must have been footprints.”
+
+“Of course,” said Mr. Vaughan, “that is what makes me think that the
+watchmen are in it. It’s probably a combination of two or three of
+them.”
+
+“Well, that lets Geoffrey out,” said the irrepressible Florence. “No
+one would take his watchman into any combination,—he is a thousand and
+two and feeble for his age. However, there is no use in discussing the
+possibility, for it is not a combination of watchmen, begging your
+pardon, Mr. Vaughan. It is lonely genius, a slim, dark figure in a
+slouch hat. That is the way I imagine him. Do you really suppose that a
+watchman would take six pair of Mrs. Inness’ best linen sheets,
+embroidered in her initials, the monogram so thick that it scratches
+your nose; and a beautiful light blue silk coverlet,—all just out from
+Paris. I saw them when she first had them.”
+
+“What,” said Geoffrey, addressing the other male intellect present, “do
+you make of the young woman who disposed of some of the Marheim silver
+in Boston?”
+
+
+[Illustration: “It was a young lady who disposed of the silver”]
+
+
+But it was Mrs. May who answered: “She is of course the lady of his
+love—a lady doubtless of high social position in Boston. There was a
+book about something like that once. He is just waiting to make one
+more grand coup, rob the bank or something and then the world will be
+startled by the news of their elopement. They will go and live
+somewhere luxuriously in the south Pacific, and travellers will bring
+home strange stories of their happiness and charm. Perhaps, though, he
+would turn pirate. That would suit his style.”
+
+“I hope,” said Holland, “that he won’t take a fancy to rob the
+Hillsborough Bank, for I consider it public spirited to keep quite a
+little money there. You begin to make me nervous.”
+
+“No bank robbery would make _me_ nervous,” replied his sister, “that is
+the comfort of being insignificant. I have not enough money in any bank
+to know the difference, and as for my humble dwelling in Hillsborough,
+who would take the trouble to rifle it when Geoffrey’s palace is within
+an easy walk. Besides, I haven’t anything worth the attention of a
+respectable burglar like this one.”
+
+“Thank you,” said Geoffrey, “I’m sorry I spent so much time choosing
+your Christmas present a year ago.”
+
+“Oh, of course, Geof dear, that wonderful old silver is valuable, but
+it is put away where I defy any burglar to find it. There is only my
+sable coat, and I am going to send for that as soon as I have time to
+have it cut over.”
+
+“In my opinion,” said Mr. Vaughan, “the man is no longer in the
+neighbourhood. He would scarcely dare try a fifth attempt while the
+whole country was so aroused. You see Hillsborough has always been an
+attractive place to thieves. It is such an easy place to get away
+from,—three railroads within reach. A man would be pretty sure to be
+able to catch a passing freight train on one of them at almost any
+time, to say nothing of the increased difficulty of tracing him.”
+
+“I don’t suppose he will ever be caught,” said Florence. “When he has
+got all he wants he will simply melt away and be forgotten. If he were
+caught—”
+
+Here she was interrupted by the waiter who laid a telegram at her
+plate. It had come to her brother’s apartment, and been sent down.
+
+“Who is telegraphing me,” she said, as she tore it open. “I hope Jack
+has not been breaking himself.”
+
+Opening it, she read:
+
+“Your house was entered about five o’clock this afternoon. Tea-set and
+sable coat missing.”
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+The next evening at seven o’clock, Holland stepped out of the train on
+the Hillsborough station. He wore a long fur-coat, for the morning had
+been bitterly cold in New York, and though the snow was now falling in
+small close flakes, the temperature had not risen appreciably, and a
+wild wind was blowing.
+
+He looked about for the figure of McFarlane, for he had telegraphed the
+old man to meet him at the train with a trap, but there was no one to
+be seen. The station, which in summer on the arrival of the express was
+a busy scene with well dressed women and well-kept horses, was now
+utterly deserted except for one native who had charge of the mails.
+
+“Hullo, Harris,” Geoffrey sung out. “Is McFarlane here for me?”
+
+“Ain’t seen him. Guess it’s too stormy for the old man,” Harris replied
+dropping the mail bag into his wagon.
+
+“Then you’ve got to drive me out.”
+
+“What, all the way to your place? No, sir, I guess it is too stormy for
+me, too.”
+
+But Geoffrey at last, by the promise of three times what the trip was
+worth, induced Harris to change his mind. He stepped into the mail
+cart, and having stopped at the post-office to leave the bag, and at
+the stable to change the cart for a sleigh, they finally set out on
+their five-mile drive.
+
+“Guess you come up to see about Mr. May’s house being robbed?” Harris
+hazarded before they had gone far.
+
+“You’re a nice lot, aren’t you?” returned Geoffrey. “Five robberies and
+not a motion to catch the thief!”
+
+“Oh, I dunno, I dunno, there is a big reward out to-day,” said Harris,
+divided between pride in the notoriety and shame at the lawlessness of
+his native town.
+
+“Yes, but not by any of you.”
+
+“Well, the boys did talk some of a vigilance committee, if any more
+houses was robbed.”
+
+“They are going to wait for him to make up his half dozen.”
+
+“Well, to tell the truth,” said Harris, “it seems like he only went for
+you city folks, and I guess the boys thought you could better afford to
+lose a few things than they could to lose their sleep. That’s about the
+size of it.”
+
+Geoffrey could not but laugh. “That’s a fine spirited way to look at
+it, I must say.”
+
+“Well,” returned Harris, who appeared to have need of the monosyllable
+in order to collect and arrange his ideas. “’Tain’t lack of sand
+exactly, either, for most of the fellows about here thinks it is a
+woman.”
+
+“A woman?” cried Geoffrey, remembering the lady in Boston.
+
+“Yes, _sir_,” said Harris, “a young woman. Look at the things took.
+What burglar would want sheets and a lady’s coat? Besides just before
+the first one happened, Will Brown, he was driving along up your way
+and a young woman, pretty as a picter, Will said, slips out of the wood
+and asks for a lift. Well, Will takes her some two miles, and when they
+got to that piece of woods at the back of your place she says of a
+sudden that she guesses she wants exercise, and will walk the rest of
+the way, and out she gets, and no one has seen her since. Seems kinder
+strange, no house but yours within six miles, and you away.”
+
+“It would have seemed quite as strange if I had been at home,” returned
+Geoffrey, amused at his imputation.
+
+“Well,” Harris went on imperturbably, “you can’t tell the rights of
+them stories. Will Brown, he’s a liar, just like all the Browns; still
+this time he seemed to think he was telling the truth. Looks like we
+were going to have a blizzard, don’t it?”
+
+When they reached the McFarlane cottage, Mrs. McFarlane appeared
+bobbing on the threshold. She was an old Scotch woman and covered all
+occasions with courtesy. It appeared that Holland’s telegram had been
+duly telephoned from the office, but that her husband was down with
+rheumatism, the second gardener dismissed, and the “boy” allowed to go
+home to spend Christmas, so that there had been no one to send.
+Geoffrey suggested that she might have telephoned to the local
+livery-stable, and she was at once so overcome at her own stupidity
+that she could do nothing but bob and murmur, until Geoffrey sent her
+away to get him something to eat.
+
+It was about ten o’clock, when he determined to take a turn about his
+house. The next day he intended removing all valuables to the vaults of
+the Hillsborough bank.
+
+It was a long walk from the cottage, and Geoffrey, as he trudged up
+hill against the wind, was surprised to find how much snow had already
+fallen. He had expected to return to New York the next day, but now a
+fair prospect of being stalled on the way presented itself. It took him
+so much longer to reach the house than he had supposed, that he
+abandoned all idea of entering it. It stood before him grimly like a
+mountain of grey stone, its face plastered with snow. He walked round
+it, feeling each door and window to be sure of the fastenings. Once
+past the corner, the house sheltered him from the wind. He was
+conscious of that exhilaration snow storms so often bring, while at the
+same time the atmosphere of desolation that surrounds all shut up
+houses, even one’s own, took hold of him. Unconsciously he stopped and
+felt in his pocket for his revolver, and at the same moment, faintly,
+in the interior of the house, he heard a clock strike.
+
+The sound was not perhaps alarming in itself, yet it sounded ominously
+in Geoffrey’s ears. He recognised, or thought he recognised, the bell.
+It was that of an old French clock he had bought, and had never had put
+in order. He had never been able to make it go, but once touching it
+inadvertently he had aroused in it a breath of life so that it had
+struck one,—this same sweet piercing note. Who, he wondered, was
+touching it now?
+
+Geoffrey was one of those who act best and naturally without delay. Now
+he hesitated not at all. He had the keys of the house in his pocket,
+and he moved quickly toward a side door which he remembered swung
+silently on its hinges. It was not so much that he believed that there
+was any one in the house—perhaps to the most apprehensive a burglar
+comes as a surprise—but he felt he had too good grounds for suspicion
+to fail to investigate.
+
+He unlocked the door without a sound. As he stepped within, doubt was
+put an end to by the patch of white light that, streaming out of the
+library door, fell across the passageway before him. He stooped down
+and took off his boots, and then cautiously approached the open door
+and looked in, knowing that darkness and preparation were in his
+favour.
+
+His caution was unnecessary, for his entrance had not been heard. The
+Hillsborough theory of the femininity of the burglar instantly fell to
+the ground. A man of medium size was standing before one of the
+bookcases with his elbow resting near the clock; he was holding a
+volume in his hands with the careful ease of a book fancier. The man’s
+back was turned so that a sandy head and a strongly built figure were
+all Geoffrey could make out. Had it not been for a glimpse of a mask on
+his face, he might have been a student at work.
+
+So intent did he appear that Geoffrey could not resist the temptation
+to make his entrance dramatic. Creeping almost to the other’s elbow,
+revolver in hand, he said gently:
+
+“Fond of reading?”
+
+The man, naturally startled, made a surprisingly quick movement toward
+his own revolver, and had it knocked out of his hand with a benumbing
+blow. Geoffrey secured the weapon, and seeing the man’s retreat, may be
+excused for supposing the struggle over.
+
+He underestimated his adversary’s resources, for the burglar,
+retreating with a look of surrender, came within reach of the electric
+light, turned it off, and fled in the total darkness that followed.
+Geoffrey sprang to the switch, but the few seconds that his fingers
+were fumbling for it told against him. When he turned it on the room
+was empty. The door by which the thief had gone opened on the main hall
+and not on the passageway, so that Geoffrey still had time to secure
+the outer door. Next he lit the chandelier in the hall, but its
+illumination told nothing. It was Geoffrey’s own sharp ears that told
+him of light footsteps beyond the turn of the stairs. Here Holland
+recognised at once that the burglar had a great advantage. The flight
+of stairs from the hall reached the upper story at a point very near
+where the back stairs came up, while they descended to widely different
+places in the lower story, so that the burglar, looking down, could
+choose his flight of stairs as soon as he saw his pursuer committed to
+the other, and thus reach the lower hall with several seconds to spare.
+Fortunately, however, Geoffrey remembered that there was a door at the
+foot of the back stairs. With incredible quickness he turned off the
+light again, threw his boots upstairs in the ingenious hope that the
+sound would give the effect of his own ascent, dashed round and locked
+the door at the foot of the stairs and then at the top of his speed ran
+up the front stairs and down the back. The result was somewhat as he
+expected. The burglar had reached the door at the foot of the stairs,
+and finding it locked was half way up again when he and Geoffrey met.
+The impetus of Geoffrey’s descent carried the man backward. They both
+landed against the locked door with a force that burst it open.
+Geoffrey, on top and armed, had little difficulty in securing his
+bruised foe, and marching him back to the library where he now took the
+precaution of locking all the doors.
+
+Geoffrey, who had felt himself tingling with excitement and the natural
+love of the chase, now had time to wonder what he was going to do with
+his capture. He thought of the darkness, the storm, the absence of the
+two undermen, and the helplessness of the McFarlanes. Then he
+remembered the telephone, which, fortunately, stood in a closet off the
+library.
+
+He turned to the burglar. “Stand with your face to the wall and your
+hands up,” he said; “and if I see you move I’d just as lief shoot you
+as look at you,” with which warning he approached the telephone and,
+still keeping an eye on the other, rang up central. There was no
+answer. He rang again,—six, seven times he repeated the process
+unavailingly. He tried the private wire to the McFarlane cottage with
+no better result.
+
+At this point the burglar spoke.
+
+“Oh, what the devil!” he said mildly; “I can’t stand here with my hands
+over my head all night.”
+
+“You’ll stand there,” replied Geoffrey with some temper, “until I’m
+ready for you to move.”
+
+“And when will that be?”
+
+“When this fool of a Central answers.”
+
+“Oh, not as long as that, I hope,” said the burglar, “because, to tell
+the truth, I always cut the telephone wires before I enter a house.”
+
+There was a pause in which it was well Geoffrey did not see the artless
+smile of satisfaction which wreathed the burglar’s face. At length
+Geoffrey said:
+
+“In that case you might as well sit down, for we seem likely to stay
+here until morning.” He calculated that by that time, Mrs. McFarlane,
+alarmed at his absence, would send some one to look for him,—some one
+who could be used as a messenger to fetch the constable.
+
+To this suggestion the burglar appeared to acquiesce, for he sank at
+once into an armchair—an armchair toward which Holland himself was
+making his way, knowing it to be the most comfortable for an all-night
+session. Feeling the absurdity of making any point of the matter,
+however, he contented himself with the sofa.
+
+“Take off your mask,” he said as he sat down.
+
+“So I will, thank you,” said the burglar as if he had been asked to
+remove his hat, and with his left hand he slipped it off. The face that
+met Geoffrey’s interested gaze was thin, yet ruddy, and tanned by
+exposure so that his very light brilliant eyes flared oddly in so dark
+a surrounding. Above, his sandy hair, which had receded somewhat from
+his forehead, curled up from his temples like a baby’s. His upper lip
+was long and with a pleasant mouth gave his face an expression of
+humour. His hands were ugly, but small.
+
+They sat for some time without moving, the burglar engaged in bandaging
+the cut on his right hand with obvious indifference to Holland’s
+presence, Geoffrey meanwhile studying him carefully. The process of
+bandaging over, the man reached out his hand toward the bookcase and,
+selecting a volume of Sterne, settled back comfortably in his chair.
+Holland stared at him an instant in wonder, and then attempted to
+follow his example. But his attention to his book was much less
+concentrated than that of his captive, whose expression soon showed him
+to be completely absorbed.
+
+They must have sat thus for an hour, before the burglar began to show
+signs of restlessness. He asked if it were still snowing, and looked
+distinctly disturbed on being told it was. At last he broke the silence
+again.
+
+“You don’t remember me, do you?” he said.
+
+Geoffrey slowly raised his eyes without moving—his revolver was
+drooping in his right hand. He ran his mind over his criminal
+acquaintance unsuccessfully, and repeated:
+
+“Remember you?”
+
+“Yes, we were at school together for a time.”
+
+Geoffrey stared, and then exclaimed spontaneously:
+
+“You used to be able to wag your ears.”
+
+“Can still.”
+
+“Why, you are Skinny McVay.”
+
+The man nodded. Neither was without a sense of humour, and yet saw
+nothing comic in these untender reminiscences.
+
+“I remember the masters all hated you,” said Geoffrey, “but you were
+straight enough then, weren’t you?”
+
+Again the man nodded. “I took to this sort of thing a month or so ago.”
+
+After a moment Geoffrey said:
+
+“Did not I hear you were in the navy?”
+
+“No,” said McVay. “I was at Annapolis for a few months. I had an idea I
+should like the navy, but Heavens above! I could not stand the Academy.
+They threw me out. It seems I had broken every rule they had ever made.
+It was worse than State’s prison.”
+
+“Are you in a position to judge?” asked Geoffrey coolly.
+
+“No,” said McVay, as if he nevertheless had information on the subject.
+
+“Well, you will be soon,” said Holland, not sorry for an opportunity to
+point out that his heart was not softened by recollections of his
+school days. But McVay appeared to ignore this intimation.
+
+“Yes,” he said ruminatively; “I’ve done a lot of things in my time.”
+
+“Well, I don’t want to hear about them,” said Geoffrey, who had no
+intention of being drawn into an intimate interchange. The burglar
+looked more surprised than angered at this shortness, and only said:
+
+“Would you have any objection to my putting a match to that fire?”
+
+“No,” said Geoffrey, and McVay, with wonderful dexterity, managed to
+start a cheering blaze with his left hand.
+
+For a few minutes Geoffrey’s determined attention to his book
+discouraged his companion, but presently rapping the pages of Tristram
+Shandy with the back of his hand, he exclaimed:
+
+“Sterne! Ah, there was a man! Something of my own type, too, it
+sometimes strikes me. Capable, you know, really a genius, but so
+unfortunately different from other people. Ordinary standards meant
+nothing to him—too original—sees life from another standpoint,
+entirely. That’s me! I—”
+
+“Sit down,” roared Geoffrey.
+
+“Oh, it’s nothing, nothing,” said McVay, “only I talk better on my
+feet.”
+
+“Well, you wouldn’t talk as well with a bullet in you.”
+
+McVay sank back again in his chair. “Yes,” he said, “that’s me. Why,
+Holland, I have no doubt you would be surprised if you knew the number
+of things that I can do—that I am really proficient in. Anything with
+the hands,” he waved his fingers supplely in the air, “is no trouble to
+me at all. I have at once a natural skill that most people take a
+lifetime to acquire.”
+
+“I’m told there’s work for all where you are going.”
+
+McVay looked a trifle puzzled for an instant, but never allowing
+himself to remain at a loss, he said:
+
+“Work! Do you really mean to say that you believe in a utilitarian
+Heaven, where we are going to work with our hands? For my part—”
+
+“I had reference to the penitentiary,” said Geoffrey.
+
+“Oh, yes, of course, the penitentiary. There are some wonderful men in
+the penitentiary. You don’t admit that, I suppose, with your
+conventional ideas; but to me they are just as admirable as any other
+great creative artist,—sculptor or financier. I see you don’t quite get
+that. You are hemmed in by conventional standards, and your
+possessions, and all the things to which you attach such great
+importance.”
+
+“I don’t attach so much importance that I steal them from other
+people,” said Geoffrey.
+
+“Philistine, Holland, philistine! Is not any one who has anything
+stealing from some one or other? Of course. But I see you don’t catch
+the idea. Well, I dare say I would not either in your place—rather
+think I would not. My sister is just the same way. Sweet girl, witty in
+her own way, but philistine. She is so good as to be my companion,
+apparently on equal terms, in many ways my superior, but it would be
+impossible for me even to mention these ideas to her,—ideas which are
+of the greatest interest to me.”
+
+“I wonder,” said Geoffrey, “how much of all this rubbish you believe?”
+
+McVay smiled with great sweetness. “I wonder myself, Holland. Still it
+is undeniably amusing, and the main thing is that I enjoy life,—a hard
+life too in many ways. Fate has dealt me some sad blows. Look at such a
+coincidence as your turning up to-night, of all nights in the year.”
+
+“It was scarcely a coincidence. I came—”
+
+“Oh, I know, I know. You came to see after your sister’s things, but
+still, if you look at it a little more carefully, you will see that it
+_was_ a coincidence that you should be by nature a man of prompt
+action. Nine men out of ten in your place—still, I’m not depressed. You
+cannot say, Holland, that I behave or talk like a man who has ten years
+of hard labour before him, can you? I dare say you have never been
+thrown with a person who showed less anxiety. Yet as a matter of fact,
+there is something preying on my mind. Something entirely aside from
+anything you could imagine.”
+
+“You don’t tell me!” said Geoffrey, who did not know whether to be most
+amused or infuriated by his companion’s conversation.
+
+“I am about to tell you,” said McVay graciously, “I am very seriously
+worried about my sister. In fact I don’t see that there is any getting
+away from it; you will have to let me go out for an hour or so and get
+her.”
+
+“Let you do _what_?”
+
+“Get my sister. She’s living in a little hut in your woods, and I am
+actually afraid she will be snowed up.”
+
+“It seems highly probable.”
+
+“Well, then, I must go and get her.”
+
+Geoffrey stared at him a moment, and then said: “You must be crazy.”
+
+“Maybe I am,” answered McVay, as if the suggestion were not without an
+amusing side. “Maybe I am, but that is not the point. Think of a girl,
+Holland, alone, all night, in such a storm. Now, I put it to you: it is
+not a position in which you would leave your sister, is it?”
+
+Geoffrey began a sentence and finding it inadequate, contented himself
+with a laugh.
+
+“There you see,” said McVay. “It’s out of the question. The place is
+draughty, too, though there is a stove. Do you remember the house at
+all? You would be surprised to see how nicely I’ve fixed it up for
+her.”
+
+“No doubt I should,” replied Holland, thinking of the Vaughan and
+Marheim valuables.
+
+“It is surprisingly livable, but it _is_ draughty,” McVay went on. “The
+truth is I ought to have gone south, as I meant to do last week. But
+one cannot foresee everything. The winters have been open until
+Christmas so often lately. However, I made a mistake and I am perfectly
+willing to rectify it. If you have no objection, I’ll go and bring her
+back here.”
+
+“If you have any respect for your skin you won’t move from that chair.”
+
+“Oh, the devil, Holland, don’t be so—” he hesitated for the right word,
+not wishing to be unjust,—“so obtuse. Listen to that wind! It’s cold
+here. Think what it must be in that shanty.”
+
+“Very unpleasant, I should think.”
+
+“More than that, more than that,—suffering, I have no doubt. Why, she
+might freeze to death if anything went wrong with the fire. It is not
+safe. It’s a distinct risk to leave her. Let alone that a storm like
+this would scare any girl alone in a place like that, there is some
+danger to her life. Don’t you see that?”
+
+“Yes, I see,” returned Geoffrey, “but you ought to have thought of that
+before you came burgling in a blizzard.”
+
+“Thought of it! Of course I thought of it. But I had no idea whatever
+of being caught, with old McFarlane laid up and the two boys away, it
+did seem about the safest job yet.”
+
+There was a pause, for Geoffrey evidently had no intention of even
+arguing the matter, and presently McVay continued:
+
+“Now you know you would feel badly to-morrow morning if anything went
+wrong with her, and you knew you could have helped it!”
+
+“Helped it!” said Geoffrey. “What do you mean? Let you loose on the
+county for the sake of a story no sane man would believe?”
+
+“Well,” returned McVay judicially, “perhaps you could not do that,
+but,” he added brightly, “you could go yourself.”
+
+“Yes,” said Geoffrey, “I _could_—”
+
+“Then I think you ought to be getting along.”
+
+“Upon my word, McVay,” said Holland, “you are something of a humorist,
+aren’t you?”
+
+McVay again looked puzzled, but rose to the occasion.
+
+“Oh, hardly that,” he said. “Every now and then I have a way of putting
+things,—a way of my own. I find often I am able to amuse people, but if
+you are cheerful yourself, you make other people so. I was just
+thinking that it must be a great thing for men who have been in prison
+for years to have some one come in with a new point of view.”
+
+“I’m sure you will be an addition to prison life. It’s an ill wind, you
+know.”
+
+“It’s an ill wind for my sister, literally enough. Come, Holland, you
+certainly can trust me. Do be starting.”
+
+“Why, what do you take me for?” said the exasperated Geoffrey. “Do you
+really suppose that I am going, looking for a den of your accomplices
+in order to give you a chance to escape?”
+
+“‘Accomplices!’” exclaimed McVay; and for the first time a shade of
+anger crossed his brow; “‘_accomplices’_! I have no accomplices.
+Anything I do I think I am able to do alone. Still,” he added putting
+aside his annoyance, “if you feel nervous about leaving me I’d just as
+lief give you my word of honour to stay here until you come back.”
+
+“Your _what_?”
+
+McVay made a slight gesture of his shoulders, as if he were being a
+good deal tried. “Oh, anything you like,” he said. “I suppose you could
+lock me up in a closet.”
+
+“I don’t think we need trouble to arrange the details,” said Geoffrey
+drily. “But I’ll tell you what I will do. After I get you safely in
+jail to-morrow, I’ll get a trap and go and look up this hut.”
+
+“It may be too late then.”
+
+“It may,” said Geoffrey, and continued to read.
+
+Yet he had no further satisfaction in his book. He knew that the
+burglar kept casting meditative glances at him as if in wonder at such
+brutality, and in truth, his own mind was not entirely at ease. If by
+any chance the story were true,—if there was a woman at his doors
+freezing to death, how could he sit enjoying the fire? But, on the
+other hand, could any one have a more evident motive for deception than
+his informant? What better opportunity for escape could be arranged? It
+was so evident, so impudent as to be almost convincing. What more
+likely for instance, than that the hut was a regular rendezvous for
+criminals and tramps, that by going he would be walking into the
+veriest trap? Yet again there was the report confirmed by Harris’s
+story that a woman was in some way connected with these robberies. The
+wind whistled round the house with a suggestion of difficulty, of
+combat with the elements, of actual danger, perhaps, that suddenly gave
+Geoffrey a new view of delay. Had it not something the air of
+cowardice, or at least of laziness? He found his eyes had read the same
+page three times, while his brain was busy devising means by which
+McVay could be secured in his absence—if he went.
+
+At length he rose suddenly to his feet.
+
+“I’ll go,” he said, “but before I go, I’ll tie you up so safely that,
+if I don’t come back, you’ll starve to death before you’ll be able to
+get out or make any one hear you. On these terms do you still want me
+to go?”
+
+“Oh, yes, I want you to go,” said McVay, “only for goodness sake be
+careful. If you should feel any temptation to lie down and go to sleep
+don’t yield to it; they say it’s fatal. The great thing is to keep on
+walking—”
+
+“Oh, shut up,” said Geoffrey. In view of the possibility that he was
+going to meet death at the hands of his fluent companion’s accomplices
+he found this friendly advice unbearable.
+
+“This hut, I take it,” he said, “is an old woodcutter’s shanty in the
+north woods?”
+
+“Yes, something over a mile and a half north of here.”
+
+“I know the place,” said Geoffrey, “now come along, and we’ll see how I
+can fix you up until I come back.”
+
+He had in mind a heavy upstairs cedar-closet. It had been designed by a
+thoughtful architect for the storing of summer wearing apparel, and was
+strongly built. It had besides the advantage of having a door that
+opened in and so was difficult to break open from the inside. Here,
+having removed a complete burglar’s outfit from his pockets, Geoffrey
+disposed McVay, being met with a readiness on McVay’s part that seemed
+to prove either that he was sincere in his belief in Holland’s safe
+return, or else was perfectly confident of being able to open the door
+as soon as Geoffrey’s back was turned.
+
+“But he’ll find himself mistaken,” Geoffrey murmured as, having locked
+the door, he turned away. At this instant a faint knocking was audible,
+and, gathering that McVay had some final instructions to give, Geoffrey
+again opened the door.
+
+“By the way,” said the burglar, and for the first time a certain
+constraint, amounting almost to embarrassment, was discernible in his
+manner, “my sister has no idea about—it would be a great shock to
+her—in fact, you understand, she has not discovered exactly how our
+money comes to us.”
+
+“Do you expect me to believe that?” asked Geoffrey.
+
+“I grant it does not sound likely,” returned McVay, “and indeed would
+not be possible with any other man than myself. But I hit upon a pretty
+good yarn,—worked out well everyway. I told her—”
+
+“I don’t want to hear your infernal lies.”
+
+“But it might be convenient for you to know. I told her,” McVay
+chuckled, “that I was employed as night watchman at Drake’s paper mill.
+That of course kept me out all night, and—”
+
+“She must think night watchmen get good wages.”
+
+“That was just it. I told her Drake was an old friend of mine, and just
+wanted an excuse to give me an allowance until he found me a better
+job. You see I just lost a nice job in a bank—”
+
+“I suppose it would be indiscreet to inquire why?”
+
+“Well, we won’t discuss it,” said McVay with an agreeable smile. “Of
+course she could understand that such an inferior position as a
+watchman’s had to be kept a profound secret, hence our remote mode of
+life, and the fact that I don’t allow a butcher or baker to come near
+us. I tell her that if it were known that I had held such a poor
+position, it would interfere with my getting a better. So, if you
+should happen to find that you have to explain to her why I am detained
+here—”
+
+“_If_ I should explain to her,” said Geoffrey. “What do you suppose I
+am going to do?”
+
+“Well, I suppose you will find it necessary,” said McVay. “Indeed, as a
+matter of fact, I would much rather have you do it than do it myself.
+Still, you might bear in mind to tell her as gently as possible. If she
+were your own sister—”
+
+“Oh, go to the devil,” said Geoffrey, and slammed the door.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+Geoffrey was born with a love of adventure, and his dislike to his
+present expedition arose not from fear, but from a consciousness that
+if he did run into a den of thieves he would think himself such an ass
+to have come. Indeed, there seemed a fair chance that he might think
+this even if nothing worse happened than that the hut proved empty, for
+he would have had a long walk for nothing better than to provide McVay
+with an opportunity to escape. He did not see exactly how McVay could
+get out, but he was aware that few people would think it wise to leave
+a burglar locked in a closet in an empty house with some hours of
+leisure at his disposal.
+
+The first glimmering of dawn was visible as he stepped off the piazza;
+the wind was blowing fiercely and the snow still falling. He had not
+gone a hundred yards before he knew that the expedition was to be more
+difficult than he had imagined. To make headway against the wind was a
+constant struggle, and he seemed to slip back in the snow at every
+step. Still the natural obstinacy of his nature was aroused, and as his
+attention was more and more engaged with the endeavor to make his way,
+he had less time to think of the probable futility of his proceeding.
+
+Long before he sighted the hut, he was wet to the waist, not only
+because he had been in half a dozen drifts, but because the snow had
+penetrated every crevice of his clothing.
+
+The hut was a forlorn little spot upon the landscape, a patch of grey
+on the stretch of forest and snow. A shutter blowing in the wind gave
+an impression of desertion, for how could any one, however wretched,
+sit idle under that recurrent bang?
+
+Drawing his revolver, Geoffrey approached the door. He had no intention
+of giving a possible enemy an opportunity to prepare himself, and so
+did not knock, but, putting his shoulder against the door, shoved
+mightily. The hinges broke from the rotten wood at once, and he
+stumbled in.
+
+The pale light of the early winter morning showed a depressing
+interior, for the window was not the only opening. There was a great
+gap in the roof where, earlier in the night, the chimney had fallen,
+and now its bricks littered the floor, already well covered with snow.
+Some attempt must have been made, as McVay had boasted, of “fixing it
+up”; there were books in the shelves on the walls, and a black iron
+stove on which the snow now lay fearlessly. As Geoffrey took in the
+situation, something in a huge chair, which he had taken for a heap of
+rugs, stirred and moved, and finally rose, betraying itself to be a
+woman. Geoffrey had been prepared to find a den of thieves, or nothing
+at all, or even a girl, as McVay had said. He told himself he would be
+surprised at nothing, yet found himself astounded, overwhelmed at the
+sight of a beautiful face.
+
+The girl must have been beautiful so to triumph over her surroundings,
+for all sorts of strange garments were huddled about her, and over all
+a silk coverlet originally tied like a shawl under her chin, had
+slipped sideways, and fell like a Hussar’s jacket from one shoulder.
+Her hair stood like a dark halo about her little face, making it seem
+smaller and younger, almost too small for the magnificent eyes that lit
+it. Geoffrey, tolerably well versed in feminine attractions, said to
+himself that he had never seen such blue eyes.
+
+And suddenly while he looked at her and her desperate plight, pity
+became in him a sort of fury of protection, the awakening of the
+masculine instinct toward beauty in distress. It was a feeling that the
+other women he had admired—well-fed, well-clothed, well-cared-for young
+creatures—had always signally failed to arouse. He had seen it in other
+men, had seen their hearts wrung because an able-bodied girl must take
+a trolley car instead of her father’s carriage, but he had thought
+himself hard, perhaps, unchivalrous; but now he knew better. Now he
+knew what it was to feel personally outraged at a woman’s discomfort.
+
+“Good God!” he cried, “what a night you have had. How wicked, how
+abominable, how criminal—”
+
+
+[Illustration: “Good god,” he cried “what a night you have had”]
+
+
+“It has been a dreadful night,” said the girl, “but it is nobody’s
+fault.”
+
+“Of course it is somebody’s fault,” answered Geoffrey. “It must be. Do
+you mean to tell me no one is to blame when I have been sitting all
+night with my feet on the fender, and you—”
+
+“Certainly,” said she with an extraordinarily wide, sweet smile, “I
+could wish we might have changed places.”
+
+“I wish to Heaven we might,” returned Geoffrey, and meant it. Never
+before had he yearned to bear the sufferings of another. He had often
+seen that it was advisable, suitable just that he should, but burningly
+to want to was a new experience.
+
+“Thank you,” said the girl, “but I’m afraid there is nothing to be
+done.”
+
+“Nothing to be done!” He dropped on his knees before the black monster
+of a stove, “Do you suppose I’m here to do nothing?”
+
+“You are here, I think, for shelter from the storm.”
+
+It had not occurred to him before that she looked upon him as a chance
+wanderer.
+
+“That shows your ignorance of the situation. I am here to rescue you. I
+left my fireside for no other reason. As I came along I said at every
+blast, ‘that poor, poor girl.’ I set out to bring you to safety. I
+begin to think I was born for no other reason.”
+
+She smiled rather wearily, “Your coming at all is so strange that I
+could almost believe you.”
+
+“You may thoroughly believe me, more easily perhaps when I tell you I
+did not particularly want to come. I started out at dawn very cross and
+cold because I did not know what I was going to find....”
+
+“But I thought you said you did know that you were going to rescue a
+girl?”
+
+“A girl, yes. But what’s a mere girl? How many thousand girls have I
+seen in my life? Is that a thought to turn a man’s head? What I did not
+know was that I was going to find _you_.”
+
+“The fire will never burn with the chimney strewn on the floor,” she
+said mildly.
+
+“Well, I’ve said it, you see,” he answered, “and you won’t forget it,
+even if you do change the subject.” He turned his attention to the
+fire. Where is the man, worthy of the name to whom the business of fire
+building is not serious?
+
+Presently seeing he needed help she dropped to her knees beside him and
+tried to shove a piece of wood into place. In the process her numbed
+fingers touched his, and he instantly dropped everything to catch her
+hand in both of his.
+
+“Your hands are as cold as ice,” he said, holding them tightly, and
+thanking Fate that this bounty had fallen to his lot.
+
+She withdrew them. “You are too conscientious,” she said. “That is not
+part of the duty of a rescue party.”
+
+“It is, it is,” said Geoffrey violently. “It is the merest humanity.”
+
+“Humanity?”
+
+“To me, of course, if you will pin me down.”
+
+“Oh, there is no reason for the rescued to be humane.”
+
+“They ought to be grateful.”
+
+“They are.”
+
+“_Gratefuller_ then. Is it nothing that I have taken all the trouble to
+be born and grow up and live just to come here for you?”
+
+“Perhaps I could be gratefuller if there were any prospect of a fire.”
+
+“Oh, curse the fire,” said Geoffrey rising from his knees. “Who minds
+about it?”
+
+“I mind very much.”
+
+“Well, you mustn’t. You must not mind about anything, because it sets
+up too strong a reaction in me. There’s no telling what I might not do
+under the stress. Come away from this dreadful place. The fires will
+burn in my house, and that is where we are going.”
+
+“I can’t do that,” she said, looking very grave.
+
+“You can’t do anything else.”
+
+“I must wait for my brother. He’s out somewhere in this storm, and if
+he comes back and finds me gone—”
+
+“Oh, your brother,” said Geoffrey, “I forgot all about him. He’s at my
+house already. He sent me for you.”
+
+“Oh,” said she, sighing with relief, and then added maliciously: “then
+my plight was not revealed to you in a vision?”
+
+“The vision is with me now.”
+
+She had to perfection, the art of allowing her mind to drift away when
+she thought it advisable.
+
+“And so you took poor Billy in?” she said.
+
+Geoffrey coughed. “Well, in a sense,” he answered.
+
+She rose. “We’ll go at once,” she said. “Is it far?”
+
+“Not very, but it is going to be hard work.”
+
+He felt more practical. His delight had slipped from him at the
+realisation of her relationship to McVay. For a moment he felt
+depressed, then as he saw her struggling to undo the knot that held the
+comforter about her, he forgot everything but the pleasure of doing her
+a service. And in the midst of this joy, the coverlet slid to the
+ground and revealed her clad from head to foot in his sister’s sables.
+
+There was a pause.
+
+“What are you looking at?” she asked.
+
+“That is a nice warm coat you have on.”
+
+“Isn’t it?” She rubbed her cheek against the high collar with a
+tenderness trying to any masculine onlooker. “It saved my life.”
+
+It was on the tip of Geoffrey’s tongue to ask if he was not entitled to
+a similar claim on her consideration, but he suppressed it. Was it
+possible that she did not know that the garments she wore were stolen?
+Could any sane woman really believe that sable coats fell naturally to
+the lot of night watchmen? Her manner was candour itself, but how
+should it not be? What more inevitable than that she should make an
+effort to deceive a casual stranger? She had the most evident motives
+for behaving exactly as she did. Just so, however, he had reasoned
+about McVay, and yet McVay had been sincere. There had been a girl in
+distress exactly as he had said. It was contrary to all reason, but it
+was true. Might not the girl be true too? Was it not possible, he asked
+himself, and answered that it was more than possible, it was the truth.
+He chose to believe in her, and turned his anger against McVay, who
+could drag her through such a mire. He felt the tragedy of a
+high-minded woman tricked out in stolen finery, and remembered with a
+pang that he himself was hurrying on the moment of disillusion.
+
+“I wonder,” she said, “if I could take some things with me. Is it
+impossible for me to carry a bag?”
+
+“Yes, but not for me.”
+
+“It would be only this.” She held up a small Russia leather affair
+legibly marked with Mrs. Inness’ initials.
+
+“I will take it,” said Geoffrey. His faith was sorely tried.
+
+She moved about collecting things and packing, and presently remarked:
+
+“But if Billy is all right, why didn’t he come for me himself?”
+
+“Oh, because—” Geoffrey hesitated an instant, and her fears interpreted
+the pause.
+
+“He’s hurt. You are keeping it from me. You are deceiving me.”
+
+“I would scorn to deceive you,” said Geoffrey with passion, and looked
+at her to find some answer to the reverse question which he did not put
+into words.
+
+She did not appear to understand. “Then why didn’t he come?” she asked.
+
+“He had been out in the storm already. I thought it was my turn.”
+
+“I think you must be stronger than Billy.” She cast a reflective glance
+at his shoulders, and he was ashamed to find himself inordinately
+flattered.
+
+“He is really safe at your house?”
+
+“I hope so, I did my best,” he returned grimly.
+
+She looked at him gravely. “You have been very kind to a stranger,” she
+said.
+
+And at this point Geoffrey made the fatal mistake of his dealing with
+her. It did not occur to him that he was going to shield McVay, but he
+thought a more advantageous time could be found for telling her the
+truth, in case of course she did not know it already. He felt that he
+himself would be better able to deal a cold blow when she was warm and
+sheltered. No man, he said to himself, could be disagreeable to a girl
+who had no one to depend on but himself. So he said:
+
+“He was not exactly a stranger to me. We were at school together.”
+
+“Oh, another of Billy’s friends. I never knew such a person for
+discovering friends at the most opportune times. He never wants
+anything but what a friend turns up. Did you find him wandering about,
+or did he come and demand admittance?”
+
+“Why, neither exactly. I was not in the house at the time. He felt he
+knew me well enough to walk in.”
+
+“He never told me he had a friend in the neighbourhood.”
+
+“We have not met since we were at school.”
+
+“He had not seen you since he was at school, and yet he felt he knew
+you well enough to walk in on you!”
+
+“Yes, he just walked in, and then I would not let him go.”
+
+“Men are so queer!” she exclaimed with a little laugh that had a spice
+of admiration in it, under which Geoffrey writhed. He was sailing under
+such false colours as her brother’s benefactor.
+
+“We ought to be starting,” he said.
+
+She looked round the room. “I hate to leave all these nice things,” she
+said. “Billy is so fond of them. There is some wine that some one gave
+him that he says is really priceless.”
+
+“Leave it,” said Geoffrey shortly.
+
+“One would think you were a teetotaller from that tone. I wonder if I
+could not take one bottle as a surprise to Billy. He would like to
+contribute something to your hospitality, I am sure. Besides, if I
+leave it, it may be stolen.”
+
+“Yes, it may be stolen.” He looked down into her face.
+
+“Then—”
+
+“I ask you as a favour to leave it behind.”
+
+Nothing could have been more charming than her manner of yielding,
+sweet and quick like a caress. It made him feel how pitiful sordid it
+all was.
+
+They started immediately, started with a certain gaiety. Geoffrey chose
+to remember only that they were together through a hard adventure, and
+that it was his part to smooth her way. The bond of difficulties to
+overcome united them. They felt the intimacy of a single absorbing
+interest. They had nothing to think of but accomplishing their task,—of
+that and of each other. As far as they could see were snow and black
+trunks of trees. They scarcely remembered that any one but themselves
+existed.
+
+Now justly he could admire something besides her beauty. Her courage
+warmed his heart. Yet with all her spirit she made no attempt to assert
+her independence. She turned to him at every point. He guided her past
+the scenes of his own disasters and saved her from the mistakes he had
+already made.
+
+But only for a little while did they move forward in this delightful
+exhilaration. Before they had gone far she grew silent, and when she
+did answer him spoke less spontaneously. She asked for neither help nor
+encouragement, but plunged along as steadily as she was able. Her
+skirts, however, wet and heavy, hampered her desperately, and the
+exertion of walking through the thick snow began to tell. Geoffrey made
+her stop every now and then for a breathing spell, but at length she
+stopped of herself.
+
+“Have we done half yet?” she asked.
+
+“Just about,” he answered, stretching truth in order to encourage her.
+But he saw at once that he had failed,—that she had had a hope that
+they were nearer their destination—that she began to doubt her own
+powers. Presently she moved forward again in silence.
+
+He began to be alarmed lest they should never reach his house, yet took
+comfort in the thought, as he looked at her, that whatever strength she
+had, she would use to the end. No hysterical despair would exhaust her
+beforehand. She would not fail through lack of determination. Whether
+or not she were the confederate of a thief she was a brave woman, yes,
+and a beautiful one, he thought, looking down upon her in the glare of
+the snow.
+
+Presently he held out his hand in silence, and she as silently took it.
+This was to Geoffrey the explanation of his whole life. This was what
+men were made for.
+
+Once as they stood resting the wind, which fortunately had been at
+their backs the entire trip, hurled her against him, where she remained
+an instant, too weak to move. It was he who set her gently on her feet
+again.
+
+The latter part of the journey she made almost wholly by his help, and
+when they stood before the piazza, she could not have managed the
+little step had he not virtually lifted her up. He took her directly to
+the library and laid her on the sofa. The fire, owing to the absence of
+McVay, had gone out. It took Geoffrey some time with his benumbed hands
+to build a blaze. When he turned toward her again she was sleeping like
+a child.
+
+The sight was too much for his own weariness, and reflecting that McVay
+was either gone or still safe, he stretched himself on the hearth-rug
+and was soon asleep also.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+It was after two o’clock in the afternoon when he awoke. He must have
+slept three hours. He looked at the sofa and saw the girl still
+sleeping peacefully. He almost wished that she would never awake to all
+the dreadful surprises that the house held for her. Her eye-lashes
+curved long and dark on her cheek. Geoffrey turned away quickly.
+
+He had awakened with a sudden disagreeable conviction that people have
+been known to smother to death in closets. He stole quietly from the
+library and ran up stairs with not a little anxiety. Indeed so great
+was his dread that he would have been really relieved to see the closet
+door standing open as an immediate proof that it did not hide a corpse.
+It was, however, locked as he had left it. But as he hastened to undo
+it, a voice from within reassured him:
+
+
+[Illustration: He let McVay out of the closet]
+
+
+“Well, where have you been all this time?”
+
+“You may be thankful I’m back at all. It did not look like it, at one
+time.”
+
+“Where is Cecilia?”
+
+“Down stairs asleep.”
+
+McVay gave a little giggle. “Ah,” he said, “I bet you have had the
+devil of a time. I bet you wished once or twice that you had let me be
+the one to go.”
+
+“It wasn’t child’s play.”
+
+“Child’s play! I rather think not. These things are all well enough
+among men, but women!” he waved his hand; “so sensitive, so
+cloistered!”
+
+“Your sister behaved nobly,” said Geoffrey severely.
+
+“Bound to, Holland, bound to. Still it must have been a shock.”
+
+“It was a hard trip for any woman.”
+
+McVay looked up. “Oh,” he said, “I wasn’t speaking of the trip. I meant
+about me. What did she say?”
+
+“She did not say anything. She went to sleep.”
+
+“She did not say anything when you told her I was booked for the
+penitentiary?”
+
+“Oh,” said Geoffrey, and there was a slight pause. Then he added: “Why
+should I tell her what she must know.”
+
+“I tell you she knows nothing about my—profession.”
+
+“Your _profession_!”
+
+“Hasn’t a notion of it.”
+
+“What, with my sister’s coat on her back, and the Innes’ bag in her
+hand?”
+
+“No!” McVay drew a step nearer. “You see I told her that I had found a
+second-hand store where I could get things for nothing.” He chuckled,
+and Geoffrey withdrew with a look of repulsion that evidently
+disappointed the other.
+
+“That was a good idea, wasn’t it?” he asked with a faint appeal in his
+voice. “She thought it was likely, anyhow.”
+
+“She must be very gullable,” said Geoffrey brutally.
+
+“Or else,” said McVay with a conscious smile, “I must be a pretty good
+dissembler.”
+
+At this acute instance of fatuity Geoffrey, if he had followed his
+impulse, would have flung McVay back in the closet and locked the door.
+Instead, he said:
+
+“Come down stairs. I want to look up something to eat.”
+
+“Thank you,” said the burglar, “it would be a good idea.”
+
+“You need not thank me,” said Geoffrey. “I don’t take you with me for
+the pleasure of your company, but because I don’t dare let you out of
+my sight.”
+
+McVay, as was his habit when anything unpleasant was said, chose to
+ignore this speech.
+
+“You know,” he said, as they went down stairs, “I suppose that most men
+shut up in a closet for all those hours would take it as a hardship,
+but, to me it was a positive rest. I really in a way enjoyed it. It is
+one of my theories that every one ought to have resources within. Now I
+dare say you were quite anxious about me.”
+
+“I never thought of you at all,” said Geoffrey. “After I got in I went
+to sleep for three hours.”
+
+McVay looked at him once or twice, in surprise. Then he said with
+dignity: “Asleep? Well, really, Holland, I don’t think that was very
+considerate.”
+
+“Don’t talk so loud,” said Geoffrey, “you’ll wake your sister.”
+
+Geoffrey had always been in the habit of going on shooting trips at
+short notice, and so it was his rule to keep a supply of canned
+eatables in the house to be ready whenever the whim took him. On these
+he now depended, and was not a little annoyed to find the kitchen store
+room where they were kept securely locked.
+
+This difficulty, however, McVay made light of. He asked for his tools
+and on being given them set to work on the door.
+
+“Have you ever noticed,” he said, “the heavy handed way in which some
+men use tools? Look at my touch,—so light, yet so accurate. I take no
+credit to myself. I was born so. It’s a very fortunate thing to be
+naturally dexterous.”
+
+“It would have been more fortunate for you if you had been a little
+less so.”
+
+“Oh, I don’t know about that, Holland. I might have starved to death
+years ago.”
+
+“I wish to God you had,” said Geoffrey.
+
+McVay shook his head faintly in deprecation of such violence, but
+otherwise preferred to pass the remark by, and they soon set to work
+heating soup and smoked beef. When all was ready and spread in the
+dining-room—this was McVay’s suggestion; he said food was unappetising
+unless it were nicely served—Geoffrey said:
+
+“Go and see if your sister is awake, and if she is,” he added firmly,
+“I’ll give you a few minutes alone with her, so that you can explain
+the situation fully.”
+
+McVay nodded and slipped into the library. Geoffrey shut the door
+behind him, and sat down on a bench in the hall from which he could
+command both doors.
+
+If he entertained the doubts of her innocence which he continually told
+himself no sane man could help entertaining, he found himself strangely
+nervous. He felt as if he were waiting outside an operating room. He
+thought of her as he had seen her asleep, of the curve of her
+eye-lashes on her cheek, of her raising those lashes, awaking to be met
+with McVay’s revelations. Even if she were guilty, Geoffrey found it in
+his heart to pity her waking to learn that her brother was a prisoner.
+How unfortunate, too, would be her own position,—the guest, if only for
+a few hours, of a man who was concerned only to lodge her brother in
+jail.
+
+His heart gave a distinct thump when the library door opened and they
+came out together. His eyes turned to her face at once, and found it
+unperturbed. Didn’t she care, or had she always known?
+
+McVay caught his arm when she had passed them by, and whispered glibly:
+
+“Thought it was better to wait until she had had something to eat—shock
+on an empty stomach, so bad—so hard to bear.”
+
+Geoffrey shook his arm free. “You infernal coward,” he whispered back.
+
+“Well, I like that,” retorted McVay, “you didn’t tell her yourself when
+you had the chance.”
+
+“It wasn’t my affair. I did not tell her because—”
+
+“Oh, I know,” McVay interrupted with a chuckle. “I’ve been knowing why
+for the last ten minutes.”
+
+They followed her into the dining-room.
+
+It was not a sumptuous repast to which they sat down, but Geoffrey
+asked nothing better. He was sitting opposite to her,—a position
+evidently decreed him by Fate from the beginning of time. He could look
+at her, and now and then, in spite of her delicious reluctance, could
+force her to meet his eyes. When this happened, nothing was ever more
+apparent than that, for both of them, a momentous event had occurred.
+
+She was almost completely silent, and as for him, his responses to the
+general conversation which McVay kept attempting to set up, were so
+entirely mechanical that he was scarcely aware of them himself.
+
+It was she who suddenly remembered that it was Christmas day.
+
+“And _this_ is our Christmas dinner,” observed McVay regretfully.
+
+“Oh, no,” returned the girl, “this is luncheon. I’ll cook your dinner.
+You’ll see.”
+
+There was a pause. Geoffrey looked at McVay. The moment for
+disillusioning her had manifestly come. Wherever they might next meet
+it would not be at his dinner table. A hateful vision of a criminal
+court rose before him.
+
+“Miss McVay,” he said gravely, indifferent to the signals of warning
+which the other man was directing toward him; “we shall not be here at
+dinner. Your brother will tell you my reasons for wishing to start down
+the mountain.”
+
+“Now?”
+
+“At once.”
+
+She coloured slowly and deeply,—the only evidence of anger. “I do not
+need any other reason than your wish that we should go,” she said,
+rising. “I should thank you for having borne with us so long.”
+
+“Upon my word, Holland, it is madness to start as late as this,” said
+McVay. “It will be dark in an hour.”
+
+She turned on her brother quickly: “Please say no more about the
+matter, Billy,” she said. “We will start at once.”
+
+“You won’t start if it means certainly freezing to death,” he
+remonstrated.
+
+She flashed a glance at Geoffrey, who had also risen and was trying to
+compel the truth from McVay by a stern, steady glance.
+
+“I _would_,” she answered and shut the door behind her.
+
+McVay sprang up and was about to follow her when Geoffrey stopped him.
+“One moment,” he said, “you are quite right. It is too late to start
+to-night. We must stay here until to-morrow. But if we are to spend a
+night here without your sister’s being told—”
+
+“My dear Holland, think of her position, if we did tell her!”
+
+“I grant that the information had better be withheld until just as we
+are starting, but in that case I must—”
+
+“I know what you are going to ask,—my word of honour not to escape. I
+give it, I give it willingly.”
+
+“I’m not going to ask for anything at all,” said Geoffrey. “I’m going
+to tell you one or two things, and I advise you to pay attention. We
+won’t have any nonsense at all. Remember I am armed, and I am a quick
+man with a gun. There may be some quicker, but not in the East, and it
+wasn’t in the East I got my training. You will always keep in front of
+me where I can see you plainly, and you will never, under any
+circumstances come nearer than six feet to me. If you should ever come
+nearer than that or take a sudden step in my direction, I’d shoot you
+just as sure as I stand here.”
+
+McVay looked distinctly crestfallen. “Oh, come, Holland,” he said,
+“isn’t that the least little bit exaggerated? You would not shoot me
+before my own sister?”
+
+“I would not like to, but there are things I should dislike even more,
+and having you escape is one of them.”
+
+The other thought it over. “The trouble is,” he explained, “that I am
+impulsive. You must have noticed it. I get carried away. You know how I
+am. I’m not at all sure that I shall remember.”
+
+“I advise you to try, for this is the only warning you will get.”
+
+“I cannot believe, Holland, that you would really shoot me in cold
+blood in the presence of my own sister.”
+
+“You had better behave as if you believed it.”
+
+“I don’t like this arrangement,” McVay broke out peevishly. “Suppose,
+for the sake of argument, that I did forget,—that I put my hand on your
+shoulder—a very natural gesture.”
+
+“I should shoot instantly.”
+
+“But fancy the shock to Cecilia.”
+
+“Not more of a shock, perhaps, than discovering that you are a thief.
+And another thing, it may be very gay and amusing to be forever fooling
+about the subject, but I advise you against it. It does not amuse me.”
+
+“Oh, be honest, Holland, it does, it must amuse you. It is essentially
+amusing.”
+
+“It won’t amuse her, or you either when she finds out that you are not
+only a thief but that you have been able to find amusement in deceiving
+her.”
+
+Again McVay’s gaiety seemed momentarily dashed. “Very true,” he said,
+“I had not thought of that. But then,” he added more brightly, “who can
+tell if it will actually fall to my lot to tell her. Things happen so
+strangely. It may turn out that that is _your_ part.”
+
+“It may,” said Geoffrey, “but only because I have had to shoot after
+all.” With which he opened the door and they returned to the library.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+Cecilia was not in the library, and McVay, without comment on her
+absence, turned at once to his book.
+
+“If you won’t think me impolite, Holland, I’ll go on with my Sterne.
+Conversation is always a great temptation to me, but I have so little
+opportunity to read that I feel I ought not to neglect it,—especially
+as your books are so unusual.”
+
+He settled himself to Tristram Shandy with appreciation, but Geoffrey
+could not read. He sat, indeed, with a book open on his knee, but his
+eyes were fixed on the carpet. The knowledge of the girl’s presence in
+his house distracted him like a lantern swung before his eyes. He gave
+himself up to steeping himself in his emotion, which, in some
+situations, is the nearest thing possible to thinking.
+
+Geoffrey’s success with women had been conspicuous, as was natural for
+he was good looking, rich and apparently susceptible. As a matter of
+fact, however, his susceptibility was purely superficial, and for this
+very reason he was not afraid to give it full sway. The deeply
+susceptible man learns to be cautious, to distrust his feelings, but
+Geoffrey had always too truly recognised his fundamental indifference
+to have any reason to distrust himself. He had never been in love. Like
+Ferdinand he, “for different virtues had liked many women,” although in
+his case it had not always been necessarily virtues that had attracted
+him. But there were certain women who had always appealed to him for
+some conspicuous quality, or characteristic, who for one reason or
+another pleased him, to which one side or another of his nature
+responded. He had often thought that if he could make up a composite
+woman of all of them he might be in great danger of falling in love.
+But now he was aware that his whole nature responded to the attraction
+of the girl upstairs, as a dog answers instinctively to the call of its
+master. He could say to himself that she was this or that,—brave and
+beautiful, but he knew that such qualities were but an insignificant
+part of the total effect. His reason could find causes enough to
+approve her, but something more important had gone ahead, and made
+straight the paths of his reason, something which transcended it, and
+which in case of a divergence between the two, his reason could never
+overcome.
+
+For, of course, the realisation of McVay and all his presence implied
+fell coolly upon his exaltation. By no means had Geoffrey said to
+himself in so many words that he was in love,—far less had anything so
+definite as marriage crossed his mind. He was too much in love to be so
+practical. He only knew that McVay’s mere existence was a contamination
+and a tragedy.
+
+He had been sitting thus for some time, when he heard her step on the
+stairs. He rose and met her in the hall, whence he could still keep his
+eye on McVay’s studious figure in the library.
+
+She was dressed in her sables ready for departure.
+
+
+[Illustration: She Was Dressed In His Sister’s Sables—ready For
+Departure]
+
+
+They looked at each other a moment in silence, he appealingly, she,
+with a cold blankness that seemed to say that not even a look could
+make her take further notice of him as a living being.
+
+“Have you really been thinking that I wanted to turn you out?” he said,
+with directness.
+
+“I have not been thinking about the matter at all,” she answered,
+turning her head a little aside from his direct gaze. “But I do think
+so of course. After all why should you not wish it?”
+
+“You think me likely to want anything that would part us—that is the
+way my manner strikes you?” He was surprised to find his voice not
+absolutely steady.
+
+She favoured him with a short stare from under her lids. “You seem to
+forget that I have your own word that you insisted on our going.
+Possibly you have changed your mind, but I have made mine up.” She made
+a motion as if to pass in, and go on toward the library.
+
+“I have changed so completely since I saw you,” said Geoffrey, “that I
+scarcely recognise life in this—this ecstasy. That is the only change.
+Am I likely to turn you out when I have been waiting all my life for
+you to come?”
+
+It had been with her own dream, her own credulity with which she had
+been fighting quite as much as with Holland, and the charm began to
+work once again. She said very coolly:
+
+“You are very kind, but as you said, we ought to be starting,—or have
+you forgotten saying that?”
+
+“Be just. You knew I was going too. You knew I urged our going
+because—”
+
+“Well, why?” Her look was still from half-shut lids, but the lines of
+her mouth had softened by not a little.
+
+“There is a danger of being snowed up here. Now I appreciate that there
+would be greater danger in starting out so late. And,—and equally
+desperate for me, whatever we do.”
+
+“Desperate?”
+
+“If you only want an opportunity to think so meanly of me,—to hate me,
+as your look said.”
+
+“I do not hate you.”
+
+“You are very eager to be rid of my company.”
+
+“I did not understand.”
+
+“You are going to stay?”
+
+“Until we can go safely.”
+
+“Not longer?”
+
+As this was a question obviously impossible to answer directly she
+said, “We are under sufficiently large obligations to you already.”
+
+And Geoffrey, about to answer, looked up and saw McVay was observing
+them with satisfaction, so that words froze on his lips.
+
+Here was the whole bitterness of the situation concentrated. To be
+observed at all in a moment of genuine emotion was bad enough, but to
+be observed by one who so plainly hoped to profit, was unbearable.
+Never, said Geoffrey to himself, at that glance of triumph from McVay’s
+clear little eyes, never should any influence lead him to let a thief
+slip through his fingers.
+
+He realised too, for the first time, that he could not hope for another
+word alone with Cecilia. McVay must always be present. It was a hideous
+sort of revenge that every waking minute must be spent in the man’s
+company. Geoffrey had not appreciated the full meaning of his
+instructions to McVay to keep always in sight. Not a word or a look
+could be exchanged without McVay’s seeing and rejoicing.
+
+Yet, in spite of his irritation, he could not but admire the sort of
+affectionate swagger with which McVay rose to greet her, as if the
+brother of so tender a creature must remember his responsibility.
+
+“Well, my dear,” he said sitting down beside her on the sofa, “feel
+better? Really a terrible experience. Holland has just been telling me
+about it—saying how well you behaved,” (Geoffrey favoured him with a
+scowl behind her back), “a perfect heroine,—so he says.”
+
+“Mr. Holland is very kind,” said the girl.
+
+“Kind!” cried McVay enthusiastically. “Kind! I should rather think he
+was. Why, I could give you instances of his kindness—”
+
+“You need not trouble,” said Geoffrey.
+
+McVay smiled at his sister as much as to say: What did I tell you?...
+so modest, so unassuming.
+
+To Geoffrey this sort of thing was unspeakably painful. He was willing
+enough to meet McVay in a grim interchange over his strange combination
+of facility and crime, of doom and triviality. But when it became any
+question of playing upon Cecilia’s unconsciousness of the situation, he
+writhed. Yet, a little discernment would have shown him how natural,
+how encouraging from his own point of view her unconsciousness was. To
+fall in love thoroughly is sufficiently disconcerting. Which of us
+needs to be told that it is an absorbing process, that life looks
+different, and that all past experiences must be reviewed in the light
+of this unexpected illumination. And if this is true of the more usual
+forms of the great passion, what is to be said of a girl who, in a
+single day, sees and loves a rescuer, a handsome powerful young
+creature, who comes to her with all the attributes of a soldier and a
+prince, who comes not only to save and protect, but as host and
+dispenser of all comfort and beauty.
+
+It was not to be wondered at that she was dazzled and aware of one
+fact, one personality, that far from being able to draw shrewd
+conclusions from the little happenings going on before her, she was but
+dimly aware of the existence of her brother, of the world, of anything
+but Geoffrey.
+
+Presently she said, as if trying to call up the picture:
+
+“And this is where you sat all night?” And if the thought was
+interesting to her, it was not on account of her brother’s share in it.
+
+“Yes,” returned McVay, springing lightly to his feet. “Here we sat
+discussing plans for your safety.” He took a step toward the pair at
+the fire, and then remembering, stopped. “Please move a little back,
+Holland,” he said, “I want to get nearer the fire. I’m cold.”
+
+
+[Illustration: “Please move a little back, Holland,” he said, “I want
+to get nearer the fire”]
+
+
+“You can go to the fire,” said Geoffrey, with a gesture of permission.
+
+“Of course you can,” said the girl, “Mr. Holland is not in your way,
+Billy.”
+
+But Billy continued to eye his host. “Oh, no, you don’t,” he said
+warily. “Not unless you move back. Do move, there’s a good fellow.” And
+Geoffrey laughed and moved, somewhat to the girl’s mystification. She
+forgot to wonder, however, in pursuing the more wonderful train of
+thought which had already been occupying her. Suppose that their plans
+for her relief had been decided differently, suppose her brother had
+come for her instead of the magnificent stranger, with what different
+eyes she might now be looking on life—this ecstasy as Holland had
+defined it. Curious to know by what accident she had been so blessed,
+she asked:
+
+“Why was it, Billy, that you did not come after me yourself?”
+
+“Just what I said to him,” replied McVay eagerly. “If I said once, I
+said a dozen times: ‘Holland, it is my duty and pleasure, it is my
+_right_ to go,’ but ...” McVay shrugged his shoulders, “when he once
+gets an idea into his head, it takes a gimlet to get it out.”
+
+“Upon my word, Billy,” the girl said indignantly, “I don’t think you
+ought to talk like that even in fun. You know perfectly well that Mr.
+Holland only insisted on going because he thought he was better able to
+bear the physical strain.”
+
+“Physical strain!” exclaimed McVay colouring to the roots of his sandy
+hair, from pure annoyance; “I don’t know what you mean,... Holland is,
+of course, a larger man than I, but not stronger.... Oh, well, as far
+as mere brute force goes, perhaps, but in the matter of bearing
+physical strain, you betray the most absurd ignorance. It is well known
+scientifically that medium-sized men like myself, when their muscles
+are at all developed (and you know my muscles), are better fitted for
+endurance than any of these over-grown giants.”
+
+“Then,” said she calmly, “if you knew you were better fitted I can’t
+see why you did not go.”
+
+“You are not quite fair to your brother,” said Geoffrey interrupting,
+for McVay looked as if he would explode in another moment under the
+sense of injustice. “He did propose going himself, but I would not let
+him; I—I made it a personal matter.”
+
+“Very personal,” replied McVay with feeling. “I’ll just explain how it
+was. Last night, as soon as I realised how bad the storm was, I made up
+my mind that I had better attempt to enter the house. I succeeded after
+some trouble, came to this room, turned on the light—a spooky thing; an
+empty house, picked up a book, had quite forgotten my position, the
+world, everything, when a voice at my elbow said: ‘Fond of reading?’ I
+was never more surprised in my life. I felt distinctly caught,—an
+interloper. And to make matters worse, I saw that Holland did not at
+once recognise me. I made every effort to leave, but he would not hear
+of such a thing. He made it perfectly plain in fact that it was his
+wish to keep me. I yielded. That, I think, Holland, is a pretty
+accurate account of the night’s proceeding, isn’t it?”
+
+Geoffrey did not answer. His soul rebelled at the farce, and at McVay’s
+irrepressible enjoyment of his own abilities. As Holland met the
+twinkling joy of those small blue eyes, he wondered if he would not be
+doing mankind a favour by putting a bullet into McVay before the dawn
+of another day. Unconscious of this possibility, McVay continued to his
+sister:
+
+“Well, it has all been a painful experience for you, my dear ... a long
+and dangerous adventure for a woman, but you were at least warmly clad.
+A handsome coat, is it not, Holland?”
+
+“Very,” said Geoffrey chillingly.
+
+“Now that coat,” McVay went on unchilled, “was a real bargain. I may
+say I paid nothing for it,—little more than the trouble of taking it
+home. Although from another point of view, its price was pretty
+high....”
+
+“Really, Billy, I don’t think Mr. Holland is interested in our
+bargains.”
+
+“In _some_, he is.”
+
+“Yes, indeed,” said Geoffrey, eyeing McVay with a warning glance, “I
+think I know of just about a dozen people who will want a
+circumstantial account of all of them.”
+
+“Now there, Holland, there is one of your philistine
+words,—circumstantial! It takes all poetry, all imagination out of a
+subject. Do you know, the only connotation—(are you familiar with that
+word?)—the only suggestion it has for me is a _jury_?”
+
+He scored distinctly. Geoffrey had nothing to say in reply.
+
+It was McVay himself, who, disliking a pause, observed that it was
+almost time to begin on the preparation of the Christmas dinner. They
+all rose as if glad of a break. As they passed out of the door,
+Geoffrey laid his hand on McVay’s arm.
+
+“Why do you deliberately try to exasperate me?” he said.
+
+McVay smiled. “Why do little boys lay their tongues to lamp-posts in
+freezing weather? Don’t I amuse you? Be candid.”
+
+“No.”
+
+McVay looked regretful. “As I remembered you, Holland, as a boy, you
+had more sense of humour,” he said gently.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+In the kitchen McVay made it evident that his talents were for
+organisation rather than for hard labour. He drew a chair near the
+wall, and tilting back at his ease, watched Geoffrey and Cecilia at
+work. Geoffrey, engaged in lighting the range-fire, looked up at her as
+she moved about filling the kettle and washing out pots and pans, and
+thought that he and she presented the aspect of a young couple of the
+labouring class with no further ambition than to keep a roof over their
+heads. He almost had it in his heart to wish that they were.
+
+She proved herself infinitely more capable than the two men had been,
+discovering tins of butter and soup and sardines, a package of hominy,
+apples and potatoes in the cellar, and an old box of wedding cake,
+which, with a burning brandy sauce, she declared would serve very well
+for plum-pudding.
+
+Manual labour was such a novelty to Geoffrey that he soon forgot even
+his irritation against McVay and the triangular intercourse was more
+friendly than before, until marred by an unfortunate incident.
+
+He was standing in the middle of the kitchen with a steaming pot in
+each hand, when McVay, without warning, advanced toward him,
+handkerchief in hand, exclaiming:
+
+“My dear fellow, such a smut on your forehead, pray allow me—”
+
+
+[Illustration: “My dear fellow—pray allow me”]
+
+
+“Look out,” roared Geoffrey, realising how easily in another second his
+revolver might be taken from him. The tone was alarming, and McVay
+sprang back ten feet. “I was afraid of burning you with the soup,”
+Geoffrey explained politely.
+
+“I own you made me jump,” said McVay.
+
+The girl said nothing, and Geoffrey feared the incident had made an
+unfortunate impression on her.
+
+It appeared to be completely forgotten, however, when they presently
+sat down to their Christmas dinner, of which they all expressed
+themselves as inordinately proud. There was canned soup, and sardines
+and toasted biscuits, canned corned beef, potatoes and fried hominy,
+bacon and a potato salad, a bottle of champagne, and finally the
+wedding cake.
+
+Now to say that by the time dessert was put on table McVay was drunk
+would be to do him a gross injustice. All the more genial side of this
+nature, however, was distinctly emphasised. The better part of a quart
+of champagne had not produced any signs of intoxication; his eye was
+clear, his speech perfect, and he was more than usually aware of his
+own powers, confident of appreciation.
+
+As he finished his share of cake, he rose to his feet, and leaning the
+tips of his fingers on the table, addressed Geoffrey.
+
+“My dear Holland,” he said, “I will not wish you a Merry Christmas, for
+it has already been as merry as it has lain within my poor capacity to
+make it. Let me, however, express my own gratitude to you for this
+delightful occasion. You have referred to the fare as meagre, to our
+position as constrained, but believe me, I am not exaggerating when I
+say that I so little agree with you that I am confident that, during
+many of the remaining years of my life I shall look back to this
+Christmas as one of unusual luxury and freedom. It is, perhaps, the
+warm glow of friendship that gilds all small discomforts, for in
+situations like ours characters are tested, and yours, Holland,” he
+paused impressively, “has stood the test.”
+
+Geoffrey bowed gratefully, and McVay continued:
+
+“I have here a slight token in honour of the day. It is of little
+pecuniary value, but between us, Holland, pecuniary value is no longer
+mentioned. I feel that it will be recommended to you more than mere
+worth could recommend it by the fact that it is peculiarly my own,—my
+own as few human possessions can be said to be. I offer it,” he said,
+drawing from his pocket a square flat little package, “with best wishes
+for a happy New Year.”
+
+
+[Illustration: “I Have Here A Slight Token, In Honor Of The Day”]
+
+
+The idea that McVay was going to give him a present had never crossed
+Geoffrey’s mind, and now it struck him as so characteristic, so
+perfectly in keeping with McVay’s consuming desire to triumph in minor
+matters, that he was able to smile pleasantly and receive it
+appropriately. He exchanged a glance of real appreciation with the
+donor, and received a grave bow in return.
+
+Cecilia smiled, too, “I don’t know exactly why you should think Mr.
+Holland wants your picture, Billy,” she said.
+
+“It may be of the greatest service to him,” said McVay.
+
+The girl turned to Geoffrey. “I can’t make a speech like Billy’s,” she
+said, “but I have a small present for you which I hope you won’t
+despise because it is not new. I mean I have worn it myself for some
+time, and I hope _you_ will now, in remembrance of the time when you
+sheltered the houseless.” She held out on her pink palm a flat gold
+pencil with a single topaz set in the top.
+
+The thing was of some value and Geoffrey, looking up, caught McVay’s
+eye in which danced such a delicious merriment that Geoffrey’s
+half-formed question was answered. McVay was undergoing such paroxysms
+of delight at the idea that Geoffrey was about to become a receiver of
+stolen goods that he could not well conceal it. And instinctively
+Geoffrey drew back his hand. The next moment he realised that he must
+at once accept the gift with decent gratitude, whatever he might choose
+to do with it afterward, but unfortunately the girl had noticed his
+hesitation.
+
+She said nothing whatsoever, but she closed her hand on the pencil,
+rose from the table, and left them to dispose of the remains of the
+feast as best they could.
+
+McVay, as if he had observed nothing, threw himself at once into the
+part of a waiter, tucked a napkin round his waist, flung another over
+his arm and began to clear the table.
+
+“Wait a moment,” said Geoffrey, who had not followed his example; “I
+have something to say to you. I see you are in possession of my
+sentiments in regard to your sister.... I think her a wonder,—that’s
+all it is necessary for you to know.”
+
+“Quite naturally, Holland. She is, she is.”
+
+“I won’t discuss that with you. The point is that you seem to be under
+the impression that this will do you some good. Well, it won’t. You
+stand just where you did before. You go to jail when the snow melts.
+Then I settle my affairs.”
+
+McVay’s face fell. “Really, Holland,” he said, “I don’t see how, if you
+are fond of a woman you can want ...”
+
+“... to spare her such a brother as you. Think it over.”
+
+“There are worse brothers than I,” replied McVay, “how many men would
+have sacrificed what I have sacrificed in order to keep her
+comfortably.”
+
+“Not many, I hope.”
+
+“She is extraordinarily fond of me.”
+
+“Perhaps. You see she has not any one else to be fond of.”
+
+“We can scarcely say that _now_,” returned McVay encouragingly.
+
+“I won’t discuss it with you.”
+
+“You can’t mean to tell me that you are in love with my sister and mean
+to send me to state’s prison?”
+
+“I mean exactly that.”
+
+“Why, she’d never forgive you.”
+
+Geoffrey thought this so probable that he had no answer to give and
+presently McVay, who had been grumbling over the matter to himself,
+asked: “Are you serious, Holland?”
+
+“What do you suppose I am?” Geoffrey roared, and McVay, shaking his
+head went on with the work of clearing the table. He was very silent
+and abstracted and for the first time seemed to realise his position.
+When they had put away the last plate, Geoffrey said:
+
+“Now come to the library. I am going to give you a pipe, confound you.”
+
+“A pipe! Why?”
+
+“Because I want to give your sister something, and I think she would be
+more apt to take it.”
+
+“I’m afraid she is rather offended by the way you treated her little
+gift. As a matter of fact I was the person to be offended, for I had
+given her the pencil. A pretty little thing, singularly like one which
+you may have seen Mrs.—”
+
+“Don’t tell me where you took it from. I don’t want to know. Come and
+get your pipe and mind you are grateful.”
+
+“A pipe,” observed McVay thoughtfully. “I think I’ll take that large
+meerschaum on the mantelpiece.”
+
+Geoffrey laughed. “I think you won’t,” he answered. “The best pipe I
+own! No, indeed, you’ll take a horrid little one that won’t draw. It
+will be just the thing for you.”
+
+“No,” said McVay, “no. You must give me the big one. Otherwise I shall
+make it appear that you promised the other to me, and turned mean at
+the last moment. And I can do it, Holland.” His little eyes gleamed at
+the thought. “I shall say, ‘My dear fellow, I’m glad you changed your
+mind about the meerschaum; it was as you say, too handsome for a man in
+my position.’ That will make her mad if anything will. You know she is
+not quite satisfied with the way you treat me, as it is.”
+
+This was quite true, and Geoffrey, remembering that the object of the
+gift was to please the girl, reluctantly agreed to part with his
+favourite pipe. The affair went off well. McVay affected to hesitate
+over accepting so handsome an offering, and Geoffrey pressed it upon
+him with a good grace.
+
+As far as his present to the girl was concerned, he found himself less
+and less willing to make it in McVay’s presence, and more and more
+unable to think of any way of getting rid of him except murder or the
+cedar-closet. His anxiety was rendered more acute by the fact that once
+or twice he could not help suspecting that Cecilia, in spite of her
+anger, would have been glad of a few words alone with him, also.
+
+Before very long she suggested that McVay should take her hat and coat
+upstairs for her.
+
+“Certainly I will,” cried Billy, springing up with alacrity, and was at
+the door before Holland’s warning shout “_McVay_” stopped him.
+
+“Let me take it up for your sister,” he said warningly.
+
+“Oh, not at all. Let _me_,” replied McVay courteously.
+
+“Couldn’t hear of it,” returned Geoffrey.
+
+By this time they were both outside of the door, and Geoffrey closed it
+with a snap.
+
+“You would, would you?” he said angrily.
+
+“Now, Holland,” said McVay as one who intends to introduce reason into
+an irrational confusion, “this is exactly a case in point. I am by
+nature a gallant man. I forgot all about your instructions.”
+
+“I wonder?” said Geoffrey.
+
+“It was instinctive to do my sister the little favour she asked. Yes,
+and I doubt if I should have acted differently if your pistol had been
+at my head. She asked me. That was enough.”
+
+“I’ve warned you once.”
+
+“Holland, I think,—you’ll excuse my telling you,—that you have a very
+unfortunate manner at times.”
+
+They went upstairs together and were descending when Geoffrey stopped,
+with his eyes on the grand piano which stood in the hall below them.
+
+“Can you play?” he said.
+
+McVay brightened at once. He had been looking a little glum since his
+last speech. “Yes,” he answered, “I can. Well, I’m not a professional,
+you understand, but for an amateur I am supposed to have as much
+technique and a good deal more sentiment than most.”
+
+“I don’t care _how_ you play,” said Holland. “There is a piano. Sit
+down and play, and _don’t stop_.”
+
+“No, Holland, no,” said the other with unusual firmness; “that I will
+not do. No artist would. Ask any one. It is impossible to play in
+public without practice. I have not touched the instrument for over a
+year.”
+
+“You can do all the practising you like here and now. You can play
+finger exercises for all I care. All I insist is that you should make a
+noise so that I’ll know you are there.”
+
+“Well,” said McVay yielding, “you must remember to make allowances. Not
+the best musician could sit down after a year ... however, I dare say
+it will come back to me quicker than to most people. You must make
+allowances for my lack of practice.”
+
+“There is only one thing I won’t make allowances for, and that is your
+moving from that music stool.”
+
+He opened the piano, and McVay sat down waving his fingers to loosen
+the joints. He sat with his head on one side, as if waiting to discover
+which of the great composers was about to inspire him. Then he dropped
+lightly upon the notes, lifting his chin, as if surprised to find that
+an air of Schubert’s was growing under his fingers. Geoffrey was
+astonished to find that he really was, as he said, something of an
+artist. He waited until he was fairly started and then returned to the
+library.
+
+“Is that Billy?” said the girl. “It must be a great pleasure to him to
+have a piano again. He is so fond of music.”
+
+“He was not as eager to play as I to have him,” said Geoffrey.
+
+He came back quietly, and stood looking down at her for a moment. Then
+he said, stretching out his hand:
+
+“I want my Christmas present.”
+
+“I have none to give you.”
+
+“You had.”
+
+“I’ve changed my mind.”
+
+“Why?”
+
+For the first time she looked at him. “Mr. Holland,” she said, “you
+must think me singularly unobservant. Do you suppose I don’t see that
+you dislike my brother. You refused the pencil—you did refuse it
+plainly enough—because Billy had given it to me. I will not offer it to
+you again. I know that Billy sometimes does rub people up the wrong
+way, but I should think any one of any discernment could see that his
+faults are only faults of manner.”
+
+She said this almost appealingly, and Geoffrey unable to agree, turned
+with something like a groan, and resting his elbows on the mantelpiece,
+covered his face with his hands.
+
+“Do you suppose that he does not see how you feel toward him? Are you
+by any chance assuming that he bears with your manner on account of his
+own comfort? You might at least be generous or acute enough to see that
+it is only for my sake that he exercises so much self-control. He does
+not want to make my position here more unendurable by quarrelling with
+you. It makes me furious to see what you force him to put up with, the
+way you speak to him, and look at him, as if he were your slave, or a
+disobedient dog. His self-control is wonderful. I admire him more than
+I can say.”
+
+“And is my self-control nothing?” he asked, without moving his hands
+from his face.
+
+“Yours? I don’t see any exercise of yours. Circumstances have put us at
+your mercy, you are rich and fortunate, and as insolent as you choose
+to be. Self-control? I don’t see any evidence of it.”
+
+“No?” he said, and turning, looked at her with a violence that might
+have set her on the right track. Under his eyes she looked down and
+probably in the instant forgot all that she had been saying and
+feeling, for when he added: “I love you,” her hands moved toward his,
+and she made no resistance when he took her in his arms.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+McVay was left so long at the piano that he finally resorted to a
+series of discords in order to recall himself to Holland’s mind. His
+existence, if he had only realised the fact, was so completely
+forgotten that he might have made his escape with a good half hour to
+spare before either of the others appreciated that the music had
+ceased. Not knowing this, however, he did not dare stop his playing for
+an instant, until sheer physical fatigue interfered. It was at this
+point that the discords began, and brought Geoffrey into the hall.
+
+The disposal of McVay for the night was a question to which Geoffrey
+had given a great deal of thought. The cedar closet presented itself as
+a safe prison, but in the face of McVay’s repeated assertions that the
+air had barely sufficed to support him during his former occupancy, it
+looked like murder to insist. Geoffrey finally, when bed-time came,
+locked him in a dressing-room off his own room. The window—the room was
+on the third floor—gave on empty space, and against the only door he
+placed his own bed, so that escape seemed tolerably difficult.
+
+And to all other precautions, Geoffrey added his own wakefulness,
+although toward morning weariness triumphed over excitement and he fell
+asleep.
+
+He was waked by an insistent knocking at his door, and he heard his
+name called by Cecilia. He sprang up and found her standing in the
+hall. She was wrapped in her sable coat, but shivering from cold or
+fear.
+
+“There is some one getting into the house. I heard a window open and
+steps on the piazza, below my room. What can it be?”
+
+Geoffrey flung himself past her. The instinct of the hunter joined to
+the obstinacy of his nature maddened him at the notion of McVay’s
+escape. On the opposite side of the house there was a piazza and on the
+roof of this a neighbouring window opened. He threw it back and climbed
+out.
+
+The snow had stopped, and the moon was shining, paling a little before
+the approaching dawn. Geoffrey could see a figure stealing quickly
+across the snow. There was no question of its identity. His revolver,
+which he had snatched from under his pillow and brought with him, he at
+once levelled on the vanishing form; his finger was on the trigger,
+when he felt a hand on his arm.
+
+Leaning out of the window behind him the girl caught his arm. “Don’t
+fire,” she said. “Don’t you see it is Billy?”
+
+There was a pause—the fraction of a second, but momentous, for Geoffrey
+realised that all his threats to McVay had been idle, that with that
+touch on his arm he could not shoot.
+
+Nevertheless he raised his voice and shouted thunderously: “McVay!”
+
+The figure turned, hesitated, saw, perhaps, the gleam of the moon on
+steel and began to retrace his steps.
+
+Steadily with the revolver still upon him he moved back to the house.
+Under the piazza he stopped and waved his hand.
+
+“I’m afraid they got away from us, Holland. I did my best.”
+
+“There _was_ a burglar then!” said the girl in the little whisper of
+recent fright.
+
+“By Heaven, he shall not trouble you,” returned Holland with more
+earnestness than seemed to be required. Then he left her and went down
+to meet McVay.
+
+“You were just about half a second ahead of a bullet,” he remarked,
+ushering him into the hall. To be caught and brought back is so
+ignominious a position that Geoffrey looked to see even McVay at a
+disadvantage, but looked in vain. The aspect worn was a particularly
+self-satisfied one.
+
+“I was aware I took a risk,” he answered; “I took it gladly for my
+sister’s sake.”
+
+“For your sister’s sake?”
+
+“Yes, and yours. Be honest, Holland, what could be so great a relief to
+you as to find I had disappeared. You are too narrow-minded, too
+honourable, you would say, to connive at it, but you would be delighted
+to know that you need not prosecute me.”
+
+“If I shot you, I should be saved the trouble of prosecuting.”
+
+“But at what a cost! I refer to my sister’s regard. No, no, the thing,
+if you had only been quick enough to see it, was for me to escape. It
+was a risk, of course, but a risk I gladly took for my sister’s sake. I
+would take longer ones for her.”
+
+“Do you mean that?”
+
+“Of course.”
+
+“Then take this revolver and go out and shoot yourself.”
+
+McVay looked very thoughtful. Then, he said gravely, “No, no, Holland.
+To take a risk is one thing,—to kill myself quite another. I have
+always had a strong prejudice against suicide. I think it a cowardly
+action. And it would be no help to you. She would not believe that I
+had committed suicide. She knows my views on the subject, and could
+imagine no motive. No, that would not do at all. I’m surprised at the
+suggestion. It is against my principles.”
+
+“Your principles!” Geoffrey sneered. Nevertheless, he was not a little
+altered in opinion. It had been something of a shock to him to find
+that he could not shoot at the critical instant. It had shaken his
+faith in himself. He began to doubt if he would be capable of sending
+the man to state’s prison when Cecilia besought his pity. His own
+limitations faced him. He was not the relentless judge he had supposed
+himself. Yet on the other hand, the remembrance of Vaughan and the
+other men he was representing held him to his idea of justice. “Sit
+down,” he said suddenly turning to McVay, “and write me out a list of
+everything you have stolen in this neighbourhood and where it is and
+how it may be obtained. Yes, I know it is difficult, but you had better
+try to do it for on the completeness of your list depends your only
+chance of avoiding the law. If I can return all properly, perhaps—I
+have a mine in Mexico, a hell on earth, where you can go if you prefer
+it to penal servitude. There won’t be much difference, except for the
+publicity of a trial. I’ve a man there who, when I give him his orders,
+would infinitely rather shoot you than take any risk of your getting
+away. Which will you have?”
+
+“Can you ask, Holland? Which will be easier for my sister?”
+
+“Sit down and write your list, then.”
+
+“An interesting occupation, mining,” observed McVay as he opened the
+portfolio. After this for a long time nothing was heard but the soft
+noise of the pencil and an occasional comment from the writer:
+
+“A rare piece that. I parted with it absurdly low, but the dealer was a
+connoisseur—appealed to my artistic side.”
+
+Things had gone on thus for perhaps an hour when a step sounded outside
+and the door bell rang. Both men jumped to their feet.
+
+“My God, Holland,” said McVay, “if that is the police, keep your wits
+about you or we are lost.”
+
+It was a revelation to Geoffrey to find how completely, as his alarm
+showed, he had cast in his interests with McVay’s. He stepped forward
+in silence and opened the door.
+
+Not the police, but a man in plain clothes was standing there.
+
+“I’m glad to see you safe, Mr. Holland,” he said. “There has been great
+anxiety felt for your safety. I am a detective working on the Vaughan
+and Marheim cases. I got word to come and look you up as you did not
+get back to the gardener’s cottage the night before last.”
+
+“The snow detained me,” said Geoffrey slowly.
+
+“Come in, come in, friend,” said McVay briskly. “You must be cold.”
+
+It speaks well for the professional eye that the detective, after
+studying McVay for an instant, asked:
+
+“I did not catch this gentleman’s name. Who is he?”
+
+There was a barely perceptible pause. Then Geoffrey answered coolly:
+“That is the man you are after.”
+
+“Are you crazy, Holland?” shouted McVay.
+
+“What, the Vaughan burglar? You caught him without assistance?” Envy
+and admiration struggled on the detective’s countenance. “I must
+congratulate you, sir.”
+
+Geoffrey allowed himself the luxury of a groan. “You needn’t,” he said;
+“I am no subject for congratulation. I can’t even prosecute him,
+confound him, for several reasons. We were at school together, and I
+can take no steps in the matter.”
+
+“But I can,” said the detective; “indeed it is my duty to.”
+
+“No,” said Geoffrey, “nor can you. This man cannot be sent to prison.
+Yes, I know, it is compounding a felony. Well, sit down, and we’ll
+compound it.”
+
+“I could not agree to anything of the kind,” said the detective.
+
+“I don’t see exactly what you can do about it.” Geoffrey was deliberate
+and very polite. “For reasons which I can’t explain, but which you
+would appreciate, leave me no choice. I have to save this man from
+jail. If you intend to work against me, I shall simply let him escape
+at once. Don’t draw your revolver, please. I prefer to be the only
+person with a weapon in my hand. He has made a list of all the things
+he has stolen, and I shall see that they are returned to their owners
+at any cost. Will you undertake to get him safely to a mine I own in
+Mexico? Once there he can’t get away. It is forty-five miles from a
+railway. If you accomplish this, I will give you ten thousand to make
+up for the reward you didn’t get,—five thousand down, and five thousand
+at the end of a year.”
+
+“I don’t know what to say,” said the man. “It sounds like a bribe.”
+
+“It is,” said Geoffrey coolly.
+
+“I never received such a proposition,” returned the man.
+
+“That scheme won’t do, Holland,” put in McVay. “Can’t you see it lays
+you open to blackmail?”
+
+“From you?” said Geoffrey. “I had thought of that, but you can’t
+blackmail me at La Santa Anna, and if you get away and come close
+enough to blackmail me, I’ll put you in prison without a moment’s
+hesitation. I shall be in a position by that time to take care of the
+feelings of the other people concerned.”
+
+“You don’t understand me,” answered McVay; “I meant blackmail from this
+man.”
+
+“Oh,” said Geoffrey civilly, “I am convinced he is not a blackmailer.
+And besides, he won’t get his second five thousand for a year, and as I
+was saying to you, after a year I don’t so much mind having the whole
+thing known. My reputation will stand it, I think, if yours and his
+will.”
+
+“I’m no blackmailer,” said this detective. “If I accept, I’ll be on the
+square.”
+
+“If you do, let me offer you a piece of advice,” observed Geoffrey,
+“and that is not to take your eye off that man for a single instant. He
+is a slippery customer, and you run a fair chance of not seeing my
+money at all, if you give him the smallest loophole.”
+
+The detective considered McVay carefully from head to foot. Then he
+said gravely:
+
+“Is there any way of getting to this place of yours by water? I don’t
+see my way to taking this customer in a Pullman car. If he chooses to
+slip overboard from a boat, why no one would be any the worse, unless
+maybe the sharks.”
+
+“Very true,” agreed Geoffrey amiably. “Fortunately you can get a
+steamer in New York.”
+
+It soon became apparent that the detective failed to see any good
+reason for declining so advantageous an offer as Geoffrey’s, and they
+were presently deep in the discussion of their plans, McVay meanwhile
+studying the map with unfeigned interest in the situation of his future
+residence.
+
+Cecilia, fortunately, gave them plenty of time for their arrangements,
+for she had fallen asleep again, after the alarm of the early morning,
+and the men must have been talking for two hours when she appeared at
+the library door.
+
+She cast a look of surprise at the addition to their party and Geoffrey
+saw with a sort of paralysis that she was inclined to set him down as
+the burglar whose footsteps she had heard in the night. To prevent any
+betrayal of this opinion, Geoffrey advanced a few steps to meet her,
+although as he did so, he realised that he had nothing to answer when
+she asked, as of course she did ask: “Who is that?”
+
+A sort of desperation, the cowardice that will sometimes attack the
+brave took hold of Geoffrey. He looked at her hopelessly and would
+perhaps in another instant have told her the truth, had not McVay, not
+the least disconcerted, taken the lead.
+
+“This, Cecilia,” he said exuberantly, laying his hand on the
+detective’s shoulder, “is my old friend Picklebody,—Henderson
+Picklebody. You have heard his name often enough, and he, yours, too.
+Eh, Henderson, in the old Machita days?”
+
+The detective, whose name was George P. Cook, was so taken up with his
+surprise at the apparition of a beautiful woman that he scarcely heard
+McVay. He began to guess something of the motives that led Holland to
+shield this offender against the law, nor had he ever found it unwise
+to yield to the whims of young millionaires.
+
+Cecilia, who was too gentle or too politic to betray the fact that she
+heard the interesting name of Picklebody for the first time, remarked
+in a tone as cheerful as she could make it:
+
+“I suppose that if Mr. Picklebody could get in we can get out now.”
+
+“Can and will,” rejoined McVay beamingly. “Hen comes as he has always
+come to his friends, as a rescuer.”
+
+“I seem to require a great deal of rescuing,” said the girl, looking up
+at the monopolist in the art who had so far said nothing.
+
+“Ah, but you don’t understand, my dear,” went on McVay ruthlessly
+cutting into the look which the lovers were exchanging; “You don’t yet
+understand how fortunate we are in our friends. Henderson did not, it
+is true, come to find me. It was the greatest coincidence his meeting
+me here. It seems that he and Holland are both interested in a mine in
+Mexico, and what do you think?” McVay paused and rubbed his hands;
+“Really, we have the kindest friends; they have been arranging between
+them to offer me a job down there. What do you think of that?”
+
+Cecilia who had been trying to imagine any future after they left the
+shelter of the grey stone house, would have answered if she had been
+thoroughly candid that she thought Mexico was a terribly long distance
+away, but she only observed:
+
+“How very kind of them. I am sure we shall like Mexico.”
+
+“There, there, do you hear that? ‘We.’ Gentlemen,” cried McVay,
+throwing up his hands, “I cannot leave my sister alone,—deserted.
+Consider it all off.”
+
+“Oh, I wasn’t to go?” asked Cecilia, looking up with more enthusiasm.
+
+“My dear,” replied McVay, “I must own that I was base enough to
+consider a plan that would separate us. The mine, it seems, is no place
+for ladies. But we will think no more about it. I see by your manner
+that your feelings...”
+
+“Dear Billy,” said the girl gently, “you must not give it up. You know
+that I can always go to the Lees, until—until I get a position. And
+nothing is so important as that you should have work that is
+satisfactory to you. Of course you must accept.”
+
+“Did you ever hear anything so noble?” asked McVay. “Yes, I suppose I
+ought to accept. So they both tell me. I must go, mustn’t I, Hen?”
+
+“Well, it looks like it would be better for you if you did,” replied
+the detective, who had fortunately his legitimate share of American
+humour.
+
+“There is another point, Cecilia,” McVay went on, “if I do accept, I
+shall have to leave at once. When did you say, Hen?”
+
+“Train to New York this afternoon,—steamer sails to-morrow.”
+
+“Oh, dear. That’s very sudden,” said Cecilia.
+
+“At a word from you, dear, I’ll give it up,” remarked McVay.
+
+“No, no, of course not. I should never forgive myself. You must go.
+Perhaps it is all the better that I did not know beforehand. It saves
+me just that amount.”
+
+“We’ve no time to lose,” remarked McVay briskly, “if we are going to
+try for that afternoon train. I suppose we can get a sleigh at the
+gardener’s, Holland, if we can struggle as far as that. Well, well, we
+must hurry off.”
+
+It was McVay who urged on the preparations for departure, hurrying his
+sister, flitting about the house at such a rate that the detective, who
+was of a solider build, found it hard to keep up with.
+
+Nor was it only physical agility that McVay required of the unfortunate
+man. Having overheard Geoffrey telling him that he was not to betray
+the real state of things before Miss McVay, under penalty of losing his
+money, McVay took special delight in making him look like a fool,
+calling upon him to remember happenings which existed only in McVay’s
+own fertile brain.
+
+“What, Hen,” he would cry suddenly, “was the name of that pretty black
+haired girl you were so sweet on,—you know, the daughter of the
+canal-boat man.”
+
+The detective, looking very much alarmed, would of course reply that he
+did not know what McVay was talking about.
+
+“There, there,” McVay would reply soothingly patting him on the
+shoulder, “I’m not going into the story of the pink blanket. You can
+always trust to my discretion. But I would like just to remember her
+name. It was so peculiar,—a name I never heard before.”
+
+The detective, who had been respectably married since he was twenty,
+found himself unable to remember any female names and finally in agony
+suggested “Mary.”
+
+“Mary, my dear fellow, no; that was your friend the paper-girl. There
+is nothing very unusual about Mary, is there, Holland? No, the name I
+was trying to think of was Ethelberta. Now you remember, don’t you?”
+
+“No, I don’t,” said the detective crossly, casting an appealing look at
+Geoffrey.
+
+“How sad that is,” said McVay philosophically. “You don’t even remember
+her name, and at one time—well, well.”
+
+Or again, he would exclaim brightly, studying the detective’s
+countenance.
+
+“Ah, Henderson, I see the mark of Sweeney’s bullet has entirely gone. I
+was afraid it would leave a scar. Tell my sister that yarn. I think it
+would interest her.”
+
+“Yes, do, Mr. Picklebody,” said the girl politely and McVay, when he
+had sufficiently tortured his victim, would at length launch out into a
+story himself. Miserable as the detective was under this sort of
+treatment, it soon appeared that McVay’s ease and facility had made an
+impression on him, and that he looked at his prisoner with a sort of
+wondering admiration.
+
+“Now, Holland, are we all ready? Cecilia, have you got your little
+bag?” he began when they were about to depart. “Holland, my dear
+fellow, don’t think me interfering if I ask whether you have looked to
+all the doors and windows? Tramps and thieves are so apt to break into
+shut-up houses, and it would be such a pity if anything happened to any
+of your pretty things. Ah, what an expanse of snow. Beautiful, isn’t
+it? You may talk about your tropical scenery, Hen, but we shan’t see
+anything finer than this the world over. What a contrast the south will
+be though, eh, old man?” and, drawing the detective’s arm through his,
+leaning heavily upon him meanwhile, McVay moved forward, talking
+volubly.
+
+Cecilia and Geoffrey hesitated a moment looking up at the house that
+had seen such momentous changes in their lives.
+
+“When we come back, it will be spring,” said Geoffrey softly.
+
+“Oh,” said the girl in rather a shaky voice, “you like me well enough
+to ask me to stay again?”
+
+“Well enough,” said Geoffrey, “to ask you to stay forever.”
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14835 ***