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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Seventh Noon, by Frederick Orin Bartlett
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Seventh Noon
+
+Author: Frederick Orin Bartlett
+
+Release Date: January 24, 2007 [EBook #20429]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SEVENTH NOON ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Al Haines
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Frontispiece: "Spring," she answered.  "Just spring"
+(missing from book)]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE SEVENTH NOON
+
+BY
+
+FREDERICK ORIN BARTLETT
+
+
+_Author of "The Web of the Golden Spider",
+"Joan of the Alley," etc._
+
+
+
+WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
+
+EDMUND FREDERICK
+
+
+
+BOSTON
+
+SMALL, MAYNARD AND COMPANY
+
+PUBLISHERS
+
+
+
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1910
+
+By Small, Maynard & Company
+
+(INCORPORATED)
+
+
+Entered at Stationers' Hall
+
+
+
+Two editions before publication, January, 1910
+
+
+
+
+To
+
+K. P. B. and K. J. B.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER
+
+      I  THE BLACK DOG
+     II  KING OF TO-DAY
+    III  THE BEGINNING OF THE END
+     IV  KISMET
+      V  THE INNER WOODS
+     VI  THE SHADOW ON THE PORTRAITS
+    VII  THE ARSDALES
+   VIII  THE MAN WHO KNEW
+     IX  DAWN
+      X  OUTSIDE THE HEDGE
+     XI  A PARTING AND A MEETING
+    XII  DISTRICT MESSENGER 3457
+   XIII  THE SLEEPERS
+    XIV  CONSEQUENCES
+     XV  THE DERELICT
+    XVI  THE FOURTH DAY
+   XVII  AN INTERLUDE
+  XVIII  THE MAKING OF A MAN
+    XIX  A MIRACLE
+     XX  A LONG NIGHT
+    XXI  FACING THE SUN
+   XXII  CLOUDS
+  XXIII  WHEN THE DEAD AWAKE
+   XXIV  THE GREATER MASTER
+    XXV  THE SHADOW ON THE FLOOR
+   XXVI  ON THE BRINK
+  XXVII  THE END OF THE BEGINNING
+ XXVIII  THE SEVENTH NOON
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+"Spring," she answered.  "Just spring" . . . _Frontispiece_
+
+"What, you, Miss Arsdale?"
+
+As he studied her it seemed certain that she was
+by no means enjoying herself in her present company
+
+Facing her he faced the pendulum which ticked
+out to him the cost of each new picture he had of her
+
+He lowered the rails, and Miss Arsdale led the way
+
+"The kid," he announced laconically.  "What yuh think of him?"
+
+At noon!  At the seventh noon, the whistle was to blow!
+
+
+
+
+The Seventh Noon
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+_The Black Dog_
+
+"The right to die?"
+
+Professor Barstow, with a perplexed scowl ruffling the barbette of gray
+hairs above his keen eyes, shook his head and turning from the young
+man whose long legs extended over the end of the lean sofa upon which
+he sprawled in one corner of the laboratory, held the test-tube, which
+he had been studying abstractedly, up to the light.  The flickering gas
+was not good for delicate work, and it was only lately that Barstow,
+spurred on by a glimpse of the end to a long series of experiments, had
+attempted anything after dark.  He squinted thoughtfully at the yellow
+fluid in the tube and then, resuming his discussion, declared
+emphatically,
+
+"We have no such right, Peter!  You 're wrong.  I don't know where,
+because you put it too cleverly for me.  But I know you 're dead
+wrong--even if your confounded old theories are right, even if your
+deductions are sound.  You 're wrong where you bring up."
+
+"Man dear," answered the other gently, "you are too good a scientist to
+reason so.  That is purely feminine logic."
+
+"I am too good a scientist to believe that anything so complex as human
+life was meant to be wasted in a scheme where not so much as an atom is
+lost.  Bah, your liver is asleep!  Too much work--too much work!  The
+black dog has pounced upon your shoulders!"
+
+"I never had an attack of the blues or anything similar in my life,
+Barstow," Donaldson denied quietly.  "You 'll propose smelling salts
+next."
+
+"Then what the devil does ail you?"
+
+"Nothing ails me.  Can't a man have a few theories without the aid of
+liver complaint?"
+
+"Not that kind.  They don't go with a sound constitution.  When a man
+begins to talk of finding no use for life, he 's either a coward or
+sick.  And--I know you 're not a coward, Peter."
+
+The man on the couch turned uneasily.
+
+"Nor sick either.  You are as stubborn and narrow as an old woman,
+Barstow," he complained.
+
+"Living is n't a matter of courage, physical or moral.  It suits
+you--it doesn't happen to suit me, but that doesn't mean that you are
+well and moral while I 'm sick and a coward.  My difficulty is
+simple--clear; I haven't the material means to get out of life what I
+want.  I 'll admit that I might get it by working longer, but I should
+have to work so many years in my own way that there would n't in the
+end be enough of me left to enjoy the reward.  Now, if I don't like
+that proposition, who the devil is to criticize me for not accepting
+it?"
+
+"It's quitting not to stay."
+
+"It would be if we elected to come.  We don't.  Moreover, my case is
+simplified by circumstances--no one is dependent upon me either
+directly or indirectly.  I have no relatives--few friends.  These, like
+you, would call me names for a minute after I 'd gone and then forget."
+
+"You 're talking beautiful nonsense," observed Barstow.
+
+"Schopenhauer says--"
+
+"Damn your barbaric pessimists and all their hungry tribe!"
+
+Donaldson smiled a trifle condescendingly.
+
+"What's the use of talking to you when you 'll not admit a sound
+deduction?  And yet, if I said you don't know what results when you put
+together two known chemicals, you 'd--"
+
+There was a look in Barstow's face that checked Donaldson,--a look of
+worried recollection.
+
+"I 'd say nothing," he asserted earnestly, "because I _don't_ always
+know."
+
+For a moment his fingers fluttered over the medley of bottles upon the
+shelves before him.  They paused over a small vial containing a
+brilliant scarlet liquid.  He picked it out and held it to the light.
+
+"See this?" he asked.
+
+Donaldson nodded indifferently.
+
+"It is a case in point.  Theoretically I should have here the innocuous
+union of three harmless chemicals; as a matter of fact I had occasion
+to experiment with it and learned that I had innocently produced a
+vicious and unheard-of poison.  The stuff is of no use.  It is one of
+those things a man occasionally stumbles upon in this work,--better
+forgotten.  How do I account for it?  I don't.  Even in science there
+is always the unknown element which comes in and plays the devil with
+results."
+
+"But according to your no-waste theory, even this discovery ought to
+have some use," commented Donaldson with a smile.
+
+"Well," drawled the chemist whimsically, "perhaps it has; it makes
+murder very simple for the laity."
+
+"How?"
+
+Barstow turned back to his test-tube, relieved that the conversation
+had taken another turn.
+
+"Because of the slowness with which it works.  It requires seven days
+for the system to assimilate it and yet the stomach stubbornly retains
+it all this while.  It is impossible to eliminate it from the body once
+it is swallowed.  It produces no symptoms and leaves no evidence.
+There is no antidote.  In the end it paralyzes the heart--swiftly,
+silently, surely."
+
+Donaldson sat up.
+
+"Any pain?" he inquired.
+
+"None."
+
+Barstow ran his finger over a calendar on the wall.  Then he glanced at
+his watch.
+
+"Stay a little while longer and you can see for yourself how it works.
+I am making a final demonstration of its properties."
+
+Barstow stepped into the next room.  He was gone five minutes and
+returned with a scrawny bull terrier scrambling at his heels.  The
+little brute, overjoyed at his release, frisked across the floor,
+clumsily tumbling over his own feet, and sniffed as an overture of
+friendship at Donaldson's low shoes.  Then wagging his feeble tail he
+lifted his head and patiently blinked moist eyes awaiting a verdict.
+The young man stooped and scratched behind its ears, the dog holding
+his head sideways and pressing against his ankles.  He looked like a
+dog of the streets, but in his eyes there was the dumb appreciation of
+human sympathy which neutralizes breeding and blood.  As Barstow
+returned to his work, the pup followed after him in a series of awkward
+bounds.
+
+"Poor little pup," murmured Donaldson, sympathetically leaning forward
+with his arms upon his knees.  "What's his name?"
+
+"Sandy.  But he 's a lucky little pup according to you; within an hour
+by the clock he ought to be dead."
+
+"Dead?"
+
+"If my poison works.  It was seven days ago to-night that I gave him a
+dose."
+
+Donaldson's brows contracted.  He was big-hearted.  This seemed a cruel
+thing to do.  He whistled to the pup and called him by name, "Sandy,
+Sandy."  But the dog only wagged his tail in response and snuggled with
+brute confidence closer to his master.  Donaldson snapped his fingers
+coaxingly, leaning far over towards him.  Reluctantly, at a nod from
+Barstow, the dog crept belly to the ground across the room.  Donaldson
+picked up the trembling terrier and settling him into his lap passed
+his hand thoughtfully over the warm smooth sides where he could feel
+the heart pounding sturdily.
+
+From the dog, Donaldson lifted his eyes to Barstow's back.  They were
+dark brown eyes, set deep below a square forehead.  His head, too, was
+square and drooped a bit between loose shoulders.  He smiled to himself
+at some passing thought and the smile cast a pleasant softness over
+features which at rest appeared rather angular and decidedly intense.
+The mouth was large and the irregular teeth were white as a hound's.
+His black hair was cut short and at the temples was turning gray,
+although he had not yet reached thirty.  It was an eager face, a strong
+face.  It hardened to granite over life in the abstract and softened to
+the feminine before concrete examples of it.
+
+"It is a bit of a paradox," he resumed, "that so harmless a creature as
+you, Barstow, should stumble upon so deadly an agent.  What do you call
+it?"
+
+"I have n't reported it yet.  I don't know as I care to have my name
+coupled with it in these days of newspaper notoriety--even though it
+may be my one bid for fame."
+
+Donaldson drew a package of Durham from his pocket and fumbled around
+until he found a loose paper.  He deftly rolled a cigarette, his long
+fingers moving with the dexterity of a pianist.  He smoked a moment in
+silence, exhaling the smoke thoughtfully with his eyes towards the
+ceiling.  The dog, his neck outstretched on Donaldson's knee, blinked
+sleepily across the room at his master.  The gas, blown about by drafts
+from the open window, threw grotesque dancing shadows upon the stained,
+worn boards of the floor.  Finally Donaldson burst out, ever recurring
+to the one subject like a man anxious to defend himself,
+
+"Barstow, I tell you that merely to cling to existence is not an act in
+itself either righteous or courageous.  If we owe obligations to
+individuals we should pay them to the last cent.  If we owe obligations
+to society, we should pay those, too,--just as we pay our poll tax.
+But life is a straight business proposition--pay in some form for what
+you get out of it.  There are no individuals in my life, as I said.
+And what do I owe society?  Society does not like what I offer--the
+best of me--and will not give me what I want--the best of _it_.  Very
+well, to the devil with society.  Our mutual obligations are cancelled."
+
+Barstow, still busy with his work, shook his head.
+
+"You come out wrong every time," he insisted.  "You don't seem to get
+at the opportunities there are in just living."
+
+The young man took a long breath.
+
+"So?" he demanded between half closed teeth.  "No?" he challenged with
+bitter intensity.  "You are wrong; I know all that it is possible for
+life to mean!  That's the trouble.  Oh, I know clear to my parched
+soul!  I was made to live, Barstow,--made to live life to its fullest!
+There isn't a bit of it I don't love,--love too well to be content much
+longer to play the galley slave in it.  To live is to be free.  I love
+the blue sky above until I ache to madness that I cannot live under it;
+I love the trees and grasses, the oceans, the forests and the denizens
+of the forests; I love men and women; I love the press of crowds, the
+clamor of men; I love silks and beautiful paintings and clean white
+linen and flowers; I love good food, good clothes, good wine, good
+music, good sermons, and good books.  All--all it is within me to love
+and to desire mightily.  How I want those things--not morbidly--but
+because I have five good senses and God knows how many more; because I
+was _made_ to have those things!"
+
+"Then why don't you keep after them?" demanded Barstow coldly.
+
+"Because the price of them is so much of my soul and body that I 'd
+have nothing left with which to enjoy them afterwards.  You can't get
+those things honestly in time to enjoy them, in one generation.  You
+can't get them at all, unless you sell the best part of you as you did
+when you came to the Gordon Chemical Company.  Oh Lord, Barstow, how
+came you to forget all the dreams we used to dream?"
+
+Barstow turned quickly.  There was the look upon his face as of a man
+who presses back a little.  For a moment he appeared pained.  But he
+answered steadily,
+
+"I have other dreams now, saner dreams."
+
+"Saner dreams?  What are your saner dreams but less troublesome
+dreams,--lazier dreams?  Dreams that fit into things as they are
+instead of demanding things as they should be?  You sleep o' nights
+now; you sleep snugly, you tread safely about the cage they trapped you
+into."
+
+"Then let me alone there.  Don't--don't poke me up."
+
+Donaldson snapped away his cigarette.
+
+"No.  Why should I?  But I 'll have none of it.  That damned Barnum,
+'Society,' shall not catch me and trim my claws and file my teeth."
+
+He laughed to himself, his lips drawn back a little, rubbing behind the
+pup's ears.  The dog moved sleepily.
+
+"Barstow," he continued more calmly, "this is n't a whine.  I 'm not
+discouraged--it is n't that.  I 'm not frightened, nor despondent, nor
+worried, understand.  I know that things will come out all right by the
+time I 'm fifty, but I shall then be fifty.  I 'd like a taste of the
+jungle now--a week or two of roaming free, of sprawling in the
+sunshine, of drinking at the living river, of rolling under the blue
+sky.  I 'd like to slash around uncurbed outside the pale a little.  I
+'d like to do it while I 'm young and strong,--I 'd like to do it now."
+
+"In brief," suggested Barstow, "you desire money."
+
+"Enough so that I might forget there was such a thing."
+
+"Well, you 'll have to sell something of yourself to get it."
+
+"Just so.  I won't and there you are.  You see I don't fit."
+
+Donaldson paused a moment and then went on.
+
+"You know something of my story, you alone of all this grinding city.
+You saw me in college and in the law school, where on a coolie diet I
+did a man's work.  But even you don't know how close to hard pan I was
+during those seven years,--down to crackers and water for weeks at a
+time."
+
+"You don't mean to say you went hungry?"
+
+"Hungry?" laughed Donaldson.  "Man dear, there were days when I was
+starving!  I 've been to classes when I was so weak I could n't push my
+pencil.  I was hungry, and cold, and lonesome, but at that time I had
+my good warm, well-fed dreams, so I did n't mind so much.  And always I
+thought it would be better next year, but it was n't.  None of the
+things that come to some men fell to me; it continued the same old
+pitiless grind until I began to expect it.  Then I said to myself that
+it would be different when I got through.  But it was n't.  I finished,
+and you are the only pleasant recollection I have of all that past.
+You used to let me sit by your fire and now and then you brought out
+cake they had sent you from home."
+
+"Good Lord," groaned Barstow, "why did n't you let a fellow know?"
+
+"Why should I let you know?  It was my fight.  But I 've watched by the
+hour your every move about the room, so hungry that my pulse increased
+or decreased as you neared or retreated from the closet where you kept
+that cake.  I 'll admit that this condition was a good deal my
+fault,--I had a cursed false pride that forbade my doing for grub what
+some of the fellows did.  Then, too, I was an optimist; it was coming
+out all right in the end.  But it did n't and it has n't."
+
+Donaldson paused.
+
+"Am I boring you, old man?"
+
+"No!  No!  Go on.  But if I had suspected--"
+
+"You could not then have been the friend you were to me,--I 'd have cut
+you dead.  And understand, I 'm not recalling this now for the purpose
+of exciting sympathy.  I don't deserve sympathy; I went my own gait and
+cheerfully paid the cost, content with my dreams of the future.  I
+would n't sell one whit of myself.  I wouldn't sacrifice one
+extravagant belief.  I would n't compromise.  And I 'm glad I did n't.
+
+"When I finished my course you lost sight of me, but it was the same
+old thing over again.  I refused to accept a position in a law office,
+because I would n't be fettered.  I had certain definite notions of how
+a law practice ought to be conducted,--of certain things a decent man
+ought not to do.  This in turn barred me from a job offered by a street
+railway company and another by a promoting syndicate.  I took a room
+and waited.  It has been a long wait, Barstow, a bitter long wait.
+Four barren years have gone.  I have been hungry again; I have gone on
+wearing second-hand clothes; I have slept in second-class surroundings;
+my life has resembled life about as much as the naked trees in the Fall
+resemble those in June.  I have existed after a fashion and learned
+that if I skimp and drudge and save for twenty years I can then begin
+to do the things I wish to do.  But not before,--not before without
+compromise.  And I 've had enough of the will o' the wisp Future,
+enough of the shadowy to-morrows.  I 've saved a few hundreds and had a
+few hundreds left me recently by the last relative I had on earth.  I
+'d like to take this and squander it--live a space."
+
+"Why don't you?"
+
+"It's the curse of coming back, and the mere fact that your heart
+continues to tick forces that upon you.  There is only one way--one way
+to dodge the mortgage I would place upon my Future by spending these
+savings."
+
+"And that?"
+
+"Not to let the heart tick on; to bar the future."
+
+Donaldson moved a bit uneasily.  As he did so the pup lost his balance
+and fell to the floor.  The little fellow struck upon his side but
+instantly regained his feet, blinking sleepily at the light.  Barstow
+took out his watch and squatting nearer him studied him with interest.
+
+Suddenly the dog's legs crumpled beneath him.  He tried to stand, to
+make his way to his master, but instantly toppled over on his side.
+Donaldson reached for him.  That which he lifted was like a limp glove.
+He drew back from it in horror, glancing up at Barstow.
+
+"You see," exclaimed the chemist with evident satisfaction, "almost to
+the hour!"
+
+"But he isn't--"
+
+"Dead!"
+
+"Poor Sandy!  Poor Sandy!"
+
+Donaldson gingerly passed his fingers over the dog's hair.  He was
+curiously unconvinced.  There was no responsive lift of the head, no
+contented wagging of the tail, but that was the only difference.  A
+moment ago the dog had been asleep for an hour; now he was asleep for
+an eternity.  That was the only difference.
+
+"Well," reflected Barstow, "Sandy had his week; beefsteak, bread and
+milk, all he could eat."
+
+"Is n't that better than being still alive,--hungry in the gutters?"
+
+"God knows," answered Barstow solemnly, as he picked up the body and
+carried it into the next room.  "You see what is left."
+
+As Barstow went out, Donaldson crossed to the chemist's desk.  He
+fumbled nervously among the bottles until he found the little vial
+Barstow had pointed out.  He had just time to thrust this into his
+pocket and reseat himself before Barstow returned.  At the same moment
+there was a firm but decidedly feminine knock upon the outer door.  The
+chemist seemed to recognize it, for instead of his usual impatient
+shout he went to the door and opened it.  And yet, when the feeble
+light revealed his visitor he evinced surprise.
+
+"What, you, Miss Arsdale?"
+
+[Illustration: "_What, you, Miss Arsdale?_"]
+
+"Yes, Professor," she answered, slightly out of breath.  "I thought
+that if I hurried I might possibly find you here.  I am all out of my
+brother's medicine and I did not dare wait until to-morrow."
+
+"I 'm glad you did n't," he responded heartily.  "If you will sit down
+a moment I will prepare it."
+
+Donaldson glanced up, irritated to think he had not left earlier and so
+escaped the inevitable introduction.  He saw a young woman of perhaps
+twenty-two or three, and then--the young woman's eyes.  They were dark,
+but not black, a sort of silver black like gun metal.  They were, he
+noted instantly, apparently more mature than the rest of her features,
+as is sometimes true when the soul grows out of proportion to the
+years.  Her hair was of a reddish brown; brown in the shadows, a golden
+red as she stood beneath the gas-jet.  She was a little below medium
+height, rather slight, and was dressed in a dark blue pongee suit, the
+coat of which reached to her ankles.  One might expect most anything of
+her, thought Donaldson, child or woman.  It would no more surprise one
+to see her in tears over a trifle than standing firm in a crisis;
+bending over a wisp of embroidery, or driving a sixty horse-power
+automobile.  Of one thing Donaldson thought he could be sure; that
+whatever she did she would do with all her heart.
+
+These and many other fugitive thoughts passed through Donaldson's brain
+during the few minutes he was left here alone with her.  What was said
+he could not remember a minute afterwards; something of the night,
+something of the brilliant reflections of the gas-light in the
+varicolored bottles, something of the approaching summer.  Her thoughts
+seemed to be as far removed from this small room as were his own.
+
+"Your patient is better?" Barstow inquired, when he returned with the
+package.
+
+Her face lightened instantly.
+
+"Yes," she answered, "much better."
+
+"Good."  He added, "I should n't think it safe for you to be out alone
+at night.  Have n't there been a good many highway robberies recently
+in your neighborhood?"
+
+"You have heard?"
+
+"It would be difficult to listen to the newsboys and not hear that.
+The last one, a week ago, made the fourth, didn't it?"
+
+"I don't know.  I seldom read the papers.  They are too horrible."
+
+"I will gladly escort you if--"
+
+"I could n't think of troubling you," she protested, starting at once
+for the door.  "I 'm in the machine, so I 'm quite safe.  Good night."
+
+With a nod and smile to both men she went out.
+
+Donaldson himself prepared to go at once.
+
+"Well, old man," he apologized nervously to the chemist, "pardon me for
+boring you so long.  It is bad taste I know for a man to air such views
+as mine, but it has done me good."
+
+"Take my advice and forget them yourself.  Go into the country.  Loaf a
+little in the sunshine.  Stay a week.  I 'm going off for a while
+myself."
+
+"You leave--"
+
+"Within a few days, possibly.  I can't tell."
+
+"Well, s' long and a pleasant trip to you."
+
+Donaldson gripped the older man's hand.  The latter gazed at him
+affectionately, apprehensively.
+
+"See here, Peter," he broke out earnestly.  "There is one thing even
+better for you than the country, a thing that includes the sunshine and
+everything else worth while in life.  I have hesitated about mentioning
+it, but this girl who was here made me think of it again.  You know I
+'m not a sentimental man, Peter?"
+
+"Unless you have changed.  But your panacea?"
+
+"Love."
+
+"That's a generic term."
+
+"Just plain human love, love for a woman like this one who was here.  I
+wish you knew her.  She 'd be good for you; she 'd give your present
+self-centred life a broader meaning."
+
+Donaldson turned away.
+
+"Barstow," he replied uneasily, "you 're good,--good clear through, but
+we move in different worlds.  It is n't in me to love as you mean.  I
+'m too critical, which is to say too selfish."
+
+"I think you are selfish, Peter," Barstow agreed frankly, "but I don't
+think it's your nature.  You 've got into the Slough of Despond, and
+the only thing that will drag you out of that is love, love of
+something outside yourself.  Try it."
+
+Donaldson shook his head.
+
+"You 're as good as gold," he declared, "but the things which content
+you and me are not the same.  Good night."
+
+"Good night.  Be sure to drop in again when I get back."
+
+Donaldson went out the door.  He groped his way down the stairs into
+the street.  Once he swung abruptly on his heel and stared at the
+pavement behind him.  He thought he heard at his heels the scratching
+padded tread of the pup.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+_King of To-day_
+
+Donaldson pressed his way along the lighted streets, clutching the vial
+in his pocket with the thrill of a man holding the key to fretting
+shackles.  One week of life with the future eliminated; one week with no
+reckoning to be made at the end; one week with every human fetter struck
+off; one week in which to ignore every curbing law of futurity and
+abandon himself to the joy of the present!  The future--even the narrow
+bounds of an earthly future--holds men prisoners.  A few careless dogs,
+to be sure, live their day, blind to the years to come, but that is brute
+stupidity.  A few brave souls swagger through their prime with some
+bravado, knowing the final cost, but willing to pay it by installments
+through the dribbling years which follow; but the usury of time makes
+that folly.  The wise choke such gypsy impulses--admit the mortgage of
+the Present to the Future--and surrender the brisk liberty of youth to
+the limping freedom of old age.  But Donaldson was too thoughtful a man
+to belong to either the first or second class and yet of too lusty stuff
+to join the third.
+
+There were now just two doubtful points which checked him in his first
+impulse to swallow the deadly elixir at once,--two questions needing
+further thought before he would have a clear conscience about it; he must
+convince himself a trifle more clearly that he shifted nothing to the
+load of those he left behind, and he must make sure that no element of
+fear entered into his act.  That phrase of Barstow's, "It's quitting not
+to stay," smarted a bit.
+
+In spite of these vital problems, Donaldson was keenly conscious, even
+with his wild freedom still nothing but a conception, of sharpened senses
+which responded keenly to the lights and sounds about him.  This bottle
+which he held made him feel like some old time king's messenger who
+carried a warrant making him exempt from local laws.  He moved among
+people whose perplexed thoughts wandered restlessly down the everlasting
+vista of the days ahead, and he alone of them all knew the secret of
+being untroubled beyond the week.  The world had not for ten years
+appeared so gay to him.  He felt the exhilarating sting of life as he had
+when it first surged in upon him at twenty.  The very fact that he held
+even a temporary solution to his barren days was enough.  In the joy of
+his almost august scorn of circumstance he forgot the minor difficulties
+which still lay before him.
+
+He turned aside from the direct course to his room into Broadway.  It was
+the last of May and early evening.  The month revealed itself in the warm
+night sky and the buoyant spirits of those below its velvet richness.
+Spring was in the air--a stimulation as of etherialized champagne.  The
+spirit of adventure, the spirit of renaissance, the spirit of creation
+was abroad once more.  Not a cranny in even this sprawling section of
+denaturalized earth but thrilled for the time being with budding hopes,
+sap-swollen courage, and bright, colorful dreams.  Walking beneath the
+spitting glare of the arc-lights, through the golden mist flooding from
+the store windows, Donaldson hazily saw again the careless unburdened
+world of his early youth.  He caught the spirit of Broadway and all
+Broadway means in the spring.  It was a marionette world where
+marionettes dance their gayest.  Yesterday this would have been to him
+nothing but a dead bioscope picture; now, though he still sat an onlooker
+in the pit, it was a living human drama at which he gazed.
+
+Two dark-haired grisettes passed him, their cheeks aglow and their eyes
+dancing.  They appeared so full of life, so very gay, that he turned to
+glance back at them.  He found the eyes of the prettier one upon him; she
+had turned to look at him.  It was long since even so trifling an
+intrigue as this had quickened his life.
+
+As a matter of fact Donaldson always attracted more interest in feminine
+eyes than, in his self engrossment, he was ever aware.  Even in his shiny
+blue serge suit, baggy at the knees and sagging at the shoulders, even in
+his shabby hat, he carried himself with an air.  Two things about his
+person were always as fine and immaculate as though he were a gentleman
+of some fortune, his linen and his shoes.  But in addition to such slight
+externals Donaldson, although not a large man, had good shoulders, a
+well-poised head, and walked with an Indian stride from the hips that
+made him noticeable among the flat-footed native New Yorkers.  He might
+have been mistaken for an ambitious actor of the younger school; even for
+a forceful young cleric, save for the fact that he smoked his cigarette
+with evident satisfaction.
+
+He followed an aimless course--but a course fairly prickling with new
+sensations--until he stood before one of the popular cafés, now
+effervescing with sprightly life.  He paused here a moment to listen to
+the music.  A group of well-groomed men and women laughingly clambered
+out of a big touring car and passed in before the obsequious attendants.
+He watched them with some envy.  Music, good food, good wines, laughter,
+and bright eyes--the flimsiest vanities of life to be sure--and yet there
+was something in his hungry heart that craved them all.  Well, ten years
+from now perhaps,--his hand fell upon the vial.  No.  Not ten years from
+now, but to-morrow, even tomorrow, he might claim these luxuries!
+
+He jumped on a car and in thirty minutes stood in the lean, quiet street
+into which for three years he had stared from his third floor room.
+These quarters seemed now more than ever a parody on home.  This row of
+genteel structures which had degenerated into boarding houses for the
+indigent and struggling younger generation, and the wrecks of the past,
+embodied, in even the blank stare of their exteriors, stupid mediocrity.
+He fumbled nervously in his pocket for his latch-key, and opening the
+door climbed the three stale flights to his room.  He lighted both
+gas-jets, but even then the gloom remained.  He craved more light--the
+dazzling light of arc-lamps, the glare reflected from polished mirrors.
+Better absolute darkness than this.  He turned out the gas and throwing
+open his window leaned far out over the sill.  Then he concentrated his
+thoughts upon the issue confronting him.
+
+At the end of other colorless days, when he had come back here only to be
+tortured by the stretch of gray road before him, he had considered as a
+possibility that which now was almost a reality.  He had always been
+checked by this desire to have first his taste of life and by the
+troublesome conviction that there was something unfair about seizing it
+in this way.  Furthermore, though he could, without Barstow's discovery,
+have lived his week and closed it by any one of a dozen effective means,
+he realized that he could not trust even himself to fulfill at the
+end--no matter how binding the oath--so fearful a decree.  A few deep
+draughts of joyous life might turn his head.  It was as dangerous an
+experiment as taking the first smoke of opium, as tampering with the
+first injection of morphine, upon the promise of stopping there.  No,
+before beginning he must set at work some power outside himself which
+should be operative even against his will; which should be as final as
+death itself.  Until to-night this had seemed an impossibility.  Now,
+with that chief obstruction removed, he had but to consider the ethics of
+the question.
+
+In arguing with Barstow he had been sincere.  He believed as he had said
+that a man had the right to end the contract so long as he cheated no one
+by so doing.  All his life he had paid his way like a man, done his duty
+like a good citizen, given a fair return for everything he took.  He did
+not feel himself indebted to his country, his state, his city, nor to any
+living man or woman.  In one form and another, he had paid.  Few men
+could claim this as sincerely as Donaldson.  He had lived
+conscientiously, so very conscientiously in fact that it was as much
+rebellion against self-imposed fetters which now drove him on to an
+opposite extreme as any bitterness against that society which had spurned
+his idealism.  He had refused to compromise and learned that the world
+uses only as martyrs those who so refuse.  The limitations of his nature
+were defined by the fact that he withdrew from so self sacrificing an end
+as that.  But now if he demanded nothing more--if he was tired of this
+give and take--why should he not balance accounts?
+
+Chiefly because there would still be one week to account for--that last
+week in which he should demand most.  Like an inspiration came the
+solution to this, the final difficulty; economically he was wasting a
+life; very well, but if he could find a way of not wasting it, of giving
+his life to another, then he would have paid even this last bill.  In the
+excitement of this new idea, he paced his room.  If he could give his
+life for another!  But supposing this were impossible, supposing no
+opportunity should offer, it would be something if he held himself open,
+offered himself a free instrument of Fate.  He could promise--and he knew
+he could keep so sacred a promise as this with death approaching in so
+inevitable a form,--he could promise to offer himself upon the slightest
+pretext, recklessly and without fear, instantly and without thought, to
+the first chance which might come to him to give his life for another.
+That was the bond he would give to Fate--the same Fate which had produced
+him--his life for the life of another.  Let society use him so if such
+use could be found for him.  He would stand ready, would live up to the
+spirit and the letter of the bond unhesitatingly.  For one week he would
+live his life in the present upon that condition--one week with the
+eighth day a blank, one week with the whole world his plaything.
+
+He stared with new eyes from his window to the jumble of houses below, to
+the jumble of stars above.  The whole world expanded and vibrated before
+the intensity of his passion.  He was to condense a possible thirty or
+forty years into seven days.  To-day was the twenty-third of May.  By
+to-morrow noon he could adjust all his affairs.  With nothing to demand
+of them in the future it would be an easy matter to cut them off.  On
+Friday, May twenty-fourth, then, he could begin.  This would bring the
+end on the thirty-first.
+
+He considered a moment; was it better to die at noon or at night?  An odd
+thing for a man to decide, but such details as this might as well be
+fixed now as later.  It took but a moment's deliberation; he elected to
+go out at high noon.  There would be dark enough afterwards--possibly an
+eternity of dark.  He would face the sun with his last gaze; he would
+have the mad riot of men and women at midday ringing last in his ears.
+
+As he drew in deep breaths it was as if he inhaled the whole world.  He
+felt as though, if he but stepped out sturdily enough, he could foot the
+darkness.  His head was light; his brain teemed with wild fancies.  Then
+pressing through this medley he saw for a moment the young woman who had
+come to Barstow's laboratory.  The effect was to steady him.  He
+remembered the sweet girlishness of her face, the freshness of it which
+was like the freshness of a garden in the early morning.  He realized
+that she stood for one thing that he could never know.  What was it that
+he saw now in those strange eyes that left him a bit wistful at thought
+of this?  There was not a detail of her features, of her dress, of her
+speech, that he could not see now as vividly as though she were still
+standing before him.  That was odd, too.  He was not ordinarily so
+impressionable.  It occurred to him that he would not like her to know
+what he was about to do.  Bah, he was getting maudlin!
+
+Late as it was, he left his room and went downtown to his office.  He
+worked here until daylight, falling asleep in his chair from four to
+seven.  He awoke fresh, and even more eager than the night before to
+undertake his venture.
+
+There remained still a few men to be seen.  He transacted his business
+with a brilliant dispatch and swift decision that startled them.  He
+disposed of all his office furniture, his books, destroyed all his
+letters, made a will leaving instructions for the disposal of his body,
+and concluded every other detail of his affairs before eleven o'clock.
+When he left his office to go back to his room, he had in his pocket
+every cent he possessed in the world in crisp new bank notes.  It
+amounted to twenty-eight hundred and forty-seven dollars.  Not much to
+scatter over a long life,--not much as capital.  Invested it might yield
+some seventy dollars a year.  But as ready cash, it really stood for a
+fortune.  It was the annual income at four per cent on over seventy
+thousand dollars, the monthly income on eight hundred and forty thousand
+dollars, the weekly income on over three million.  For seven days then he
+could squander the revenue of a princely estate.
+
+As a matter of fact his position was even more remarkable; he was as
+wealthy--so far as his own capacity for pleasure went--as though the
+possessor of thirty million.  This because of his limitations; he was
+barred from travel; barred from the purchase of future holdings; barred
+from everything by this time restriction save what he could absorb within
+seven days through his five senses.  Being an intelligent man of decent
+morals and no bad habits, he was also restrained from license and the
+gross extravagance accompanying it.  But within his own world, there was
+not a desire which need remain unsatisfied.
+
+Back again in his room he summoned his landlady.
+
+"I am going away," he informed her briefly.  "I sha'n't leave any address
+and I 'm going to take with me only the few things I can pack into a
+dress-suit case.  I 'll give you the rest."
+
+The woman--she had become rather fond of the quiet, gentle third story
+front--looked up sympathetically.
+
+"Have you had bad news?"
+
+"Bad news?  No," he smiled.  "Very good news.  I 'm going to take a sort
+of vacation."
+
+"Then perhaps you 'll come back."
+
+"So, I 'm quite sure I shall never come back."
+
+She watched him at his packing, still puzzled by his behavior.  She
+noticed that he took nothing but a few trinkets, a handful of linen, and
+a book or two.  He glanced at his watch.
+
+"Madame," he announced, offering her his hand, "it is now eleven thirty.
+My vacation begins in half an hour.  I must hurry.  The remainder of
+these things I bequeath to you."
+
+In twenty minutes he was at the Waldorf.  He asked for and was allotted
+one of the best rooms in the house, for which he paid the suspicious
+clerk in advance.  When at length he was left alone in his luxurious
+apartments, it was still a few minutes before twelve.  He drew the vial
+from his pocket without fear, without hesitation.  He placed his watch
+upon the table before him.  Then he sat down and wrote out the following
+oath:
+
+
+"I, Peter Donaldson, swear by all that I hold most sacred that I will
+offer my life freely and without question for the protection of any human
+being needing it during these next seven days in which I shall live."
+
+
+He signed this in a bold scrawling hand.  It was as simply and earnestly
+expressed as he knew how to make it.
+
+He uncorked the vial and poured the liquid into a glass without a quaver
+of his hand.  He mixed a little water with it and raised it to his lips.
+There he paused, for once again he seemed to see the big, calm eyes of
+the girl now staring at him as though in surprise.  But this time he
+smiled, and with a little lift of the glass towards her swallowed the
+liquid at a gulp.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+_The Beginning of the End_
+
+Before the bitter taste of the syrup faded from his tongue, Donaldson's
+thoughts shifted from the Ultimate to the Now.  He was too good a
+sportsman to question his judgment by worry when once committed to an
+enterprise.  The world now lay before him as he had wished it--an
+enchanted land in which he could move with as great freedom as a prince
+in the magical kingdoms of Arabia.  The Present became sharpened to
+poignancy.  Even as he stood there musing over the marvel of the new
+world into which he had leaped--the old thin world of years condensed
+into one thick week--he realized that this very wondering had cost him
+five precious minutes.  A dozen such periods made an hour, two dozen
+hours a day--one seventh of his living space.  This thought so whetted
+his interest that he could have sat on here indefinitely, thrilled to
+the marrow by the mere pageant of life as it passed before his eyes on
+the street below.  The slightest incident was now dramatic; the hurry
+of men and women on their way up-town and down-town, the swift movement
+of vehicles, the fluttering of birds in the sunshine, the unceasing,
+eager flux of life.  It was through the eyes of youth he was
+looking--for is youth anything more than the ability to live the
+irresponsible days as they come?  Youth is Omar without his philosophy.
+He grew dizzy.  Life taken so was too powerful a stimulant.  He must
+brace himself.
+
+He settled into one of the big chairs, closing his eyes to the wonders
+about him, and tried to think more soberly.  He felt as though he must
+dull his quickened senses in some way.  His unsheathed nerves quivered
+back from so direct a contact with life.
+
+"Quiet, old man, quiet," he cautioned himself.  "There 's a lot of
+things you wish to do in these next few days.  So you must sober
+down--you must get a grip on yourself."
+
+He rose to his feet determinedly.  He must work out of such moods as
+this.  One of the first things for him to do was to buy a decent
+personal outfit.  As soon as he gave his mind a definite object upon
+which to work, his thoughts instantly cleared.  It was just some such
+matter-of-fact task as this which he needed.
+
+He went down-stairs, and stepping into a taxicab, was whisked to one of
+the large retail stores.  He had no time to squander upon a tailor, but
+he was successful in securing a good fit in ready-made clothing.  He
+bought several street suits, evening clothes, overcoats and hats, much
+silk underwear--a luxury he had always promised himself in that ghost
+future--and an extravagant supply of cravats, gloves, socks, and odds
+and ends.  He omitted nothing necessary to make him feel a well-dressed
+man so far as he could find it ready made.  There was nothing conceited
+about Donaldson, nothing of the fop, but he enjoyed both the feeling
+and the appearance of rich garments.  He hired a messenger boy who
+announced his name as Bobby and who followed along at his heels,
+collecting the bundles and carrying them out to the waiting cab.
+
+He was a fresh cheeked youngster with a quick interest in things.  He
+could n't make up his mind whether Donaldson was really an Indian
+prince or whether as a result of drinking he merely felt like one.  As
+time passed and he saw that the man was neither an oriental nor drunk,
+his imagination then wavered between accepting him as an English duke
+or a member of the Vanderbilt family.
+
+Donaldson perceived the keen interest the boy was taking in his
+purchases, saw the wonder in his eyes grow, based upon a faith that
+still accepted Aladdin as an ever-present possibility, and realized
+that Bobby was getting almost as much fun out of this game as he
+himself.  He began to humor him further by consulting his taste in the
+matter of ties and waistcoats, though he found that the latter's
+sporting instincts led him to colors too pronounced to harmonize with
+his own ideas.  Still he appreciated the fact that Bobby was indulging
+in almost as many thrills as though he were actually holding the purse.
+This became especially true when Donaldson allowed the boy to purchase
+for himself such articles as struck his fancy.  As a matter of fact
+there was not so much difference in the present point of view of the
+man and the boy; it was to them both a fairy episode.
+
+They lounged from one store to another, enjoying the lights, the
+colors, the beautiful cloths, choosing where they would with all the
+abandon of those with genii to serve them.  Donaldson was indulging
+something more fundamental than his enjoyment of the things themselves;
+this was his first taste, as well as Bobby's, of gratifying desires
+without worry of the reckoning.  His wishes were now stripped to bare
+wants.  He was free of the skeleton hand of the Future which had so
+long held him prisoner--which had frightened him into depriving himself
+of all life's garnishings until his condition had been reduced to one
+of monastic simplicity without the monk's redeeming inspiration.  He
+was no longer mocked by the thin cry of "Wait!"
+
+He moved about this gay store world with a sense of kingly superiority.
+He listened indulgently to the idle chatter of the shop girls, the
+rattle of the cash boxes, and smiled at the seriousness with which this
+business of selling was pressed.  What a tremendous ado they made of
+living, with year after year, month after month, day after day, looming
+endlessly before them!  Not an act which they performed, even to the
+tying up of a bundle, ended in itself, but was one of an endless vista
+of acts.  The burden of the Future was upon them.  They drooped, poor
+bloodless things, beneath the weight of the relentless days before
+them.  And so this faded present was all their future, too.  They saw
+nothing of the joyous world which spun around him bright as a new coin.
+They were dead, because of the weary days to come, to the magical
+brilliancy of the big arc-lights, to the humor and action of the crowd,
+to the quick shifts of colors; they were stupefied by this great flux
+of life which swept them on day after day to another day.  Often
+unexpressed, this, but felt dumbly below the chatter and dry laughter.
+They waited, waited, circling about in a gray maelstrom until the grave
+sucked them in.  He himself had been in the clutch of it.  But that was
+yesterday.
+
+To-day he saw all that lay unseen before their dulled vision--all the
+show with its million actors.  He saw for example the pathos in the
+patient eyes of the old lady yonder--still waiting at eighty; he caught
+the flash of scarlet ribbon beyond, the silent message of the black one
+(another long waiting); the muffled laugh and the muffled oath; the
+careless eyes that tossed the coin to the counter, the sharp eyes that
+followed it, the dead ones that picked it up and threw it into the
+nickeled cash box which flew with it to its golden nest; the tread, the
+tread, the tread of a thousand feet, the beat, beat, beat of a thousand
+hearts.  All these things he saw and heard and felt.
+
+When he had fully replenished his wardrobe he still had several hours
+left to him.  He remembered a unique book store just off Fifth Avenue
+at West Thirty-ninth Street which he had frequently passed, often
+lingering in front of the windows to admire quaint English prints.  On
+cloudy days especially he had often made it a point to walk up there
+and breathe in the spirit of sunshine that he found in the green grass
+of the old hunting scenes and in the scarlet coats of the
+hearty-cheeked men riding to hounds upon their lean horses.
+
+"Come on," he called enthusiastically to Bobby.  "We 've just begun."
+
+"Gee!" gasped Bobby.  "H'aint you spent it all?  Have yer gut more
+left?"
+
+"Lots.  As much as I can spend until I die."
+
+The boy's face grew eager.
+
+"Say," he asked confidentially.  "Where 'd yer git it?"
+
+"Earned it,--the most of it.  Sweat for it and starved for it and
+suffered for it!  And I earned with it the right to spend it, the
+_right_, I tell you!"
+
+Bobby shrank back a little before such fierceness.  The boy felt a
+faint suspicion of what had not before occurred to him: that the man
+was crazy.  But the next second the gentle smile returned to soften the
+tense mouth, and the boy's fear vanished.  No one could fear Donaldson
+when he smiled.
+
+In front of the modest shop with its quaint sign swinging above the
+door, they paused.  Donaldson found it difficult to believe that he now
+had the right to enter.  To him this store had never been anything else
+but a part of the scenery of life, a part of the setting of some
+foreign world at which he gazed like a boy from the upper galleries of
+a theatre.  He had rebelled at this, looking with some hostility at the
+well groomed men and women who accepted it with such assurance that it
+was for them alone, but now he realized the pettiness of that position.
+With a few unmortgaged dollars in his pocket, he was instantly one of
+them.  He could stride in and use the quiet luxury of the place as his
+own.
+
+For half an hour then, he browsed about the sun-lit shop, selecting
+here and there bits with which to brighten his room during the week.
+He picked out an engraving or two, several English prints which seemed
+to welcome him like old friends, and a marine in water color because of
+the golden blue in it.  His bill exceeded that of the department
+stores, and Bobby confidently delivered himself of the opinion that he
+had been soaked, "good and plenty."
+
+From here Donaldson began an extravagant course down Fifth Avenue that
+left the boy, who watched him closely every time he paid his bill,
+convinced that he had on his hands nothing short of an Arabian Prince
+such as his sister had told him of when he had thought her fooling.
+They wandered from book store to art store, to Tiffany's, to an antique
+shop back to another book store and then to where in his lean days he
+had seen a bit of Dresden that brought comfort to him through its
+dainty beauty.  He took for his own now all the old familiar friends
+who had done what they could through store windows to brighten those
+days.  They should be a part of him; share his week with him.  There
+was that old hammered copper tray which in the sun glowed like a
+cooling ember; there was that hand-illumined volume of Keats which he
+had so long craved; there was that vase of Cloisonne, that quaint piece
+of ivory browned with age, that old pewter mug reflecting the burden of
+its years in its sober surface.  All these things he had long ago known
+as his own, and now he came to claim them.
+
+"Mine, all mine!" he exclaimed to the boy.  "And was n't it decent of
+them to wait for me?"
+
+"They was waitin' for you all right," agreed Bobby.  "They seen you
+comin'.  They waits fer the easy marks."
+
+"Yes," returned Donaldson, ignoring the latter's sarcasm.  "They saw me
+coming when yet I was a great way off.  They knew me, so they waited.
+I told them all to wait and some day I would come to them."
+
+"D' yuh mean that ivory monkey waited?"
+
+"For nearly a year."
+
+Bobby did not reply, but his respect for Donaldson fell several degrees.
+
+"There is one thing more, boy," exclaimed Donaldson; "I need flowers."
+
+He ordered sent to his room two dozen rich lipped roses, a half dozen
+potted plants, and a small conservatory of ferns.  Then he started back
+to the hotel.
+
+It took the boy several trips to carry the bundles upstairs even when
+they were piled to his eyes.  When he finished, Donaldson held out his
+hand.
+
+"I 've had a mighty pleasant afternoon with you," he said.  "And I hope
+we 'll meet again.  What's your number?"
+
+"Thirty-four fifty-seven."
+
+"Well, thirty-four fifty-seven, give us your hand in case we lose one
+another for good."
+
+The boy gingerly extended his grimy paw.  When he removed it, he found
+himself clutching a ten-dollar bill.
+
+Donaldson remained in his room only long enough to arrange his
+treasures and slip into his evening clothes.  There was too much
+outside to be enjoyed for him to appreciate yet the luxury of his
+indoor surroundings.  He had a passion for people, for crowds of
+people.  He had thought at first that he might attend the theatre, but
+he realized now that the stage puppets were but faint reflections of
+the stirring drama all about him--the playwright's plot less gripping
+than that in which he himself was the central figure.  To pass through
+those doors would be more like stepping out of a theatre into the
+leaden reality of life as he had seen it before yesterday.
+
+For an hour or more he rubbed shoulders with the press that was on its
+way to find relief from their own lives in the mimic lives of others
+behind the footlights.  To him in the Now it was comedy enough to watch
+them as they filed in; it would have been an anticlimax to have gone
+further.  He craved good music, but a search of the papers did not
+reveal any concert of note, so he sought one of the popular
+restaurants, and, choosing a table in a corner, devoted himself to the
+ordering of his dinner.  He was hungry and took a childish delight in
+selecting without first studying the price list.
+
+When he had concluded, he took a more careful survey of the room.  His
+wandering gaze was checked by the profile of the woman whose eyes had
+haunted him ever since he had first seen them in Barstow's laboratory.
+It was Miss Arsdale, and opposite her sat a tall, thin-visaged young
+man.  As the latter turned and presented a full face view, Donaldson
+was held by the peculiarity of his expression.  His hot, beadlike eyes
+burned from a white sensitive face that was almost emaciated; his thin
+lips were set as though in grim resolution; while even his brown hair
+refused to lend repose to the face, but, sticking out in cowlicks,
+added to the whole effect of nervousness still further exaggerated by
+the restless white hands.  Over all, like a black veil, was an
+expression as of one haunted by a great fear.  The man both repelled
+and interested Donaldson.  There was a shiftiness about the eyes that
+excited suspicion, and yet there was in them a silent plea that asked
+for sympathy.  Save for the eyes, the face had a certain poetic beauty
+due to its fine modeling and its savage intensity.  The longer
+Donaldson studied it, the more sympathy he had for it.  He had the
+feeling that the fellow had gone through some such crisis as his own.
+
+But it was difficult to define the girl's relationship to him.  There
+was not the slightest trace of family resemblance between them, and yet
+the man was hardly of a type that she would choose for so intimate a
+friend as her presence here with him suggested.  She did not talk much,
+but seemed rather to be on the alert to protect him as from some unseen
+danger which appeared to hang over him.  She followed his eyes wherever
+they wandered, and clearly took but little pleasure in being here.
+
+Donaldson found the oddly matched couple absorbing his interest not
+only in the other guests but also in his dinner.  He finished in almost
+the undue haste with which ordinarily he devoured his daily lunch and
+with scarcely more appreciation of the superior quality of these richer
+dishes.  With his black coffee he rolled a cigarette.  The familiar old
+tobacco brought him back to himself again so that for a few minutes he
+was able to give himself up to the swirling strains of the Hungarian
+orchestra.  But even through the delicious intoxication of the waltz,
+the personality of this girl asserted itself to him.  He got the
+impression now that she herself was in some danger.  He wished that he
+had asked Barstow more about her.  She had not noticed him as yet.  He
+had watched closely to see if she turned.  As he studied her it seemed
+certain that she was by no means enjoying herself in her present
+company.  If given half an opportunity he would go over and speak to
+her.
+
+[Illustration: _As he studied her it seemed certain that she was by no
+means enjoying herself in her present company_]
+
+He wished to see her eyes again.  He remembered them distinctly.  They
+were not black--not gray, but black with the faintest trace of silver,
+like starlight on a deep pool.  The whites were very clear and blue
+tinted.  Just then she raised her head and looked at him as though she
+had been called.  At that moment the orchestra swept their strings in a
+minor and swirled off in a mystic dance like that of storm ghosts in
+the tree-tops.  It caught him up with the girl and for a measure or so
+bore them along like leaves, in a new comradeship.  To them the light
+laughter was hushed; to them the heavy smoke clouds vanished; to them
+the Babel of other personalities was no more.  They two had been lifted
+out of this and carried hand in hand to some distant gypsy region.  She
+was the first to shake herself free.  She started, nodded pleasantly to
+him, and turned back to her companion, with a little shiver.
+
+That was all, but it left Donaldson strangely moved.  He paid his check
+at once and prepared to leave, hoping that in passing her table he
+might find his opportunity to stop a moment.  But they too rose as he
+was getting into his coat and passed out ahead, the young man evidently
+trying to hurry her.
+
+On the sidewalk Donaldson found them waiting at the curb for a big
+automobile which swooped out of the dark to meet them.  Making a
+pretext of stopping to roll a cigarette, he paused.  The girl stepped
+into the machine, but her companion instead of following at once gave
+an order to the chauffeur.  The latter left his seat and the girl
+expostulated.  The chauffeur apparently hesitated, but, the younger man
+insisting, he hurried past Donaldson into the café.  Unconsciously
+Donaldson moved nearer.  He felt a foreboding of danger and a curious
+sense of responsibility.  He caught a glimpse of the white face of the
+girl leaning forward towards her companion--heard her cry as the fellow
+stepped into the chauffeur's seat--and, yielding to some impulse,
+jumped to the running-board just as the man threw on the power.
+
+The machine leaped forward with a shock that nearly tossed him off.  To
+save himself he sprang to the empty seat beside the girl.  The man at
+the wheel had apparently not noticed him; he had plenty to occupy his
+mind to control the machine which was tearing along at the rate of
+fifty miles an hour.
+
+The girl leaned forward and gripped Donaldson's arm.
+
+"You must stop him," she said.  "He has lost himself again!  Do you
+understand?  You must stop him!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+_Kismet_
+
+The machine swirled around a corner at a speed that swung the rear
+wheels clear of the ground.  It righted itself as a frightened dog
+scrambles to his legs, and shot on up the avenue, which was for the
+moment fortunately clear of other vehicles.  It took a crossing at a
+single leap, missed a dazed pedestrian by an inch, and shot on as mad a
+thing as the man who ran it.  It was clearly only a matter of minutes
+that this could last.  Bending low, the madman, with still enough
+cunning left to know how to manage the machine, held it to its highest
+speed.  But his arm was weakening.  He did not have the physical
+strength to hold steady the vibrating steering gear.  The big car began
+to tack.
+
+Donaldson saw the girl's eyes upon him.  They were confident with an
+instinct that is woman's sixth sense.  A man has not lived until he has
+seen that look in a woman's eyes.  Nor has a man suffered until he
+realizes that he must disappoint that look.  Donaldson had never been
+in an automobile in his life.  He knew no more how to control one than
+he did an aëroplane.  And the arc-lights were flashing by at the rate
+of one every four seconds--and a madman at the wheel--and a woman's
+eyes upon him.
+
+Donaldson was naturally a man of some courage, but it is doubtful if
+under ordinary conditions this situation would not have brought the
+cold sweat to his brow.  As it was, he was conscious of only two
+emotions; an appreciation of the grim humor which had called upon him
+so early in his week to fulfill his oath, and a grinding resentment at
+the Fate which had thrust him into a position where he should show so
+impotent before those eyes.  As far as personal fear went, it was nil.
+He was as oblivious to possible pain, possible death, as though he were
+now merely recalling a dream.  Such contingencies had been decided the
+moment he swallowed the scarlet syrup.  Fear had been annihilated in
+him because the most he had to lose was this next six days.  He was too
+good a gambler to resent, in a fair game, the turn of the cards against
+him.
+
+He stepped past her and out upon the running board, feeling his way
+along to the empty seat.  The machine swayed dizzily.  The wind tore
+off his hat and tugged at his coat, nearly dragging him to the ground
+which flowed beneath him as smoothly as a fly belt.  He could not have
+made that distance yesterday with the assurance of to-day.  He swung
+himself into the empty seat.
+
+He had but one thing in mind; he knew that these big machines, in spite
+of their tremendous power, were as nicely adjusted as watches.  They
+had their vital spots, their hearts.  If only he could find this
+vulnerable place!  At his feet he saw a small wooden box fastened to
+the dash-board.  He did not know what it was, but on a blind chance he
+kicked it again and again until it splintered beneath his heels.  The
+machine swerved across the road and he fought with the crazed man for
+the possession of the wheel.  He was strong and he had this much at
+heart, but the other had the super-human strength of the crazed.  Even
+as they struggled the machine began to slow down and within a few
+hundred yards came to a standstill.  In destroying the coil box he had
+reached the heart.
+
+The driver turned upon him, but Donaldson managed to secure a good grip
+and dragged the fellow to the ground.  The latter was up in a minute
+and faced him with that gleam of devilish hatred that marks the foiled
+maniac.  The girl started to separate the two men, but it was
+unnecessary; she saw the murder fade from her companion's face before
+the calm untroubled gaze of the other.  She saw his strained body
+relax, she saw his fists unclench, and she saw him shrink back to her
+side trembling in fright.  The demon in him had been quelled by the
+unflinching eyes of the sane man.
+
+There was, luckily, no gathering of a crowd, for no one had witnessed
+the struggle in the machine.  A few steps beyond, the blue and red
+lights of a drugstore stained the sidewalk.  The girl seized the man's
+arm and turned to Donaldson.
+
+"He is my brother," she explained.  "We must leave the machine and get
+him home at once.  Can we order a cab from somewhere?"
+
+"At the drugstore we can telephone for one and also reach your garage."
+
+"Would you mind attending to it?" she asked anxiously.  "We will wait
+here,--in the car."
+
+He hesitated.
+
+"I don't like to leave you here alone," he said.
+
+"I shall be quite safe--really."
+
+"But in the drugstore it is warmer, and--"
+
+"No, no," she broke in hurriedly.  "I--I would much rather not."
+
+Without further parley he took the address of the garage where the
+machine had been hired, and walked on to the drugstore.  He was back
+again in five minutes, relieved to find her safe and the brother still
+quiet.  While waiting for the cab it occurred to him that he should
+also have telephoned for a physician to meet them when they reached the
+house.  But Miss Arsdale objected at once to this.
+
+"I think we had better not.  But if you would--it's asking a great deal
+of you--if you yourself would ride back with us."
+
+"I had intended to do that," he assured her.
+
+The cab arrived within a few minutes, and she gave an address off
+Riverside Drive.  It took half an hour to make the run.  On the journey
+the three remained silent save for a few commonplaces, for conversation
+seemed to have a disquieting effect upon young Arsdale.  The lighted
+houses flashed past the carriage windows in the soft spring dark,
+looking like specks of gold upon black velvet.  A certain motherliness
+pervaded the night; there was a suggestion of birth everywhere.
+Donaldson responded to it with a growing feeling of anticipation.
+Sitting here confronting this girl he was swept back to a primal joy of
+things, to a sense of new worlds.  He felt for a moment as though back
+again with her in that gypsy kingdom into which the music had borne
+them.
+
+The cab swung from the boulevard and, after following for a few moments
+a somewhat tortuous course among side streets, stopped before an iron
+gate which stretched across the drive leading to the house.  Either
+side of the gate a high hedge extended.  The three stepped out and
+Donaldson paused a moment before dismissing the cabby.  The girl saw
+his hesitancy and in her turn seemed rapidly to revolve some question
+in her own mind.  A quick motion on the part of her brother determined
+her.  In the shadow of the house he began to show ill-boding symptoms.
+
+"I wonder if--if you would come in for a minute," she asked in an
+undertone.
+
+Without answer he dismissed the driver and followed her through a small
+gate in the hedge, down a short walk, to a brown-stone house with its
+entrance on a level with the ground.  The house was unlighted and the
+lower windows were covered with wooden shutters.  In the midst of its
+brilliantly lighted neighbors it looked severe and inhospitable.  The
+girl drew a key from her purse and, opening the door, stepped inside
+and switched on the lights.  Donaldson found himself in a large,
+cheerful looking hall finished in Flemish oak.  A broad Colonial
+staircase led from the end and swung upstairs in a graceful turn which
+formed a landing.  The floor was covered with rugs which he recognized
+as of almost priceless value.  Several oil portraits in heavy frames
+ornamented the walls.  It took but a glance to see that they were of
+the same family and to recognize in all their thin faces an expression
+that he had caught in young Arsdale himself--a haunting fear as of some
+family tragedy.  Through an uncurtained door to the right opened what
+appeared to be a library, while to the left--Donaldson turned his back
+for a moment upon Arsdale.  And the man, freed from the eyes, threw
+himself upon Donaldson's shoulder.  The woman shouted a warning, but it
+was too late.  She clutched at her brother's clothes, pulling with all
+her strength, crying,
+
+"Ben!  Ben!"
+
+Donaldson slipped upon the polished floor and Arsdale, throwing his arm
+about his victim's neck, secured a very effective strangle hold.  It
+looked bad for Donaldson.  On the smooth waxed floor he could secure no
+purchase by which to regain his feet and he could not reach the fellow
+with either fist.  He was as helpless as though he had the Old Man of
+the Mountain upon his back.  The world began to swim before his eyes;
+the cries of the girl to sound in the distance.  Then he smelled the
+biting aroma of spirits of ammonia and felt the clutch upon his throat
+loosen.  He broke free, got upon his feet and found Arsdale rubbing his
+smarting eyes while the girl stood over him, frightened at what she had
+done, with the empty bottle in her hand.
+
+"I've blinded him!" she cried, drawing back in horror.
+
+"Thanks.  You 've also prevented him from killing me."
+
+"Don't say that--not kill!"
+
+"But the man is n't responsible."
+
+"That is true, but--even when he is like this he would n't do any harm."
+
+His throat was still sore from the press of the fellow's fingers, but
+he nodded politely.
+
+Donaldson perceived that she was fighting off a fear.  It made the
+danger seem even more imminent.  He had noted with surprise that no
+servants had appeared.  This gave a particularly uncanny atmosphere to
+the big house, making it look as deserted as though empty of furniture.
+
+"We must get him upstairs and into bed," she said.  "Will you help him?"
+
+The man was choking and writhing upon the floor in his pain.  Donaldson
+stooped and wiped off his eyes.  Then he placed his arm about him and
+half dragged and half carried him up the stairs as she led the way.
+She preceded them up two flights, switching on the lights at each
+landing, and entered a small, simply furnished room in the middle of
+the house,--a room, Donaldson was quick to note, having only a skylight
+for a window.  Here he dashed cold water into the man's face and placed
+him on the bed.  As soon as the pain subsided, Miss Arsdale
+administered two spoonfuls of a darkish brown medicine which seemed to
+have instantly a quieting effect.
+
+It was the sight of the bottle that again recalled to Donaldson the
+fact of his own peculiar position in life.  Even at the risk of
+appearing rude, he was forced to look at his watch.  It was a few
+minutes after eleven o'clock.  Well, what of it?  Had not these hours
+been full--had he not had more of real living than during the entire
+last decade?  He had faced death twice, he had met a woman, and he now
+stood at the threshold of a mystery that seemed to demand him.  There
+was no other interest in his life to occupy him--nothing to prevent him
+from throwing himself heart and soul into the case, lending what aid
+was possible to this woman.  Furthermore, he was clear of all selfish
+interests; he need bother himself with no queries of what this might be
+worth to him.  But it was worth something, it was worth something to
+have a woman look at him as this girl had done--with unquestioning
+trust in a crisis.
+
+She glanced up as he replaced his watch.
+
+"Oh," she exclaimed, "I must detain you no longer!"
+
+"My time is absolutely yours," he reassured her.  "I was merely curious
+to know how old I have grown."
+
+She did not understand.
+
+"I 'm eleven hours old."
+
+Again she did not understand, but in turning to care for her brother
+she ceased to puzzle over the enigma.  Shortly afterwards the patient
+closed his eyes and fell into a deep sleep.  Immediately the girl led
+the way on tiptoe from the room.  She locked the door behind her and
+preceded Donaldson downstairs.
+
+Once below there seemed nothing for him to do but to leave, but, quite
+aside from the fact that he felt himself to be really needed here, he
+was as reluctant to depart as a man is to awake from a pleasant dream.
+She had picked up a white silk Japanese shawl and thrown it about her
+shoulders.
+
+He turned to her with the question,
+
+"Is there nothing more I can do for you?  Is there no one I may summon
+to help you?"
+
+"I can manage very well now, thank you."
+
+"But you can't stay here alone with the boy in this condition."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+Her reply came like a rebuke of his impetuous presumption.
+
+"It is hardly safe for you," he declared more quietly.
+
+"It is perfectly safe," she answered evenly.
+
+"I suppose there are servants in the house upon whom you can call," he
+hazarded.
+
+She looked a bit embarrassed.
+
+"If I should need any one there is my old housekeeper, Marie," she
+answered.
+
+Marie was upstairs, sick in bed with rheumatism, too feeble to move
+without help.  But to confess this fact to him would be almost to force
+him to stay.  As welcome a relief as it would be to have him remain
+until she had administered the medicine once more, she shrank from
+placing him in a position where he would have no alternative.
+
+She roused herself from the temptation and extended her hand.
+
+"Thank you is a weak phrase for all you 've done," she said.
+
+"It is enough."
+
+He took the hand but he did not say good night.  So she withdrew it,
+her cheeks a bit redder, her eyes, a trick they had when brilliant,
+growing silver.
+
+He had been studying her keenly, and now removing his overcoat, he said
+decidedly,
+
+"I shall stay a little longer."
+
+She seemed to hesitate a moment, meeting his eyes quite frankly.  Then,
+with a little sigh of relief she stepped into the library.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+_The Inner Woods_
+
+In the fireplace there were birch logs ready to be kindled.  At her
+suggestion he put a match to them for the cheeriness they gave while
+she lighted a green shaded lamp which radiated a soft glow over the
+heavy mahogany library table upon which it stood.  The room slowly
+warmed out of the gloom and shadows as though the three walls closed in
+nearer to the fire.  Just outside the radius of warmth the bookbindings
+shone gold in the dark.  In a frame six inches deep the ghostly
+outlines of a portrait of Horace Arsdale flickered near and away as the
+flames rose and fell.
+
+Miss Arsdale came to a chair a little to the left of Donaldson,
+brushing back from her eyes the soft hair which in the firelight shone
+like burnished copper.  He smiled at the strange chance which led her
+to seat herself almost directly in front of the grandfather's clock, so
+that facing her he faced the pendulum which ticked out to him the cost
+of each new picture he had of her.  It was now within a few minutes of
+midnight--one half of his first day gone before he had more than raised
+the glass to his lips.  He felt for a moment the petulant annoyance of
+a man imposed upon--as though Time were playing him unfairly; until
+today the hours had dragged heavily enough; now they sped like arrows.
+
+[Illustration: _Facing her he faced the pendulum which ticked out to
+him the cost of each new picture he had of her_]
+
+And yet he did not count the time as ill spent.  Though he had
+anticipated nothing of this sort, he found himself enjoying the
+situation with as deep a satisfaction as anything which had so far
+occurred in the swift hours which had sped by since noon.  Outside lay
+the quick-moving throngs which he so loved, in his room there waited
+for him the gentle marine, the bit of brown ivory, the luxury of deep
+blooming roses, and yet he was not conscious of missing them.  Those
+things had been waiting for him all through the long tedious years, and
+this--well perhaps this, too, had been waiting for him.  He wondered if
+this effect was produced by the surroundings which were much as he
+would have chosen them if he had possessed the means from the first.
+The sober good taste of the room, its quiet richness, its air of being
+a part of several generations of men of culture pleased him.
+
+He turned to the girl again.  She too was one with this past of the
+room.  The straight nose with its shell-like nostrils as sensitive to
+her thoughts as her eyes, the sharp cut corners of her mouth, and the
+fine hair over her white forehead dated back to women whose features
+had long been refined through their souls.  All that he wished to crowd
+into a week, they had possessed for a hundred years or more.  It showed
+even in this girl who had not yet come into the fulness of her
+womanhood.
+
+She sat uneasily far forward on her chair, leaning toward the flames as
+though fearful of what might happen next.  The light played upon her
+hair and her white face, making her seem almost a thing of some
+lighter, spirit world.
+
+"I don't feel that I ought to detain you," she said, breaking the
+silence which he for his part would have been willing to continue,
+"but"--she looked up at him with a half-shamed smile--"I have n't the
+courage to refuse your kindness."
+
+"You have the right to accept it merely as a woman," he assured her.
+
+"But I should n't need help," she answered with some spirit.  "I don't
+know what has come over me.  I 'm just afraid of being alone."
+
+"It is n't good for any one to be alone."
+
+"You know?"
+
+He answered slowly,
+
+"Yes, I know."
+
+Did any one know better?  The curse of it had driven him to secure at
+any cost the broader comradeship of men and women which, if it does not
+come through some more subtle means such as she now seemed to suggest
+to him, can be found in that cruder relationship always at the command
+of those with some fortune.  The thought swept over him that if he had
+known her before yesterday, he could never have felt alone again.  But
+what had he to do with yesterday any more than with to-morrow?
+
+"It is n't that there is anything to be afraid of here," she protested,
+to ward off any suspicions that might be lurking in his mind.  "It is
+n't that.  I 'm perfectly safe."
+
+He nodded, though he by no means agreed with her.
+
+"It would be just the same," she insisted with almost too much
+emphasis, "if Ben were well.  I think I must have become panic stricken
+with myself."
+
+He frowned.  Then he broke out fiercely,
+
+"It's the feel of all the silent people in the city around you,
+perhaps.  They are ghosts, these strangers,--human ghosts with fingers
+which clutch your throat if you are n't careful.  You sense them in New
+York as nowhere else."
+
+She glanced up quickly,
+
+"That's an odd idea," she replied.  "The loneliness comes then because
+you are n't really alone."
+
+"Yes--here in New York."
+
+"But that is n't true of the woods," she asserted.
+
+"You have been much among the trees?" he asked quickly, his voice
+softening.
+
+"Not very much.  But enough to learn to love them.  Especially the
+inner woods."
+
+He knew what she meant--the forests where things still grow for the sky
+and the beasts and not for man; where man may come as guest but not as
+master.
+
+"No," he answered, "one never feels alone there."
+
+"In there," she faltered, trying to express vague thoughts which yet
+were most real to her, "everything seems to be normal."
+
+He studied her with increasing interest and a growing sense of
+comradeship.  Her eyes were wonderful as she sat chin in hands, gazing
+into the fire, lost in some pleasant picture of the past.  When he
+looked into them, they caught him up again as they had done in the
+café.  They swept him to the rhythm of some haunting music back to the
+days when his blood had run strong--back to the beauty of the hills at
+twenty when he had not felt big enough by himself to absorb their full
+marvel.  In a dim mystical way he had realized even then that the
+keenest edge of their meaning was escaping him.  The blue sky above the
+trees had seemed like the laughing eyes of a woman and the rustle of
+leaves like the whisper of her skirt.  He had laughed back boldly then,
+feeling in the pride of his strength little need of them.
+
+Now the eyes of this girl, and the soft modeling of every line of her,
+filled him with an infinite tenderness for those forgotten hours.  It
+was as though she cleared away the intervening years and made him face
+the fragrant Spring again.  Without diminishing one whit of his
+vigorous enjoyment of life, she added an element of refinement to it.
+
+Half in fear of what this might mean, he shook himself free of the
+mood, and moving a chair to the other side of the fire sat down.
+Behind her the old clock still ticked as though in malicious
+appreciation of the situation.
+
+She clung to the subject of the woods as though in it she found relief.
+She wished to hear more of it from him.  It made him appear less a
+stranger.  When he spoke of these things he went back into her own
+past--into the most beautiful, intimate part of it.  He was the only
+man other than Mr. Arsdale that she could have endured to associate
+with those days.  She felt at ease with him there, and this made her
+feel that he had more right to be here now.  His eager face softened
+when he spoke of those things.  There was in it then none of that
+fierceness which had for a moment startled her when he spoke of the
+loneliness he had found here in New York.  At that moment he had looked
+like a man at bay.  He had challenged life bitterly.  It was not in
+keeping with the kindly generous strength of his mouth and chin.
+
+"Tell me," she asked him, "of some of your days in the woods."
+
+Yesterday he could not have complied.  Those days had seemed dead and
+buried.  Now he was in the mood for it.  He found it pleasant, sitting
+here, to go back.
+
+Each hour stood out as bright with sunshine as a Sorolla.  It was as
+though they had sprung to life at a call from her--had come to bring
+her ease.  He talked at random of brooks that start nowhere and go
+nowhere, save over white stones and past watercress; of thin ribbed
+ferns and of scarlet bunchberries.  He told her of a stream he knew,
+where, if you lie very quiet in the moss, you see speckled trout dart
+over white pebbles into the darker water beneath the lichened rocks.
+He told her of the shallows, and pools, and falls you find if you keep
+to its banks for the miles it sings by the grave trees.  He told her of
+mountain tops where he had lain near the stars and watched the noon
+clouds sweep half a county with their big shadows.  He told her of old
+wood roads he had followed through the young maples and birches and
+evergreens and pines--roads which lay silent all day long and all night
+long, month after month, ready for the feet which might tread it once
+in a year.
+
+So she took him back again to the redolent shadows, back to the
+silences where dreams are born.  Here he came upon other things--the
+old path gay flowered with illusions which led him toward that future--
+
+A future?  What had he to do with a future?  Was he rushing headlong
+thus soon into another pit as bad as that from which he had just
+escaped?  The Future was Now--not one minute, not one second beyond.
+He was here before an open fire, with this girl in the background, with
+beautiful rugs and pictures about him, with a great seething,
+struggling, future-chained horde outside, and the eternal stars
+overhead.  In the midst of it he was free, and this was enough for him
+to know.  Now!  Now!  The girl was now and her eyes were now and the
+flush of her velvet cheek was now!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+_The Shadow on the Portraits_
+
+He was roused by the sound of her voice and the single stroke of the
+clock back of her.  It was one, and he could have sworn that they had
+been sitting here less than fifteen minutes.
+
+"I must go to Ben now," she said.  "It is time to give him more
+medicine."
+
+"I will go with you."
+
+"No," she decided, "I think I had better go alone.  A stranger might
+frighten him."
+
+He hesitated with an uneasy sense of foreboding, but she moved past him
+determinedly and went up the stairs, leaving him alone with the
+haunting picture upon the wall.  He moved nearer to study it more in
+detail.  He caught a trace of resemblance to the boy but none to the
+girl.  The features were more rugged than those of young Arsdale, and
+the forehead was broader and higher, but the mouth was the same--thin,
+tense, and yet with no strength of jaw behind it.  The cheek bones were
+rather high and the eyes set deep but over-close together.  It was a
+face, thought Donaldson, of which great things might be expected, but
+upon which nothing could be depended.  The man would move eratically
+but brilliantly, like those aquatic fireworks which dart in burning
+angles along the face of the water--scarlet serpents shooting to the
+right, the left, in their gorgeous irresponsible course towards the
+dark.
+
+As he stood there Donaldson thought he heard the soft tread of feet in
+the hall and the click of the outside door as it was opened.  He
+listened intently, but he heard nothing further.  He crossed the
+library and looked out.  The door was ajar.  He flung it open and
+peered down the driveway; there was nothing to be seen but the dark
+mass of hedge bounding the yard.  He went to the foot of the stairs and
+listened; there was no sound above.
+
+The wind may have blown open the door if it had been unlatched, and the
+imagined footsteps in the hall may have been nothing but the rustling
+of the hangings, but still he was not satisfied.  He ventured up the
+first flight and paused to listen.  He thought he heard a movement
+above, but was not quite sure.  He neither wished to intrude nor to
+frighten her unnecessarily, but he called her name.  At first he
+received no response, and then, with a sense of relief that made him
+realize how deep his fear had been, he saw her come to the head of the
+stairs.  The light came only from the sick room, so that he could not
+see her very clearly.  She took a step towards them, and then he
+noticed that she swayed and clutched the banister.  He was at her side
+in three bounds.
+
+"What is the trouble?" he demanded.
+
+"If you will steady me a bit," she answered.
+
+"Are you hurt?"
+
+"Just dazed a little.  Did you stop him?"
+
+"Stop him?  Then some one did go out?"
+
+"As I opened the door Ben rushed by me and--I fell down.  I hoped you
+might see him and hold him!"
+
+"I was at the other end of the library.  He must have stolen out on
+tiptoe.  But you are faint."
+
+"I am stronger now."
+
+She started down the stairs with the help of the banister, holding
+herself together with remarkable self control.  As they came into the
+light he saw that she was very pale, but she insisted that she needed
+nothing but a breath of cool air.  He helped her to the door and here
+she sat down for a moment upon the step.
+
+"I might take a look around the grounds," Donaldson suggested.
+
+"It is quite useless.  He is not here."
+
+"Then you have an idea where he has gone!"
+
+She hesitated a moment.
+
+"Yes," she answered.
+
+He waited, but she ventured nothing further.
+
+"I want you to feel," he said quietly, "that you may call upon me for
+anything you wish done.  My time is my own--quite my own.  I place it
+at your service."
+
+She turned to study his face a moment.  It was clean and earnest.  It
+bade her trust.  Yet to ask him to do what lay before her was to bring
+him, a stranger, into the heart of her family affairs.  It was to
+involve her in an intimacy from which instinctively she shrank.  But
+pressing her close was the realization of the imminent danger
+threatening the boy.  This was no time for quibbling--no time for nice
+shadings of propriety.  Even if this meant a sacrifice of something of
+herself, she must cling to the one spar that promised a chance for her
+brother's safety.  As Donaldson's eyes met hers, she felt ashamed that
+she had hesitated even long enough for these thoughts to flash through
+her brain.
+
+"The boy uses opium," she said without equivocation.
+
+The bare naming of the drug rolled up the curtain before the whole
+tragedy which had been suggested by the portrait in the library; it
+explained every detail of this wild night except her presence here
+practically alone with the crazed young man.  It accounted for her
+objection to waiting in the drugstore; it solved the mystery of her
+fear of the city shadows.  Had he suspected this, he would no more have
+allowed her to go up those stairs alone than he would have permitted
+her to go unescorted into the cell of a madman.
+
+"I 'm sorry for him," he murmured.  "Then he has gone straight to Mott
+Street?"
+
+"I 'm afraid so.  He has been there once before."
+
+"The habit has been long upon him?"
+
+"It is inherited.  This is the third generation," she admitted, turning
+her head aside in shame.
+
+"But he himself--"
+
+"Only after his father's death.  The father feared this and watched him
+every minute.  He died thinking the danger was passed, but he left me a
+prescription which had been of help to him.  It was given him by our
+old family physician who has since died.  Mr. Barstow knew Dr. Emory
+and so has always prepared it for me."
+
+"How long this last time did he go without the drug?"
+
+"It is three months since the first attack.  This medicine tided him
+over five days.  He was nervous to-night and begged me to go out to
+dinner with him.  I 'm afraid it was unwise--the lights and the music
+excited him."
+
+"But you have n't been here alone with him?"
+
+"There is Marie."
+
+"Two women alone with a man in that condition--it is n't safe."
+
+"You don't understand how good he has been.  He has struggled hard.  He
+has allowed me to lock him up--to do everything to help him.  He has
+never been like this before."
+
+"It is n't safe for you," he repeated.  "Are there no relatives I may
+summon?"
+
+"None," she answered.  "I am his cousin--his sister by adoption.  There
+are no other relatives."
+
+"No friends?"
+
+"I would rather fight it out alone," she answered firmly.  "I don't
+wish my friends to know about this," she added hastily, as though to
+avoid further discussion along this line.
+
+"It was careless of me to leave the door open as I went in."
+
+"It was lucky for you.  He might have--"
+
+"Don't!" she shuddered.
+
+He waited a moment.
+
+"You are brave," he declared, "but this is too big a problem for you to
+manage.  He should have been placed in the hands of a physician."
+
+"No," she interrupted.  "No one must know of this.  I trust you to tell
+no one of this."
+
+He thought a moment.
+
+"Very well.  But in order to locate him now, it will be necessary to
+call in the help of the police."
+
+"The police!" she exclaimed in horror.  "No!  You must promise me you
+will not do that."
+
+She rose to her feet all excitement.
+
+"They would not arrest him," he assured her.  "They would simply hold
+him until we came for him."
+
+"I would rather not.  I would rather wait until he comes back himself
+than do that."
+
+He could not understand her fear, but he was bound to respect it.
+
+"Very well," he answered quietly.  "But I have a friend whom I can
+trust.  You do not mind if I enlist his help?"
+
+"He is of the police?" she asked suspiciously.
+
+"He is a friend," he replied.  "It is as a friend he will do this for
+me."
+
+"Oh," she answered confused, "I don't know what to do!  But I feel that
+I can trust you--I _will_ trust you."
+
+"Thank you.  Then I must begin work at once.  There is a telephone in
+the house?"
+
+Her face brightened instantly.  He seemed so decisive and sure.  The
+fact that he was so immediately active, that he did not wait until
+daylight, when conditions would be best, but began the search in the
+face of apparent impossibility, brought her immediate confidence.  She
+liked a man who would, without quoting the old saw, hunt for a needle
+in a haystack.
+
+She directed him to the telephone, and he summoned a cab.  He returned
+with the question,
+
+"Do you know how much money he had?"
+
+"Money?  He had none."
+
+"Then," said Donaldson, "won't he come back of himself?  Opium is one
+thing for which there is no credit."
+
+"I 'm afraid not.  He has been away before without money, and--"
+
+She stopped as abruptly as though a hand had been placed over her
+mouth.  Her face clouded as though from some new and half forgotten
+fear.  She glanced swiftly at Donaldson, as though to see if he had
+read the ellipsis.
+
+When she spoke again it was slowly, each word with an effort.
+
+"My pocket-book was upstairs.  It is possible that he borrowed."
+
+Donaldson knew the meaning of that.  Kleptomania was a characteristic
+symptom.  Victims of this habit had gone even further in their hot
+necessity for money.
+
+"Perhaps," she suggested hesitatingly, "perhaps this search to-night
+may inconvenience you financially.  I wish you to feel free to spend
+without limit whatever you may find helpful.  We have more than ample
+funds.  Unfortunately I have on hand only a little money, but as soon
+as I can get to my bank--"
+
+"I have enough."  He smiled as a new meaning to the phrase came to him.
+"More than enough."
+
+He glanced at the clock.  Over half of his first day already gone.  He
+heard the crunching wheels of the taxicab on the graveled road outside.
+Hurrying into the hall he took one of Arsdale's hats--he had lost his
+own in the machine--and slipped into his overcoat.  Still he paused,
+curiously reluctant to leave her.  He did not feel that there was very
+much waiting for him outside, and here--he would have been content to
+live his week in this old library.  He had glimpsed a dozen volumes
+that he would have enjoyed handling.  He would like to spread them out
+upon his knee before the fire and read to her at random from them.
+Yes, she must be there to complete the library.  He was getting loose
+again in his thoughts.
+
+She was looking at him anxiously.
+
+"I think we shall find him," he said confidently.  "At any rate I shall
+come back in the morning and report."
+
+"This seems such an imposition--" she faltered.
+
+"Please don't look at it in that light," he pleaded earnestly.  "I feel
+as though I were doing this for an old friend."
+
+"You are kind to consider it so."
+
+"You see we have been in the inner woods together."
+
+She smiled courageously.
+
+"Good night.  I wish you were better guarded here," he added.
+
+He held out his hand quite frankly.  She put her own within it for a
+moment.  He grew dizzy at the mere touch of it.  It was as though his
+Lady of the Mountains had suddenly become a living, tangible reality.
+The light touch of her fingers was as wine to him.  They made the task
+before him seem an easy one.  They made it a privilege.  She thought
+that he was making a sacrifice in doing this for her when she was
+granting him the boon of returning upon the morrow.
+
+"Good night," he said again.
+
+He turned abruptly and opening the door stepped out into the cab
+without daring to look back.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+_The Arsdales_
+
+Miss Arsdale hurried upstairs to where in a rear room Marie, with a
+candle burning beside her, lay in bed done up like a mummy.
+
+"Par Di', Mam'selle Elaine," exclaimed the old housekeeper, her eyes
+growing brighter at sight of her.  "I had a dream about a black horse.
+Is anything wrong with you?"
+
+"Nothing.  And your poor lame knees, Marie--they are better?"
+
+"N'importe," she grunted, "but I do not like the feel of the night.
+Was M'sieur Ben down there with you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You should be in bed by now.  You must go at once."
+
+"I think I shall sleep in the little room off yours to-night."
+
+"Bien.  Then if you need anything in the night, you can call me."
+
+Marie was scarcely able to turn herself in her bed, but, she still felt
+the responsibility of the house.
+
+"Very well, Marie.  Good night."
+
+She kissed the old housekeeper upon the forehead and was going out when
+she heard the latter murmur as though to herself,
+
+"The black horse may mean Jacques."
+
+"Have you heard nothing from him in his new position?" she asked,
+turning at the door.
+
+"Non," she answered sharply.  "Go to bed."
+
+So the girl went on into a darkness that she, too, found ridden by
+black horses.
+
+For three generations the Arsdales had been a family of whom those who
+claim New York as their inheritance had known both much and little.  It
+was impossible to ignore the silent part Horace Arsdale, the
+grandfather, had played in the New York business world or the quiet
+influence he had exerted in such musical and literary centres as
+existed in his day.  Any one who knew anybody would answer an inquiry
+as to who they might be with a surprised lift of the eyebrows.
+
+"The Arsdales?  Why they are--the Arsdales."
+
+"But what--"
+
+"Oh, they are a queer lot.  But they have brains and--money."
+
+Horace Arsdale died in an asylum, and there were the usual ugly rumors
+as to what brought him there.  He left a son Benjamin, and Benjamin
+built the present Arsdale house at a time when it was like building in
+the wilderness.  Here he shut himself up with his bride, a French girl
+he had met on his travels.  Ask any one who Benjamin Arsdale was and
+they would be apt to answer,
+
+"Benjamin Arsdale?  Oh, he is Benjamin Arsdale.  They say he has a
+great deal of talent and--money."
+
+The first statement seemed to be proven by some very delicate lyrical
+verse which appeared from time to time in the magazines.  Though a
+member of the best half dozen New York clubs, not a dozen men out of
+the hundreds who knew his name had ever seen him.
+
+His wife died within three years, some say from a broken heart, some
+say from homesickness, leaving a boy child six months old.  At this
+point Benjamin Arsdale's name disappeared even from the magazines, and
+save to a very few people he was as though dead and buried beneath his
+odd house.  An old Frenchman, his wife, and his son Jacques Moisson
+seemed content to live there and look after the household duties.  Some
+ten years later a little girl of nine appeared, a niece of Arsdale's,
+it was said, and this completed the household, though old Pčre Moisson
+died in the course of time, leaving his wife and Jacques as a sort of
+legacy to his old master, for a body-guard.  The only reports of the
+inmates to the outside world came through the other servants who were
+employed here from time to time, and the most they had to say was that
+Arsdale was "queer," and they did n't think it was the place to bring
+up young children, though the master did adore the very ground they
+walked on.  When the children were older, Arsdale was seen at concerts
+and the theatre with them, but seemed to resent any attempt on the part
+of well meaning acquaintances to renew social ties.  People remarked
+upon how old for his age he had grown, and some spoke in a whisper of
+the spirituality of his features.
+
+So much every one knew and that was nothing.  What Elaine Arsdale, whom
+he had legally adopted, knew, was what caused the white light about the
+bowed head of the man.  When she first learned she could not tell, but
+as a very young girl she remembered days when he came to her with his
+face very white and tense, and in his eyes the terror of one in great
+pain, and said to her,
+
+"Little girl, will you sit with me a bit?"
+
+So she would take a seat by the window in the library and he would face
+her very quietly with his long fingers twined around the chair arms.
+He would not speak and she knew that he did not wish her to speak.  He
+wished for her only to sit there where he could see her.  She was never
+afraid, but at times there came into his eyes a look that tempted her
+to cry.  Sometimes an hour, sometimes two hours passed, and then he
+would rise to his feet and walk unsteadily towards her and say,
+
+"Now I may kiss your forehead, Elaine."
+
+He would kiss her, and shortly after fall into a deep sleep of
+exhaustion.
+
+Between these periods, which she did not understand save that in some
+way he suffered a great deal, he was to her the gentlest and kindest
+guardian that ever a girl had.  He personally superintended her studies
+and those of Ben, her only other playmate.  The day was divided into
+regular hours for work and play.  In the morning at nine he met them in
+the library and heard their lessons and gave them their tasks for the
+next day.  He seemed to know everything and had a way of making one
+understand very difficult matters such as fractions and irregular
+French verbs.  In the afternoon came the music lessons.  He was anxious
+for them both to play well upon the violin, for he said that it had
+been to him one of the greatest joys of his life.  Each night before
+bedtime he used to play for them himself and make her see finer
+pictures than even those she found in her fairy tales.  But there were
+other times when he could make his violin terrible.  He used to punish
+Ben in this way.  When the latter had been over wilful, he made the boy
+stand before him.  Then taking a position in front of him, he played
+things so wild, so fearful, that the boy would beg for mercy.
+
+"Do you wish your soul to be like that?" he would demand sternly.
+
+"No, father, no," Ben would whimper.
+
+"Then you must control yourself.  If ever you lose a grip upon yourself
+in temper or anything else, it will be like that."
+
+But the music even at such times never frightened her, though it
+sounded very savage, like the wind through the trees in a thunder storm.
+
+The only time that he had ever seemed the slightest bit angry at her
+was once during that wonderful summer when he had taken them abroad.
+She was seventeen, and on the boat she met a man with whom she fell in
+love.  He was very much older than she, and possessed a glorious
+mustache which turned up at the corners.  He helped her up and down the
+deck one day when the wind was blowing, and that night she lay awake
+thinking about him.  When she appeared in the morning with her eyes
+heavy and her thoughts far away, the father put his arm about her and
+escorted her to the stern of the boat.  Then sitting down beside her,
+he said,
+
+"Tell me what is on your mind, little girl."
+
+She told him quite simply, and had been surprised to see his face grow
+white and terrible.
+
+"He put those thoughts into your heart?"
+
+He rose to his feet and started towards the saloon.  She knew what he
+was about to do.  She flung her arms around his knees and, sobbing,
+pleaded with him until he stayed.  Then after she had calmed a little,
+he talked to her and she listened as though to a stranger.
+
+"Little girl," he cried fiercely, "there is much that you do not
+understand, and much that I pray God you never will understand.  One of
+these things is the nature of man.  If it were not for all the other
+fair things there are in life I would place you in a convent, for the
+best man who ever lived, little girl, is not good enough to take into
+his keeping the worst woman.  They break their hearts with their
+weaknesses--they break their hearts."
+
+"But you, dear Dada--"
+
+"I did it!  God forgive me, I did it, too!"
+
+At this point he gained control of himself and his wild speech, but the
+words remained forever an echo in her heart.
+
+They passed the next summer in the Adirondacks, and here in the deep
+woods she spent the pleasantest period of her life.  She was strangely
+atune with the big pines and the fragrant shadows which lay beneath
+them.  Arsdale used to sit beside her in these solitudes and read aloud
+by the hour from the poets in his sweet musical voice.  At such times
+she wondered more than ever what he had meant in that outburst on the
+steamer.  Here, too, he told her more of her mother who had died at
+almost the same time that Ben's mother had died.  But of the father all
+he ever told her was,
+
+"My brother was an Arsdale--like the rest of us."
+
+So she lived her peaceful life and was conscious of missing nothing,
+save at odd moments the man with the beautiful mustache.  Marie, the
+old housekeeper, was as careful of her as Jacques was of her father.
+Ben was kind to her, though during the latter years he had grown a bit
+out of her life.  This had worried the father--this and other things.
+One day he had called her into the library, and though he was greatly
+agitated she saw that it was not in the usual way.
+
+"Little girl," he said, "if it should so happen that you are ever left
+alone here with Ben and he--he does not seem to act quite himself, I
+want you to promise me that you will go to this address which I shall
+leave for you."
+
+She had promised, knowing well to what he referred.
+
+Then his face had hardened.
+
+"There is still another thing you must promise; if at the end of six
+months he is no better I wish you to promise that you will not live in
+this house with him or anywhere near him--that you will cut off your
+life utterly from his life."
+
+"But, Dada--"
+
+"Promise."
+
+She promised again, little thinking that the crisis of which he seemed
+to have a foreboding was so near at hand.  A dark day came within two
+months when her soul was rent with the knowledge that he lay stark and
+cold in that very library where so much of his life had been lived.
+Marie gathered her into her arms and held her tight.  She stared aghast
+at a world which frightened her by its emptiness.  At her side stood
+Ben, his lips twitching, and in his eyes that haunting fear which
+always foreran the father's struggles.  A month later the boy did not
+come home one night, but came after three days, a feeble wreck of a
+man.  She tore open the letter the father had left, and this took her
+to Barstow, with whom he had evidently left instructions.  That was
+five months ago, and in the meanwhile she had grown from a very young
+girl into a woman.
+
+This was the sombre background to her frightened thoughts as she lay in
+her bed next to Marie.  In the midst of all the figures which haunted
+her, there stood now one alone who offered her anything but fearful
+things--and he was a stranger.  Out of the infinite multitude of the
+indifferent who surrounded her, he had leaped and within these few
+hours made her debtor to him for her life, and now for partial relief
+from a strain which was worse than sudden death might have been.  In
+spite of other torments it was like a cool hand upon her brow to know
+that out in that chaos into which the boy had plunged, this other had
+followed.  She had perfect confidence in him.  After all, it is as easy
+in a crisis to pick a friend from among strangers as from among friends.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+_The Man Who Knew_
+
+There are several members of the New York police force who think they
+know their Chinatown; there are several slum workers who think they do;
+there are many ugly guides, real guides, who think they do, but Beefy
+Saul, ex-newspaper man, ex-United States Chinese immigration inspector,
+and finally of the Secret Service, really does.  This is because Beefy
+Saul knows not only the bad, but the good Chinamen; because he knows
+not only the ins and outs of Chinatown, but the ins and outs of New
+York; because he knows not only the wiles and weaknesses of Chinamen,
+the wiles and weaknesses of ugly souled guides (and of slum workers),
+but best of all, because he knows the several members of the New York
+police department who think they know their Chinatown.  But like men
+who know less, Beefy Saul enjoys his sleep and naturally objects to
+being roused at three o'clock in the morning, even though in the east
+the silver is showing through the black, as Donaldson pointed out, like
+the eyes of a certain lady when she smiles (as Donaldson did not point
+out).  Beefy came down in answer to the insistent bell which connected
+with his modest flat--it ought to be called a suite, for the lower hall
+boasted only six speaking tubes--and he swore like a pirate as he came.
+Finally the broad shoulders, which gave him his name, filled the door
+frame.
+
+"I don't give a tinker's dam who you are," he growled before he had
+made out the features before him, "it's a blasted outrage!  Hello, Don,
+what in thunder brings you out at this time of night?  You look white,
+man, what's the trouble?"
+
+Saul hitched up his trousers, his round sleepy face that of a
+good-natured farmer.
+
+"I want you to do me a favor if you will, Beefy.  I know it 's a darned
+shame to get you out at this hour."
+
+"Tut, tut, man.  If a friend can't get up for another friend, he ain't
+much of a friend.  Tell your troubles."
+
+"I 'm looking for a man, Beefy, who 's down there somewhere among your
+Chinks."
+
+"Hitting the pipe?"
+
+"I 'm afraid so."
+
+"Have n't any address I suppose--don't know his favorite joint?"
+
+"I don't know a thing about him except that he has been down there
+before--that he lit out again a little over an hour ago, half mad--and
+that I must find him."
+
+"An hour ago, eh?  That helps, some.  There 's only a few of 'em open
+to the public at that time.  But say, is there any special hurry?  He's
+had time to get his dope by now.  I 've got some work there in the
+morning."
+
+"There's a girl waiting for him, Beefy, a girl who is paying big for
+every hour he's gone."
+
+"So?  Well, m' boy, guess we 'll have to get him then.  I 'll be down
+in ten minutes.  Make yourself at home on the doorstep."
+
+Donaldson waited in the taxicab.  For the first time in his life he
+computed the value of one-sixth of an hour.  So long as he had been
+with the girl--or so long as he had been active in her behalf--the
+minutes were filled with sufficient interest to make them pass
+unreckoned.  But to sit here and wait, to sit here and watch the
+seconds wasted, to sit here and be conscious of each one of them as it
+bit, like a thieving wharf rat, into his dwindling Present and carried
+the morsel of time back to the greedy Past, was a different matter.
+When finally Saul appeared with a fat cigar in one corner of his chubby
+mouth, Donaldson was halfway across the sidewalk to meet him.
+
+"Good Lord!" he laughed excitedly, almost pushing the big man toward
+the cab, "I thought you were lost up there."
+
+Saul paused with one foot already on the step.  Then turning back, he
+struck a match for his cigar.  The flare revealed Donaldson's eager
+eyes, his tense mouth.  He carelessly snapped the burnt match to the
+lapel of Donaldson's coat and stooping to pick it off took occasion to
+whiff the latter's breath.
+
+"The sooner we start--" suggested Donaldson, impatiently.
+
+Saul stepped in, his two hundred pounds making the springs squeak, and
+sinking into a corner waited to see what he might learn from
+Donaldson's talk.  The suspicion had crossed his mind that possibly the
+latter had got into some such way himself--it was over a year since he
+had seen him--and was taking this method to hunt up an all-night opium
+joint.  His experience made him constantly suspicious, but unlike the
+regular police, a suspicion with him remained a suspicion until proven.
+It never gained strength merely by being in his thought.  At the end of
+five minutes he had discarded this theory.  Stopping the machine, he
+gave the cabby a real address in the place of the fictitious one he had
+first given in Donaldson's hearing.  The latter's mind, supernormally
+alert, detected the ruse instantly.  He placed a hand upon Saul's knee.
+
+"Beefy, you didn't suspect me, did you?"
+
+"What the devil is the matter with you then?" demanded Saul.
+
+"Nothing.  What makes you think there is?"
+
+"The mouth, man, the mouth!  You don't get those wrinkles in the corner
+and a tight chin by being left alone five minutes, if all that is
+troubling you is a lost friend."
+
+"You 're too confounded suspicious.  It's only that I 've so many
+things to do, Beefy."
+
+"Business picked up?"
+
+Donaldson smiled.  Saul had known his Grub Street life.  As the cab
+sped on he regained his self-control.  Action, movement was all he
+needed.  For the next ten minutes he surprised Saul with his enthusiasm
+and loquacity.  The latter having known him as a quiet and rather
+reserved fellow, finally decided that it was a clear case of woman.
+The questions he asked about young Arsdale, in securing a minute
+description of the man, confirmed this impression.
+
+The cab turned into the narrow cobbled streets of Chinatown, past the
+dark windows, Chinese stores and restaurants, a region that, deserted
+now, appeared in the early morning quiet ominous rather than peaceful.
+Dark alleys opened out frequently--alleys which coiled like snakes past
+cellar entrances, noisome rears of tottering tenements, to
+grease-fingered doors as impassive as the stolid faces of guards who
+drowsed behind them asleep to all save those who knew the deadly
+pass-word.  Paradoxical doors which shut in, instead of out, danger!
+But Saul knew them and they knew Saul.  He knew further the haunts of
+beginners, where opium is high and the surroundings are fairly clean,
+he knew the haunts of the confirmed, where opium is cheaper and where
+surroundings do not matter at all.  Also he knew Wun Chung, who does
+not smoke, but who, being rich, controls the trade and so keeps in
+touch with all who buy.
+
+On the way to Chung's Saul made one stop.  With Donaldson at his heels,
+he darted down a side street, pushed open, without knocking, a dingy
+door, went up a flight of stairs, along a dark hallway and down another
+flight, where he was stopped by a shadow.  The big man spoke his name,
+and the shadow turned instantly from a guard to an obsequious servant.
+He opened the door and Saul strode across a narrow yard, stooping to
+brush beneath the stout clothes-line hung with blankets, an innocent
+appearing wash, which however served as an effective barrier to any one
+who might approach at a run.  They entered the rear of a second
+tenement which faced a parallel street, but which, oddly enough, had no
+entrance to its rear rooms from the front.  Another shadow rose before
+them only to vanish as the round red face of Saul appeared.  He pushed
+on into a long, low-ceilinged room lined with bunks, the air heavy with
+the acrid dead smoke of opium.
+
+"Light," demanded Saul.
+
+The sleepy proprietor brought a kerosene lamp, the chimney befouled
+with soot and grease.  It was an old trick.  These fellows protect
+their customers and through a sooted chimney the feeble light makes
+scarcely more than shadows in which it is very difficult to identify a
+man.  Seizing the slant-eyed ghoul by the arm Saul held the lamp within
+an inch of the yellow face, so close that it burned.
+
+"Don't try such fool things on me, Tong," he warned.  "Bring me a
+light."
+
+The Chinaman squirmed in terror, and when loosed was back again in a
+hurry with a lamp that lighted the whole room.  Saul took it and
+examined the nearest bunk.  Donaldson glanced at the first face.  That
+was enough.  He retreated to the door for fresh air.  Down the line
+went Saul, looking like some devil in Hell making tally of lost souls.
+He reached in and turned them, one after the other, face to the light,
+while Donaldson stood outside, dreading the call that should force him
+to look again.  He was no man of the world and the reek of the place
+appalled him.  Nothing he had ever read conveyed anything of the plain
+sordidness of it,--the unrelieved pall of it which burdened like the
+weary dead stretch of an alkali desert.  The scene did not even become
+romantic to him, until glancing up, he saw above the irregular
+roof-tops, the stars still bright in the virgin purple, saw the
+unfouled spaces of the planet fields between them.  What had such clean
+things as the stars to do with this mired world below?  This jeweled
+roof was not intended for so squalid a floor.  But the stars above
+brought him back to the girl again, and she to her brother, and her
+brother to this.  Strange cycle!  Then the stars and the blue gathered
+them all into one.  Strange one!
+
+"Not here," announced Saul, wiping the oil from his fingers.  Donaldson
+breathed more freely.  Without delay they hurried back to the cab.
+
+"I had sort of a hunch that we 'd find him there," said Saul, "but we
+did n't.  Now we 'll have a cup of tea with Chung and set him to work.
+It's a darned sight easier and a lot swifter way when you have n't any
+clue at all to work on."
+
+"And pleasanter," returned Donaldson.  "I 've seen enough of this."
+
+"Not so bad when you get used to 'em," answered Saul, lighting a fresh
+cigar.  "But I know how you feel; I 'm just that queer about morgues.
+Can't get used to 'em nohow.  Get the creeps every time I step inside a
+morgue.  But then I don't hanker after murder work of any sort like
+some of the boys.  It would be just my chance to get a taste of it
+before I 'm done with the Riverside robberies."
+
+"What are the Riverside robberies?" inquired Donaldson, with a faint
+remembrance of the name.
+
+"You been out of town?"
+
+"No, but I don't read the papers much."
+
+"I should say not.  Four hold-ups in three weeks, all within half a
+mile of one another on Riverside Drive."
+
+"Riverside Drive?"
+
+He remembered now.  The Arsdale home was near Riverside Drive.  Barstow
+had spoken of these crimes.
+
+"You on the case?" he asked indifferently,
+
+"Yes," answered Saul.  "I 'm on the case and if another one breaks, the
+case and the Chief will be on me."
+
+The cab had stopped before an unlighted store.  The street light
+revealed a window filled with a medley of china, teas, silks, and
+joss-sticks.  Above, in big gilt letters, was the sign "Wun Chung and
+Co."
+
+It was surprising how quickly in response to Saul's knocking a door to
+the left of the main entrance, and leading upstairs, opened.  After a
+few words with the moon-faced attendant, the light was switched on and
+the three ascended to a small room, brilliant with gaudy Oriental
+colors and heavy with ebony furnishings.  A group of three or four
+Chinamen sat at a small table soberly drinking their tea with the
+exaggerated innocence of those who have a deck of cards up their
+sleeves.  The proprietor himself, fat as a butter ball, toddled up to
+Saul with a grin upon his round, colorless face.  He ordered tea for
+all and they sat down.  In two minutes Saul had explained what he
+wished, and in five a couple of the silent group near had taken Chung's
+orders and stolen out like ghosts.
+
+Saul swallowed his tea boiling hot and glanced at his watch.  It was
+half-past four.
+
+"Now," he said, "I 'm going back for a wink of sleep.  You can sit on
+here or you can have Chung notify you at your hotel, eh, Chung?"
+
+"Allee light," nodded the proprietor.
+
+"How long do you think it will take?" asked Donaldson quickly.
+
+"Might take till noon to search every place--and then we might not find
+him if he's an old hand at the game," answered Saul.
+
+"Till noon!" exclaimed Donaldson irritably.  "Good Lord, that's eight
+hours!"
+
+Saul placed his hand affectionately upon Donaldson's shoulder.
+
+"See here, Don," he replied earnestly.  "Take my advice and get some
+sleep."
+
+"Do you think I can waste time in sleep?"
+
+"Better take a little now or you 'll be having a long one coming to
+you."
+
+"That's just it," retorted Donaldson.  "I 've got all eternity for
+sleep."
+
+"So?  Well, I 'll take mine here and now, thanks.  I want to wake up!"
+
+The older man's sober common-sense brought Donaldson to himself.
+
+"Guess you 're right," he admitted.
+
+He took out a card and scribbled two addresses, one of the Waldorf and
+the other of the Arsdale house.
+
+"You will notify me at one of these places as soon as you learn
+anything?"
+
+"Allee light."
+
+"_At once_, you understand?"
+
+Saul insisted upon landing Donaldson at his hotel before going on to
+his own home.  The latter grasped the big hand of his friend.
+
+"Beefy," he said, "if ever I can give _her_ a chance to thank you, I
+'ll bet you 'll think your trouble worth while."
+
+"Turn in and give her a chance to thank _you_ in the morning.  I reckon
+she 'll appreciate that more than an opportunity to thank me."
+
+The cab bearing the big detective glided off.  Donaldson watched it
+melt down the dwindling vista until finally, dissolved altogether, it
+became one with the dark.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+_Dawn_
+
+Donaldson took a cold dip and then carefully dressed himself in fresh
+clothes.  Sleep was out of the question.  He had never in his life felt
+more alert in mind and body.  He felt as though he could walk farther,
+hear farther, see farther than ever before.  He was more keenly
+responsive to the perfume of the roses which were now drooping a bit
+languidly near the window; he was more alive to the delicate traceries
+of the ferns which banked one corner of the room; more appreciative of
+the little marine which he had hung near his dresser and--more alive to
+her into whose life Fate had picked him up and hurled him.  He felt the
+warm pressure of her fingers as though they still rested within his;
+saw the marvelous quiet beauty of her eyes which had led him so far
+back into his past.  Again out of this past they led him on--on to--he
+was checked as in his picture of her the ticking clock behind her
+intruded itself.  There stood the sentinel to whom he must give heed.
+There stood the warning finger pointing to the seventh noon.
+
+Good Lord, he must have more room.  He must get out into the dawn--out
+where he could share these emotions which now surged in upon him with
+some virginal passion as big and fresh as the new-born day.  He crossed
+to the window and looked out upon the dormant city.  The morning light
+was just beginning to wash out the dark and to sketch in the outlines
+of buildings and the gray path of the road between them.  He watched
+the new creation of a world.  Around him lay a million souls ready to
+people it--ready to seize it and make it a part of themselves.  In a
+few hours that dim street would be a bridge over which tens of
+thousands of people would pass to sorrow, to joy; to poverty, to
+riches; to hate, to love; to death, to life.  That was a drama worth
+looking at.  He must get out and rub shoulders with those who were
+playing their parts.  He, too, must play his part in it.
+
+He descended to the office and left instructions with the night clerk
+to insist upon a message from whoever might call him up.  He would be
+back, he said, in an hour.  He had not walked long before he found the
+city gently astir with life.  Passing cars were soon well filled,
+traffic fretted the streets lately so quiet, while yawning pedestrians
+reminded him that there were still those who slept.  At the end of
+thirty minutes more of brisk walking, the sky had melted through the
+entire gamut of colors, and finally settled into a blinding golden
+blue.  A newsboy clicking out of space like a locust, shouted "Extra!"
+Donaldson gave little heed to the cry until he heard the word
+"Riverside," and caught the blatant headlines, "Another robbery."  With
+an interest growing out of Saul's connection with the case, he skimmed
+through the story.
+
+Then he tossed his paper away and took his course back to the hotel,
+glad to forget that sordid bit of drama, in the movement of the crowd
+now forcing its way to work.  But something was lacking in the
+spectacle this morning.  The play of light and color he still saw, the
+vibrancy of it he still felt, the dramatic quality of it he still
+appreciated, but still with the consciousness that it lacked
+something--that it had gone a bit flat.  He no longer felt that
+princely sense of superiority to it--as though it were a gorgeous
+pageant upon which he was a mere onlooker.  He felt now a harrying
+sense of responsibility towards it.  It was as though they called him
+to join them.  He quickened his pace.  He must get back to the hotel
+and see if any message awaited him.
+
+He caught his breath--he must get back to her.  That was it.  That was
+what the hurrying passers-by had called to him.  Get back to her--what
+did the morning count until she became a part of it?  It was because
+she had placed the red-blooded actuality of life before his eyes in
+contrast to the superficial picturesqueness of its expression as he had
+viewed it yesterday that the show had lost its vividness.  She was
+making him see it again with eyes as they were at twenty.  He recoiled.
+That way lay danger.  He must put himself on guard.  But from that
+moment he had but one object in mind--to get back to her as soon as
+possible.
+
+A telephone message waiting him from Chung reported that no trace could
+be found of the boy.
+
+He jumped into a cab and went at once to the Arsdale house.  Miss
+Arsdale herself came to the door, her eyes heavy from lack of sleep but
+her face lighting instantly at sight of him.
+
+"You have news?" she exclaimed.
+
+"No," he answered directly.
+
+She was a woman with whom one might be direct.
+
+"No news may be good news," he added.  "They have n't been able to
+locate him in Chinatown.  I don't think there is a nook there in which
+he could hide from those people."
+
+"Then," she exclaimed, "he has gone to Cranton."
+
+"Then," he answered deliberately, "I will follow him there."
+
+"No, I could n't allow you.  It is two hours from town.  You have
+already given generously of your time."
+
+"Miss Arsdale," he said gently, "we of the inner woods must stand by
+each other.  This week is a sort of vacation for me.  I am quite free."
+
+Yes, she was she he had seen through the tops of the whispering pines
+when he had thought it nothing but the blue sky; she was she who had
+brushed close to him when he had thought it only the rustling of dry
+leaves.  Now that she stood beside him, his heart cried out, "Why did
+you not come before?  Why did you not come a week ago?"  If she could
+have stood for one brief second in that dingy office which had slowly
+closed in upon him until it squeezed the soul out of him, then he would
+have forced back the walls again.  If only once she had walked by his
+side through the crowds, then he would have caught their cry in time.
+The world had narrowed down to a pin prick, but if only she had come a
+scant two days ago, she would have bent his eye to this tiny aperture
+as to the small end of a telescope as she did now and made him see big
+enough to grasp the meaning of life.
+
+Well, the past was dead--even with her eyes magnifying the days to
+eternities; the past was dead, even with the delicate poise of her lips
+ready to utter prophecies.  He must not forget that, and in remembering
+this he must choose this opportunity for exiling himself from her for
+the day.  This mission would consume some six hours.  It would take him
+out of the city where he would be able to think more clearly.  This was
+well.
+
+"Have you any idea how the trains run?" he inquired.
+
+"I looked them up.  There is one at 9.32."
+
+"I can make it easily," he answered, glancing at the big clock.  He had
+left his own watch at the hotel.  He refused to carry so grim a
+reminder.  "I suppose I 'll have no trouble in finding the place."
+
+"You would ask for the Arsdale bungalow," she answered.  "Every one
+there knows it.  But the chances are so slight--it is only that his
+father went out there once.  After several days Jacques, Marie's boy
+and father's servant, found him hidden in the unused cottage.  I
+thought that possibly Ben might remember this."
+
+"I should say that it was more than probable that he would go there if
+his object is to keep in hiding."
+
+"It is three miles from the station and quite secluded."
+
+"That will make a good walk for me."
+
+He rose to leave at once.  But she, too, rose.
+
+"If you think it best to go," she said firmly, "then I must go, too.  I
+could not remain here passive another day.  And, besides, if he is
+there, it is better that I should be with you.  I know how to handle
+him.  He is always gentle with me."
+
+Donaldson caught his breath.  This was an emergency that he had not
+foreseen.  Manifestly, she could not go.  She must not go.  It would be
+to take her back to the blue sky beneath which she was born.  It would
+be to give her a setting that would intensify every wild thought he was
+trying so hard to throttle.
+
+"No," he exclaimed.  "You had better permit me to go alone."
+
+"I should not think of it," she answered decisively.
+
+"But he may not be there.  He might come back here while you were gone."
+
+"He will be quite safe if he returns here."
+
+"But--"
+
+"I will see Marie and come down at once."
+
+She hurried upstairs.
+
+"Marie," she asked, "is it quite safe to leave you here alone until
+afternoon?"
+
+"Safe?  Why not?"
+
+"I was going out to the bungalow."
+
+The old servant looked up shrewdly.
+
+"Is anything the matter?"
+
+"Nothing that you can help," the girl answered.
+
+She had not yet told her of Ben's last disappearance.  There was no use
+in worrying those who could give no help.
+
+"Bien.  Go on.  It will do you both good."
+
+"The telephone is at your bed--you can summon Dr. Abbot if you need
+anything."
+
+"Bien."
+
+"And perhaps while I am gone Jacques may come for a visit."
+
+"Perhaps.  Run along.  The air will do you good."
+
+The girl kissed the wrinkled forehead and hurried to her own room.
+There, before the mirror, she was forced to ask herself the question
+which she had tried to escape: "Why are you going?"
+
+"Because if Ben were there and sick, he might need me!"
+
+"Why are you going?"
+
+The woman in the mirror was relentless.
+
+"Because the house here is so full of shadows."
+
+"Why are you going?"
+
+"Because the sun will give me strength."
+
+"Why are you going?"
+
+"Because," she flushed guiltily,--"because it will be very much
+pleasanter than remaining here alone."
+
+Whereupon the woman in the mirror ceased her questioning.
+
+And, in the meanwhile, the relentless old clock was goading Donaldson.
+Its methodical, interminable ticking sounded like the approaching
+footsteps of a jailer towards the death cell.
+
+"Don't you know better than to risk yourself out there one whole
+spring-time day with her?" it demanded.
+
+"But with a full realization of the danger I can guard myself," he
+answered uneasily.
+
+"Can you guard _her_?"
+
+"That is unpardonable presumption," replied Donaldson heatedly.
+
+"The mellow sun and the birthing flowers are ever presumptuous,"
+answered the wise old clock.
+
+"But a man may fight them off."
+
+"I have ticked here many years and seen many things that man has prided
+himself upon having the power to do and yet has failed of doing."
+
+"I cannot help myself.  I should offend her unwarrantedly if I made
+further objection."
+
+"Then you are not all-powerful."
+
+"I have power over myself.  And you are insulting her."
+
+"Tick-tock.  Tick-tock," answered the clock, jeeringly.
+
+And Donaldson was saved from his impulse to kick the inanimate thing
+into splinters by the sound of her footsteps.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+_Outside the Hedge_
+
+She came down the stairs, a vision of young womanhood, dressed in
+white, with a wide turn-down collar fastened at the throat by a
+generous tie of black.  Her hat was a girlish affair of black straw
+with a cluster of red roses gathered at the brim.  She was drawing on
+her black gloves as she neared him--with the background of the broad
+Colonial staircase--a study for a master.  She approached with the
+grace of a princess and the poise of a woman twice her years.  He now
+could have no more bade her remain behind than he could have stopped
+the progress of time.  There was something almost inevitable in her
+movements, as though it had been foreordained that they two should have
+this day in the country, no matter under what evil auspices.  Without a
+word he held open the door for her to pass through and followed her
+into the cab.
+
+Into the Drive they were whirled and so towards the station, the
+throbbing heart of the city.  The ant-like throng was going and coming,
+and now he was one of them.  It was as though the strand of his life,
+hanging loose, had been caught up, forced into the shuttle, and taken
+again into the pattern.  At her side he made his way into the depot at
+the side of a hundred others; at her side he took his turn in line at
+the ticket window; at her side he made his way towards the gates, a
+score of others jostling him in criticism of his more moderate pace.
+An old client, one of his few, bowed to him.  He returned the salute as
+though his position were the most matter-of-fact one in the world.  Yet
+he was still confused.  He had been thrust upon the stage but he was
+uncertain of his cue.  What was the meaning of this figure by his side?
+In his old part, she had not been there.
+
+When at last they were seated side by side in the car and the train
+began slowly to pull out, her presence there seemed even more unreal
+than ever.  But soon he gave himself up comfortably to the illusion.
+She was within arm's length of him and they were steaming through the
+green country.  That was enough for him to know at present.  She looked
+very trim as compared to the other women who passed in and took their
+places in the dusty, red-cushioned seats.  She looked more alive--less
+a type.  She gave tone to the whole car.
+
+Up to now, she had given her attention to scanning the faces of the
+multitude they had passed in the faint hope that by some chance her
+brother might be among them, but once the train started she surrendered
+herself fully to the new hope which lay ahead of her in the bungalow.
+This gave her an opportunity to study more closely this man who so
+suddenly had become her chief reliance in this intimate detail of her
+life.  His kindly good nature furnished her a sharp contrast to the
+sober seriousness of the older man with whom so much of her youth had
+been lived.  He had thrown open the doors and windows of the gloomy
+house in which she had so long been pent up.  And yet as he rambled on
+in an evident attempt to lighten her burden, she caught a note that
+piqued her curiosity.  It was as though below the surface he was
+fretted by some problem which lent a touch of sadness to his hearty
+courageous outlook.  She felt it, when once on the journey he broke out,
+
+"Don't ever look below the surface of anything I say.  Don't ever try
+to look beyond the next step I take.  I'm here to-day; gone to-morrow."
+
+"Like the grass of the field?" she asked with a smile at his
+earnestness, which was so at odds with his light eager comments upon
+the bits of color which shot by them.
+
+"Worse--because the grass is helpless."
+
+"And we?  We boast a little more, but are n't we at the mercy of
+chance?"
+
+"Not if we are worthy of our souls."
+
+She frowned.
+
+"There is Ben, surely he is not altogether to blame," she objected.
+
+"Less to blame than some others, perhaps."
+
+"Then there is the chance that helps us willy nilly," she urged.  "You,
+to me, are such a chance.  Surely it was not within my power to bring
+about this good fortune any more than it is within the power of some
+others to ward off bad fortune."
+
+"The mere episode does n't count.  The handling of it is always within
+our power."
+
+"And we can turn it to ill or good, as we wish?"
+
+"Precisely."
+
+"Providing we are wise enough," she returned.
+
+"Yes, always providing that.  That is the test of us."
+
+"If we do poorly because of lack of wisdom?" she pressed him further.
+
+"The cost is the same," he answered bitterly.
+
+"That is a man's view.  I don't like to feel so responsible."
+
+"It would n't be necessary for women to be responsible for anything if
+men lived up to their best."
+
+She laughed comfortably.  He was one who would.  She liked the
+uncompromising way in which his lips closed below his quick imaginative
+eyes.
+
+It seemed but a matter of minutes before the train drew up at a toy
+station which looked like the suburban office of a real estate
+development company.  Here they learned that the summer schedule was
+not yet in force, which meant that they would be unable to find a train
+back until four o'clock.
+
+"I should have inquired at the other end.  That oversight is either
+chance or stupidity," he exclaimed.
+
+She met his eyes frankly, apparently not at all disconcerted.
+
+"We can't decide which until we learn how it turns out, can we?" she
+laughed.
+
+"No," he replied seriously, "it will depend upon that."
+
+"Then," she said, "we need n't worry until the end.  I have a feeling,
+grown strong now that we are here, that we shall need the extra time.
+I think we shall find him."
+
+"That result alone will excuse my carelessness."
+
+She appeared a bit worried over a new thought.
+
+"I forgot.  This will delay you further on your vacation."
+
+"No.  Nothing can do that," he interrupted her.  "Every day, every hour
+I live is my vacation."
+
+"That," she said, "is a fine way to take life."
+
+He looked startled, but hastened to find a vehicle to carry them the
+three miles which lay between the station and the bungalow.  He found
+an old white horse attached to the dusty skeleton of a depot wagon
+waiting for chance passengers.  They clambered into this and were soon
+jogging at an easy pace over the fragrant bordered road which wandered
+with apparent aimlessness between the green fields.  The driver turned
+half way in his seat with easy familiarity as they started up the first
+long hill.  "Ben't ye afeered to go inter th' house?" he inquired.
+
+"Afraid of what?" demanded Donaldson.
+
+"Spooks."
+
+"They don't come out in the daytime, do they?"
+
+"I dunno.  But they do say as how th' house is ha'nted these times."
+
+"How did that story start?"
+
+"Some allows they has seen queer lights there at night.  An' there 's
+been shadders seen among the trees."
+
+The girl leaned forward excitedly.
+
+"Old wives' tales," Donaldson reassured her in an undertone.
+
+"This has been lately?" he inquired of the driver.
+
+"Off an' on in th' last few weeks."
+
+Donaldson turned to the girl whose features had grown fixed again in
+that same old gloom of haunting fear.
+
+"They circulate such yarns as those about every closed house," he said.
+
+"Those lights and shadows are n't made by ghosts," she whispered.
+
+"Then--that's so," he answered with sudden understanding.  "It's the
+boy himself!"
+
+At the barred lane which swept in a curve out of sight from the road he
+dismissed the driver.  Even if they were successful in their quest, it
+would probably be necessary to straighten out Arsdale before allowing
+him to be seen.  But as an afterthought he turned back and ordered the
+man to call here for them in time to make the afternoon train.
+
+He lowered the rails, and Miss Arsdale led the way without hesitation
+along a grass-grown road and through an old orchard.  The trees were
+scraggly and untrimmed, littered with dead branches, but Spring, the
+mother, had decked them with green leaves and buds until they looked as
+jaunty as old people going to a fair.  The sun sifted through the
+tender sprigs to the sprouting soil beneath, making there the semblance
+of a choice rug of a green and gold pattern.  The bungalow stood upon
+the top of a small hill, concealed from the road.  It was of rather
+attractive appearance, though sadly in need of repair.  All the windows
+were curtained and there was no sign of life.  The broad piazza which
+ran around three sides of it was cluttered with dead leaves.
+
+[Illustration: _He lowered the rails, and Miss Arsdale led the way_]
+
+She took the key to the front door from her purse and he inserted it in
+the lock.
+
+"You wait out here," he commanded, "until I take a look around."
+
+"I would rather go in with you.  I know the house."
+
+"I will open it up first," he said calmly, and stepping in before she
+had time to protest further, he closed the door behind him.  He heard
+her clenched fists pounding excitedly on the panels.
+
+"Mr. Donaldson," she pleaded, "it isn't safe.  You don't know--"
+
+"Don't do that," he shouted back.  "I'll be out in a few moments."
+
+"But you don't know him," she cried; "he might strike you!"
+
+"I 'll be on guard," he answered.
+
+The lower floor was one big room and showed no sign of having been
+occupied for years.  It was scantily furnished and smelled damp and
+musty.  At one side a big stone fireplace looked as dead as a tomb.  He
+pushed through a door into the kitchen which led off this.  The
+cast-iron stove was rusted and the covers cracked.  He glanced into it.
+It was free of ashes and the wood-box was empty.
+
+He came back and slowly mounted the stairs leading to the next floor.
+Stopping at the top, he listened.  There was no sound.  He entered the
+sleeping rooms one after another.  The beds were stripped of blankets
+and the striped canvas of the mattresses was dusty and forbidding.
+There were six of these rooms but the farther one alone was habitable.
+Here a few blankets covered the bed and in the small fireplace there
+were ashes.  They were cold, but he detected several bits of charred
+paper which were dry and crisp.  Some old clothes were scattered about
+the floor and several minor articles which he scarcely noticed.  He
+listened again.  There was not a sound, and yet he had a feeling, born
+of what he did not know, that he was not alone here.  The effect was to
+startle him.  If he had been just a passing stranger looking for a
+place to lodge for the night it would have been sufficient to drive him
+outdoors again.
+
+He came out into the hall which divided the rooms, and there saw a
+ladder which led into an unlighted attic.  He paused.  He heard her
+calling to him, but he did not answer.  He would soon be down again.
+
+He mounted the ladder quickly, and peered into the dark of the
+unlighted recess.  He could make out nothing, and so clambered over a
+beam to the unfinished floor to wait until his eyes had become more
+accustomed to the shadows.  His feet had scarcely touched a firm
+foundation before he was conscious of a slight noise behind him.  He
+turned, and at the same moment a form hurled itself upon him.  In the
+frenzied movement of the hands for his throat, in the spasmodic clutch
+of the arms which clung animal-like about him he recognized the same
+mad, unreasoning passion with which young Arsdale had before attacked
+him.  He could not see his face, and the man uttered no cry.  The
+fellow's arms seemed stronger than before and even longer.  But he
+himself was stronger also, and so while the madman from behind clasped
+his hands below Donaldson's throat, the latter managed to get his own
+arms behind him and secure a firm grip on his assailant's trousers.
+Then he threw himself sideways and back as much as possible.  They both
+fell, and Donaldson in the scramble got to his side and shifted one arm
+higher up.  The fall, too, loosened the man's strangle hold though he
+still remained on top.  Donaldson then fought to throw him off, but the
+fellow clung so close to his body that he was unable to secure a
+purchase.
+
+The fight now settled down to a trial of strength and endurance between
+them.  He strained his free arm as though to crush in this demon's
+ribs.  He kicked out with his feet and knees; he dug his head into the
+fellow's chest.  The latter clung without cry or word like a living
+nightmare.  His hand was creeping towards Donaldson's throat again.  He
+felt it stealing up inch by inch and was powerless to check it.  He
+rolled and tumbled and pushed.  Then his head came down sharply on a
+beam and he lost consciousness.
+
+In the meanwhile Miss Arsdale had waited at the front door, her ears to
+the panels.  For a few moments she heard Donaldson's footsteps moving
+about the house, but soon the walls swallowed him up completely.  She
+ran back a little and strained her eyes towards the upper windows.
+They were darkened with shades.  She felt a keen sense of
+responsibility for not having told him, from the start, of what a demon
+Arsdale became when cornered in this condition.  She had half concealed
+the fact because of shame and because--she shuddered back from the mere
+thought of another possibility so terrible that she could not yet even
+admit it to herself.  She comforted herself with the memory that at the
+last moment she had feebly warned.  But twice before she had refused to
+admit to him the worst.
+
+She waited as long as she was able to endure the strain and then
+skirted the house to the rear.  The kitchen door was wide open.  She
+pushed forward into the middle of the house, calling his name.
+Receiving no response, she mounted the stairs to the second floor.  She
+glanced into each room.  In the farther one an article on the floor,
+which had escaped Donaldson's notice, riveted her eyes.  It was an
+empty pocket-book.  It was neither her own nor Arsdale's.  Instead of
+finding relief in this, it drove her back trembling against the wall.
+Then with swift resolution she gathered herself together, picked up the
+wallet and hid it in her waist.  As she did so, she turned as though
+fearful that some one might be observing her act.
+
+She made her way out into the hall again and there found herself
+confronting Donaldson--dusty, bruised, and dishevelled.
+
+He was leaning against the ladder.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+_A Parting and a Meeting_
+
+He was still dazed, but at sight of her he recovered himself and
+stepped forward.
+
+"Are you injured?" she cried.
+
+"Not in the slightest," he assured her.  "I think if I could have seen,
+I 'd have thrown him."
+
+"It was dark--up there?"
+
+"Pitch dark.  Did you see him go out?"
+
+"No," she answered, steadying herself under the influence of his
+steadiness.
+
+"I 'm sorry he escaped," he apologized.
+
+"Don't think of that now," she exclaimed.
+
+She moved nearer him, as though still fearing that he was concealing
+some injury from her.  He rearranged his disordered collar and tie
+while she insisted upon dusting off his coat.  He felt the brush of her
+fingers in every vein, and stepped almost brusquely towards the
+stairway.  As a matter of fact he was none the worse for his tussle
+save for a good-sized bump which was growing on the back of his head.
+
+"He may be here in hiding or he may have left the house.  I wish you
+would step outside until I search the place."
+
+"I shall remain here with you," she replied stubbornly.
+
+She was still weak from the excitement of the last few minutes, but she
+followed closely at his heels while he went into every room and closet
+in the house without success.  Once outside, he further made a careful
+search of the grounds, but again without result.  He felt chagrined
+that he had not been strong enough to hold the fellow.  He had missed
+the opportunity to put an end to her pitiful worry.
+
+"I don't think he will come back here," he said, as they stood again
+before the front door.  "He may make for the station in an attempt to
+get back to town.  Are you strong enough to walk it?"
+
+"Yes," she said eagerly.
+
+"I can push on ahead and send a carriage back for you."
+
+"So.  I need the walk.  But you--" she began anxiously.
+
+"I shall enjoy it," he declared.
+
+They took the pleasant country road, side by side, and in five minutes
+he had forgotten the episode in a confusion of thoughts that were cheap
+at the cost of a brief struggle with a madman.  The wine of her
+presence in this medley of blue sky, green grass, and springtime
+perfume was a heady drink for one in his condition.  The full-throated
+birds sang to him, and the booming insects hummed to him and her eyes
+prophesied to him of a thousand days like this which lay like roses in
+bud.  He watched with growing awe the supple movement of her body, the
+tender arch of her neck, and the clear surface of her features ever
+alive with the quick expression of her eager thoughts.  She caught his
+gaze once and colored prettily but without lowering her eyes.
+
+"You belong out here," he exclaimed.  "This is where you should live."
+
+"And you?"
+
+"I was born in just such surroundings."
+
+"Why did you leave them?  Men are so free."
+
+"Free?"
+
+The word startled him.
+
+"Men are not limited by either time or place," she avowed.
+
+Time?  Time was an ugly word.  His face grew serious.
+
+"I think," he said slowly, "that I am just beginning to learn what
+freedom is."
+
+"And it is?"
+
+"Like everything else when carried to an extreme--a paradox.  Freedom
+is slavery--to something, to someone."
+
+"Then you are a slave?" she laughed.
+
+"As I thought freedom, I am the freest man on earth to-day."
+
+"You speak that like a king."
+
+"Or a slave."
+
+She puzzled over this a moment as she tried to keep up with him.  He
+had suddenly increased his pace.
+
+"Even on your vacation, you could n't be absolutely free, could you?  I
+feel responsible for that," she apologized.
+
+"You need n't, for you have given me this bit of road.  It is the most
+beautiful thing I have ever seen."
+
+So he turned her away from the subject and breathed more easily.  She
+had both loosed him and shackled him.  What a procession of golden days
+she made him see, if only as a mirage.  Freedom?  If only he could
+return to that little office and drudge for her unceasingly--toil and
+hack and hew at stubborn fortune merely in the consciousness that she
+was somewhere in the world, that would be freedom.  He knew it now as
+she walked close beside him like a beautiful dream.  There was no use
+longer in parrying or feinting.  The brush of her sleeve made him
+dizzy; the sound of her voice set the whole world to music.  How
+trivial seemed the barriers which had loomed so formidable before him a
+day ago.  Given the opportunities he had thrown away and he would hew a
+path to her as straight as a prairie railroad bed.  He would do this,
+remaining true to his old dreams and to better dreams.  He would face
+New York and tear a road through the very centre of it.  He would ram
+every steel-tipped ideal to its black heart.  And all the inspiration
+he needed to give him this power was the knowledge that somewhere in
+one of its million crannies, this fragile half formed woman was there,
+seeing the sky with her silver gray eyes.
+
+"I 'm afraid you are going too fast," she panted.
+
+He stopped himself and found her with cheeks flushed in her effort to
+keep up with him.
+
+"Pardon me," he exclaimed, "I did n't realize.  I was going pretty
+fast.  Let's sit down and rest a minute."
+
+"It is n't necessary if you will only slow down a little."
+
+"I will."  He smiled.  "My thoughts were going even faster than my
+legs.  We 'll rest a little, anyhow."
+
+They seated themselves beneath a roadside pine which had sprinkled the
+ground with redolent brown needles.  He wiped his hot forehead.  The
+undulating green fields throbbed before his excited eyes, as in
+midsummer when they glimmer from the heat rays.  He burrowed his
+tightened fists to the cooler soil below the brown carpet.
+
+"I guess you are glad to sit down a moment yourself," she suggested,
+noting his forced deep breathing.  "Your efforts with Ben tired you
+more than you thought."
+
+"I 'd like to have that chance over again--now."
+
+His tense long body looked like Force incarnate.  She caught her breath
+quickly.
+
+"I 'm glad you have n't," she gasped.
+
+She had the feeling that he could have picked up the boy and hurled him
+like a bit of wood into the road.  She was not frightened.  She liked
+to see him in such a mood.  It gave her, somehow, a big sense of
+safety.  It swept away all those haunting fears which had so long been
+always present in the background of her consciousness.  It did this in
+as impersonal a way as the sun scatters shadows.
+
+"The trouble is," he was saying, "that we don't often get a chance to
+try things--the big things--twice.  The fairer way would seem to be to
+allow this, for we have to fail once in order to learn."
+
+"You are generalizing?" she asked tentatively.
+
+"I am sentimentalizing," he answered abruptly, suddenly coming to
+himself.  He was more personal than he had any right to be.  It did no
+good to become maudlin over what was irrevocably decided.  The Present.
+He must cling to that one idea.  Let him drink in the sunshine while it
+lasted; let him absorb as much of her as he could without taking one
+tittle from her.
+
+His phrase had piqued her curiosity once more.  She would like to know
+the inner meaning of his impatient eyes, the explanation of why his
+lips closed with such spasmodic firmness.  There was something
+tantalizing in this reserve which he seemed to try so hard to maintain.
+She would like to deserve his confidences.  He aroused her sympathy--a
+shy desire to be tender to him just because in his rugged strength
+there seemed to be nothing else but this for which he could need a
+woman.  But as he glanced up she colored at the presumption of her
+thoughts.
+
+"I think," he said, "that if you are rested we had better start again."
+
+She rose at once and took her place by his side for the last stretch of
+free road that lay between her and the city.
+
+At the station there was no sign of the fugitive.  She objected
+instantly to Donaldson's suggestion that she go on while he wait over
+the night in the hope that Arsdale might turn up here for the first
+train in the morning.
+
+"You have already sacrificed enough of your time to me and mine," she
+protested.  "I will not listen to it."
+
+And if she had been before her mirror doubtless the lady there would
+have pressed her to another explanation.
+
+He submitted reluctantly, a new doubt springing to his eyes.  But she
+was firm and so they boarded the train once more for home.  She used
+the word "home," and Donaldson found himself responding to it with a
+thrill as though he himself were included.  The word had lost its
+meaning to him since his freshman year at college.
+
+They were back behind the hedge in so short a time that the day
+scarcely appeared real.  She left him a moment in the hall while she
+ran upstairs to see Marie.  The latter was still in bed, and at sight
+of her young mistress had a sharp question upon her lips.
+
+"Chčrie," she demanded, "why did not Ben go with you?"
+
+"Ben?" faltered the girl.
+
+"He was downstairs an hour after you left and would not come in to see
+me."
+
+"Ben was here?"
+
+"I shouted to him and he answered me.  But his voice sounded bad.  Is
+it well with him?"
+
+"He may be here now.  I will run down and see."
+
+She flew down the stairs and into his room.  It was empty.  She rushed
+into her own room.  It had been rifled.  Every drawer was open, and it
+took but a glance to see that her few jewels were missing.  She panted
+back to Marie.
+
+"You are sure it was he who was here?"
+
+"Do you think I do not know his voice after all these years?"
+
+The old woman put out her hand and seized the girl's arm.
+
+"Again?" she demanded.
+
+"Yes!  Yes!  Oh, Marie, what does it all mean?"
+
+"Ta, ta, chčrie.  Rest your head here."
+
+She drew the young woman down beside her.
+
+"You went out there all alone.  You are brave, but you should not have
+done that.  You should have taken me with you.  See, now, I shall get
+well.  I shall arise at once.  I never knew the black horses to fail
+me."
+
+Marie struggled to her elbow and threw off the clothes.  But Elaine
+covered her up tight again, forcing her to lie still.
+
+"Stay here quietly until I come back," she insisted.  "I shall not be
+gone but a minute."
+
+She hurried to her own room, trying to understand what the meaning of
+this impossible situation might be.  Ben was here and Ben was in the
+bungalow and--there was the purse.  There was the chance, of course,
+that Marie was mistaken, but Marie did not make such mistakes as this.
+Then one of the two men was not Ben.  She took out again the
+pocket-book she had found and stared at it as though in hope that she
+might receive her answer through this.  Then with a perplexed gasp, she
+threw it into one of the upset drawers, as though it burned her fingers.
+
+She went downstairs to Donaldson.  For reasons of her own she did not
+dare to tell him of this fresh complication, but she insisted that he
+should bother himself no more to-night with the matter.
+
+"You should go straight back home and get some sleep," she told him.
+
+Home?  The word was flat again.
+
+"And you?" he inquired.
+
+"I shall try to sleep, too."
+
+"You have a bolt on your door?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Will you promise to slide it before you retire?"
+
+She nodded.
+
+"If you only had a telephone in your room."
+
+"There is one in the hall."
+
+"Then you can call me in a moment if you should get frightened or need
+me?"
+
+"You are good."
+
+"You will not hesitate?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then I shall feel that I am still near you.  I will have a cab in
+waiting and on an emergency can reach here in twenty minutes.  You
+could keep yourself barricaded until then?"
+
+"Yes.  But really there is no need.  I--"
+
+"You have n't wrestled with him.  He is strong and--mad."
+
+Still he hesitated.  If it had been possible without compromise to her
+he would have remained downstairs.  He could roll up in a rug and find
+all the sleep that he needed.
+
+"See here," he exclaimed, as the sane solution to the whole difficulty,
+"why don't you let me take you and Marie to the Martha Washington?"
+
+She placed her hand lightly upon his sleeve.
+
+"I shall be all right here.  You 'd best go at once and get some sleep.
+Your eyes look heavy."
+
+Every minute that he stood near her he grew more reluctant to leave.
+It seemed like desertion.  As he still stood irresolute, she decided
+for him.
+
+"You must go now," she insisted.
+
+"Will you call me if you are even so much as worried--even if it is
+only a blind making a noise?"
+
+"Yes, and that will make me feel quite safe."
+
+The booming of a distant clock--jailer of civilization--warned him that
+he must delay no longer.  He took her hand a moment and then turned
+back into his free barren world.
+
+He determined to dine somewhere down town and then spend the evening at
+a theatre.  It was not what he wished, but he did not dare to go back
+to his room.  He did not crave the movement of the crowds as he had
+last night, and yet he felt the need of something that would keep him
+from thinking.  He jumped into the waiting cab and was driven to Park
+Row, where he got out.  He had not eaten anything all day and felt
+faint.
+
+Instead, however, of seeking one of the more pretentious dining rooms
+he dropped into a quiet restaurant and ate a simple meal.  Then he came
+out and started to walk leisurely towards the Belasco.
+
+He had not proceeded a hundred yards before his plan was very
+materially changed.  He heard a cry, turned quickly, and saw a
+messenger boy sprawling in the street.  The boy, in darting across, had
+tripped over a rope attached to an automobile having a second large
+machine in tow.  The latter, the driver unable to turn because of
+vehicles which had crowded in on both sides of it, was bearing down
+upon the boy, who was either stunned or too frightened to move.  This
+Donaldson took in at a glance as he dived under the belly of a horse,
+seized the boy and, having time for nothing else, held him above his
+head, dropping him upon the radiator of the approaching machine as it
+bore him to the ground.  The chauffeur had shoved on his brakes, but
+they were weak.  The momentum threw Donaldson hard enough to stun him
+for a moment and was undoubtedly sufficient to have killed the boy.
+
+When Donaldson rose to his feet he found himself uninjured but
+something of a hero.  Several newspaper photographers who happened to
+be passing (as newspaper photographers have a way of doing) snapped
+him.  A reporter friend of Saul's recognized him and asked for a
+statement.
+
+"A statement be hanged," snorted Donaldson.  "Where's the kid?"
+
+"Well," returned the newspaper man, "I 'm darned if I don't make a
+statement to you then; that was the quickest and nerviest stunt I 've
+ever seen pulled off in New York city."
+
+"Thanks.  Where 's the kid?"
+
+The kid, with a grin from ear to ear, had kindly assumed a pose upon
+the radiator of the machine which had so nearly killed him for the
+benefit of the insatiate photographers.  It was 3457.
+
+"You!" exclaimed Donaldson, as he found himself looking into the
+familiar face.  He lifted the boy to the ground.
+
+"Let's get out of the crowd, kid," he whispered.  "I want to see you."
+
+He pushed his way through to the sidewalk, followed by the admiring
+throng, and hurried along to the nearest cab.  He shoved the boy
+quickly into this and followed after as the photographers gave one last
+despairing snap.
+
+"Drive anywhere," he ordered the driver.  "Only get out of this."
+
+He turned to the boy.
+
+"Are you hurt?"
+
+"No.  Are youse?"
+
+"Not a mite.  Where were you bound?"
+
+"Home."
+
+"Where is that?"
+
+The boy gave an address and Donaldson repeated it to the driver.
+
+"I 'll go along with you and see that you don't block any more traffic."
+
+"Gee.  I never saw the rope."
+
+"That's because you were in a hurry.  It does n't pay to hurry life at
+all.  Not a second."
+
+"But the comp'ny can fire yer in a hurry if you don't hurry."
+
+"A company can hurry because it hasn't a soul.  You have.  Keep it."
+
+Donaldson felt as though he had found an old friend.  It seemed now a
+month ago since he had wandered through the stores with this boy.  The
+latter recalled again something of the spirit of those hours.
+
+"Say," asked Bobby, "h'ain't yuh spent all yer coin yet?"
+
+"No.  I have n't had time to spend more than a few dollars since I left
+you.  I ought to have hung on to you as a mascot."
+
+"It's a cinch.  I c'u'd a-helped yuh if yer 'd follered me.  Me ten
+spot's gone."
+
+"How'd you do it?"
+
+"Huh?  Yuh talks as though a feller'd have to hunt round an' find a
+hole to drop it inter.  Dere 's allers one that's handy, 'n' that's th'
+rent hole."
+
+"That does n't come on you, does it?  Where's your Daddy?"
+
+"Dead," answered the boy laconically.
+
+The word had a new meaning to Donaldson as it fell from the lips of the
+boy.  Dead.  It was a terrible word.
+
+"Guess th' ol' gent must ha' thought I was comin' to join him a minute
+ago.  Would ha' been sort of rough on Mumsy."
+
+"And on you, too," returned Donaldson fiercely.  "You have been cheated
+out of a lot of life.  Don't let that happen.  Cling to every minute
+you can get.  Die hard, boy.  Die hard."
+
+Bobby yawned.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+_District Messenger 3457_
+
+The home of District Messenger 3457, who was known in private life as
+Bobby Wentworth, was what is technically called a basement kitchen.
+
+Take it between four and five in the afternoon, which was a couple of
+hours before Bobby was expected home, and in consequence, at least an
+hour and a half before anything was astir in the way of supper, things
+got sort of lonesome looking and dull to Sis, daughter of the house.
+Ten to one that the baby--the tow-headed youngest--was a bit fussy; ten
+to one the mother gave you a sharp answer if you spoke to her, though,
+considering everything, she was remarkably patient; ten to one that
+every torn and cracked thing in the room became so conspicuous that you
+felt like a poor lone orphan girl and wanted to cry.  If you did n't
+live below the sidewalk this was apt to go on until it was time to get
+supper, but here, in order to see to do the mending, the lamp was
+lighted, even in May, an hour or so earlier than the fire.
+
+Then what a change!  Instantly it was as though every one was tucked in
+from the night as children get tucked into bed.  Not being able to see
+out of the windows any longer it was possible to imagine out there what
+one wished,--a big field, for instance, sprinkled over with flowers.
+The dull grays on wall and ceiling became brightened as though mixed
+with gold fire paint.  Everything snuggled in closer; the kitchen table
+covered with a red table-cloth, the mirror with putty in the centre of
+the crack to keep the pieces from falling out, the kitchen stove, the
+wooden chairs, the iron sink with the tin dishes hanging over it, and
+the shelf on the wall with the wooden clock ticking cheerfully away,
+all closed in noiselessly nearer to the lamp.  Ten to one that now
+mother glanced up with a smile; ten to one that the baby chuckled and
+fell to playing with his toes if he could n't find anything better
+within reach; ten to one there was nothing in the room that did n't
+look almost new.  One thing was certain,--the light did n't reveal any
+dirt that would come off for there was n't any.  Mrs. Wentworth's New
+England ancestry and training had survived even the blows of a hard
+luck which had n't fought her fair.
+
+On this particular night Sis had just lost herself in her thumbworn
+volume of Grimm's Fairy Tales when--there came a kick on the outside
+door and the sound of two voices coming down the short hall.  The next
+minute Bobby entered with his clothes all mud and behind him a strange
+gentleman.
+
+It was evident that something had happened to the boy, but the mother
+did not scream.  She was not that kind.  Her lips tightened as she
+braced herself for whatever this new decree of Fate might be.  In a
+jiffy Bobby, who recognized that look as the same he had seen when they
+had brought Daddy home, was at her side.
+
+"Cheer up, Mumsy," he exclaimed.  "Nothin' doin' in caskits this time."
+
+She lifted her thin, angular face from the boy to Donaldson.  The
+latter explained,
+
+"He got tangled up a bit with an automobile, but I guess the machine
+got the worst of it.  At any rate your boy is all right."
+
+The mother passed her hand over the lad's head, expressing a world of
+tenderness in the act.
+
+"It was kind of you to bring him home," she said.
+
+The directness of the woman, her self control, her simplicity, enlisted
+Donaldson's interest at once.  He had expected hysterics.  He would
+have staked his last dollar that the woman came from Vermont.  His
+observant eyes had in these few minutes covered everything in the room,
+including the long-handled dipper by the faucet used for dipping into
+pails sweating silver mist, the wooden clock upon the mantelpiece, and
+the Hicks Almanac hanging below it.  He felt as though he were standing
+in a Berringdon kitchen with acres of green outside the windows
+sweeping in a circle off to the little hills, the acres of forest
+green, and the big hills beyond.
+
+The mother stepped forward and brushed the mud from Bobby's coat.  The
+baby screwed up his face for a howl to call attention to his neglect in
+the midst of all this excitement.
+
+"What's this?" exclaimed Bobby, picking him up with as substantial an
+air of paternity as though he were forty.  "What's this?  Goneter cry
+afore a stranger?"
+
+He held the child up to Donaldson.
+
+"The kid," he announced laconically.  "What yuh think of him?"
+
+[Illustration: _"The kid," he announced laconically.  "What yuh think
+of him?"_]
+
+"Corker," answered Donaldson.  "Let me hold him."
+
+"Sure.  Get a chair for the gent, Sis."
+
+In another minute Donaldson found himself sitting by the kitchen stove
+with a chuckling youngster on his knee.  No one paid any attention to
+him; just took him for granted as a friend until he felt as though he
+had been one of the family all his life.  Besides, the centre of the
+stage rightly belonged to Bobby, who was occupying it with something of
+a swagger in his walk.
+
+"Well, I hope this will teach you a lesson, Bobby Wentworth," scolded
+the mother, now that after various proddings she had determined to her
+satisfaction that none of the boy's bones were broken.  "I wish to the
+Lord you was back where the hills are so steep there ain't no
+automobiles."
+
+Donaldson broke in.
+
+"You were brought up in the country, Mrs. Wentworth?"
+
+"Laws, yes, and lived there most of my life."
+
+"In New England?"
+
+"Berringdon, Vermont."
+
+"Berringdon?  Your husband was n't one of the Wentworth boys?"
+
+"He was Jim Wentworth, the oldest"
+
+"Well, well!  Then _you_ are Sally Burnham."
+
+"And you," she hesitated, "I do b'lieve you 're Peter Donaldson."
+
+"Yes," he said, "I 'm Peter Donaldson."
+
+The name from her lips took on its boyhood meaning.  He shifted the
+youngster to his arms and crossing the room held out his hand to her.
+
+"We did n't know each other very well in those days, but from now
+on--from now on we 're old friends, are n't we?"
+
+The steel blue eyes grew moist.
+
+"It's a long time," she said, "since I 've seen any one from there."
+
+"Or I.  You left--"
+
+"When I was married.  Jim came here because his cousin got him a job as
+motorman.  He done well,--but he was killed by his car just after the
+baby was born."
+
+"Killed?  That's tough.  And it left you all alone with the children?"
+
+"Yes.  The road paid us a little, but I was sick and the children were
+sick, so it did n't last long."
+
+She was not complaining.  It was a bare recital of facts.  But it
+raised a series of keen incisive thoughts in Donaldson's brain.
+
+Wentworth had been killed.  Chance had deprived this woman of her man;
+Chance had grabbed at her boy; Chance had sent Donaldson to save the
+latter; Chance--Donaldson caught his breath at the possibility the
+sequence suggested--Chance may have sent him to offset as far as
+possible the husband's death.  It was too late, although he felt the
+obligation in a new light, for him to give his life for the life of
+that other, but there was one other thing he could do.  He could play
+the father with what he had left of himself.  So that when he came to
+face Wentworth--he smiled gently at the approaching possibility--he
+could hold his head high as he went to meet him.
+
+He had argued to Barstow that he was shirking no responsibilities,--but
+what of such unseen responsibilities as this?  What of the thousand
+others that he should die too soon to realize?  It was possible that
+countless other such opportunities as this must be wasted because he
+should not be there to play his part.  But there was still time to do
+something; he need not see, as with the girl and with love, the fine
+possibilities go utterly to waste.
+
+The mother had noticed a warm light steal over his face, not realizing
+how closely his thoughts concerned her own future; she had seen the
+sabre cut of pain which had followed his thought of the girl and what
+she might have meant, knowing nothing of that grim tragedy.  Now she
+saw his eyes clear as with their inspired light they were lifted to
+her.  Yet the talk went on uninterruptedly on the same commonplace
+level.
+
+"How old was Jim?"
+
+"He was within a week of thirty."
+
+That was within a few days of his own age.  At thirty, Jim Wentworth,
+clinging to life, had been wrenched from it; at thirty, he himself had
+thrown it away.  Wentworth had shouldered his duties manfully; he had
+been blind to them.  But it was not too late to do something.  He was
+being led as by Marley's ghost to one new vision of life after another.
+He saw love--with death grinning over love's shoulder; he was to be
+given a taste of fatherhood,--the grave at his feet.
+
+"Do you ever hear from the people back home?" he asked abruptly.
+
+"Not very often," she answered.  "After the old folks went I sorter got
+out of tech with the others."
+
+"What became of the homestead?"
+
+"It was sold little by little when father was sick.  When he died there
+was n't much left.  That went to pay the debts."
+
+"Who lives there now?"
+
+"Let me see--I don't think any one is there now.  Last I heard, it was
+fer sale."
+
+"Who holds it?"
+
+"Deacon Staples.  Leastways it was him who held the notes."
+
+"That old pirate?  No wonder there was n't anything left."
+
+"He _was_ a leetle hard," she admitted.  "I wanted Jim to go back an'
+take it after father died, but he couldn't seem to make a deal with the
+deacon."
+
+"I s'pose not.  No one this side of the devil himself will ever make a
+square deal with him.  He 's still as strong in the church as ever?"
+
+She smiled.
+
+"I see by the Berringdon paper that he begun some revival meetin's in
+town."
+
+"Which means he 's just put through some particularly thievish deal and
+wants to ease his conscience.  Have you the paper?  Perhaps the sale is
+advertised there."
+
+She found the paper and ran a finger down the columns until she came to
+the item.
+
+"Makes you feel sort of queer," she said, "to see the old place for
+sale.  Almost like slaves must ha' felt to see their own in the market."
+
+She read slowly,
+
+"'Nice farm for sale cheap; story and a half frame house, good barn,
+ten acres of land, and a twenty-acre pasture lot.  $1800.  Apply to A.
+F. Staples, Berringdon, Vermont.'
+
+"I 'm glad the old pasture is going with the house.  Somehow the two
+seem to belong together.  It was right in front across the road, an'
+all us children used to play there.  There 's a clump of oak trees at
+th' end of it.  Hope they have n't cut them down."
+
+"Eighteen hundred dollars, was it?" asked Donaldson.
+
+"Eighteen hundred dollars," she repeated slowly.  "My, thet 's a lot of
+money!"
+
+"That depends," he said, "on many things.  Should you like to go back
+there?"
+
+The answer came before her lips could utter the words, in the awakening
+of every dormant hope in her nature--in every suppressed dream.  Some
+younger creature was freed in the hardening eyes.  The strain of the
+lips was loosened.  Even the passive worn hands became alert.
+
+"I 'd sell my soul a'most to get back there--to get the children back
+there," she answered.
+
+"It 's the place for them."
+
+"Thet's the way _I 've_ felt," she ran on.  "Mine don't belong here.
+It's not 'cause they 're any better, but because they've got the
+country in their blood.  They was meant to grow up in thet very pasture
+just like I did.  I 've ben oneasy ever since the boys was born, and so
+was Jim.  Both of us hankered after the old sights and sounds--the
+garden with its mixed up colors an' the smell of lilac an' the tinkle
+of the cow bells.  Funny how you miss sech little things as those."
+
+"Little things?" Donaldson returned.  "Little things?  They are the
+really big things; they are the things you remember, the things that
+hang by you and sweeten your life to the end!"
+
+"Then it ain't just my own notions?  But I have wanted the children to
+grow up in the garden instead of the gutters.  If Jim had lived it
+would have be'n.  We 'd planned to save a little every year until we
+had enough ahead to take a mortgage.  But you can't do it with nothin'.
+There ain't no way, is there?"
+
+"Perhaps.  Perhaps," he said.
+
+She leaned toward him, in her face the strength of a man.
+
+"I 'd work," she said, "I 'd work my fingers to the bone if I had a
+chance to get back there.  I 'm strong 'nuff to take care of a place.
+If I only had just a tiny strip of land--just 'nuff fer a garden.  I
+could get some chickens an' pay off little by little.  I 'm good for
+ten years yet an' by thet time Bobby would be old 'nough to take hold.
+If I only had a chance I could do it!"
+
+Her cheeks had taken on color.  She looked like one inspired.
+Donaldson sat dumb in admiration of her splendid courage.
+
+"How long," he asked, "how long would it take you to get ready to leave
+here?"
+
+She scarcely understood.  She didn't dare to understand for fear it
+might be a mistake.
+
+"I mean," he said, "if you had a chance to go back to the farm how long
+would it take you to pack up?"
+
+"You don't mean if--if I _really_ had the chance?"
+
+He nodded.
+
+"Lord, if I had the chance--if I _really_ had the chance, I 'd leave
+afore to-morrer night."
+
+"To-morrow is Sunday.  But it seems as though you might get ready to
+take the noon train on Tuesday."
+
+She thought he was merely carrying her dream a little farther than she
+had ever ventured to carry it herself.  So she looked at him with a
+smile checked half-way by the beauty of the fantasy.
+
+"It's too good a'most to dream about," she sighed.
+
+"It is n't a dream," he answered, "unless it is a dream come true.
+Pack up such things as you wish to take with you and be ready to leave
+at noon Tuesday."
+
+"Peter Donaldson!"
+
+"I 'm in earnest," he assured her.
+
+"Peter, Peter, it _can't_ be true!  I can't believe it!"
+
+There were tears in her eyes.
+
+"Hush," he pleaded.  "Don't--don't do that.  Sit down.  Had n't you
+better sit down?"
+
+She obeyed as meekly as a child, her hands clasped in her lap.
+
+"Now," he said, "I 'll tell you what I want to do; I 'm going to buy
+the farm for you and I 'm going to get a couple of cows or so, a yard
+full of chickens, a horse and a porker, and start you fair."
+
+"But why should _you_ do this?" she demanded.
+
+"I don't exactly know," he answered.  "But I 'm going to do for you so
+far as I can what Jim would have done if he had lived."
+
+"But you did n't know Jim!"
+
+"I did n't, but I know him now.  The kids introduced me."
+
+"He was a good man--a very good man, Peter."
+
+"Yes, he must have been that.  I am glad that I can do something to
+finish a good man's work."
+
+"You are rich?  You can afford this?"
+
+"Yes, I can afford it.  But I don't feel that I 'm giving,--I 'm
+getting.  It would not be possible for me to use my money with greater
+satisfaction to myself."
+
+"Oh, you are generous!"
+
+"No, not I.  I can't claim that.  I 've been selfish--intensely,
+cowardly selfish."
+
+He meant to stand squarely before this woman.  He would not soil his
+act by any hypocrisy.  But she only smiled back at him unbelieving.
+
+He glanced at his watch.  It was eight o'clock.  He was ready now to
+return to the hotel.  He wished to leave at once, for he shrank from
+the undeserved gratitude he saw welling up in her eyes.
+
+"You must listen carefully to what I tell you," he said, "for I may not
+be able to see you again before you leave.  Do you think you can get
+ready without any help?"
+
+"Yes," she answered excitedly; "there is n't much here to pack up."
+
+"If I were you I would n't pack up anything but what I could put in a
+trunk.  Sell off these things for what you can get and start fresh.
+I'll send you enough to furnish the house."
+
+"I ought to do that much myself," she objected feebly.
+
+"No, I want to do this thing right up chuck.  As soon as I reach the
+hotel I will telephone the Deacon.  If I can't buy that house, I 'll
+get another, and in either case, I will drop you a note to-night.  I
+'ll arrange to have the deed left with some one up there, and I 'll
+also deposit in the local bank enough for the other things.  So all you
+'ve to do is to get ready and start on Tuesday.  Do you understand?"
+
+"Yes!  Yes!" she gasped.  "But it doesn't sound true--it sounds like a
+dream."
+
+"Are you going to have faith enough to act on it?"
+
+"Oh, I did n't mean that I doubted!  I trust you, Peter Donaldson."
+
+He reached in his pocket and took out five ten-dollar bills.
+
+"This is for your fare and to settle up any little accounts you may
+have."
+
+She took the money with trembling fingers while Bobby and Sis crowded
+around to gape at it.
+
+"There," exclaimed Donaldson in relief.  "Now you 're all fixed up, and
+on Monday morning Bobby can throw up his job.  He can fire the company."
+
+"Gee!" he gasped.
+
+And almost before any of them could catch their breath he had kissed
+the baby, gripped Mrs. Wentworth's hand a second, and with a "S'long"
+to the others disappeared as though, Sis declared, a magician had waved
+his wand over him.
+
+It was after nine before he finally reached the Waldorf.  No message
+was waiting for him from either the girl or Saul.  He hunted up the
+telephone operator at once.
+
+"Call up Berringdon, Vermont, for me, please."
+
+"With whom do you wish to talk?"
+
+"With Deacon Staples."
+
+He smiled as he saw the hands of the clock pointing to nine-thirty.  It
+was long after the Deacon's bedtime.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+_The Sleepers_
+
+It was twenty minutes of ten before a sleepy and decidedly irritable
+voice responded in answer to Donaldson's cheery hello.  There was
+little of Christian spirit to be detected in it.
+
+"Is this Deacon Staples?"
+
+"Yes.  But I 'd like t' know what ye mean by gettin' a man outern bed
+at this time of night?"
+
+"Why, you were n't in bed, Deacon!"
+
+"In bed?  See here, is this some confounded joke?"
+
+"What kind of a joke, Deacon?"
+
+"A--joke.  Who are you, anyway?"
+
+"I don't believe you remember me; I 'm Peter Donaldson."
+
+"Don't recoleck your name.  What d' ye want this time o' night?"
+
+"Why, it's early yet, Deacon.  You weren't really in bed!"
+
+"I tell ye I was, an' that so is all decent folk.  Once 'n fer
+all--what d'ye want?"
+
+"I heard you had a house to sell."
+
+"Wall, I ain't sellin' houses on th' Lord's day."
+
+"Won't be Sunday for two hours and twenty minutes yet, Deacon.  If you
+talk lively, you can do a day's work before then.  What will you take
+for the old Burnham place?"
+
+The deacon hesitated.  He was a bit confused by this unusual way of
+doing business.  It was too hurried an affair, and besides it did not
+give him an opportunity to size up his man.  Nor did he know how
+familiar this possible purchaser was with the property.
+
+"Where be you?" he demanded.
+
+"In New York."
+
+"In--see here, I rec'gnize your voice; you 're Billy Harkins down to
+the corner.  Ye need n't think ye can play your jokes on me."
+
+"We 've only two hours and a quarter left," warned Donaldson.
+
+"Well, ye need n't think I 'm goin' to stand here in the cold fer thet
+long."
+
+"It's warm 'nuff here," Donaldson answered genially.
+
+"Maybe ye 've gut more on than I have."
+
+"Hush, Deacon, there are ladies present."
+
+"They ain't neither, down here.  Our women are in bed, where they
+oughter be."
+
+"Not at this hour!  Why, the evening is young yet.  But how much will
+you take?"
+
+"Wal, th' place is wuth 'bout two thousand dollars."
+
+Donaldson realized that it was the magic word "New York" which had so
+suddenly inflated the price.  The deacon was taking a chance that this
+might be some wealthy New Yorker looking for a country home.
+
+"Do you call that a fair price?" he asked.
+
+"The house is in good condition, and thar 's over three acres of good
+grass land and ten acres of pasture with pooty trees in it."
+
+"Just so.  I 'm not able to look the place over, so I 'll have to
+depend upon your word for it.  You consider that a fair price for the
+property?"
+
+"Well, o' course, fer cash I might knock off fifty."
+
+"I see.  Then nineteen hundred and fifty is an honest value of the
+whole estate?"
+
+"I 'low as much."
+
+"Deacon."
+
+"Yes" (eagerly).
+
+"You 're a member of the church."
+
+"Yes" (lamely).
+
+"And you certainly would n't deal unfairly with a neighbor on Sunday?"
+
+"What--"
+
+"It's thirteen minutes of ten on a Saturday night.  That's pretty near
+Sunday, is n't it?"
+
+"What of it?" (suspiciously).
+
+"Remember that advertisement you inserted in the Berringdon Gazette?"
+
+There was a silence of a minute.
+
+"Wall," faltered the deacon rather feebly, "I thought mebbe ye wanted
+the farm fer a summer place.  It's wuth more fer that."
+
+"It is n't worth a cent more.  You simply tried to steal two hundred
+dollars."
+
+"Ye mean ter say--"
+
+"Exactly that; I 've prevented you from going to bed within two hours
+of the Lord's day with the theft of two hundred dollars on your soul."
+
+"If ye think I 'm gonter stand up here in th' cold and listen to sech
+talk as thet--"
+
+"I 'll give you fifteen hundred dollars cash for the place,"
+interrupted Donaldson.  "And remember that I know you through and
+through.  I even know how much you stole from old man Burnham."
+
+This was a chance shot, but it evidently went home from the sound of
+uneasy coughing and spluttering that came to him over the telephone.
+Donaldson found considerable amusement in grilling this country Shylock.
+
+"Why, the house 'n' barn is wuth more 'n thet," the deacon exploded.
+
+"I 'll give you fifteen hundred dollars, and mail the money to you
+to-night."
+
+"See here, I don't know who ye be, but ye 're darned sassy.  I won't
+trade with ye afore Monday an'--"
+
+"Then you won't trade at all."
+
+"I 'll split th'--"
+
+"You 'll take that price or leave it."
+
+"I'll take it, but--"
+
+"Good," broke in Donaldson sharply.  "The operator here is a witness.
+I 'll send the money to-night, and have a tenant in the house Tuesday.
+Good night, Deacon."
+
+"If yer--"
+
+The rest of the sentence faded into the jangle of the line, but
+Donaldson broke in again.
+
+"Say, Deacon, were you really in bed at this time of night?"
+
+"Gol darn--"
+
+"Careful!  Careful!"
+
+"Wall, ye need n't think cause ye 're in N' York ye can be so all-fired
+smart."
+
+A sharp click told him that the deacon had hung up the receiver in
+something of a temper.  Donaldson came out of the booth, hesitated, and
+then put in another call.  He found relaxation in the vaudeville
+picture he had of the spindle-shanked hypocrite fretting in the cold so
+many miles distant.  He was morally certain that the old fellow had
+robbed the dying Burnham of half his scant property.  If he had had the
+time he would have started a lawyer upon an investigation.  As he did
+n't, and he saw nothing more entertaining ahead of him until morning,
+he took satisfaction in pestering him as much as possible in this
+somewhat childish way.
+
+"Keep at him until he answers," he ordered the girl.
+
+It took ten minutes to rouse the deacon again.
+
+"Is this Deacon Staples?" he inquired.
+
+"Consarn ye--"
+
+"I was n't sure you said good night.  I should hate to think you went
+to sleep in a temper."
+
+"It's none of your business how I go to sleep.  If you ring me up again
+I 'll have the law on ye."
+
+"So?  I 'll return good for evil.  I 'll give you a warning; look out
+for the ghost of old Burnham to-night."
+
+"For what?"
+
+There was fear in the voice.  Donaldson smiled.  This suggested a new
+cue.
+
+"He's coming sure, because his daughter is a widow, and needs that
+money."
+
+"I held his notes," the deacon explained, as though really anxious to
+offer an excuse.  "I can prove it."
+
+"Prove it to Burnham's ghost.  He may go back."
+
+"B--back where?"
+
+"To his grave.  He sleeps uneasy to-night."
+
+"Be you crazy?"
+
+"Look behind you--quick!"
+
+The receiver dropped.  Donaldson could hear it swinging against the
+wall.  Without giving the deacon an opportunity to express his wrath
+and fears, Donaldson hung up his own receiver and cheerfully paid the
+cost of his twenty-minute talk.
+
+In spite of the fact that on Thursday night he had slept only three
+hours, that on Friday night he had not even lain down, his mind was
+still alert.  He did not have the slightest sense of weariness.  It was
+rest enough for him to know that the girl was asleep, relaxation enough
+to recall the maiden joy that had freshened the eyes of Mrs. Wentworth.
+
+It was too late to get a money-order, but he secured a check from the
+hotel manager for the amount, and finding in the Berringdon paper the
+name of a local lawyer whom he remembered as a boy, he mailed it to him
+with a letter of explanation.  The deed was to be made out to Mrs.
+Alice E. Wentworth, and was to be held until she called for it.  In
+case of any difficulty--for it occurred to him that the deacon might at
+the last moment sacrifice a good trade out of spite--the lawyer was to
+telegraph him at once at the Waldorf.
+
+Then he looked up the time the Berringdon train left and wrote a note
+giving Mrs. Wentworth final detailed instructions.
+
+Then still unwilling to trust himself alone with his thoughts,
+Donaldson remained about the lobby.  He felt in touch here with all the
+wide world which lay spread out below the night sky.  He studied with
+interest the weary travellers who were dropped here by steamers which
+had throbbed across so many turbulent watery miles, by locomotives hot
+from their steel-held course.  The ever-changing figures absorbed him
+until, with her big shouldered husband, a woman entered who remotely
+resembled her he had been forced to leave to the protection of one old
+serving maid.  Then in spite of himself, his thoughts ran wild again.
+
+He hungered to get back to his old office, where, if he could find
+nothing else to do for her, he could at least bury himself in his law
+books.  This unknown man strode across the lobby so confidently--every
+sturdy line of him suggesting blowsy strength.  The unknown woman
+tripped along at his heels in absolute trust of it.  And he, Donaldson,
+sat here, a helpless spectator, with a worthier woman trusting him as
+though he were such a man.
+
+In rebellion he argued that it was absurd that such a passion as his
+towards a woman of whom he had seen so little should be genuine.  His
+condition had made him mawkishly sentimental.  He had been fascinated
+like a callow youngster by her delicate, pretty features; by her deep
+gray eyes, her budding lips, her gentle voice.  He would be writing
+verse next.  He was free--free, and in one stroke he had placed the
+world at his feet.  He was above it--beyond it, and every living human
+soul in it.  He rose as though to challenge the hotel itself, which
+represented the crude active part of this world.
+
+But with the memory of his afternoon, his declaration of independence
+lasted but a moment.  He was back in the green fields with her--back in
+the blazing sunshine with her, and the knowledge that from there, not
+here, the road began along which lay everything his eager nature craved.
+
+Well, even so, was he going to cower back into a corner?  There still
+remained to him five days.  To use them decently he must keep to the
+present.  The big future--the true future was dead.  Admit it.  There
+still remained a little future.  Let him see what he could do with that.
+
+A porter came in with a mop and swabbed up the deserted floors.
+Donaldson watched every movement of his strong arms and felt sorry,
+when, his part played, he retired to the wings.  Then he went to his
+room.  He partly undressed and threw himself upon the bed.  It was then
+ten minutes of four on Sunday morning, May twenty-sixth.
+
+In spite of his apparent wakefulness he napped, for when he came to
+himself again it was broad daylight.  An anxious looking hotel clerk
+stood at the foot of his bed, while a pop-eyed bell-boy pressed close
+behind him.  Donaldson rose to his elbow.
+
+"What the devil are you doing in here?" he demanded.
+
+The clerk appeared relieved by the sound of his voice.
+
+"Why, sir, we got a bit worried about you.  We weren't able to raise
+you all day yesterday."
+
+"Could n't what?  I sat up until two o'clock this morning in the lobby.
+I was awake in my room here two hours after that!"
+
+"You must be mistaken, sir.  We rang your room telephone several times
+yesterday, and pounded at your door without getting an answer."
+
+"I was away during the day, but I was here all last night.  I asked you
+particularly if any call had been received for me."
+
+The clerk smiled tentatively.
+
+"The chamber-maid found you in bed at eleven o'clock in the morning,
+sir."
+
+"The chamber-maid must have come into the wrong room," answered
+Donaldson, beginning to suspect that he had caught the two men in the
+act of thieving.  "I was n't in bed at all yesterday, and left the city
+at nine o'clock."
+
+The clerk hitched uneasily.  It was evident to him that Donaldson had
+been drinking, and had the usual morning-after reluctance about
+admitting it.  The night telephone operator had said that he had acted
+queer.  However, as long as the man was n't dead this did n't concern
+him.
+
+"Sorry the mistake was made, sir," he replied, anxious now to
+conciliate the guest.  "I would n't have bothered you only the lady
+said the call was urgent."
+
+"Good lord, man, what call?"
+
+"It is to ring up Miss Arsdale's house at once, sir."
+
+"When did you get that?" demanded Donaldson, as he sprang from his bed.
+
+"This morning, sir, at one o'clock."
+
+In three strides Donaldson was across the room.  The hotel attendants
+crowded one another in their efforts to get out.
+
+Donaldson gave the number and waited, every pulse beat of time
+throbbing hot through his temples.  She had called and been unable to
+rouse him, while he lay there like a yokel and dreamed of her!  He
+conjured up visions of all sorts of disaster.  The boy might have
+returned and--he shuddered and drew back from the suggestion.  He
+refused to imagine.  He beat a tattoo with the inane hook which summons
+Central.
+
+"Number does n't answer, sir," came the reply.
+
+"They _must_ answer!  You must _make_ them answer."
+
+Again the interminable wait; again the dead reply.  He hung up the
+receiver.  The hallucinations which swarmed through his brain taken in
+connection with the meaningless talk of the hotel employees made him
+fear an instant for his sanity.
+
+He sat down on the edge of the bed and devoted five minutes to the
+concentration of his mind upon the fact that he must be cool, must be
+steady.  Else he would be of no use to any one.  He must be deliberate.
+Then he dressed himself with complete self-possession.
+
+When he came down into the lobby he noticed with some astonishment the
+business-like appearance of the place for Sunday morning.  The clerk
+glanced at him curiously as he approached.  Donaldson spoke with
+exaggerated slowness and precision.
+
+"I wish," he said, "that you would kindly make a careful note of any
+messages which may come to me to-day.  Your error of this morning--"
+
+He stopped as his eye caught the calendar, and its big black numeral.
+It read Monday, May 27.  He looked from the calendar to the clerk.
+
+"Have n't you made a mistake?" Donaldson asked.
+
+"No, sir.  Shall I send a boy with you to the Turkish baths, sir?"
+
+Then the truth dawned upon him; he had lost in sleep one whole precious
+day!
+
+And the girl--
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+_Consequences_
+
+The driver threw on his high speed after a promise that his fine would
+be paid and ten dollars over should they be stopped.  He made the house
+in fifteen minutes and was lucky enough not to pass a policeman.
+Donaldson jumping out bade him wait for further orders.
+
+Donaldson received no response to his ring.  He tried the latch and
+found the door locked.  On a run he skirted the house to the rear.  The
+back door was open.  He pushed through into the cold kitchen, through
+this into the dining room, and so into the hall.  There was no sign
+either of the servant or of the girl herself.  He was now thoroughly
+alarmed.
+
+As he ran up the stairs he was confronted by what he took to be an old
+witch in a purple wrapper.  She barred his way in a decidedly militant
+manner, her sunken black eyes flashing anger.  She seemed about to
+spring at him.
+
+"Bien," she croaked, "qui diable are you?"
+
+He paused.
+
+"You are Marie?" he demanded.
+
+"Bien, and you?"
+
+A voice came from a room leading from the hall.  "Marie, who is it?  Is
+it Ben?"
+
+"I know not who it is," Marie shouted back; "but if he comes up another
+step I will tear out his eyes."
+
+"Miss Arsdale," called Donaldson, "is anything the trouble?  It is
+I--Donaldson."
+
+"You!"
+
+Her voice, which had at first sounded weary, as the voice of one who
+has waited a long while, gathered strength.
+
+"It is all right, Marie," she called.  "This--this is my friend."
+
+Marie relaxed and gripped the banister for support.  She was weak.
+
+"I have never seen him before," she challenged.
+
+There was a movement at the door.
+
+"No, you have never seen him.  Come here a moment, Marie."
+
+With difficulty the old woman hobbled back into the room to her
+mistress, and for a few moments Donaldson waited impatiently for the
+next development.  It came when he heard her voice asking him to come
+in.  He was in the room in three strides.  She was sitting in her chair
+with her head bandaged, Marie sitting by her side as though liking but
+little his intrusion.  At sight of the white strip across her forehead,
+he caught his breath.
+
+"What does this mean?" he demanded with quick assumption of authority.
+
+"You must n't think it is anything serious," she hastened to explain,
+awed by the fierceness of his manner.  "It is only that--that he came
+back."
+
+"Arsdale?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Where is he now?"
+
+"He went away again.  Marie and I tried to hold him, but we weren't
+strong enough."
+
+"It would be easier to hold the devil," interpolated Marie.
+
+"But you," asked the girl,--"I was afraid you had met with an accident."
+
+"I?" he cried.  "I was asleep--asleep like a drunken lout."
+
+"All yesterday--all last night?" she asked in astonishment.
+
+"Yes," he admitted, as though it were an accusation.
+
+"Ah, that is good," she replied.  "You needed the rest."
+
+"Needed rest, and you in this danger?" he exclaimed contemptuously.
+"It was unpardonable of me."
+
+"No!  No!  Don't say that.  You could have done nothing had you been
+here."
+
+"If ever I get my hands on him again," he cried below his breath.
+
+"Mon Dieu," broke in Marie.  "If I, too--"
+
+"Hush," interrupted the girl.  "It is quite useless for any of us to
+attempt more until his money gives out.  He came back and found a few
+dollars in my purse."
+
+She had fought this madman, she and this rheumatic old woman, while he
+had slept!  She had called to him and he had not answered!  The blood
+went hot to his cheeks.  It was enough to make a man feel craven.
+
+The wounded girl rested her bandaged head on the back of the chair.  At
+the light in Donaldson's eyes, Marie straightened herself aggressively.
+
+"Are you badly hurt?" he asked quietly.
+
+"Only a bump," she laughed, remembering how he had stood by the ladder.
+"Marie insisted upon this," she added, lightly touching the cloth about
+her forehead.
+
+"A bump?" snorted Marie.  "It is a miracle that she was not altogether
+killed.  She--"
+
+But a hand upon the old servant's arm checked her indignation.
+
+"You two women cannot remain here any longer alone," he said
+authoritatively.  "Either you must allow me to take you to the shelter
+of some friend or--"
+
+"There is no one," she interrupted quickly.  "No one to whom I would go
+in this condition.  They would not understand."
+
+"Then," he said, "I must secure a nurse for you."
+
+"Am I not able to care for the p'tite?" demanded Marie.  "A nurse!"
+
+"A nurse is needed to care for you both.  I am going downstairs now to
+summon one."
+
+She protested feebly, and Marie vigorously, but he was insistent.
+
+"I ought to call your family physician--"
+
+"No, Mr. Donaldson, you must not do that."
+
+She was firm upon this point, so he went below to do what else he might.
+
+At the telephone he found the explanation of his inability to get the
+house in the fact that the receiver was hanging loose.  It was another
+accusation.  Doubtless in her weakened condition she had dropped it
+from her hand and turned away, too dazed to replace it.  The hot shame
+of it dried his tongue so that he could scarcely make himself
+understood.  In spite of this he accomplished many things in a very few
+minutes.  The operator gave him the number of a near-by reliable nurse,
+and finding her in, he sent off the cab for her.  Then through an
+employment bureau he secured a cook who agreed to reach the house
+within an hour.  He then telephoned the nearest market and ordered
+everything he could think of from beefsteak to fruit, and to this added
+everything the marketman could think of.  He had no sooner finished
+than the nurse arrived.
+
+By the greatest good luck Miss Colson proved to be young, cheerful, and
+capable.  She followed Donaldson upstairs and succeeded in winning the
+confidence of both the girl and Marie at once.  Donaldson left them
+together.  A little while later he was allowed to come up again.
+
+"I feel like an unfaithful knight," he said, as he entered.  "I deserve
+to be dismissed without a word."
+
+"Because you slept?  It was not your fault.  I fear I have left you
+little time for rest."
+
+"Why did n't you tell them to break down the doors--to _get_ me!"
+
+Her face clouded for a moment.
+
+She saw how chagrined he still felt.
+
+"Don't blame yourself," she pleaded.  "It's all over anyway and you 've
+done everything possible.  You 've been very thoughtful."
+
+"I was a fool to leave you here.  I should have stayed."
+
+"That was impossible."
+
+Donaldson marveled that she could pass off the whole episode so
+generously.  He refrained from questioning her further as to what had
+happened.  It was unnecessary, for he knew well enough.
+
+"Let us choose a pleasanter subject," she said.  "Tell me how you
+became a great hero."
+
+"A sorry hero," he answered, not understanding what she meant.
+
+"No.  No.  It was fine!  It was fine!"
+
+He was bewildered.
+
+"You don't mean to say you have n't seen the papers--but then, of
+course, you have n't, if you were asleep all day Sunday.  Please bring
+me that pile in the corner."
+
+He handed them to her and she unfolded the first page of the uppermost
+paper.  He found himself confronting a picture of himself as he had
+stood, the centre of an admiring crowd, in front of the big machine
+which had so nearly killed Bobby.
+
+He shared the first page with the latest guesses concerning the
+Riverside robberies.
+
+"Well," he stammered, "I 'd forgotten all about that!"
+
+"Forgotten such an act!  You don't half realize what a hero you are.
+Listen to the headlines, 'Heroic Rescue,' 'Young Lawyer Gives
+Remarkable Exhibition of Nerve,' 'The Name of Lawyer Donaldson
+Mentioned for Carnegie Medal,' 'Bravest Deed of the Year,' 'Faced Death
+Unflinchingly.'"
+
+And the pitiful feature of it was that he must sit and listen to this
+undeserved praise from her lips.  That, knowing deep in his heart his
+own unworthiness, he must face her and see her respond to those things
+as though he really had been worthy.  He, who had done the act under
+oath, was receiving the reward of a man who would have done it with no
+false stimulus.  He, who had been unconsciously braced to it by the
+fact that he had so little to lose, was receiving the praise due only a
+man who risks all the happiness of a long life.  He had faced death
+after flinching from life.  He was sick of his hypocrisy; he would be
+frank with himself.  He would be frank with her; he had a right to it
+this once.  He pressed down the paper she was reading.
+
+"Don't repeat it," he commanded.  "It is n't true!  It's all wrong!"
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"That it's all a lie!"
+
+"But here 's your picture.  And _that 's_ you."
+
+"Oh, the naked facts are true.  But the rest about,--" it was hard to
+do this with her eyes upon him, "the rest about being a hero--about
+nerve and bravery.  It's rot!  It is n't so!"
+
+She threw back her head, resting it upon the top of her chair, and
+laughed gently.  The color had come back into her cheeks and even the
+dark below her eyes seemed to fade.
+
+"Of course," she returned, "you would n't be a truly hero if you knew
+you were one."
+
+"But I know I 'm not."
+
+"Of course and so you are!"
+
+The impulse was strong within him to pour out to her the whole bitter
+story.  Better to stand shorn and true before her than garbed in such
+false colors as these.  But as before, he realized that her own welfare
+forbade even this relief.
+
+The nurse approached with a cheery smile, but with an unmistakable air
+of authority.
+
+"You will pardon me," she interrupted, "but we must keep Miss Arsdale
+as quiet as possible.  I think she ought to try to sleep a little now."
+
+Sorry as he was to go, Donaldson was relieved to know that he was
+leaving her in such good hands.
+
+The ringing of the front door-bell startled her.  She shrank back in
+her chair.  The nurse was at her side instantly.
+
+"You had better leave at once," she whispered to Donaldson.
+
+"It's only the new cook," he answered.
+
+He went downstairs and ushered her in, and led her to the kitchen.
+
+"The place is yours," he said, waving his hands about the room, "and
+all you 've got to do is to cook quickly and properly whatever order is
+sent down to you.  Get that?"
+
+The woman nodded, but glanced suspiciously about the deserted quarters.
+The place looked as when first opened in the Fall, after the return
+from the summer vacation.
+
+"The family," Donaldson went on to explain, "consists of three.  If you
+succeed in satisfying this group I 'll give you an extra ten at the end
+of the week."
+
+"I 'll do it, sor."
+
+She looked as though she was able.
+
+"Anything more you want to know?"
+
+"The rist of the help, sor,--"
+
+"You 're all of it," he answered briefly.
+
+Before leaving the house he did one thing more to allay his fears.  He
+called up a private detective bureau and ordered them to keep watch of
+the house night and day until further notice.  They were to keep their
+eyes open for any slightly deranged person who might seek an entrance.
+In the event of capturing him, they were to take him into the house and
+put him to bed, remaining at his side until he, Donaldson, arrived.
+
+Then he ordered his cab to the restaurant of Wun Chung.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+_The Derelict_
+
+Chung had news for him; he had not yet found Arsdale, but his men
+reported that yesterday the boy had been concealed at Hop Tung's, where
+Saul had first suspected him to be.  The evil-eyed proprietor had
+hidden him, half in terror of Arsdale himself and half through lust of
+his money.  Finally, however, fearing for the young man's sanity he had
+thrown him out upon the street.  It would go hard with the yellow rat,
+Chung declared, for such treachery as this to the Lieutenant.
+
+"It may go hard with all of you," replied Donaldson significantly.
+"But you 've another chance yet; the boy is back here somewhere.  Find
+him within twenty-four hours and I'll help you with Saul."
+
+"He clome black?" exclaimed Chung.
+
+"Sometime early this morning."
+
+If the boy was in the neighborhood, Chung asserted eagerly, he would
+find him within an hour or hang the cursed-of-his-ancestors, Tung, by
+his pigtail from his own window.
+
+"Which is better than being locked up in jail.  Are you children,"
+Donaldson exploded, "that you can be duped like that?"
+
+Chung appeared worried.  But his slant eyes contracted until scarcely
+more than the eye-lashes were revealed.  However inactive he may have
+been up to now, Donaldson knew that an end had come to his
+sluggishness.  When Chung left the room there was determination in
+every wrinkle of his loose embroidered blouse.
+
+So there were some nooks in Chinatown, mused Donaldson, that even Saul
+did not know.  The longer he sat there, the more indignant he became at
+the treachery of this moon-faced traitor who was indirectly responsible
+for the nightmare through which the girl had passed.  Yet, as he
+realized, no more responsible than he himself.  He had been a thousand
+times more unfaithful to the girl than Tung had been to Saul.
+
+Chung returned with a brew of his finest tea.  He was loquacious.  He
+tried one subject after another, interjecting protestations of his
+friendship for Saul.  Donaldson heard nothing but the even voice and
+the sibilant dialect.  He seemed chained to that one torturing picture.
+Even the prospect of finding the boy and so ending the suspense which
+had battered Miss Arsdale's nerves for so long brought little relief.
+He never could be needed again as he had been needed then.  He might
+even have been able to detain Arsdale and so have avoided this present
+crisis.  He felt all the pangs of an honest sentry who, asleep at his
+post, awakes to the fact that the enemy has slipped by him in the night.
+
+It was well within the hour when Chung's lieutenant glided in with a
+message that brought a suave smile to the face of his master.
+
+"Allee light," he announced, beaming upon Donaldson.  "Gellelum
+dlownslairs."
+
+"You've found him!"
+
+"In callage," nodded Chung, with the genial air of a clergyman after
+completing a marriage ceremony.
+
+Donaldson reached the carriage before Chung had descended the first
+half-dozen steps.  He opened the door and saw a limp, unkempt form
+sprawled upon the seat.  He recognized it instantly as Arsdale.  But
+the man was in no condition to be carried home.  He must take him
+somewhere and watch over him until he was in a more presentable shape.
+But one place suggested itself,--his own apartments.
+
+Donaldson paused.  He must take this bedraggled, disheveled remnant of
+a man to the rooms which stood for rich cleanliness.  He must soil the
+nice spotlessness of the retreat for which he had paid so dearly.  In
+view of the little he had so far enjoyed of his costly privileges, this
+last imposition seemed like a grim joke.
+
+"To the Waldorf," he ordered the driver with a smile.
+
+He himself climbed up on the box where he could find fresh air.  At the
+hotel he bribed a bellboy to help him with the man to his room by way
+of the servant's entrance.  Then he telephoned for the hotel physician,
+Dr. Seton.
+
+Before the doctor arrived Donaldson managed to strip the clothes from
+the senseless man and to roll him into bed.  Then he sat down in a
+chair and stared at him.
+
+"It's an opium jag," he explained, as soon as Dr. Seton came in, "but
+that is n't the worst feature of it.  I 'm tied here to him until he
+comes to.  I can't tell you how valuable my time is to me.  I want you
+to take the most heroic measures to get him out of it as soon as
+possible."
+
+"Very well, we 'll clear his system of the poison.  But we can't be too
+violent.  We must save his nerves."
+
+"Damn his nerves," Donaldson exclaimed.  "He doesn't deserve nerves."
+
+The doctor glanced sharply from his patient to Donaldson himself.  He
+noted the latter's pupils, his tense lips, his tightened fingers.  He
+had jumped at the word poison, like a murderer at the word police.
+
+"See here," he demanded, "you have n't any of this stuff in you, have
+you?"
+
+"No," answered Donaldson, calmly.
+
+"Anything else the matter with you?"
+
+"Nothing but nervousness, I guess.  I 've been under something of a
+strain recently."
+
+Donaldson turned away.  He was afraid of the keen eyes of this man.
+Barstow had not experimented very long with the stuff; perhaps, after
+all, it did produce symptoms.  But he reassured himself the next
+minute, remembering that the drug was unknown.  Barstow had not
+revealed his discovery to any one.  If he showed a dozen symptoms they
+would be unrecognizable.
+
+The doctor dropped his questioning and turned to his patient.  He
+subjected the man to the stomach-pump and hot baths.  Donaldson
+assisted and watched every detail of the vigorous treatment with
+increasing interest.  At the end of two hours Arsdale was allowed to
+sleep.
+
+Seton put on his coat and wrote out instructions for the further care
+of the man.  But before leaving he again turned his shrewd eyes upon
+Donaldson himself.
+
+"My boy," he said kindly, "you ought to pay some attention to your own
+health.  I hate to see a man of your age go to pieces."
+
+He squinted curiously at Donaldson's eyes.  The latter withdrew a
+little.
+
+"What makes you think there is anything wrong with me?" he asked.
+
+"Your eyes for one thing," he answered.
+
+"Nonsense.  If I need anything, its only a good sweating, such as you
+gave Arsdale."
+
+"There are some poisons not so easily sweated out."
+
+Donaldson hesitated.  While watching this man at work upon the boy, he
+had felt a temptation which was now burning hot within him.  It was
+possible that it was not too late even now to clean his own system of
+the drug he had swallowed.  This man, he knew, would bring to his aid
+all the wisdom of medical science.  Barstow may have been mistaken,
+although he knew the careful chemist well enough to realize this was
+well nigh an impossibility.  The next second he held out his hand.  It
+was steady.  He smiled as he saw Seton pause a moment to note if it
+trembled.
+
+"Thanks for all you 've done, doctor," he said.  "Do you think I can
+take him home tomorrow?"
+
+"If you follow my instructions.  The boy really has a sound physique.
+He ought to pull out quickly."
+
+As the door closed upon the doctor, Donaldson drew a breath of relief.
+Thank God he had resisted his impulse.  He would keep true to his
+compact.  He must remain true to himself.  That was all that was now
+left.  There must be no shirking--no flinching.  If he had played the
+fool, he must not play the coward.  The subtle tempter had suggested
+the girl, but he realized that he had better not come to her at all
+than to come as one who had played unfairly with himself.  To be
+unfaithful to the spirit of his undertaking would be as weak a thing as
+not to fulfill the letter of his oath.  His shadowy duty to the girl
+would not justify himself in evading a crisis demanding his life for
+the life of another, nor would it vindicate the greater evasion.  It
+was a matter of honor to remain true to that which at the start had
+justified the whole hazard to him.  It was this which restrained him
+even from learning whether or not Barstow was in town.
+
+The man on the bed was breathing heavily, his lips moving at every
+breath in a way to form a grimace.  He made in this condition the whole
+room as tawdry as a tavern tap.  And at the feet of this thing he was
+tossing his meager store of golden minutes.
+
+Yet it was through this inert medium alone that Miss Arsdale could pay
+the debt to the father who had been so good to her; and it was only
+through this same unsightly shell that he, Donaldson, could in his turn
+repay his debt for the dreams she had quickened in him.
+
+He stepped to the telephone to tell her what he could of that which he
+had found and done.  The mere sound of her voice as it came over the
+wire brightened the room like a flood of light.  The joy in it as she
+listened to what he had accomplished was payment enough for all he had
+sacrificed.  He told her that the doctor had advised keeping the boy in
+for at least another day.
+
+"Oh, but you are good!" she exclaimed.  "And you will not leave
+him--you will guard him against running off again?"
+
+"I shall stay here at his side until it is absolutely safe to go."
+
+"If I could only come down!"
+
+"But you must n't.  You must stay where you are and do as you 're told."
+
+"It will be only for to-day and to-night, won't it?"
+
+"Probably that is all."
+
+"That is n't very long."
+
+"Not as time goes."
+
+"But it will seem long."
+
+"Will it--to you?"
+
+He regretted the question the moment it had been uttered.  But it came
+to his lips unbidden.
+
+"Of course," she answered.
+
+"It will seem very long to me," he returned slowly.  "Almost a
+lifetime."
+
+"Perhaps you will telephone now and then."
+
+"Very often, if I may."
+
+"The nurse says she 'll not allow me to answer the telephone after nine
+at night."
+
+"Nine to-night is a long way off yet."
+
+"It's only half a day."
+
+"But that's twelve hours!"
+
+"Do you think that long?"
+
+"Yes.  That seems a very long while to me."
+
+"It is soon gone."
+
+"Too soon."
+
+"Then comes the night and then the morning and then you 'll bring him
+home."
+
+"Then I 'll bring him home."
+
+What a new meaning that word home had when it fell from her lips.  What
+a new meaning everything had.
+
+She turned aside to address some one in the room and then her voice
+came in complaint.
+
+"The nurse is here with my medicine."
+
+"Then close your eyes and swallow it quickly.  I 'll telephone you
+later and inquire how it tasted."
+
+"Thank you.  Good bye."
+
+"Good bye."
+
+He hung up the receiver and settled down to the grim task of counting
+the passing minutes which were draining his life as though each minute
+were a drop of blood let from an artery.  And all the company he had
+for it was this poor devil on the bed who grimaced as he breathed.
+
+He folded his arms.  If this, too, was a part of the cost he must pay
+it like a man.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+_The Fourth Day_
+
+The morning of Tuesday, May twenty-eighth, found Donaldson still
+sitting in the chair, facing the form upon the bed.  He had not
+undressed, and had slept less than an hour.  He was now waiting for
+eight o'clock, when he had received permission from the nurse to ring
+up Miss Arsdale again.
+
+With some tossing Arsdale had slept on without awaking fully enough to
+be conscious of his surroundings.  Now, however, Donaldson became aware
+that the fellow's brain was clearing.  He watched the process with some
+interest.  It was an hour later before the man began to realize that he
+was in a strange room, and that another was in the room with him.  It
+was evident that he was trying hard, and yet with fear of whither the
+road might lead him, to trace himself back.  He had singled out
+Donaldson for some time, observing him through half-closed eyes, before
+he ventured to speak.
+
+"Where am I?" he finally faltered huskily.
+
+"In my charge."
+
+"Who are you?"
+
+"One Donaldson."
+
+"I never heard of you."
+
+"That is not improbable."
+
+Arsdale reflected upon this for some time before he gained courage to
+proceed further.
+
+"I 'm going to get up," he announced, at the end of some five minutes.
+
+"No, you 're not.  You are going to stay right where you are."
+
+"What right have you to keep me here?" he demanded.
+
+"The right of being stronger than you."
+
+Arsdale struggled feebly to his elbow, but Donaldson pushed him back
+with a pressure that would not have made a child waver.  He stood
+beside him wondering just how much the dulled brain was able to grasp.
+The long night had left him with little sympathy.  The more he had
+thought of that blow, the greater the aversion he felt towards Arsdale.
+If the boy had n't struck her he would feel some pity for him, but that
+blow given in the dark against a defenseless woman--the one woman who
+had been faithful and kind to him--that was too much.  It had raised
+dark thoughts there in the night.
+
+Arsdale, his pupils contracted to a pin-point, stared back at him.  Yet
+his questions proved that he was now possessed of a certain amount of
+intelligence.  If he was able to realize that he was in a strange
+place, he might be able to realize some other things that Donaldson was
+determined he _should_.
+
+"You are n't very clear-headed yet, but can you understand what I am
+saying to you now?"
+
+Arsdale nodded weakly.
+
+"Do you remember anything of what you did yesterday?" he demanded, in a
+vibrant voice that engraved each word upon the sluggish brain.
+
+"No," answered the man quailing.
+
+"No?  Then I'll tell you.  You came back to the house and you struck
+your sister."
+
+"No!  No!  Not that!  I didn't do that."
+
+Donaldson responded to a new hope.  This seemed to prove that the
+conscience of the man was not dead.  It came to him as a relief.  He
+was relentless, not out of hate, but because so much depended upon
+establishing the fact that the fellow still had a soul.
+
+"Yes.  You did," he repeated, his fingers unconsciously closing into
+his palms.  "You struck her down."
+
+"Good God!"
+
+"Think of that a while and then I 'll tell you more."
+
+"Is she hurt, is she badly hurt?"
+
+Without replying Donaldson returned to his chair on the opposite side
+of the bed and watched him as a physician might after injecting a
+medicine.  Arsdale stared back at him in dumb terror.  Donaldson could
+almost see the gruesome pictures which danced witch-like through his
+disordered brain.  He did n't enjoy the torture, but he must know just
+how much he had upon which to work.
+
+It was in the early hours of the morning that Donaldson had become
+conscious of the new and tremendous responsibility which rested upon
+him.  To leave Arsdale behind him alive in such a condition as this
+would be to leave the curse upon the girl,--would be to desert her to
+handle this mad-man alone.  He had seen red at the thought of it.  It
+would be to brand his own act with unpardonable cowardice; it would be
+to go down into his grave with the helpless cries of this woman ringing
+in his ears; it would be to shirk the greatest and most sacred duty
+that can come to a man.  The cold sweat had started upon his forehead
+at the thought of it.
+
+The inexorable alternative was scarcely less ghastly.  Yet in the face
+of this other the alternative had come as a relief.  If it cost him his
+immortal soul, this other should not be left behind to mar a fair and
+unstained life.  He would throttle him as he lay there upon the bed
+before he would leave him behind to this.  He would go to his doom a
+murderer before he would leave Arsdale alive to do a fouler murder.
+That should be his final sacrifice,--his ultimate renunciation.  In its
+first conception he had been appalled by the idea, but slowly its
+inevitability had paralyzed thought.  It had made him feel almost
+impersonal.  Considering the manner in which he had been thrust into
+it, it seemed, as it were, an ordinance of Fate.
+
+Though this had now become fixed in his mind, there was still the scant
+hope that he had grasped from what he had observed in Arsdale's manner.
+Given the morsel of a man, and there was still hope.  Therefore it was
+with considerable interest that he watched for some evidence of the
+higher nature, even if only expressed in the crude form of shame.  At
+times Arsdale looked like a craven cornered to his death--at times like
+a man struggling with a great grief--at times like a man dazed and
+uncomprehending.
+
+To himself he moaned continuously.  Frequently he rose to his elbow
+with the cry, "Is she hurt?"
+
+Still in silence Donaldson watched him.  Once Arsdale fell forward on
+his chin, where he lay motionless, his eyes still upon Donaldson.  The
+latter helped him back to the pillow, but Arsdale shrank from his touch.
+
+"Your eyes!" he gasped, covering his own with his trembling hand.
+"They are the eyes of a devil.  Take them off me--take them off!"
+
+But Arsdale could not endure his blindness long.  It made the ugly
+visions worse.  So, he saw the girl with red blood streaming down her
+cheeks.
+
+The sight of this writhing soul raised many new speculations in
+Donaldson's mind especially in connection with its possible outcome.
+In the matter of religion he was negative, neither believing any
+professed creed nor denying any.  He had received no early impetus, and
+had up to now been too preoccupied with his earthly interests, with no
+great grief or happiness to arouse him, to formulate any theory in his
+own mind.  Even at the moment he had swallowed the poison the motive
+prompting him to it had been so intensely material that it had started
+but the most momentary questions.  It was the thought of Mrs.
+Wentworth, the sight of the baby, the indefinable boundaries of his own
+love--it was love that pressed the question in upon him.  Now the other
+extreme embodied in the sight of the man before him, capped by the
+acute query of what the sin of murder might mean, sharpened it to a
+real concern.  If such love as the mother and the girl connoted forbade
+the conception that love expired with life, the torture of this other
+stunted soul seemed prophetic of what might be awaiting his own future,
+dwarfed by the shifty expedient he had adopted to check its
+development.  If punishment counted for anything, he was, to be sure,
+receiving his full portion right here on earth.  The realization of
+what he was leaving was an inquisition of the most exquisite order.
+But would this be the end?  His consciousness, as he sat there, refused
+to allow the hope,--refused even to allow the hope to be desired.
+
+So, face to face, each of these two struggled with the problem of his
+next step.  To each of them life had a new and terrible significance.
+From a calm sea it had changed to wind-rent chaos.  It was revealing
+its potentialities,--lamb-like when asleep, lion-like when roused.
+Tangle-haired Tragedy had stalked forth into the midst of men going
+about their business.
+
+The man on the bed broke out again,
+
+"Why did n't I die before that?  Why did n't I die before?"
+
+Then he turned upon Donaldson with a new horror in his eyes.
+
+"I did n't kill her?" he gasped.
+
+The answer to his cry came--though he could not interpret it--in the
+ringing of the telephone.  Donaldson crossed to it, while Arsdale
+cowered back in bed as though fearing this were news of some fresh
+disaster.  To him the broken conversation meant nothing; to Donaldson
+it brought a relief that saved him almost from madness.
+
+"Is that you, Mr. Donaldson?" she asked.
+
+"Yes.  And you--you are well?"
+
+There was a pause, and then came the query again,
+
+"Is that you?"
+
+"Yes, can't you hear my voice?"
+
+"It does n't sound like your voice.  Is anything the matter?"
+
+"No, nothing.  I don't understand what you mean."
+
+She hesitated again and then answered,
+
+"It--it made me almost afraid."
+
+"It's your nerves.  Did you sleep well?"
+
+"Yea.  And is Ben all right?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"There it is again," she broke in.  "Your voice sounds harsh."
+
+"That must be your imagination."
+
+"Perhaps," she faltered.  "Are you going to bring him home to-day?"
+
+"Probably not until this evening.  But," he broke in, "I shall come
+sooner myself.  I shall come this morning.  Will you tell that
+gentleman waiting near the gate to come down here?"
+
+"What gentleman?"
+
+"You probably have n't seen him.  I put him there on guard."
+
+"You are thoughtful.  Your voice is natural again.  Is Ben awake now?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And does he know?"
+
+"Some things."
+
+"Mr. Donaldson," she said, and he caught the shuddering fear in her
+voice, "are you keeping anything from me?"
+
+"I don't know what you mean, but I will come up so that you may see
+there has been no change."
+
+"I still think you are concealing something."
+
+"Nothing that is not better concealed; nothing that you could help."
+
+"I should rather know.  I do not like being guarded in that way."
+
+"We all have to guard one another.  You in your turn guard me."
+
+"From what?"
+
+"Many things.  You are doing it now--this minute."
+
+"From what?" she insisted.
+
+"From myself."
+
+"Oh, I don't know what you mean.  I think you had better come up here
+at once--if it is safe to leave Ben."
+
+"I shall make it safe.  Don't forget to send down my man."
+
+He hung up the receiver and turned to Arsdale.  The latter must have
+noticed instantly the change in Donaldson's expression, for he rose to
+his elbow with eager face.
+
+"You'll tell me before you go!  You'll tell before--"
+
+"You didn't kill," answered Donaldson.
+
+"Thank God!"
+
+"She is n't even wounded seriously."
+
+"She knows that it was I?"
+
+"Yes.  She knows."
+
+"How she must hate me, gentle Elaine."
+
+"It is hard for her to hate any one."
+
+"You think she--she might forgive?"
+
+"I don't know.  That remains to be seen."
+
+The man buried his face in his arms and wept.  This was not maudlin
+sentimentality; it struck deeper.
+
+"Are you ready to do anything more than regret?" demanded Donaldson.
+"Are you ready to make a fight to quit that stuff?"
+
+"So help me as long as I live--"
+
+"Don't tell me that.  I want you to think it over a while.  I 'm going
+to have some one stay here with you until I get back this afternoon.
+Will you remain quiet?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And remember that even if by chance you did n't do much harm, still
+you struck.  You struck a woman; you struck your sister."
+
+Arsdale cringed.  Each word was a harder blow than he, even in his
+madness, could strike.
+
+"It's a--terrible thing to remember.  But--but it will be always with
+me.  It will never leave me."
+
+As soon as the detective arrived Donaldson gave him his instructions,
+adding,
+
+"Look out for tricks, and be ready to tell me all he says to you."
+
+"I 've had 'em before," answered the man.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+_An Interlude_
+
+She was waiting for him in the library with an expression both eager
+and worried.  She crossed the room to meet him, but paused half-way as
+though really fearful of some change.  But she saw only the same kind,
+tense face, looking perhaps a bit heavy from weariness, the same dark
+eyes with their strange fires, the same slight droop of the shoulders.
+There was certainly nothing to fear in him as he stood before her with
+a tender, quizzical smile about his large mouth.  He looked to her now
+more like a big boy than the cold, stern man she had half expected.
+
+"Are you afraid?" he asked.
+
+"No, not standing here where I can see you.  But over the telephone
+with your strange voice and your half meanings--what _did_ you mean?"
+
+"Nothing you need worry about."
+
+She became suddenly serious.
+
+"I want to tell you now that there is no need of your trying to hide
+anything at all from me about Ben."
+
+"I am hiding nothing.  But," he asked with quick intuition, "are _you_?"
+
+She hesitated, met his eyes, and dropped her voice.
+
+"I can tell you nothing--not even you--unless you have learned it."
+
+"I, in my turn, don't know what you mean," he answered.  "I have
+learned nothing new about him.  And it is too fair a morning," he
+concluded abruptly, "to bother over puzzles.  Things have happened so
+rapidly that we are probably both muddled, and if we could spend the
+time in explanations we should doubtless find that neither of us means
+anything."
+
+She was clearly relieved, but it raised a new question in Donaldson's
+mind.  Of course she understood nothing of what had taken place last
+night unless by mental telepathy.  But in these days of psychic
+revelations a man could n't feel secure even in his thoughts.  There
+was apparently some inner secret--she had touched upon it
+before--relating to the Arsdale curse.  Doubtless if one pried
+carefully enough many another skeleton could be found in the closets of
+the house of this family half-poisoned now through three generations.
+
+It was early and it suddenly occurred to her that he had probably not
+yet breakfasted.
+
+She struggled a moment with a conflicting sense of hospitality and
+propriety, but finally said resolutely, "I should be glad if you would
+breakfast with me.  You ought to try your new cook."
+
+The picture he had of her sitting opposite him at the coffee brought
+the warm blood to his cheeks.
+
+"I--why--"
+
+"Will you have your chop well done?" she broke in, without giving him
+time to frame an excuse.
+
+"Yes," he answered.
+
+She left him.
+
+Within a very short time she announced the meal with pretty grace,
+which concealed all trace of nervousness, save for the heightened color
+of her cheeks, which, he noted, were as scarlet as though she herself
+had been bending over a hot stove.  She led the way into an exquisite
+little dining room, which he at once took to be the expression of her
+own taste.  It was in white and apple green, with a large trellised
+window opening upon the lawn.  A small table had been placed in the sun
+near the window, and was covered with dazzling white linen, polished
+silver, and cut glass, which, catching the morning beams, reflected a
+prismatic riot of colors.  The chops, lettuce, bread and butter, and
+coffee were already served.  As he seated her, he felt as though he
+were living out a dream--one of the dreams that as a very young man he
+had sometimes dreamed when, lying flat upon his back in the sun, he had
+watched the big cotton clouds wafted, like thistledown, across the blue.
+
+It might have been Italy for the blue of the sky and the caressing
+warmth of the sun.  They threw open the big window and in flooded the
+perfume of lilacs and the twitter of sparrows, which is the nearest to
+a bird song one can expect in New York.  But after all, this was n't
+New York; nor Spain; nor even the inner woods; it was just Here.  And
+Here is where the eyes of a man and a woman meet with spring in their
+blood.
+
+Griefs of loss, bitter, poignant; sorrows of mistakes, bruising,
+numbing; the ache of disappointments, ingratitudes, betrayals,--Nature
+surging on to her fulfillment sweeps them away, like fences before a
+flood, allowing no obstructions to Youth's kinship with Spring.  So the
+young may not mourn long; so, if they do, they become no longer young.
+
+The man and the woman might have been two care-free children for all
+they were able to resist the magic of this fair morning or the subtler
+magic of their own emotions.
+
+To the man it suggested more than to the woman because he gave more
+thought to it, but the woman absorbed more the spirit of it because she
+more fully surrendered herself.
+
+Donaldson found himself with a good appetite.  There was nothing
+neurotic about him.  He was fundamentally normal--fundamentally
+wholesome--with no trace of mawkishness in his nature.  As he sipped
+the hot golden-brown coffee, he tried to get at just what it was that
+he felt when he now looked at her.  It came to him suddenly and he
+spoke it aloud,
+
+"I seem to have, this minute, a fresher vision of life than I have
+known since I was twenty."
+
+It was something different from anything he had experienced up to now.
+It was saner, clearer.
+
+"It is the morning," she hazarded.  "I never saw the grass so green as
+it is this morning; I never felt the sun so warm."
+
+"It is like the peace of the inner woods,--only brighter," he declared.
+
+"You said such peace never came to any one unless alone."
+
+"Did I?"
+
+She nodded.
+
+"But it _is_ like that," he insisted.  "Only more joyous.  I think it
+is the extra joy in it that makes us not want it alone.  Queer, too, it
+seems to be born altogether of this spot, of this moment.  Understand
+what I mean?  It does n't seem to go back of the moment we entered this
+room and--," he hesitated, "it does n't seem to go forward."
+
+"It is as though coming in here we had stepped into a beautiful picture
+and were living inside the frame for a little," she suggested.
+
+"Exactly.  The frame is the hedge; the picture is the sky, the sun, and
+you."
+
+She laughed, frankly pleased in a childish way, at his conceit.
+
+"Then for me," she answered, "it must be the sun, the sky, and _you_."
+
+"We are n't trying to compliment each other, are we?"
+
+"No," she answered seriously.  "I hope not."
+
+She went on after a moment's reflection,
+
+"I have been puzzling over the strange chance that brought you into my
+life at so opportune a time."
+
+"I came because you believed in me and because you needed me.  You
+believed in me because--," he paused, his blood seeming suddenly to run
+faster, "because I needed you."
+
+"You needed me?"
+
+"Yes," he answered, "I needed you.  I needed you long ago."
+
+"But how--why?"
+
+"To show me the joy there is in the sunlight wherever it strikes; to
+take me with you into this picture."
+
+Their eyes met.
+
+"Have I done that?" she asked.
+
+"Yes."
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"I 'm afraid not," she disclaimed, "because the joy has n't been in my
+own heart."
+
+"Nor was it in mine--then."
+
+Her eyes turned back to his.  The silver in them came to the top like
+the moon reflection on dark waters through fading clouds.  He was
+leaning a little towards her.
+
+"It seems to be something that we can't get alone," he explained.
+
+"Perhaps it is," she pondered, "perhaps."
+
+She started back a little, as one who, lost in a sunset, leans too far
+over the balcony.  Then she smiled.  Donaldson's heart answered the
+smile.
+
+"Your coffee is cooling," she said.  "May I pour you some fresh?"
+
+He passed his cup automatically.  But the act was enough to bring him
+back.  A moment gone the room had grown misty.  Something had made his
+throat ache.  He felt taut with a great unexpressed yearning.  He
+became conscious of his breakfast again.  He sipped his hot coffee.
+
+"I suppose," he reflected, "you ought to know something about me."
+
+"I am interested," she answered, "but I don't think it matters much."
+
+Again he saw in her marvelous eyes that look of complete confidence
+that had thrilled him first on that mad ride.  Again he realized that
+there is nothing finer in the world.  For a moment the room swam before
+him at the memory of his doom.  But her calm gaze steadied him at once.
+He must cling to the Now.
+
+"I have n't much I can tell you," he resumed.  "My parents died when I
+was young.  They were New England farm-folk and poor.  After I was left
+alone, I started in to get an education without a cent to my name.  It
+took me fifteen years.  I graduated from college and then from the law
+school.  I came here to New York and opened an office.  That is all."
+
+He waved his hand deprecatingly as though ashamed that it was so slight
+and undramatic a tale.  But she leaned towards him with sudden access
+of interest.
+
+"Fifteen years, and you did it all alone!  You must have had to fight."
+
+"In a way," he answered.
+
+"Will you tell me more about it?" she asked eagerly.
+
+"It's not very interesting," he laughed.  "It was mostly a grind--just
+a plain, unceasing grind.  It was n't very exciting--just getting any
+old job I could and then studying what time was left."
+
+"And growing stronger every day--feeling your increasing power!"
+
+"And my hunger, too, sometimes."
+
+He tried to make light of it because he didn't wish her to become so
+serious over it.  He did n't like playing the part of hero.
+
+"You did n't have enough to eat?" she asked in astonishment.
+
+"You should have seen me watch Barstow's cake-box."
+
+He told her the story, making it as humorous as he could.  But when he
+had finished, she wasn't laughing.  For a moment his impulse was to lay
+before her the whole story--the bitter climax, the ashen climax, which
+lately he had thought so beautiful.  She had said that nothing in the
+past would matter--but this was of the future, too.  Even if she ought
+to know, he had no right to force upon her the burden of what was to
+come.  He found now that he had even cut himself off from the privilege
+of being utterly honest with her.  To tell her the whole truth might be
+to destroy his usefulness to her.  She might then scorn his help.  He
+must not allow that.  Nothing could justify that.
+
+"You are looking very serious," she commented.
+
+Her own face had in the meanwhile grown brighter.
+
+"It is all from within," he answered, "all from within.  And--now
+presto!--it is gone."
+
+Truly the problem did seem to vanish as he allowed himself to become
+conscious of the picture she made there in the sunshine.  With her hair
+down her back she could have worn short dresses and passed for sixteen.
+The smooth white forehead, the exquisite velvet skin with the first
+bloom still upon it, the fragile pink ears were all of unfolding
+womanhood.
+
+"Since my mother died," he said, "you are the first woman who has ever
+made me serious."
+
+"Have you been such a recluse then?"
+
+"Not from principle.  I have been a sort of office hermit by necessity."
+
+"You should not have allowed an office to imprison you," she scolded.
+"You should have gone out more."
+
+"I have--lately."
+
+"And has it not done you good?" she challenged, not realizing his
+narrow application of the statement.
+
+"A world of good."
+
+"It brightens one up."
+
+"Wonderfully."
+
+"If we stay too much by ourselves we get selfish, don't we?"
+
+"Intensely.  And narrow-minded, and morbid, and petty and--," the words
+came charged with bitterness, "and intensely foolish."
+
+"I 'm glad you crawled out before you became all those things."
+
+"You gave me a hand or I should n't."
+
+"I gave you a hand?"
+
+"Yea," he answered, soberly.
+
+"Perhaps--perhaps this is another of the things that could n't have
+happened to either of us alone."
+
+"I think you are right," he answered.
+
+He did not dare to look at her.
+
+"Perhaps that is true of all the good things in the world," she
+hazarded.
+
+"Perhaps."
+
+Once again the golden mist--once again the aching yearning.
+
+The telephone jangled harshly.  It was a warning from the world beyond
+the hedge, the world they had forgotten.
+
+The sound of it was to him like the savage clang of barbaric war-gongs.
+
+With her permission he answered it himself.  It was a message from his
+man at the Waldorf.
+
+"He's making an awful fuss, sir.  He says as how he wants to go home.
+I can hold him all right, only I thought I 'd let you know."
+
+"Thanks, I 'll be right down."
+
+"I 'd better go back to your brother," he said to her as he hung up the
+receiver.  "I want to have a talk with him before bringing him home."
+
+Her eyes grew moist.
+
+"How am I ever going to repay you for all you 've done?"
+
+"You 've repaid me already," he answered briefly and left at once.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+_The Making of a Man_
+
+Donaldson with hands in his pockets stood in front of Arsdale, who had
+slumped down into a big leather chair, and admired his work.  There was
+much still to be done, but, comparing the man before him with the thing
+he had brought in here some thirty hours before, the improvement was
+most satisfactory.  Arsdale, with trimmed hair and clean, shaven face,
+in a new outfit from shoes to collar, and sane even if depressed, began
+to look a good deal of a man.
+
+"How do you feel now?" inquired Donaldson.
+
+Arsdale hitched forward and resting his chin in his hands, elbows on
+knees, stared at the floor.
+
+"Like hell," he answered.
+
+Donaldson frowned.
+
+"You deserve to, but you oughtn't," he said.
+
+"Oh, I deserve it all right.  I deserve it--and more!"
+
+"Yes, you do.  But that does n't help any."
+
+Arsdale groaned.
+
+"There is n't any help.  I 've made a beastly mess out of my life, out
+of myself."
+
+"I wish I could disagree, but I can't," answered Donaldson.
+
+He walked up and down a moment before the fellow studying him.  He was
+worried and perplexed.  The task before him was an unpleasant one.  He
+had to overcome a natural repugnance to interference in the life of
+another.  Under ordinary circumstances he would have watched Arsdale go
+to his doom with a feeling of nothing but indifference.  In his own
+passion for individual liberty he neither demanded nor accepted
+sympathy for personal misfortunes or mistakes, and in turn was loath to
+trespass either upon the rights or duties of another, but his own life,
+through the medium of the boy's sister, was so inextricably entangled
+with this other that now he recognized the inevitability of such
+interference.  On his success or failure to arouse Arsdale largely
+depended the happiness of the girl.
+
+"No," he reflected aloud, "the question is n't how much punishment you
+deserve, for the pain you suffer personally does n't, unfortunately,
+remedy matters in the slightest.  It wouldn't do you any good for me to
+kick you about the room or I 'd do it.  It would n't do you any good
+for me to turn you over to the police or I 'd do that.  You 're hard to
+get hold of because there's so little left of you."
+
+Arsdale made no reply.  He remained motionless.
+
+"But," continued Donaldson with emphasis, "that does n't make it any
+the less necessary.  You 've got to pull what is left together--you 've
+got to play the man with what remains.  You can't get all the
+punishment you deserve and so you 've got to deserve less.  This, not
+for your own sake, but for the sake of the girl,--for the sake of the
+girl you struck."
+
+"Don't!"
+
+Arsdale quailed.  He glanced up at Donaldson with a look that made the
+latter see again Barstow's dog Sandy as he had tottered in his death
+throes.  But the mere fact that the man quivered back from this
+shameful thing was encouraging.  It was upon this alone that Donaldson
+based his hope, upon this single drop of uncorrupted Arsdale blood
+which still nourished some tiny spot in the burned out brain.
+
+"You must make such reparation as you can," continued Donaldson.  "Your
+life is n't long enough to do it fully, but you can accomplish
+something towards it if you start at once."
+
+Arsdale shook his head.
+
+"It's all a beastly mess.  It 's too late!"
+
+Donaldson's lips tightened.
+
+"Well," he asked, "if you are n't going to do what you can, what do you
+propose?"
+
+Thickly Arsdale answered,
+
+"I know a way; I 'm going to pull out for the sake of Elaine!"
+
+Donaldson started as at the cut of a whip-lash.  Then he straightened
+to meet face to face this new development.  Somehow this contingency
+had never occurred to him.  Now for the moment it disarmed him, for it
+brought him down, like a wounded bird, to the level of Arsdale himself.
+As voiced by the latter the act expressed the climax of simpering
+cowardice.  Donaldson, in the first shock of finding himself included
+in the same indictment with the very man for whom he had had so little
+mercy, felt the same powerlessness that had paralyzed this other.  He
+was shorn of his strength.  He blinked as stupidly at Arsdale as
+Arsdale had blinked at him.
+
+But even as he stood with loose lips before the infirm features of the
+younger man, he realized that Arsdale's talk had been the chatter of a
+child.  He had used the phrase idly and, although it was possible he
+might in just as idle a mood commit the act itself, Donaldson was
+convinced that it was not yet a fixed idea.  With this came the
+inspiration which gave him a fresh grip upon himself, that revealed his
+great opportunity; he would make Arsdale see all that he himself had
+learned in these few days.  So in reality he would be giving the best
+of his life to another.
+
+It was like oxygen to one struggling for breath through congested
+lungs.  He went to the window and in great deep-chested inhalations
+stood for a moment drinking in not only the fresh air but with it the
+spirit of the eager, turbulent world which was bathed in it, the world
+that he now saw so clearly.  The sun flashing from the neighboring
+windows glinted its glad message of life; the rumbling of the passing
+traffic roared it to him in a thundering message, like that of
+shattered sea waves; the deep cello-like undernote of the city itself
+sang it to him.  And the message of all the voices was just, "It is
+good to live!  It is good to be!"
+
+He turned back, seeing a new man in the chair before him.  Here was a
+brother--a brother in a truer sense than a better man could have been.
+Coming from different directions, along different roads, through
+different temptations, they had reached at last the crumbling edge of
+the same dark chasm.  They faced the same eternal problem.  That made
+them brothers.  But Donaldson had already seen, already learned; that
+made him the stronger brother.
+
+His face was alight, his body alert, as he came to Arsdale's side.  The
+latter looked up at him in surprise, feeling his presence before he
+saw.  Donaldson's first words stirred him,
+
+"You can't pull out," he said, "because you 're out already.  You must
+pull in.  Don't you see,--you must pull back!"
+
+"You don't understand what I mean."
+
+"A great deal better than you yourself do.  And in the light of that
+understanding I tell you that you can't do it,--that it is n't the way."
+
+"I 'm no good to any one," Arsdale complained dully.  "I don't see why
+it would n't be better for everyone if I just quit."
+
+The word quit was a biting gnome to Donaldson.
+
+"I know," he answered.  "But it is n't right--all because you don't
+know and you can't know what you 're quitting.  You can't just look
+around you and see.  You wouldn't just be quitting the girl who perhaps
+does n't need you, though you can't even tell that; you would n't be
+quitting just your friends who can get along without you--though even
+that is n't sure; you 'd be quitting the others, the unseen others, the
+unknown others, who are waiting for you, perhaps a year from now,
+perhaps twenty years from now, but in their need waiting for you.  They
+are waiting for you, understand, and for no one else.  Just you, no
+matter how weak you are, or how poor you are, or how worthless you are,
+because it is you and no one else who will fit into their lives to help
+complete them."
+
+"I 'd bring nothing but trouble.  I 've been no good to any one."
+
+"You can't help being good to some one.  Queer it sounds, but I believe
+that's true.  A man never lived, so mean that he didn't do good to some
+one."
+
+"You believe that?" demanded Arsdale.
+
+"Yes.  I know that.  I know that, Arsdale!" he answered, his lips
+tremulous, a deep-seated light in his eyes.  "I know that you can't
+possibly be so useless, so cowardly, so utterly bad, but what you 're
+still more useless, still more of a coward, still worse when you quit!
+Maybe we can't see how--maybe at the time we can't realize it, but it's
+so.  Some one will get at the good in us if we just fight along, no
+matter how we may cover it up."
+
+Arsdale straightened in his chair.  His shaking fingers clutched the
+chair arms.  But the next second his face clouded.
+
+"Tell me what good I 've done," he demanded aggressively.
+
+Donaldson smiled.  He could n't very well tell the man the details of
+these last few days and what they meant to him, but they proved his
+claim.  Arsdale had been, if nothing else, a connecting link.  It was
+he, even this self-indulgent weakling, who had brought Donaldson to his
+own, who had led Donaldson, through a series of self-revealing
+incidents, to where he could stand quivering with the truth of life,
+and give of his strength back to this man to pay the debt.  Yes, he
+knew what Arsdale had accomplished, and before he was through the
+latter should feel its effect.
+
+"Man," answered Donaldson almost solemnly, "you have done your
+good--even you, in spite of yourself."
+
+"But not to Elaine where I should have done most!"
+
+Donaldson's hand rested a moment on Arsdale's shoulder.
+
+"Yes," he said, "I like to think you have been of some service even to
+her."
+
+Arsdale rose to his feet.
+
+"If I could think that--if I could look her in the eyes again!"
+
+"Look her in the eyes!  Keep those eyes before you!  Never get where
+those eyes can't follow you!  And as you look take my word for it that
+even there by a strange chance you 've done your good."
+
+The man in Arsdale was at the top.  For a second he faced Donaldson as
+one man should face another.  Then he tottered and fell back in his
+chair, covering his face with his hands.
+
+"It's too late," he groaned, "God, it's too late!"
+
+Donaldson seized him by the shoulder and dragged him to his feet--not
+in anger, not in contempt, but in his naked eagerness to make the man
+see.  Half supporting him, he drew him to the window.  He threw it wide
+open.
+
+"Too late!" he cried, waving his hand at the brisk scene upon the
+street.  "Too late!  It is n't too late so long as there's a living
+world out there, so long as there's a man or a woman out there!  It
+isn't too late because there's work for you to do, work for others that
+you 've shirked.  What is it?  I don't know, but it's there.  Dig
+around until you find it.  Maybe to-day it was only to give a nickel to
+the blind beggar at the corner, maybe it was only to help an old lady
+across the street, maybe it was to do some kindness to your sister.  I
+don't know what it was, but I know it was something, and went undone
+because of you."
+
+Arsdale, leaning against the window-sill, strained towards Donaldson.
+
+"That's a queer idea," he whispered hoarsely.
+
+"And another thing," continued Donaldson, "tangled up with those duties
+are all the joys of the world.  You 've been looking for them somewhere
+else--I 've been looking for them somewhere else--but it is n't any
+use.  They are right there with your duties--in the keeping of other
+people, the unseen others.  And they couldn't be bought, not with all
+the gold in the world.  They must be given if you get them at all."
+
+Arsdale was listening eagerly.  It was as much the spirit back of the
+words as the words themselves that made him feel the stirring of a new
+power which was a new hope.
+
+"You!" he exclaimed.  "You make a man feel that you know!  But the
+hellish smoke-hunger--you don't know anything of that."
+
+"It's a part of the same hellish selfishness which eats the vitals out
+of everything.  Get out of yourself, get into the lives of others, and
+the smoke-hunger will quit you.  You could n't go down where you 've
+been and made a beast of yourself if you cared more about others than
+yourself.  The power that drove you down there would n't mean anything
+if a stronger power held you back.  The point is, Arsdale, the point
+is, that all by himself a man is n't worth much.  He does n't count.
+Either he dries up or he rots."
+
+"That's true!  That's true!" answered Arsdale.  "And I 've rotted.  If
+only I had found you a year ago!"
+
+"A year ago is dead and buried.  Let it alone.  Think of the live
+things; think of the Now!  There 's a big, strong world all around you,
+pulsating with life; there 's sunshine in the morning and stars at
+night--and they are alive; there are flowers, and birds, and
+grasses--all alive; there are live men and women, live questions, and
+there is your sister.  The world would be alive--would be worth while
+if you had only her.  She 's a world in herself."
+
+"You are right.  Man, how you know!"
+
+"Can't you see it yourself?  Can't you feel the thrill of it all?"
+
+"Yes," answered Arsdale, his eyes as alive as Donaldson's, "I see.  I
+feel.  And if I had your strength--"
+
+"You have the strength!  You have everything you need in just your
+beating heart and the days ahead of you.  Buck up to it!--Go and meet
+life half-way.  Throw yourself at life!  The trouble with you and me is
+that we stand still, all curled up in ourselves as in a chrysalis.  You
+must give yourself room, you must break free from your own selfish
+conceit, you must reach a point where you don't give a damn about
+yourself!  Do you hear--where all the worrying you do is about others?
+Then don't worry."
+
+Arsdale was breathing through his nostrils, his lips closed.
+
+"It's going to be a hard fight," he said.  "It 's going to be a hard
+fight, but you make me feel as though I could do it."
+
+"A hard fight," cried Donaldson.  "Why, man, I 'd strip myself down to
+you--I 'd go back to where you stand to-day for the fighting chance you
+have."
+
+"You'd--what?"
+
+Donaldson caught his breath.  For a moment he was silent, staring at
+the eager life upon the street.  Then he turned again to Arsdale.
+
+"I 'd like to swap places with you--that's all," he said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+_A Miracle_
+
+Elaine, her pale face tense, heard the steps of Arsdale coming up the
+stairs to meet her.  Donaldson had telephoned at nine that if she had
+not yet retired he was going to bring her brother home.  She dreaded
+the ordeal for herself and for him.  She dreaded lest the aversion she
+felt for him with the horror of that night still upon her might
+overcome her sense of duty; she dreaded the renewed protestations, the
+self abasement, the sight of the maudlin shame of the man.  She had
+gone through the hysterical scenes so many times that it was growing
+difficult, especially in her present condition of weakness, to arouse
+the necessary spirit to undergo it.  Not only this, but she found
+herself inevitably pitting him against the strong self-reliant
+character of Donaldson.  It had been easier for her to condone when she
+had seen Arsdale only as the loved son of the big-hearted elder, but
+now that this other unyielding personality had come into her life it
+was difficult to avoid comparison.  Arsdale when standing beside a man
+was only pitiable.
+
+He faltered at the door and then crossed the room with a poise that
+reminded her of the father who to the end had never shown evidence of
+any physical weakness in his bearing.  In fact in look and carriage,
+even in the spotless freshness of his dress which was a characteristic
+of the elder, he appeared like his father.  She could hardly believe.
+She sat as silent as though this were some illusion.
+
+There was color in the ordinarily yellow cheeks, there was life in the
+usually dull eyes, though the spasmodic twitching testified to nerves
+still unsteady.  When he held out his trembling hand, she took it as
+though in a trance.  She saw that it was difficult for him to speak.
+It was impossible for her.  The suggested metamorphosis was too
+striking.
+
+He broke the strained, glad silence.
+
+"Elaine, can you forget?"
+
+She uttered his name but could go no further.
+
+"I can't apologize," he stammered, "it's too ghastly.  But if we could
+start fresh from to-day, if you could wait a little before judging, and
+watch.  Perhaps then--"
+
+She drew him quickly towards her.
+
+"Can I believe what I see?" she asked.
+
+"I--I don't know what you see," he answered unsteadily.
+
+"I see your father.  I see the man who was the only father I myself
+knew."
+
+He bent over her.  He kissed her forehead.
+
+"Dear Elaine," he said hoarsely, "you see a man who is going to be a
+better man to you."
+
+"To yourself, Ben,--be better to yourself!  Are you going to be that?"
+
+"That is the way,--by being a man to you and to the others."
+
+"The others?"
+
+"The unseen others.  You must get Donaldson to tell you about the
+others."
+
+She grasped his wrist with both her hands, looking up at him intently.
+Where was the change?  A photograph would not have shown all the
+change.  Yet it was there.  Nor was this a temporal reformation based
+upon cowardly remorse.  It showed too calm, too big an impulse for
+that.  It was so sincere, so deep, that it did not need words to
+express it.
+
+"I believe you, Ben," she said, "I believe you with all my heart and
+soul."
+
+In the words he realized the divine that is in all women, the eagerness
+that is Christ-like in its eternal hunger to seize upon the good in
+man.  He stooped again and with religious reverence kissed the white
+space above her eyes.
+
+"We 'll not talk about it much, shall we?" he said.  "I want you to
+believe only as I go on from day to day.  I 've some big plans that I
+thought up on the way home.  Some day we 'll talk those over, but not
+now.  Donaldson is downstairs."
+
+He saw the color sweep her face.  It suggested to him something that he
+had not yet suspected.  It came to him like a new revelation of
+sunlight.
+
+He smiled.  It was the smile of the father which she had so long
+missed, the smile that always greeted her when his sad heart was
+fullest of hope and gladness.  It was so he used to smile when at
+twilight he stood at her side, his long thin arm over her shoulder and
+talked of Ben with a new hope born of his own victory.
+
+"I was going to tell you," he said tenderly, "I was going to tell you
+of what a big fine fellow this Donaldson is.  But--perhaps you know."
+
+She refused not to meet her brother's eyes.
+
+"Yes, Ben," she said, "I know that."
+
+He took her hand, seating himself on the arm of her chair, the other
+arm resting affectionately across her shoulders.  So the father had
+sometimes sat.
+
+"Is there more?" he asked softly.
+
+"So," she answered, starting a little, "not as you mean.  But tell me
+about him--tell me all about him, Ben."
+
+He felt her hand throb as he held it.
+
+"It's just this; that I owe everything in the world to him.  I owe my
+life to him; I owe," his voice lowered, "I owe my soul to him.  You
+ought to have heard him talk.  But it was n't talking, it wasn't
+preaching.  I don't know what it was, unless--unless it was praying.
+Yet it was n't like that either.  He got inside me and made me talk to
+myself.  It was the first time words ever meant anything to me--that
+they ever got a hold on me.  You 've talked, little sister, Lord knows
+how often, and how deep from the heart, but somehow, dear, nothing of
+it sank in below the brain.  I understood as in a sort of dream.
+Sometimes I even remembered it for a little, but that was all.
+
+"But he was different, Elaine!  If I forgot every word he spoke, the
+meaning of it would still be left.  I 'd still feel his hand upon my
+shoulder, the hand that sank through my shoulder and got a grip on
+something inside me.  I 'd still feel his eyes burning into mine.  I 'd
+still see that street out the window and know what it meant.  I 'd even
+see the little old lady picking her way to the other side,--see the
+blind beggar on the corner and the Others.  Oh, the Others, Elaine!"
+
+He had risen from beside her and pressed towards the window as though
+once again he wished to taste the air that came down to him from the
+star-country to sweeten the decaying soul of him.
+
+"What was it, Elaine?" he demanded.
+
+"You heard," she answered, "because every fibre of him is true.  Tell
+me more."
+
+"He showed me the sun on the windows!" he ran on eagerly.  "He showed
+me the people passing on the streets!  He showed me what I--even I--had
+to do among them.  Did you know that we are n't just ourselves--that we
+'re a part of a thousand other lives?  Did you know that?"
+
+"It takes a seer really to know that," she answered, "but it's true."
+
+"That's it," he broke in.  "He _knows_!  He doesn't guess, he doesn't
+reason, he _knows_!"
+
+She was leaning forward, her head a little back, her eyes half-closed.
+He saw the veins in her neck--the light purple penciling of them--as
+they throbbed.  He was held a moment by the sight.  Then he laughed
+gently.
+
+"Little sister," he said, "you know him even better than I."
+
+She started back.
+
+He was surprised at the shy beauty he perceived.  She had always seemed
+to him such a sober body.
+
+The nurse rapped at the door.
+
+"It is bedtime," she announced,
+
+"Yes, nurse," she answered quickly.
+
+"He asked if he might come to say good night.  He 's going to stay here
+with me a day or so.  Shall I bring him up?"
+
+She hesitated a moment and then meeting her brother's eyes steadily,
+answered,
+
+"Yes, Ben."
+
+When Donaldson came into the room she was shocked at the change in his
+appearance.  It was almost as though what Arsdale had gained Donaldson
+had lost.  He was colorless, wan, and haggard.  His eyes seemed more
+deeply imbedded in the dark recesses below his brows.  Even his hair at
+the temples looked grayer.  But neither his voice nor his manner
+betrayed the change.  The grip of his hand was just as sure; there was
+the same certainty in gesture and speech, save perhaps for some
+abstraction.
+
+"They tell me I may stay but a minute," he said, "but it is good to see
+you even that long."
+
+"You brought him back home," she cried.  "But it has cost you heavy.
+You look tired."
+
+"I am not tired," he answered shortly.  Then turning the talk away from
+himself, as he was ever eager to do, he continued,
+
+"I brought him home, but the burden is still on you."
+
+"Not a burden any longer.  You have removed the burden."
+
+"I 'm afraid not.  There still remains the fight to make him stay.
+This is only a beginning."
+
+His face grew worried.
+
+"He will stay," she answered confidently, "he will stay because you
+reached the father in him and the father was a fighter.  I saw the
+father in his eyes--I heard his father's voice.  It is a miracle!"
+
+"No.  The miracle is how we men keep blind."
+
+"I feel blind myself when I think how you see."
+
+"I am no psychic," he exclaimed impatiently.  "I see nothing that is
+n't before me.  You can't help seeing unless you close your eyes.  The
+world presses in upon you from every side.  It is insistent.  Even now
+the stars outside there are demanding recognition."
+
+He drew back the crimson curtains draping the big French windows, which
+opened upon a balcony.  The silver stiletto rays darted a greeting to
+him.  He swung open the windows.
+
+"Come out with me and see my friends," he said.
+
+She rose instantly and followed him.
+
+He stood there a moment in silence, his head back as he seemed to lead
+her into the limitless fragrant purple above.  She caught his profile
+and saw him like some prophet.  It was as though a people were at his
+back and he trying to pierce the road ahead for them.  The thin face
+and erect head seemed to dominate the night.  He looked down at her, a
+sad smile about his mouth.
+
+"Out here," he said, "out here with a million miles over our heads we
+are freer."
+
+In her eyes he saw now just what he saw in the stars, the same freedom
+of unpathed universes.  He saw the same limitlessness.  Here there were
+no boundaries.  A man could go on forever and forever in those eyes--in
+their marvelous unfolding.  More!  More!  He would go beyond the
+cognate universe, straight into the golden heart of universes beyond.
+Eternity was written there.  The beacon of her eyes flamed a path that
+reached beyond the stars!
+
+She seemed like nothing but a trusting child.  So, she was one with the
+great poets.  So, she was a great poem.  He listened to the same music
+which had moved Isaiah.
+
+"The stars,--they seem to be dancing!" she exclaimed.
+
+It was to the music of the spheres they were dancing.
+
+"You!" he commanded, "you must get away from this house.  You must take
+Ben and get away from here.  You must go into a new country.  You must
+begin your life anew and forget all this, forget everything."
+
+He paused.
+
+"Everything," he repeated.  "They tell us that the road is straight and
+narrow.  It's narrow, but it is n't straight.  It's crooked and it's
+winding and it goes through brake and brush.  It's a hard road to find
+and a hard road to keep, even with the polestar over our heads.  Maybe,
+if we were a little above earth--maybe for those who are winged--the
+road is straight, but we are n't all winged.  Some of us have n't even
+sturdy legs and have to creep.  Some of us find our legs only after we
+are helplessly lost.  For down below there is a terrible tangle with
+things to be gone around, with things to beat down, and always the
+tangle above our heads.  So what wonder that we get lost?  What wonder?"
+
+"But I am not lost--you are not lost!"
+
+"I!  I do not matter," he answered slowly.  "You must n't let me
+matter.  I come into your life and I go out of your life and I pray
+that I have done no harm."
+
+His words to her were like words caught in a wind.  She heard snatches
+of them, but she was unable to piece them together.
+
+"In your new life you must forget even me.  We have met in the brush
+and gone on a little way together.  We have helped each other in
+finding each his true road again.  Whether the paths will meet
+again--whether the paths will meet again--" he repeated as though deep
+in some new and grander reflection, "why, God knows.  If we go on
+forever, perhaps they will in an aeon or two."
+
+He paused to give her an opportunity to say something which he might
+use as a subject for proceeding farther.  His thoughts did n't go very
+far along any one line.  Always he seemed checked by a wall of
+darkness.  But she said nothing.  The silence lengthened into a minute.
+
+"Do you understand?" he asked gently.
+
+"No," she answered frankly.
+
+"Then--then perhaps we had better go in," he said, fearing for himself.
+
+He led the way through the swinging windows and closed them behind him.
+In the light he saw that she was shivering.
+
+"I 'm afraid I kept you out there too long," he said anxiously.  He
+reached her shawl and placed it about her shoulders.  His throat ached.
+
+"I haven't hurt you?"
+
+"I think you have hurt yourself, somehow."
+
+She raised her head a little.
+
+Marie was calling.
+
+"Good night," he said quickly.
+
+"Good night."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+_A Long Night_
+
+Donaldson retired to his room, and without undressing threw up his
+window and stared at the hedge and the dark that lay beyond.  Then he
+tried to work out some solution to the problem which confronted him.
+There was no use for him to try to blind himself to the fact that he
+loved this girl--that was but to shirk the question.  She stood out as
+the supreme passion of his life and forced upon him a future that had a
+meaning beyond anything of which he had ever dreamed.  She quickened in
+him new hopes, new aspirations, new ambitions.  She made him see the
+triviality of all that he had most hoped to enjoy during this week; she
+opened his eyes to all that he had tried to make Arsdale see.  With her
+by his side every day would be like that first afternoon; every hour
+thrilling with opportunities.  The barren future which he had so
+feared, even though it offered no greater opportunities than had always
+lain before him, would tingle with possibilities.  Wait?  He could wait
+an eternity with her by his side and every waiting minute would be a
+golden minute.  He could go back to that little office now and find a
+thousand things to do.  He could hew out a career that would honor her.
+He saw numberless chances for reform work into which he could throw
+himself, heart and soul, while waiting.  But there would be no waiting;
+life would begin from the first hour.  What more did he need than her?
+He shuddered back from his luxurious room at the hotel as from
+something cheap.
+
+A loaf of bread without even so much as a jug of wine would be paradise
+enow.  Just the opportunity to live and breathe and have his being in
+this big pregnant universe was all he craved.  He needed nothing else.
+So the universe would be his.
+
+He dared not try to read her thoughts.  He had no right to do this.  It
+did n't matter.  Her love was not essential.  If he deserved it, that
+would come.  It was enough that she had given him back his dreams, that
+she had taken him back to those fragrant days when his uncrusted soul
+had known without knowing.  It was enough that the sweetness of her had
+become an inseparable part of him for evermore.  She was his now, even
+though he should never again lay eyes upon her.  The only relief he had
+was in the thought that she had accomplished this without committing
+herself.  At least he did not have the burden of her tender love upon
+his soul further to complicate matters.
+
+So much he admitted frankly; so much was fact.  The problem which now
+confronted him was how he could best escape from involving her at all
+in the inevitable climax--how he could make his escape without
+destroying in her the ideals with which she had surrounded him and
+which she had a right to keep.  He owed this to her, to Arsdale, and to
+the world of men.
+
+A dozen times he was upon the point of pushing out into the dark.  If
+he had followed his own impulse he would have taken some broad road and
+footed it hour after hour, through the night, through the next day,
+through the next night, and so till the end overtook him, striking him
+down in his tracks.  He would get as far away as possible, keeping out
+under the broad expanse of the sky above.  He could find rest only by
+taking a course straight on over the hills, turning aside for nothing,
+tearing a path through the tangle.
+
+But he still had his work to do.  He must lend his strength to the boy
+so long as any strength was left.  He must pound into him again and
+again the realization of life which he himself had been tempted to
+shirk.  He must make him see,--must make him know.  In recalling that
+scene in the room by the window, in recalling his own words to Arsdale,
+he felt strangely enough the force of his own thoughts entering into
+himself with new life.  He listened as it were to himself.  Even for
+him there were the Others.  Down to the last arrow-sped minute there
+would still be the Others.  Who knew what remained for him to
+do--charged with what influence might be even the manner in which he
+drew his last breath?  If he stood up to it sturdily, if he faced death
+with his head high, his shoulders back, even though he might be
+cornered in his room like a rat in its hole, so the message might be
+wired silently into the heart of some poor devil struggling hard
+against his death throes and lend him courage.
+
+At the end of two hours he undressed and tumbled upon the bed.
+
+His room was next to Arsdale's room and during the night the latter
+came in.
+
+"I 've had bad dreams about you," the boy exclaimed.  "Is anything the
+matter?"
+
+"I 'm not sleeping very well," Donaldson answered.
+
+"You haven't a fever or anything?"
+
+"No.  Just restless."
+
+"I have n't slept very well myself.  I 've been doing so much thinking.
+That keeps a fellow awake."
+
+"Yes--thinking does.  You 'd better let your brain close up shop and
+get some rest."
+
+"I can't.  I 've been chewing over what you said, and the more I think
+of it, the more I see that you have the right idea.  The secret of
+keeping happy is to fight for others.  It's the only thing that will
+make a man put up a good fight, isn't it?"
+
+"The only thing," answered Donaldson.
+
+"I don't understand why I did n't realize that before--with Elaine
+here.  You 'd think she would make a man realize that."
+
+Donaldson did not answer.
+
+"I think one reason is," continued the boy, "that until now, until
+lately, she's been so nervy herself that she did n't seem to need any
+one.  She 's been stronger than I.  But last night she looked like a
+little girl.  And now, I'd like to die fighting for her."
+
+Donaldson found the boy's hand.
+
+"Never lose that spirit," he said earnestly.  "But remember, she 's
+worth more than dying for, she 's worth living for."
+
+"That's so.  You put things right every time.  She is worth living for.
+You are n't much good to people after you 're dead, are you?"
+
+"Not as far as we know."
+
+The boy hesitated a moment, a bit confused, and then blurted out,
+
+"I 'm going to take up some sort of work.  Perhaps you can help me get
+after something.  We have loads of money, you know.  I don't think much
+of giving it out as cash,--the charity idea.  I 've a hunch that I 'd
+like to study law and then give my services free to the poor devils who
+need a man to look after their interests.  They are darned small
+interests to men who are only after their fee, but they are big to the
+poor devils themselves.  And generally they get done.  Do you think I
+have it in me to study law?"
+
+"You have it in you to study law with that idea back of you.  You 'd
+make a great lawyer with that idea."
+
+"Do you think so?" asked the boy eagerly.
+
+"I know it."
+
+"Then perhaps--perhaps--say, would you be willing to take me in with
+you?"
+
+Donaldson moved uneasily.
+
+"It sounds sort of kiddish, but I know that I 'd do better alongside of
+you.  I 'd help you around the office.  I 'd feel better, just to see
+you.  Anyway, would you be willing to try me for a while until I sort
+of get my bearings?"
+
+"I like the idea," answered Donaldson.  "Let 's talk it over later.
+You see there's a chance that I may give up law."
+
+"Give it up?"
+
+"I may have to leave this part of the country--for good."
+
+"Why, man," burst out Arsdale, "you wouldn't leave Elaine?"
+
+The silence grew ominous.  The fighting spirit rose in Arsdale at the
+suggestion.
+
+"You would n't leave Elaine?" he demanded again, turning towards the
+form on the bed which looked strangely huddled up.
+
+"I must leave her with you," answered Donaldson unsteadily.  The boy
+scarcely recognized the voice, but it roused him to a danger which he
+felt without understanding.
+
+"Why, man dear," he exclaimed, "what would I count to Elaine with you
+gone?  Don't you know?  Have n't you seen?"
+
+They were the identical words Donaldson had used in trying to open
+Arsdale's eyes to another great truth.  And Donaldson knew that if they
+cut half as deep into the boy as they now cut into him they had left
+their mark.  He found no answer.  He listened with his breath coming as
+heavily as the boy's breath had come when they had stood before the
+open window.
+
+Arsdale faltered for words.
+
+"Why--why Elaine loves you!" he blurted out.
+
+"Don't!"
+
+So, too, the boy had exclaimed.
+
+"Don't you know?  I thought you knew everything, Donaldson!  I don't
+see how you help seeing that.  But I suppose it's because you 're so
+thoughtful of others that you can't see your own joys.  But it's true,
+Donaldson.  I don't suppose I ought to tell you about it, but man, man,
+she loves you!  Give me your hand, Donaldson."
+
+He found it in the dark, hot and dry.
+
+"I want to tell you how glad I am.  I suppose I must be a sort of
+father to her now, and I tell you that I would n't give her to another
+man in the world but you.  You 're the only one worthy of her."
+
+He pressed the big hand.
+
+"You 're the one man who can make her happy," he ran on.  "You can give
+her some of the things she 's been cheated out of.  Why, when I was
+talking to her last night, her face looked like an angel's as I spoke
+of you.  It is you who makes it easier for her to forget all the
+past--even--even the blow.  I knew what it was when I came home--that
+you 'd done even that for me--though she couldn't see it.  You 've
+blotted out of her mind every dark day in her life!"
+
+"That is something, is n't it?" asked Donaldson almost pleadingly.
+
+"Something?  Something?  It's everything.  Don't you see now that you
+can't go away?"
+
+"I see," he answered.
+
+"Well, then, give me your hand again.  Sort of trembly, eh?  But I 'll
+bet you sleep better the rest of the night.  And don't you on your life
+let her know I told you.  She 's proud as the devil.  But she would
+have done the same for me.  They say love is blind," he laughed
+excitedly, "but, Holy Smoke, this is the worst case of it I ever saw!"
+
+Donaldson lay passive.
+
+"Now," concluded Arsdale, "I 'll go back and see if I can sleep.  Good
+night."
+
+Donaldson again lay flat on his back after Arsdale had gone.  So he
+lay, not sleeping, merely enduring, until, almost imperceptibly at
+first, the dark about him began to dissolve.  Then he rose, partly
+dressed, and sitting by the open window watched the East as the dawn
+stole in upon the sleeping city.  It came to the attack upon the grim
+alleys, the shadows around buildings, the stealthy figures, like a
+royal host.  A few gray outriders reconnoitred over the horizon line
+and sent scurrying to their hovels those who looked up at them from
+shifty eyes.  Then came a vanguard in brighter colors with crimson
+penants who attacked the fields and broad thoroughfares; then the
+King's Own in scarlet jackets and wide sweeping banners, bronze tinted,
+who charged the smaller streets and factory roofs, and finally the
+brave array of all the dazzling host itself, who hurled their golden,
+sun-tipped lances into every nook and cranny, awaking to life all save
+those whose souls were dark within.
+
+In watching it Donaldson found the first relief in the long night.  His
+own mind cleared with the dawn.  The day broke so clean and fresh, so
+bathed in morning dew, that once again his mind, grown perhaps less
+active, clung in some last spasm to the present as when he had sat with
+Elaine at breakfast, part of the little Dutch picture.  Without
+reasoning into the to-morrow, he felt as though this day belonged to
+him.  As the sun rose higher and stronger, enveloping the world in its
+catholic rays, the night seemed only an evil dream.  He was both
+stronger and weaker.  He was swept on, unresisting, by the high flood
+of the new day.  This world now before his eyes acknowledged nothing of
+his agony but came mother-like to ease his fretting.  She would have
+nothing of the heavy tossings inspired by her sinister sister, the
+Night.  She was all for clean glad spirits, all for new hopes.  So he
+who had first frowned at it, who had then watched passively, now rose
+to its call.
+
+He was entitled to this day, sang the tempter sun,--one big day out of
+all his life.  The crisis would be no more acute upon the morrow and he
+might be stronger to meet it.  This day was his and hers, and even the
+boy's.  To accept it would be to shirk nothing; it would be only to
+postpone--to weave into the sombre grave vestments be was making for
+himself one golden thread.  Arsdale's talk had removed the last vestige
+of hope.  The worst had happened.  Surely one gay interlude could add
+no burden.  A day was always a day, and joys once lived could never be
+lost.  Always in her life and in his this would remain, and since he
+had shouldered the other days as they had come to him, it seemed no
+more than right that he should take this.  Not to do so would be but
+sorry self-imposed martyrdom.
+
+Arsdale came in, still in his bathrobe, with brisk step and his face
+a-beaming.
+
+"Well," he demanded, "how do you feel now?"
+
+"Better," answered Donaldson, unhesitatingly.
+
+"Better!  You ought to feel great!  Look at the sun out there!  Smell
+that air!  Have you had your tub?"
+
+"Not yet," smiled Donaldson.
+
+Arsdale led the way to the shower, and a few minutes later Donaldson
+felt his skin tingle to new life beneath the cold spray.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+_Facing the Sun_
+
+When he came down-stairs he found her dressed in white and looking like
+a nun.  Her hair was brushed back from her forehead and the
+silk-figured Japanese shawl was over her shoulders.  He recalled the
+shawl and with it the picture she had made that first night.
+
+At the door he called her name and she looked up quickly, swiftly
+scanning his face.  He crossed to her side.
+
+"You should n't stay in here," he said.  "Come outdoors a moment before
+breakfast.  It's bright and warm out there."
+
+She arose, and they went out together to the lawn.  Each blade of grass
+was wearing its morning jewels.  The sun petted them and bestowed
+opals, amethysts, and rubies upon them.  The hedge was as fresh as if
+newly created; the neighboring houses appeared as though a Dutch
+housewife had washed them down and sanded them; the sky was a perfect
+jewel cut by the Master hand.  The peeping and chattering of the
+swallows was music, while a robin or two added a longer note to the
+sharp staccatos.
+
+They stood in the deep porch looking out at it, while the sun showered
+them with warmth.
+
+"You 've seen Ben?" he asked.
+
+"Yes," she answered, turning her face up to his with momentary
+brightness.  "Yes.  And he was like this out here!  The change is
+wonderful!  It is as though he had risen from the dead!"
+
+Donaldson lifted his head toward the stark blue of the sky.
+
+"The dead?  There are no dead," he exclaimed passionately.  "Even those
+we bury are ever ready to open their silent lips to us if only we give
+them life again.  We owe it to them to do that, through our own lives
+to continue as best we can their lives here on earth.  But we can't do
+that as long as we have them dead, can we?  And that is true of dead
+hopes, of dead loves.  We have to face the sun with all those things
+and through it breathe into them a new spirit.  Do you see, Miss
+Arsdale?"
+
+He did not look at her, but as her voice answered him it seemed to be
+stronger.
+
+"I think--I think I do."
+
+"Nothing can die, unless we let it die," he ran on, paving the way for
+what he realized she must in the end know.  "Some of it can disappear
+from our sight.  But not much.  We can bury our dead, but we need n't
+bury their glad smiles, we need n't bury the feel of their hands or the
+brush of their lips, we need n't bury their songs or the brave spirit
+of them.  We can keep all that, the living part of them, so long as our
+own spirit lives.  It is when that dies in us that we truly bury them.
+And this is even truer of our loves--intangible spirit things as they
+are at best."
+
+He did not wish that part of him to die utterly in her with his doomed
+frame.
+
+"But--" she shivered, "all this talk of graves and the dead?"
+
+"It is all of the sun and the living," he replied earnestly.  "You must
+face the sun with me to-day.  Will you?"
+
+"Yes!  Yes!  But last night you made me afraid.  Was it the dark,--did
+you get afraid of the dark?  I know what that means."
+
+"Perhaps," he answered gently.  "But if so, it was because I was
+foolish enough to let it be dark.  And you yourself must never do it
+again.  If things get bad at night you must wait until morning and then
+come out here.  So, if you remember what I have said, it will get light
+again.  Will you promise to do that?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I 'd like to make this day one that we 'll both remember forever.  I
+'d like to make it one that we can always turn back to."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Perhaps after to-day we 'll neither of us be afraid of the dark again."
+
+"I 'm not afraid now."
+
+"Nor I," he smiled.
+
+The voice of Arsdale came to them,
+
+"Oh, Elaine!  Oh, Donaldson!"
+
+She led the way into the house with a lighter step and Arsdale met them
+with a beaming face which covered a broad grin.
+
+"I suppose you two can do without food," he exclaimed, "but I can't.
+Breakfast has been waiting ten minutes."
+
+"It's my fault," apologized Donaldson.
+
+"You can't see stars in the morning, can you?" chuckled Arsdale.
+
+"Maybe," answered Donaldson.
+
+Elaine checked the boy's further comments with a frightened pressure as
+she took his arm and passed into the white and green breakfast room.
+
+There stood the table by the big warm window again, and as she took her
+place it seemed as though they were stepping into the same picture
+framed by the hedge.  She caught Donaldson's eye with a little smile
+and saw that he understood.
+
+Arsdale broke in with renewed enthusiasm for his philanthropic project
+and outlined his ambitions to Elaine.
+
+"You see," he concluded, "some day, little sister, you may see the law
+sign 'Donaldson & Arsdale, Counsellors at Law.'  Not a bad sounding
+firm name, eh?"
+
+"I think it is great--just great, Ben!" she exclaimed enthusiastically.
+"It's almost worth being a man to make your life count for something
+like that."
+
+"I want you to make out a list of books for me to get and I 'll go
+down-town this afternoon.  I suppose you 've a pretty good law library
+yourself?"
+
+"I had the beginning of one.  I sold it."
+
+"What did you do that for?"
+
+"My practice was n't big enough to support it.  But you--you 'll not be
+bothered with lack of clients."
+
+With school-boy eagerness Arsdale was anxious to plunge into the scheme
+at once.
+
+"And say," he ran on, "I 'm going to look up some offices.  I 'll stake
+the firm to some good imposing rooms in one of the big law buildings.
+Nothing like looking prosperous at the start.  Guess I 'll drop
+down-town right after breakfast and see what can be had."
+
+Donaldson didn't have the heart to check him.  Later on he would write
+him a letter sustaining him in his project and recommending him to a
+classmate of his, to whom this partnership would be a godsend, as, a
+week ago, it would have been to himself.  That was the best he could
+think of at the moment and so he let him rattle on.
+
+As soon as they had finished breakfast Arsdale was off.
+
+"I 'll leave you two to hunt out new stars as long as that occupation
+does n't seem to bore you.  I 'll be back for dinner."
+
+Miss Arsdale looked a bit worried and questioned Donaldson with her
+eyes.
+
+"He 'll be all right," the latter assured her.  "Good Lord, a man with
+an idea like that is safe anywhere.  It's the best thing in the world
+for him."
+
+A little later Donaldson went up-stairs to his room.  He took out his
+wallet and counted his money.  He had over four hundred dollars.  At
+noon forty-eight hours would be remaining to him.  He still had the
+ample means of a millionaire for his few needs.
+
+He was as cool as a man computing what he could spend on a summer
+vacation.  He was not affected in the slightest by the details of death
+or by the mere act of dying itself.  He was of the stuff which in a
+righteous cause leads a man to face a rifle with a smile.  He would
+have made a good soldier.  The end meant nothing horrible in itself.
+It meant only the relinquishing of this bright sky and that still
+choicer gift below.
+
+He rose abruptly and came down-stairs again to the girl, impatient at
+being away from her a minute.  She was waiting for him.
+
+"This," he said, "is to be our holiday.  I think we had better go into
+the country.  I should like to go back to Cranton.  Is it too far?"
+
+"Not too far," she answered.  "But the memories of the bungalow--"
+
+"I had forgotten about that.  It does n't count with the green fields,
+does it?  We can avoid the house, but I should like to visit the
+orchard and ride behind the old white horse again."
+
+"I am willing," she replied.
+
+"Then you will have to get ready quickly."
+
+They had just time to catch the train and before they knew it they were
+there.
+
+The old white horse was at the little land-office station to meet them
+for all the world as though he had been expecting them, and so, for
+that matter, were the winding white road, the stile by the lane, and
+the orchard itself.  It was as though they had been waiting for them
+ever since their last visit and were out ready to greet them.
+
+The driver nodded to them as if they were old friends.
+
+"Guess ye did n't find no spooks there after all," he remarked.
+
+"Not a spook.  Any more been seen there since?"
+
+"H'ain't heern of none.  Maybe ye took off the cuss."
+
+"I hope so."
+
+They dismissed the driver at the lane and then went back a little way
+so as to avoid the bungalow.  Donaldson was in the best of spirits, for
+at the end of the first hour he had solaced himself with the belief
+that Arsdale had been mistaken in his statement.  She was nothing but a
+glad hearted companion in look and speech.  They sat down a moment in
+the orchard and he was very tender of her, very careful into what trend
+he let their thoughts run.  But soon he moved on again.  He needed to
+be active.  It was the walk back through the fields to which he had
+looked forward.
+
+They brushed through the ankle-deep grass, pausing here and there to
+admire a clump of trees, a striking sky line, or a pretty slope.
+
+To Donaldson it did not seem possible that this could ever end, that
+any act of nature could blot this from his mind as though it had never
+been.  It was unthinkable that through an eternity he should never know
+again the meaning of blue sky, of blossoms, of such profligate pictures
+as now met his eye at every step, but above all, that he should be
+blind to the girl herself and all for which she stood.  No matter how
+long the journey he was about to take, no matter through what new
+spheres, these things must remain if anything at all of him remained.
+So his one thought was to fill himself as full of this day as possible,
+to crowd into his flagging brain the many pictures of her and this
+setting which so harmonized with her.  The deeper joys of love he might
+not know, save as his silent heart conjured them, but all that he could
+see with his eyes should be his.  He would fill his soul so full of
+light that the unknown trail would be less dark to him.  He would carry
+with him for torches the sun and her bright eyes.
+
+"Let's go back as the crow flies," he suggested.  "'Cross country--over
+hill and dale.  We must n't turn out for anything," he explained, "we
+must go crashing through things--trampling them down."
+
+"My," she cried, mocking his fierceness--little realizing the emotion
+to which they gave vent, "my, things had better look out!"
+
+He paused, caught his breath, and turned to her, an almost terrified
+smile about his tense mouth.
+
+"Oh, little comrade, you 'd best let me be serious."
+
+"No, no.  Not to-day.  Let us be as glad as we can,--let us celebrate."
+
+"Celebrate what?" he demanded, lest she might think that he had
+confessed his thoughts to her.
+
+"Spring," she answered, with a laugh that came from deep within her big
+happy heart.  "Just spring."
+
+"Then we must n't trample down anything?" he queried.
+
+"Nothing that we can help.  But we can take the straight course just
+the same.  We 'll turn aside for the flowers and little trees."
+
+"And nothing else."
+
+"Nothing else," she agreed.
+
+He led the way, his shoulders drooping a trifle and his step not so
+light as her step.  She could have trodden upon violets without harm to
+them.  Still, he marched with a sturdiness that was commendable
+considering the load he carried.  They made their way down through the
+orchard and over the sun-flecked grass until they encountered their
+first obstacle.  It was a stone wall made out of gray field rocks.  He
+gave her his hand.  The fingers clung to his like a child's fingers.
+Their warm, soft caress went to his head like wine so that for a
+moment, as she stood near him, it was a question whether or not he
+could resist drawing her into his arms which throbbed for her.  He
+spoke nothing; she spoke nothing.  There was no boldness in her, nor
+any struggle either.  With her head thrown back a little, she waited.
+So for ten seconds they stood, neither moving.  Then he motioned and
+she jumped lightly to the ground.  He led the way and they took up
+their march again, though once behind him she found it difficult to
+catch her breath again.
+
+They moved on down the green hill, across a field, ankle deep in new
+grass, into the heavier green of the low lands.  So they came to a
+meadow brook running shallow over a pebbly bottom but some five yards
+wide.  There were no stepping stones, but a hundred rods to the right a
+small foot bridge crossed.
+
+Again she waited to see what he would do, while he waited to see what
+he would dare.  With his heart aching in his throat he challenged
+himself.  It was asking superhuman strength of him to venture his lips
+so near the velvet sheen of her cheeks--he who so soon was going out
+with a hungry heart.  Her arms would be about his neck--that would be
+something to remember at the end--her arms about his neck.  He knew
+that she expected him in even so slight a thing as this to keep true to
+his undertaking and march straight ahead.  She realized nothing of the
+struggle which checked him.  Tragic triviality--the problem of how to
+cross a brook with a maid!  There was but one way even when it involved
+the mauling of a man's heart.
+
+He held out his arms to her and she came to them quite as simply as she
+had taken his proffered hand at the wall.  He placed one arm about her
+waist and another about her skirts.  She clasped her fingers behind his
+neck and sat up with as little embarrassment as though riding upon a
+ferry.
+
+He lifted her and the act to him was as though he had condensed a
+thousand kisses into one.  He walked slowly.  This was a brief span
+into which to crowd a lifetime of love.  In the middle of the brook he
+stopped--just a second, to mark the beginning of the end--and then went
+on again.  When he set her down he was breathing heavily.  She had
+become a bit self-conscious.  Her cheeks were aflame.
+
+Her low black shoes with their big silk bows tied pertly below her trim
+ankles were a goodly sight to see against the green grass as he might
+have observed had he looked at them at all.  But he did n't.  He wiped
+his moist forehead as though, instead of a dainty armful, she had been
+a burden.
+
+She shook the wrinkles from her skirt and looked up at him laughing.
+Then she frowned.
+
+"Mr. Donaldson," she scolded, "you walked across there with your shoes
+and stockings on."
+
+"Why, that's so," he exclaimed, looking down at his water-logged shoes
+as though in as great surprise as she herself.
+
+"What are you going to do about it?"
+
+"I don't know," he answered helplessly.
+
+"You ought to spread them out in the sun to dry."
+
+"You can't spread out shoes, can you?  Besides we have n't time.  We
+must hurry right on.  Right on, this minute," he added as the motherly
+concern in her face set his throat to aching again.
+
+With the stride of a pioneer he led off, praying that they might not
+find in their path another brook.  For a stretch of a mile, he pressed
+on without once looking around, taking a faster pace than he realized.
+The course was a fairly smooth one over an acre or so of pasture,
+through a strip of oak woods, and up a stiff slope.  It was not until
+he reached the top of this that he paused.  He looked around and saw
+her about halfway up the hill, climbing heavily, her eyes upon the
+ground.  Even as he watched her, he saw her sway, catch herself, and
+push on again without even looking up.  It was the act of a woman
+almost exhausted.  He reached her side in a couple of strides.  He
+tried to take her arm but she broke free of him and in a final spurt
+reached the top of the hill and threw herself upon the ground to catch
+her breath.
+
+"I did n't realize how fast I was going," he apologized kneeling by her
+side.  "That was unpardonable, but why did n't you call to me?"
+
+She removed her hat.  Then she leaned back upon her hands until she
+could speak evenly.  A light breeze loosened a brown curl and played
+with it.
+
+"Why did n't you call to me?"
+
+"Because I wished to keep pace with you."  He turned away from her.
+
+"When you are rested we will start again," he said.
+
+"Are you ready?" she asked.
+
+He nodded.
+
+"Then I am ready."
+
+"You will take my arm?"
+
+"No," she answered.
+
+"Then you must keep by my side where I can watch you."
+
+They took the remaining distance in more leisurely fashion, now
+realizing that they were nearing the outskirts of this fairy kingdom.
+With this thought he relaxed a little and instantly the sun and
+burgeoning nature claimed him, making light of every problem save the
+supreme one of bringing together a man and his mate.
+
+They crossed a field or two and so came again into the road which they
+had left three miles back.  Walking a short distance along this, they
+found themselves on a sharp hill overlooking the station a few hundred
+yards below.  With the same impulse they turned back far enough to be
+out of sight of this.  Twenty minutes still remained to them.  They sat
+down by the side of the road where they had rested before.  A light
+breeze pushing through the top of a big pine made a sound as of running
+water in the distance.
+
+With her chin in one hand, elbow on knee, she studied him a moment as
+though endowed with sudden inspiration.  A quick frown which had
+shadowed his face at sight of the railroad had driven home a suspicion
+which she had long held.  Now she dared to voice it.
+
+"Have things been mixed up for you--back there?"
+
+The question startled him.  He gave her a swift look as though to
+divine the reason for it.  It was so direct that it was hard to evade.
+And he would not lie directly to her.  So he replied bluntly,
+
+"Yes."
+
+She waited.  He saw her expectant eyes, but he went no further.  Part
+of the price he paid for being here was renunciation of the balm he
+might have in the sharing of his trouble with her.  He knew that she
+would take his silence for a rebuff, but he could not help that.  He
+said nothing more, the silence eating into him.
+
+But something stronger than her pride drove her on.
+
+"Mr. Donaldson," she said, "you have given a great deal of time to me
+and mine--if there is anything I may do in return, you will give me the
+privilege?"
+
+"There is nothing," he answered.
+
+He saw the puzzled hurt in her eyes.
+
+"I know all that you with your big heart would do for me," he declared
+earnestly, "but honestly there is nothing possible.  My worry will cure
+itself.  I can see the end of it even now."
+
+"Will the end of it come within a month?"
+
+"Within a week."
+
+"Perhaps," she said, "I could hasten the end to a day."
+
+"No," he smiled, "I 'd rather you would n't.  I 'd rather you would
+prolong it if you could."
+
+"Is that a riddle?"
+
+"To you."
+
+"Then I can't answer it for I never guessed one in my life."
+
+So with his knuckles kneading the grass by his side, he made light of
+it until she turned away from the subject to admire the blue seen
+through the pine needles above their heads.
+
+Soon he heard the distant low whistle of the engine which was coming
+for them like a sheriff with a warrant.
+
+He was not conscious of very much more until they were back again in
+the house and he heard Arsdale's voice,
+
+"I 've rented the offices, old man!  Swellest in the city.  To-morrow
+you must come down and see them!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+_Clouds_
+
+Arsdale was somewhere about the house and Elaine had gone up-stairs
+when Donaldson, who had come out-doors to smoke, saw a man with broad
+shoulders and a round unshaven face step from a cab, push through the
+hedge gate, and come quickly up the path.  He watched him with
+indifferent interest, until in the dusk he recognized the stubborn
+mouth which gripped a cigar as a bull-dog hangs to a rag.  Then he
+hurried forward with hand extended.
+
+"Good Lord, Saul," he exclaimed, "where did you drop from?"
+
+"Hello, Don.  I rather hoped that I might run across you here."
+
+"I 'm ashamed of myself," answered Donaldson guiltily.  "I did n't
+notify you that we had found him.  But the last I heard of you, you
+were out of town."
+
+"Oh, that's all right.  Tung gave me the whole story."
+
+"The rat!  He made a lot of trouble for us."
+
+"And for me, too."
+
+"Still working on the Riverside robberies?"
+
+Saul glanced up quickly.  Then looking steadily into Donaldson's eyes
+as though the reply had some significance he answered,
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I wish you luck.  And say, old man, I 've worried since for fear lest
+you lost a good opportunity for a hot scent the time I kept you out."
+
+"I did.  But I picked it up again by chance."
+
+"You did?  Have you caught the man?"
+
+"No," answered Saul abstractedly.  "Not yet."
+
+He chewed the stub of his cigar a moment, glancing frequently at the
+house.
+
+"Say," he asked abruptly, "come down the road here a piece with me,
+will you?"
+
+Saul led him to the street and far enough away from the cab so that
+their conversation could not be overheard, yet near enough to the
+electric light for him to see Donaldson's face clearly.
+
+"I want you to tell me something about young Arsdale," he began.  "Is
+he in the house there now?"
+
+"Yes.  And happy as a clam at high water."
+
+"Has he talked any since he came back?"
+
+"Talked?  He's clear-headed enough, if that is what you mean?"
+
+"Has he appeared at all worried--as though he had something on his
+mind?"
+
+"Not in the slightest  He's taken such a new grip on himself that the
+last few days are almost blotted out.  You 'd never know him for the
+same boy, Saul.  He's quit the dope for good."
+
+"So?  Remorse!"
+
+"Not the kind of remorse you mean, Beefy.  This is the real thing."
+
+Saul thought a moment.  Then he asked,
+
+"You told me, did n't you, that he had no money with him that night?"
+
+"Not more than a dollar or so."
+
+"He spent a lot at Tung's."
+
+"The heathen probably robbed him of it!"
+
+"Yes, but where did Arsdale get it?"
+
+Donaldson started.  There was something ominous in the question.  But
+he could n't recount to Saul that disgraceful attack the boy had made
+upon his sister when returning for funds.  It wouldn't be fair to the
+present Arsdale.
+
+"I don't know," he answered.  "What have you up your sleeve, Beefy?"
+
+"Something bad," replied Saul bluntly.  He lowered his voice: "It is
+beginning to look as though your young friend might know something
+about the robberies that have been taking place around here."
+
+"What!"
+
+If an earthquake had suddenly shattered the stone house behind the
+hedge, it would have left him no more dazed.
+
+"I won't say that we 've got him nailed," Saul hastened to explain,
+"but it begins to look bad for him."
+
+"But, man dear," gasped Donaldson, "he is n't a thug!  He isn't--"
+
+"If he 's like the others he 's anything when he wants his smoke.  I
+'ve seen more of them than you."
+
+"Saul," he said, "you 're dead wrong about this!  You 've made a
+horrible mistake!"
+
+"Perhaps.  But he 'll have to explain some things."
+
+Donaldson took a grip on himself.
+
+"What's the nature of your evidence?"
+
+"There 's the question of where he got his funds, first; then the fact
+that all the attacks took place within a small radius of this house;
+then the motive, and finally the fact, that in a general way he answers
+to the description given by four witnesses.  He 'll have to take the
+third degree on that, anyway."
+
+The third degree would undoubtedly kill the boy, or, worse, break his
+spirit and drive him either to a mad-house or the solace of his drug.
+It was a cruel thing to confront him with this at such a point in his
+life.  It was fiendish, devilish.  It was possible that they might even
+make the boy believe that in his blind madness he actually did commit
+these crimes.  Then, as in a lurid moving picture, Donaldson recalled
+the uneasiness of the girl; the morning papers with their glaring
+headlines of the Riverside robberies, which he had found that morning
+scattered about the floor; her fear of the police, and the mystery of
+the untold story at which she had hinted.  Take these, and the fact
+that in his madness Arsdale had actually made an attack upon the girl
+and upon himself, similar to those outside the house, and the chain was
+a strong one.  The pity of it--coming now!
+
+Yes, it was in this that the cruel injustice lay.  Even admitting the
+boy to be guilty, it was still an injustice.  The man who had done
+those things was outside the pale of the law; he was no more.  Arsdale
+himself, Arsdale the clean-minded young man with a useful life before
+him, Arsdale with his new soul, had no more to do with those black
+deeds than he himself had.  Yet that lumbering Juggernaut, the Law,
+could not take this into account.  The Law did not deal with souls, but
+bodies.
+
+To this day--what a hideous climax!
+
+Saul detected the fear in Donaldson's eyes,
+
+"You know something about this, Don!" he asked eagerly.
+
+He was no longer a friend; he was scarcely a man; he was a hound who
+has picked up his trail.  His eyes had narrowed; his round face seemed
+to grow almost pointed.  He chewed his cigar end viciously.  He was
+alert in every nerve.
+
+"You'd better loosen up," he warned, "it's all right to protect a
+friend, but it can't be done in a case of this sort.  You as a lawyer
+ought to know that.  It can't be done."
+
+"Yes, I know, I know.  But I want to tell you again that you 're dead
+wrong about this.  You haven't guessed right, Beefy."
+
+"That's for others to decide," he returned somewhat sharply.  "It 's up
+to you to tell what you know."
+
+"It's hard to do it--it's hard to do it to you."
+
+Donaldson's face had suddenly grown blank--impassive.  The mouth had
+hardened and his whole body stiffened almost as it does after death.
+When he spoke it was without emotion and in the voice of one who has
+repeated a phrase until it no longer has meaning.
+
+"I realize how you feel," Saul encouraged him, "but there's no way out
+of it."
+
+"No, there's no way out of it.  So I give myself up!"
+
+"But it is n't you I want,--it's Arsdale."
+
+"No, I guess it's I.  See how your descriptions fit me."
+
+Saul pressed closer.
+
+"What the devil do you mean?" he demanded.
+
+"Just this," answered Donaldson dully, "I can't see an innocent man go
+to jail."
+
+To his mind Arsdale was as innocent to-day as though not a shadow of
+suspicion rested upon him.
+
+"Are you mad?"
+
+"Not yet," answered Donaldson.
+
+Saul waited a moment.  In all his professional career he had never
+received a greater surprise than this.  He would not have believed
+enough of it to react had it not been for Donaldson's expression.  Back
+of the impassiveness he read guilt, read it in the restless shifting of
+the eyes and in the voice dead to hope.  Then he said deliberately,
+
+"I don't believe you, Don."
+
+"No?  Yet you 've got as much evidence against me as against Arsdale."
+
+"But, God A'mighty, Donaldson, why should you do such a thing?"
+
+"Why should the boy?"
+
+Saul seized his arm.
+
+"You don't tell me that you've fallen into that habit?"
+
+"Sit in a law-office and do nothing for three years, then--then,
+perhaps, you 'll understand."
+
+Saul threw away his cigar.  He studied again the thin face, the
+haggardness that comes of opium, the nervous fingers, the vacant shifty
+gaze of those on the sharp edge of sanity.  Then he lighted a fresh
+cigar and declared quietly,
+
+"I don't believe you!"
+
+"You 'll have to for the sake of those in the house.  They 've been
+good to me in there."
+
+His voice was as hard as black ice and as cold.  He looked more like a
+magnetized corpse than he did a man.
+
+"I wish," he continued evenly, "I wish I might have been knocked over
+the head before it came to this.  If I had known I had to face you, I
+would have let it come to that.  But I didn't expect this, Beefy."
+
+"If this story is on the level, you 'd better shut up," warned Saul.
+"What you say will be used against you."
+
+"Thanks for reminding me, but things have come out so wrong that I
+can't even shut up.  If you should go inside that house with the dream
+you sprang on me, you 'd drive the boy crazy and kill the girl.  The
+boy has been in a bad way, but he's all straight again now, and yet you
+might make him believe he did these jobs when out of his head.  And
+then--and then--why, it would kill them both!  That's why I could n't
+let you do it.  That's why you _must n't_ do anything like that."
+
+Saul did not answer.  He waited.
+
+"So I might as well make a clean breast of it.  Do you remember when
+the last job was?"
+
+"Last Saturday morning."
+
+"Remember where you were at that time?"
+
+"Why--that was the morning I went out with you!"
+
+"Just so," answered Donaldson, his eyes leveled over Saul's head.  "I
+hate to tell you, but--but it was necessary to do that in order to keep
+you away from headquarters."
+
+Saul reached for his throat, pushing him back a step.
+
+"You played me traitor like that?" he demanded.
+
+"It was part of the game," answered Donaldson indifferently.  Saul,
+fearful of himself, drew back.
+
+The latter tried to reason it out.  A man can change a good deal in a
+year, but even with opium it seemed impossible for Donaldson so to
+abuse a friendship.  But he was checked in his recollection of the man
+as he had known him by the memory of that very morning.  He had been
+suspicious even then that something was wrong.  Donaldson had appeared
+nervous and altered.
+
+"Donaldson," he burst out, "I 'd give up my rank to be out of this
+mess."
+
+He added impulsively,
+
+"Tell me it's all a damned lie, Don!"
+
+"No," replied Donaldson, "the sooner it's over the better.  I 'm all
+through now."
+
+Still Saul hesitated.  But there seemed nothing left.
+
+"Come on," he growled.
+
+Donaldson followed him to the cab.  He was like a man too tired to care.
+
+"Had n't you better make up some sort of a story for them in there?"
+asked Saul, with a jerk of his head towards the house.
+
+"That's so," answered Donaldson.  "Will you trust me for a few minutes?"
+
+"Take your time," said Saul.
+
+Donaldson went back up the path and found both Arsdale and his sister
+in the library.
+
+"I 'll have to ask you to excuse me for to-night," he said.  "I 've
+just had word from a friend who wishes me to spend the night with him."
+
+They both looked disappointed.
+
+"He 's waiting out there for me now."
+
+"Perhaps you will come back later," suggested Arsdale.
+
+"Not to-night.  Perhaps in the morning.  I 'll drop you a word if I 'm
+kept longer."
+
+He spoke lightly, with no trace of anything abnormal in his bearing.
+
+"All right, but we 'll miss you," answered Arsdale.
+
+The girl said nothing but her face grew suddenly sober.
+
+They went to the door with him and watched him step into the cab.
+
+Saul had prayed that he would not return, and now looked more as though
+it were he that was being led off.  He chewed his unlighted cigar in
+silence while the other sat back in his corner with his eyes closed.
+
+Once on his way to headquarters he leaned forward, and clutching
+Donaldson's knee, repeated his cry,
+
+"Tell me it's all a lie," he begged.  "There's time yet.  I 'll hustle
+you to the train and stake you to Canada.  Just give me your word for
+it."
+
+Donaldson shook his head.
+
+"It would only come back on Arsdale, and that is n't square."
+
+"Then God help you," murmured Saul.
+
+The cab stopped before headquarters and Saul, with lagging steps, led
+his man in.  The Chief listened to the story he told with his keen eyes
+kindling like a fire through shavings.  He saw the end to the bitter
+invective heaped upon him during the last three weeks by the press.
+Then he began his gruelling cross-examination.
+
+The story Donaldson told was simple and convincing.  He had come to New
+York full of hope, had waited month after month, and had finally become
+discouraged.  In this extremity he had taken to a drug.  His relations
+with the Arsdales began less than a week ago and they knew nothing of
+him save that he had been of some assistance in helping young Arsdale
+straighten out.  Arsdale had borrowed money of him, although doubtless
+he could not remember it, and had taken it to go down to Tung's.
+Feeling a sense of responsibility for the use the boy had made of this
+money and out of regard to the sister, he had done his best to help him
+pull out.
+
+When pressed for further details of the crimes themselves, Donaldson
+admitted that his memory was very much clouded.  He had committed the
+assaults when in a mental condition that left them in his memory only
+as evil dreams.  The substantiation of this must come through his
+identification by the witnesses.  He could remember nothing of what he
+had done with the purses, or the jewels and papers which they
+contained.  He had used only the money.
+
+An officer was sent to search his rooms at the hotel, and in the
+meanwhile men were sent out to bring in the victims of the assaults.
+It was for this test that Donaldson held in check all the reserve power
+he had within him.  If his story was weak up to this point, he realized
+that this identification would substantiate it beyond the shadow of a
+doubt.  This he knew must be done in order to offset Arsdale's possible
+attempt to give himself up when he should hear of this.  As a student
+he had been impressed with the unreliability of direct evidence, and
+here would be an opportunity to test his theory that much of the
+evidence to the senses is worthless.  From the moment he had determined
+upon this course he had based his hopes upon this test.  Saul had made
+it clear that the descriptions given by the witnesses were vague, and
+now in the excitement of confronting their assailant they were apt to
+be still more unsubstantial.  If he could succeed in terrifying them,
+he could convince them to a point where they would make all their
+excited visions fit him to a hair.
+
+And so as each man was brought before him, Donaldson looked at him from
+beneath lowering brows with his mind fixed so fiercely upon the
+determination to force them to see him as the shadowy brute who had
+attacked them that he in reality looked the part.  Two of the men
+withdrew, wiping their foreheads, after making the identification
+absolute.
+
+The third witness, a woman, promptly fainted.  When she revived she
+said she was willing to take her oath that this was the man.  Not only
+was she sure of his height, weight, and complexion, but she recognized
+the same malicious gleam which flashed from the demon's eyes as he had
+stood over her.  She shivered in fright.
+
+The fourth victim was a man of fifty.  He was slower to decide, but the
+longer he stood in front of Donaldson, the surer he became.  Donaldson,
+with his arms folded, never allowed his eyes to move from the honest
+eyes of this other.  And as he looked he made a mental picture of the
+act of creeping up behind this man, of lifting his weapon, finally of
+striking.  With the act of striking, his shoulders lifted, so intense
+was his determination.
+
+The man drew back from him.
+
+"Yes," he said, "I am sure.  This is the brute."
+
+It was two hours later before Donaldson was finally handed over to the
+officers of the Tombs, and Saul turned back reluctantly to give to the
+eager reporters as meagre an outline of the story as he could.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+_When the Dead Awake_
+
+Donaldson, without removing his clothes, tumbled across his bunk and
+fell into a merciful stupor which lasted until morning.  He was aroused
+by a rough shaking and staggered to his feet to find Saul again
+confronting him.  The latter had evidently been some time at his task,
+for he exclaimed,
+
+"I thought you were dead!  You certainly sleep like an honest man."
+
+"Sleep?  Where am I?"
+
+"You are at present enjoying a cell in the Tombs.  You seem to like it."
+
+Donaldson pressed his hand to his aching eyes.  Then slowly the truth
+dawned upon him.
+
+"What day is this?" he asked.
+
+"Thursday."
+
+"Yes.  Yes.  That's so.  And to-morrow is Friday."
+
+"That's a good guess.  Do you remember what happened last night?"
+
+"Yes, I remember.  I 'm under arrest.  I remember the terror in the
+face of that woman!"
+
+Saul laughed inhumanly.
+
+"Of all the bogie men I ever saw you were the worst."
+
+"I suppose I 'll be arraigned this morning."
+
+"I doubt it, old man.  In some ways you deserve it, but I'm afraid the
+Chief won't satisfy your morbid cravings.  Remember the story you told
+him?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And you 're wide enough awake to understand what I 'm saying to you
+now?"
+
+"Perfectly," answered Donaldson, growing suspicious.
+
+"Then," exploded Saul, "I want to ask you what the devil your blessed
+game is?"
+
+"I could n't sacrifice an honest man, could I?"
+
+"Then," went on Saul with increasing vehemence, "I want to tell you
+plainly that you 're a chump, because you sacrificed an honest man
+after all."
+
+"You have n't arrested Arsdale?  Lord, Saul, you haven't done that,
+have you?"
+
+"No," answered Saul, "I was ass enough to arrest you."
+
+"It would be wrong, dead wrong, to touch the boy.  He didn't have
+anything to do with this.  There was no one with me."
+
+Saul took a long breath.
+
+"I 'm hanged if I ever saw a man _hanker_ after jail the way you do.
+And you 've got the papers full of it.  And pretty soon I 'll be
+getting frantic messages from the girl.  And you 've made all sorts of
+an ass of yourself.  Do you hear--you chump of a hero, you?"
+
+"What do you mean?" demanded Donaldson.
+
+"I mean just this; that we 've nailed the right man at last!  Got him
+with the goods on, so that we won't need the identification of a bunch
+of hysterical idiots to prove it.  We won't even need a loose-jointed
+confession, because we caught him black-handed.  But my guess wasn't
+such a bad one--it was n't Arsdale, but it was Jacques Moisson, his
+father's valet."
+
+"Jacques Moisson?"
+
+"The son of that old crone Marie there.  He caught the dope habit
+evidently from his master and has been to the bad ever since Arsdale
+senior died.  The old lady has been hiding him part of the time in the
+garret of the house."
+
+Donaldson's thoughts flew back to the bungalow; it was this fellow then
+and not Arsdale who had attacked him,--if Saul's story was true.
+
+Saul approached him with outstretched hand.
+
+"You played a heavy game, Don."
+
+Donaldson grew suspicious.
+
+"I don't know what you 're talking about," he said, his lips coming
+tightly together again.
+
+"No.  Of course not!  That's right.  Keep it up!  But I 'll have my
+revenge.  I 'll give the newspaper boys every detail of it.  I 'll see
+your name in letters six inches higher than they were even this
+morning.  I will; I swear it!"
+
+"Saul," said Donaldson quietly, "you 're doing your best to make me go
+back upon my story.  You can't do it."
+
+Saul folded his arms.
+
+"Of all the heroic liars," he gasped, his face beaming, "you 're the
+prince.  And," he continued in an undertone, "it 's all for the sake of
+a girl."
+
+Donaldson sprang to his feet.
+
+"Don't bring in _her_ name, Saul," he commanded.
+
+"All for the sake of a girl," continued Saul undisturbed.  "It took me
+some time to work it out, but now I see.  Take my hand, won't you,
+Donaldson?  I want to say God bless you for it."
+
+Donaldson hesitated.  But Saul's eyes were honest.
+
+"This is the truth you're telling me?" he trembled.
+
+"The truth," answered the other solemnly.
+
+"Then you won't touch the boy?  There is no further suspicion resting
+upon him?"
+
+"To hell with the boy!" exploded Saul.  "You 're free yourself!  Don't
+you get that?"
+
+"Yes," answered Donaldson.
+
+He passed his hand thoughtfully over his face.  Then he glanced up with
+a smile.
+
+"I need a shave, don't I?" he asked.
+
+"You sure do.  Let's get out of here.  And if I were you I 'd get back
+to her about as soon as I could.  It's early yet, so maybe she has n't
+seen the papers.  I gave the boys the real arrest, so that they could
+get out an extra on it and take the curse off the first editions.  And
+now," he added, "and now I 'm going to give them the story of their
+lives--the inside story of all this."
+
+"Don't be a chump, Beefy!"
+
+"I'll do it," answered Saul firmly.  "I'll leave out the girl but I 'll
+give them the rest.  I 've got some rights in this matter after the way
+you 've used me."
+
+"I know," he apologized, "but there didn't seem any road out of it.  If
+you 'll just keep quiet about--"
+
+"Not a word.  You 'll take your medicine.  Besides, the dear public
+will think you were crazy if they don't learn the truth."
+
+"I don't care about that, if--"
+
+"Bah!  Come on.  I 'll get you past the bunch now, but you 'll have to
+run for your life after this."
+
+Saul put him with all possible despatch through the red tape necessary
+to secure his acquittal, and then led him out by a side door.  He
+summoned a cab.
+
+"They 're waiting," he chuckled.  "Twenty of 'em with sharpened pencils
+and,--Holy Smoke,--the story!  The story!"
+
+"Forget it, Saul.  Forget it--"
+
+But Saul only pushed him into the cab and hurried back to his joyous
+mission.
+
+Donaldson ordered the driver to the Waldorf.  He must get a clean
+shave, change his clothes and get back to the Arsdale house before the
+first editions were out heralding his arrest.  If Jacques had been
+arrested at the house it was possible that the excitement might have
+prevented them from learning anything at all of his part in the mess.
+
+He found a letter from Mrs. Wentworth waiting for him.  He tore it
+open.  She wrote:
+
+"Oh, Peter Donaldson, I wish I had the gift to make you understand how
+grateful I am for all you 've done.  But I can't until you come up and
+visit us.  We reached here safely and found everything all right.  The
+deed was given to me and the money you put in the bank for me.  The
+house now is all clean and the children are playing out doors.  My
+heart is overflowing, Peter Donaldson.  It is better than anything I
+ever dreamed of here.  My prayers are with you all the time and I know
+they will be heard."
+
+So she ran on and told him all about the place and what she had already
+accomplished.  Happiness breathed like a flower's fragrance from every
+line of it, until it left him with a lump in his throat.
+
+"That is something," he said to himself as he finished it.  "It has n't
+been all waste."
+
+He went to the barber in better spirits and came back to his room to
+read the letter again.  It was like a tonic to him.  He looked from his
+window a moment, to breathe the fresh morning air.
+
+The street below him was alive once more with its eager life.  Men and
+women passed to the right and left, the blind beggar still waited at
+the corner, the world, expressed now through this one human being, had
+abated not one tittle of its activity.  The Others were still about
+him.  The pigeons still cut gray circles through the sunshine and the
+girl still waited.  As he stood there he heard the raucous cries of the
+newsboys shouting "Extra," and knew that he must go on and face this
+final crisis.  He could not delay another minute.
+
+When he reached the house he found his worst fears realized.  She was
+in the library with a crumpled paper in her hand and Arsdale was
+bending over her.  As he greeted them they both pushed back from him as
+though one of the dead had entered.  The boy was the first to recover
+himself.  He sprang to Donaldson's side with his hand out.
+
+"I told her it was n't true," he exclaimed.  "I told her it was all a
+beastly lie!"
+
+He grasped Donaldson's hand and dragged him towards his sister.
+
+"See," he cried, "see, here he is!  The papers lied about him!"
+
+The girl tottered forward.  Donaldson put out his arm and supported her.
+
+"I 'm sorry you saw the papers," he said quietly.  "I was in hopes I
+should reach here before that."
+
+"But what is the meaning of it?"
+
+"The police made a mistake, that 's all," he explained.
+
+Arsdale broke in,
+
+"We 'll sue them for it, Donaldson!  I 'll get the best legal talent in
+the country and make them sweat for this!  It's an outrage!"
+
+"I 'm sorry you saw the paper," he repeated to the girl.
+
+Her pale face and startled eyes frightened him.  She had withdrawn from
+his arm after a minute and now fell into a chair.
+
+"The blasted idiots," raged the boy.
+
+The telephone rang imperiously and Arsdale went to answer it, chewing
+invectives.
+
+Donaldson crossed to the side of the girl.
+
+"Where is Marie?" he asked.
+
+"She is in bed again.  Her poor knees are troubling her."
+
+"I have both good news and bad news for you," he said after a moment's
+hesitation, "the real assailant has been found and it is Jacques
+Moisson."
+
+The girl recoiled.
+
+"Jacques!"
+
+"So the police feel sure.  They say they caught him this morning in the
+attempt to commit another robbery.  The Arsdale curse is upon him."
+
+"Oh," she cried, "that is terrible."
+
+But as he had guessed, it was good news also.  There was no longer any
+doubt of who brought that wallet to the bungalow.  There was no longer
+the grim suspicion of who might have rifled her rooms.  The spectres
+which had seemed to be moving nearer and nearer her brother vanished
+instantly.  That burden at least was lifted from her shoulders, even
+though it was replaced by another.
+
+"Poor Marie!  Poor Marie!" she moaned.
+
+"I think she may suspect this," he said.  "But it will be better for
+you to tell her than the police."
+
+"Yes, I must go to her at once."
+
+Arsdale came to the door, his face strangely agitated.  He paused there
+a moment clinging to the curtains.  Then, almost in awe, he came
+unsteadily towards Donaldson.  The latter straightened to meet him.
+The boy started to speak, choked, and, finding Donaldson's hand, seized
+it in both his own.  Then with his eyes overflowing he found his voice.
+
+"How am I ever going to repay you for this?" he exclaimed in a daze.
+
+Elaine was at his side in an instant.
+
+"What is it, Ben?  What is it now?"
+
+"What is it?" he faltered.  "It's so much--it's so much, I can't say it
+all at once."
+
+Donaldson turned away from them both.
+
+"He," panted the boy, "he gave himself up for me.  They thought it was
+I, and he went to jail for me."
+
+"It was a mistake on their part," answered Donaldson.  "They did n't
+know."
+
+"And so you shouldered it," she whispered.
+
+"I knew it would come out all right," he faltered.
+
+"A reporter rang me up just now," ran on Arsdale.  "He told me the
+whole thing.  The papers are full of it.  They--they say you 're great,
+Donaldson, but they don't know _how_ great!"
+
+"If you would n't talk about it," pleaded Donaldson.
+
+"Talk about it?  I want to scream it!  I want to get out and stand in
+Park Row and yell it.  I want every living man and woman in the world
+to know about it!"
+
+"It's all over--it's done with!"
+
+"No," answered Arsdale, "it's just begun.  I feel weak in the knees.  I
+must go--I must be alone a minute and think this over."
+
+He staggered from the room and Donaldson turning to the girl, said
+gently, "Go to Marie now.  She will need you."
+
+"You," she exclaimed below her breath, "you are wonderful!"
+
+He turned away his head and she left him there alone.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+_The Greater Master_
+
+In the fifteen minutes that Donaldson waited in the library, he fought
+out with himself the question as to whether he had the strength to
+remain here in the house on this the day before the end.
+
+In his decision he took into account his duty towards the boy, the
+possible danger to the girl, and his own growing passion.  There was
+but one answer: he owed it to them all to pull free while there was yet
+time.  It would be foolhardy to risk here a full day and an evening.
+
+He felt the approaching crisis more than he had at any time during the
+week.
+
+At times he became panic-stricken at his powerlessness to check for
+even one brief pendulum-swing this steady tread of time.  Time was such
+an intangible thing, and yet what a Juggernaut!  There was nothing of
+it which he could get hold of to wrestle, and yet it was more powerful
+than Samson to throw him in the end.  Sly, subtle, bodiless, soulless,
+impersonal; expressed in the big clock above the city, and in milady's
+dainty watch rising and falling upon her breast; sweeping away cities
+and nursing to life violets; tearing down and building up; killing and
+begetting; bringing laughter and tears, it is consistent in one thing
+alone,--that it never ceases.  There is but one word big enough to
+express it, and that is God.  Without beginning, without end, and never
+ceasing.  At times he grew breathless, so individualized did every
+second become, so fraught with haste.  Where was he being dragged, and
+in the end would the seconds rest?  No, they would go on just the same,
+and he might hear them even in his grave.
+
+With his decision came the even more vital question as to what he
+should tell this girl.  With the strength of his whole nature he craved
+the privilege of standing white before her.  He longed to tell her the
+whole pitiful complication that he might stand before her without
+shadow of hypocrisy.  He could then leave with his head up to meet his
+doom.  But even this crumb of relief was refused him.  To do this might
+break down the boy and would leave her, if only as a friend, to bear
+something of the ensuing hours.  He must, then, leave her in darkness,
+suffering the lesser stings of doubt and suspicion and bewilderment.
+He must leave her in false colors to whatever she might imagine.
+
+She came back again with her lips quivering.
+
+"Poor Marie," she gasped.  "She lies there broken hearted, praying to
+die."
+
+"I am sorry for her," he said gently.
+
+"I feel the blame of it," she answered.  "Why must the curse of the
+house have fallen upon her?"
+
+"It is difficult to work out such matters," he replied.  "But I don't
+think you should shoulder the responsibility.  We each of us must bear
+the burden of our own acts.  It makes it even harder when another tries
+to relieve us of this."
+
+"But I can't relieve her.  That is the pity of it.  She turns away her
+head from me for she has taken upon herself all the responsibility for
+Jacques."
+
+"That is the mother in her.  There is nothing you can do."
+
+"She will die of grief."
+
+"Then she will be dead.  So her relief will come."
+
+The girl drew back a little.
+
+"She must not die.  I must not let her die."
+
+She looked up at him as though she expected him even in this emergency
+to suggest some way out of it.  But he was speechless.
+
+"I must go back to her," she said after a minute.  "I must go and
+comfort her."
+
+"Yes," he said, "that is the best you can do.  Take her hand and hold
+it.  That is all you can do.  Ben is upstairs?"
+
+"Yes.  I have n't told him yet."
+
+"Tell him," he advised.  "It will help him to have an opportunity to
+help another."
+
+"Then you will excuse me?"
+
+"Of course.  But there is something that I must tell you before you go.
+I must leave you both now."
+
+"You will come back to dinner with us?"
+
+"I 'm afraid I shall be unable.  I start on a long journey.  I must say
+good bye."
+
+She fixed her eyes upon him in a new alarm, waiting for what he should
+say next.  But that was all.  That was all he had to say.  In those two
+words, "Good bye," he bounded all that was in the past, all that was in
+the future.
+
+"You have had some sudden call?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But you will come back again.  Don't--don't make it sound so final."
+
+"I have no hope of coming back."
+
+"Oh," she cried, "I thought that now you might find a little rest."
+
+"Perhaps I shall.  I do not know.  But before I go I wish to insist
+again that you and Ben leave this house and get back into the country
+somewhere.  Don't think I am presuming, but I should feel better if I
+knew you had this in mind.  I see so clearly that it is the thing for
+you to do."
+
+"Don't speak as though you were going so far," she shuddered.  "What
+will Ben do without you?"
+
+"Get him away from these old surroundings.  Let him make
+friends--clean, wholesome friends.  Let him pursue his hobby.  There
+are other places besides New York where he is needed.  If he is kept
+busy I do not fear for him."
+
+She tried to pierce the white mask he wore.  It was quite useless.  She
+knew that there was something in him now that she could not reach.  Yet
+she felt that there was need of it.  She felt that there was need that
+she of all women in the world should force her way into his soul and
+there comfort him as he had bidden her comfort Marie.  She felt this
+with an insurge of passion that left her girlhood behind forever.  It
+swept away all thoughts of Ben, all thoughts of Marie, all thoughts of
+herself.  She heard his voice as though in the distance.
+
+"It is better," he was saying, "to be direct--to be as honest as
+possible at such a time as this.  We can't say some things very gently,
+try as we may, because they are brutal facts in themselves.  But I am
+going to tell you all I can as simply as I can.  I must leave you.  It
+is n't of my own free will that I go, though at the beginning it was.
+Now I go because I must.  Perhaps you will never again hear of me.  If
+you don't you must remember me as you know me now.  Do you understand
+that, Miss Arsdale?  You know me now as I am--as no other human being
+knows me.  Will you cling to this?"
+
+"You are to me as you are.  So you always will be."
+
+She met his eyes unflinchingly, feeling a new strength growing within
+her.  He went on:
+
+"If we cling to what we ourselves know of our friends--if we cling to
+that through thick and thin, nothing that happens to them can matter
+much.  It is that confidence which lifts our friendships beyond the
+reach of the cur snappings of circumstance.  So you, whatever you may
+hear afterwards, whatever things you find yourself unable to
+understand, must hold fast to this week.  You must say to yourself,"
+his voice grew husky, "you must say this,--'If it had been possible for
+him to do so, he would have lived out his life as I wished him to live
+it out.'"
+
+As he spoke on, it seemed to him that she, in some subtle way, was
+rising superior to him.  Instead of losing strength as she stood there
+before him, he felt her growing in power.  He had been talking to her
+as to a child, and now he suddenly found himself confronting a woman.
+She was now the dominant personality.  When she spoke to him her voice
+was firmer and possessed of a new richness.
+
+"I have heard you," she said.  "All the things you spoke are true.  Why
+are you going?"
+
+He hesitated at the direct question.
+
+"Because I must."
+
+"Why must you?"
+
+"I cannot tell you."
+
+She placed a steady hand upon his arm.
+
+"Yes.  You must tell me."
+
+"Don't tempt me like that!"
+
+He felt himself weakening.  If only he might stand before her with his
+mask off.  It meant freedom, it meant peace.  That was all he
+asked--just the privilege of standing stark white before this one woman.
+
+He turned away.  The burden was his and he must bear it, if it crushed
+his very soul into the clay.  Away from those eyes, he might be able to
+write some poor explanation.  But to put it into cold words would be
+only to force upon her the torture of the next few hours.  It was
+better for her to believe as she now saw him, as she might guess, than
+to suffer the ghastly truth and then shiver at the mud idol that was
+left.
+
+He moved back a step.
+
+"You must not look at me," he cried.  "You must keep your eyes away
+from me and--and let me go."
+
+But she followed, pressing him to the wall as they all had done.  The
+color leaped to her cheeks.  Her eyes grew big and tender.
+
+"I do not think you understand me," she said.
+
+He stood awed before what he now saw.  It was as though he were looking
+at a naked soul.
+
+"I do not think you understand," she continued, lifting her head a
+little.  "You will not go, because there can be no call so great as
+that which bids you stay."
+
+He answered, "My master is the master of us all."
+
+"Then," she returned, "I too must go to meet your master.  He must
+claim us both."
+
+"God forbid," he exclaimed.
+
+"You talk of masters," she ran on more excitedly, "and you are only a
+man.  We women have a master greater than any you know.  You taught me
+a moment ago to be direct--to be honest.  It is so I must be with you
+now.  I must be brave," her voice trembled a little, "I must stand face
+to face with you.  Oh, if you were not so unselfish--so unseeing, you
+would not make me do this!"
+
+He stood speechless--his throat aching the length of it.
+
+"You treat me like a child, when you have made me a woman!  You treat
+me like a weakling, when you have given me strength!  You tell me you
+have some great trouble and then you refuse to allow me to share it!
+Don't you see?"
+
+Her face was transfigured by pure white courage.  He trembled before
+it.  Yet he only gripped himself the firmer and stood before her
+immovable, every word she spoke leaving a red welt upon his soul.
+
+"Peter," she trembled, not in fright but because of her overflowing
+heart, "you have shown me the wonder of life during this last week.
+You have taken me by the hand and have led me out of the gray barren
+land into the flowers and perfume of the orchard.  You have done for me
+as you did for Ben.  Why should I be ashamed to say this?  I would not
+measure up to you if I kept silent now and let you go alone.  I am not
+ashamed."
+
+To himself he said,
+
+"God give me courage to stand firm."
+
+"You make it harder for me when you say nothing."
+
+"I must not listen!"
+
+"Don't keep me in the dark," she pleaded.  "Don't send me back alone
+into the dark.  It's being alone that hurts."
+
+To himself he said,
+
+"God keep me from telling her.  God keep me from letting her know of my
+love.  So it is best."
+
+"Don't you see now?"
+
+Again that phrase of his which had come back through Arsdale's lips to
+scorch him.
+
+All he could say aloud was,
+
+"I must go, and if I can, I will come back."
+
+"I mean nothing to you if I cannot help you now," she said steadily.
+"If the road were smooth to you do you think I could tell you what I
+have?  It is your need--it is your need that has given me the strength."
+
+To himself he said,
+
+"God keep my lips sealed."
+
+To her he said,
+
+"I must go."
+
+She was startled.
+
+"You remember the orchard, Peter?"
+
+"As long as I remember anything, I shall remember that."
+
+"You remember the walk straight through things?"
+
+"Yes--you at my side."
+
+"I have just taken it again--alone.  I have pressed straight through."
+
+There was a pause of a few seconds.  Then,
+
+"That is a hard thing for a woman to do."
+
+There was a longer silence.  Then she said tenderly,
+
+"You look very tired.  This day has been heavy to you.  Go up-stairs to
+your room and rest.  Then in the morning--why, in the morning we may
+both see clearer."
+
+"I can rest nowhere.  There is no rest left to me."
+
+"Ah, you look so tired," she repeated.
+
+He seized her hand and pressed it.  Then he turned abruptly towards the
+hall.  She watched him with a new fright.  He paused at the door, his
+eyes drawn back to her against his will.  She was standing there quite
+helpless, a growing pallor sweeping over her cheeks that so lately had
+been as richly red as rose leaves.
+
+"God help me hard now," he moaned.
+
+She stood before him like a marble statue.  There were no tears.
+
+"I have been very bold," she murmured.  "I can never forgive myself
+that."
+
+"You have been wonderful!" he cried.
+
+"Perhaps you had better go at once, Peter Donaldson," she said.
+
+He saw her in a blinding white light.
+
+"God keep you," he managed to say.  "God keep you forever and ever."
+
+He stumbled to the hall, found his hat, and staggered through the door.
+
+At the hedge a shadow stole out to meet him.  It was an ambitious young
+reporter.
+
+"Is this Mr. Donaldson?" he asked.
+
+"Damn you, no!" shouted Donaldson.  "Donaldson is dead!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+_The Shadow on the Floor_
+
+Donaldson toiled up the dark staircase leading to Barstow's laboratory.
+To him it was as though he were fighting his way through deep water
+reaching twenty fathoms above his head.  The air was just as cold as
+green water; it contained scarcely more life.  He felt the same sense
+of clammy, lurking things, unknown things, such as crawl along the
+slimy bottoms where rotting hulks lie.  He was impelled here by the
+same sort of fascination which is said to lead murderers back to their
+victims, yet it seemed to be the only place where he would be able to
+think at all.  It was getting back to the beginning--to the
+source--where he could start fresh.  It was here, and here alone, that
+he could write his letter to her.  Perhaps here he could make something
+out of the chaos of his thoughts.
+
+When he reached the top of the stairs, he paused before the closed
+door.  He did not expect Barstow to be in.  He hoped that he was not.
+He did not wish to face him to-day.  To-morrow perhaps--but he realized
+that if Barstow had gone on his proposed vacation he would not be back
+even then.  That did not matter either.  The single thing remaining for
+him to do was to make Elaine understand something of what his life had
+meant, what she had meant in it, what he hoped to mean to her in the
+silent future.  That must be done alone, and this of all places was
+where he could best do it.  The mere thought of his room at the hotel
+was repulsive to him.
+
+He listened at the door.  There was no sound--no sound save the
+interminable "tick-tock, tick-tock" which still haunted him through the
+pulse beats in his wrists.  He reached forward and touched the knob;
+listened again, and then turned it and pressed.  The door was locked.
+But it was a feeble affair.  Barstow had made his experimental
+laboratory in this old building to get away from the inquisitive, and
+half of the time did not take the trouble to turn the key when he left,
+for there was little of value here.
+
+He knocked on the chance that Barstow might have lain down upon the
+sofa for a nap.  Again he waited until he heard the "tick-tock,
+tick-tock" at his wrists.  Then, pressing his body close to the lock,
+he turned the knob and pushed steadily.  It weakened.  He drew back a
+little and threw his weight more heavily against it.  The lock gave and
+the door swung open.
+
+The sight of the threadbare sofa was as reassuring as the face of an
+old friend.  Yet what an eternity it seemed since he had sat there and
+discussed his barren life with Barstow.  The phrases he had used came
+back to mock him.  He had talked of the things that lay beyond his
+reach, while even then they were at his hand, had he been but hardy
+enough to seize them; he had spoken of what money could buy for him,
+with love eagerly pressing greater gifts upon him without price; he had
+hungered for freedom with freedom his for the taking.  Sailors have
+died of thirst at the broad mouth of the Amazon, thinking it to be the
+open salt sea; so he was dying in the midst of clean, sweet life.
+
+He sat down on the sofa, with his head between his hands and stared at
+the glittering rows of bottles which caught the sun.  Each one of them
+was a laughing demon.  They danced and winked their eyes--yellow, blue,
+and blood-red.  There were a hundred of them keeping step to the
+bobbing shadows upon the floor.  Row upon row of them--purple, brown,
+and blood-red--all dancing, all laughing.
+
+"You come out wrong every time," Barstow had said.
+
+And he--he had laughed back even as the bottles were doing.
+
+He was not cringing even now.  He was asking no pity, no mercy.  When
+he had stepped across the room and had taken down that bottle, he had
+been clear-headed; he had been clear-headed when he had swallowed its
+contents.  The only relief he craved for himself was to be allowed to
+remain clear-headed until he should have written his letter.  Coming up
+the stairs he feared lest this might not be.  Now he seemed to be
+steadying once more.
+
+He thought of Sandy.  Poor pup, he had gone out easily enough.  He had
+curled up on a friendly knee and gone to sleep.  That was all there had
+been to it.  It would be an odd thing, he mused, if the dog was where
+he could look down on this man-struggle.  This braced him up; he would
+not have even this dog see him die other than bravely.
+
+As far as he himself was concerned, he knew that he would go
+unflinchingly to meet his final creditor, but there were the
+Others--with Sandy there had been no Others.  It was easy enough to die
+alone, but when in addition to one's own death throes one had to bear
+those of others,--that was harder.  When he died, it would be as when
+several died.  There would be that mother in Vermont--part of her would
+die with him; there would be Saul--even part of him would die with him;
+there was Ben--some of him would die, too; and there was Elaine--good
+God, how much of her would die with him?
+
+He sprang to his feet and began to pace the stained wooden floor.  As
+he did so, a shadow crawled, from beneath the sofa and stole across the
+room like a rat.  But unlike a rat, it did not disappear into a hole;
+it came back again towards Donaldson.  He stopped.  Close to the ground
+the shadow crept nearer until he saw that it was a dog.  Then he saw
+that it was a black terrier.  Then he saw that in size, color, and
+general appearance it was the living double of Sandy.
+
+He stooped and extended his hand.  He tried to pronounce the name, but
+his lips were too dry.  The dog crouched, frightened, some three feet
+distant.  Donaldson, squatting there, watched him with straining eyes.
+Once again he tried to utter the name.  It stuck in his throat, but at
+the inarticulate cry he made, the dog wagged his tail so feebly that it
+scarcely moved its shadow.  Donaldson ventured nearer.  The dog rolled
+over to its back and held up its trembling forefeet on guard, studying
+Donaldson through half closed eyes with its head turned sideways.
+
+Donaldson put forward his trembling fingers and touched its side.  The
+dog was warm, even as Sandy had been when he first picked him up.  The
+dog feebly waved his padded paws and finally rested them upon
+Donaldson's hand.
+
+"Sandy!  Sandy!" he murmured, his voice scarcely above a whisper.
+
+The dumb mouth moved nearer to lick the man's fingers, but his
+movements were negative as far as any recognition of the name went.  It
+was just the friendly overture of any dog to any man.
+
+If he could get him to answer to the name!  It meant life--a chance for
+life!  It meant, perhaps, that there had been some mistake--that,
+perhaps, after all, the poison was not so deadly as Barstow had thought
+it.
+
+He threw himself upon the floor beside the dog.  In the body of this
+black terrier centred everything in life that a man holds most dear.
+If he could speak--if the dumb tongue could wag an answer to that one
+question!
+
+The dog turned over and crawled nearer.  Donaldson fixed his burning
+eyes upon the blinking brute.
+
+"Sandy," he cried, "is this you, Sandy?"
+
+The moist tongue reached for his fingers.
+
+He took a deep breath.  He said,
+
+"Dick--is this you, Dick?"
+
+Again the moist tongue reached for his fingers.
+
+Donaldson picked him up.
+
+"Sandy," he cried, "answer me."
+
+The dog closed his eyes as though expecting a blow.
+
+Donaldson dropped him.  The animal crawled away beneath the sofa.
+Donaldson felt more alone that minute than he had ever felt in all his
+life.  It was as though he sat there, the sole living thing in the
+broad universe.  There was nothing left but the blinking eyes of the
+bottles dancing in still brisker joy.  He could not endure it.
+
+Moving across the room he knelt by the sofa and tried to coax the
+frightened animal out again.
+
+"Sandy.  Come, Sandy," he called.
+
+There was no show of life.  He snapped his fingers.  He groped beneath
+the old lounge.  Then, in a frenzy of fear, lest it had all been an
+apparition, he swung the sofa into the middle of the room.  The dog
+followed beneath it, but he caught a glimpse of him.  He pushed the
+sofa back to the wall and began to coax again.
+
+"Come out, Sandy.  I 'll not hurt you.  Come, Sandy."
+
+There was a scratching movement and then the tip of a hot, dry nose
+appeared.
+
+"Come.  That 's a good dog.  Come."
+
+He could hear the tail vigorously thumping the floor, but the head
+appeared only inch by inch.  Donaldson held his breath.
+
+"Come," he whispered.
+
+Slowly, with the sly pretension that it demanded a tremendous physical
+effort, the dog emerged and stood shivering beneath the big hand which
+smoothed its back with cooing words of assurance.
+
+"Why, I was n't going to hurt you, Sandy," whispered Donaldson, finding
+comfort in pronouncing the name.  "I was n't going to hurt you.  We 're
+old friends.  Don't you remember, Sandy?  Don't you remember the night
+I held you?  Don't you remember that, Sandy?"
+
+The dog looked up at him moistening its own dry mouth.  In every detail
+this was the same dog he had held upon his knee while arguing with
+Barstow.  He made another test.
+
+"Mike," he called.
+
+In response the pup wagged his tail good naturedly and with more
+confidence now.
+
+Donaldson caught his breath.  Locked within that tiny brute brain was
+the secret of what waited for him on the morrow: love and the glories
+of a big life, or death and oblivion.  The answer was there behind
+those moist eyes.  But if he could reach Barstow--
+
+Here was a new hope.  He could ask him if this was Sandy, and so spare
+himself the terrors of the night to come.  He had the right to do that
+as long as he abided by the decision.  There was a telephone here, and
+he knew that Barstow lived in an up-town apartment house, so that some
+one was sure to be in.  He found the number in the battered,
+chemical-stained directory, and put in his call.  It seemed an hour
+before he received his reply.
+
+"No, sir, Mr. Barstow is away.  Any message?"
+
+"Where has he gone?" asked Donaldson dully.
+
+"He's off on a yachting cruise, sir."
+
+It would have been impossible for him to withdraw more completely out
+of reach.
+
+"When do you expect him back?"
+
+"I don't know, sir.  He said he might be gone a day or two or perhaps a
+week."
+
+"And he left?"
+
+"Last Friday--very unexpectedly."
+
+Donaldson hung up the receiver, which had grown in his hand as heavy as
+lead.  He turned back to the dog, who had jumped upon the sofa and was
+now cuddled into a corner.  He lifted his head and began to tremble
+again as Donaldson came nearer.
+
+"Still afraid of me?" he asked with a sad smile.  "Why, there is n't
+enough of me left to be afraid of, pup.  There 's only about a day of
+me left and we ought to be friends during that time."
+
+He nestled his head down upon the warm body.  The dog licked his hair
+affectionately.  The kindness went to his heart.  The attention was
+soothing, restful.  He responded to it the more, because this dog was
+to him the one thing left in the world alive.  He snuggled closer to
+the silky hide and continued to talk, finding comfort in the sound of
+his own voice and the insensate response of the warm head.
+
+"We ought to be good comrades--you and I--Sandy, because we 're all
+alone here in this old rat trap.  When a man's alone, Sandy, anything
+else in the world that's alive is his brother.  The only thing that
+counts is being alive.  Why, a fly is a better thing than the dead man
+he crawls over.  And if there be a live man, a dead man, and a fly,
+then the fly and the live man are brothers.  So you and I are brothers,
+and we must fight the devil-eyes in those bottles together."
+
+They danced before him now--yellow, blue, and blood-red.  A more
+perfect semblance of an evil gnome could not be made than the
+flickering reflection of the sunlight in the bottle of blood-red
+liquid.  It was never still.  It skipped from the bottom of the bottle
+to the top and from one side to the other, as though in drunken ecstasy.
+
+It fascinated Donaldson with the allurement of the gruesome.  It was
+such a restless, scarlet thing!  It looked as though it were trying to
+get out of its prison and in baffled rage was shooting its fangs at the
+sides, like a bottled viper.
+
+"See it, Sandy?  It's trying to get at us.  But it can't, if we keep
+together.  It's only when a man's alone that those things have any
+power.  And the little devil knows it.  If it were not for you, Sandy,
+the thing might drive me mad--might make me mad before I had written my
+letter!"
+
+He sprang to his feet in sudden passion, and the dog with all four feet
+planted stiffly on the sofa gave a sharp bark.  This broke the tension
+at once.
+
+"That's the dog," Donaldson praised him.  "When the shadows get too
+close bark at 'em like that!"
+
+The bellicose attitude of the tiny body brought a smile to Donaldson's
+mouth.  This, too, was like a bromide to shaking nerves.
+
+But in this position the dog did not so closely resemble that other dog
+which he had held upon his knee.  He looked thinner, more angular.  His
+ears were cocked like two stiff v-shaped funnels.  Now he looked like
+an older dog.  It was more reasonable to suppose, Donaldson realized,
+that Barstow had two dogs of this same breed than that a dead dog had
+come to life.
+
+"Sandy!" he called sharply.
+
+The dog wagged his stub-tail with vigor.
+
+"Spike!" he called again.
+
+The tail wagged on with undiminished enthusiasm.
+
+Donaldson passed his hand over his forehead.
+
+This was as useless as to try to solve the enigma of the Sphinx.  The
+dog's lips were sealed as tightly as the stone lips; the barrier
+between his brain and Donaldson's brain was as high as that between the
+man-chiseled image and the man who chiseled.  He was only wasting his
+time on such a task, time that he should use in the framing of his
+letter.
+
+He sat down again upon the sofa, took the dog upon his knee, and tried
+to think.  Before him the bottles danced--purple, brown, and blood-red.
+He closed his eyes.  He would begin his letter like this:
+
+"To the most wonderful woman in all the world."
+
+He would do this because it was true.  There was no other woman like
+her.  No other woman would have so helped an old man in his battle with
+himself; no other woman would have stayed on there alone in that house
+and would have helped the son in his battle with himself; no other
+woman would have followed him as she had wished to do and help him
+fight his battle with himself.  But she was the most wonderful woman in
+the world because of the white courage she had shown in standing before
+him and telling of her love.  The eyes of her--the glory in her
+hair--the marvel in her cheeks--the smile of her!
+
+He opened his eyes.  The devil in the bottle directly in front of him
+was more impish than it had been at all.  Donaldson rose.  The pup
+rolled to the floor.  Donaldson crossed the room, picked out the
+bottle, drew back his arm, and hurled it against the wall, where it
+broke into a thousand pieces.  It left a gory-looking blotch where it
+struck.  He went back to the sofa.  The dog crept to his side again.
+Before him a devil danced in a purple bottle.  He closed his eyes.
+
+He would begin his letter, then, like that.  He would go on to tell her
+that he was unable to compute his life save in terms of her, that it
+had its beginning in her, grew to its fulness through her, and now had
+reached its zenith in her.  At the brook when he had clasped her in his
+arms, he had drunk one deep draught of her.
+
+He lost himself in one hot love phrase after another.  He poured out
+his soul in words he had left unspoken to her.  He was back again
+before the fire, telling her all that he did not tell her then.  One
+gorgeous image after another swarmed to his brain.  He was like a poet
+gone mad.  He crowded sentence upon sentence, superlative upon
+superlative, until he found himself upon his feet, his cheeks hot, and
+his breath coming short.  Then he caught sight of the crimson stain
+upon the wall and felt himself a murderer.  He staggered back and threw
+himself full-length upon the couch, panting like one at the end of a
+long run.  He lay here very quietly.
+
+The dog crawled to his side and licked the hair at his hot temple.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+_On the Brink_
+
+Donaldson was aroused by the dog which was at the door barking
+excitedly.  It was broad daylight.  As Donaldson sprang up he heard the
+brisk approach of footsteps, and the next second a key fumbling in the
+lock.  Before he had fully recovered his senses the door swung open,
+and Barstow, tanned and ruddy, burst in.  Donaldson stared at him and
+he stared at Donaldson.  Then, striding over the dog, who yelped in
+protest at this treatment, Barstow approached the haggard, unshaven man
+who faced him.
+
+"Good Heavens, Peter!" he cried, "what ails you?"
+
+Donaldson put out his hand and the other grasped it with the clasp of a
+man in perfect health.
+
+"Can't you speak?" he demanded.  "What's the matter with you?"
+
+"I 'm glad to see you," answered Donaldson.
+
+"But what are you doing here in this condition?  Are you sick?"
+
+"No, I 'm not sick.  I lay down on the sofa and I guess I fell asleep."
+
+"You look as though you had been sleeping there a month.  Sit down,
+man.  You have a fever."
+
+"There 's your dog," said Donaldson.
+
+Barstow turned.  The dog, with his forefeet on Barstow's knee, was
+stretching his neck towards his master's hand.
+
+"Hello, pup," he greeted him.  "Did the janitor use you all right?"  He
+shook him off.
+
+Donaldson sat down.  Barstow stood in front of him a moment and then
+reached to feel his pulse.  It was normal.
+
+"I 'm not sick, I tell you," said Donaldson, trying to laugh, "I was
+just all in.  I came up here to see if you were back and slumped down
+on the couch.  Then I fell asleep.  There 's your dog behind you."
+
+"What of it?" demanded Barstow.
+
+"Why--he looks glad to see you."
+
+"What of that?"
+
+"Nothing."
+
+Barstow laid his hand on Donaldson's shoulder.
+
+"Have you been drinking?" he asked.
+
+"Drinking?  No, but I've a thirst a mile long.  Any water around here?"
+
+Barstow went to the closet and came back with a graduating glass full
+of lukewarm water.  Donaldson swallowed it in a couple of gulps.
+
+"Lord, that's good!"
+
+Barstow again bent a perplexed gaze upon him.
+
+"You have n't been fooling with any sort of dope, Peter?"
+
+"No."
+
+"This is straight?"
+
+"Yes, that's straight," answered Donaldson impatiently.  "I tell you
+that there is n't anything wrong with me except that I 'm fagged out."
+
+"You did n't take my advice.  You ought to have gone away.  Why did n't
+you?"
+
+"I 've been too busy.  There's your dog."
+
+Barstow hung down his hand, that the pup might lick the ends of his
+fingers.
+
+"Peter," he burst out, "you ought to have been with me.  If I 'd known
+about the trip I 'd have taken you.  It was just what you needed--a
+week of lolling around a deck in the hot sun with the sea winds blowing
+over your face.  That's what you want to do--get out under the blue sky
+and soak it in.  If you don't believe it, look at me.  Fit as a fiddle;
+strong as a moose.  You said you wanted to sprawl in the sunshine,--why
+the devil don't you take a week off and do it?"
+
+"Perhaps I will."
+
+"That's the stuff.  You must do it.  You were in bad shape when I left,
+but, man dear, you 're on the verge of a serious breakdown now.  Do you
+realize it?"
+
+"Yes, I realize it.  That 's a good dog of yours, Barstow."
+
+"What's the matter with the pup?  Seems to me you 're taking a deuce of
+a lot of interest in him," he returned suspiciously.
+
+"Dogs seem sort of human when you 're alone with them."
+
+"This one looks more human than you do.  See here, Don, Lindsey said
+that he might start off again to-morrow on a short cruise to Newport.
+I think I can get you a berth with him.  Will you go?"
+
+"It's good of you, Barstow," answered Donaldson uneasily, "but I don't
+like to promise."
+
+Would Barstow never call the dog by name?  He could n't ask him
+directly; it would throw too much suspicion upon himself.  If Barstow
+had left his laboratory that night for his trip, the chances were that
+the bottle was not yet missed.  He must be cautious.  It would be
+taking an unfair advantage of Barstow's friendship to allow him to feel
+that indirectly he had been responsible for the death of a human being.
+Donaldson glanced at his watch.
+
+It had stopped.
+
+"What time is it?" he asked.
+
+"Half past nine."
+
+Two hours and a half longer!  He determined to remain here until
+eleven.  If, up to that time, Barstow had not called the dog by name he
+would leave.  He must write that letter and he must put himself as far
+out of reach of these friends as possible before the end.  If he died
+on the train, his body would be put off at the next station and a local
+inquest held.  The verdict would be heart disease; enough money would
+be found in his pocket to bury him; and so the matter would be dropped.
+
+"I want you to promise, Don," ran on Barstow, "for I tell you that it's
+either a rest or the hospital for you.  You have nervous prostration
+written big all over your face.  I know how hard it is to make the
+initial effort to pull out when your brain is all wound up, but you 'll
+regret it if you don't.  And you 'll like the crowd, Don.  Lindsey is a
+hearty fellow, who hasn't anything to do but live--but he does that
+well.  He's clean and square as a granite corner-stone.  It will do you
+good to mix in with him.
+
+"And his boat is a corker!  He spent a quarter of a million on it, and
+he 's got a French cook that would make a dead man eat.  He 'll put fat
+on your bones, Don, and Lindsey will make you laugh.  You don't laugh
+enough, Don.  You 're too serious.  And if you have such weather as we
+'ve had this week you 'll come back with a spirit that will boost your
+law practice double."
+
+He felt of Donaldson's arm.  It was thin and flabby.
+
+"Good Heavens--here, feel of mine!"
+
+Donaldson grasped it with his weak fingers.  It was beastly thick and
+firm.
+
+"What time is it?" he asked.
+
+"It is twenty minutes of ten.  Is time so important to you?"
+
+"I must get down-town before long."
+
+"Rot!  Why don't you drop your business here and now.  Let things rip."
+
+"Where 's the dog?" demanded Donaldson.  The pup was out of sight.  He
+felt strangely frightened.  He got up and looked all about the room.
+
+"Where 's he gone?" he demanded again.
+
+Barstow grasped him by the shoulder.
+
+"You must pull yourself together," he said seriously.  "You 're heading
+for a worse place than the hospital."
+
+"But where the devil has he gone?  He was here a minute ago, was n't
+he?"
+
+"Easy, easy," soothed Barstow.  "Hold tight!"
+
+"Find him, won't you, Barstow?  Won't you find him?"
+
+To quiet him Barstow whistled.  The dog pounded his tail on the floor
+under the lounge.
+
+"He 's under there," said Barstow.
+
+"Get him out--get him out where I can see him, won't you?"
+
+Barstow stooped.
+
+"Come, Sandy, come," he called.
+
+Donaldson leaped forward.
+
+"What did you call him?" he demanded as Barstow staggered back.
+
+"Have you gone mad?" shouted Barstow.
+
+"What did you call him?" repeated Donaldson fiercely.  "Tell me what
+you called him?"
+
+"I called him Sandy.  Control yourself, Don.  If you let yourself go
+this way--it's the end."
+
+"The end?" shouted Donaldson.  "Man, it 's the beginning!  It's just
+the beginning!  Sandy--Sandy did n't die after all!"
+
+"Oh, that's what's troubling you," returned Barstow with an air of
+relief.  "Why did n't you tell me?  You thought the dead had risen, eh?
+No, the stuff didn't work.  The dog only had an attack of acute
+indigestion from overeating.  But Gad, the coincidence _was_ queer,
+when you stop to think of it.  I 'd forgotten you left before he came
+to."
+
+"Then," cried Donaldson excitedly, "you did n't have any poison after
+all!"
+
+"No.  I was so busy on more important work that my experiments with
+that stuff must all of them have been slipshod.  But it did look for a
+minute as though Sandy here had proven it.  But, Lord,--it was n't the
+poison that did for him--it was his week.  His week was too much for
+him!"
+
+"Give me your hand, Barstow.  Give me your hand.  I 'm limp as a rag."
+
+"That's your nerves again.  If you were normal, the mere fact that you
+thought you saw a spook dog would n't leave you in this shape.  Come
+over here and sit down."
+
+"Get me some water, old man--get me a long, long drink."
+
+When Barstow handed him the glass, which must have held a pint,
+Donaldson trembled so that he could hold it to his lips only by using
+both hands, as those with palsy do.  He swallowed it in great gulps.
+He felt as though he were burning up inside.  The room began to swim
+around him, but with his hands kneading into the old sofa he warded off
+unconsciousness.  He must not lose a single minute in blankness.  He
+must get back to her--get back to her as soon as he could stand.  She
+was suffering, too, though in another way.  He must not let another
+burning minute scorch her.
+
+"Perhaps you 'll take my advice now," Barstow was saying, "perhaps you
+were near enough the brink that time to listen to me.  Tell me I may
+ring up Lindsey--tell me now that you 'll go with him."
+
+"Go--away?  Go--out to sea?" cried Donaldson.
+
+"Yes.  To-morrow morning."
+
+"Why, Lord, man!  Lord, man!" he panted, "I--would n't leave New
+York--I would n't go out there--for--for a million dollars."
+
+"You damned ass!" growled Barstow.
+
+"I--I would n't--go, if the royal yacht--of the King of England were
+waiting for me."
+
+"Some one ought to have the authority to put you in a strait-jacket and
+carry you off.  I tell you you 're headed for the madhouse, Don!"
+
+Donaldson staggered to his feet.  He put his trembling hands on
+Barstow's shoulders.
+
+"No," he faltered, "no, I 'm headed for life, for life, Barstow!  You
+hear me?  I 'm headed for a paradise right here in New York."
+
+Barstow felt baffled.  The man was in as bad a way as he had ever seen
+a man, but he realized the uselessness of combatting that stubborn
+will.  There was nothing to do but let him go on until he was struck
+down helpless.  From the bottom of his heart be pitied him.  This was
+the result of too much brooding alone.
+
+"Peter," he said, "the loneliest place in this world is New York.  Are
+you going to let it kill you?"
+
+"No!  It came near it, but I 've beaten it.  I 'm bigger now than the
+dear old merciless city.  It's mine--down to every dark alley.  I 've
+got it at my feet, Barstow.  It is n't going to kill me, it's going to
+make me grow.  It is n't any longer my master--it's a good-natured,
+obedient servant.  New York?" he laughed excitedly.  "What is New York
+but a little strip of ground underneath the stars?"
+
+"That would sound better if your eyes were clearer and your hand
+steadier."
+
+"You 'd expect a man to be battered up a little, would n't you, after a
+hard fight?  I 've fought the hardest thing in the world there is to
+fight--shadows, Barstow, shadows--with the King Shadow itself at their
+head."
+
+Was the man raving?  It sounded so, but Donaldson's eyes, in spite of
+their heaviness, were not so near those of madness as they had been a
+moment ago.  The startled look had left his face.  Every feature stood
+out brightly, as though lighted from within.  His voice was fuller, and
+his language, though obscure, more like that of the old Donaldson.
+Barstow was mystified.
+
+"Had n't you better lie down here again?" he suggested.
+
+"I must go, now.  What--what time is it, old man?"
+
+"Five minutes past ten."
+
+Donaldson took a deep breath.  Time--how it stretched before him like a
+flower-strewn path without end.  He heard the friendly tick-tock at his
+wrists.  The minutes were so many jewel boxes, each containing the
+choice gift of so many breaths, so many chances to look into her eyes,
+so many chances to fulfil duties, so many quaffs of life.
+
+"My watch has run down," he said, with curious seriousness.  "I 'm
+going to wind it up again.  I 'm going to wind it up again, Barstow."
+
+He proceeded to do this as though engaged in some mystic rite.
+
+"May I set it by your watch?  I 'd like to set it by your watch,
+Barstow."
+
+He adjusted the hands tenderly, again as though it were the act of a
+high priest.
+
+"Now," he said, "it's going straight.  I shall never let the old thing
+run down again.  I think it hurts a watch, don't you, Barstow?"
+
+"Yes," answered the latter, amazed at his emphasis upon such
+trivialities.
+
+"Now," he said, "I must hurry.  Where's my hat?  Oh, there it is.  And
+Sandy--where's Sandy?"
+
+The dog crawled out at once at the sound of his name, and he stooped to
+pet him a moment.
+
+"I don't suppose you 'd sell Sandy, would you, Barstow?"
+
+"I 'll give him to you, if you 'll take him off.  I have n't a fit
+place to keep him."
+
+"May I take him now?  May I take him with me?"
+
+"Yes--if you'll come back to me to-morrow and report how you are."
+
+"I 'll do it.  I 'll be here to-morrow."
+
+He cuddled the dog into his arm and held out his hand.
+
+"Don't worry about me, old man.  Just a little rattled that's all.  But
+fit as a fiddle; strong as a moose, even if I don't look it as you do!"
+
+Barstow took his hand, and when Donaldson left, stood at the head of
+the stairs anxiously watching him make his way to the street, hugging
+the dog tightly to his side.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+_The End of the Beginning_
+
+When Donaldson appeared at the door of the Arsdale house he was
+confronted by Ben whose eyes were afire as though he had been drinking.
+Before he could speak a word the latter squared off before him
+aggressively.
+
+"What the devil have you done to my sister?" he demanded.
+
+Donaldson drew back, frightened by the question.
+
+"What do you mean?" he demanded, the dog dropping from his arms to the
+floor.
+
+"She 's in bed, and half out of her mind," returned the other fiercely.
+"She said you 'd gone!  Donaldson, if you 've hurt her--"
+
+The boy's fists were clenched as though he were about to strike.
+Donaldson stood with his arms hanging limply by his side.  He felt
+Arsdale's right to strike if he wished.
+
+"I have n't gone," he answered.
+
+"I don't know what has happened," Arsdale ran on heatedly, "but I want
+to tell you this--that as much as you 've done for me, I won't stand
+for your hurting her."
+
+"Let me see her," demanded Donaldson, coming to himself.
+
+"She won't see any one!  She 's locked up in her room.  She may be
+dead.  If she is, you 've killed her!"
+
+Arsdale half choked upon the words.  It was with difficulty that he
+restrained himself.  He was blind to everything, save that in some way
+this man was responsible for the girl's suffering.
+
+"Perhaps she 'll see me.  Where is she?"
+
+Donaldson without waiting for an answer pushed past Arsdale and the
+latter allowed it, but followed at his heels.  Donaldson knew where she
+was without being told.  She was in the big front room where the
+balcony led outdoors.  He went up the stairs heavily, for he knew that
+more depended on the next half hour than had anything so far in all
+this harrowing week.  Though there was plenty of light he groped his
+way close to the wall like a blind man.  At the closed door he paused
+to catch his breath.  In the meanwhile the boy, half frantic, pounded
+on the panels, shouting over his shoulder,
+
+"She won't let us in, I tell you!  She won't let us in!  She may be
+dead!"
+
+At this, Donaldson forced Arsdale back.  He put his mouth close to the
+insensate wood and called her name.
+
+"Elaine."
+
+There was no answer.
+
+He knocked lightly and called again.  Again the silence, the boy
+stumbling up against him with an inarticulate cry.  The nurse joined
+them, and the three stood there in shivering terror.  Donaldson felt
+panic clutching at his own heart.  Before throwing his weight against
+the door, he tried once more.
+
+"Elaine," he cried, "it is I--Donaldson."
+
+There was the sound of movement within, and then came the stricken plea,
+
+"Go away.  Please go away."
+
+Arsdale answered,
+
+"Let me in, Elaine.  Nothing shall hurt you.  I'll--"
+
+Donaldson turned upon him and the nurse.
+
+"Go down-stairs," he commanded.
+
+His voice made them both shudder back.
+
+"Go down-stairs," he repeated.  "Do you hear!  Leave her to me!"
+
+Arsdale started a protest, but the nurse, in fright, took his arm and
+half dragged him towards the stairs.  Donaldson followed threateningly.
+His face was terrible.  He stood at the head of the stairs until they
+reached the hall below.  Then he returned to the door.
+
+"Elaine," he said, "I have come back.  Do you hear me, Elaine?  I have
+come back."
+
+He heard within the sound as of muffled sobbing.  He himself was
+breathing as though a great weight were on his chest.
+
+"Elaine," he cried, "won't you open the door to me?"
+
+The sobbing was broken by a tremulous voice.
+
+"Is that you, Peter Donaldson?"
+
+"Yes, yes!"
+
+"Then go away and leave me, Peter Donaldson."
+
+"Elaine, can you hear me clearly?"
+
+There was the pause of a moment, and than the broken voice.
+
+"Go away."
+
+"No," he answered steadily, "I can't.  I can't go away again until I
+see you.  You must tell me face to face to go.  I 've come back to you."
+
+She did not answer.
+
+"Elaine," he cried, "open the door to me.  Let me see you."
+
+"I don't want to see you."
+
+He waited a moment.  Then he said more soberly,
+
+"Elaine, I can't go away.  I must stay right here until I see you.  I
+sha'n't move from here until my soul goes.  Whether you hear me or not,
+you will know that I am right here by the door.  At the end of one
+hour, at the end of two hours, at the end of a day, I shall still be
+here.  If they try to drag me away, they 'll have to fight--they 'll
+have to fight hard."
+
+There was no answer.  He leaned back against the wall.  Below, he heard
+a whispered conversation between Arsdale and the nurse; within, he
+heard nothing.  So five minutes passed, and to Donaldson the world was
+chaos.  He felt as though he were locked up in a tomb.  There was the
+same feeling of dead weight upon the shoulders; the same sensation of
+stifling.  Then he heard her voice,
+
+"Are you still there, Peter Donaldson?"
+
+"Yes," he answered.
+
+"Won't you please go away?"
+
+"I shall not go away until I have seen you."
+
+Then another long suspense began, but it was shorter than the first.
+
+"If I let you come in for a minute, will you go then?"
+
+"Yes," he answered, "I will go then."
+
+It seemed an eternity before he heard the key turn in the lock and saw
+the door swing open a little.  He stepped in.  She had taken a position
+in a far corner.  She had drawn the Japanese shawl tightly about her,
+and was standing very erect, her white face like chiseled marble.  He
+started towards her, but she checked him.
+
+"Do not come any nearer," she commanded.
+
+He steadied himself.
+
+"I told you," he began abruptly, "that I was going because I must.
+That was true; I went thinking I was to meet Death."
+
+She took a step towards him.
+
+"You were ill?  You are ill now?"
+
+"No."
+
+He paused.  Now that the time had come when he could tell her all, it
+was a harder thing to do than he had thought.  If she withdrew from him
+now--what would she do after she had learned?  Yet he must do this to
+be a free man, to be even a free spirit.  There must be no more shadows
+between them, not even shadows of the past.
+
+"I told you," he said, "of my life up to the time I came to New York,
+of the daily grind it was to get that far.  That was only the
+beginning--after that came the real struggle.  It was easy to fight
+with the enemy in front--with something for your fists to strike
+against.  But then came the waiting years.  I was too blind to see all
+the work that lay around me.  I was too selfish to see what I might
+have fought for.  I saw nothing except the wasting months.  I lost my
+grip.  I played the coward."
+
+He took a quick, sharp breath at the word.  It was like plunging a
+knife into his own heart to stand before her and say that.
+
+"One day in the laboratory," he struggled on, "Barstow told me of a
+poison which would not kill until the end of seven days.  Because I was
+not--the best kind of fighter--I--stole it and swallowed it.  That was
+a week ago.  I am here now only because the poison did n't work."
+
+"You--you tried to kill yourself?" she cried in amazement.
+
+"Yes," he answered unflinchingly, "I tried to quit.  There were many
+things I wanted--cheap, trivial things, and at the time I did n't see
+my course clear to getting them in any other way.  The other
+things--the things worth while were around me all the time, but I could
+n't see them."
+
+He paused.  She drew away from him.
+
+"So you see I did not do bravely.  I wanted you to know this from the
+first, but there didn't seem to be any way.  I did n't want to stand
+before you as a liar--as a hypocrite, and yet I did n't want to balk
+myself in the little good I found myself able to do.  That silence was
+part of the penalty.  I left you yesterday without telling, for the
+same reason.  That and one other: because I did n't want you to think
+me a coward when death might cut off all opportunity for ever proving
+otherwise."
+
+Again he paused, hoping against a dead hope.  But she stood there,
+cringing away from him, her frightened lips dumb.
+
+"That is all," he concluded.  "Now I will go.  But don't you see that I
+had to intrude long enough to tell you this?  I stand absolutely honest
+before you.  There isn't a lie in me.  Now I am going to work."
+
+He made an odd looking picture as he stood there.  Haggard, hot-eyed,
+with a touch of color above his unshaven cheeks, he was like a
+victorious general at the end of a hard week's campaign.
+
+He turned away from her and went out of the room.  At the foot of the
+stairs he passed in silence Arsdale and the nurse.  He turned back.
+
+"Sandy!  Sandy!  Where are you?"
+
+The dog came scrambling over the smooth floor with a joyous yelp.  He
+picked him up and passing out the door went down the street.  The few
+remaining dollars he had left burned in his pocket.  He tossed them
+into the first sewer.  He was now free--free to begin clean handed.
+
+A little farther along he came to a gang of men at work upon the
+excavation for a new house.  He needed money for food and a night's
+lodging.  He went to the foreman.
+
+"Want an extra hand?"
+
+"Wot th' devil ye 're givin' us?"
+
+"I 'm in earnest.  I have n't a cent.  I need work.  Try me."
+
+The burly foreman looked him over with a grin.  Then as though he saw a
+good joke in it, he gave him a shovel and sent him into the cellar.
+
+Donaldson removed his coat and rolling up his sleeves took his place
+beside the others.  Sandy found a comfortable nest in the discarded
+garment and settled down contentedly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+_The Seventh Noon_
+
+When Arsdale with the nurse at his heels rushed up-stairs, he found his
+sister before the mirror combing her hair.  There was nothing
+hysterical about her, but her white calmness in itself was ominous.
+
+"What is it, Elaine?" he panted, "has Donaldson gone mad?"
+
+"No," she answered, "I should say that he is quite sane now."
+
+"But what the deuce was the trouble with him?  He looked as though he
+had lost his senses."
+
+"Perhaps he has just found them."
+
+The nurse interrupted him, in an aside,
+
+"I would n't agitate her further."  To the girl, she said, "Don't you
+think you had better lie down for a little, Miss Arsdale?"
+
+"Please don't worry about me," she replied calmly, "I am going to
+change my dress and then I shall come down-stairs.  I wish you would go
+to Marie--both of you.  It is she who needs attention."
+
+"But--" broke in Arsdale.
+
+"There's a good boy.  Do what you can to make her comfortable.  I will
+join you in a few minutes."
+
+Uncomprehending, Arsdale reluctantly led the way out.  She closed the
+door behind them and turned to her mirror again.
+
+"Well," demanded her reflection, "what are you going to do now?"
+
+"Do?  I shall go on as I have always done."
+
+"Shall you?"
+
+"Why not?  There is Ben.  Perhaps we shall go out into the country to
+live--perhaps we shall travel."
+
+"Shall you?"
+
+"That is certainly the sensible thing to do."
+
+"Shall you?"
+
+She smoothed back the hair from her throbbing temples.
+
+"He looked very much in need of help," suggested the mirror.
+
+"Who?"
+
+"Peter Donaldson."
+
+"Oh," gasped Elaine, "why did he do it?  Why did he do it?"
+
+The mirror recognized the question as one which every woman has asked
+at least once in her lifetime.  But somehow this did not swerve her
+from her insistence.
+
+"You must judge him from what you yourself have seen of him," the
+mirror harped back to Donaldson's own words.
+
+"He acted bravely before me--before Ben.  He did do bravely," cried the
+girl.
+
+"And yet below these acts he had a craven heart?" hinted she of the
+mirror.
+
+"No.  No.  It isn't possible!  It isn't possible!"
+
+"But he admitted the dreadful thing he tried to do."
+
+"That was the folly of a moment.  He has grown through it.  He asked no
+mercy--asked no pardon.  Did n't you see the expression upon his
+haggard face as he left the room?"
+
+"Were you looking?" queried she of the mirror in surprise.  "Your eyes
+were away from him."
+
+"But one couldn't help but see that!"
+
+The woman in the mirror found herself suddenly put upon the defensive.
+
+"Where has he gone?" cried the girl.  "What is he going to do now?"
+
+"Will he do bravely whatever lies before him?"
+
+"Yes.  He will!  He will!"
+
+"How do you know?"
+
+"I know.  That is enough."
+
+"Then why do you not call him back?"
+
+The girl's cheeks grew scarlet.
+
+"The shame of what I told him yesterday!"
+
+"Was it not a bit brave of him to turn away from you?"
+
+"He should have explained to me at that time why he was going.  He
+needed me then."
+
+"Do you not suppose that he knew it?  Do you not suppose that it took
+the strength of a dozen men to go alone to what he thought was waiting
+for him?"
+
+"I know nothing."
+
+"And yet you saw his eyes as he stood before you then?  And you saw his
+eyes as he left you five minutes ago?"
+
+"I won't see.  I can't risk--again!"
+
+"Yet you love him?"
+
+Once again the flaming scarlet in her cheeks.  Her lips trembled.  She
+turned away from the mirror.
+
+"I said nothing of love," she insisted.
+
+"Yet you love him?"
+
+"Why did he do it?" she moaned.
+
+"Yet you love him?"
+
+"He did so bravely--he spoke so bravely, yet--"
+
+"He learned.  If, of all the world of men, you were to choose one to
+stand by your side when hardest pressed, whom would you choose?"
+
+"I would choose him," answered the girl without hesitation.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because--"
+
+"After all, is n't that enough?  You would trust him to fight an
+eternity as he has fought for you these few days.  Twice he staked his
+life for you--once his good name."
+
+"But he thought he was soon to die."
+
+"All the more precious the time that was left."
+
+Her eyes brightened.
+
+"Yes.  Yes.  I had not thought of that."
+
+"Yet he did this and further risked what was left to save an unknown
+messenger boy."
+
+"Oh, he did well!"
+
+"Then he came to you like a man and told what you might never have
+discovered, just because he wished to stand clean before you."
+
+"Yes," she breathed.
+
+"Why did he do that?" demanded her reflection.
+
+"I--I don't know."
+
+"Why did he do that?"
+
+"Because--"
+
+"After all, isn't that enough?"
+
+"But he said nothing.  If only he had turned back!"
+
+"What right had he to say the thing you wish?  If he had been less a
+man he _would_ have turned back."
+
+"Where has he gone?  What is he going to do?"
+
+"Why don't you find out?"
+
+"It would be unmaidenly."
+
+"Yes, and very womanly.  Do you owe him nothing?"
+
+"I owe him everything."
+
+"Then--"
+
+"I must send Ben to find him.  I must--oh, but I need n't do anything
+more?"
+
+"No.  Nothing more."
+
+Her heart pounded in her throat in her eagerness to finish her toilet.
+Her fingers were so light that she could scarcely hold her comb.  She
+hurried into a fresh gown and then down-stairs where she found Ben
+anxiously pacing the library.  He appeared greatly agitated--anchorless.
+
+"Ben," she began, "I had no right to allow Peter Donaldson to go away
+as I did."
+
+"Little sister," he demanded, "was he unkind to you?"
+
+"No.  No," she broke in eagerly, "he was most generous with me.  But
+for the moment I could n't see it.  It was my fault that he went."
+
+"But what was the cause of it?" he insisted, puzzled and dazed by the
+whole episode.
+
+"It was nothing that counts now.  I want you to promise me, Ben, that
+you will never refer to it, that you will never permit him to tell you
+of it."
+
+His face cleared.
+
+"Just a little tiff?  But he took it hard.  I never saw a man so worked
+up over anything."
+
+"It belongs to the past," she hurried on, eager to allow it to pass as
+he interpreted it.  "It would be cruel to him to bring it up again.
+Will you promise me, Ben?"
+
+"I will promise.  But I 'm afraid you overdid it.  It is going to be
+hard to straighten him out."
+
+"No.  It is all straightened out now.  All that remains for you to do
+is to find him and say that I--that I wish him to come back for lunch."
+
+"Is it that simple?"
+
+He smiled, his easy-going nature glad to seize upon anything that
+promised relief from such a jumble as this.
+
+"You must say nothing more than that," she put in, frightened at the
+sound of her own words.  Supposing that he would not come--supposing
+that even now she had presumed too far?
+
+"You will tell him just that?"
+
+"Yes," he agreed, "and this morning I would have thought that it was
+enough."
+
+"It is enough now--whatever happens," she said hastily.
+
+"I must hurry back to Marie," she concluded breathlessly.  "You must
+not delay.  It may be that he is planning to leave town.  If so, you
+must catch him before he starts."
+
+He placed his arm tenderly about her slight waist and led her to the
+foot of the stairs.
+
+"You will let me know as soon as you come in?" she pleaded.
+
+"Yes, and don't worry while I 'm gone."
+
+Arsdale did not take a cab.  He needed a walk to clear his head.  The
+air was balmy with the fragrance of growing things and he was sensitive
+to its influence as he had never been in his life.  As he strode along
+he felt twice his normal size.  And yet what a puppet he was as
+compared to this Donaldson who had been willing to take upon his
+shoulders the ghastly burden which had been his own.  He himself might
+bear it to-day, but yesterday it would have crushed him.  He had not
+realized how low he had sunk until he learned that it was considered a
+possibility that he might have committed such crimes as those.  If at
+first the suspicion had roused his wrath, the sober truth that Jacques
+under the same influence was actually guilty had been enough to disarm
+him.  The past was like a nightmare, and this Donaldson was the man who
+had found his hand in the dark and roused him.  He quickened his pace.
+A small black dog nosing about the fresh dirt thrown from an excavation
+to his left attracted his attention to a new house which was going up.
+He glanced at the men at work and then stood still in his tracks.  Down
+there, in his shirt sleeves, bent over a shovel was Peter Donaldson.
+
+It was impossible to believe, but he stared at the illusion with his
+hands getting cold.  Then he turned back to the dog.  It was the same
+pup Donaldson had brought into the house with him.
+
+He riveted his eyes once more upon the figure standing out among his
+fellow workers like a uniformed general in a rabble.  He strode to the
+side of the foreman of the gang who stood near.
+
+"Who is that man down there?" he demanded.
+
+"Dunno," the foreman answered briefly, "he asked fer work this mornin'
+and I give him a job."
+
+"I 'm going to speak to him."
+
+"Fire erway."
+
+Arsdale clambered into the hole and reached Donaldson's side before the
+latter glanced up.  When he did raise his head, it was with an easy,
+unembarrassed nod of recognition.
+
+"Good Lord," gasped Arsdale, "it _is_ you!"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Donaldson wiped his wet brow.  He was not in particularly good training
+for such heavy work.
+
+"But what the deuce--"
+
+"I needed money for a night's lodging and took the first job that
+offered," he explained.
+
+There was nothing melodramatic in his speech or attitude.  He was not
+posing.  He spoke of his necessity in the matter-of-fact way in which
+he had accepted it.  It was necessary to earn the sheer essentials of
+life, in order to get a footing--to get sufficient capital to open up
+his office again.  He would not have borrowed if he could, and a
+penniless lawyer in New York is in as bad a position as a penniless
+tramp.  Not only was he glad of this opportunity to earn a couple of
+dollars, but he found pleasure, in spite of the physical strain, in
+this most elemental of employments.  There was something in the act of
+forcing his shovel into the earth that brought him comfort in the
+thought that he was beginning in the cleanest of all clean ways.  He
+was earning his first dollar like a pioneer.  He was earning it by the
+literal sweat of his brow.
+
+He turned back from Arsdale's astonished expression to his task.
+
+"See here, Donaldson," protested the latter excitedly, "this is absurd!
+You must quit this.  I 've money enough--"
+
+"And I have n't," interrupted Donaldson heaving a shovel full of moist
+dirt into the waiting dump cart.
+
+Even Arsdale was checked by the expression he caught in Donaldson's
+eyes.  He ventured nothing further, but, bewildered, stood there, dumb
+a moment, before he remembered his message.
+
+"I came out to find you," he managed to speak.  "Elaine wants you to
+come back to lunch."
+
+"What?"
+
+Donaldson paused in his work and searched Arsdale's face.
+
+"What did you say?" he demanded slowly.
+
+"Elaine wants you to come back for lunch.  She sent me to find you."
+
+Arsdale saw Donaldson's lungs expand.  He saw every vein in his face
+throb with new life.  He saw him grow before his eyes to the capacity
+of two men.  He saw him step forth from this aching begrimed shell into
+a new physique as vibrant with fresh strength as a young mountaineer.
+It was as startling a metamorphosis as though the man had been touched
+with a magician's wand.
+
+"Thank you," answered Donaldson on a deep intake of breath.  "I shall
+be glad to come."
+
+"Drop your shovel then and come along now."
+
+"No," he replied, as he dug his spade deep into the soil, "I can't quit
+my job.  The whistle blows at noon."
+
+At noon!  At the seventh noon, the whistle was to blow!  He tossed the
+weight of two ordinary shovelfuls of gravel into the cart as lightly as
+a child tosses a bean bag.
+
+[Illustration: _At noon!  At the seventh noon, the whistle was to
+blow!_]
+
+Perceiving the uselessness of further argument Arsdale climbed out to
+the bank, and, sitting on a big boulder, watched Donaldson with dazed
+fascination.  The foreman passed him once.
+
+"May be cracked," he remarked, "but I 'd' take a hundred men, the likes
+of him."
+
+"You could n't find them on two continents," answered Arsdale.
+
+The dog made overtures of friendship and he took him on his knee.
+
+Donaldson never glanced up.  With the precision of a machine he bent
+over his shovel, lifted, and threw without pause.  The men near him
+looked askance at such unceasing labor.
+
+In time, the foreman blew a shrill note on a whistle and as though he
+had applied a brake connected with every man, the shovels dropped and
+the motley gang scrambled for their dinner pails.  Donaldson for the
+first time then lifted his face to Arsdale.  The seventh noon had come,
+and never had a midday been ushered in to such a sweet note as the
+foreman had blown on his penny whistle.
+
+Donaldson, picking up his coat, made his way to the side of Arsdale,
+who had risen to meet him with Sandy barking at his heels.
+
+"I have only an hour," apologized Donaldson, "I 'm afraid I 'm hardly
+in a condition to go into the house."
+
+"You are n't coming back here?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Once again Arsdale found his protest choked at his lips.  What was the
+use of talking to a man in such a stubborn mood as this?  He led the
+way to the house.
+
+In the hall, he shouted up the stairs,
+
+"Elaine, Peter Donaldson is here!"
+
+The girl stepped from the library clutching the silken curtains.  She
+hesitated a moment at sight of him and then faltering forward, offered
+her hand.
+
+"I 'm glad you came back," she said.
+
+His fingers closed over her own with a decisiveness that made her catch
+her breath.  As the woman in the mirror had divined, there was nothing
+more left for her to do.
+
+"But the old chump is going again in an hour," choked Arsdale, "he 's
+taken a job shovelling dirt."
+
+She met Donaldson's eyes.  For a moment they questioned him.  Then her
+own eyes grew moist and she smiled.  The joy of it all was too much for
+her.  She stooped and patted Sandy who was clawing her skirts for
+recognition.
+
+"Oh, little dog," she whispered in his silken ear, "I am glad you came
+back.  Glad--glad--glad!"
+
+
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Seventh Noon, by Frederick Orin Bartlett
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