CHAPTER XXVII

A PACKING CASE

Already exhausted by the stress of the fierce fight that he had so hardly won, Blake could no longer sustain such acute grief. Nature mercifully dulled his consciousness. He sank into a stupor that outwardly was not unlike heavy slumber.

Mrs. Gantry had been gone several minutes when the other door swung open. Dolores skipped in, closely followed by Lafayette Ashton. The young man's face was flushed, and there was a slight uncertainty in his step; but as he closed the door and followed the girl across the room, he spoke with rather more distinctness than usual.

"Here we are, ma cher. I knew we'd find a place where you could show me how kind you feel toward your fond Fayette."

"So that's the way you cross the line?" criticised Dolores. "What a get-away for a fast pacer who has gone the pace!"

"Now, Dodie, don't hang back. You know as well as I do—"

"Hush! Don't whisper it aloud!" cautioned the girl, pointing dramatically to Blake. "Betray no secrets. We are not alone!"

Ashton muttered a French curse, and went over to the table.

"It's that fellow, Blake," he whispered, over his shoulder.

"Mr. Blake?" exclaimed Dolores, tiptoeing to the table. "He's gone to sleep. Poor man! I know he must be awfully tired, else he would have waltzed with me again the last time I scratched your name."

"What you and Genevieve can see in him gets me!" muttered Ashton, with a shrug. "Look at him now. Needn't tell me he's asleep. He's intoxicated. That's what's the matter with him."

Dolores leaned far over the table toward Blake, sniffed, and drew back, with a judicial shake of her head. "Can't detect it. But, then, I couldn't expect to, with you in the room."

"Now, Dodie!"

She again leaned over the table. "See," she whispered. "His hand is tied up. It's hurt."

"Told you he's intoxicated," insisted Ashton.

The girl moved toward a davenport in the corner farthest from Blake.

"Come over here," she ordered. "It's a nuisance to sit it out with you, when it's one of the last waltzes. At least I won't let you disturb Mr. Blake."

"Mr. T. Blake, our heroic cave-man!" replied Ashton, as he followed her across the room.

"How you love him!" she rallied. "What's the cause of your jealousy?"

"Who says I'm jealous?"

"Of course there's no reason for you to be. He's not interested in me, and you're not in Genevieve—just now."

"My dear Dodie! You know you've always been the only one."

"Since the last!" she added. "But if it's not jealousy, what is it?— professional envy? You've been knocking him all the evening. You began it the day he came. What have you against him, anyway? He has never wronged you."

Ashton's eyes narrowed, and one corner of his mouth drew up.

"Hasn't he, though!" he retorted. "The big brute! I can't imagine how your mother can allow you and Genevieve to speak to him, when she knows what he is. And your uncle—the low fellow tried to blackmail him—accused him of stealing his bridge plans. First thing I know, he'll be saying I did it!"

"Did you?" teased the girl, as she seated herself on the heap of pillows at the head of the davenport.

Ashton's flushed face turned a sickly yellow. He fell, rather than seated himself, in the centre of the davenport.

"What—what—" he babbled; "you don't mean—No! I didn't!—I tell you, I didn't! They're my plans; I drew them all myself!"

"Why, Laffie! what is the matter with you?" she demanded, half startled out of her mockery. "Can it be you've mixed them too freely? Or is it the lobster? You've a regular heavy-seas-the-first-day-out look."

He managed to pull himself together and mutter in assent: "Yes, it must be the lobster. But the sight of that brute is enough to—to—"

"Then perhaps you had better leave the room," sweetly advised Dolores. "Mr. Blake happens to be one of my friends."

"No, he isn't," corrected Ashton.

"Really!"

"No. I won't have it. You needn't expect me to have anything to do with you unless you cut him."

"Oh, Laffie! how could you be so cruel?" she mocked.

He was so far intoxicated that he mistook her sarcasm for entreaty. He responded with maudlin fervor. "Don't weep, Dodiekins! I'll be as easy on you as I can. You see, I must inform you on such things, if you're to be my fiancee."

She was quick to note his mistake, and sobbed realistically: "Fi- fiancee! Oh! Oh, Laffie! Bu-but you haven't asked me yet!"

He moved along the davenport nearer to her, and attempted to clasp her hand.

"You're a coy one, Dodiekins!" he replied. "Of course I'm asking you, you know that. You can't think I don't mean it. You know I mean it."

"Really?"

"Of course! Haven't I been trying to get a chance to tell you, all the evening? Of course I mean it! You're the fair maiden of my choice, Dodiekins, even if you aren't so rich as some."

"Fair?—but I'm a brunette," she corrected. "It's Genevieve you're thinking of. Confess now, it is, isn't it?"

"No, indeed, no!" he protested. "I prefer brunettes—always have! You're a perfect brunette, Dodiekins. I've always liked you more than Genevieve. You're the perfect brunette type, and you have all that verve—you're so spirituelle. Just say 'yes' now, and let's have it over with. To-morrow I'll buy you the biggest solitaire in town."

"Oh, Laffie!—the biggest? You're too kind! I couldn't think of it!" she mocked.

"But I mean it, Dodie, every word, indeed I do!" he insisted, ardently thrusting out an arm to embrace her.

She slipped clear, and sprang up, to stand just beyond his reach.

"So great an honor!" she murmured. "How can I deprive all the other girls of the greatest catch in town?"

"They've tried hard enough to catch me," he replied. "But I'd rather have you than all the blondes put together. I mean it, every word. I don't mind at all that you're not so rich as Genevieve. I'll have enough for two, as soon as the old man shuffles off this mortal coil. You'll bring him dead to rights on the will question. He likes you almost as well as he likes Genevieve. You're second choice with him."

"Second!—not the third?—nor the fourth? You're sure?"

"No, second; and you can count on it, he'll do the handsome thing by Mrs. Lafayette, even if he keeps me on an allowance. So now, say the word, and come and cuddle up."

"Oh, Laffie!—in here? We might disturb Mr. Blake."

"Blake!" he muttered, and he looked angrily at the big inert form half prostrate on the table. "He's intoxicated, I tell you—or if he's not, he ought to be. The insolence of him, hanging around Genevieve! I hope he is drunk! That would settle it all. We'd be rid of him then."

"'We'?" queried Dolores.

He caught her curious glance, and hastened to disclaim: "No, not we— Genevieve—I meant Genevieve, of course!"

Dolores affected a coquettish air. "Oh, Mr. Brice-Ashton! I do believe you want to get him out of the way."

"I? No, no!" he protested, with an uneasy, furtive glance at Blake.

"Don't try to fool me," she insisted. "I know your scheme. But it's of no use. If she doesn't take the hero, she'll accept the earl. Ah, me! To think you're still scheming to get Vievie, when all the evening you've pretended it was I!"

In the reaction from his fright, he sprang up and advanced on her ardently. "It is you, Dodie! you know it is. Own up, now—we're just suited to each other. It's a case of soul-mates!"

"Oh, is it, really?" she gushed. He sought to kiss her, but she eluded him coquettishly. "Wait, please. We must first settle the question. If it's a case of soul-mates, who's to be the captain?"

"See here, Dodie," he admonished; "we've fooled long enough. I'm in earnest. You don't seem to realize this is a serious proposal."

"Really?" she mocked. "A formal declaration of your most honorable intentions to make me Mrs. L. Brice-Ashton?"

"Of course! You don't take it for a joke, do you?"

She smiled upon him with tantalizing sweetness. "Isn't it? Well, it may not be. But how about yourself?"

"Dolores," he warned, "unless you wish me to withdraw my—"

"Your solemn suit!" she cut in. "With that and the case you mentioned, the matter is complete. A suit and a case make a suitcase. You have my permission to pack."

"Dodie! You can't mean it!"

"Can't I? You may pack yourself off and get a tailor to press your suit. He can do it better. Run along now. I'm going to make up to Mr. Blake for that waltz of yours that he wouldn't let me give to him."

"You flirt!" cried Ashton, flushing crimson. "I believe your heart is made of petrified wood."

"Then don't ask me to throw it at you. It might hurt your soft head."

"Dolores!" he warned her.

"Yes," she went on, pretending to misunderstand him. "Wouldn't it be awful?—a chunk of petrified wood plunking into a can of woodpulp!"

"I wish you to remember, Miss Gantry—" he began,

"Don't fret," she impatiently interrupted. "I'll not forget 'Miss Gantry,' and I wish you wouldn't so often. 'Dodie,' 'Dodie,' 'Dodie,' all the evening. It's monotonous."

"Indeed. Am I to infer, Miss Gantry, that you are foolish enough to play fast and loose with me?"

"You're so fast, how could I loose you?" she punned.

He muttered a French oath.

"Naughty! Naughty!" she mocked. "Swearing in French, when you know I don't speak it! Why not say, 'damn it' right out? That would sound better,"

"See here, Dodie," he warned. "I've stood enough of this. You know you're just dying to say 'yes.' But let me tell you, if you permit this chance to slip by—"

"Oh, run along, do!" she exclaimed. "I want to think, and it's impossible with you around."

"Think?" he retorted. "I know better. What you want is a chance to coquet with him."

He looked about at Blake, with a wry twist in his lower lip.

"One enjoys conversing with a man once in a while," she replied, and she turned from him a glance of supreme contempt and loathing that pierced the thickness of his conceit. Disconcerted and confused, he beat a flurried retreat, jerking shut the door with a violent slam.



CHAPTER XXVIII

THE SHORTEST WAY

The noise of the door jarred Blake from his lethargy. He groaned and sluggishly raised his head. His face was bloodless and haggard, his bloodshot eyes were dull and bleared. He had the look of a man at the close of a drunken debauch.

Dolores hastened to him, exclaiming, "Mr. Blake, you are ill! I shall phone for a doctor!"

"No," he mumbled apologetically. "Don't bother yourself, Miss Dolores. It's not a doctor I need. I'm only—"

"You are ill! I'll call Genevieve." She started toward the door.

"Don't!" he cried. "Not her—for God's sake, not her!" He rose to his feet heavily but steadily. "I'm going—away."

"Going away? Where?" asked Dolores, puzzled and concerned.

"Alaska—Panama—anywhere! You're the right sort, Miss Dolores. You'll explain to her why I had to go without stopping to say good-bye."

"Of course, Mr. Blake—anything I can do. But why are you leaving?"

"Your mother—she told me."

"Told you what? I do believe you're dreaming."

Blake quivered. "Wish it was a nightmare!" he groaned. He steadied himself with an effort. "No use, though. She told me the truth about—your cousin. Said her feeling for me is only gratitude."

"What! Vievie's?—only gratitude? Don't you believe it! Mamma is rooting for Jeems. She may believe it; she probably does. She wants to believe it. She wants a countess in the family."

"She couldn't do better in that line, nor in any other," replied Blake with loyal friendship. "Jimmy is all right; he's the real thing."

"Yes, twenty-four carats fine!"

"Don't joke, Miss Dolores. I know you don't like him, but it's true, just the same. I knocked around a whole lot with Jimmy, in all sorts of places. I give it to you straight,—he's square, he's white, and he's what all kinds of people would call a gentleman."

"But as for being a man?" she scoffed.

Blake's dull eyes brightened with a fond glow.

"Man?" he repeated. "D' you think I'd fool around with one of these swell dudes? No; Jimmy is the real thing, and he's a thoroughbred."

"Such a cute little mustache!" mocked the girl.

"It's one of the few things I couldn't cure him of—-that and his monocle." Forgetful of self, Blake smiled at her regretfully and shook his head. "It's too bad, Miss Dolores. No use talking when it's too late; but couldn't you have liked him enough to forget the English part? You and he would sure have made a team."

"Yes, isn't it too bad? A coronet would fit my head just as well as Vievie's. But mamma is so silly. She never thought of that."

Blake stared in surprise. "You don't mean—?"

"Mamma has been so busy saving Vievie from you, she's not had time to consider me."

"Say," exclaimed Blake, "I've half a notion you do like him. That would account for the way you keep at him with your nagging and teasing."

"You don't say!"

"Yes. That's the way one of my sisters used to treat me."

"How smart you are!" cried the girl, and she faced away from him petulantly, that he might not see her flaming cheeks. "Oh, yes, of course I like him! I'm head over heels in love with him! How could I help but be?"

"Some day you'll know such things aren't joking matters," he gravely reproved her.

She turned to him, unable longer to sustain her pretence. Her voice quavered and broke: "But it's—it's true! I do!"

She bent over with her face in her hands, and her slender form shook with silent sobs. He came quickly around to her, his eyes soft with commiseration. "You poor little girl! So you lose out, too!"

She looked up at him with her tearful dark eyes, and clutched eagerly at the lapel of his coat.

"Mr. Blake! He has told me how resolute you are. You must not give up! I'm certain Vievie likes you. If only mamma hadn't meddled! She's always messing things. It's just because she can't realize I'm in long frocks. If—if only she had seen how much grander it would be to make herself the mother-in-law of an earl, instead of a mere aunt-in-law!"

Blake's face darkened morosely. "That's the way things are—misdeal all around. Your mother is right. You've lost out; I've lost out. What's the use?"

"Surely you're not going to give up?" she demanded.

"I've never before been called a quitter; but—sooner I get out from between her and Jimmy, the better," he rejoined, and turning on his heel, he started toward the door by which Ashton had left.

"But, Mr. Blake," she urged, "wait. I wish to tell you—"

"No use," he broke in, without turning or stopping.

She was about to dart after him, when the door opened, and Ashton entered, carrying a bottle of champagne and a glass. He nodded familiarly to Blake and approached him with an air of easy good- fellowship.

Blake saw only the glass and the bottle. He glared at them, his face convulsed with fierce craving. Then he forced himself to avert his gaze. But as he started to turn aside, his jaw clenched and his eyes burned with a sudden desperate resolve. He stopped and waited, his face as hard as a granite mask. Dolores did not see his expression. She was eying Ashton, whom she sought to crush with her scorn.

"Ho!" she jeered. "So you're going to drown your sorrows in the flowing bowl. You ought to've remembered that absence makes the heart grow fonder."

To better show her contempt, she turned her back on him.

He instantly stepped forward beside Blake and began pouring out a glass of the champagne. He smiled suavely, but his eyes narrowed, and his full lower lip twisted askew.

"Look here, Blake," he began, "I know you're on the water-wagon; but you have it in for me for some reason, and I want to make it up with you. Take a glass of fizz with me."

Dolores whirled about and saw him with the glass of sparkling wine outreached to Blake, who was eying it with a peculiar oblique gaze.

"Lafayette Ashton!" she cried. "Aren't you ashamed of yourself?— aren't you ashamed?"

Ashton shrugged cynically, and urged the wine on Blake. "Come on! One glass wouldn't hurt a fly. I've heard of your wonderful success with the Zariba Dam. I want to congratulate you."

"Congratulate—that's it!" replied Blake, in a harsh, strained voice. "Best man wins. Loser gets out of the way. All right. I'll take the short-cut."

He reached out his bandaged right hand to take the glass. Dolores darted toward him, crying out shrilly in horrified protest: "Stop! stop! Mr. Blake! Think what you're doing!"

"I know what I'm doing," he said taking the glass and facing her with a smile that brought tears of pity to her eyes. "Your mother is right. I'm in your cousin's way. I'm going to get out of her way, and I'm going to do it in a fashion that'll rid her of me for keeps. Hell is nearer than Alaska."

"Wait! wait!" she cried, as he raised the glass to his lips. "For her sake, don't. Wait!"

"For her sake!" he rejoined, still with that heart-rending smile. "Here's to her and to him—congratulations!"

He tossed down the wine at a swallow before she could clutch his upraised arm.

She turned upon Ashton, in a fury of scorn and anger. "You—you beast!"

"Why, what's the matter?" he protested, feigning innocence. "What's the harm in a glass of fizz?"

"You knew!" she cried, pressing upon him so fiercely that he gave back. "You knew what it means for him to drink anything—a single drop! You scoundrel!"

"There, now, Miss Dolores!" soothed Blake, patting her on the shoulder. "What's the use of telling him what he is? He knows it as well as we do. Anyhow, I didn't have to take the drink. I'm the only one to blame."

"Oh, Mr. Blake! how could you? How could you?" she cried.

"It was easy enough—doing it for her," he answered.

"For her! How can you say it?"

"Well, it's done now. Good-bye. I'm not likely to see you again soon. It's a long trip from hell to heaven," he explained with grim humor.

Great as was his fortitude, she caught a glimpse of the anguish behind his mask. But his tone, as he swung Ashton around, repulsed her. "Come on, Mephistopheles. You've turned the trick. We've less than three hours before daylight. It's whiskey straight we're after."



CHAPTER XXIX

LIGHT AND DARKNESS

Not unnaturally Dolores failed to realize at once the utter ruin that Blake had brought upon himself by overthrowing the pillars of his temple. She was too intent upon her own tragedy. With Blake out of the way, Lord James would of course have no difficulty in winning Genevieve. There was now no hope for her.

She flung herself down in a chair, with a childlike wail. "Why did he do it? Oh! why did he do it? Oh, Jimmy! you'll never look at me now! If only I could hurt mamma!"

She bent over, weeping with bitter grief and anger.

She was still sobbing and crying when, sometime later, Lord James slipped hastily in from the cardroom. He closed the door swiftly and hurried toward the table, his eyes widening with his attempt to see clearly in the half light of the library.

"Tom, old man!" he called eagerly. "I'm now free to see you home. We'll slip out the side entrance—" He stopped short, perceiving that the big chair was empty, and that the figure in the chair across was not a man's.

"Er—beg pardon!" he stammered. "I—er—expected to find my friend here. Believe me, I would not have intruded—"

"So you d—don't consider me a friend!" retorted Dolores, vainly striving to hide her grief under a scornful tone.

"Miss Gantry!" he exclaimed. "Is it you?"

"It's not Vievie, that's certain. The sooner you run along and mind your business, the better."

"Miss Dolores, I—I really can't see why you hold such a dislike to me. I'll go immediately. I hadn't the remotest idea of intruding. You'll believe that? Only, y'know, I left Tom—Mr. Blake—in here. I came to go home with him. He was quite knocked-up. He should not have come to-night."

"You knew it!—you knew it, and left him in here alone!"

"Why, what do you mean, Miss Dolores? You alarm me! I left him asleep —fancied he'd not be disturbed in here—that an hour or so of sleep would freshen him up for the drive home."

"So you left him—alone—for mamma and that despicable creature to do their worst!"

"Miss Dolores, I—I beg your pardon, but I quite fail to take you. If anything has happened to Tom—"

"Regrets! What's the good of them, when it's too late?"

"Too late? Surely you cannot mean that he—?"

"Yes, the worst, the very worst,—and that miserable, detestable creature knew it when he offered him the wine. I believe he brought it in deliberately to tempt him."

"Wine? He drank! How long ago? Where is he now? I must try to check him."

"If only you could! But it's too late. He went off with Laffie."

"Not too late! The craving has been checked once—I've seen it done."

"But this time it's not the craving."

"How's that?"

"It's because he was driven desperate. He took it deliberately— intentionally."

"Impossible! Tom would never—"

"He would! He did! I saw him. But don't you blame him. She's the one. How could he know better, in his condition?—utterly tired out! She drove him to it, I tell you."

"She—Genevieve? I assure you—"

"No, no! mamma, of course! She told him a pack of lies—took away all his hope. She made him think that Vievie had never really loved him."

"Impossible!—unless your mother herself believes it."

"Oh, she believes it—or thinks she does. She's so anxious—so anxious!" The girl sprang up and stamped her foot. "Oh! I wish she and her meddling were in Hades!"

"My dear Miss Dolores!" protested Lord James, tugging nervously at his mustache.

She whirled upon him in hysterical fury. "Don't you call me that! Don't you dare call me that! I won't have it! I won't! I'm not your dear! I tell you—"

His look of blank astonishment checked her in the midst.

"I—I—I didn't mean—" she gasped. "Oh! what must you think of me!"

She turned from him, her face scarlet with shame. But in the same instant she remembered Blake, and forgot herself in the disaster to him.

"How selfish of me, when he—Poor Mr. Blake! What can be done? We must do something—at once!"

"If anything can be done!" said Lord James in a hopeless tone. "You say he took it deliberately?"

"Yes. Can't you see? Mamma had stuffed him with a lot of rot about gratitude—about Vievie sacrificing herself to him on account of gratitude. It's easy enough to guess mamma's little game. Oh! it's simply terrible! Of course he believed it, and of course he planned at once to go away—that's the kind of man he is! He planned to go away— run off—so that Vievie couldn't sacrifice herself."

"My word!"

"And just then Laffie Ashton came back with the wine. I believe he did it a-purpose—that he wanted to get Mr. Blake intoxicated!"

"The unmitigated cad! Yet why should he? It seems impossible that any man—"

"How should I know? He's vicious enough to do anything. But what does that matter? It's Mr. Blake. Can't you see why he took it? He was getting himself out of the way. I didn't understand then what he said—about the bad place being nearer than Alaska—but now I do. What he was determined to do was to get himself out of Vievie's way for good. The quickest that he could do it was to start drinking—go on a spree."

"Gad!"

"And now you stand here like a dummy, when there's a way to save him." "Yes, yes! I'll go after him!" He started alertly toward the door.

She sprang before him, "No! What good would that do? You know he's set on saving Vievie. He'll not listen to you."

"Gad! That's true. He's hard enough to handle, at best. With this added—Yet I cannot but make the effort. I'll phone Mr. Griffith."

"Griffith? What's the use of wasting time? There's just one person who can save him, and you know it."

"No, unless Griffith—"

"Are you absolutely stupid? Can't you see? It's Vievie alone who—"

"Genevieve!"

"Now's the time for her to do something. She must prove her love. That alone can stop him."

"If she does love him."

"Can you doubt it?"

"She has doubted it."

"She may think she does. But it's all due to mamma's knocking and suggesting. Vievie loves him as much as he loves her. Needn't tell me! I know all about it. She made him fail—the time you took him up to Michamac. This time it's all mamma's fault. Vievie has got to save him!"

"Most assuredly it is hopeless unless she—"

"That's no reason for you to stand here gawking! You've got to go and tell her. She wouldn't listen to me; but you're a man and his friend. You can make her see the injustice of it all. She's to blame as much as mamma. This never would have happened if it hadn't been for her shillyshallying."

Lord James paused before replying, his clear gray eyes dark with doubt and indecision.

"My word!" he murmured. "Could I but feel certain—This second failure, in so short a time! There is her future to be considered, as well."

"Her future as Countess of Avondale!" scoffed the girl.

"No, I assure you, no!" he insisted. "Can you believe I could be so low?—and at such a time as this! It was of the consequences to her as well as to him—He has failed again. Can he ever win out, even should he have her aid?"

"You claim to be his friend!"

"For his sake, no less than hers—Consider what it would mean to a man of his nature, unable to check himself in his downward course, yet conscious that it was wrecking her happiness, possibly her life."

"It won't happen, not if she really loves him. You don't half know him. He could do anything—anything!—if she went to him and asked him to do it for her sake."

"Could I but be sure of that!"

"Pah! You pretend to be his friend. How long would you stand here fiddling and fussing, if you didn't want her yourself?"

"That—it is too much!" he said, his face pale and very quiet. "I had ventured to hope that I might overcome your dislike. Now I see that it is as well that you have refused to regard me other than as you have."

"Why, what do you mean? I—I don't understand."

"You have always been candid. Permit me to be the same. The truth is that I had begun to wish Tom success—not alone because of my friendship for him. But now I realize that his fight is hopeless. I shall do my utmost to make your cousin happy."

Dolores stared at him with dilating eyes. "Jimmy!" she whispered. "It can't be you mean that you—that you—?"

"Yes," he answered. "Pardon me for saying anything about it. I shall not bother you again."

"Oh, thank you!" she scoffed. "So now you're going to stay quiet and wait for Vievie to fling herself into your arms when she hears about your rival."

The young Englishman flushed and as suddenly became white, yet his voice was as steady as it was low. "I shall do whatever she wishes, if she finds that she does not love him."

"And that's all?" she jeered. "You'll calmly keep out of it while he commits hara-kiri, and then you'll step into his shoes."

"No. I shall go to her at once and ask her to save my friend—if she loves him."

"You will?"

"Yes."

"You will!" cried the girl, her cheeks flushing and her black eyes sparkling with delight—"You will! Oh, Jimmy!"

Even as the words left her lips, she became conscious of what she had done, and her flush brightened into a vivid scarlet blush. She turned and fled from him, panic-stricken.

He stood dazed, unable at first to believe what her tone and look had betrayed to him. When, after some moments, his doubt gave way to certainty, his face lighted with what might be termed joyous exasperation.

"My word!" he murmured. "The little witch! I'll pay her out jolly well for it all!"

But his blissfully exultant vexation was no more than a flash that deepened the gloom with which he recalled the disaster to his friend.

"Gad!" he reproached himself. "What am I thinking of—with her and Tom—"

He turned quickly to the door of the cardroom.



CHAPTER XXX

THE END OF DOUBT

When the Englishman entered the card-room, the last of the players to linger at their table had risen and were taking their leave of Genevieve. Her father and aunt were disputing over their last game. But at sight of the newcomer, Mrs. Gantry bowed and beckoned to him, instantly forgetful of her argument.

"You are always in time, Earl," she remarked. "We are just about to leave. May I ask if you have seen Dolores?"

"Not a moment ago. I daresay she has gone for her wraps."

"Huh! Ran off from you, eh?" bantered Mr. Leslie. "She's a coltish kitten. Didn't scratch, did she?"

"She misses no opportunity for that, the hoyden!" put in Mrs. Gantry. "Ah, Earl, we are the last." She rose and went to meet Genevieve, who was coming to them from the farther door. "My dear girl, I congratulate you! It has been a grand success!"

"Thank you, Aunt Amice," replied Genevieve in rather a listless tone. "Must you be going?"

"Lord Avondale has just come in to let me know that it is time."

"Er—beg pardon," said Lord James. "I wish to speak with Miss Leslie before going."

"Ah, in that case," murmured Mrs. Gantry, with a gratified smile, "you are excused, of course! Herbert, you may see me out."

Mr. Leslie looked from Lord James to his daughter doubtfully. But the Englishman was fingering a pack of cards with seeming nonchalance, and Genevieve met her father's glance with a quiet smile. He shook his head, and went out with Mrs. Gantry.

As they left the room, Lord James faced Genevieve with a sudden tensity that compelled her attention.

"What is it?" she asked, half startled by his manner. "You said you wished to speak with me?"

"If you'll be so kind as to come into the library. It's a most serious matter. There'll be less chance of interruptions."

She permitted him to lead her in to her former seat at the library table. He took the big chair across from her.

"You look so grave," she said. "Please tell me what it is."

"Directly. Yet first I ask you to prepare yourself. Something has happened—most unfortunate!"

She bent toward him, startled out of her fatigue and lassitude. "You alarm me!"

"I cannot help it," he replied. "Genevieve, matters have come to an unexpected crisis. There can be no more delay. I must ask you to make your decision now. Do you love Tom?"

You have no right to ask that. I did not give you the right. You said you would wait."

"I am not asking for myself," he insisted. "It is for him. He has the right to know."

"The right? How?" she asked, with growing agitation. "I do not understand. You spoke of some misfortune. Has papa—?"

"Quite the contrary. Yet Tom is in a very bad way, and unless you—"

"Tom ill—ill?" she cried. "And I did not realize it! That I should have been angered—should have left him—because I thought he was in a rage—and all the time it was because of his suffering, his illness! It was despicable of me—selfish! Oh, Tom, Tom!"

She covered her face with her hands, and bent over, quivering with silent grief and penitence.

"You have answered me," said Lord James, regarding her with grave sympathy. "You love him."

She looked up at him, dry-eyed, her face drawn with anxiety. "Where is he? Why aren't you with him? He has a doctor? He must have the best!"

"That rests with you, Genevieve," he replied. "There is one person alone who can save him—if she loves him enough to try."

The truth flashed upon her. She stared at him, her eyes dilating with horror. "It is that you mean! He has failed—again!"

He sought to ease her despair. "Believe me, it is not yet too late— Permit me to explain."

"Explain?" she asked. "What is there to explain? He has failed!" Her voice broke in a sob of uncontrollable grief. "I tried to forget, still hoping he was strong—that he would prove himself strong. How I have hoped and prayed—and now!"

She bent over, with her face on the table, in a vain effort to conceal and repress her grief.

Lord James leaned forward, eagerly insistent. "You must listen to me. He has not had fair play. Such a gallant fight as he was making! I believe he would have won, I really believe he would have won, had it not been for that woman."

"What woman?" asked Genevieve, half lifting her head.

"Pardon me," he replied. "But your aunt—It was most uncalled for, most unfair. It seems she sought him out—to-night, of all times!— when he was pegged—completely knocked-up. You have seen that yourself. This was after we deserted him."

"Deserted? Yes, that is the word—deserted!"

"At the moment when he tasted the wine, quite unaware of what he was doing. We deserted him at the time when he had utmost need of us. What clearer proof of his great strength than that he fought off the temptation?"

"Yet now you say—?"

"He fought it off then. He proved himself as strong as even you could desire. When I hastened in I found him still where I am sitting, but doubled over, utterly spent—asleep, poor chap. His hand was bleeding. He had shattered your—he had crushed one of the glasses with his fist."

"Crushed a glass! But why?"

"To prevent himself from drinking what was in it. Can't you see? The struggle must have been frightful; yet he won. Had I but foreseen! I fancied he would be undisturbed in here—would get a bit of refreshing sleep to pull him up. But your aunt came in. She took her opportunity —convinced him that you did not love him; that your feeling was only gratitude."

Genevieve bent over, with renewed despair. "And for that he gave up the fight!"

"He fought and won when we left him, when we deserted him in his need. It was only after your aunt had convinced him that you did not—"

"He foresaw that he would lose!" she cried. "He foresaw! But I—I could not believe it possible!"

"But you do not understand. It was not that he really lost. He did not give way because of weakness. He did it deliberately—"

"Deliberately?" she gasped. Surprise gave place to an outflashing of scorn. "Deliberately! Oh, that he could do such a thing— deliberately!"

"No, no! I must insist. To cut himself off from you, that was his purpose. He thought to save you from sacrificing yourself. However mistaken he was, you must see how high a motive—how magnanimous was his intention."

But the girl was on the verge of hysteria, and quite beyond reason. "You may believe it—I don't! I can't! He's weak—utterly weak!"

"Genevieve, no! There's still time to save him. A word from you, if you love him."

"Love him!" she cried, almost beside herself. "How can I love him? He did it deliberately! I despise him!"

"You are vexed—angry. Pray calm yourself. I remember what you had to say about him, there on the steamer, coming up from Aden. You loved him then."

"But now—Oh, how could he? How could he?"

The Englishman failed to understand the real cause of her half- frenzied anger and despair—the thought that Blake had ruined himself deliberately. "But don't you see it was not weakness? He proved it when he shattered the glass. His hand was cut and bleeding. He has proved that he can master that craving. I've sought to explain how it was. It is not yet too late. A word from you would save him, a single word!"

"No. It is too late. I can't see it as you do. It was weakness— weakness! I cannot believe otherwise."

"Yet—if you love him?"

"James, it is generous of you—noble!—when you yourself—"

"That's quite out of it now. It's of him I am thinking, and of you."

"Never of yourself!" she murmured. She looked down for a short moment. When she again raised her eyes, she had regained her usual quiet composure. She spoke seriously and with a degree of formality: "Lord Avondale, when you honored me with your offer, you asked me to wait before giving you a final answer."

He was completely taken unawares. "I—I—To be sure. But I cannot permit you—Your happiness is my first consideration."

"It is that disregard of self, that generosity, which enables me to speak. As I told you, I can now give you no more than the utmost of my esteem and affection. But if you are willing to take that as a beginning, perhaps, later on, I may be able to return your love as you deserve."

"But you—I do not know how to say it—In justice to yourself, no less than to him, you should make sure."

"I have never been more sure," she replied. "You have been most generous and patient. It is not right or considerate for me to longer delay my decision."

"Er—very good of you, very!" he murmured, gazing down at his interlocked fingers. "Yet—if you would care to wait—to make sure, y' know."

"But why should I wait? No, James, I am clear in what I am doing. I know that I can trust you absolutely."

Lord James slowly raised his head and met her gaze, too intent upon repressing the stress of his emotions to perceive the big fur-clad form that stood rigid in the doorway beyond Genevieve.

"Miss Leslie," he said, speaking in the same formal and serious tone that she had used in giving her decision, "I am then to understand that you accept my proposal—you will marry me?"

"Within the year, if you desire," she responded, without any sign of hesitancy.

"It's very good of you!" he replied. "I shall devote myself to your happiness."

If his voice lacked the joyful ring and his look the ardent delight of a successful lover, she failed to heed it. He rose and bent over the table with grave gallantry to kiss the hand that she held out to him.

"'Gratulations!" said a harsh voice, seemingly almost in their ears.

They looked up, startled. Blake stood close to them, at the end of the table, with his soft hat in his half-raised left hand, and his shaggy fur coat hanging limp from his bowed shoulders. He stood with perfect steadiness. Only in the fixed stare of his bloodshot eyes and the twitching of the muscles in his gray-white face could they perceive the mental stress and excitement under which he was laboring.

"Tom!" stammered the Englishman. "You here!"

"Couldn't get Ashton started," replied Blake. His voice was hoarse and rasping but not thick. Though he spoke slowly, his enunciation was distinct. "His man just carried him out. I've been waiting to slip out, unseen, this way. I ask you to excuse me. Long's I'm here, I'll make the best of it I can. Congratulations to you! Best man wins!"

While he was speaking, Genevieve had drawn her hand out of the unconscious clasp of Lord James and slowly risen from her chair. Her face was as white as Blake's; her eyes were wide with fear and pity and horror.

"You!—how could you do it?" she gasped. "When I had given you the second chance—to fail again!" The sight of his powerful jaw, clenched and resolute, stung her into an outburst of angry scorn. "Fail, fail! always fail! yet with that look of strength! To come here with that look, after failing again so utterly, miserably—in my house! You coward!"

"That's it," assented Blake in a dead monotone. "Only pity is you couldn't see it sooner. But you know me now. Ought to 've known me from the first. I didn't get drunk there in Mozambique 'cause I hadn't the stuff. You might have known that. But now it's settled. I've proved myself a brute and a fizzle—been proving it ever since Ashton got a bottle and showed me into a little room. We've been guzzling whiskey in there ever since. His man took him out dead drunk. So far I'm only—"

"Tom!" broke in Lord James. "No more of that! Tell the truth—tell her why you did it!"

"Tell her—when she's guessed already. But if you say so, Jimmy—It's the first time I ever owned up I'm a quitter. Great joke that, when all my life I haven't been anything else,—hobo, fizzle, quitter, bum—"

"Gad! Not that drivel! If you can't explain to her, then keep silent."

"No, I don't keep silent till I've had my say," rejoined Blake morosely. "Needn't think I don't know just what I'm saying and what I'm doing." His voice harshened and broke with a despair that was all the more terrible for the deadness of his tone. "God! That's why the whiskey won't work. I've poured it down like water, but it's no use— it won't work! I can't forget I've lost out!"

Genevieve leaned toward him, half frenzied, her face crimson and her gentle eyes ablaze with scorn. "And you—you!—claiming to be sober— come in here and say that to me!—that you've deliberately sought to intoxicate yourself in my house—in my house! You haven't even the decency to go away to do it! You must flaunt your shame in my face!"

"I told you I meant to slip out unseen," he mumbled, for the moment weakening in his determination to vilify himself. "Didn't think you'd give me the gaff—when it was all for you."

"For me!" she cried, in a storm of hysteria—"for me! Oh! To destroy all my love for you—my trust in the courage, the strength, the heroism I thought was yours! Oh! And to prove yourself a brute, a mere brute!—here in my own house!—my guest! Oh! oh! I hate you! I hate you!"

She flung herself, gasping and quivering, into her chair, in a desperate effort to regain self-control.

Blake bent over her and murmured with profound tenderness: "There, there, little girl! Don't take on so! I ought to 've cleared out right at first—that's a fact. But I didn't mean to bother you. Just blundered in. But I'm glad to know you've found out the truth. Long's you know for sure that you hate me, 't won't take you long to feel right toward him. He's all I'm not. Mighty glad you're going to be happy. Good-bye!"

Genevieve had become very still. But she neither looked up at him nor spoke when he stopped. He turned steadily about and started toward the door of the cardroom. Lord James thrust back the heavy chair and sprang to place himself before his friend.

"Wait, Tom!" he demanded. "Can't you see? She's overcome. Good God! You can't go off this way! You must wait and tell her the truth—how it happened—why you did it!"

Blake looked at him quietly and spoke in a tone of gentle warning, as one speaks to a young child: "Now, now, Jimmy boy, get out of my way. Don't pester me. Just think how easily I could smash you—and I'm not so far from it. Stand clear, now."

"No! In justice to yourself—to her!"

"That's all settled. Let me by."

He stepped to one side, but Lord James again interfered. "No, Tom, not till you've told her! You shall not go!"

The Englishman stood resolute. Blake shook his head slowly, and spoke in a tone of keen regret: "Sorry, Jimmy; but if you will have it!"

His bandaged right fist drove out and struck squarely on the point of his friend's jaw. His nerves of sensation were so blunted by the liquor he had drunk that he struck far harder than he intended. Lord James dropped without a groan, and lay stunned. Blake stared down at him, and then slowly swung around to look at Genevieve.

She had risen and stood with her hands clutching the edge of the table. Her face was distorted with horror and loathing.

"You coward!—you murderer!" she gasped.

"Yes, that's it," he assented—"brute, drunkard, coward, murderer—all go together. You're right to hate me! But you can't hate me half as much as I hate myself. That's hell all right—to hate yourself."

Suddenly he flung out his arms toward her and his voice softened to passionate tenderness. "God! but it's worth the price!—to save you, Jenny! I'd do it all over again, a thousand times, to make you happy, little girl!"

She shrank back and flung up her arm in a gesture of bewilderment, which he mistook for fear.

"Don't be afraid," he reassured. "I'm going."

He turned hastily, stooped to feel the heart of the unconscious man, and rose to swing across to the cardroom door. He passed out swiftly and closed the door behind him, without pausing for a backward glance.

Genevieve stared after him, dazed and bewildered by her half realization of the truth. The door had closed between them—what seemed to her an age had passed—when the full realization of what he had done flashed in upon her clouded brain like a ray of glaring white light.

She flung out her arms and cried entreatingly: "Tom! Tom—dearest!"

She tried to dart around the table, but swayed and tottered, barely saving herself from the fall by sinking into a chair. The heavy, muffled clang of the street door came to her as from a vast distance. The merciful darkness closed over her.



CHAPTER XXXI

A BRIDGE GAME

The cold snap at Michamac had been broken for nearly a month, and work on the bridge was progressing with unprecedented rapidity.

Two days after the ball, Ashton had returned to the bridge sobered and chastened. The change in him may have been due to another cut in his allowance, or to a peppery interview during which Mr. Leslie had sought to browbeat him into resigning his position.

Whatever the cause of his change of heart, Ashton had so far proved himself almost feverishly eager to establish a record. Griffith, badly shaken by the failure and disappearance of Blake, had been peremptorily ordered South by his physician. Seizing the opportunity, Ashton, instead of interfering with the work, as McGraw expected, had astonished the phlegmatic general foreman by pushing operations with utmost zeal and energy.

More mechanics and laborers had been hired, and the augmented force divided into three eight-hour shifts. All day, in sun or fog or snow, and all night, under the bluish glare of the arc-lights, the expert bridgemen toiled away upon the gaunt skeleton of the gigantic bridge, far out and above the abyss of the strait. Not a moment of the twenty- four hours was lost.

But the Resident Engineer's brief spurt of energy had already notably relaxed, when, one sunny day near the end of March, a man not a member of the train crew nor a regular passenger came in on the afternoon train. As he emerged from under a coal car, one of the switchmen stared at him blankly, swore a few lurid oaths, and laughed.

The brake-rider had paid for his ride, though not in money. He limped as he walked off, and the gray pallor of his unshaven face was grotesquely shaded and blotched with coal dust. His shoddy clothes were torn and mud-stained, his soft hat begrimed and shapeless, his cheap shoes too far gone for repair. Yet for all his shiftless footwear and his limp, his stride was long and quick.

A watchman caught sight of him, and hurried after, to warn him off the grounds. The hobo disappeared behind a pile of girders. When the watchman turned the corner, his quarry had disappeared. He shook his head doubtfully at the bridge-service train, which was backing out along the track before him with a load of eyebars and girders. There was reason to believe that the hobo had boarded it; but if so, it was under too speedy headway for the rheumatic watchman to follow.

His suspicions were well founded. As the train clattered past the unlovely buildings of rough lumber and sheet iron clustered about the bridge terminus, the stranger clambered up between two of the swaying cars and perched himself upon the wheel-like top of the handbrake. Seated thus, with feet dangling and hands thrust carelessly into the pockets of his disreputable coat, he gazed intently about at the bridge, regardless of the bitter sting of the lake wind.

The train rattled out across the shore span and along the anchor arm of the south cantilever. The brake-rider scrutinized the immense webs and lofty towers with the look of a father greeting his first-born. The train rolled on out between the towers and beyond, where swarms of carpenters and laborers were laying beams and stringers and floor planking and piling up immense stacks of material to be used farther out. The finishing gangs were following up the steel workers as fast as they could be pushed.

Beyond them, out near the end of the extension-arm, the electro- magnetic cranes of the huge main traveller were sorting and shifting forward a great heap of structural steel. The material thus handled came within the reach of the smaller traveller, which crouched upon the top-chords like a skeleton spider, swinging out the steel as wanted to the end of the unfinished suspension span.

At sight of the great heaps of structural steel and flooring material and of the ponderous main traveller so far out toward the end of the overhang, the glow in the sunken eyes of the brake-rider died out, and his grimy brows gathered in a troubled frown.

The airbrakes hissed, the cars bumped and clanked, and the train came to a laborious stop with the outermost cars beneath the lofty latticed framework of the main traveller. At once the electro-magnetic cranes began to descend, ready to swing off whole carloads of steel in their magic monstrous clutch.

The brake-rider had slipped down and was walking rapidly outward along the narrow plank footway. As he advanced he looked about him with an anxious gaze, but it was at the unfloored substructure of the bridge, not at the awesome spectacle of the swift-flowing, ice-covered stream a hundred and fifty feet beneath. Once he paused and stooped over to look closer at a rivet head.

He hurried on to where, under the smaller traveller, the uncompleted south part of the central, or suspension, span poised dizzily in space, over-arching the abyss. Many yards of gap still yawned between its tip and the tip of the sections that strained out to meet it from the end of the north cantilever.

The sections built on to the southern part of the central span had brought the overhang still more dizzily out over the broad strait. The wonder was that men could be found who were willing to work day after day in a position of such real peril. Yet since Ashton's change of attitude, McGraw had experienced no difficulty in securing and holding enough and to spare of expert bridge-workers, who toiled and sweat at their task with seemingly never a thought of the abyss that yawned beneath them.

When the brake-rider left the train, the men of the evening shift, just come on, were swarming about the end of the overhang like ants upon the tip of a broken twig,—alert-eyed, quick-handed, cool-brained "Sons of Martha," who, balanced unconcernedly in mid-air on narrow stringers, clenched fast the rivets in Death's steel harness. During the lulls between the furiously rattling volley-blows of the electric riveting-machines they grumbled about the deterioration of smoking tobacco or speculated on next season's baseball scores.

With his beefy shoulders braced against the last top-chord post, McGraw stood chewing the end of a fat black cigar while he watched the placing of a bottom-chord of a new sub-panel. From the ox-like unconcern of his stolid face and deepset eyes, his interest in the proceedings seemed to be of the most casual nature. But at the slightest gesture of his pudgy hand, cranes swung up and down, men hauled upon guy ropes, riveters moved alertly forward with their machines.

One of the men caught McGraw's eye, and jerked a thumb over his shoulder. The general foreman looked about and saw the grimy stranger standing on the plank walk a few yards back. McGraw stared, ruminated, signed to a sub-foreman, and walked stolidly back along a string of single planks to where the stranger stood waiting for him.

The soft hat of the brake-rider was now pulled down over his eyes, and his chin was hidden in the upturned collar of his tattered coat. As McGraw approached him, he drew back out of the deafening clatter of the riveting-machines. McGraw followed, his heavy face of a sudden grown truculent. He came up close to the stranger.

"You dirty bum!" he threatened. "What you doin' here? Get t' hell outer here, or I'll trow you over!"

The stranger pushed back his hat, and met the other's menacing stare with a grin. His pale blue eyes were twinkling. McGraw's heavy jowl fell slack.

"Well, McGraw—thought you wouldn't forget me this soon. What's the latest from Mr. Griffith?"

"Jacksonville—Holy saints! you've sure been lushin' some, Mr. Blake."

"Looks like it; but as it happens I haven't. Tried to turn loose, but got switched. Instead of a spree, I've been on a bum—tour of the Sunny South."

"Bum?" repeated McGraw.

"Yes. Needed a change. Too much indoors work; so I got out."

"Uh?" mumbled McGraw in slow astonishment. "No booze?"

"No. That's the funny part of it. Didn't touch a drop of anything. I used to be afraid of it when I wasn't on a tear, but now I don't even think of it. Seems as if I couldn't get up a thirst if I tried. Can't make it out."

"Sick," commented McGraw.

"No. I'm eating like a horse, and getting my strength back, hand over fist."

"In your head," qualified McGraw, touching his forehead.

"Guess that's it. Must be. Never before opened the throttle and cut loose, to come to a dead stop this way. It's as if you got up a full head of steam, and then drew the fire. Mighty queer, though,—my head is as clear as crystal."

"Huh," grunted McGraw ambiguously. "Come to take your job—assistant?"

Blake's face darkened. "No, just dropped by on my way to Canada. Thought I'd have a look at my—" he paused, and altered his statement —"that I'd see how your old scrap-heap is getting along."

"Huh."

"But, long as I'm here, guess I'll take hold for a turn or two, just to keep my hand in."

"Good! Need an engineer."

"I might as well earn enough for railroad fare. This brake-beaming and riding the rods isn't as soft a snap as it used to seem when I was a kid."

"Soft? Y'look like a second-hand garbage-can!"

"Thanks. Where's your resident swell?"

"Quarters. Hit up the pace—work—been goin' some." McGraw swept his fat arm around in an explanatory gesture. "Laid down a'ready."

"All right. I'm on the job. But I've got to get some sleep soon. And say, just pick out a spry kid to steer me up against the wash-house, will you?"

McGraw signed to the nearest man. "Pete—Mr. Blake, our 'Sistant Engineer—t' my room." He turned to Blake. "Help y'self. Safety razor 'n' tub handy. Clothes in locker. You c'n wear 'em over to commissary. Guess you c'n git into 'em."

He nodded, unaware that he had said anything humorous, and pivoted around to return to his work. Blake limped briskly away after the puzzled but silent Pete. At the bunkhouse Pete showed his charge into McGraw's room, and went to order hot water for a bath.

When he returned, Blake, with half the stubble already shorn from his lathered face, handed over a telegraph message addressed to Griffith.

Eager to be of service to the Consulting Engineer, the man hurried the message to the telegraph operator. The latter, no less friendly to Griffith, corrected the address to the sick engineer's hotel in Tampa, and wired the despatch "rush."

The message could hardly have been more laconic:

On the job. Tom.

When Pete returned for further orders, he met the Assistant Engineer at the door of the commissary, baggily draped in a suit of McGraw's clothes, which fitted nowhere except across the shoulders.

Blake dismissed him, and went in to outfit himself with a costume in keeping with his position. Almost asleep, he then went back to the bunkhouse, stumbling and yawning, and stretched out in McGraw's bed, utterly fagged.



CHAPTER XXXII

LAFFIE PLAYS—BLAKE TRUMPS

After an evening at poker with one of the new bridge-workers, Ashton had retired at midnight. He had not heard of Blake's coming, for McGraw had presumed that the Assistant Engineer had reported to the office before turning in to sleep.

When he awoke, the sun was half way up the eastern sky. He yawned, glanced at the sun, and rang for his breakfast. It was presently brought in to him by his English valet, who, like the chef, was not unused to the city social hours of his employer. Ashton did not trouble to go into his elegant little dining-room, but ordered the meal served at his bedside.

Sometime later, Blake, over in the bunkhouse, opened his eyes, yawned, and sprang out into the middle of McGraw's unaesthetic room. He had slept eighteen hours without a break. He awoke still stiff and sore, but brimming over with energy, and hungry as a shark. He gave himself a cold rubdown, jumped into his new clothes, and ran to the cookhouse for a hearty meal.

When he came out again, he headed straight across the tracks for the office of the Resident Engineer. He smiled ironically as he noted the green and white paint and the trimmings of the verandahs with which Ashton had endeavored to give a bungalow effect to the shack-like structure. But as he swung up the steps into the front verandah, the grimness of his look increased and the humor vanished. His heavy tread through the weather vestibule announced his entrance into the office. He took no pains to walk softly.

Ashton, attired in a lounging-robe of scarlet silk, was half reclining in an easy chair. The big desk beside him was littered with engineering journals, reports, and blueprints of bridge plans, topped with detail drawings in ink of the long central span. The Resident Engineer was not studying the plans. He was reading a French novel of the variety seldom translated.

At Blake's entrance, he looked up, his delicate high-arched eyebrows gathered in a frown of annoyance. Almost in the same moment he recognized the intruder, and started to his feet in open alarm.

"How!—why!" he stammered. "You here? I thought you—that after—"

"Too bad, eh?" bantered Blake. "But you mustn't blame yourself. You did your best. But accidents will happen."

"Then you're—you're not—Yet you look—"

"Appearances often deceive," quoted Blake lightly. "You gave me a great start-off—had me going South. So I went."

"Going South?"

"Yes. But that's all by-the-bye, as my friend, the Right Honorable the Earl of Avondale, would say. I'm here now for you to enter my acceptance of the standing offer of the Assistant Engineership."

"You—you agree to take it—under me?" cried Ashton in astonishment.

"Why not?" asked Blake with well-feigned surprise.

"Why, of course if—You see, it's—it's rather unexpected," Ashton sought to explain as he regained assurance. "Old Griffith wrote me about the way you had put through the Zariba Dam. After that I never dreamed you'd accept any position as Assistant."

"Well, I like to please Grif," was Blake's easy reply. "He's been worrying because office work uses me up. Nothing suits me better than an outdoor job, and I happened to take a fancy to your bridge the other time I came. It's a good deal like those plans of mine that got mislaid. Of course you can't know that."

"No, of course not!" assented Ashton, moistening his lower lip.

"Course not," repeated Blake. "So I can't blame you if you find it hard to believe that my plans would have been accepted before you drew yours if they hadn't been mislaid."

"Then you—no longer accuse Mr. Leslie of—having taken them?" Ashton ventured to ask.

"Couldn't prove it on him, could I? No use baa-ing over spilt milk. Well, you understand I'm on the job now; I've accepted the offer."

"Ye-es," reluctantly admitted Ashton. "Not that I see the use. There's no need for another engineer."

"That's no lie. One engineer is enough," said Blake dryly. "You sure proved yourself one when you planned this little old cantilever. However, I'm short of cash. I'll hang around and do what I can. May be able to save you bother by carrying orders out to McGraw or checking over reports for you."

He picked up the vellum-cloth drawings of the central span and some of the blueprints, and began in a matter-of-fact manner to roll them up.

"Hold on!" sharply interposed Ashton. "What are you about?"

"I'm going to bunk with McGraw. Thought I'd take these over and try to get in touch with the work."

"No, you sha'n't! I can't allow you to take those. They're the original drawings. They must not be taken out of my office."

"Original drawings?" repeated Blake in a tone of perfect innocence. "Excuse me. I took them for copies."

"C-copies!" stuttered Ashton, turning white even to his lips.

"Yes. Hasn't Grif the originals?" asked Blake in a careless tone that was barely touched with surprise.

Ashton rallied from his fright. "No, you're mistaken, completely mistaken! These are the originals. I drew them myself. I couldn't trust to a draughtsman."

"Sure not, such important work as this span of yours. Grif tells me there's never before been anything built like this suspension span," agreed Blake, bending over to study the drawings. "But you'll admit some of these figures are rather slipshod for work on original drawings put in to win a competition."

"But I—I didn't compete. The idea came to me too late for that. I tried my utmost to be in time for the contest. I was working fast to get my plans drawn. That's why I made some errors—which you may have noticed."

Blake looked up with an ironical smile.

Ashton moistened his lips, hesitated, and asked in an uneasy tone: "About—about how long do you expect to stay? I suppose you will stay, won't you?"

"Well, three or four days, maybe. As you probably know, Grif screwed the company up to offer me a stiff salary—on the strength of that Zariba work, I suppose. I didn't intend to take the offer at all, but my clothes were—they got rather out of repair on my Southern tour, and I came on up here without stopping at my tailor's. Happened to leave my checkbook, too, and it's a long walk to town."

"Oh, if it's only that you're strapped," Ashton hastened to reply; "I'll be pleased to draw you a check—little loan, you know—anything from a hundred to a thousand. No hurry about paying it back. I'm flush."

"You're too kind!" said Blake dryly.

"It's nothing—nothing—a mere trifle!" assured Ashton, with a touch of condescension. "You know I'll have scads of money to burn some day." He opened a drawer of his desk and took out a checkbook. "I know you can't be anxious to hang around a dreary hole like this. Suppose I make it five thousand? You can keep the money as long as you wish. There's just time for you to catch the extra train we're sending down to the junction for more steel."

"Thanks. But I need a good rest," said Blake.

"I'll think it over, and let you know. Maybe I'll decide to loaf around with you a few days and save borrowing."

"Oh, well, if you can stand this jumping-off place," replied Ashton, visibly disappointed.

He glanced down into the open drawer, and his eyes narrowed with a look of furtive eagerness that did not escape Blake. In a corner of the drawer was a squat black bottle and a tumbler. Ashton lifted them out and poured a half-glassful of whiskey that was thick and oily with age.

"The real stuff!" he said, holding out the tumbler to Blake. "Older than your grandmother. Let's wet your welcome to Michamac!"

"Here's how!" replied Blake, with a geniality of tone and manner that diverted the other's attention from the glint in his eyes. He took the glass and deliberately twisted his hand backward so that the whiskey poured out on the bare floor in front of the desk.

"Look out! You're spilling it!" exclaimed Ashton.

"No, just pouring it," explained Blake. "German custom. Next time you're in a beer-garden do it, and they'll let you know what it means."

"Means?" echoed Ashton.

"In this case, it means I never drink when I'm on a job. One of my rules. Told you I had accepted that standing offer, didn't I?"

"Yes. But I didn't know that you—"

"Well, you know now. I'm on this job."

Ashton shot a covert glance at his square-jawed opponent.

"Then it's a mistake—the report that you refused to accept any position from Mr. Leslie," he murmured.

"Mistake? No," curtly answered Blake. "Needn't try to fool me. Mr. Leslie turned the bridge over to the Coville Company months ago."

"Fool you?" sneered Ashton. "You're too easy! The Coville Company is only another name for Papa Leslie."

"Look here," warned Blake. "You're apt to learn soon that some lies aren't healthy."

"It's the truth," replied Ashton, giving back a little, but insistent on the facts. "It's a way he avoids responsibility. But he owns ninety-nine per cent of the stock. Griffith must have told you that. He knows all about it."

This obstinate insistence, despite the young fellow's evident fear, convinced Blake. He half raised his clenched fist.

"And I fell to it!" he muttered. "Let him bunco me into putting through that dam for him! Scheme to make me take his money!"

"You as good as put half a million into his pocket," jeered Ashton.

"What do I care about that?" rejoined Blake.

"It's that fifty thousand bonus. He'll be trying to force it on me."

Ashton thought he had misunderstood. "Don't fear he'll not pay up. He's good pay when you have it in black and white. There's still time to catch the train. You'll find your check waiting you at the offices of the company."

Blake did not reply. One of the dimensional figures on a blueprint of the south cantilever had caught his glance, and he had bent over to peer at it. A sudden stillness seemed to have fallen upon him.

After a perceptible pause, he asked in a tone that was very low and quiet and deliberate: "Would you mind telling me if this blueprint was made direct from your originals—from the original drawings used in ordering the structural steel?"

"Yes, of course," answered Ashton. "Why?"

"You are sure?"

"I'm certain. You don't think I'd let any one with a pen fool around my drawings, do you?"

"Lord, no! Might correct your damn errors!" cried Blake, all his stony calm fluxing to lava before an outflare of volcanic excitement. "You fool!—Lord! Wasting time! Sit down—scratch off an order. That cantilever must be relieved P.D.Q.—every ounce skinned off it!"

"What—what's that?" asked Ashton, staring blankly. He had never before seen Blake agitated.

"You fool!" shouted Blake. "You've got that outer arm loaded down with material 'way beyond the margin of safety. You damned fool, you made an error here in the figures—over the bottom-chords and posts. They'll hold anything, once the suspension span is completed, but now! Lord! McGraw is a mule—he'll insist on a written order. Weather report says wind. And another train loading to run out on the overhang, when we ought to be hauling steel off!"

"Oh, we ought, ought we?" blustered Ashton, venturing bravado in view of Blake's agitation. "Who d' you think is running this bridge, you barrel-house bum? I'll give you to understand I'm the engineer in charge here. You're my Assistant—my Assistant! D'you hear?"

"Yes, yes!" urged Blake. "Only scratch off an order! There's no time to lose! I'll do the work. For God's sake, hurry! You've a hundred men out there on that deadfall—a million dollars' worth of steel-work! Those bottom-chords may buckle any second!"

From eager pleading, Blake burst out in an angry roar: "Damn you! Get busy! Write that order!"

Seized with desperate fear of the big form that leaned menacingly toward him over the desk, Ashton snatched an automatic pistol from the top drawer, and thrust it out toward Blake.

"Stand back! Stand back! Keep away!" he cried shrilly.

Blake hastily stepped back. It was not the first time he had seen a panic-stricken fool with a pistol. The quick retreat instantly restored Ashton's assurance. He rebounded from fear to contempt.

"You big bluff!" he jeered. "Good thing you hopped lively. I'll show you! Thought I wasn't armed, did you?"

"You doughhead!" rejoined Blake. "Can't you understand? I tell you that bridge—"

"Bah! You knocker! I see your game. You know now that it's Papa Leslie's job; you want to get in charge—knock out my work—spoil the record I'm making. That's it! You think you'll get my place, and try to smooth things up with Genevieve."

"Shut up!" commanded Blake, raising his fist.

Ashton hastily sighted the pistol, which he had half lowered. "You— you—don't you threaten me! I'll shoot!" As Blake made no attempt to attack, he went on viciously: "You'd better not! I'll show you! I'm the boss here—get out of here! You're fired! Get out; keep off my bridge; leave the grounds, or I'll have you kicked off!"

"You fool!" said Blake. He swung around and started off with stern determination. But within three strides he faced about again. "You dotty fool! I had intended to let you down easy."

He came back toward the desk, grim-faced and very quiet. Ashton was puzzled and disconcerted by this sudden change of front. The pistol wavered in his trembling hand.

"Keep away! Don't you touch me! Don't you come near me!" he half whimpered.

Blake advanced to the opposite side of the desk, and spoke in a tone of cool raillery: "You're rattled. Better put up that gun. It might go off."

"It will in half a second!" snapped Ashton.

Blake leaned forward and transfixed him with a stare of cold contempt.

"You thief!" he said. "Your game is up. You sneak thief!"

Ashton lowered his pistol and cowered as though Blake had struck him. "No, no! I'm not—I'm not! You haven't any proof—you can't prove it!"

"Proof?" growled Blake. "When I've known it ever since I came up before—knew it the first look. My bridge from shoe to peak—every girder, every rivet—and my truss! Not another bridge in the world has that truss. You dirty sneak thief!—Huh! you would, would you?"

Ashton had sought to raise and aim the pistol. This time Blake did not step back. Instead, he flung himself forward, and his hand closed in an iron grip on the wrist of the hand that held the pistol. The weapon fell from the paralyzed fingers.

Ashton made a frantic clutch with his left hand to regain the pistol, but he was jerked violently forward, up and over the desk. As he floundered across in a flurry of rustling, tearing maps and papers, he swore in shrill anger. Blake's left hand gripped his throat, His anger gave place to terror. He sought to scream, but the fingers tightened and throttled him. He was dragged across and down upon the floor, choking and gurgling. Blake bent lower.

"Lie still!" he ordered. "I'm going to let go your throat. If you squawk, I'll break your neck!"

He removed his grip alike of wrist and throat, and Ashton, gasping and panting, felt gingerly of his throat with his soft fingers. He could not see the dark marks left by Blake's terrible clutch, but he could feel the bruises. He glared up, terror-stricken, into the pale hard eyes that blazed down into his own with a light like that of molten steel.

"You—you'll not—not murder me!" he panted.

"I'll break your neck if you don't keep quiet and mind," menaced Blake. He sprang erect. "Get up to your desk—quick!"

Ashton needed no urging. As lie scrambled around to the chair, Blake picked up the automatic pistol and tested its mechanism with expert swiftness.

"Don't! Don't!" implored Ashton, dodging down.

"Bah! Take that pen—write!" commanded Blake. Ashton clutched at his pen and an order pad. "Steady, you fool! Now write, 'Bridge in danger. Strip bare. Blake in charge.'" Ashton scribbled with frantic swiftness. "Got that? Sign your name in full as Resident Engineer."

The moment Ashton obeyed, Blake reached over and snatched up the order pad and an indelible pencil. In his other hand he thrust out the pistol to press its muzzle against Ashton's temple.

"Oh!—oh!—don't!" whimpered the coward.

"You skunk!" growled Blake. "Keep your mouth shut, or I'll smash you like a rattlesnake. I'm going to save my bridge. Don't get in my way!" He pointed with the pistol toward the rear door of the room. "What's in there?"

"My—my quarters."

"Get in there! Stay in! No yawping!" The terse orders ended in a flash of grim humor. "You're sick. Mind you don't get worse."

Ashton was already slinking into his apartment.

There was a rumble of freight cars outside. Blake spun about on his heel and rushed out through the vestibule.



CHAPTER XXXIII

ABOVE THE ABYSS

A train loaded with steel was backing out to the bridge. Blake ran down the track to the engine and swung up into the cab.

"Stop her!" he shouted.

The engine-driver was among the men who had been introduced to Blake on his visit with Griffith. He recognized the engineer at the first glance.

"Hello, Mr. Blake!" he sang out. "You here?"

"Brakes!" cut in Blake so incisively that the driver closed his throttle and applied the airbrakes with emergency swiftness. Anticipating his questions, Blake tersely explained: "Bridge in danger. I'm in charge. Have you a lot of empties handy?"

"How?—bridge?" queried the fireman, peering around at the stranger.

"Dozen empties—" began the driver.

"Good!" said Blake. "Clear these cars and—"

"What's this?" demanded the yardmaster, who had run up at the sudden stoppage of the train. "Back on out, Jones. There's the coal to switch."

"Damn your coal!" swore Blake. "Get a big string of empties out the bridge, quick as you can!"

"Who the hell are you?" blustered the yardmaster.

"Engineer in charge," answered Blake, holding out Ashton's order. "Bridge in danger—error in plans—overloaded—and weather report says wind! Jones, toot up your whistle—fire-call—anything! I want every man of every shift out here in two shakes."

Without waiting for orders from the yardmaster, Jones signed to his fireman, reversed, and threw open his throttle. The fireman clutched the whistle-cord and began jerking out a succession of wild shrieks and toots. As the train started away from the bridge, Blake swung to the ground to meet the excited men who came running from all directions.

He held Ashton's order close under the nose of the yardmaster, and shouted above the din of the engine whistle: "See that? She'll go when the wind rises. Hustle out those empties, with every man you have."

Impelled by the engineer's look, the yardmaster sprang about and sprinted alongside the train, waving signals to his switch crew. Blake no less swiftly sprang into the midst of the mob of off-shift men streaming from the bunkhouse.

"I'm Blake—engineer in charge—from Griffith!" he shouted. "Bridge overloaded—will go down when wind rises. We've got to clear her. She may go down when the empties back out. Any yellow cur that wants to quit can call for his pay-check. I'm going out. Come on, boys!"

He started along the service-track at a quick jog-trot. The men, without a single exception, followed him in a mass, jostling each other for the lead. Near the outer end of the approach span they met the morning shift of carpenters and laborers, who were hurrying shoreward in response to the wild alarm of the engine whistle. Blake waved them about.

"Bridge in danger!" he shouted. "Volunteers to clear material."

Few of the carpenters and none of the chattering Slovaks and Italians caught anything except the word "danger." But zeal and fearlessness are sometimes as contagious as fear. A half-dozen or so drew aside to slink on shoreward. All the others joined the silent eager crowd behind Blake. Before they had gone a hundred feet every man in the crowd knew that at any moment the huge cantilever might crash down with them to certain destruction in the chasm, yet not one turned back.

A short distance beyond the cantilever towers they came to the foremost of the on-shift steel workers, who had halted in their shoreward run when they saw that the outcoming party showed no sign of halting. But those in their rear and McGraw, who had been left behind farthest of all in the race, were still moving forward.

Blake waved his pad to McGraw and called out to him over the heads of the others: "Here's my order! I'm in charge. Take every man you can handle, and work the main traveller to the towers. Hustle!"

"Your order!" wheezed McGraw stubbornly.

Blake was already close upon him. He had dealt before with men of McGraw's character. He tore off Ashton's order, thrust it into the other's pudgy hand, and paused to scribble an order to hold the train on the shore span.

On occasion McGraw could be nimble both in mind and body. The moment he had read Ashton's order, he wheeled about to rush back the way he had come, and let out a bull-like bellow: "Hi, youse! clear f'r trav'ller! Out-shift, follow me!"

The steel workers who had been on shift raced after and past him to the main traveller. He followed at a surprisingly rapid pace, bellowing his instructions. Blake, holding back in the lead of his far larger party from the shore, began to issue terse orders to the gangs of carpenters and laborers. They strung along the extension arm, outward from the point where the floor-system was completed. Before Blake could pass on ahead, tons of beams and stringers, iron fittings and kegs of bolts and nails began to rain down into the abyss.

Having detailed half of the two shore shifts of steel workers to clear the way for the inrolling of the huge traveller, Blake took the other half out with him to the extreme end of the overhang. As soon as the main traveller began its slow movement shoreward, he ordered the smaller traveller run back several yards, in readiness to load the heavier pieces of structural steel.

All his own men being now engaged in the most effectual manner, he turned about to quiet McGraw, who, for once shaken out of his phlegmatic calm, had been reduced to a state of apoplectic rage by the inability of his men to perform miracles. Blake's cool manner and terse directions almost redoubled the efficiency of the workers. The main traveller began to creep toward the towers with relative rapidity.

Blake walked ahead of it, to steady and encourage the gangs that toiled and sweat in the frosty sweep of the rising wind. He came back again to the overhang and stood for a few moments gazing across at the outstretched tip of the north cantilever.

Suddenly his face lightened. He glanced over his shoulder at the lofty towers behind him, nodded decisively, and hastened back to where McGraw, once more his usual stolid taciturn self, was extracting every ounce of working energy out of the men who swarmed about the main traveller.

"Goin' some!" he grunted, as Blake tapped his arm.

"Stop her fifty feet this side towers," ordered Blake. "How many central-span sections have you stacked up out here?"

"All 'cept four north-side 'uns. Last come this mornin'. In yards yet."

"How long'll it take us to rig a cable tram from the traveller across to the north 'lever?"

"Huh?" demanded McGraw blankly.

"We'll run the north-side steel across by tram, and push the work from both ends. Once the central span's connected, this bridge'll stand up under any load that can be piled on her."

"Wind risin'—an' you figurin' on construction work!" commented McGraw.

"If she doesn't go to smash in the next half-hour, we'll be O.K.," answered Blake coolly. "That train has waited long enough. You look to the steel. Load the first sections for this end on the outermost car. We can cut it off the train at the towers."

At McGraw's nod, he scratched off an order and sent a man running with it to the waiting train. Very shortly the three outermost cars came rolling toward him, pushed by the switch crew and a gang of laborers. Their weight was several times offset by the weight of flooring material that had already been hurled from the bridge.

Blake tested the force of the wind, noted the distance that the main traveller had moved shoreward, and promptly ordered the work of destruction to cease. Some forty or fifty thousand dollars' worth of material had already gone over into the strait, and he was too much of an engineer to permit unnecessary waste.

The electro-magnetic crane of the smaller traveller was already swinging up a number of pieces of structural steel to load on the cars as they rolled out to the extreme end of the service-track. McGraw came hurrying to take charge of the eager loading gang. Blake went out past them to the end of the overhang, and perching himself on a pile of steel, began to jot down figures and small diagrams on the back of his pad.

He was still figuring when a cheer from the carloaders caused him to look up. The cars, which had been stacked with steel to their utmost capacity, were being connected with the rear of the train by means of a wire rope. In response to the signals of McGraw, the engine started slowly shoreward.

Before the train had moved many yards the slack of the steel rope was taken up. It tautened and drew up almost to a straight line, so tense that it sang like a violin string in the sharp wind gusts. Then the steel-laden cars creaked, started, and rolled shoreward after the train, groaning under their burden. The men all along the bridge raised a wild cheer.

Blake stepped back beside McGraw.

"Well, Mac, guess we've turned the trick," he said.

"Close,—huh?" replied the general foreman, holding up his hand to the wind.

"Close enough," agreed Blake. "She might have gone any minute since we came out. Whee!—if I hadn't headed off that train of steel! Well, a miss is as good as a mile. She'll stand now. Next thing is to connect the span."

"Huh?" ejaculated McGraw. "Ain't goin' t' tackle that, Mr. Blake, 'fore reinforcin' bottom-chords?"

"What! Wait for auxiliary bracing to come on from the mills? Not on your life! Once connected, she'll be unbreakable—all strains and stresses will be so altered as to give a wide margin of safety, spite of that damned skunk!"

"Huh?" queried McGraw.

Blake's lips tightened grimly, but he ignored the question.

"We'll drive the work on twelve-hour shifts,—double pay and best food that can be bought. Divide up the force now, and turn in with your shift—those who most need sleep."



CHAPTER XXXIV

"THE GUILTY FLEE"

In the midst of the wild flurry of work on the bridge, an engine from the junction had puffed into the switching yards with a single coach, the private car of H. V. Leslie.

Despite the shrill whistle that signalled its approach, no one ran out to meet the special,—no workman appeared in the midst of the sheds and material piles to stare at the unexpected arrival. Irritated at this inattention, Mr. Leslie swung down from his car, closely followed by Lord James.

"What can this mean?" he demanded. "Not a man in sight. Entire place seems deserted."

"Quite true," agreed Lord James. "Ah, but out on the bridge—great crowd of men working out there. Seems to be fairly swarming with men."

"So there are—so there are. Yet why so many out there, and none in the yards?"

"Can't say, I'm sure. I daresay we'll learn at the office."

"Learn what, Mr. Scarbridge?" asked Dolores, who had popped out into the car vestibule. Without waiting for an answer or for his assistance, she sprang down the steps, waving her muff. "Come on, Vievie. Don't wait for mamma."

"What are you going to do?" demanded Mr. Leslie.

"Hunt for our heroic hero, of course," answered the girl.

"You shall do no such thing," said her mother, appearing majestically in the vestibule.

Genevieve, pale and calm and resolute, came out past her aunt.

"We shall go to Mr. Ashton's office, papa," she said, as Lord James handed her down the steps. "If Mr. Blake is not there, Mr. Ashton will know where to send for him."

"Tom's out on the bridge," stated Lord James.

"He is? How do you know?" queried Mr. Leslie.

"It's a hundred to one odds. That wire to Griffith—'On the job,' y' know. He'll be where the most work is going on. I'll go fetch him."

"If you will, James," said Genevieve. "Tell him that papa—not I—You understand."

"Trust me!" He smiled, glanced appealingly at Dolores, met a frown, and started briskly away out the service-track.

"Wait," ordered Dolores. "I'll go, too. I've never been out on an unfinished bridge."

"You'll not. You'll stay ashore," interposed her mother.

"Oh fudge! Trot along, then, Mr. Scarbridge."

At her call, Lord James had halted and turned about, eagerly expectant. As, disappointed, he started on again, she addressed Mr. Leslie: "I'm not going back into that stuffy car, Uncle Herbert. Where's the place you call the office?"

He pointed to Ashton's quarters, and she skipped forward, past the engine, before her mother could interfere. The others followed her, wrapping their furs close about them to shut out the bitterly cold wind.

Dolores was still in the lead when the party reached the office, but she paused in the vestibule for her uncle to open the door. When he entered, she stepped in after him, followed by Genevieve and Mrs. Gantry. Darting his glances about the office in keen search, Mr. Leslie crossed the room to stare concernedly at the litter of torn maps and papers on the floor in front of the desk. He hurried to the inner door and rapped vigorously. There was no immediate response. He rapped again.

The door opened a few inches, and Ashton's English valet peered in at the visitors with a timid, startled look.

"Well?" demanded Mr. Leslie. "What d' you mean, sir, gawking that way? What's the matter here?—all these papers scattered about—everybody out on the bridge. Who are you, anyway?"

"M-Mr. Ashton's m-man, sir!" stuttered the valet.

"His man? Where is he?—out on the bridge?"

"N-no, sir; in his rooms, sir."

"Tell him to come here at once!"

"Y-yes, sir, very good, sir. But I fear he'll be afraid to come out, sir. Mr. Blake—he ordered 'im to stay in, sir."

"Blake ordered him! Why? Speak out, man! Why?"

"He—he said the bridge—that it was about to fall, sir."

"Bridge—about to fall?"

"Yes, sir. So he pulled Mr. Ashton across the desk by 'is neck— manhandled 'im awful, and 'e told 'im—"

"What! What! Tell Ashton I'm here—Mr. Leslie! Tell him to come at once—at once! D' you hear?"

As the valet vanished, Genevieve darted to her father, her eyes wide with swift-mounting alarm. "Papa! Didn't you hear him? He said the bridge—it's about to fall!"

"He did! He did!" cried Dolores, catching the alarm. "Oh, and Jimmy's gone out, too!"

"'Jimmy'!" echoed Mrs. Gantry, staring.

The girl ran to the windows in the end of the room, which afforded a full view of the gigantic bridge.

"Hurry! Hurry, papa! Do something!" cried Genevieve. "If the bridge falls—!"

"Nonsense!" argued her father. "There can't be any danger. It's still standing—and all those men remaining out on it. If there was any danger—Must be some mistake of that fool valet."

"Then why are there no men ashore? Why are they all out there?" questioned Genevieve with intuitive logic. "Oh! it's true—I know it's true! He's in danger! And James—both! They're out there—it will fall! He'll be killed! Send some one—tell them to come ashore! I'll go myself!"

She started toward the door.

"No, no, let me!" cried Dolores, darting ahead of her.

"Stop!—both of you!" exclaimed Mrs. Gantry. "Are you mad?"

"Stop!" commanded Mr. Leslie.

Genevieve paused and stood hesitating before the vestibule door. Dolores darted back to the windows.

A voice across the room called out: "That's—that's right! There's no need to go. It's all a fake—a pretence!"

Staring about, Mr. Leslie and the ladies saw Ashton beside the inner door. He was striving to assume an air of easy assurance, but the doorknob, which he still grasped, rattled audibly.

"You!" rasped Mr. Leslie. "What you doing in here—skulking in here?"

Ashton cringed back, all the assurance stricken from his face.

"You—you believe him!" he stammered. "But it's not fair! You've heard only his side—his lies about me!"

"Whose lies? Speak out!"

"His—Blake's! The big brute took me by surprise—half murdered me. He came here, drunk or crazy, I don't know which. Pretended the bridge was in danger."

"Pretended? Isn't it?"

"All rot! Not a bit of it!"

"What!"

"I tell you, it's all a put-up job—a frame-up. The brute thought he'd get in with you again—you and Genevieve. He schemed to discredit me, to get my place."

"Blake?—he did that?" eagerly queried Mrs. Gantry.

"Yes!" cried Ashton, and he turned again to Mr. Leslie. "Don't you see? He guessed that you were coming up. So he sneaked here ahead of you—took away my pistol and threatened to murder me if I left my rooms."

Genevieve looked the glib relator up and down, white with scorn.

"You lie!" she said.

"But—but—I—" he stammered, disconcerted. He stepped toward her, half desperate. "It's the truth, I tell you, the solemn truth! I'll swear to it! It was there, right at my desk. You see the maps, torn when he dragged me across—by the throat! Look here at my neck—at the marks of his fingers!"