"And the girl shall witness your agonies," he concluded.

Cutty, bereft of invention, could only stare. Death! He had faced it many times, but always with a chance. There was none here, and the absolute knowledge paralyzed him.

Had Cutty been alone Kitty would have rushed at the madman; but the sight of Hawksley robbed her of all mobility. His unexpected appearance was to her the Book of Revelation. The blind alley she had entered and reentered so many times and so futilely crumbled.... Johnny Two-Hawks!

As for Hawksley, he knew he had but little time. The floor was billowing; he saw many candles where he knew there was only one. He was losing his senses. There remained but a single idea—to do the old thoroughbred one favour for the many. Scorning death—perhaps inviting it—he lunged headlong at Karlov's knees.

This reckless challenge to death was so unexpected that Karlov had no time to aim. He fired at chance. The bullet nipped the left shoulder of Hawksley's coat and shattered the laths of the partition between the attic and the servant's quarters. Under the impact of the human catapult Karlov staggered back, desperately striving to maintain his balance. He succeeded because Hawksley's senses left him in the instant he struck Karlov's knees. Still, the episode was a respite for Cutty, who dashed at Karlov before the latter could set himself or raise the smoking automatic.

Kitty then witnessed—dimly—a primordial, titanic conflict which haunted her dreams for many nights to come. They were no longer men, but animals; the tiger giving combat to the gorilla, one striking the quick, terrible blows of the tiger, the other seeking always to come to grips.

The floor answered under the step and rush. Rare athletes, these two; big men who were light on their feet. Kitty could see their faces occasionally and the flash of their bare hands, but of their bodies little or nothing. Nor could she tell how the struggle was going. Indeed until the idea came that they might be trampling Johnny Two-Hawks there was no coherent thought in her head, only broken things.

She ran to the soapbox and kicked it aside. She saw Hawksley on his face, motionless. At least they should not trample his dead body. She caught hold of his arms and dragged him to the wall—to discover that she was sobbing, sobs of rage and despair that tore at her breast horribly and clogged her throat. She was a woman and could not help; she could not help Cutty! She was a woman, and all she could do was to drag aside the lifeless body of the man who had given Cutty his chance!

She knelt, turning Hawksley over on his back. There was a slight gash on one grimy cheek, possibly caused by contact with the latchets of Karlov's boots. She raised the handsome head, pressed it to her bosom, and began to sway her body from side to side. Tumult. The Federal agents were throwing their bodies against the door repeatedly. In the semi-darkness Cutty fought for his life. But Kitty neither heard nor saw. The world had suddenly contracted; there was only this beautiful head in her arms; beyond and about, nothing.

Cutty felt his strength ebbing; soon he would not be able to wrench himself loose from those terrible arms. He knew all the phases of the fighting game. Chivalry and fair play had no part in this contest. Clear light, to observe what his blows were accomplishing; a minute or two of clear light! Half the time his blows glanced. The next time those arms wound about him, that would be the end. He was growing tired, winded; he had not gone into battle fresh. He knew that many of his blows had gone home. Any ordinary man would have dropped; but Karlov came on again and again.

And all the while Karlov was not fighting Cutty; he was endeavouring to remove him. He was an obstacle. What Karlov wanted was that head the girl was holding in her arms; to grind his heel into it. Had Cutty stepped aside Karlov would have rushed for the other man.

"Kitty, the door, the door!" Cutty shouted in despair, taking a terrible kick on the thigh. "The door!"

Kitty did not stir.

A panel in the door crushed in. The sole of a boot appeared and vanished. Then an arm reached in, groping, touched the plank propped under the door knob, wrenched and tugged until it fell. Immediately the attic became filled with men. It was time. Karlov had Cutty in his arms.

This turn in the affair roused Kitty. Presently she saw men in a snarl, heaving and billowing, with a sudden subsidence. The snarl untangled itself; men began to step back and produce pocketlamps. Kitty saw Cutty's face, battered and bloody, appear and disappear in a flash. She saw Karlov's, too, as he was pulled to his feet, his hands manacled. Again she saw Cutty. With shaking hand he was trying to attach the loose end of his collar to the button. The absurdity of it!

"Take him away. But don't be rough with him. He's only a poor devil of a madman," said Cutty.

Karlov turned and calmly spat into Cutty's face. A dozen fists were raised, but Cutty intervened.

"No! Let him be. Just take him away and lock him up. He's a rough road to travel. And hustle a comfortable car for me to go home in. Not a word to the newspapers. This isn't a popular raid."

As soon as the attic was cleared Cutty limped over to Molly Conover's daughter. The poor innocent! The way she was holding that head was an illumination. With a reassuring smile—an effort, for his lips were puffed and burning—he knelt and put his hand on Hawksley's heart.

"Done in, Kitty; that's all."

"He isn't dead?"

"Lord, no! He had nine lives, this chap, and only one of 'em missing to date. But I had no right to let him come. I thought he was fairly fit, but he wasn't. Saved my life, though. Kitty, your Johnny Two-Hawks is a real man; how real I did not know until to-night. He has earned his American citizenship. Fights like he fiddles—on all four strings. All our troubles are at an end; so buck up."

"Alive? He is alive?"

The wild joy in her voice! "Yes, ma'am; and we two can regularly thank him for being alive also. That lunge gave me my chance. He's only stunned. Perhaps he'll need a nurse again. Anyhow, he'll be coming round in a minute or two. I'll wager the first thing he does is to smile. I should."

Suddenly Kitty grew strangely shy. She became conscious of her anomalous position. She had promised to marry Cutty, promised herself that she would be his true wife—and here she was, holding another man's head to her heart as if it were the most precious head in all the world. She could not put that head upon the floor at once; that would be a confession of her embarrassment; and yet she could not continue to hold Hawksley while Cutty eyed her with semi-humorous concern. Cutty was merciful, however. "Let me hold him while you make a pillow out of your coat." After he had laid Hawksley's head on the coat he said: "He'll come about quicker this way. We've had some excitement, haven't we?"

"I don't want any more, Cutty; never any more. I've been a silly, romantic fool!"

"Not silly, only glorious."

"Your poor face!"

"Banged up? Well, honestly, it feels as it looks, Kitty, this chap was going to give himself up in exchange for you. Not a word of protest, not a question. All he said was: 'I am ready.' That's why I'm always going to be on his side."

"He did that—for me?"

"For you. Did it never occur to you that you're the sort folks always want to do things for if you'll let them?"

"God bless you, Cutty!"

"He's always blessing me, Kitty. He blessed me with your mother's friendship, now yours. Kitty, I'm going to jilt you."

"Jilt me?"—her heart leaping.

"Yes, ma'am. We can't go through with that mummery. We aren't built that way. I'll figure it out in some other fashion. But marriage is a sacred contract; and this farce would have left a scar on your honest mind. You'd have to tell some man. Your kind can't go through life without being loved. Would he understand? I wonder. He'll be human or you wouldn't fall in love with him; and always he'll be pondering and bedevilling himself with queer ideas—because he'll be human. Of course there's a loophole—you can sue me for breach of promise."

"Please, Cutty; don't laugh! You're one of those men they call Greathearts. And now I'm going to tell you something. It wasn't going to be a farce. I intended to become your true wife, Cutty, make you as happy as I could."

Cutty patted her hand and got up. Lord, how bruised and sore his old body was!... His true wife! She might have been his if he had not missed that train. But for this hour, hot with life, she might never have discovered that she loved Hawksley. His true wife! Ah, she would have been all of that—Molly's girl!

"Will you mind waiting here until I see where old Stefani Gregor is?"

"No," answered Kitty, dreamily.

Cutty limped to the door. Outside he leaned against the partition. Done in, body and soul. Always opening the gates of paradise for somebody else... His true wife! Slowly he descended the stairs.

Alone, Kitty smoothed back the dank hair from Hawksley's brow, which she kissed. Benediction and good-bye.



CHAPTER XXXII

Because it was assumed that some of Karlov's pack might be at large and unsuspectingly return to the trap, Federal agents would remain on guard all night. They explored the house, hunting for chemicals, documents, letters, and addresses. They found enough high explosive to blow up the district. And they found Stefani Gregor. They were standing by the cot as Cutty came in.

"Yes, sir. Just this minute went out."

"Did he speak?"

"A woman's name."

"Rosa?"

"Yes, sir. Looks to me as if he had been starved to death. Know who he was?"

"Yes. Tell the coroner to be gentle. Once upon a time Stefani Gregor spoke to kings by right of genius."

The thought that he himself might have been the indirect cause of Gregor's death shocked Cutty, who was above all things tender.

He had held back the raid for several days, to serve his own ends. He could have ordered the raid from Washington, and it would have gone through as smoothly as to-night. The drums of jeopardy. Well, that phase of the game was done with. He had held up this raid so that he might be on hand to search Karlov; and until now he had forgotten the drums. Accurst! They were accurst. The death of Stefani Gregor would always be on his conscience.

Cutty stared—not very clearly—at the cameo-like face so beautifully calm. As in life, so it was in death; the calm that had brooked and beaten down the turbulent instincts of the boy, the imperturbable calm of a great soul. Rosa. The sublime unselfishness of the man! He had sacrificed wealth and fame for the love of the boy's mother—unspoken, unrequited love, the quality that passes understanding. And his reward: to die on this cot, in horrid loneliness. Rosa.

All at once Cutty felt himself little, trivial, beside this forlorn bier. What did he know about love? He had never made any sacrifices; he had simply carried in his heart a bittersweet recollection. But here! Twenty-odd years of unremitting devotion to the son of the woman he had loved—Stefani Gregor. Creating environments that would develop the noble qualities in the boy, interposing himself between the boy and the evil pleasures of the uncle, teaching him the beautiful, cleansing his soul of the inherited mud. Reverently Cutty drew the coverlet over the fine old head.

"What's this?" asked one of the operatives. "Looks like the pieces of a broken fiddle."

Out of those dark red bits of wood—some of them bearing the imprints of hobnails—Cutty constructed the scene. A wave of bitter rage rolled over him. The beast! Karlov had done this thing, with poor old Gregor looking on, too weak to intervene. Not so many years ago these bits of wood, under the master's touch, had entranced the souls of thousands. Cutty recalled a fairy tale he had read when a boy about a prince whose soul had been transformed into a flower which, if plucked or broken, died. Karlov had murdered Stefani Gregor, perhaps not legally but actually nevertheless.

Rehabilitated in soul, Cutty left the room. He had read a compelling lesson in self-sacrifice. He was going to pick up his cross and go on with it, smiling. After all, Kitty was only an interlude; the big thing was the game; and shortly he would be in the thick of great events again. But Kitty should be happy.

His old analytical philosophy resumed its functions. The contempt and jealousy of one race for another; what was God's idea in implanting that in souls? Hawksley was at base Russian. The boy's English education, his adopted outlook upon life, made it possible for Cutty to ignore the racial antagonism of the Anglo-Saxon for all other races. Stefani Gregor at one end of the world and he at the other, blindly working out the destinies of Kitty Conover and Ivan Mikhail Feodorovich and so forth and so on, with the blood of Catharine in his veins! Made a chap dizzy to think of it. Traditions were piling up along with crowns and sceptres in the abyss.

When he returned to the attic he felt himself fortified against any inevitability. Hawksley was sitting up, his back to the wall, staring groggily but with reckless adoration into Kitty's lovely face. Youth will be served. As if, watching these two, there could be any doubt of it! And he had bent part of his energies toward keeping them separated.

"Ha!" he cried, cheerfully. "Back on top again, I see. How's the head?"

"Haven't any; no legs; I'm nothing at all but a bit of my own imagination. How do you feel?"

"Like the aftermath of an Irish wake." Then Cutty's battered face assumed an expression that was meant to typify gravity. "John," he aid, "I've bad news for you."

John. A glow went over the young man's aching body. John. What could that signify except that he had passed into the eternal friendship of this old thoroughbred? John.

"About Stefani?"

"Stefani is dead. He died speaking your mother's name."

Hawksley's head sank; his chin touched his chest. He spoke without looking up. "Something told me I would never see him alive again. Old Stefani! If there is any good in me it will be his handiwork. I say," he added, his eyes now seeking Cutty's, "you called me John. Will you carry on?"

"Keep an eye on you? So long as you may need me."

"I come from a lawless race. Stefani had to fight. Even now I'm afraid sometimes. God knows I want to be all he tried to make me."

"You're all right, John. You've reached haven; the storms hereafter will be outside. Besides, Stefani will always be with you. You'll never pick up that old Amati without feeling Stefani near. Can you stand?"

"Between the two of you, perhaps."

With Kitty on one side and Cutty on the other Hawksley managed the descent tolerably well. Often a foot dragged. How strong she was, this girl! No hysterics, no confusion, after all that racket, with death—or something worse—reaching out toward her; calmly telling him that there was another step, warning him not to bear too heavily on Cutty! Holding him up physically and morally, these two, now all he had in life to care for. Yesterday, unknown to him; this night, bound by hoops of steel. The girl had forgiven him; he knew it by the touch of her arm.... Old Stefani! A sob escaped him. Their arms tightened.

"No; I was thinking of Stefani. Rather hard—to die all alone—because he loved me."

Kitty longed to be alone. There were still many unshed tears—some for Cutty, some for Stefani Gregor, some for Johnny Two-Hawks, and some for herself.

In the limousine Cutty sat in the middle, Kitty on his left and Hawksley on his right, his arms round them both. Presently Hawksley's head touched his shoulder and rested there; a little later Kitty did likewise. His children! Lord, he was going to have a tremendous interest in life, after all! He smiled with kindly irony at the back of the chauffeur. His children, these two; and he knew as he planned their future that they were thinking over and round but not of him, which is the way of youth.

At the apartment Cutty decided to let Hawksley sit in an easy chair in the living room until Captain Harrison arrived. Kuroki was ordered to prepare a supper, which would be served on the tea cart, set at Hawksley's knees. Kitty—because it was impossible for her to remain inactive—set the linen and silver. She was in and out of the room, ill at ease, angry, frightened, bitter, avoiding Hawksley's imploring eyes because she was not sure of her own.

She was sure of one thing, however. All the nonsense was out of her head. To-morrow she would be returning to the regular job. She would have a page from the Arabian Nights to look upon in the days to come. She understood, though it twisted her heart dreadfully: she was in the eyes of this man a plaything, a pretty woman he had met in passing. If she had saved his life he had in turn saved hers; they were quits. She did not blame him for his point of view. He had come from the top of the world, where women were either ornaments or playthings, while she and hers had always struggled to maintain equilibrium in the middle stratum. Cutty could give him friendship; but she could not because she was a woman, young and pretty.

Love him? Well, she would get over it. It might be only the glamour of the adventure they had shared. Anyhow, she wouldn't die of it. Cutty hadn't. Of course it hurt; she was a silly little fool, and all that. Once he was in Montana he would be sending for his Olga. There wasn't the least doubt in her mind that if ever autocracy returned to power, he'd be casting aside his American citizenship, his chaps and sombrero, for the old regalia. Well—truculently to the world at large—why not?

So she avoided Hawksley's gaze, sensing the sustained persistence of it. But, oh, to be alone, alone, alone!

Cutty washed the patient's hands and face and patched up the cut on the cheek, interlarding his chatter with trench idioms, banter, jokes. Underneath, though, he was chuckling. He was the hero of this tale; he had done all the thrilling stunts, carried limp bodies across fire escapes in the rain, climbed roofs, eluded newspaper reporters, fought with his bare fists, rescued the girl.... All with one foot in the grave! Fifty-two, gray haired—with a prospect of rheumatism on the morrow—and putting it over like a debonair movie idol!

Hawksley met these pleasantries halfway by grousing about being babied when there was nothing the matter with him but his head, his body, and his legs.

Why didn't she look at him? What was the meaning of this persistent avoidance? She must have forgiven last night. She was too much of a thoroughbred to harbour ill feeling over that. Why didn't she look at him?

The telephone called Cutty from the room.

Kitty went into the dining room for an extra pair of salt cellars and delayed her return until she heard Cutty coming back.

"Karlov is dead," he announced. "Started a fight in the taxi, got out, and was making for safety when one of the boys shot him. He hadn't the jewels on him, John. I'm afraid they are gone, unless he hid them somewhere in that—What's the matter, Kitty?"

For Kitty had dropped the salt cellars and pressed her hands against her bosom, her face colourless.

Hawksley, terrified, tried to get up.

"No, no! Nothing is the matter with me but my head.... To think I could forget! Good—heavens!" She prolonged the words drolly. "Wait."

She turned her back to them. When she faced them again she extended a palm upon which lay a leather tobacco pouch, cracked and parched and blistered by the reactions of rain and sun.

"Think of my forgetting them! I found them this morning. Where do you suppose? On a step of the fire-escape ladder."

"Well, I'll be tinker-dammed!" said Cutty.

"I've reasoned it out," went on Kitty, breathlessly, looking at Cutty, "When the anarchist tore them from Mr. Hawksley's neck, he threw them out of the window. The room was dark; his companion could not see. Later he intended, no doubt, to go into the court and recover them and cheat his master. I was looking out of the window, when I noticed a brilliant flash of purple, then another of green. The pouch was open, the stones about to trickle out. I dared not leave them in the apartment or tell anybody until you came home. So I carried them with me to the office. The drums, Cutty! The drums! Tumpitum-tump! Look!"

She poured the stones upon the white linen tablecloth. A thousand fires!

"The wonderful things!" she gasped. "Oh, the wonderful things! I don't blame you, Cutty. They would tempt an angel. The drums of jeopardy; and that I should find them!"

"Lord!" said Cutty, in an awed whisper. Green stones! The magnificent rubies and sapphires and diamonds vanished; he could see nothing but the exquisite emeralds. He picked up one—still warm with Kitty's pulsing life—and toyed with it. Actually, the drums! And all this time they had been inviting the first comer to appropriate them. Money, love, tragedy, death; history, pageants, lovely women; murder and loot! All these days on the step of the fire-escape ladder! He must have one of them; positively he must. Could he prevail upon Hawksley to sell one? Had he carried them through sentiment?

He turned to broach the suggestion of purchase, but remained mute.

Hawksley's head was sunk upon his chest; his arms hung limply at the sides of his chair.

"He is fainting!" cried Kitty, her love outweighing her resolves. "Cutty!"—desperately, fearing to touch Hawksley herself.

"No! The stones, the stones! Take them away—out of sight! I'm too done in! I can't stand it! I can't—The Red Night! Torches and hobnailed boots!"



CHAPTER XXXIII

Her fingers seemingly all thumbs, her heart swelling with misery and loneliness, wanting to go to him but fearing she would be misunderstood, Kitty scooped up the dazzling stones and poured them hastily into the tobacco pouch, which she thrust into Cutty's hands. What she had heard was not the cry of a disordered brain. There was some clear reason for the horror in Hawksley's tones. What tragedy lay behind these wonderful prisms of colour that the legitimate owner could not look upon them without being stirred in this manner?

"Take them into the study," urged Kitty.

"Wait!" interposed Hawksley. "I give one of the emeralds to you, Cutty. They came out of hell—if you want to risk it! The other is for Miss Conover, with Mister Hawksley's compliments." He was looking at Kitty now, his face drawn, his eyes bloodshot. "Don't be apprehensive. They bring evil only to men. With one in your possession you will be happy ever after, as the saying goes. Oh, they are mine to give; mine by right of inheritance. God knows I paid for them!"

"If I said Mister—" began Kitty, her brain confused, her tongue clumsy.

"You haven't forgiven!" he interrupted. "A thoroughbred like you, to hold last night against me! Mister—after what we two have shared together! Why didn't you leave me there to die?"

Cutty observed that the drama had resolved itself into two characters; he had been relegated to the scenes. He tiptoed toward his study door, and as he slipped inside he knew that Gethsemane was not an orchard but a condition of the mind. He tossed the pouch on his desk, eyed it ironically, and sat down. His, one of them—one of those marvellous emeralds was his! He interlaced his fingers and rested his brow upon them. He was very tired.

Kitty missed him only when she heard the latch snap.

She was alone with Hawksley; and all her terror returned. Not to touch him, not to console him; to stand staring at him like a dumb thing!

"I do forgive—Johnny! But your world and my world—"

"Those stains! The wretches hurt you!"

"What? Where?"—bewildered.

"The blood on your waist!"

Kitty looked down. "That is not my blood, Johnny. It is yours."

"Mine?" Johnny. Something in the way she said it. "Mine?"—trying to solve the riddle.

"Yes. It is where your cheek rested when—I thought you were dead."

The sense of misery, of oppression, of terror, all fell away miraculously, leaving only the flower of glory. She would be his plaything if he wanted her.

Silence.

"Kitty, I came out of a dark world—to find you. I loved you the moment I entered your kitchen that night. But I did not know it. I loved you the night you brought the wallet. Still I did not understand. It was when I heard the lift door and knew you had gone forever that I understood. Loved you with all my heart, with all that poor old Stefani had fashioned out of muck and clay. If you held my head to your heart, if that is my blood there—Do you, can you care a little?"

"I can and do care very much, Johnny."

Her voice to his ears was like the G string of the Amati. "Will you go with me?"

"Anywhere. But you are a prince of some great Russian house, Johnny, and I am nobody."

"What am I, Kitty? Less than nobody—a homeless outcast, with only you and Cutty. An American! Well, when I'm that it will be different; I'll be somebody. God forgive me if I do not give it absolute loyalty, this new country!... Never call me anything but Johnny."

"Johnny." Anywhere, whatever he willed her to be.

"I'm a child, Kitty. I want to grow up—if I can—to be an American, something like that ripping old thoroughbred yonder."

Cutty! Johnny wanted to be something like Cutty. Johnny would have to grow up to be his own true self; for nobody could ever be like Cutty. He was as high and far away from the average man as this apartment was from hers. Would he understand her attitude? Could she say anything until it would be too late for him to interfere? She was this man's woman. She would have her span of happiness, come ill, come good, even if it hurt Cutty, whom she loved in another fashion. But for Johnny dropping through that trap she might never have really known, married Cutty, and been happy. Happy until one or the other died; never gloriously, never furiously, but mildly happy; perhaps understanding each other far better than Johnny and she would understand each other. The average woman's lot. But to give her heart, her mind, her body in a whirlwind of emotions, absolute surrender, to know for once the highest state of exaltation—to love!

All this tender exchange with half a dozen feet between them. Kitty had not stirred from the far side of the tea cart, and he had not opened his arms. She had given herself with magnificent abandon; for the present that satisfied her instincts. As for him, he was not quite sure this miracle might not be a dream, and one false move might cause her to vanish.

"Johnny, who is Olga?" The question was irrepressible. Perhaps it was the last shred of caution binding her. All of him or none of him. There must be no other woman intervening.

Hawksley stiffened in his chair. His hands closed convulsively and his eyes lost their brightness. "Johnny?" Kitty ran round the tea cart. "What is it?" She knelt beside the chair, alarmed, for the horror had returned to his face. "What did they do to you back there?" She clasped one of his hands tensely in hers.

"In my dreams at night!" he said, staring into space. "I could run away from my pursuers, but I could not run away from my dreams! Torches and hobnailed boots!... They trampled on her; and I, up there in the gallery with those damned emeralds in my hands! Ah, if I hadn't gone for them, if I hadn't thought of the extra comforts their sale would bring! There would have been time then, Kitty. I had all the other jewels in the pouch. Horses were ready for us to flee on, loyal servants ready to help us; but I thought of the drums. A few more worldly comforts—with hell forcing in the doors!

"I didn't tell her where I was going. When I came back it was to see her die! They saw me, and yelled. I ran away. I hadn't the courage to go down there and die with her! She thought I was in that hell pit. She went down there to die with me and died horribly, alone! Ah, if I could only shut it out, forget! Olga, my tender young sister, Kitty, the last one of my race I could love. And I ran away like a yellow dog, like a yellow dog! I don't know where her grave is, and I could not seek it if I did! I dared not write Stefani; tell him I had seen Olga go down under Karlov's heels, and then ran away!... Day by day to feel those stones against my heart!"

Nothing is more terrible to a woman than the sight of a brave man weeping. For she knew that he was brave. The sudden recollection of the emeralds; a little more comfort for himself and sister if they were permitted to escape. Not a cowardly instinct, not even a greedy one; a normal desire to fortify them additionally against an unknown future, and he had surrendered to it impulsively, without explaining to Olga where he was going.

"Johnny, Johnny, you mustn't!" She sprang up, seizing his head and wildly kissing him. "You mustn't! God understands, and Olga. Oh, you mustn't sob like that! You are tearing my heart to pieces!"

"I ran away like a yellow dog! I didn't go down there and die with her!"

"You didn't run away to-night when you offered your life for my liberty. Johnny, you mustn't!"

Under her tender ministrations the sobs began to die away and soon resolved into little catching gasps. He was weak and spent from his injuries; otherwise he would not have given way like this, discovered to her what she had not known before, that in every man, however strong and valiant he may be, there is a little child.

"It has been burning me up, Kitty."

"I know, I know! It is because you have a soul full of beautiful things, Johnny. God held you back from dying with Olga because He knew I needed you."

"You will marry me, knowing that I did this thing?"

Marry him! A door to some blinding radiance opened, and she could not see for a little while. Marry him! What a miserable wretch she was to think that he would want her otherwise! Johnny Two-Hawks, fiddling in front of the Metropolitan Opera House, to fill a poor blind man's cup!

"Yes, Johnny. Now, yesterdays never were. For us there is nothing but to-morrows. Out there, in the great country—where souls as well as bodies may stretch themselves—we'll start all over again. You will be the cowman and I'll be the kitchen wench. As in the beginning, so it will always be hereafter, I'll cook your bacon and eggs."

She pulled his chair round and pushed it toward a window, dropped beside it and laid her cheek against his hand.

"Let us look at the stars, Johnny. They know." Kuroki, having arrived with coffee and sandwiches, paused on the threshold, gazed, wheeled right about face, and returned to the kitchen.

By and by Kitty looked up into Hawksley's face. He was asleep. She got up carefully, lightly kissed the top of his head—the old wound—and crossed to Cutty's door. She must tell dear old Cutty of the wonderful happiness that was going to be hers. She opened the study door, but did not enter at once. Asleep on his arms. Why, he hadn't even opened that Ali Baba's bag! Tired out—done in, as Johnny Two-Hawks called it in his English fashion. She waited; but as he did not stir she approached with noiseless step. The light poured full upon his head. How gray he was! A boundless pity surged over her that this tender, valiant knight should have missed what first her mother had known—now she herself—requited love. To have everything in the world without that was to have nothing. She would not wake him; she would let him sleep until Captain Harrison came. Lightly she touched the gray head with her lips and stole from the study.

"Oh, Molly, Molly!" Cutty whispered into his rigid fingers.

And so they were married, in the apartment, at the top of the world, on a May night thick with stars. It was not a wedding; it was a marriage. The world never knew because it was none of the world's business. Who was Kitty Conover? A nobody. Who was John Hawksley? Something to be.

Out of the storm into the calm; which is something of a reversal. Generally in love affairs happiness is found in the approach to the marriage contract; the disillusions come afterward. It was therefore logical that Kitty and her lover should be happy, as they had run the gamut of test and fire beforehand.

The young people were to leave for the West soon after the supper for three. At midnight Cutty's ship would be boring down the bay. Did Kitty regret, even a little, the rice and old shoes, the bridesmaids and cake, so dear to the female of the species? She did not. Did she think occasionally of the splendour of the title that was hers? She did. To her mind Mrs. John Hawksley was incomparably above and beyond anything in that Bible of autocracy—the Almanach de Gotha.

After supper Cutty brought in the old Amati.

"Play," he said, lighting his pipe.

So Hawksley played—played as he never had played before and perhaps as he would never play again. We reach zenith sometimes, but we never stay there. But he was not playing to Cutty. Slate-blue eyes, two books with endless pages, the soul of this wife of his. He had come through. The miracle had been accomplished. Love.

Kitty smiled and smiled, the doors of her soul thrown wide to absorb this magic message. Love.

Cutty smoked on, with his eyes closed. He heard it, too. Love.

"Well," he said, sighing, "I see innovations out there in Montana. The round-up will be different. The Pied Fiddler of Bar-K will stand in the corral and fiddle, and the bossies will come galloping in, two by two—and a few jackrabbits!" He laughed. "John, the Amati is yours conditionally. If after one year it is not reclaimed it becomes yours automatically. My wedding present. Remember, next winter, if God wills, you'll come and visit me."

"As if we could forget!" cried Kitty, embracing Cutty, who accepted the embrace stoically. "I'll be needing clothes, and Johnny will have to have his hair cut. Oh, Cutty, I'm so foolishly happy!"

"Time we started for the choo-choo. Time-tables have no souls. But, Lord, what a racket we've had!"

"Well, rather!"—from Hawksley.

"Bo, listen to me. Out there you must remember that 'bally' and 'ripping' and 'rather' are premeditated insults. Gee-whiz! but I'd like a look-see when you say to your rough-and-readies: 'Bally rotten weather. What?' They'll shoot you up."

More banter; which fooled none of the three, as each understood the other perfectly. The hour of separation was at hand, and they were fortifying their courage.

"Funny old top," was Hawksley's comment as they stood before the train gate. "Three months gone we were strangers."

"And now—" began Cutty.

"With hoops of steel!" interrupted Kitty. "You must write, Cutty, and Johnny and I will be prompt."

"You'll get one from the Azores."

"Train going west!"

"Good luck, children!" Cutty pressed Hawksley's hand and pecked at Kitty's cheek. "Shan't go through with you to the car. Kuroki is waiting. Good-bye!"

The redcaps seized the luggage, and Hawksley and his bride followed them through the gate. Because he was tall Cutty could see them until they reached the bumper. Funny old world, for a fact. Next time they met the wounds would be healed—Hawksley's head and old Cutty's heart. Queer how he felt his fifty-two. He began to recognize one of the truths that had passed by: One did not sense age if one ran with the familiar pack. But for an old-timer to jog along for a few weeks with youth! That was it—the youth of these two had knocked his conceit into a cocked hat.

"Poor dear old Cutty!" said Kitty.

"Old thoroughbred!" said Hawksley.

And there you were, relegated to the bracket where the family kept the kaleidoscope, the sea-shell, and the album. His children, though; from now on he would have that interest in life. The blessed infant—Molly's girl—taking a sunbonnet when she might have worn a tiara! And that boy, stepping down from the pomp of palaces to the dusty ranges of Bar-K. An American citizen. It was more than funny, this old top; it was stark raving mad.

Well, he had one of the drums. It reposed in his wallet. Another queer thing, he could not work up a bit of the old enthusiasm. It was only a green stone. One of the finest examples of the emerald known, and he could not conjure up the panorama of murder and loot behind it. Possibly because he was no longer detached; the stone had entered his own life and touched it with tragedy. For it was tragedy to be fifty-two and to realize it. Thus whenever he took out the emerald he found his imagination walled in. Besides, it was a kind of magic mirror; he saw always his own tentative villainy. He was not quite the honest man he had once been.

But what was happening down the line there? The passengers were making way for someone. Kitty, and racing back to the gate! She did not pause until she stood in front of him, breathless.

"Forget something?" he asked, awkwardly.

"Uh-hm!" Suddenly she threw her arms round his neck and kissed him. "If only the three of us could be always together! Take care of yourself. Johnny and I need you." Then she caught his hand, gave it a pressure, and was off again. Cutty stood there, staring blindly in her direction. Old Stefani Gregor; sacrifice. By and by he became conscious of something warm and hard in his palm. He looked down.

A green stone, green as the turban of a Mecca pilgrim, green as the eye of a black panther in the thicket. He dropped the emerald into a vest pocket and fumbled round for his pipe—always his mental crutch. He lit it and marched out of the station into the night—chuckling sardonically. For the second time the thought occurred to him: Of all his earthly possessions he would carry into the Beyond—a chuckle.

Molly, then Kitty; but the drums of jeopardy were his!

THE END