"That is something, is n't it?" asked Donaldson almost pleadingly.

"Something? Something? It's everything. Don't you see now that you can't go away?"

"I see," he answered.

"Well, then, give me your hand again. Sort of trembly, eh? But I 'll bet you sleep better the rest of the night. And don't you on your life let her know I told you. She 's proud as the devil. But she would have done the same for me. They say love is blind," he laughed excitedly, "but, Holy Smoke, this is the worst case of it I ever saw!"

Donaldson lay passive.

"Now," concluded Arsdale, "I 'll go back and see if I can sleep. Good night."

Donaldson again lay flat on his back after Arsdale had gone. So he lay, not sleeping, merely enduring, until, almost imperceptibly at first, the dark about him began to dissolve. Then he rose, partly dressed, and sitting by the open window watched the East as the dawn stole in upon the sleeping city. It came to the attack upon the grim alleys, the shadows around buildings, the stealthy figures, like a royal host. A few gray outriders reconnoitred over the horizon line and sent scurrying to their hovels those who looked up at them from shifty eyes. Then came a vanguard in brighter colors with crimson penants who attacked the fields and broad thoroughfares; then the King's Own in scarlet jackets and wide sweeping banners, bronze tinted, who charged the smaller streets and factory roofs, and finally the brave array of all the dazzling host itself, who hurled their golden, sun-tipped lances into every nook and cranny, awaking to life all save those whose souls were dark within.

In watching it Donaldson found the first relief in the long night. His own mind cleared with the dawn. The day broke so clean and fresh, so bathed in morning dew, that once again his mind, grown perhaps less active, clung in some last spasm to the present as when he had sat with Elaine at breakfast, part of the little Dutch picture. Without reasoning into the to-morrow, he felt as though this day belonged to him. As the sun rose higher and stronger, enveloping the world in its catholic rays, the night seemed only an evil dream. He was both stronger and weaker. He was swept on, unresisting, by the high flood of the new day. This world now before his eyes acknowledged nothing of his agony but came mother-like to ease his fretting. She would have nothing of the heavy tossings inspired by her sinister sister, the Night. She was all for clean glad spirits, all for new hopes. So he who had first frowned at it, who had then watched passively, now rose to its call.

He was entitled to this day, sang the tempter sun,—one big day out of all his life. The crisis would be no more acute upon the morrow and he might be stronger to meet it. This day was his and hers, and even the boy's. To accept it would be to shirk nothing; it would be only to postpone—to weave into the sombre grave vestments be was making for himself one golden thread. Arsdale's talk had removed the last vestige of hope. The worst had happened. Surely one gay interlude could add no burden. A day was always a day, and joys once lived could never be lost. Always in her life and in his this would remain, and since he had shouldered the other days as they had come to him, it seemed no more than right that he should take this. Not to do so would be but sorry self-imposed martyrdom.

Arsdale came in, still in his bathrobe, with brisk step and his face a-beaming.

"Well," he demanded, "how do you feel now?"

"Better," answered Donaldson, unhesitatingly.

"Better! You ought to feel great! Look at the sun out there! Smell that air! Have you had your tub?"

"Not yet," smiled Donaldson.

Arsdale led the way to the shower, and a few minutes later Donaldson felt his skin tingle to new life beneath the cold spray.



CHAPTER XXI

Facing the Sun

When he came down-stairs he found her dressed in white and looking like a nun. Her hair was brushed back from her forehead and the silk-figured Japanese shawl was over her shoulders. He recalled the shawl and with it the picture she had made that first night.

At the door he called her name and she looked up quickly, swiftly scanning his face. He crossed to her side.

"You should n't stay in here," he said. "Come outdoors a moment before breakfast. It's bright and warm out there."

She arose, and they went out together to the lawn. Each blade of grass was wearing its morning jewels. The sun petted them and bestowed opals, amethysts, and rubies upon them. The hedge was as fresh as if newly created; the neighboring houses appeared as though a Dutch housewife had washed them down and sanded them; the sky was a perfect jewel cut by the Master hand. The peeping and chattering of the swallows was music, while a robin or two added a longer note to the sharp staccatos.

They stood in the deep porch looking out at it, while the sun showered them with warmth.

"You 've seen Ben?" he asked.

"Yes," she answered, turning her face up to his with momentary brightness. "Yes. And he was like this out here! The change is wonderful! It is as though he had risen from the dead!"

Donaldson lifted his head toward the stark blue of the sky.

"The dead? There are no dead," he exclaimed passionately. "Even those we bury are ever ready to open their silent lips to us if only we give them life again. We owe it to them to do that, through our own lives to continue as best we can their lives here on earth. But we can't do that as long as we have them dead, can we? And that is true of dead hopes, of dead loves. We have to face the sun with all those things and through it breathe into them a new spirit. Do you see, Miss Arsdale?"

He did not look at her, but as her voice answered him it seemed to be stronger.

"I think—I think I do."

"Nothing can die, unless we let it die," he ran on, paving the way for what he realized she must in the end know. "Some of it can disappear from our sight. But not much. We can bury our dead, but we need n't bury their glad smiles, we need n't bury the feel of their hands or the brush of their lips, we need n't bury their songs or the brave spirit of them. We can keep all that, the living part of them, so long as our own spirit lives. It is when that dies in us that we truly bury them. And this is even truer of our loves—intangible spirit things as they are at best."

He did not wish that part of him to die utterly in her with his doomed frame.

"But—" she shivered, "all this talk of graves and the dead?"

"It is all of the sun and the living," he replied earnestly. "You must face the sun with me to-day. Will you?"

"Yes! Yes! But last night you made me afraid. Was it the dark,—did you get afraid of the dark? I know what that means."

"Perhaps," he answered gently. "But if so, it was because I was foolish enough to let it be dark. And you yourself must never do it again. If things get bad at night you must wait until morning and then come out here. So, if you remember what I have said, it will get light again. Will you promise to do that?"

"Yes."

"I 'd like to make this day one that we 'll both remember forever. I 'd like to make it one that we can always turn back to."

"Yes."

"Perhaps after to-day we 'll neither of us be afraid of the dark again."

"I 'm not afraid now."

"Nor I," he smiled.

The voice of Arsdale came to them,

"Oh, Elaine! Oh, Donaldson!"

She led the way into the house with a lighter step and Arsdale met them with a beaming face which covered a broad grin.

"I suppose you two can do without food," he exclaimed, "but I can't. Breakfast has been waiting ten minutes."

"It's my fault," apologized Donaldson.

"You can't see stars in the morning, can you?" chuckled Arsdale.

"Maybe," answered Donaldson.

Elaine checked the boy's further comments with a frightened pressure as she took his arm and passed into the white and green breakfast room.

There stood the table by the big warm window again, and as she took her place it seemed as though they were stepping into the same picture framed by the hedge. She caught Donaldson's eye with a little smile and saw that he understood.

Arsdale broke in with renewed enthusiasm for his philanthropic project and outlined his ambitions to Elaine.

"You see," he concluded, "some day, little sister, you may see the law sign 'Donaldson & Arsdale, Counsellors at Law.' Not a bad sounding firm name, eh?"

"I think it is great—just great, Ben!" she exclaimed enthusiastically. "It's almost worth being a man to make your life count for something like that."

"I want you to make out a list of books for me to get and I 'll go down-town this afternoon. I suppose you 've a pretty good law library yourself?"

"I had the beginning of one. I sold it."

"What did you do that for?"

"My practice was n't big enough to support it. But you—you 'll not be bothered with lack of clients."

With school-boy eagerness Arsdale was anxious to plunge into the scheme at once.

"And say," he ran on, "I 'm going to look up some offices. I 'll stake the firm to some good imposing rooms in one of the big law buildings. Nothing like looking prosperous at the start. Guess I 'll drop down-town right after breakfast and see what can be had."

Donaldson didn't have the heart to check him. Later on he would write him a letter sustaining him in his project and recommending him to a classmate of his, to whom this partnership would be a godsend, as, a week ago, it would have been to himself. That was the best he could think of at the moment and so he let him rattle on.

As soon as they had finished breakfast Arsdale was off.

"I 'll leave you two to hunt out new stars as long as that occupation does n't seem to bore you. I 'll be back for dinner."

Miss Arsdale looked a bit worried and questioned Donaldson with her eyes.

"He 'll be all right," the latter assured her. "Good Lord, a man with an idea like that is safe anywhere. It's the best thing in the world for him."

A little later Donaldson went up-stairs to his room. He took out his wallet and counted his money. He had over four hundred dollars. At noon forty-eight hours would be remaining to him. He still had the ample means of a millionaire for his few needs.

He was as cool as a man computing what he could spend on a summer vacation. He was not affected in the slightest by the details of death or by the mere act of dying itself. He was of the stuff which in a righteous cause leads a man to face a rifle with a smile. He would have made a good soldier. The end meant nothing horrible in itself. It meant only the relinquishing of this bright sky and that still choicer gift below.

He rose abruptly and came down-stairs again to the girl, impatient at being away from her a minute. She was waiting for him.

"This," he said, "is to be our holiday. I think we had better go into the country. I should like to go back to Cranton. Is it too far?"

"Not too far," she answered. "But the memories of the bungalow—"

"I had forgotten about that. It does n't count with the green fields, does it? We can avoid the house, but I should like to visit the orchard and ride behind the old white horse again."

"I am willing," she replied.

"Then you will have to get ready quickly."

They had just time to catch the train and before they knew it they were there.

The old white horse was at the little land-office station to meet them for all the world as though he had been expecting them, and so, for that matter, were the winding white road, the stile by the lane, and the orchard itself. It was as though they had been waiting for them ever since their last visit and were out ready to greet them.

The driver nodded to them as if they were old friends.

"Guess ye did n't find no spooks there after all," he remarked.

"Not a spook. Any more been seen there since?"

"H'ain't heern of none. Maybe ye took off the cuss."

"I hope so."

They dismissed the driver at the lane and then went back a little way so as to avoid the bungalow. Donaldson was in the best of spirits, for at the end of the first hour he had solaced himself with the belief that Arsdale had been mistaken in his statement. She was nothing but a glad hearted companion in look and speech. They sat down a moment in the orchard and he was very tender of her, very careful into what trend he let their thoughts run. But soon he moved on again. He needed to be active. It was the walk back through the fields to which he had looked forward.

They brushed through the ankle-deep grass, pausing here and there to admire a clump of trees, a striking sky line, or a pretty slope.

To Donaldson it did not seem possible that this could ever end, that any act of nature could blot this from his mind as though it had never been. It was unthinkable that through an eternity he should never know again the meaning of blue sky, of blossoms, of such profligate pictures as now met his eye at every step, but above all, that he should be blind to the girl herself and all for which she stood. No matter how long the journey he was about to take, no matter through what new spheres, these things must remain if anything at all of him remained. So his one thought was to fill himself as full of this day as possible, to crowd into his flagging brain the many pictures of her and this setting which so harmonized with her. The deeper joys of love he might not know, save as his silent heart conjured them, but all that he could see with his eyes should be his. He would fill his soul so full of light that the unknown trail would be less dark to him. He would carry with him for torches the sun and her bright eyes.

"Let's go back as the crow flies," he suggested. "'Cross country—over hill and dale. We must n't turn out for anything," he explained, "we must go crashing through things—trampling them down."

"My," she cried, mocking his fierceness—little realizing the emotion to which they gave vent, "my, things had better look out!"

He paused, caught his breath, and turned to her, an almost terrified smile about his tense mouth.

"Oh, little comrade, you 'd best let me be serious."

"No, no. Not to-day. Let us be as glad as we can,—let us celebrate."

"Celebrate what?" he demanded, lest she might think that he had confessed his thoughts to her.

"Spring," she answered, with a laugh that came from deep within her big happy heart. "Just spring."

"Then we must n't trample down anything?" he queried.

"Nothing that we can help. But we can take the straight course just the same. We 'll turn aside for the flowers and little trees."

"And nothing else."

"Nothing else," she agreed.

He led the way, his shoulders drooping a trifle and his step not so light as her step. She could have trodden upon violets without harm to them. Still, he marched with a sturdiness that was commendable considering the load he carried. They made their way down through the orchard and over the sun-flecked grass until they encountered their first obstacle. It was a stone wall made out of gray field rocks. He gave her his hand. The fingers clung to his like a child's fingers. Their warm, soft caress went to his head like wine so that for a moment, as she stood near him, it was a question whether or not he could resist drawing her into his arms which throbbed for her. He spoke nothing; she spoke nothing. There was no boldness in her, nor any struggle either. With her head thrown back a little, she waited. So for ten seconds they stood, neither moving. Then he motioned and she jumped lightly to the ground. He led the way and they took up their march again, though once behind him she found it difficult to catch her breath again.

They moved on down the green hill, across a field, ankle deep in new grass, into the heavier green of the low lands. So they came to a meadow brook running shallow over a pebbly bottom but some five yards wide. There were no stepping stones, but a hundred rods to the right a small foot bridge crossed.

Again she waited to see what he would do, while he waited to see what he would dare. With his heart aching in his throat he challenged himself. It was asking superhuman strength of him to venture his lips so near the velvet sheen of her cheeks—he who so soon was going out with a hungry heart. Her arms would be about his neck—that would be something to remember at the end—her arms about his neck. He knew that she expected him in even so slight a thing as this to keep true to his undertaking and march straight ahead. She realized nothing of the struggle which checked him. Tragic triviality—the problem of how to cross a brook with a maid! There was but one way even when it involved the mauling of a man's heart.

He held out his arms to her and she came to them quite as simply as she had taken his proffered hand at the wall. He placed one arm about her waist and another about her skirts. She clasped her fingers behind his neck and sat up with as little embarrassment as though riding upon a ferry.

He lifted her and the act to him was as though he had condensed a thousand kisses into one. He walked slowly. This was a brief span into which to crowd a lifetime of love. In the middle of the brook he stopped—just a second, to mark the beginning of the end—and then went on again. When he set her down he was breathing heavily. She had become a bit self-conscious. Her cheeks were aflame.

Her low black shoes with their big silk bows tied pertly below her trim ankles were a goodly sight to see against the green grass as he might have observed had he looked at them at all. But he did n't. He wiped his moist forehead as though, instead of a dainty armful, she had been a burden.

She shook the wrinkles from her skirt and looked up at him laughing. Then she frowned.

"Mr. Donaldson," she scolded, "you walked across there with your shoes and stockings on."

"Why, that's so," he exclaimed, looking down at his water-logged shoes as though in as great surprise as she herself.

"What are you going to do about it?"

"I don't know," he answered helplessly.

"You ought to spread them out in the sun to dry."

"You can't spread out shoes, can you? Besides we have n't time. We must hurry right on. Right on, this minute," he added as the motherly concern in her face set his throat to aching again.

With the stride of a pioneer he led off, praying that they might not find in their path another brook. For a stretch of a mile, he pressed on without once looking around, taking a faster pace than he realized. The course was a fairly smooth one over an acre or so of pasture, through a strip of oak woods, and up a stiff slope. It was not until he reached the top of this that he paused. He looked around and saw her about halfway up the hill, climbing heavily, her eyes upon the ground. Even as he watched her, he saw her sway, catch herself, and push on again without even looking up. It was the act of a woman almost exhausted. He reached her side in a couple of strides. He tried to take her arm but she broke free of him and in a final spurt reached the top of the hill and threw herself upon the ground to catch her breath.

"I did n't realize how fast I was going," he apologized kneeling by her side. "That was unpardonable, but why did n't you call to me?"

She removed her hat. Then she leaned back upon her hands until she could speak evenly. A light breeze loosened a brown curl and played with it.

"Why did n't you call to me?"

"Because I wished to keep pace with you." He turned away from her.

"When you are rested we will start again," he said.

"Are you ready?" she asked.

He nodded.

"Then I am ready."

"You will take my arm?"

"No," she answered.

"Then you must keep by my side where I can watch you."

They took the remaining distance in more leisurely fashion, now realizing that they were nearing the outskirts of this fairy kingdom. With this thought he relaxed a little and instantly the sun and burgeoning nature claimed him, making light of every problem save the supreme one of bringing together a man and his mate.

They crossed a field or two and so came again into the road which they had left three miles back. Walking a short distance along this, they found themselves on a sharp hill overlooking the station a few hundred yards below. With the same impulse they turned back far enough to be out of sight of this. Twenty minutes still remained to them. They sat down by the side of the road where they had rested before. A light breeze pushing through the top of a big pine made a sound as of running water in the distance.

With her chin in one hand, elbow on knee, she studied him a moment as though endowed with sudden inspiration. A quick frown which had shadowed his face at sight of the railroad had driven home a suspicion which she had long held. Now she dared to voice it.

"Have things been mixed up for you—back there?"

The question startled him. He gave her a swift look as though to divine the reason for it. It was so direct that it was hard to evade. And he would not lie directly to her. So he replied bluntly,

"Yes."

She waited. He saw her expectant eyes, but he went no further. Part of the price he paid for being here was renunciation of the balm he might have in the sharing of his trouble with her. He knew that she would take his silence for a rebuff, but he could not help that. He said nothing more, the silence eating into him.

But something stronger than her pride drove her on.

"Mr. Donaldson," she said, "you have given a great deal of time to me and mine—if there is anything I may do in return, you will give me the privilege?"

"There is nothing," he answered.

He saw the puzzled hurt in her eyes.

"I know all that you with your big heart would do for me," he declared earnestly, "but honestly there is nothing possible. My worry will cure itself. I can see the end of it even now."

"Will the end of it come within a month?"

"Within a week."

"Perhaps," she said, "I could hasten the end to a day."

"No," he smiled, "I 'd rather you would n't. I 'd rather you would prolong it if you could."

"Is that a riddle?"

"To you."

"Then I can't answer it for I never guessed one in my life."

So with his knuckles kneading the grass by his side, he made light of it until she turned away from the subject to admire the blue seen through the pine needles above their heads.

Soon he heard the distant low whistle of the engine which was coming for them like a sheriff with a warrant.

He was not conscious of very much more until they were back again in the house and he heard Arsdale's voice,

"I 've rented the offices, old man! Swellest in the city. To-morrow you must come down and see them!"



CHAPTER XXII

Clouds

Arsdale was somewhere about the house and Elaine had gone up-stairs when Donaldson, who had come out-doors to smoke, saw a man with broad shoulders and a round unshaven face step from a cab, push through the hedge gate, and come quickly up the path. He watched him with indifferent interest, until in the dusk he recognized the stubborn mouth which gripped a cigar as a bull-dog hangs to a rag. Then he hurried forward with hand extended.

"Good Lord, Saul," he exclaimed, "where did you drop from?"

"Hello, Don. I rather hoped that I might run across you here."

"I 'm ashamed of myself," answered Donaldson guiltily. "I did n't notify you that we had found him. But the last I heard of you, you were out of town."

"Oh, that's all right. Tung gave me the whole story."

"The rat! He made a lot of trouble for us."

"And for me, too."

"Still working on the Riverside robberies?"

Saul glanced up quickly. Then looking steadily into Donaldson's eyes as though the reply had some significance he answered,

"Yes."

"I wish you luck. And say, old man, I 've worried since for fear lest you lost a good opportunity for a hot scent the time I kept you out."

"I did. But I picked it up again by chance."

"You did? Have you caught the man?"

"No," answered Saul abstractedly. "Not yet."

He chewed the stub of his cigar a moment, glancing frequently at the house.

"Say," he asked abruptly, "come down the road here a piece with me, will you?"

Saul led him to the street and far enough away from the cab so that their conversation could not be overheard, yet near enough to the electric light for him to see Donaldson's face clearly.

"I want you to tell me something about young Arsdale," he began. "Is he in the house there now?"

"Yes. And happy as a clam at high water."

"Has he talked any since he came back?"

"Talked? He's clear-headed enough, if that is what you mean?"

"Has he appeared at all worried—as though he had something on his mind?"

"Not in the slightest He's taken such a new grip on himself that the last few days are almost blotted out. You 'd never know him for the same boy, Saul. He's quit the dope for good."

"So? Remorse!"

"Not the kind of remorse you mean, Beefy. This is the real thing."

Saul thought a moment. Then he asked,

"You told me, did n't you, that he had no money with him that night?"

"Not more than a dollar or so."

"He spent a lot at Tung's."

"The heathen probably robbed him of it!"

"Yes, but where did Arsdale get it?"

Donaldson started. There was something ominous in the question. But he could n't recount to Saul that disgraceful attack the boy had made upon his sister when returning for funds. It wouldn't be fair to the present Arsdale.

"I don't know," he answered. "What have you up your sleeve, Beefy?"

"Something bad," replied Saul bluntly. He lowered his voice: "It is beginning to look as though your young friend might know something about the robberies that have been taking place around here."

"What!"

If an earthquake had suddenly shattered the stone house behind the hedge, it would have left him no more dazed.

"I won't say that we 've got him nailed," Saul hastened to explain, "but it begins to look bad for him."

"But, man dear," gasped Donaldson, "he is n't a thug! He isn't—"

"If he 's like the others he 's anything when he wants his smoke. I 've seen more of them than you."

"Saul," he said, "you 're dead wrong about this! You 've made a horrible mistake!"

"Perhaps. But he 'll have to explain some things."

Donaldson took a grip on himself.

"What's the nature of your evidence?"

"There 's the question of where he got his funds, first; then the fact that all the attacks took place within a small radius of this house; then the motive, and finally the fact, that in a general way he answers to the description given by four witnesses. He 'll have to take the third degree on that, anyway."

The third degree would undoubtedly kill the boy, or, worse, break his spirit and drive him either to a mad-house or the solace of his drug. It was a cruel thing to confront him with this at such a point in his life. It was fiendish, devilish. It was possible that they might even make the boy believe that in his blind madness he actually did commit these crimes. Then, as in a lurid moving picture, Donaldson recalled the uneasiness of the girl; the morning papers with their glaring headlines of the Riverside robberies, which he had found that morning scattered about the floor; her fear of the police, and the mystery of the untold story at which she had hinted. Take these, and the fact that in his madness Arsdale had actually made an attack upon the girl and upon himself, similar to those outside the house, and the chain was a strong one. The pity of it—coming now!

Yes, it was in this that the cruel injustice lay. Even admitting the boy to be guilty, it was still an injustice. The man who had done those things was outside the pale of the law; he was no more. Arsdale himself, Arsdale the clean-minded young man with a useful life before him, Arsdale with his new soul, had no more to do with those black deeds than he himself had. Yet that lumbering Juggernaut, the Law, could not take this into account. The Law did not deal with souls, but bodies.

To this day—what a hideous climax!

Saul detected the fear in Donaldson's eyes,

"You know something about this, Don!" he asked eagerly.

He was no longer a friend; he was scarcely a man; he was a hound who has picked up his trail. His eyes had narrowed; his round face seemed to grow almost pointed. He chewed his cigar end viciously. He was alert in every nerve.

"You'd better loosen up," he warned, "it's all right to protect a friend, but it can't be done in a case of this sort. You as a lawyer ought to know that. It can't be done."

"Yes, I know, I know. But I want to tell you again that you 're dead wrong about this. You haven't guessed right, Beefy."

"That's for others to decide," he returned somewhat sharply. "It 's up to you to tell what you know."

"It's hard to do it—it's hard to do it to you."

Donaldson's face had suddenly grown blank—impassive. The mouth had hardened and his whole body stiffened almost as it does after death. When he spoke it was without emotion and in the voice of one who has repeated a phrase until it no longer has meaning.

"I realize how you feel," Saul encouraged him, "but there's no way out of it."

"No, there's no way out of it. So I give myself up!"

"But it is n't you I want,—it's Arsdale."

"No, I guess it's I. See how your descriptions fit me."

Saul pressed closer.

"What the devil do you mean?" he demanded.

"Just this," answered Donaldson dully, "I can't see an innocent man go to jail."

To his mind Arsdale was as innocent to-day as though not a shadow of suspicion rested upon him.

"Are you mad?"

"Not yet," answered Donaldson.

Saul waited a moment. In all his professional career he had never received a greater surprise than this. He would not have believed enough of it to react had it not been for Donaldson's expression. Back of the impassiveness he read guilt, read it in the restless shifting of the eyes and in the voice dead to hope. Then he said deliberately,

"I don't believe you, Don."

"No? Yet you 've got as much evidence against me as against Arsdale."

"But, God A'mighty, Donaldson, why should you do such a thing?"

"Why should the boy?"

Saul seized his arm.

"You don't tell me that you've fallen into that habit?"

"Sit in a law-office and do nothing for three years, then—then, perhaps, you 'll understand."

Saul threw away his cigar. He studied again the thin face, the haggardness that comes of opium, the nervous fingers, the vacant shifty gaze of those on the sharp edge of sanity. Then he lighted a fresh cigar and declared quietly,

"I don't believe you!"

"You 'll have to for the sake of those in the house. They 've been good to me in there."

His voice was as hard as black ice and as cold. He looked more like a magnetized corpse than he did a man.

"I wish," he continued evenly, "I wish I might have been knocked over the head before it came to this. If I had known I had to face you, I would have let it come to that. But I didn't expect this, Beefy."

"If this story is on the level, you 'd better shut up," warned Saul. "What you say will be used against you."

"Thanks for reminding me, but things have come out so wrong that I can't even shut up. If you should go inside that house with the dream you sprang on me, you 'd drive the boy crazy and kill the girl. The boy has been in a bad way, but he's all straight again now, and yet you might make him believe he did these jobs when out of his head. And then—and then—why, it would kill them both! That's why I could n't let you do it. That's why you must n't do anything like that."

Saul did not answer. He waited.

"So I might as well make a clean breast of it. Do you remember when the last job was?"

"Last Saturday morning."

"Remember where you were at that time?"

"Why—that was the morning I went out with you!"

"Just so," answered Donaldson, his eyes leveled over Saul's head. "I hate to tell you, but—but it was necessary to do that in order to keep you away from headquarters."

Saul reached for his throat, pushing him back a step.

"You played me traitor like that?" he demanded.

"It was part of the game," answered Donaldson indifferently. Saul, fearful of himself, drew back.

The latter tried to reason it out. A man can change a good deal in a year, but even with opium it seemed impossible for Donaldson so to abuse a friendship. But he was checked in his recollection of the man as he had known him by the memory of that very morning. He had been suspicious even then that something was wrong. Donaldson had appeared nervous and altered.

"Donaldson," he burst out, "I 'd give up my rank to be out of this mess."

He added impulsively,

"Tell me it's all a damned lie, Don!"

"No," replied Donaldson, "the sooner it's over the better. I 'm all through now."

Still Saul hesitated. But there seemed nothing left.

"Come on," he growled.

Donaldson followed him to the cab. He was like a man too tired to care.

"Had n't you better make up some sort of a story for them in there?" asked Saul, with a jerk of his head towards the house.

"That's so," answered Donaldson. "Will you trust me for a few minutes?"

"Take your time," said Saul.

Donaldson went back up the path and found both Arsdale and his sister in the library.

"I 'll have to ask you to excuse me for to-night," he said. "I 've just had word from a friend who wishes me to spend the night with him."

They both looked disappointed.

"He 's waiting out there for me now."

"Perhaps you will come back later," suggested Arsdale.

"Not to-night. Perhaps in the morning. I 'll drop you a word if I 'm kept longer."

He spoke lightly, with no trace of anything abnormal in his bearing.

"All right, but we 'll miss you," answered Arsdale.

The girl said nothing but her face grew suddenly sober.

They went to the door with him and watched him step into the cab.

Saul had prayed that he would not return, and now looked more as though it were he that was being led off. He chewed his unlighted cigar in silence while the other sat back in his corner with his eyes closed.

Once on his way to headquarters he leaned forward, and clutching Donaldson's knee, repeated his cry,

"Tell me it's all a lie," he begged. "There's time yet. I 'll hustle you to the train and stake you to Canada. Just give me your word for it."

Donaldson shook his head.

"It would only come back on Arsdale, and that is n't square."

"Then God help you," murmured Saul.

The cab stopped before headquarters and Saul, with lagging steps, led his man in. The Chief listened to the story he told with his keen eyes kindling like a fire through shavings. He saw the end to the bitter invective heaped upon him during the last three weeks by the press. Then he began his gruelling cross-examination.

The story Donaldson told was simple and convincing. He had come to New York full of hope, had waited month after month, and had finally become discouraged. In this extremity he had taken to a drug. His relations with the Arsdales began less than a week ago and they knew nothing of him save that he had been of some assistance in helping young Arsdale straighten out. Arsdale had borrowed money of him, although doubtless he could not remember it, and had taken it to go down to Tung's. Feeling a sense of responsibility for the use the boy had made of this money and out of regard to the sister, he had done his best to help him pull out.

When pressed for further details of the crimes themselves, Donaldson admitted that his memory was very much clouded. He had committed the assaults when in a mental condition that left them in his memory only as evil dreams. The substantiation of this must come through his identification by the witnesses. He could remember nothing of what he had done with the purses, or the jewels and papers which they contained. He had used only the money.

An officer was sent to search his rooms at the hotel, and in the meanwhile men were sent out to bring in the victims of the assaults. It was for this test that Donaldson held in check all the reserve power he had within him. If his story was weak up to this point, he realized that this identification would substantiate it beyond the shadow of a doubt. This he knew must be done in order to offset Arsdale's possible attempt to give himself up when he should hear of this. As a student he had been impressed with the unreliability of direct evidence, and here would be an opportunity to test his theory that much of the evidence to the senses is worthless. From the moment he had determined upon this course he had based his hopes upon this test. Saul had made it clear that the descriptions given by the witnesses were vague, and now in the excitement of confronting their assailant they were apt to be still more unsubstantial. If he could succeed in terrifying them, he could convince them to a point where they would make all their excited visions fit him to a hair.

And so as each man was brought before him, Donaldson looked at him from beneath lowering brows with his mind fixed so fiercely upon the determination to force them to see him as the shadowy brute who had attacked them that he in reality looked the part. Two of the men withdrew, wiping their foreheads, after making the identification absolute.

The third witness, a woman, promptly fainted. When she revived she said she was willing to take her oath that this was the man. Not only was she sure of his height, weight, and complexion, but she recognized the same malicious gleam which flashed from the demon's eyes as he had stood over her. She shivered in fright.

The fourth victim was a man of fifty. He was slower to decide, but the longer he stood in front of Donaldson, the surer he became. Donaldson, with his arms folded, never allowed his eyes to move from the honest eyes of this other. And as he looked he made a mental picture of the act of creeping up behind this man, of lifting his weapon, finally of striking. With the act of striking, his shoulders lifted, so intense was his determination.

The man drew back from him.

"Yes," he said, "I am sure. This is the brute."

It was two hours later before Donaldson was finally handed over to the officers of the Tombs, and Saul turned back reluctantly to give to the eager reporters as meagre an outline of the story as he could.



CHAPTER XXIII

When the Dead Awake

Donaldson, without removing his clothes, tumbled across his bunk and fell into a merciful stupor which lasted until morning. He was aroused by a rough shaking and staggered to his feet to find Saul again confronting him. The latter had evidently been some time at his task, for he exclaimed,

"I thought you were dead! You certainly sleep like an honest man."

"Sleep? Where am I?"

"You are at present enjoying a cell in the Tombs. You seem to like it."

Donaldson pressed his hand to his aching eyes. Then slowly the truth dawned upon him.

"What day is this?" he asked.

"Thursday."

"Yes. Yes. That's so. And to-morrow is Friday."

"That's a good guess. Do you remember what happened last night?"

"Yes, I remember. I 'm under arrest. I remember the terror in the face of that woman!"

Saul laughed inhumanly.

"Of all the bogie men I ever saw you were the worst."

"I suppose I 'll be arraigned this morning."

"I doubt it, old man. In some ways you deserve it, but I'm afraid the Chief won't satisfy your morbid cravings. Remember the story you told him?"

"Yes."

"And you 're wide enough awake to understand what I 'm saying to you now?"

"Perfectly," answered Donaldson, growing suspicious.

"Then," exploded Saul, "I want to ask you what the devil your blessed game is?"

"I could n't sacrifice an honest man, could I?"

"Then," went on Saul with increasing vehemence, "I want to tell you plainly that you 're a chump, because you sacrificed an honest man after all."

"You have n't arrested Arsdale? Lord, Saul, you haven't done that, have you?"

"No," answered Saul, "I was ass enough to arrest you."

"It would be wrong, dead wrong, to touch the boy. He didn't have anything to do with this. There was no one with me."

Saul took a long breath.

"I 'm hanged if I ever saw a man hanker after jail the way you do. And you 've got the papers full of it. And pretty soon I 'll be getting frantic messages from the girl. And you 've made all sorts of an ass of yourself. Do you hear—you chump of a hero, you?"

"What do you mean?" demanded Donaldson.

"I mean just this; that we 've nailed the right man at last! Got him with the goods on, so that we won't need the identification of a bunch of hysterical idiots to prove it. We won't even need a loose-jointed confession, because we caught him black-handed. But my guess wasn't such a bad one—it was n't Arsdale, but it was Jacques Moisson, his father's valet."

"Jacques Moisson?"

"The son of that old crone Marie there. He caught the dope habit evidently from his master and has been to the bad ever since Arsdale senior died. The old lady has been hiding him part of the time in the garret of the house."

Donaldson's thoughts flew back to the bungalow; it was this fellow then and not Arsdale who had attacked him,—if Saul's story was true.

Saul approached him with outstretched hand.

"You played a heavy game, Don."

Donaldson grew suspicious.

"I don't know what you 're talking about," he said, his lips coming tightly together again.

"No. Of course not! That's right. Keep it up! But I 'll have my revenge. I 'll give the newspaper boys every detail of it. I 'll see your name in letters six inches higher than they were even this morning. I will; I swear it!"

"Saul," said Donaldson quietly, "you 're doing your best to make me go back upon my story. You can't do it."

Saul folded his arms.

"Of all the heroic liars," he gasped, his face beaming, "you 're the prince. And," he continued in an undertone, "it 's all for the sake of a girl."

Donaldson sprang to his feet.

"Don't bring in her name, Saul," he commanded.

"All for the sake of a girl," continued Saul undisturbed. "It took me some time to work it out, but now I see. Take my hand, won't you, Donaldson? I want to say God bless you for it."

Donaldson hesitated. But Saul's eyes were honest.

"This is the truth you're telling me?" he trembled.

"The truth," answered the other solemnly.

"Then you won't touch the boy? There is no further suspicion resting upon him?"

"To hell with the boy!" exploded Saul. "You 're free yourself! Don't you get that?"

"Yes," answered Donaldson.

He passed his hand thoughtfully over his face. Then he glanced up with a smile.

"I need a shave, don't I?" he asked.

"You sure do. Let's get out of here. And if I were you I 'd get back to her about as soon as I could. It's early yet, so maybe she has n't seen the papers. I gave the boys the real arrest, so that they could get out an extra on it and take the curse off the first editions. And now," he added, "and now I 'm going to give them the story of their lives—the inside story of all this."

"Don't be a chump, Beefy!"

"I'll do it," answered Saul firmly. "I'll leave out the girl but I 'll give them the rest. I 've got some rights in this matter after the way you 've used me."

"I know," he apologized, "but there didn't seem any road out of it. If you 'll just keep quiet about—"

"Not a word. You 'll take your medicine. Besides, the dear public will think you were crazy if they don't learn the truth."

"I don't care about that, if—"

"Bah! Come on. I 'll get you past the bunch now, but you 'll have to run for your life after this."

Saul put him with all possible despatch through the red tape necessary to secure his acquittal, and then led him out by a side door. He summoned a cab.

"They 're waiting," he chuckled. "Twenty of 'em with sharpened pencils and,—Holy Smoke,—the story! The story!"

"Forget it, Saul. Forget it—"

But Saul only pushed him into the cab and hurried back to his joyous mission.

Donaldson ordered the driver to the Waldorf. He must get a clean shave, change his clothes and get back to the Arsdale house before the first editions were out heralding his arrest. If Jacques had been arrested at the house it was possible that the excitement might have prevented them from learning anything at all of his part in the mess.

He found a letter from Mrs. Wentworth waiting for him. He tore it open. She wrote:

"Oh, Peter Donaldson, I wish I had the gift to make you understand how grateful I am for all you 've done. But I can't until you come up and visit us. We reached here safely and found everything all right. The deed was given to me and the money you put in the bank for me. The house now is all clean and the children are playing out doors. My heart is overflowing, Peter Donaldson. It is better than anything I ever dreamed of here. My prayers are with you all the time and I know they will be heard."

So she ran on and told him all about the place and what she had already accomplished. Happiness breathed like a flower's fragrance from every line of it, until it left him with a lump in his throat.

"That is something," he said to himself as he finished it. "It has n't been all waste."

He went to the barber in better spirits and came back to his room to read the letter again. It was like a tonic to him. He looked from his window a moment, to breathe the fresh morning air.

The street below him was alive once more with its eager life. Men and women passed to the right and left, the blind beggar still waited at the corner, the world, expressed now through this one human being, had abated not one tittle of its activity. The Others were still about him. The pigeons still cut gray circles through the sunshine and the girl still waited. As he stood there he heard the raucous cries of the newsboys shouting "Extra," and knew that he must go on and face this final crisis. He could not delay another minute.

When he reached the house he found his worst fears realized. She was in the library with a crumpled paper in her hand and Arsdale was bending over her. As he greeted them they both pushed back from him as though one of the dead had entered. The boy was the first to recover himself. He sprang to Donaldson's side with his hand out.

"I told her it was n't true," he exclaimed. "I told her it was all a beastly lie!"

He grasped Donaldson's hand and dragged him towards his sister.

"See," he cried, "see, here he is! The papers lied about him!"

The girl tottered forward. Donaldson put out his arm and supported her.

"I 'm sorry you saw the papers," he said quietly. "I was in hopes I should reach here before that."

"But what is the meaning of it?"

"The police made a mistake, that 's all," he explained.

Arsdale broke in,

"We 'll sue them for it, Donaldson! I 'll get the best legal talent in the country and make them sweat for this! It's an outrage!"

"I 'm sorry you saw the paper," he repeated to the girl.

Her pale face and startled eyes frightened him. She had withdrawn from his arm after a minute and now fell into a chair.

"The blasted idiots," raged the boy.

The telephone rang imperiously and Arsdale went to answer it, chewing invectives.

Donaldson crossed to the side of the girl.

"Where is Marie?" he asked.

"She is in bed again. Her poor knees are troubling her."

"I have both good news and bad news for you," he said after a moment's hesitation, "the real assailant has been found and it is Jacques Moisson."

The girl recoiled.

"Jacques!"

"So the police feel sure. They say they caught him this morning in the attempt to commit another robbery. The Arsdale curse is upon him."

"Oh," she cried, "that is terrible."

But as he had guessed, it was good news also. There was no longer any doubt of who brought that wallet to the bungalow. There was no longer the grim suspicion of who might have rifled her rooms. The spectres which had seemed to be moving nearer and nearer her brother vanished instantly. That burden at least was lifted from her shoulders, even though it was replaced by another.

"Poor Marie! Poor Marie!" she moaned.

"I think she may suspect this," he said. "But it will be better for you to tell her than the police."

"Yes, I must go to her at once."

Arsdale came to the door, his face strangely agitated. He paused there a moment clinging to the curtains. Then, almost in awe, he came unsteadily towards Donaldson. The latter straightened to meet him. The boy started to speak, choked, and, finding Donaldson's hand, seized it in both his own. Then with his eyes overflowing he found his voice.

"How am I ever going to repay you for this?" he exclaimed in a daze.

Elaine was at his side in an instant.

"What is it, Ben? What is it now?"

"What is it?" he faltered. "It's so much—it's so much, I can't say it all at once."

Donaldson turned away from them both.

"He," panted the boy, "he gave himself up for me. They thought it was I, and he went to jail for me."

"It was a mistake on their part," answered Donaldson. "They did n't know."

"And so you shouldered it," she whispered.

"I knew it would come out all right," he faltered.

"A reporter rang me up just now," ran on Arsdale. "He told me the whole thing. The papers are full of it. They—they say you 're great, Donaldson, but they don't know how great!"

"If you would n't talk about it," pleaded Donaldson.

"Talk about it? I want to scream it! I want to get out and stand in Park Row and yell it. I want every living man and woman in the world to know about it!"

"It's all over—it's done with!"

"No," answered Arsdale, "it's just begun. I feel weak in the knees. I must go—I must be alone a minute and think this over."

He staggered from the room and Donaldson turning to the girl, said gently, "Go to Marie now. She will need you."

"You," she exclaimed below her breath, "you are wonderful!"

He turned away his head and she left him there alone.



CHAPTER XXIV

The Greater Master

In the fifteen minutes that Donaldson waited in the library, he fought out with himself the question as to whether he had the strength to remain here in the house on this the day before the end.

In his decision he took into account his duty towards the boy, the possible danger to the girl, and his own growing passion. There was but one answer: he owed it to them all to pull free while there was yet time. It would be foolhardy to risk here a full day and an evening.

He felt the approaching crisis more than he had at any time during the week.

At times he became panic-stricken at his powerlessness to check for even one brief pendulum-swing this steady tread of time. Time was such an intangible thing, and yet what a Juggernaut! There was nothing of it which he could get hold of to wrestle, and yet it was more powerful than Samson to throw him in the end. Sly, subtle, bodiless, soulless, impersonal; expressed in the big clock above the city, and in milady's dainty watch rising and falling upon her breast; sweeping away cities and nursing to life violets; tearing down and building up; killing and begetting; bringing laughter and tears, it is consistent in one thing alone,—that it never ceases. There is but one word big enough to express it, and that is God. Without beginning, without end, and never ceasing. At times he grew breathless, so individualized did every second become, so fraught with haste. Where was he being dragged, and in the end would the seconds rest? No, they would go on just the same, and he might hear them even in his grave.

With his decision came the even more vital question as to what he should tell this girl. With the strength of his whole nature he craved the privilege of standing white before her. He longed to tell her the whole pitiful complication that he might stand before her without shadow of hypocrisy. He could then leave with his head up to meet his doom. But even this crumb of relief was refused him. To do this might break down the boy and would leave her, if only as a friend, to bear something of the ensuing hours. He must, then, leave her in darkness, suffering the lesser stings of doubt and suspicion and bewilderment. He must leave her in false colors to whatever she might imagine.

She came back again with her lips quivering.

"Poor Marie," she gasped. "She lies there broken hearted, praying to die."

"I am sorry for her," he said gently.

"I feel the blame of it," she answered. "Why must the curse of the house have fallen upon her?"

"It is difficult to work out such matters," he replied. "But I don't think you should shoulder the responsibility. We each of us must bear the burden of our own acts. It makes it even harder when another tries to relieve us of this."

"But I can't relieve her. That is the pity of it. She turns away her head from me for she has taken upon herself all the responsibility for Jacques."

"That is the mother in her. There is nothing you can do."

"She will die of grief."

"Then she will be dead. So her relief will come."

The girl drew back a little.

"She must not die. I must not let her die."

She looked up at him as though she expected him even in this emergency to suggest some way out of it. But he was speechless.

"I must go back to her," she said after a minute. "I must go and comfort her."

"Yes," he said, "that is the best you can do. Take her hand and hold it. That is all you can do. Ben is upstairs?"

"Yes. I have n't told him yet."

"Tell him," he advised. "It will help him to have an opportunity to help another."

"Then you will excuse me?"

"Of course. But there is something that I must tell you before you go. I must leave you both now."

"You will come back to dinner with us?"

"I 'm afraid I shall be unable. I start on a long journey. I must say good bye."

She fixed her eyes upon him in a new alarm, waiting for what he should say next. But that was all. That was all he had to say. In those two words, "Good bye," he bounded all that was in the past, all that was in the future.

"You have had some sudden call?"

"Yes."

"But you will come back again. Don't—don't make it sound so final."

"I have no hope of coming back."

"Oh," she cried, "I thought that now you might find a little rest."

"Perhaps I shall. I do not know. But before I go I wish to insist again that you and Ben leave this house and get back into the country somewhere. Don't think I am presuming, but I should feel better if I knew you had this in mind. I see so clearly that it is the thing for you to do."

"Don't speak as though you were going so far," she shuddered. "What will Ben do without you?"

"Get him away from these old surroundings. Let him make friends—clean, wholesome friends. Let him pursue his hobby. There are other places besides New York where he is needed. If he is kept busy I do not fear for him."

She tried to pierce the white mask he wore. It was quite useless. She knew that there was something in him now that she could not reach. Yet she felt that there was need of it. She felt that there was need that she of all women in the world should force her way into his soul and there comfort him as he had bidden her comfort Marie. She felt this with an insurge of passion that left her girlhood behind forever. It swept away all thoughts of Ben, all thoughts of Marie, all thoughts of herself. She heard his voice as though in the distance.

"It is better," he was saying, "to be direct—to be as honest as possible at such a time as this. We can't say some things very gently, try as we may, because they are brutal facts in themselves. But I am going to tell you all I can as simply as I can. I must leave you. It is n't of my own free will that I go, though at the beginning it was. Now I go because I must. Perhaps you will never again hear of me. If you don't you must remember me as you know me now. Do you understand that, Miss Arsdale? You know me now as I am—as no other human being knows me. Will you cling to this?"

"You are to me as you are. So you always will be."

She met his eyes unflinchingly, feeling a new strength growing within her. He went on:

"If we cling to what we ourselves know of our friends—if we cling to that through thick and thin, nothing that happens to them can matter much. It is that confidence which lifts our friendships beyond the reach of the cur snappings of circumstance. So you, whatever you may hear afterwards, whatever things you find yourself unable to understand, must hold fast to this week. You must say to yourself," his voice grew husky, "you must say this,—'If it had been possible for him to do so, he would have lived out his life as I wished him to live it out.'"

As he spoke on, it seemed to him that she, in some subtle way, was rising superior to him. Instead of losing strength as she stood there before him, he felt her growing in power. He had been talking to her as to a child, and now he suddenly found himself confronting a woman. She was now the dominant personality. When she spoke to him her voice was firmer and possessed of a new richness.

"I have heard you," she said. "All the things you spoke are true. Why are you going?"

He hesitated at the direct question.

"Because I must."

"Why must you?"

"I cannot tell you."

She placed a steady hand upon his arm.

"Yes. You must tell me."

"Don't tempt me like that!"

He felt himself weakening. If only he might stand before her with his mask off. It meant freedom, it meant peace. That was all he asked—just the privilege of standing stark white before this one woman.

He turned away. The burden was his and he must bear it, if it crushed his very soul into the clay. Away from those eyes, he might be able to write some poor explanation. But to put it into cold words would be only to force upon her the torture of the next few hours. It was better for her to believe as she now saw him, as she might guess, than to suffer the ghastly truth and then shiver at the mud idol that was left.

He moved back a step.

"You must not look at me," he cried. "You must keep your eyes away from me and—and let me go."

But she followed, pressing him to the wall as they all had done. The color leaped to her cheeks. Her eyes grew big and tender.

"I do not think you understand me," she said.

He stood awed before what he now saw. It was as though he were looking at a naked soul.

"I do not think you understand," she continued, lifting her head a little. "You will not go, because there can be no call so great as that which bids you stay."

He answered, "My master is the master of us all."

"Then," she returned, "I too must go to meet your master. He must claim us both."

"God forbid," he exclaimed.

"You talk of masters," she ran on more excitedly, "and you are only a man. We women have a master greater than any you know. You taught me a moment ago to be direct—to be honest. It is so I must be with you now. I must be brave," her voice trembled a little, "I must stand face to face with you. Oh, if you were not so unselfish—so unseeing, you would not make me do this!"

He stood speechless—his throat aching the length of it.

"You treat me like a child, when you have made me a woman! You treat me like a weakling, when you have given me strength! You tell me you have some great trouble and then you refuse to allow me to share it! Don't you see?"

Her face was transfigured by pure white courage. He trembled before it. Yet he only gripped himself the firmer and stood before her immovable, every word she spoke leaving a red welt upon his soul.

"Peter," she trembled, not in fright but because of her overflowing heart, "you have shown me the wonder of life during this last week. You have taken me by the hand and have led me out of the gray barren land into the flowers and perfume of the orchard. You have done for me as you did for Ben. Why should I be ashamed to say this? I would not measure up to you if I kept silent now and let you go alone. I am not ashamed."

To himself he said,

"God give me courage to stand firm."

"You make it harder for me when you say nothing."

"I must not listen!"

"Don't keep me in the dark," she pleaded. "Don't send me back alone into the dark. It's being alone that hurts."

To himself he said,

"God keep me from telling her. God keep me from letting her know of my love. So it is best."

"Don't you see now?"

Again that phrase of his which had come back through Arsdale's lips to scorch him.

All he could say aloud was,

"I must go, and if I can, I will come back."

"I mean nothing to you if I cannot help you now," she said steadily. "If the road were smooth to you do you think I could tell you what I have? It is your need—it is your need that has given me the strength."

To himself he said,

"God keep my lips sealed."

To her he said,

"I must go."

She was startled.

"You remember the orchard, Peter?"

"As long as I remember anything, I shall remember that."

"You remember the walk straight through things?"

"Yes—you at my side."

"I have just taken it again—alone. I have pressed straight through."

There was a pause of a few seconds. Then,

"That is a hard thing for a woman to do."

There was a longer silence. Then she said tenderly,

"You look very tired. This day has been heavy to you. Go up-stairs to your room and rest. Then in the morning—why, in the morning we may both see clearer."

"I can rest nowhere. There is no rest left to me."

"Ah, you look so tired," she repeated.

He seized her hand and pressed it. Then he turned abruptly towards the hall. She watched him with a new fright. He paused at the door, his eyes drawn back to her against his will. She was standing there quite helpless, a growing pallor sweeping over her cheeks that so lately had been as richly red as rose leaves.

"God help me hard now," he moaned.

She stood before him like a marble statue. There were no tears.

"I have been very bold," she murmured. "I can never forgive myself that."

"You have been wonderful!" he cried.

"Perhaps you had better go at once, Peter Donaldson," she said.

He saw her in a blinding white light.

"God keep you," he managed to say. "God keep you forever and ever."

He stumbled to the hall, found his hat, and staggered through the door.

At the hedge a shadow stole out to meet him. It was an ambitious young reporter.

"Is this Mr. Donaldson?" he asked.

"Damn you, no!" shouted Donaldson. "Donaldson is dead!"



CHAPTER XXV

The Shadow on the Floor

Donaldson toiled up the dark staircase leading to Barstow's laboratory. To him it was as though he were fighting his way through deep water reaching twenty fathoms above his head. The air was just as cold as green water; it contained scarcely more life. He felt the same sense of clammy, lurking things, unknown things, such as crawl along the slimy bottoms where rotting hulks lie. He was impelled here by the same sort of fascination which is said to lead murderers back to their victims, yet it seemed to be the only place where he would be able to think at all. It was getting back to the beginning—to the source—where he could start fresh. It was here, and here alone, that he could write his letter to her. Perhaps here he could make something out of the chaos of his thoughts.

When he reached the top of the stairs, he paused before the closed door. He did not expect Barstow to be in. He hoped that he was not. He did not wish to face him to-day. To-morrow perhaps—but he realized that if Barstow had gone on his proposed vacation he would not be back even then. That did not matter either. The single thing remaining for him to do was to make Elaine understand something of what his life had meant, what she had meant in it, what he hoped to mean to her in the silent future. That must be done alone, and this of all places was where he could best do it. The mere thought of his room at the hotel was repulsive to him.

He listened at the door. There was no sound—no sound save the interminable "tick-tock, tick-tock" which still haunted him through the pulse beats in his wrists. He reached forward and touched the knob; listened again, and then turned it and pressed. The door was locked. But it was a feeble affair. Barstow had made his experimental laboratory in this old building to get away from the inquisitive, and half of the time did not take the trouble to turn the key when he left, for there was little of value here.

He knocked on the chance that Barstow might have lain down upon the sofa for a nap. Again he waited until he heard the "tick-tock, tick-tock" at his wrists. Then, pressing his body close to the lock, he turned the knob and pushed steadily. It weakened. He drew back a little and threw his weight more heavily against it. The lock gave and the door swung open.

The sight of the threadbare sofa was as reassuring as the face of an old friend. Yet what an eternity it seemed since he had sat there and discussed his barren life with Barstow. The phrases he had used came back to mock him. He had talked of the things that lay beyond his reach, while even then they were at his hand, had he been but hardy enough to seize them; he had spoken of what money could buy for him, with love eagerly pressing greater gifts upon him without price; he had hungered for freedom with freedom his for the taking. Sailors have died of thirst at the broad mouth of the Amazon, thinking it to be the open salt sea; so he was dying in the midst of clean, sweet life.

He sat down on the sofa, with his head between his hands and stared at the glittering rows of bottles which caught the sun. Each one of them was a laughing demon. They danced and winked their eyes—yellow, blue, and blood-red. There were a hundred of them keeping step to the bobbing shadows upon the floor. Row upon row of them—purple, brown, and blood-red—all dancing, all laughing.

"You come out wrong every time," Barstow had said.

And he—he had laughed back even as the bottles were doing.

He was not cringing even now. He was asking no pity, no mercy. When he had stepped across the room and had taken down that bottle, he had been clear-headed; he had been clear-headed when he had swallowed its contents. The only relief he craved for himself was to be allowed to remain clear-headed until he should have written his letter. Coming up the stairs he feared lest this might not be. Now he seemed to be steadying once more.

He thought of Sandy. Poor pup, he had gone out easily enough. He had curled up on a friendly knee and gone to sleep. That was all there had been to it. It would be an odd thing, he mused, if the dog was where he could look down on this man-struggle. This braced him up; he would not have even this dog see him die other than bravely.

As far as he himself was concerned, he knew that he would go unflinchingly to meet his final creditor, but there were the Others—with Sandy there had been no Others. It was easy enough to die alone, but when in addition to one's own death throes one had to bear those of others,—that was harder. When he died, it would be as when several died. There would be that mother in Vermont—part of her would die with him; there would be Saul—even part of him would die with him; there was Ben—some of him would die, too; and there was Elaine—good God, how much of her would die with him?

He sprang to his feet and began to pace the stained wooden floor. As he did so, a shadow crawled, from beneath the sofa and stole across the room like a rat. But unlike a rat, it did not disappear into a hole; it came back again towards Donaldson. He stopped. Close to the ground the shadow crept nearer until he saw that it was a dog. Then he saw that it was a black terrier. Then he saw that in size, color, and general appearance it was the living double of Sandy.

He stooped and extended his hand. He tried to pronounce the name, but his lips were too dry. The dog crouched, frightened, some three feet distant. Donaldson, squatting there, watched him with straining eyes. Once again he tried to utter the name. It stuck in his throat, but at the inarticulate cry he made, the dog wagged his tail so feebly that it scarcely moved its shadow. Donaldson ventured nearer. The dog rolled over to its back and held up its trembling forefeet on guard, studying Donaldson through half closed eyes with its head turned sideways.

Donaldson put forward his trembling fingers and touched its side. The dog was warm, even as Sandy had been when he first picked him up. The dog feebly waved his padded paws and finally rested them upon Donaldson's hand.

"Sandy! Sandy!" he murmured, his voice scarcely above a whisper.

The dumb mouth moved nearer to lick the man's fingers, but his movements were negative as far as any recognition of the name went. It was just the friendly overture of any dog to any man.

If he could get him to answer to the name! It meant life—a chance for life! It meant, perhaps, that there had been some mistake—that, perhaps, after all, the poison was not so deadly as Barstow had thought it.

He threw himself upon the floor beside the dog. In the body of this black terrier centred everything in life that a man holds most dear. If he could speak—if the dumb tongue could wag an answer to that one question!

The dog turned over and crawled nearer. Donaldson fixed his burning eyes upon the blinking brute.

"Sandy," he cried, "is this you, Sandy?"

The moist tongue reached for his fingers.

He took a deep breath. He said,

"Dick—is this you, Dick?"

Again the moist tongue reached for his fingers.

Donaldson picked him up.

"Sandy," he cried, "answer me."

The dog closed his eyes as though expecting a blow.

Donaldson dropped him. The animal crawled away beneath the sofa. Donaldson felt more alone that minute than he had ever felt in all his life. It was as though he sat there, the sole living thing in the broad universe. There was nothing left but the blinking eyes of the bottles dancing in still brisker joy. He could not endure it.

Moving across the room he knelt by the sofa and tried to coax the frightened animal out again.

"Sandy. Come, Sandy," he called.

There was no show of life. He snapped his fingers. He groped beneath the old lounge. Then, in a frenzy of fear, lest it had all been an apparition, he swung the sofa into the middle of the room. The dog followed beneath it, but he caught a glimpse of him. He pushed the sofa back to the wall and began to coax again.

"Come out, Sandy. I 'll not hurt you. Come, Sandy."

There was a scratching movement and then the tip of a hot, dry nose appeared.

"Come. That 's a good dog. Come."

He could hear the tail vigorously thumping the floor, but the head appeared only inch by inch. Donaldson held his breath.

"Come," he whispered.

Slowly, with the sly pretension that it demanded a tremendous physical effort, the dog emerged and stood shivering beneath the big hand which smoothed its back with cooing words of assurance.

"Why, I was n't going to hurt you, Sandy," whispered Donaldson, finding comfort in pronouncing the name. "I was n't going to hurt you. We 're old friends. Don't you remember, Sandy? Don't you remember the night I held you? Don't you remember that, Sandy?"

The dog looked up at him moistening its own dry mouth. In every detail this was the same dog he had held upon his knee while arguing with Barstow. He made another test.

"Mike," he called.

In response the pup wagged his tail good naturedly and with more confidence now.

Donaldson caught his breath. Locked within that tiny brute brain was the secret of what waited for him on the morrow: love and the glories of a big life, or death and oblivion. The answer was there behind those moist eyes. But if he could reach Barstow—

Here was a new hope. He could ask him if this was Sandy, and so spare himself the terrors of the night to come. He had the right to do that as long as he abided by the decision. There was a telephone here, and he knew that Barstow lived in an up-town apartment house, so that some one was sure to be in. He found the number in the battered, chemical-stained directory, and put in his call. It seemed an hour before he received his reply.

"No, sir, Mr. Barstow is away. Any message?"

"Where has he gone?" asked Donaldson dully.

"He's off on a yachting cruise, sir."

It would have been impossible for him to withdraw more completely out of reach.

"When do you expect him back?"

"I don't know, sir. He said he might be gone a day or two or perhaps a week."

"And he left?"

"Last Friday—very unexpectedly."

Donaldson hung up the receiver, which had grown in his hand as heavy as lead. He turned back to the dog, who had jumped upon the sofa and was now cuddled into a corner. He lifted his head and began to tremble again as Donaldson came nearer.

"Still afraid of me?" he asked with a sad smile. "Why, there is n't enough of me left to be afraid of, pup. There 's only about a day of me left and we ought to be friends during that time."

He nestled his head down upon the warm body. The dog licked his hair affectionately. The kindness went to his heart. The attention was soothing, restful. He responded to it the more, because this dog was to him the one thing left in the world alive. He snuggled closer to the silky hide and continued to talk, finding comfort in the sound of his own voice and the insensate response of the warm head.

"We ought to be good comrades—you and I—Sandy, because we 're all alone here in this old rat trap. When a man's alone, Sandy, anything else in the world that's alive is his brother. The only thing that counts is being alive. Why, a fly is a better thing than the dead man he crawls over. And if there be a live man, a dead man, and a fly, then the fly and the live man are brothers. So you and I are brothers, and we must fight the devil-eyes in those bottles together."

They danced before him now—yellow, blue, and blood-red. A more perfect semblance of an evil gnome could not be made than the flickering reflection of the sunlight in the bottle of blood-red liquid. It was never still. It skipped from the bottom of the bottle to the top and from one side to the other, as though in drunken ecstasy.

It fascinated Donaldson with the allurement of the gruesome. It was such a restless, scarlet thing! It looked as though it were trying to get out of its prison and in baffled rage was shooting its fangs at the sides, like a bottled viper.

"See it, Sandy? It's trying to get at us. But it can't, if we keep together. It's only when a man's alone that those things have any power. And the little devil knows it. If it were not for you, Sandy, the thing might drive me mad—might make me mad before I had written my letter!"

He sprang to his feet in sudden passion, and the dog with all four feet planted stiffly on the sofa gave a sharp bark. This broke the tension at once.

"That's the dog," Donaldson praised him. "When the shadows get too close bark at 'em like that!"

The bellicose attitude of the tiny body brought a smile to Donaldson's mouth. This, too, was like a bromide to shaking nerves.

But in this position the dog did not so closely resemble that other dog which he had held upon his knee. He looked thinner, more angular. His ears were cocked like two stiff v-shaped funnels. Now he looked like an older dog. It was more reasonable to suppose, Donaldson realized, that Barstow had two dogs of this same breed than that a dead dog had come to life.

"Sandy!" he called sharply.

The dog wagged his stub-tail with vigor.

"Spike!" he called again.

The tail wagged on with undiminished enthusiasm.

Donaldson passed his hand over his forehead.

This was as useless as to try to solve the enigma of the Sphinx. The dog's lips were sealed as tightly as the stone lips; the barrier between his brain and Donaldson's brain was as high as that between the man-chiseled image and the man who chiseled. He was only wasting his time on such a task, time that he should use in the framing of his letter.

He sat down again upon the sofa, took the dog upon his knee, and tried to think. Before him the bottles danced—purple, brown, and blood-red. He closed his eyes. He would begin his letter like this:

"To the most wonderful woman in all the world."

He would do this because it was true. There was no other woman like her. No other woman would have so helped an old man in his battle with himself; no other woman would have stayed on there alone in that house and would have helped the son in his battle with himself; no other woman would have followed him as she had wished to do and help him fight his battle with himself. But she was the most wonderful woman in the world because of the white courage she had shown in standing before him and telling of her love. The eyes of her—the glory in her hair—the marvel in her cheeks—the smile of her!

He opened his eyes. The devil in the bottle directly in front of him was more impish than it had been at all. Donaldson rose. The pup rolled to the floor. Donaldson crossed the room, picked out the bottle, drew back his arm, and hurled it against the wall, where it broke into a thousand pieces. It left a gory-looking blotch where it struck. He went back to the sofa. The dog crept to his side again. Before him a devil danced in a purple bottle. He closed his eyes.

He would begin his letter, then, like that. He would go on to tell her that he was unable to compute his life save in terms of her, that it had its beginning in her, grew to its fulness through her, and now had reached its zenith in her. At the brook when he had clasped her in his arms, he had drunk one deep draught of her.

He lost himself in one hot love phrase after another. He poured out his soul in words he had left unspoken to her. He was back again before the fire, telling her all that he did not tell her then. One gorgeous image after another swarmed to his brain. He was like a poet gone mad. He crowded sentence upon sentence, superlative upon superlative, until he found himself upon his feet, his cheeks hot, and his breath coming short. Then he caught sight of the crimson stain upon the wall and felt himself a murderer. He staggered back and threw himself full-length upon the couch, panting like one at the end of a long run. He lay here very quietly.

The dog crawled to his side and licked the hair at his hot temple.



CHAPTER XXVI

On the Brink

Donaldson was aroused by the dog which was at the door barking excitedly. It was broad daylight. As Donaldson sprang up he heard the brisk approach of footsteps, and the next second a key fumbling in the lock. Before he had fully recovered his senses the door swung open, and Barstow, tanned and ruddy, burst in. Donaldson stared at him and he stared at Donaldson. Then, striding over the dog, who yelped in protest at this treatment, Barstow approached the haggard, unshaven man who faced him.

"Good Heavens, Peter!" he cried, "what ails you?"

Donaldson put out his hand and the other grasped it with the clasp of a man in perfect health.

"Can't you speak?" he demanded. "What's the matter with you?"

"I 'm glad to see you," answered Donaldson.

"But what are you doing here in this condition? Are you sick?"

"No, I 'm not sick. I lay down on the sofa and I guess I fell asleep."

"You look as though you had been sleeping there a month. Sit down, man. You have a fever."

"There 's your dog," said Donaldson.

Barstow turned. The dog, with his forefeet on Barstow's knee, was stretching his neck towards his master's hand.

"Hello, pup," he greeted him. "Did the janitor use you all right?" He shook him off.

Donaldson sat down. Barstow stood in front of him a moment and then reached to feel his pulse. It was normal.

"I 'm not sick, I tell you," said Donaldson, trying to laugh, "I was just all in. I came up here to see if you were back and slumped down on the couch. Then I fell asleep. There 's your dog behind you."

"What of it?" demanded Barstow.

"Why—he looks glad to see you."

"What of that?"

"Nothing."

Barstow laid his hand on Donaldson's shoulder.

"Have you been drinking?" he asked.

"Drinking? No, but I've a thirst a mile long. Any water around here?"

Barstow went to the closet and came back with a graduating glass full of lukewarm water. Donaldson swallowed it in a couple of gulps.

"Lord, that's good!"

Barstow again bent a perplexed gaze upon him.

"You have n't been fooling with any sort of dope, Peter?"

"No."

"This is straight?"

"Yes, that's straight," answered Donaldson impatiently. "I tell you that there is n't anything wrong with me except that I 'm fagged out."

"You did n't take my advice. You ought to have gone away. Why did n't you?"

"I 've been too busy. There's your dog."

Barstow hung down his hand, that the pup might lick the ends of his fingers.

"Peter," he burst out, "you ought to have been with me. If I 'd known about the trip I 'd have taken you. It was just what you needed—a week of lolling around a deck in the hot sun with the sea winds blowing over your face. That's what you want to do—get out under the blue sky and soak it in. If you don't believe it, look at me. Fit as a fiddle; strong as a moose. You said you wanted to sprawl in the sunshine,—why the devil don't you take a week off and do it?"

"Perhaps I will."

"That's the stuff. You must do it. You were in bad shape when I left, but, man dear, you 're on the verge of a serious breakdown now. Do you realize it?"

"Yes, I realize it. That 's a good dog of yours, Barstow."

"What's the matter with the pup? Seems to me you 're taking a deuce of a lot of interest in him," he returned suspiciously.

"Dogs seem sort of human when you 're alone with them."

"This one looks more human than you do. See here, Don, Lindsey said that he might start off again to-morrow on a short cruise to Newport. I think I can get you a berth with him. Will you go?"

"It's good of you, Barstow," answered Donaldson uneasily, "but I don't like to promise."

Would Barstow never call the dog by name? He could n't ask him directly; it would throw too much suspicion upon himself. If Barstow had left his laboratory that night for his trip, the chances were that the bottle was not yet missed. He must be cautious. It would be taking an unfair advantage of Barstow's friendship to allow him to feel that indirectly he had been responsible for the death of a human being. Donaldson glanced at his watch.

It had stopped.

"What time is it?" he asked.

"Half past nine."

Two hours and a half longer! He determined to remain here until eleven. If, up to that time, Barstow had not called the dog by name he would leave. He must write that letter and he must put himself as far out of reach of these friends as possible before the end. If he died on the train, his body would be put off at the next station and a local inquest held. The verdict would be heart disease; enough money would be found in his pocket to bury him; and so the matter would be dropped.

"I want you to promise, Don," ran on Barstow, "for I tell you that it's either a rest or the hospital for you. You have nervous prostration written big all over your face. I know how hard it is to make the initial effort to pull out when your brain is all wound up, but you 'll regret it if you don't. And you 'll like the crowd, Don. Lindsey is a hearty fellow, who hasn't anything to do but live—but he does that well. He's clean and square as a granite corner-stone. It will do you good to mix in with him.

"And his boat is a corker! He spent a quarter of a million on it, and he 's got a French cook that would make a dead man eat. He 'll put fat on your bones, Don, and Lindsey will make you laugh. You don't laugh enough, Don. You 're too serious. And if you have such weather as we 've had this week you 'll come back with a spirit that will boost your law practice double."