Chapter V: Part 5

In another minute we were chatting with as little compunction as the ruthless throng around us, and while we talked I studied Miss Morris. I knew a great deal about her. She had only recently returned from Germany, where for two years she had been studying singing with Lehmann. She had an exquisite voice, and, though it was understood that she would make no professional use of it, she had already sung at several concerts given in behalf of charities that appealed to her. She possessed a large fortune, inherited from her grandfather; her brother Godfrey had inherited one of equally impressive proportions, but its coming had not interrupted the daily and nightly grind of his editorial work. Evidently the Morrises, despite their languid air, sprang from energetic stock. It was whispered that Miss Morris's energies occasionally lent themselves to all-night tango parties, and late suppers with Bohemian friends in operatic and dramatic worlds whose orbits hardly touched the exclusive one in which she dwelt; but thus far there had been nothing more significant than a few raised eyebrows to emphasize this gossip.

"I'm lucky to meet you," she ran on now. "It saves writing a note. Mother and I want you to dine with us Thursday evening of next week, at our hotel. We haven't gone to housekeeping. We're at the Berkeley for the winter, because Godfrey has an apartment there. Can you come?--I'm so glad. At eight, then."

A ravishing strain of music reached us. Simultaneously the voice of the fat woman with the purple plume uttered the final notes of the recital she had been pouring into the ears of the acquaintance on her left. "Then, and not till then," she shouted, "I found that the unhappy woman _lived on the West Side_!"

Miss Morris's eyes and mine exchanged a look that carried us a long way forward on the road of friendship.

"I wouldn't miss these musicales for the world," she murmured. "Isn't Mrs. Hatfield unique? Look at her now, out in the dining-room, putting a layer of French pastry over Amato's perfectly good voice! He won't be able to sing for a week. Oh, Elman has finished. Do you know him? No? Then come and meet him."

Miss Morris interested me, and I was sorry to say good-by to her when we parted, and genuinely disappointed when I reached the Berkeley the following Thursday night, to learn that she was not to be with us at dinner. Her mother lost no time in acquainting me with this distressing fact.

"Grace wants me to apologize for her, and to tell you how _very_ sorry she is to miss you," Mrs. Morris drawled at once, as she came forward to receive me.

She was a charming woman of fifty, with white hair, a young face, and the figure of a girl of twenty. Under the controlled calm of her manner a deep-seated nervousness struggled for expression. She had her daughter's languor, but none of her cool insolence or cynicism; in the look of her gray eyes I caught a glint oddly like that in the eyes of her son.

"Grace was looking forward to your coming," she went on, as she seated herself on a davenport facing the open fire, and motioned me to a place beside her. "But an hour ago she received a note from a friend who is in town only for the night. There was something very urgent in it, and Grace rushed off without stopping to explain. My son Godfrey will be with us--and we hope Grace will be back before you leave."

As if in response to his cue, "my son Godfrey" appeared, looking extremely handsome in his evening clothes, and rather absurdly pleased to find his mother and me so deep in talk that we did not hear him approach.

"Friends already, aren't you?" was his comment on the effective tableau we made, and as we descended in the elevator to the hotel dining-room he explained again how glad he was to have his mother and sister home after two years of absence, and to bring us together at last.

The little dinner moved on charmingly, but before an hour had passed I realized that my host and hostess were under some special strain. Mrs. Morris wore a nervous, expectant look--the look of one who is listening for a bell, or a step long overdue. Several times I saw Godfrey glance toward the door, and once I caught a swift look that passed between him and his mother--a look charged with anxiety. Both obviously tried to throw off their care, whatever it was, and to a degree they succeeded. I was sending my spoon into the deep heart of a raspberry-ice when a servant leaned over the back of my chair and confidentially addressed me.

"Beg pardon, miss," he murmured, deprecatingly. "But if it's Miss Iverson, a person wants Miss Iverson on the wire."

I flushed and hesitated, glancing at Mrs. Morris.

"Party says it's urgent, miss," prompted the servant.

I apologized to my hostess, and rose. There seemed no other course open to me. Mrs. Morris looked mildly amused; her son looked thoughtful as he, too, rose and accompanied me across the dining-room to the door, returning then to the table, as I insisted that he must. In the telephone-booth the voice of Grace Morris came to me over the wire, not languid now, but quick and imperative.

"Miss Iverson?" she called. "Is that you at last? Thank Heaven! I thought you were never coming. Are mother and Godfrey still in the dining-room? Good! Will you do me a favor? It's a big one--vital."

I expressed my willingness to do Miss Morris a vital favor.

"Thank you," she said. "Then please do exactly what I tell you. Go to the hotel desk and ask the clerk for the key to my suite. I left it with him. Then go up to my bedroom. On my dressing-table you'll find an open letter I dropped there--or perhaps it's on the floor. Conceal it in your bosom, the way they do in books, and keep it for me till we meet."

I gasped. With a rush, my mind leaped at some of the possible results of carrying out this startling suggestion.

"Really, Miss Morris," I protested, "I can't do that. Suppose some one caught me in the act? It's likely to happen. We're at dessert, and I heard your mother order the coffee brought up to her sitting-room. Isn't the letter safe till you get home?"

There was a sharp exclamation at the other end of the line. Then Miss Morris's voice came to me again, in the controlled accents of desperation.

"Miss Iverson," she urged, "you've simply got to help me out! If my mother goes into my room and sees that letter, she'll read it. She'll think it's her duty. If she reads it--well, in plain words, there will be the devil to pay. Now do you understand?"

"But why not come home and get it yourself?" I persisted.

"I can't. There isn't time. I'm away down at the Lafayette. Heavens! I didn't mean to let that slip out, I'm so nervous I don't know what I'm saying. Don't tell a soul where I am. Don't even let any one know I've talked to you. And you _must_ get that letter. There isn't a minute to lose!"

It began to look as if I had to get that letter. And since the thing must be done, I wanted it over.

"Very well," I said, between my teeth, and hung up the receiver, shutting off the stream of thanks that gushed forth from the other end of the wire. In the same mood of grim acceptance I went to the hotel desk. I did not intend to make this part of my task more difficult than it need be, so I paid the clerk the compliment of truth.

"I want to get something from Miss Morris's room," I told him, casually. "Will you give me the key, please? I am dining with Mrs. Morris to-night."

He gave me a swift glance, then took the key from its rack and handed it to me with a little bow. In another moment I was in the elevator and on my way to the tenth floor, on which, as I had learned, each independent member of the Morris family occupied a separate apartment, though the suites of Mrs. Morris and her daughter had a connecting door. The tag on Miss Morris's key gave me the number of her suite, and I found her door without difficulty. My fingers shook with nervousness as I inserted the key in the lock. I felt like a housebreaker, and probably looked like one, as I glanced anxiously over my shoulder and up and down the long hall, which, fortunately, was empty.

Once inside the apartment I regained my courage. I went swiftly through the entrance-hall and the sitting-room, turning, by instinct as it seemed, to the door that opened into the bedroom. This, like the sitting-room, was dark, and I could not immediately find the switch that turned on the electric light. There was, however, an open fire burning behind a brass fender, and by its uncertain light I made my way to the dressing-table, my eyes racing ahead in their eager search. There, among a litter of silver and glass toilet articles, powder-puffs, and shell-pins, was the letter I was after--an unfolded sheet, lying face downward. An envelope, obviously that from which it had been taken, had fallen to the floor.

I picked up the letter. Just as I did so the door at the other end of the bedroom opened, and Mrs. Morris entered. For an instant, startled, we faced each other in the gloom. The next second, acting on an impulse which seemed to flex the muscles of my arm before it touched my brain, I flung the letter into the fire. At the same moment Mrs. Morris touched an electric switch beside the door and filled the room with light. Then she came toward me, easily and naturally.

"Oh, here you are," she said. "The elevator-boy told me you had come this way. Is anything wrong? Are you ill?"

Her manner was perfect. There was exactly the right degree of solicitude in her voice, of quiet assurance that everything would be at once and satisfactorily explained. But as she spoke she turned and fixed her eyes on the blazing letter in the fire. All but one corner was burned, but the thick paper kept its perfect outline. Bending, she picked up the envelope from the floor, glanced at the address, and nodded as if to herself, still holding it in her hand.

For a second I remained speechless. It was a hideous situation to be in. Still, even confronted by Godfrey Morris's mother, I felt that I had done right, and before the pause was too deeply underlined I managed to reply naturally that nothing was wrong and that I was quite well. When my hostess realized that I did not intend to make any explanation, she threw her arm across my shoulder and led me from the room. It was not until we were again in her sitting-room, and side by side on her big davenport, that she spoke.

"My dear," she said, then, very quietly, "won't you trust me?"

I looked at her, and she smiled back at me, but with something in her face that hurt. She seemed suddenly to have grown old and care-worn.

"Do you imagine I don't understand?" she went on. "I have not lived with my daughter Grace for almost a quarter of a century without knowing her rather well. Of course it was she who telephoned you. Of course she asked you to find and burn that letter. What else did she say? Where is she now? There is a vital reason why her brother and I should know. We have been anxious about her all evening. I am afraid you noticed it."

I admitted that I had. "I'm sorry," I added. "But I can't explain. I really can't say anything. I wish I could. I'm sure you will understand."

Mrs. Morris studied me in silence for a moment. The glint in her gray eyes deepened. Her jaw-line took on a sudden firmness, oddly like that of her son.

"Of course I understand," she said. "It's girlish loyalty. You think you must stand by Grace--that you must respect her confidence. But can't you believe that Grace's mother and brother may be wiser than she is?"

This, to one only two years emancipated from family rule, had a familiar sound. Instinctively I resented it.

"Aren't you forgetting," I asked, gently, "that Miss Morris is really a woman of the world? It isn't as if she were merely a school-girl, you know, with immature judgment."

Mrs. Morris sighed. "You don't understand," she murmured. "You may feel differently when you talk to my son. I see that we must be very frank with you."

With an effort she talked of other things for a few moments, until Godfrey joined us. His face brightened as he entered, and darkened when his mother told him briefly what had occurred. Without preface, he went at the heart of the tangle, in as direct and professional a manner as if he were giving me an assignment in the _Searchlight_ office.

"It all means just this, Miss Iverson," he said. "Grace has fallen in love with an utterly worthless fellow. He has no family, no position; but those things don't matter so much. Perhaps she has, as she says, enough of them for two. What does matter is that he comes of bad stock--rotten stock--that he's a bounder and worse."

That surprised me, and I showed it.

"Oh, he has some qualities, I admit," added Morris. "The most important one is a fine tenor voice. He is a professional singer. That interested Grace in the beginning. Now she is obsessed by him. She has lost her head. Evidently he's in town to-night--you heard my mother say that envelope was addressed in his handwriting. They're together somewhere, and Heaven only knows what they're hatching up."

I resented that at first. Then it disturbed me. Perhaps they _were_ hatching up something.

"I'm sorry to bore you with all this," Mr. Morris apologized, "but Grace seems to have dragged you into it. She and Dillon--that's the fellow's name--have been trying to bring us 'round to their marriage. Lately they've about given up hope of that. Now I believe Grace is capable of eloping with him. Of course, as you say, we can't control her, but I've been looking up his record, and it's mighty bad. If I could show her proofs of what I know is true, she would throw him over. With a little more time I can get them. I expect them this week. But if in the mean time--to-night--"

He broke off suddenly, stood up, and began to stride about the room.

I rose. "I haven't any idea what she intends to do," I told him, truthfully. "And I can't tell you where she is. But I'll do what I can. I'll try to find her, and tell her what you say." I turned to his mother. "Good night," I said. "I'll go at once."

They looked at each other, then at me. There was something fine in the way their heads went up, in the quiet dignity with which they both bade me good-by. It was plain that they were hurt, that they had little hope that I could do anything; but they would not continue to humiliate themselves by confidences or appeals to one who stood outside the circle of anxiety which fate had drawn around them.

Arrived at the Lafayette, I went patiently from room to room of the big French restaurant, glancing in at each door for the couple I sought. It was not long before I found them. They were in a corner in one of the smallest of the side rooms--one which held only four or five tables. Grace Morris's back was toward me as I entered the room, but her escort faced me, and I had a moment in which to look him over. He was a thin, reedy person, about thirty years old, in immaculate evening dress, with a lock of dry hair falling over a pale and narrow brow, and with hollow, hectic eyes that burned into those of his companion as he leaned over the table, facing her. They were talking in very low tones, and so earnestly that neither noticed me until I drew out a third chair at the table and quietly dropped into it. Both started violently. The man stared; Miss Morris caught my arm.

"What happened?" she asked, quickly. "Mother didn't get that letter?"

"No," I said. "No one saw it. It's burned."

She relaxed in her chair, with a laugh of relief.

"Speaking of angels," she quoted. "I was telling Herbert about you only a few moments ago." Her manner changed. "Miss Iverson," she said, more formally, "may I present Mr. Dillon?"

The reedy gentleman rose and bowed. She allowed him the barest interval for this ceremony before she continued.

"Herbert, listen to me," she said, emphatically. "If Miss Iverson will stand by us, I'll do it."

The young man's sallow face lit up. He had nice teeth and a pleasant smile. He had, also, the additional charm of a really beautiful speaking-voice. Already I began to understand why Miss Morris liked him.

"By Jove, that's great!" he cried. "Miss Iverson, Heaven has sent you. You've accomplished in ten seconds what I've failed to do in three hours." He turned to Miss Morris. "You explain," he said, "while I pay the bill and get the car ready. I'm not going to give you a chance to change your mind!"

He disappeared, and Miss Morris remarked, casually: "We're going to be married to-night, with you as maid of honor. Herbert gave me all the plans in his letter, and I came down fully determined to carry them out; but I've been hanging back. It's frightfully dismal to trot off and be married all by one's self--"

I stopped her, and hurriedly described what had occurred at the Berkeley. She listened thoughtfully.

"The poor dears," she murmured. "They can't get over the notion that I'm still in leading-strings. They'll feel better after it's all over, whereas if mother knew it was really coming off to-night she'd have a succession of heart attacks between now and morning, and Godfrey would spend the night pursuing us. We're going to Jersey for the ceremony--to a little country minister I've known since I was a child. Herbert will drive the car, and we'll put you into the chauffeur's fur coat."

It took me a long time to convince her that I would not play the important rôle she had assigned to me on the evening's program. At last, however, she seemed impressed by my seriousness, and by the emphasis I laid on the repetition of her brother's words. She rose, resumed her usual languidly insolent air, and led the way from the room. In the main hall, near the door, we found Mr. Dillon struggling into a heavy coat while he gave orders to a stout youth who seemed to be his chauffeur. Miss Morris drew Dillon to one side, and for a few moments the two talked together. Then they came toward me, smiling.

"All right," said the prospective bridegroom, with much cheerfulness. "Since she insists, we'll take Miss Iverson home first."

He gave me a cap that lay in the tonneau, helped Miss Morris and me into fur coats, settled us comfortably in the back seat, folded heavy rugs over our knees with great care, sprang into the driver's place, and took the wheel. In another moment the car leaped forward, turned a corner at an appallingly sharp angle, and went racing along a dark side-street at a speed that made the lamp-posts slip by us like wraiths. The wind sang past our ears. Miss Morris put her lips close to my face and laughed exultantly.

"You're going, after all, you see," she triumphed. "Herbert and I aren't easy to stop when we've set our hearts on anything. Here--what are you doing? Don't be an idiot!"

She caught me as I tried to throw off the rugs. I had some mad idea of jumping out, of stopping the car, even if I paid for it by serious injury; but her strong grip held me fast.

"I thought you had more sense," she panted. "There, that's right. Sit still."

I sat still, trying to think. This mad escapade would not only cost me my position on the _Searchlight_, where Godfrey Morris was growing daily in power, but, what was infinitely worse, it would cost me his interest and friendship. More than any one else, in my two years on the newspaper, he had been helpful, sympathetic, and understanding. And this was my return to him. What would he think of me? What must I think of myself?

We were across the ferry now. Dillon stopped the car and got out to light the lamps. During the interval Miss Morris held me by a seemingly affectionate, but uncomfortably tight, pressure of an arm through mine. I made no effort to get away. Whatever happened, I had now decided I must see the thing through. There was always a chance that in some way, _any_ way, I could prevent the marriage.

The great car sped on again, through a fog that, thin at first, finally pressed against us like a moist gray net. Though we could see hardly a dozen yards ahead of us, Dillon did not slacken his alarming speed. From time to time we knew, by the wan glimmer of street lamps through the mist, that we were sweeping through some town. Gradually the roads grew rougher. Occasionally we made sharp turns, Dillon stopping often to consult with Miss Morris, who at first had seemed to know the way, but who now made suggestions with growing uncertainty. Plainly, we had left the highway and were on country roads. The fog lifted a trifle, and rain began to fall--lightly at first, then in a cold, steady downpour. The car jolted over the ruts in the road, tipped at a dangerous angle once or twice, but struggled on.

In varying degrees our tempers began to feel the effect of the cold, the roughness, and the long-continued strain. Miss Morris and I sat silent. At his wheel Dillon had begun to swear, at first under his breath, then more audibly, in irritable, muttered words, and finally openly and fluently, when he realized that we had lost our way. Suddenly he stopped the car with a jerk that almost threw us out of our seats.

"What dashed place is this?" he demanded, turning for the first time to face us. "Thought you knew the way, Grace?"

With an obvious effort to ignore his manner, Miss Morris peered unhappily into the gray mist around us. "I don't recognize it at all," she confessed, at last. "We must have taken the wrong turn somewhere. I'm afraid we're lost."

Our escort swore again. His self-control, sufficient when all was going smoothly, had quite deserted him. I stared at him, trying to realize that this was the charming young man I had met at the Lafayette less than three hours ago.

"This is an infernal mess," he exclaimed at last. "We're in some sort of marsh! The mud's a foot deep!"

He continued to pull and tug and twist and swear, while the car responded with eager throbs of its willing heart, but with lagging wheels. At last, however, we were through the worst of the marsh and out into a wider roadway, and just as we began to go more smoothly there was a sudden, loud report. The car swerved. A series of oaths poured from Dillon's lips as he stopped the car and got out in the mud to inspect the damage.

"Cast a shoe, dash her," he snarled. "And on a road a million miles from any place. Of all the fool performances this trip was the worst. Why didn't you watch where you were going, Grace? You said you knew the way. You knew I didn't know it."

His last words had degenerated into an actual whine. Looking at him, as he stood in the mud, staring vacantly at us, I had a feeling that, absurd and impossible as it seemed, in another minute the young man would burst into tears! His nerves were in tatters; all self-control, all self-respect, was gone.

Miss Morris did not answer. She merely sat still and looked at him, at first in a white, flaming anger that was the more impressive because so quiet, later in an odd, puzzled fashion, as if some solution of the problem he presented had begun to dawn upon her. He meantime took off his fur coat and evening coat, rolled up his sleeves, and got ready for his uncongenial task of putting on a new tire. I took the big electric bull's-eye he handed me, and directed its light upon his work. By the time the new tire was on, his light evening shoes were unrecognizable, his clothes were covered with mud, his face was flushed with exertion and anger, and the few words he spoke came out with a whine of exhausted vitality. At last he stopped work, straightened up, reached into the car, and fumbled in the pocket of his overcoat. Then he walked around to the side of the car farthest from us, and bent forward as if to inspect something there. I started to follow him, but he checked me.

"Stay where you are," he said, curtly. "Don't need you."

A moment later he came back to us, opened the door, and motioned us into the tonneau. In the short interval his whole manner had changed. He had stopped muttering and swearing; he seemed anxious to make us comfortable, and he folded the rugs over our knees with special care, casting at Miss Morris a series of anxious glances, which she quietly ignored. Before he got in and took his place at the wheel he made a careful inspection of the other tires, and several times, as I changed the position of the light to fall more directly upon them, he smiled and thanked me. Miss Morris was evidently impressed by his change of mood. Quietly and seriously she studied him.

He was directly beside me now, bending over the rear right tire, and suddenly, as his bare arm came into view, I saw on it something that made me start and look at it again. I had not been mistaken. I glanced at Miss Morris. Her eyes were on Dillon, but in her place on the left side of the car she commanded a view of only his head and shoulders. As if annoyed by a flicker in the light, I lifted the bull's-eye into my lap and began to fumble with the snap, turning off the light. The little manoeuver had the effect I expected. Mr. Dillon stood up at once, and his bare arm came helpfully forward.

"What's the matter?" he asked, trying to take the bull's-eye. "Let me see."

I held it tight. At the same instant I flashed the light on again.

"_This_ is the matter," I said. "There's no mistaking what it means!"

To my ears my voice sounded hysterical, and I have no doubt it was, for what I was doing went against the grain. The one thing I most desire is to play the great game of life according to the highest rules. Yet here, under the eyes of Dillon's future wife, I was directing a relentless light on the young man's bare arm--an arm peppered with dark needle-pricks, and covered with telltale scars. For one instant, before the mind of its owner took in what I was saying, it remained before us, giving its mute, horrible testimony to constant use of the hypodermatic syringe. The next, it was wrenched away with a jerk that knocked the bull's-eye from my hand. Over me Dillon leaned, his face livid with rage.

"I'll make you regret that!" he snarled.

"Oh no, you won't, Herbert," Miss Morris said, gently. "This is not a melodrama, you know. And you haven't anything against Miss Iverson, for I was already beginning to--to--understand. Take us home."

He started to speak, but something in her eyes checked him, and with a little shrug--no doubt, too, with the philosophy of the drug victim who has just had his drug--he turned away. In silence he rolled down his sleeves, put on his fur coat, took his place at the wheel, and, turning the car, started back through the clearing fog toward the far lights of the city.

It was a long ride and a silent one. At his wheel Dillon sat motionless, his jaws set, his eyes staring straight ahead. His driving, I noticed, was much more careful than on our outward ride. Not once did I see Grace Morris look at him. Once or twice she shivered, as if she felt cold. When we were on the ferry-boat Dillon turned and spoke to her.

"I'm sorry I lost my temper," he said. "I suppose--your manner seems to mean--that--I've lost everything."

For a moment Miss Morris did not reply. Under the robe her hand slipped into mine and clung there, as if in a lonely world she suddenly felt the need of a human touch.

"Poor old Herbert," she said, then, very gently. "I'm afraid we've both lost everything. This has been a nightmare, but--I needed it."

There was absolute finality in her voice. Without a word the young man turned from her and sat staring at the river lights before us. Miss Morris pressed my hand.

"I'm going to take you home with me," she announced. She took out her watch and looked at it. "Quarter to three," she murmured. "What a night!" And after a moment she added under her breath, "And what an escape!"

She threw back her shoulders with a gesture as energetic as if at the same time she had cast off some intolerable burden. Then she added, in her cool, cynical fashion, "It's only fair, you know, that after such a vigil your drooping spirit should be refreshed by the rain of my mother's grateful tears--not to speak of Godfrey's!"

VIII

MARIA ANNUNCIATA

It had been a trying day in the _Searchlight_ office. Godfrey Morris, our assistant feature editor, was ill, and much of his work had devolved on me. From ten o'clock in the morning I had steadily read copy and "built heads," realizing as my blue pencil raced over the sheets before me that my associates would resent the cutting of their stories and that Colonel Cartwell would freely condemn the heads. It was a tradition in Park Row that no human being save himself had ever built a newspaper head which satisfied our editor-in-chief, and his nightly explosions of rage over those on the proofs that came to his desk jarred even the firm walls of the _Searchlight_ building.

To-day I sympathized with Colonel Cartwell, for as I bent wearily over my desk, cutting, rewriting, adding to the pile of edited copy before me, a scare-head in a newspaper I had received that morning from my home city swung constantly before my tired eyes. It was plain that the ambitious Western editor had been taking lessons in head-building from the _Searchlight_ itself, and was offering us the tribute of humble imitation; for, in the blackest type he could select, and stretching across two columns of the _Sentinel's_ first page, were these startling lines:

From City Room to Convent Cell

Miss May Iverson, Daughter of General John Lamar Iverson of
This City, to Take the Vows of a Nun of the Sacred Cross

The article which followed was illustrated with photographs of my father, of me, and of the convent from which I had graduated nearly four years ago. It sketched my career as a reporter on the New York _Searchlight_, mentioned my newspaper work and my various magazine stories with kindly approval, and stated that my intention when I graduated at eighteen had been to enter the convent at twenty-one, but that in deference to the wishes of my father I had consented to wait another year. This time of probation was almost over, the _Sentinel_ added, and it was "now admitted" that Miss Iverson, "despite the brilliant promise of her journalistic career," would be one of the thirty novices who entered the convent of St. Catharine in July.

All this I had read only once before thrusting the _Sentinel_ out of sight under the mass of copy on my desk. Now, word by word, it returned to me as I built the heads that were to startle our reading public in the morning. Around me the usual sounds of the city room swelled steadily into the familiar symphony of our work. Typewriters clicked and rattled, telephone bells kept up their insistent summons, the presses, now printing the final evening editions, sent from far below their deep and steady purr, while through it all the voices of Farrell and Hurd cut their incisive way, like steamboat whistles in a fog, to members of the staff. It was an hour I loved, even as I loved the corresponding hour at St. Catharine's, when students and nuns knelt together in the dim, beautiful convent chapel while the peace of benediction fell upon our souls. I wanted both the convent and my work. I could not have them both. And even now, toward the end of my fourth year of professional life, I was still uncertain which I was to choose. For months I had been hesitating, the helpless victim of changing moods, of conflicting desires. Now, I realized, there must be an end to these. The article in the _Sentinel_ had brought matters to a focus. In one way or the other, and for all time, I must decide my problem.

It was six o'clock when I sent down the last pages of copy, closed my desk, and walked out of the _Searchlight_ building to find myself in an unfamiliar world. Around me lay the worst fog New York had ever known--a fog so dense that the forms of my fellow pedestrians were almost lost in it, though I could hear their voices on every side. From the near-by river the anxious warnings of horns and whistles came to my ears thickly, as if through padded walls. The elevated station I had to reach was less than a block away, but to-night no friendly eye of light winked at me from it, and twice as I walked cautiously forward I was jostled by vague bulks from which came short laughs and apologies as they groped their way past me.

It was an uncanny experience, but it seemed, in my present mood, merely a fitting accompaniment to my own mental chaos. Resolutely I tried to steady my thoughts to pull myself together. I knew every inch of the little journey to the station. In a few moments more, I reflected, I would be comfortably seated in an elevated train, and within half an hour, if all went normally, I would be safely at home and dressing for dinner. It was pleasant to remember that I had made no engagement for that evening. I could dine alone, slowly and luxuriously, with an open book before me if I cared to add that last sybaritic touch to my comfort--and later I could dawdle before my big open fire, with a reading-lamp and half a dozen new magazines wooing me at my elbow. Or I could take up my problem and settle it before I went to bed.

My groping feet touched the lowest step of the elevated stairs. I put my hand forward to raise my skirt for the ascent, and simultaneously, as it seemed, a cold hand slipped through the fog and slid into mine, folding around two of my fingers. It was a very tiny hand--almost a baby's hand. Startled, I looked down. Something small and plump was pressing against my knee, and as I bent to examine it closely I saw that it was a child--a little girl three or four years old, apparently lost, but obviously unafraid. Through the mist, as I knelt to bring her face on a level with my own, a pair of big and wonderful brown eyes looked steadily into mine, while a row of absurdly small teeth shone upon me in a shy but trustful smile.

"Fine-kine-rady," remarked a wee voice in clear, dispassionate tones.

Impulsively I gave the intrepid adventurer a friendly hug. "Why, you blessed infant!" I exclaimed. "What are you doing here all alone? Where do you live? Where's your mama?"

Still kneeling, I waited for an answer, but none came. The soft little body of the new-comer leaned confidingly against my shoulder. A small left hand played with a button on my coat; its mate still clung firmly to my fingers. The child's manner was that of pleased acceptance of permanent and agreeable conditions. Into the atmosphere of well-being and dignified reserve which she created, my repeated question projected itself almost with an effect of rudeness. On its second repetition it evoked a response, though merely an echo.

"Fine-kine-rady," repeated the young stranger, patiently. She continued her absorbing occupation of twirling my coat button while I pondered over the cryptic utterance. It meant nothing to me.

"She's certainly lost," I thought. "I wonder if Casey would remember her if he saw her."

I peered through the fog, looking for the big Irish policeman whose post for the past two years had been here at the junction of the three tenement streets that radiated, spoke-like, from under the elevated station. He must be somewhere near, I knew, possibly within ear-shot. I decided to try the effect of a friendly hail.

"_Oh-ho--Officer Casey!_" I called, careful to speak cheerfully, that the cry might not frighten the child beside me. "_Where--are--you?_"

After a moment I heard an answering hail; an instant later the familiar bulk of Casey towered above me in the mist.

"Who's wantin' me?" he demanded, and then, as he recognized me: "Hel-_lo_, Miss Iverson! Sure ye're not lost, are ye?" he added, facetiously.

"I'm not," I told him, "but I think some one else is. Do you recognize this youngster? I found her here just now--or, rather, she found me."

"Fine-kine-rady," murmured the child, antiphonally. She had turned her brown velvet eyes on the policeman in one fleeting glance which seemed to label and dismiss him. His existence, her manner plainly said, was no concern of hers. Casey bent down and surveyed her with interest--a task made somewhat difficult by the fact that she was coldly presenting the back of her head to him and that the top of it was about on a level with his knee.

"Let's take her up t' the waitin'-room," he suggested, "an' have a good look at her. Can she walk, I wonder--or will I carry her?"

At the words the independent explorer below us started up the stairs, dragging me with her, her hand still clinging to my fingers, her short, willing legs taking one step at a time and subject to an occasional embarrassing wabble, but on the whole moving briskly and with the ease of habit.

"She understands English," remarked Casey, as he admiringly followed her, "an' she's used to stairs. _That's_ clear."

We found the waiting-room deserted except by the ticket-seller and the ticket-chopper, who were languidly discussing the fog. Both took an animated interest in our appearance, and, when they learned our mission, eagerly approached the child for minute inspection of her. In the center of the little circle we made under the station lamp the mite bore our regard with the utmost composure, her brown eyes on my face, her hand still firmly grasping my third and fourth fingers. She seemed mildly surprised by this second delay in getting anywhere, but entirely willing to await the convenience of these strange beings who were talking so much without saying anything. The ticket-seller finally summed up the result of our joint observation.

"Whoever that kid is, she's a peach," he muttered, in spontaneous tribute to the living picture before us.

She _was_ a peach. Her bare head was covered with short, upstanding curls, decorated on the left side with a cheap but carefully tied scarlet bow that stood out with the vivid effect of a poinsettia against black velvet. In her cheeks were two deep dimples, and a third lurked in the lower right side of her chin, awaiting only the summons of her shy smile to spring into life. When she lowered her eyes her curly black lashes seemed unbelievably long, and when she raised them again something in their strange beauty made me catch my breath.

She wore no mittens, though the night was cold, but her tiny body was buttoned tightly into a worn, knitted, gray reefer-jacket, under which showed a neat little woolen skirt and black stockings and shoes which, though very shabby, revealed no holes. She was surprisingly clean. She had, indeed, an effect of having been scrubbed and dressed with special care and in her best clothes, poor though they were. Her complexion had the soft, warm olive tint peculiar to Latin races.

For a long time she bore the close scrutiny of our four pairs of eyes with her astonishing air of calm detachment. Then, as the inspection threatened to be indefinitely prolonged, she became restless and took refuge against my knee. Also, with an obvious effort to rise to any social demands the occasion presented, she produced again the masterpiece of her limited vocabulary.

"Fine-kine-rady," she murmured, anxiously, and this time her lips quivered.

"She's Eye-talian," decided Casey, sagely, "an' 'tis a sure thing she lives somewhere near. Hasn't _anny_ of yez set eyes on her before? Think, now."

Hopefully he and I gazed at the station employees, but both heads shook a solemn negative. The light of a sudden inspiration illumined the Celtic features of Casey.

"I'll tell ye what we'll do," he announced. "'Tis plain she's strayed from home. I c'u'd take her t' th' station an' let her folks come fur her--but that's the long way t' do ut. There's a shorter wan. 'Tis this."

He tried to draw me to one side, but the little manoeuver was not successful. Tightening her grasp on my fingers, the object of our solicitude promptly accompanied us. Casey lowered his voice to a whisper which was like the buzzing of a giant bee.

"I'll take her back to the fut of th' stairs an' _lave_ her," he pronounced. "She'll start home, an' she'll find her way like a burrd. Av course," he added, hastily, apparently observing a lack of response in my expression, "I'll folly her an' watch her. Av she don't find th' place, I'll take her t' th' station. But she _will_. Lave it to her."

I hesitated. "I suppose that's the best plan," I unwillingly agreed, at last. "Probably her mother is half frightened to death already. But--couldn't we lead her home?"

Casey shook his head. "Not an inch w'u'd she budge, that wan," he declared, "unless she was on her own. But lave her be, an' she'll find her way. They're wise, thim young Eye-talians. Come, now."

He took the child's free hand and tried to draw her away. A pathetic wail burst from her. Frantically, with both arms she clasped my knee. Her poise, so perfect until now, deserted her wholly, as if she had finally decided to admit to an unfeeling world that after all there was a limit to the self-control of one of her tender age.

"Fine-kine-rady," she sobbed, while great tears formed and fell from the brown eyes she still kept fixed on my face, a look of incredulous horror dawning in them.

"I simply cannot send her away," I confessed to Casey, desperately. "It seems so heartless. I'll go with her."

Officer Casey was a patient man, but he was also a firm one. "Now, see here, Miss Iverson," he urged. "You've got sinse. Use ut. 'Tis just a fancy she's takin' t' ye, an' sure I'm th' last t' blame her," he added, gallantly. "But think av th' child's good. Ain't her mother raisin' th' roof over her head somewhere this minute?" he added, with deep craft. "Wud ye be killin' th' poor woman wid anxiety?"

"Well--" Again I gave way. "But you won't lose sight of her for one second, will you?" I demanded. "You know if you did, in this fog--"

Casey turned upon me the look of one who suffers and forbears. "W'u'd ye think ut?" he asked, coldly. "An' me wit' kids o' me own? But I'll make her _think_ I've left her," he added. "I'll have to."

There seemed nothing to do but try his plan. Holding fast to the mental picture of the anxious mother "raising the roof" somewhere in the neighborhood, I gently pried loose the child's convulsively clinging fingers and turned away. The wail and then the sobs that followed wrung my heart. Casey picked up the frightened, almost frantic baby and started down the stairs, while I followed at a safe distance to watch their descent. As they went I heard him talking to and coaxing the small burden he carried, his rich Irish voice full of friendly cajolery, while, as if in sole but eloquent rebuttal of all he said, the shrill treble refrain, "Fine-kine-rady," came back to me sobbingly from the mist.

At the foot of the steps he set the child on her feet, told her to "go home now like a good wan," and disappeared under the stairway. I crept down the steps as far as I dared, and watched. The forlorn little wanderer, left alone in a fog that was alarming many grown-ups that night, stood still for a moment staring around her, as if trying to get her bearings. A final sob or two came from her. Then in another instant she had turned and trotted away, moving so fast that, though I immediately ran down the remaining steps and followed her, I could hardly keep her in sight. A little ahead of me I saw Casey hurriedly cross the street and shadow the tiny figure. I pursued them both, keeping my eyes on the child. I trusted Casey--indeed, my respect for his judgment had increased enormously during the last two minutes--but I felt that I must see for myself what happened to that baby.

Like wraiths the two figures in front of me hurried through the fog, so close now that they almost touched, Casey unaware of my presence, the child unconscious of us both. Not once, from the time she started, had the little thing looked back. She made her way swiftly and surely along the dingy tenement street that stretched off to the right; and at a certain door she stopped, hesitated a moment, and finally entered. Casey promptly followed her.

For a moment I stood hesitating, tempted to return to the station and resume my interrupted journey home. The little episode had already delayed me half an hour, and it seemed clear that the child was now safe. Surely nothing more could be done. Yet even as these logical reflections occurred to me I entered the door, impelled by an impulse which I did not stop to analyze, but which I never afterward ceased to bless. The heavy, typical smell of a tenement building rose to meet me, intensified by the dampness of the night. It seemed incredible that anything so exquisite as that baby could belong to such a place; but, looking up, I saw her already near the head of a long flight of dirty steps that rose from the dimly lighted hall. Casey, moving as quietly as his heavy boots permitted, was at the bottom. I waited until he, too, had climbed the uneven staircase. Then I followed them both.

At the right of the stairs, off a miserable hall lit by one dim, blinking gas-jet, was an open door, which the child had evidently just entered. As I paused for breath on the top step I caught a glimpse of Casey's rubber coat also vanishing across the threshold. I slipped back into the shadow of the hall and waited. What I wanted was to hear the reassuring tones of human voices, and I found myself listening for these with suspended breath and straining ears; but for a long moment I heard nothing at all. I realized now that there was no light in the room, and this suddenly seemed odd to me. Then I heard Casey's voice, speaking to the child with a new note in it--a note of tense excitement that made my heart-beats quicken. The next instant I, too, was in the room.

Casey stood under the single gas-bracket, striking a match. As I went toward him, the light flickered up, dimly revealing a clean, bleak room, whose only furniture was a bed, a broken chair, and a small gas-stove. On the chair lay an empty tin cup and a spoon. The child, her back to both her visitors, stood beside the bed. Characteristically, though Casey had spoken to her, she ignored his presence. She was whimpering a little under her breath, and pulling with both hands at something that lay before her, rigid and unresponsive.

With a rush I crossed the room, and the desolate mite of humanity at the bed turned to stare at me, blinking in the sudden light. For an instant her wet brown eyes failed to recognize me. In the next, with an ecstatic, indescribably pathetic little cry, she lurched into the arms I opened to her. I could not speak, but I sat down on the floor and held her close, my tears falling on her curly head with its brave red bow. For a moment more the silence held. Then the child drew a long, quivering breath and patiently uttered again her parrot-like refrain.

"Fine-kine-rady," she murmured, brokenly.

Casey, his cap in his hand, stood looking down upon the silent figure on the bed. "Starvation, most likely," he hazarded. "She's bin dead fur an hour, maybe more," he mused aloud. "An' she's laid herself out, d'ye mind. Whin she found death comin' she drew her feet together, an' crost her hands on her breast, an' shut her eyes. They do ut sometimes, whin they know they's no wan to do ut for thim. But first she washed an' dressed her child in uts best an' sint ut out--so ut w'u'dn't be scairt. D'ye know th' woman?" he added. "Have ye ivir seen her? It seems t' me _I_ have!"

Holding the baby tight, her head against my shoulder, that she might not see what I did, I went forward and looked at the wasted face. There was something vaguely familiar about the black hair-line on the broad, Madonna-like brow, about the exquisitely shaped nose, the sunken cheeks, the pointed chin. For a long moment I looked at them while memory stirred in me and then awoke.

"Yes," I said, at last. "I remember her now. Many evenings last month I saw her standing at the foot of the elevated stairs when I was going home. She wore a little shawl over her head--that's why I didn't recognize her at once. She never begged, but she took what one gave her. I always gave her something. She was evidently very poor. I remember vaguely that she had a child with her--this one, of course. I hardly noticed either of them as I swept by. One's always in a rush, you know, to get home, and, unfortunately, there are so many beggars!"

"That's it," said Casey. "I remember her now, too."

"If only I had realized how ill she was," I reflected aloud, miserably, "or stopped to think of the child. She called me 'kind lady.' Oh, Casey! And I let her starve!"

"Hush now," said Casey, consolingly. "Sure how could ye know? Some of thim that's beggin' has more than you have!"

"But she called me 'kind lady,'" I repeated. "And I let her--"

"Fine-kine-rady," murmured the child, drowsily, as if hearing and responding to a cue. She was quiet and well content, again playing with a coat-button; but she piped out her three words as if they were part of a daily drill and the word of command had been uttered. Casey and I looked at each other, then dropped our eyes.

"_Find kind lady_," I translated at last. Then I broke down, in the bitterest storm of tears that I have ever known. Beside me Casey stood guard, silent and unhappy. It was the whimper of the child that recalled me to myself and her. She was growing frightened.

"Oh, Casey," I said again, when I had soothed her, "do you realize that the poor woman sent this baby out into New York to-night on the one chance in a million that she might see me at the station and that I would remember her?"