Chapter IX: Part 9

Was ever lover hedged from a declaration to his mistress by circumstances so hateful, so untoward! He could have raged and railed against his fate like any madman. For he desired her greatly, and she was very lovely in his sight. If her night’s rest had been broken and but a mockery, she showed few signs of it; the faint, wan complexion of fatigue seemed only to enhance the beauty of her maidenhood; her lips were as fresh and desirous as the dewy petals of a crimson rose; beneath her eyes soft shadows lurked where her lashes lay tremulous upon her cheeks of satin.... She was to him of all created things the most wonderful, the most desirable.

The temptation of his longing seemed more than he could long withstand. But resist he must, or part for ever with any title to her consideration—or his own. He shut his teeth and knotted his brows in a transport of desire to touch, if only with his finger-tips, the woven wonder of her hair.

And thus she saw him, when, without warning, she awoke.

Bewilderment at first informed the wide brown eyes; then, as their drowsiness vanished, a little laughter, a little tender mirth.

“Good morning, Sir Knight of the Somber Countenance!” she cried, standing up. “Am I so utterly disreputable that you find it necessary to frown on me so darkly?”

He shook his head, smiling.

“I know I’m a fright,” she asserted vigorously, shaking out the folds of her pleated skirt. “And as for my hat, it will never be on straight—but then _you_ wouldn’t know.”

“It seems all right,” he replied vacantly.

“Then please to try to look a little happier, since you find me quite presentable.”

“I do...”

Without lifting her bended head, she looked up, laughing, not ill-pleased. “_You’d_ say so... really?”

Commonplace enough, this banter, this pitiful endeavor to be oblivious of their common misery; but like the look she gave him, her words rang in his head like potent fumes of wine. He turned away, utterly disconcerted for the time, knowing only that he must overcome his weakness.

Far down the railway tracks there rose a murmuring, that waxed to a rumbling roar. A passing porter answered Kirkwood’s inquiry: it was the night boat-train from Ostend. He picked up their bags and drew the girl into the waiting-room, troubled by a sickening foreboding.

Through the window they watched the train roll in and stop.

Among others, alighted, smirking, the unspeakable Hobbs.

He lifted his hat and bowed jauntily to the waiting-room window, making it plain that his keen eyes had discovered them instantly.

Kirkwood’s heart sank with the hopelessness of it all. If the railway directorates of Europe conspired against them, what chance had they? If the night boat-train from Ostend had only had the decency to be twenty-five minutes late, instead of arriving promptly on the minute of 4:45 they two might have escaped by the 5:09 for Dunkerque and Calais.

There remained but a single untried ruse in his bag of tricks; mercifully it might suffice.

“Miss Calendar,” said Kirkwood from his heart, “just as soon as I get you home, safe and sound, I am going to take a day off, hunt up that little villain, and flay him alive. In the meantime, I forgot to dine last night, and am reminded that we had better forage for breakfast.”

Hobbs dogged them at a safe distance while they sallied forth and in a neighboring street discovered an early-bird bakery. Here they were able to purchase rolls steaming from the oven, fresh pats of golden butter wrapped in clean lettuce leaves, and milk in twin bottles; all of which they prosaically carried with them back to the station, lacking leisure as they did to partake of the food before train-time.

Without attempting concealment (Hobbs, he knew, was eavesdropping round the corner of the door) Kirkwood purchased at the ticket-window passages on the Dunkerque train. Mr. Hobbs promptly flattered him by imitation; and so jealous of his luck was Kirkwood by this time grown, through continual disappointment, that he did not even let the girl into his plans until they were aboard the 5:09, in a compartment all to themselves. Then, having with his own eyes seen Mr. Hobbs dodge into the third compartment in the rear of the same carriage, Kirkwood astonished the girl by requesting her to follow him; and together they left by the door opposite that by which they had entered.

The engine was running up and down a scale of staccato snorts, in preparation for the race, and the cars were on the edge of moving, couplings clanking, wheels a-groan, ere Mr. Hobbs condescended to join them between the tracks.

Wearily, disheartened, Kirkwood reopened the door, flung the bags in, and helped the girl back into their despised compartment; the quicker route to England via Ostend was now out of the question. As for himself, he waited for a brace of seconds, eying wickedly the ubiquitous Hobbs, who had popped back into his compartment, but stood ready to pop out again on the least encouragement. In the meantime he was pleased to shake a friendly foot at Mr. Kirkwood, thrusting that member out through the half-open door.

Only the timely departure of the train, compelling him to rejoin Dorothy at once, if at all, prevented the American from adding murder to the already noteworthy catalogue of his high crimes and misdemeanors.

Their simple meal, consumed to the ultimate drop and crumb while the Dunkerque train meandered serenely through a sunny, smiling Flemish countryside, somewhat revived their jaded spirits. After all, they were young, enviably dowered with youth’s exuberant elasticity of mood; the world was bright in the dawning, the night had fled leaving naught but an evil memory; best of all things, they were together: tacitly they were agreed that somehow the future would take care of itself and all be well with them.

For a time they laughed and chattered, pretending that the present held no cares or troubles; but soon the girl, nestling her head in a corner of the dingy cushions, was smiling ever more drowsily on Kirkwood; and presently she slept in good earnest, the warm blood ebbing and flowing beneath the exquisite texture of her cheeks, the ghost of an unconscious smile quivering about the sensitive scarlet mouth, the breeze through the open window at her side wantoning at will in the sunlit witchery of her hair. And Kirkwood, worn with sleepless watching, dwelt in longing upon the dear innocent allure of her until the ache in his heart had grown well-nigh insupportable; then instinctively turned his gaze upwards, searching his heart, reading the faith and desire of it, so that at length knowledge and understanding came to him, of his weakness and strength and the clean love that he bore for her, and gladdened he sat dreaming in waking the same clear dreams that modeled her unconscious lips secretly for laughter and the joy of living.

When Dunkerque halted their progress, they were obliged to alight and change cars,—Hobbs a discreetly sinister shadow at the end of the platform.

By schedule they were to arrive in Calais about the middle of the forenoon, with a wait of three hours to be bridged before the departure of the Dover packet. That would be an anxious time; the prospect of it rendered both Dorothy and Kirkwood doubly anxious throughout this final stage of their flight. In three hours anything could happen, or be brought about. Neither could forget that it was quite within the bounds of possibilities for Calendar to be awaiting them in Calais. Presuming that Hobbs had been acute enough to guess their plans and advise his employer by telegraph, the latter could readily have anticipated their arrival, whether by sea in the brigantine, or by land, taking the direct route via Brussels and Lille. If such proved to be the case, it were scarcely sensible to count upon the arch-adventurer contenting himself with a waiting rôle like Hobbs’.

With such unhappy apprehensions for a stimulant, between them the man and the girl contrived a make-shift counter-stratagem; or it were more accurate to say that Kirkwood proposed it, while Dorothy rejected, disputed, and at length accepted it, albeit with sad misgivings. For it involved a separation that might not prove temporary.

Together they could never escape the surveillance of Mr. Hobbs; parted, he would be obliged to follow one or the other. The task of misleading the _Alethea’s_ mate, Kirkwood undertook, delegating to the girl the duty of escaping when he could provide her the opportunity, of keeping under cover until the hour of sailing, and then proceeding to England, with the gladstone bag, alone if Kirkwood was unable, or thought it inadvisable, to join her on the boat.

In furtherance of this design, a majority of the girl’s belongings were transferred from her traveling bag to Kirkwood’s, the gladstone taking their place; and the young man provided her with voluminous instructions, a revolver which she did not know how to handle and declared she would never use for any consideration, and enough money to pay for her accommodation at the Terminus Hôtel, near the pier, and for two passages to London. It was agreed that she should secure the steamer booking, lest Kirkwood be delayed until the last moment.

These arrangements concluded, the pair of blessed idiots sat steeped in melancholy silence, avoiding each other’s eyes, until the train drew in at the Gare Centrale, Calais.

In profound silence, too, they left their compartment and passed through the station, into the quiet, sun-drenched streets of the seaport,—Hobbs hovering solicitously in the offing.

Without comment or visible relief of mind they were aware that their fears had been without apparent foundation; they saw no sign of Calendar, Stryker or Mulready. The circumstance, however, counted for nothing; one or all of the adventurers might arrive in Calais at any minute.

Momentarily more miserable as the time of parting drew nearer, dumb with unhappiness, they turned aside from the main thoroughfares of the city, leaving the business section, and gained the sleepier side streets, bordered by the residences of the proletariat, where for blocks none but children were to be seen, and of them but few—quaint, sober little bodies playing almost noiselessly in their dooryards.

At length Kirkwood spoke.

“Let’s make it the corner,” he said, without looking at the girl. “It’s a short block to the next street. You hurry to the Terminus and lock yourself in your room. Have the management book both passages; don’t run the risk of going to the pier yourself. I’ll make things interesting for Mr. Hobbs, and join you as soon as I can, _if_ I can.”

“You must,” replied the girl. “I shan’t go without you.”

“But, Dor—Miss Calendar!” he exclaimed, aghast.

“I don’t care—I know I agreed,” she declared mutinously. “But I won’t—I can’t. Remember I shall wait for you.”

“But—but perhaps—”

“If you have to stay, it will be because there’s danger—won’t it? And what would you think of me if I deserted you then, af-after all y-you’ve done?... Please don’t waste time arguing. Whether you come at one to-day, to-morrow, or a week from to-morrow, I shall be waiting.... You may be sure. Good-by.”

They had turned the corner, walking slowly, side by side; Hobbs, for the first time caught off his guard, had dropped behind more than half a long block. But now Kirkwood’s quick sidelong glance discovered the mate in the act of taking alarm and quickening his pace. None the less the American was at the time barely conscious of anything other than a wholly unexpected furtive pressure of the girl’s gloved fingers on his own.

“Good-by,” she whispered.

He caught at her hand, protesting. “Dorothy—!”

“Good-by,” she repeated breathlessly, with a queer little catch in her voice. “God be with you, Philip, and—and send you safely back to me....”

And she was running away.

Dumfounded with dismay, seeing in a flash how all his plans might be set at naught by this her unforeseen insubordination, he took a step or two after her; but she was fleet of foot, and, remembering Hobbs, he halted.

By this time the mate, too, was running; Kirkwood could hear the heavy pounding of his clumsy feet. Already Dorothy had almost gained the farther corner; as she whisked round it with a flutter of skirts, Kirkwood dodged hastily behind a gate-post. A thought later, Hobbs appeared, head down, chest out, eyes straining for sight of his quarry, pelting along for dear life.

As, rounding the corner, he stretched out in swifter stride, Kirkwood was inspired to put a spoke in his wheel; and a foot thrust suddenly out from behind the gate-post accomplished his purpose with more success than he had dared anticipate. Stumbling, the mate plunged headlong, arms and legs a-sprawl; and the momentum of his pace, though checked, carried him along the sidewalk, face downwards, a full yard ere he could stay himself.

Kirkwood stepped out of the gateway and sheered off as Hobbs picked himself up; something which he did rather slowly, as if in a daze, without comprehension of the cause of his misfortune. And for a moment he stood pulling his wits together and swaying as though on the point of resuming his rudely interrupted chase; when the noise of Kirkwood’s heels brought him about face in a twinkling.

“Ow, it’s you, eh!” he snarled in a temper as vicious as his countenance; and both of these were much the worse for wear and tear.

“Myself,” admitted Kirkwood fairly; and then, in a gleam of humor: “Weren’t you looking for me?”

His rage seemed to take the little Cockney and shake him by the throat; he trembled from head to foot, his face shockingly congested, and spat out dust and fragments of lurid blasphemy like an infuriated cat.

Of a sudden, “W’ere’s the gel?” he sputtered thickly as his quick shifting eyes for the first time noted Dorothy’s absence.

“Miss Calendar has other business—none with you. I’ve taken the liberty of stopping you because I have a word or two—”

“Ow, you ’ave, ’ave you? Gawd strike me blind, but I’ve a word for you, too!... ’And over that bag—and look nippy, or I’ll myke you pye for w’at you’ve done to me ... I’ll myke you pye!” he iterated hoarsely, edging closer. “’And it over or—”

“You’ve got another guess—” Kirkwood began, but saved his breath in deference to an imperative demand on him for instant defensive action.

To some extent he had underestimated the brute courage of the fellow, the violent, desperate courage that is distilled of anger in men of his kind. Despising him, deeming him incapable of any overt act of villainy, Kirkwood had been a little less wary than he would have been with Calendar or Mulready. Hobbs had seemed more of the craven type which Stryker graced so conspicuously. But now the American was to be taught discrimination, to learn that if Stryker’s nature was like a snake’s for low cunning and deviousness, Hobbs’ soul was the soul of a viper.

Almost imperceptibly he had advanced upon Kirkwood; almost insensibly his right hand had moved toward his chest; now, with a movement marvelously deft, it had slipped in and out of his breast pocket. And a six-inch blade of tarnished steel was winging toward Kirkwood’s throat with the speed of light.

Instinctively he stepped back; as instinctively he guarded with his right forearm, lifting the hand that held the satchel. The knife, catching in his sleeve, scratched the arm beneath painfully, and simultaneously was twisted from the mate’s grasp, while in his surprise Kirkwood’s grip on the bag-handle relaxed. It was torn forcibly from his fingers just as he received a heavy blow on his chest from the mate’s fist. He staggered back.

By the time he had recovered from the shock, Hobbs was a score of feet away, the satchel tucked under his arm, his body bent almost double, running like a jack-rabbit. Ere Kirkwood could get under way, in pursuit, the mate had dodged out of sight round the corner. When the American caught sight of him again, he was far down the block, and bettering his pace with every jump.

He was approaching, also, some six or eight good citizens of Calais, men of the laboring class, at a guess. Their attention attracted by his frantic flight, they stopped to wonder. One or two moved as though to intercept him, and he doubled out into the middle of the street with the quickness of thought; an instant later he shot round another corner and disappeared, the natives streaming after in hot chase, electrified by the inspiring strains of “Stop, thief!”—or its French equivalent.

Kirkwood, cheering them on with the same wild cry, followed to the farther street; and there paused, so winded and weak with laughter that he was fain to catch at a fence picket for support. Standing thus he saw other denizens of Calais spring as if from the ground miraculously to swell the hue and cry; and a dumpling of a gendarme materialized from nowhere at all, to fall in behind the rabble, waving his sword above his head and screaming at the top of his lungs, the while his fat legs twinkled for all the world like thick sausage links marvelously animated.

The mob straggled round yet another corner and was gone; its clamor diminished on the still Spring air; and Kirkwood, recovering, abandoned Mr. Hobbs to the justice of the high gods and the French system of jurisprudence (at least, he hoped the latter would take an interest in the case, if haply Hobbs were laid by the heels), and went his way rejoicing.

As for the scratch on his arm, it was nothing, as he presently demonstrated to his complete satisfaction in the seclusion of a chance-sent fiacre. Kirkwood, commissioning it to drive him to the American Consulate, made his diagnosis _en route_; wound a handkerchief round the negligible wound, rolled down his sleeve, and forgot it altogether in the joys of picturing to himself Hobbs in the act of opening the satchel in expectation of finding therein the gladstone bag.

At the consulate door he paid off the driver and dismissed him; the fiacre had served his purpose, and he could find his way to the Terminus Hôtel at infinitely less expense. He had a considerably harder task before him as he ascended the steps to the consular doorway, knocked and made known the nature of his errand.

No malicious destiny could have timed the hour of his call more appositely; the consul was at home and at the disposal of his fellow-citizens—within bounds.

In the course of thirty minutes or so Kirkwood emerged with dignity from the consulate, his face crimson to the hair, his soul smarting with shame and humiliation; and left an amused official representative of his country’s government with the impression of having been entertained to the point of ennui by an exceptionally clumsy but pertinacious liar.

For the better part of the succeeding hour Kirkwood circumnavigated the neighborhood of the steamer pier and the Terminus Hôtel, striving to render himself as inconspicuous as he felt insignificant, and keenly on the alert for any sign or news of Hobbs. In this pursuit he was pleasantly disappointed.

At noon precisely, his suspense grown too onerous for his strength of will, throwing caution and their understanding to the winds, he walked boldly into the Terminus, and inquired for Miss Calendar.

The assurance he received that she was in safety under its roof did not deter him from sending up his name and asking her to receive him in the public lounge; he required the testimony of his senses to convince him that no harm had come to her in the long hour and a half that had elapsed since their separation.

Woman-like, she kept him waiting. Alone in the public rooms of the hotel, he suffered excruciating torments. How was he to know that Calendar had not arrived and found his way to her?

When at length she appeared on the threshold of the apartment, bringing with her the traveling bag and looking wonderfully the better for her ninety minutes of complete repose and privacy, the relief he experienced was so intense that he remained transfixed in the middle of the floor, momentarily able neither to speak nor to move.

On her part, so fagged and distraught did he seem, that at sight of his care-worn countenance she hurried to him with outstretched, compassionate hands and a low pitiful cry of concern, forgetful entirely of that which he himself had forgotten—the emotion she had betrayed on parting.

“Oh, nothing wrong,” he hastened to reassure her, with a sorry ghost of his familiar grin; “only I have lost Hobbs and the satchel with your things; and there’s no sign yet of Mr. Calendar. We can feel pretty comfortable now, and—and I thought it time we had something like a meal.”

The narrative of his adventure which he delivered over their _déjeuner à la fourchette_ contained no mention either of his rebuff at the American Consulate or the scratch he had sustained during Hobbs’ murderous assault; the one could not concern her, the other would seem but a bid for her sympathy. He counted it a fortunate thing that the mate’s knife had been keen enough to penetrate the cloth of his sleeve without tearing it; the slit it had left was barely noticeable. And he purposely diverted the girl with flashes of humorous description, so that they discussed both meal and episode in a mood of wholesome merriment.

It was concluded, all too soon for the taste of either, by the waiter’s announcement that the steamer was on the point of sailing.

Outwardly composed, inwardly quaking, they boarded the packet, meeting with no misadventure whatever—if we are to except the circumstance that, when the restaurant bill was settled and the girl had punctiliously surrendered his change with the tickets, Kirkwood found himself in possession of precisely one franc and twenty centimes.

He groaned in spirit to think how differently he might have been fixed, had he not in his infatuated spirit of honesty been so anxious to give Calendar more than ample value for his money!

An inexorable anxiety held them both near the gangway until it was cast off and the boat began to draw away from the pier. Then, and not till then, did an unimpressive, small figure of a man detach itself from the shield of a pile of luggage and advance to the pier-head. No second glance was needed to identify Mr. Hobbs; and until the perspective dwarfed him indistinguishably, he was to be seen, alternately waving Kirkwood ironic farewell and blowing violent kisses to Miss Calendar from the tips of his soiled fingers.

So he had escaped arrest....

At first by turns indignant and relieved to realize that thereafter they were to move in scenes in which his hateful shadow would not form an essentially component part, subsequently Kirkwood fell a prey to prophetic terrors. It was not alone fear of retribution that had induced Hobbs to relinquish his persecution—or so Kirkwood became convinced; if the mate’s calculation had allowed for them the least fraction of a chance to escape apprehension on the farther shores of the Channel, nor fears nor threats would have prevented him from sailing with the fugitives.... Far from having left danger behind them on the Continent, Kirkwood believed in his secret heart that they were but flying to encounter it beneath the smoky pall of London.

XVII ROGUES AND VAGABONDS

A westering sun striking down through the drab exhalations of ten-thousand sooty chimney-pots, tinted the atmosphere with the hue of copper. The glance that wandered purposelessly out through the carriage windows, recoiled, repelled by the endless dreary vista of the Surrey Side’s unnumbered roofs; or, probing instantaneously the hopeless depths of some grim narrow thoroughfare fleetingly disclosed, as the evening boat-train from Dover swung on toward Charing Cross, its trucks level with the eaves of Southwark’s dwellings, was saddened by the thought that in all the world squalor such as this should obtain and flourish unrelieved.

For perhaps the tenth time in the course of the journey Kirkwood withdrew his gaze from the window and turned to the girl, a question ready framed upon his lips.

“Are you quite sure—” he began; and then, alive to the clear and penetrating perception in the brown eyes that smiled into his from under their level brows, he stammered and left the query uncompleted.

Continuing to regard him steadily and smilingly, Dorothy shook her head in playful denial and protest. “Do you know,” she commented, “that this is about the fifth repetition of that identical question within the last quarter-hour?”

“How do you know what I meant to say?” he demanded, staring.

“I can see it in your eyes. Besides, you’ve talked and thought of nothing else since we left the boat. Won’t you believe me, please, when I say there’s absolutely not a soul in London to whom I could go and ask for shelter? I don’t think it’s very nice of you to be so openly anxious to get rid of me.”

This latter was so essentially undeserved and so artlessly insincere, that he must needs, of course, treat it with all seriousness.

“That isn’t fair, Miss Calendar. Really it’s not.”

“What am I to think? I’ve told you any number of times that it’s only an hour’s ride on to Chiltern, where the Pyrfords will be glad to take me in. You may depend upon it,—by eight to-night, at the latest, you’ll have me off your hands,—the drag and worry that I’ve been ever since—”

“Don’t!” he pleaded vehemently. “Please!... You _know_ it isn’t that. I _don’t_ want you off my hands, ever.... That is to say, I—ah—” Here he was smitten with a dumbness, and sat, aghast at the enormity of his blunder, entreating her forgiveness with eyes that, very likely, pleaded his cause more eloquently than he guessed.

“I mean,” he floundered on presently, in the fatuous belief that he would this time be able to control both mind and tongue, “_what_ I mean is I’d be glad to go on serving you in any way I might, to the end of time, if you’d give me....”

He left the declaration inconclusive—a stroke of diplomacy that would have graced an infinitely more adept wooer. But he used it all unconsciously. “O Lord!” he groaned in spirit. “Worse and more of it! Why in thunder can’t I say the right thing _right_?”

Egotistically absorbed by the problem thus formulated, he was heedless of her failure to respond, and remained pensively preoccupied until roused by the grinding and jolting of the train, as it slowed to a halt preparatory to crossing the bridge.

Then he sought to read his answer in the eyes of Dorothy. But she was looking away, staring thoughtfully out over the billowing sea of roofs that merged illusively into the haze long ere it reached the horizon; and Kirkwood could see the pulsing of the warm blood in her throat and cheeks; and the glamorous light that leaped and waned in her eyes, as the ruddy evening sunlight warmed them, was something any man might be glad to live for and die for.... And he saw that she had understood, had grasped the thread of meaning that ran through the clumsy fabric of his halting speech and his sudden silences.

She had understood without resentment!

While, incredulous, he wrestled with the wonder of this fond discovery, she grew conscious of his gaze, and turned her head to meet it with one fearless and sweet, if troubled.

“Dear Mr. Kirkwood,” she said gently, bending forward as if to read between the lines anxiety had graven on his countenance, “won’t you tell me, please, what it can be that so worries you? Is it possible that you still have a fear of my father? But don’t you know that he can do nothing now—now that we’re safe? We have only to take a cab to Paddington Station, and then—”

“You mustn’t underestimate the resource and ability of Mr. Calendar,” he told her gloomily; “we’ve got a chance—no more. It wasn’t....” He shut his teeth on his unruly tongue—too late.

Woman-quick she caught him up. “It wasn’t that? Then what was it that worried you? If it’s something that affects me, is it kind and right of you not to tell me?”

“It—it affects us both,” he conceded drearily. “I—I don’t—”

The wretched embarrassment of the confession befogged his wits; he felt unable to frame the words. He appealed speechlessly for tolerance, with a face utterly woebegone and eyes piteous.

The train began to move slowly across the Thames to Charing Cross.

Mercilessly the girl persisted. “We’ve only a minute more. Surely you can trust me....”

In exasperation he interrupted almost rudely. “It’s only this: I—I’m strapped.”

“Strapped?” She knitted her brows over this fresh specimen of American slang.

“Flat strapped—busted—broke—on my uppers—down and out,” he reeled off synonyms without a smile. “I haven’t enough money to pay cab-fare across the town—”

“Oh!” she interpolated, enlightened.

“—to say nothing of taking us to Chiltern. I couldn’t buy you a glass of water if you were thirsty. There isn’t a soul on earth, within hail, who would trust me with a quarter—I mean a shilling—across London Bridge. I’m the original Luckless Wonder and the only genuine Jonah extant.”

With a face the hue of fire, he cocked his eyebrows askew and attempted to laugh unconcernedly to hide his bitter shame. “I’ve led you out of the fryingpan into the fire, and I don’t know what to do! Please call me names.”

And in a single instant all that he had consistently tried to avoid doing, had been irretrievably done; if, with dawning comprehension, dismay flickered in her eyes—such dismay as such a confession can rouse only in one who, like Dorothy Calendar, has never known the want of a penny—it was swiftly driven out to make place for the truest and most gracious and unselfish solicitude.

“Oh, poor Mr. Kirkwood! And it’s all because of me! You’ve beggared yourself—”

“Not precisely; I was beggared to begin with.” He hastened to disclaim the extravagant generosity of which she accused him. “I had only three or four pounds to my name that night we met.... I haven’t told you—I—”

“You’ve told me nothing, nothing whatever about yourself,” she said reproachfully.

“I didn’t want to bother you with my troubles; I tried not to talk about myself.... You knew I was an American, but I’m worse than that; I’m a Californian—from San Francisco.” He tried unsuccessfully to make light of it. “I told you I was the Luckless Wonder; if I’d ever had any luck I would have stored a little money away. As it was, I lived on my income, left my principal in ’Frisco; and when the earthquake came, it wiped me out completely.”

“And you were going home that night we made you miss your steamer!”

“It was my own fault, and I’m glad this blessed minute that I did miss it. Nice sort I’d have been, to go off and leave you at the mercy—”

“Please! I want to think, I’m trying to remember how much you’ve gone through—”

“Precisely what I don’t want you to do. Anyway, I did nothing more than any other fellow would’ve! Please don’t give me credit that I don’t deserve.”

But she was not listening; and a pause fell, while the train crawled warily over the trestle, as if in fear of the foul, muddy flood below.

“And there’s no way I can repay you....”

“There’s nothing to be repaid,” he contended stoutly.

She clasped her hands and let them fall gently in her lap. “I’ve not a farthing in the world!... I never dreamed.... I’m so sorry, Mr. Kirkwood—terribly, terribly sorry!... But what can we do? I can’t consent to be a burden—”

“But you’re not! You’re the one thing that ...” He swerved sharply, at an abrupt tangent. “There’s one thing we can do, of course.”

She looked up inquiringly.

“Craven Street is just round the corner.”

“Yes?”—wonderingly.

“I mean we must go to Mrs. Hallam’s house, first off.... It’s too late now,—after five, else we could deposit the jewels in some bank. Since—since they are no longer yours, the only thing, and the proper thing to do is to place them in safety or in the hands of their owner. If you take them directly to young Hallam, your hands will be clear.... And—I never did such a thing in my life, Miss Calendar; but if he’s got a spark of gratitude in his make-up, I ought to be able to—er—to borrow a pound or so of him.”

“Do you think so?” She shook her head in doubt. “I don’t know; I know so little of such things.... You are right; we must take him the jewels, but...” Her voice trailed off into a sigh of profound perturbation.

He dared not meet her look.

Beneath his wandering gaze a County Council steam-boat darted swiftly down-stream from Charing Cross pier, in the shadow of the railway bridge. It seemed curious to reflect that from that very floating pier he had started first upon his quest of the girl beside him, only—he had to count—three nights ago! Three days and three nights! Altogether incredible seemed the transformation they had wrought in the complexion of the world. Yet nothing material was changed.... He lifted his eyes.

Beyond the river rose the Embankment, crawling with traffic, backed by the green of the gardens and the shimmering walls of glass and stone of the great hotels, their windows glowing weirdly golden in the late sunlight. A little down-stream Cleopatra’s Needle rose, sadly the worse for London smoke, flanked by its couchant sphinxes, wearing a nimbus of circling, sweeping, swooping, wheeling gulls. Farther down, from the foot of that magnificent pile, Somerset House, Waterloo Bridge sprang over-stream in its graceful arch.... All as of yesterday; yet all changed. Why? Because a woman had entered into his life; because he had learned the lesson of love and had looked into the bright face of Romance....

With a jar the train started and began to move more swiftly.

Kirkwood lifted the traveling bag to his knees.

“Don’t forget,” he said with some difficulty, “you’re to stick by me, whatever happens. You mustn’t desert me.”

“You _know_,” the girl reproved him.

“I know; but there must be no misunderstanding.... Don’t worry; we’ll win out yet, I’ve a plan.”

_Splendide mendax_! He had not the glimmering of a plan.

The engine panting, the train drew in beneath the vast sounding dome of the station, to an accompaniment of dull thunderings; and stopped finally.

Kirkwood got out, not without a qualm of regret at leaving the compartment; therein, at least, they had some title to consideration, by virtue of their tickets; now they were utterly vagabondish, penniless adventurers.

The girl joined him. Slowly, elbow to elbow, the treasure bag between them, they made their way down toward the gates, atoms in a tide-rip of humanity,—two streams of passengers meeting on the narrow strip of platform, the one making for the streets, the other for the suburbs.

Hurried and jostled, the girl clinging tightly to his arm lest they be separated in the crush, they came to the ticket-wicket; beyond the barrier surged a sea of hats—shining “toppers,” dignified and upstanding, the outward and visible manifestation of the sturdy, stodgy British spirit of respectability; “bowlers” round and sleek and humble; shapeless caps with cloth visors, manufactured of outrageous plaids; flower-like miracles of millinery from Bond Street; strangely plumed monstrosities from Petticoat Lane and Mile End Road. Beneath any one of these might lurk the maleficent brain, the spying eyes of Calendar or one of his creatures; beneath all of them that he encountered, Kirkwood peered in fearful inquiry.

Yet, when they had passed unhindered the ordeal of the wickets, had run the gantlet of those thousand eyes without lighting in any pair a spark of recognition, he began to bear himself with more assurance, to be sensible to a grateful glow of hope. Perhaps Hobbs’ telegram had not reached its destination, for unquestionably the mate would have wired his chief; perhaps some accident had befallen the conspirators; perhaps the police had apprehended them.... No matter how, one hoped against hope that they had been thrown off the trail.

And indeed it seemed as if they must have been misguided in some providential manner. On the other hand, it would be the crassest of indiscretions to linger about the place an instant longer than absolutely necessary.

Outside the building, however, they paused perforce, undergoing the cross-fire of the congregated cabbies. It being the first time that he had ever felt called upon to leave the station afoot, Kirkwood cast about irresolutely, seeking the sidewalk leading to the Strand.

Abruptly he caught the girl by the arm and unceremoniously hurried her toward a waiting hansom.

“Quick!” he begged her. “Jump right in—not an instant to spare.—”

She nodded brightly, lips firm with courage, eyes shining.

“My father?”

“Yes.” Kirkwood glanced back over his shoulder. “He hasn’t seen us yet. They’ve just driven up. Stryker’s with him. They’re getting down.” And to himself, “Oh, the devil!” cried the panic-stricken young man.

He drew back to let the girl precede him into the cab; at the same time he kept an eye on Calendar, whose conveyance stood half the length of the station-front away.

The fat adventurer had finished paying off the driver, standing on the deck of the hansom. Stryker was already out, towering above the mass of people, and glaring about him with his hawk-keen vision. Calendar had started to alight, his foot was leaving the step when Stryker’s glance singled out their quarry. Instantly he turned and spoke to his confederate. Calendar wheeled like a flash, peering eagerly in the direction indicated by the captain’s index finger, then, snapping instructions to his driver, threw himself heavily back on the seat. Stryker, awkward on his land-legs, stumbled and fell in an ill-calculated attempt to hoist himself hastily back into the vehicle.

To the delay thus occasioned alone Kirkwood and Dorothy owed a respite of freedom. Their hansom was already swinging down toward the great gates of the yard, the American standing to make the driver comprehend the necessity for using the utmost speed in reaching the Craven Street address. The man proved both intelligent and obliging; Kirkwood had barely time to drop down beside the girl, ere the cab was swinging out into the Strand, to the peril of the toes belonging to a number of righteously indignant pedestrians.

“Good boy!” commented Kirkwood cheerfully. “That’s the greatest comfort of all London, the surprising intellectual strength the average cabby displays when you promise him a tip.... Great Heavens!” he cried, reading the girl’s dismayed expression. “A tip! I never thought—!” His face lengthened dismally, his eyebrows working awry. “Now we are in for it!”

Dorothy said nothing.

He turned in the seat, twisting his neck to peep through the small rear window. “I don’t see their cab,” he announced. “But of course they’re after us. However, Craven Street’s just round the corner; if we get there first, I don’t fancy Freddie Hallam will have a cordial reception for our pursuers. They must’ve been on watch at Cannon Street, and finding we were not coming in that way—of course they were expecting us because of Hobbs’ wire—they took cab for Charing Cross. Lucky for us.... Or is it lucky?” he added doubtfully, to himself.

The hansom whipped round the corner into Craven Street. Kirkwood sprang up, grasping the treasure bag, ready to jump the instant they pulled in toward Mrs. Hallam’s dwelling. But as they drew near upon the address he drew back with an exclamation of amazement.

The house was closed, showing a blank face to the street—blinds drawn close down in the windows, area gate padlocked, an estate-agent’s board projecting from above the doorway, advertising the property “To be let, furnished.”

Kirkwood looked back, craning his neck round the side of the cab. At the moment another hansom was breaking through the rank of humanity on the Strand crossing. He saw one or two figures leap desperately from beneath the horse’s hoofs. Then the cab shot out swiftly down the street.

The American stood up again, catching the cabby’s eye.

“Drive on!” he cried excitedly. “Don’t stop—drive as fast as you dare!”

“W’ere to, sir?”

“See that cab behind? Don’t let it catch us—shake it off, lose it somehow, but for the love of Heaven don’t let it catch us! I’ll make it worth your while. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir!” The driver looked briefly over his shoulder and lifted his whip. “Don’t worry, sir,” he cried, entering into the spirit of the game with gratifying zest. “Shan’t let ’em over’aul you, sir. Mind your ’ead!”

And as Kirkwood ducked, the whip-lash shot out over the roof with a crack like the report of a pistol. Startled, the horse leaped indignantly forward. Momentarily the cab seemed to leave the ground, then settled down to a pace that carried them round the Avenue Theatre and across Northumberland Avenue into Whitehall Place apparently on a single wheel.

A glance behind showed Kirkwood that already they had gained, the pursuing hansom having lost ground through greater caution in crossing the main-traveled thoroughfare.

“Good little horse!” he applauded.

A moment later he was indorsing without reserve the generalship of their cabby; the quick westward turn that took them into Whitehall, over across from the Horse Guards, likewise placed them in a pocket of traffic; a practically impregnable press of vehicles closed in behind them ere Calendar’s conveyance could follow out of the side street.

That the same conditions, but slightly modified, hemmed them in ahead, went for nothing in Kirkwood’s estimation.

“Good driver!” he approved heartily. “He’s got a head on his shoulders!”

The girl found her voice. “How,” she demanded in a breath, face blank with consternation, “how did you dare?”

“Dare?” he echoed exultantly; and in his veins excitement was running like liquid fire. “What wouldn’t I dare for you, Dorothy?”

“What have you not?” she amended softly, adding with a shade of timidity: “Philip...”

The long lashes swept up from her cheeks, like clouds revealing stars, unmasking eyes radiant and brave to meet his own; then they fell, even as her lips drooped with disappointment. And she sighed.... For he was not looking. Man-like, hot with the ardor of the chase, he was deaf and blind to all else.

She saw that he had not even heard. Twice within the day she had forgotten herself, had overstepped the rigid bounds of her breeding in using his Christian name. And twice he had been oblivious to that token of their maturing understanding. So she sighed, and sighing, smiled again; resting an elbow on the window-sill and flattening one small gloved hand against the frame for a brace against the jouncing of the hansom. It swept on with unabated speed, up-stream beside the tawny reaches of the river; and for a time there was no speech between them, the while the girl lost consciousness of self and her most imminent peril, surrendering her being to the lingering sweetness of her long, dear thoughts....

“I’ve got a scheme!” Kirkwood declared so explosively that she caught her breath with the surprise of it. “There’s the Pless; they know me there, and my credit’s good. When we shake them off, we can have the cabby take us to the hotel. I’ll register and borrow from the management enough to pay our way to Chiltern and the tolls for a cable to New York. I’ve a friend or two over home who wouldn’t let me want for a few miserable pounds.... So you see,” he explained boyishly, “we’re at the end of our troubles already!”

She said something inaudible, holding her face averted. He bent nearer to her, wondering. “I didn’t understand,” he suggested.

Still looking from him, “I said you were very good to me,” she said in a quavering whisper.

“Dorothy!” Without his knowledge or intention before the fact, as instinctively as he made use of her given name, intimately, his strong fingers dropped and closed upon the little hand that lay beside him. “What _is_ the matter, dear?” He leaned still farther forward to peer into her face, till glance met glance in the ending and his racing pulses tightened with sheer delight of the humid happiness in her glistening eyes. “Dorothy, child, don’t worry so. No harm shall come to you. It’s all working out—all working out _right_. Only have a little faith in me, and I’ll _make_ everything work out right, Dorothy.”

Gently she freed her fingers. “I wasn’t,” she told him in a voice that quivered between laughter and tears, “I wasn’t worrying. I was ... You wouldn’t understand. Don’t be afraid I shall break down or—or anything.”

“I shan’t,” he reassured her; “I know you’re not that sort. Besides, you’d have no excuse. We’re moving along famously. That cabby knows his business.”

In fact that gentleman was minute by minute demonstrating his peculiar fitness for the task he had so cheerfully undertaken. The superior horsemanship of the London hackney cabman needs no exploitation, and he in whose hands rested the fate of the Calendar treasure was peer of his compeers. He was instant to advantage himself of every opening to forward his pliant craft, quick to foresee the fortunes of the way and govern himself accordingly.

Estimating with practised eye the precise moment when the police supervisor of traffic at the junction of Parliament and Bridge Streets, would see fit to declare a temporary blockade, he so managed that his was the last vehicle to pass ere the official wand, to ignore which involves a forfeited license, was lifted; and indeed, so close was his calculation that he escaped only with a scowl and word of warning from the bobby. A matter of no importance whatever, since his end was gained and the pursuing cab had been shut off by the blockade.

In Calendar’s driver, however, he had an adversary of abilities by no means to be despised. Precisely how the man contrived it, is a question; that he made a detour by way of Derby Street is not improbable, unpleasant as it may have been for Stryker and Calendar to find themselves in such close proximity to “the Yard.” At all events, he evaded the block, and hardly had the chase swung across Bridge Street, than the pursuer was nimbly clattering in its wake.

Past the Houses of Parliament, through Old Palace Yard, with the Abbey on their left, they swung away into Abingdon Street, whence suddenly they dived into the maze of backways, great and mean, which lies to the south of Victoria. Doubling and twisting, now this way, now that, the driver tooled them through the intricate heart of this labyrinth, leading the pursuers a dance that Kirkwood thought calculated to dishearten and shake off the pursuit in the first five minutes. Yet always, peering back through the little peephole, he saw Calendar’s cab pelting doggedly in their rear—a hundred yards behind, no more, no less, hanging on with indomitable grit and determination.

By degrees they drew westwards, threading Pimlico, into Chelsea—once dashing briefly down the Grosvenor Road, the Thames a tawny flood beyond the river wall.

Children cheered them on, and policemen turned to stare, doubting whether they should interfere. Minutes rolled into tens, measuring out an hour; and still they hammered on, hunted and hunters, playing their game of hare-and-hounds through the highways and byways of those staid and aged quarters.

In the leading cab there were few words spoken. Kirkwood and Dorothy alike sat spellbound with the fascination of the game; if it is conceivable that the fox enjoys his part in the day’s sport, then they were enjoying themselves. Now one spoke, now another—chiefly in the clipped phraseology, of excitement. As—

“We’re gaining?”

“Yes—think so.”

Or, “We’ll tire them out?”

“Sure-ly.”

“They can’t catch us, can they, Philip?”

“Never in the world.”

But he spoke with a confidence that he himself did not feel, for hope as he would he could never see that the distance between the two had been materially lessened or increased. Their horses seemed most evenly matched.

The sun was very low behind the houses of the Surrey Side when Kirkwood became aware that their horse was flagging, though (as comparison determined) no more so than the one behind.

In grave concern the young man raised his hand, thrusting open the trap in the roof. Immediately the square of darkling sky was eclipsed by the cabby’s face.

“Yessir?”

“You had better drive as directly as you can to the Hotel Pless,” Kirkwood called up. “I’m afraid it’s no use pushing your horse like this.”

“I’m sure of it, sir. ’E’s a good ’oss, ’e is, but ’e carn’t keep goin’ for hever, you know, sir.”

“I know. You’ve done very well; you’ve done your best.”

“Very good, sir. The Pless, you said, sir? Right.”

The trap closed.

Two blocks farther, and their pace had so sensibly moderated that Kirkwood was genuinely alarmed. The pursuing cabby was lashing his animal without mercy, while, “It aren’t no use my w’ippin’ ’im, sir,” dropped through the trap. “’E’s doing orl ’e can.”

“I understand.”

Despondent recklessness tightened Kirkwood’s lips and kindled an unpleasant light in his eyes. He touched his side pocket; Calendar’s revolver was still there.... Dorothy should win away clear, if—if he swung for it.

He bent forward with the traveling bag in his hands.

“What are you going to do?” The girl’s voice was very tremulous.

“Stand a chance, take a losing hazard. Can you run? You’re not too tired?”

“I can run—perhaps not far—a little way, at least.”

“And will you do as I say?”

Her eyes met his, unwavering, bespeaking her implicit faith.

“Promise!”

“I promise.”

“We’ll have to drop off in a minute. The horse won’t last.... They’re in the same box. Well, I undertake to stand ’em off for a bit; you take the bag and run for it. Just as soon as I can convince them, I’ll follow, but if there’s any delay, you call the first cab you see and drive to the Pless. I’ll join you there.”

He stood up, surveying the neighborhood. Behind him the girl lifted her voice in protest.

“No, Philip, no!”

“You’ve promised,” he said sternly, eyes ranging the street.

“I don’t care; I won’t leave you.”

He shook his head in silent contradiction, frowning; but not frowning because of the girl’s mutiny. He was a little puzzled by a vague impression, and was striving to pin it down for recognition; but was so thoroughly bemused with fatigue and despair that only with great difficulty could he force his faculties to logical reasoning, his memory to respond to his call upon it.

The hansom was traversing a street in Old Brompton—a quaint, prim by-way lined with dwellings singularly Old-Worldish, even for London. He seemed to know it subjectively, to have retained a memory of it from another existence: as the stage setting of a vivid dream, all forgotten, will sometimes recur with peculiar and exasperating intensity, in broad daylight. The houses, with their sloping, red-tiled roofs, unexpected gables, spontaneous dormer windows, glass panes set in leaded frames, red brick façades trimmed with green shutters and doorsteps of white stone, each sitting back, sedate and self-sufficient, in its trim dooryard fenced off from the public thoroughfare: all wore an aspect hauntingly familiar, and yet strange.

A corner sign, remarked in passing, had named the spot “Aspen Villas”; though he felt he knew the sound of those syllables as well as he did the name of the Pless, strive as he might he failed to make them convey anything tangible to his intelligence. When had he heard of it? At what time had his errant footsteps taken him through this curious survival of Eighteenth Century London?

Not that it mattered when. It could have no possible bearing on the emergency. He really gave it little thought; the mental processes recounted were mostly subconscious, if none the less real. His objective attention was wholly preoccupied with the knowledge that Calendar’s cab was drawing perilously near. And he was debating whether or not they should alight at once and try to make a better pace afoot, when the decision was taken wholly out of his hands.

Blindly staggering on, wilted with weariness, the horse stumbled in the shafts and plunged forward on its knees. Quick as the driver was to pull it up, with a cruel jerk of the bits, Kirkwood was caught unprepared; lurching against the dashboard, he lost his footing, grasped frantically at the unstable air, and went over, bringing up in a sitting position in the gutter, with a solid shock that jarred his very teeth.

For a moment dazed he sat there blinking; by the time he got to his feet, the girl stood beside him, questioning him with keen solicitude.

“No,” he gasped; “not hurt—only surprised. Wait....”

Their cab had come to a complete standstill; Calendar’s was no more than twenty yards behind, and as Kirkwood caught sight of him the fat adventurer was in the act of lifting himself ponderously out of the seat.

Incontinently the young man turned to the girl and forced the traveling-bag into her hands.