Chapter XII: The Trial by Fire

The moment Lucile heard the lock click behind her she knew that she was trapped. But her fighting blood was up. Even had the door been wide open she would not have retreated.

"You release that child," she said through cold, set lips.

"Yes, you tell me 'release the child,'" said the woman, with an attempt at sarcasm; "you who are so brave, who have a companion who is like an ox, who likes to beat up poor women on the street. You say, 'release the child.' You say that. And the child, she is my own stepdaughter."

"I--I don't believe it," said Lucile stoutly.

"It is true."

"If it is true, you have no right to abuse her--you are not fit to be any child's mother."

"Not fit," the woman's face became purple with rage. "I am no good, she says; not fit!" She advanced threateningly toward Lucile.

"Now, now," she stormed, "we have you where we want you. Now we shall show you whether or not we can do as we please with the child that was so very kindly given to us." She made a move toward the stove, from which the handle to the heavy poker protruded. By this time the end must be red hot.

"It's no use to threaten me," said Lucile calmly. "I wouldn't leave the room if I might. If I did it would be to bring an officer. I mean to see that the child is treated as a human being and not as a dog."

The woman's face once more became purple. She seemed petrified, quite unable to move, from sheer rage.

But the man, a sallow-complexioned person with a perpetual leer in one corner of his mouth, started for the stove.

With a quick spring Lucile reached the handle of the poker first. Seizing it, she drew it, white hot, from the fire. The man sprang back in fear. The woman gripped the rounds of a heavy chair and made as if to lift it for a blow.

Scarcely realizing that she was imitating her hero of fiction, she brought the glowing iron close to the white and tender flesh of her forearm.

"You think you can frighten me," she smiled. "You think you can do something to me which will cause me to cease to attempt to protect that child. Perhaps you would torture me. I will prove to you that you cannot frighten me. What I have been doing is right. The world was made for people to live in who do right. If one may not always do right, then life is not worth living."

The fiery weapon came closer to her arm. The woman stared at her as if fascinated. The child, who had been silently struggling at her bands, paused in open-mouthed astonishment. For once the leer on the man's lips vanished.

Then, of a sudden, as she appeared to catch the meaning of it all, the child gave forth a piercing scream.

The next instant there came a loud pounding at the door as a gruff voice thundered:

"Here, you in there! Open up!"

The woman dropped upon the ill-kept bed in a real or pretended swoon. Lucile allowed the poker to drop to her side. With trembling fingers the man unloosed the door and the next instant they were looking into the faces of a police sergeant and two other officers of the law.

"What's going on here?" demanded the sergeant.

Suddenly recovering from her swoon, the woman sprang to her feet.

"That young lady," she pointed an accusing finger at Lucile, "is attempting to break up our home."

The officer looked them over one by one.

"What's the girl tied up for?" he demanded.

"It's the only way we can keep her home," said the woman. "That young lady's been enticing her away; her and an old wretch of a man."

"Your daughter?"

"My adopted daughter."

"What about it, little one?" the officer stepped over, and cutting the girl's bands, placed a hand on the child's head. "Is what she says true?"

"I--I don't know," she faltered. Her knees trembled so she could scarcely stand. "I never saw the young lady until now but I--I think she is wonderful."

"Is this woman your stepmother."

The girl hung her head.

"Do you wish to stay with her?"

"Oh! Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu! No! No! No! Oh, Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu!"

The child in her agony of fright and grief threw herself face down upon the bed.

The officer, seating himself beside her, smoothed her hair with his huge right hand until she was quiet, then bit by bit got from her the story of her experiences in this great American city. Lucile listened eagerly as the little girl talked falteringly.

A Belgian refugee, she had been brought to the United States during the war, and because this unprincipled pair spoke French, which she too understood, the good-hearted but misguided people who had her in charge had given her over to them without fully looking up their record.

Because she was small and had an appealing face, and because she was a refugee, they had set her to begging on the street and had more than once asked her to steal.

Having been brought up by conscientious parents, all this was repulsive to her. So one day she had run away. She had wandered the streets of the great, unfriendly city until, almost at the point of starvation, she had been taken home by a very old man, a Frenchman.

"French," she said, "but not like these," she pointed a finger of scorn at the man and woman. "A French gentleman. A very, very wonderful man."

She had lived with him and had helped him all she could. Then, one night, as she was on an errand for him, the woman, her stepmother, had found her. She had been seized and dragged along the street. But by some strange chance she did not at all understand, she had been rescued.

That night she had been carrying a book. The book belonged to her aged benefactor and was much prized by him. Thinking that her foster mother had the book, she had dared return to ask for it.

She proceeded to relate what had happened in that room and ended with a plea that she might be allowed to return to the cottage on Tyler street.

"Are you interested in this child?" the officer asked Lucile.

"I surely am."

"Want to see that she gets safely home?"

"I--I will."

"And see here," the officer turned a stern face on the others, "if you interfere with this child in the future, we've got enough on you to put you away. You ain't fit to be no child's parents. Far as I can tell, this here old man is. This case, for the present, is settled out of court. See!"

He motioned to his subordinates. They stood at attention until Lucile and the child passed out, then followed.

The sergeant saw the girl and the child safely on the elevated platform, then, tipping his hat, mumbled:

"Good luck and thank y' miss. I've got two of 'em myself. An' if anything ever happened to me, I'd like nothin' better'n to have you take an interest in 'em."

Something rose up in Lucile's throat and choked her. She could only nod her thanks. The next instant they went rattling away, bound for the mystery cottage on Tyler street.

For once Lucile felt richly repaid for all the doubt, perplexity and sleepless hours she had gone through.

"It's all very strange and mysterious," she told herself, "but somehow, sometime, it will all come out right."

As she sat there absorbed in her own thoughts, she suddenly became conscious of the fact that the child at her side was silently weeping.

"Why!" she exclaimed, "what are you crying for? You are going back to your cottage and to your kind old man."

"The book," whispered the child; "it is gone. I can never return it."

A sudden impulse seized Lucile, an impulse she could scarcely resist. She wanted to take the child in her arms and say:

"Dear little girl, I have the book in my room. I will bring it to you to-morrow."

She did not say it. She could not. As far as she knew, the old man had no right to the book; it belonged to Frank Morrow.

What she did say was, "I shouldn't worry any more about it if I were you. I am sure it will come out all right in the end."

Then, before they knew it, they were off the elevated train and walking toward Tyler street and Lucile was saying to herself, "I wonder what next." Hand-in-hand the two made their way to the door of the dingy old cottage.