Chapter XI: A Parting and a Meeting

He was still dazed, but at sight of her he recovered himself and stepped forward.

"Are you injured?" she cried.

"Not in the slightest," he assured her. "I think if I could have seen, I 'd have thrown him."

"It was dark--up there?"

"Pitch dark. Did you see him go out?"

"No," she answered, steadying herself under the influence of his steadiness.

"I 'm sorry he escaped," he apologized.

"Don't think of that now," she exclaimed.

She moved nearer him, as though still fearing that he was concealing some injury from her. He rearranged his disordered collar and tie while she insisted upon dusting off his coat. He felt the brush of her fingers in every vein, and stepped almost brusquely towards the stairway. As a matter of fact he was none the worse for his tussle save for a good-sized bump which was growing on the back of his head.

"He may be here in hiding or he may have left the house. I wish you would step outside until I search the place."

"I shall remain here with you," she replied stubbornly.

She was still weak from the excitement of the last few minutes, but she followed closely at his heels while he went into every room and closet in the house without success. Once outside, he further made a careful search of the grounds, but again without result. He felt chagrined that he had not been strong enough to hold the fellow. He had missed the opportunity to put an end to her pitiful worry.

"I don't think he will come back here," he said, as they stood again before the front door. "He may make for the station in an attempt to get back to town. Are you strong enough to walk it?"

"Yes," she said eagerly.

"I can push on ahead and send a carriage back for you."

"So. I need the walk. But you--" she began anxiously.

"I shall enjoy it," he declared.

They took the pleasant country road, side by side, and in five minutes he had forgotten the episode in a confusion of thoughts that were cheap at the cost of a brief struggle with a madman. The wine of her presence in this medley of blue sky, green grass, and springtime perfume was a heady drink for one in his condition. The full-throated birds sang to him, and the booming insects hummed to him and her eyes prophesied to him of a thousand days like this which lay like roses in bud. He watched with growing awe the supple movement of her body, the tender arch of her neck, and the clear surface of her features ever alive with the quick expression of her eager thoughts. She caught his gaze once and colored prettily but without lowering her eyes.

"You belong out here," he exclaimed. "This is where you should live."

"And you?"

"I was born in just such surroundings."

"Why did you leave them? Men are so free."

"Free?"

The word startled him.

"Men are not limited by either time or place," she avowed.

Time? Time was an ugly word. His face grew serious.

"I think," he said slowly, "that I am just beginning to learn what freedom is."

"And it is?"

"Like everything else when carried to an extreme--a paradox. Freedom is slavery--to something, to someone."

"Then you are a slave?" she laughed.

"As I thought freedom, I am the freest man on earth to-day."

"You speak that like a king."

"Or a slave."

She puzzled over this a moment as she tried to keep up with him. He had suddenly increased his pace.

"Even on your vacation, you could n't be absolutely free, could you? I feel responsible for that," she apologized.

"You need n't, for you have given me this bit of road. It is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen."

So he turned her away from the subject and breathed more easily. She had both loosed him and shackled him. What a procession of golden days she made him see, if only as a mirage. Freedom? If only he could return to that little office and drudge for her unceasingly--toil and hack and hew at stubborn fortune merely in the consciousness that she was somewhere in the world, that would be freedom. He knew it now as she walked close beside him like a beautiful dream. There was no use longer in parrying or feinting. The brush of her sleeve made him dizzy; the sound of her voice set the whole world to music. How trivial seemed the barriers which had loomed so formidable before him a day ago. Given the opportunities he had thrown away and he would hew a path to her as straight as a prairie railroad bed. He would do this, remaining true to his old dreams and to better dreams. He would face New York and tear a road through the very centre of it. He would ram every steel-tipped ideal to its black heart. And all the inspiration he needed to give him this power was the knowledge that somewhere in one of its million crannies, this fragile half formed woman was there, seeing the sky with her silver gray eyes.

"I 'm afraid you are going too fast," she panted.

He stopped himself and found her with cheeks flushed in her effort to keep up with him.

"Pardon me," he exclaimed, "I did n't realize. I was going pretty fast. Let's sit down and rest a minute."

"It is n't necessary if you will only slow down a little."

"I will." He smiled. "My thoughts were going even faster than my legs. We 'll rest a little, anyhow."

They seated themselves beneath a roadside pine which had sprinkled the ground with redolent brown needles. He wiped his hot forehead. The undulating green fields throbbed before his excited eyes, as in midsummer when they glimmer from the heat rays. He burrowed his tightened fists to the cooler soil below the brown carpet.

"I guess you are glad to sit down a moment yourself," she suggested, noting his forced deep breathing. "Your efforts with Ben tired you more than you thought."

"I 'd like to have that chance over again--now."

His tense long body looked like Force incarnate. She caught her breath quickly.

"I 'm glad you have n't," she gasped.

She had the feeling that he could have picked up the boy and hurled him like a bit of wood into the road. She was not frightened. She liked to see him in such a mood. It gave her, somehow, a big sense of safety. It swept away all those haunting fears which had so long been always present in the background of her consciousness. It did this in as impersonal a way as the sun scatters shadows.

"The trouble is," he was saying, "that we don't often get a chance to try things--the big things--twice. The fairer way would seem to be to allow this, for we have to fail once in order to learn."

"You are generalizing?" she asked tentatively.

"I am sentimentalizing," he answered abruptly, suddenly coming to himself. He was more personal than he had any right to be. It did no good to become maudlin over what was irrevocably decided. The Present. He must cling to that one idea. Let him drink in the sunshine while it lasted; let him absorb as much of her as he could without taking one tittle from her.

His phrase had piqued her curiosity once more. She would like to know the inner meaning of his impatient eyes, the explanation of why his lips closed with such spasmodic firmness. There was something tantalizing in this reserve which he seemed to try so hard to maintain. She would like to deserve his confidences. He aroused her sympathy--a shy desire to be tender to him just because in his rugged strength there seemed to be nothing else but this for which he could need a woman. But as he glanced up she colored at the presumption of her thoughts.

"I think," he said, "that if you are rested we had better start again."

She rose at once and took her place by his side for the last stretch of free road that lay between her and the city.

At the station there was no sign of the fugitive. She objected instantly to Donaldson's suggestion that she go on while he wait over the night in the hope that Arsdale might turn up here for the first train in the morning.

"You have already sacrificed enough of your time to me and mine," she protested. "I will not listen to it."

And if she had been before her mirror doubtless the lady there would have pressed her to another explanation.

He submitted reluctantly, a new doubt springing to his eyes. But she was firm and so they boarded the train once more for home. She used the word "home," and Donaldson found himself responding to it with a thrill as though he himself were included. The word had lost its meaning to him since his freshman year at college.

They were back behind the hedge in so short a time that the day scarcely appeared real. She left him a moment in the hall while she ran upstairs to see Marie. The latter was still in bed, and at sight of her young mistress had a sharp question upon her lips.

"Chèrie," she demanded, "why did not Ben go with you?"

"Ben?" faltered the girl.

"He was downstairs an hour after you left and would not come in to see me."

"Ben was here?"

"I shouted to him and he answered me. But his voice sounded bad. Is it well with him?"

"He may be here now. I will run down and see."

She flew down the stairs and into his room. It was empty. She rushed into her own room. It had been rifled. Every drawer was open, and it took but a glance to see that her few jewels were missing. She panted back to Marie.

"You are sure it was he who was here?"

"Do you think I do not know his voice after all these years?"

The old woman put out her hand and seized the girl's arm.

"Again?" she demanded.

"Yes! Yes! Oh, Marie, what does it all mean?"

"Ta, ta, chèrie. Rest your head here."

She drew the young woman down beside her.

"You went out there all alone. You are brave, but you should not have done that. You should have taken me with you. See, now, I shall get well. I shall arise at once. I never knew the black horses to fail me."

Marie struggled to her elbow and threw off the clothes. But Elaine covered her up tight again, forcing her to lie still.

"Stay here quietly until I come back," she insisted. "I shall not be gone but a minute."

She hurried to her own room, trying to understand what the meaning of this impossible situation might be. Ben was here and Ben was in the bungalow and--there was the purse. There was the chance, of course, that Marie was mistaken, but Marie did not make such mistakes as this. Then one of the two men was not Ben. She took out again the pocket-book she had found and stared at it as though in hope that she might receive her answer through this. Then with a perplexed gasp, she threw it into one of the upset drawers, as though it burned her fingers.

She went downstairs to Donaldson. For reasons of her own she did not dare to tell him of this fresh complication, but she insisted that he should bother himself no more to-night with the matter.

"You should go straight back home and get some sleep," she told him.

Home? The word was flat again.

"And you?" he inquired.

"I shall try to sleep, too."

"You have a bolt on your door?"

"Yes."

"Will you promise to slide it before you retire?"

She nodded.

"If you only had a telephone in your room."

"There is one in the hall."

"Then you can call me in a moment if you should get frightened or need me?"

"You are good."

"You will not hesitate?"

"No."

"Then I shall feel that I am still near you. I will have a cab in waiting and on an emergency can reach here in twenty minutes. You could keep yourself barricaded until then?"

"Yes. But really there is no need. I--"

"You have n't wrestled with him. He is strong and--mad."

Still he hesitated. If it had been possible without compromise to her he would have remained downstairs. He could roll up in a rug and find all the sleep that he needed.

"See here," he exclaimed, as the sane solution to the whole difficulty, "why don't you let me take you and Marie to the Martha Washington?"

She placed her hand lightly upon his sleeve.

"I shall be all right here. You 'd best go at once and get some sleep. Your eyes look heavy."

Every minute that he stood near her he grew more reluctant to leave. It seemed like desertion. As he still stood irresolute, she decided for him.

"You must go now," she insisted.

"Will you call me if you are even so much as worried--even if it is only a blind making a noise?"

"Yes, and that will make me feel quite safe."

The booming of a distant clock--jailer of civilization--warned him that he must delay no longer. He took her hand a moment and then turned back into his free barren world.

He determined to dine somewhere down town and then spend the evening at a theatre. It was not what he wished, but he did not dare to go back to his room. He did not crave the movement of the crowds as he had last night, and yet he felt the need of something that would keep him from thinking. He jumped into the waiting cab and was driven to Park Row, where he got out. He had not eaten anything all day and felt faint.

Instead, however, of seeking one of the more pretentious dining rooms he dropped into a quiet restaurant and ate a simple meal. Then he came out and started to walk leisurely towards the Belasco.

He had not proceeded a hundred yards before his plan was very materially changed. He heard a cry, turned quickly, and saw a messenger boy sprawling in the street. The boy, in darting across, had tripped over a rope attached to an automobile having a second large machine in tow. The latter, the driver unable to turn because of vehicles which had crowded in on both sides of it, was bearing down upon the boy, who was either stunned or too frightened to move. This Donaldson took in at a glance as he dived under the belly of a horse, seized the boy and, having time for nothing else, held him above his head, dropping him upon the radiator of the approaching machine as it bore him to the ground. The chauffeur had shoved on his brakes, but they were weak. The momentum threw Donaldson hard enough to stun him for a moment and was undoubtedly sufficient to have killed the boy.

When Donaldson rose to his feet he found himself uninjured but something of a hero. Several newspaper photographers who happened to be passing (as newspaper photographers have a way of doing) snapped him. A reporter friend of Saul's recognized him and asked for a statement.

"A statement be hanged," snorted Donaldson. "Where's the kid?"

"Well," returned the newspaper man, "I 'm darned if I don't make a statement to you then; that was the quickest and nerviest stunt I 've ever seen pulled off in New York city."

"Thanks. Where 's the kid?"

The kid, with a grin from ear to ear, had kindly assumed a pose upon the radiator of the machine which had so nearly killed him for the benefit of the insatiate photographers. It was 3457.

"You!" exclaimed Donaldson, as he found himself looking into the familiar face. He lifted the boy to the ground.

"Let's get out of the crowd, kid," he whispered. "I want to see you."

He pushed his way through to the sidewalk, followed by the admiring throng, and hurried along to the nearest cab. He shoved the boy quickly into this and followed after as the photographers gave one last despairing snap.

"Drive anywhere," he ordered the driver. "Only get out of this."

He turned to the boy.

"Are you hurt?"

"No. Are youse?"

"Not a mite. Where were you bound?"

"Home."

"Where is that?"

The boy gave an address and Donaldson repeated it to the driver.

"I 'll go along with you and see that you don't block any more traffic."

"Gee. I never saw the rope."

"That's because you were in a hurry. It does n't pay to hurry life at all. Not a second."

"But the comp'ny can fire yer in a hurry if you don't hurry."

"A company can hurry because it hasn't a soul. You have. Keep it."

Donaldson felt as though he had found an old friend. It seemed now a month ago since he had wandered through the stores with this boy. The latter recalled again something of the spirit of those hours.

"Say," asked Bobby, "h'ain't yuh spent all yer coin yet?"

"No. I have n't had time to spend more than a few dollars since I left you. I ought to have hung on to you as a mascot."

"It's a cinch. I c'u'd a-helped yuh if yer 'd follered me. Me ten spot's gone."

"How'd you do it?"

"Huh? Yuh talks as though a feller'd have to hunt round an' find a hole to drop it inter. Dere 's allers one that's handy, 'n' that's th' rent hole."

"That does n't come on you, does it? Where's your Daddy?"

"Dead," answered the boy laconically.

The word had a new meaning to Donaldson as it fell from the lips of the boy. Dead. It was a terrible word.

"Guess th' ol' gent must ha' thought I was comin' to join him a minute ago. Would ha' been sort of rough on Mumsy."

"And on you, too," returned Donaldson fiercely. "You have been cheated out of a lot of life. Don't let that happen. Cling to every minute you can get. Die hard, boy. Die hard."

Bobby yawned.