CHAPTER XIII

THE SALE

We will forsake David Jenison for the time being. He is well started on

his journey to the home of his forefathers, where complete restoration

and the newspaper reporters await him. Let the imagination picture the

welcome he is to receive; if possible, let it also describe the

attitude of the community which had hunted him with dogs and deadly

weapons, but which now stood ready to cast itself without reserve at

the feet of the boy who had been so cruelly wronged.

Picture Mr. Blake's disgust at learning from David's own lips how he

had been outwitted by the circus people, and contrast it with his

sincere relief in contemplation of the fact that he had not captured

the boy in those days of prejudice.

We leave all these details to the generous intelligence of the reader,

for he knows that the heir to Jenison Hall has come unto his own again;

and he also knows that in spite of all that can be done to make life

bright and cheerful for David, there is still a shadow in the

background that turns the world into a bleak and desolate waste for him.

Two weeks passed over his head before he was able to turn away from the

bewildering mass of legal requirements and look once more to the West,

whither his heart was forever journeying. Not all the excitement that

filled the fortnight to overflowing, nor all the homage that came to

him, could ease the dull, insistent pain of separation from interests

so vital to his young heart.

He stole away one night, accompanied by a single servant--for now he

was "lord of the manor" and traveled only as a true gentleman of the

South should travel. Half-way to his destination he stopped off to draw

from the savings bank the money he had placed there. With this small

fortune in his possession he resumed the journey, now closely guarded

by old Jeff, who always had been a slave to the Jenisons and would be

till he died, Abraham Lincoln to the contrary.

David's constant prayer was that he might not be too late.

He was destined to find many changes in Van Slye's Great and Only

Mammoth Shows.

Let us go back to the night after the one which saw David's departure

from the show. For two days Thomas Braddock had slunk about the show

grounds, morose, ugly, taciturn. He avoided every one except those with

whom he was obliged to consult. His wife and daughter caught fleeting

glimpses of him; Colonel Grand and the others saw him but little more.

He held aloof, brooding over his wrongs, accumulating a vast resentment

against the world and all of its inhabitants, obsessed by the single

desire to make some one else suffer for the ignominy that had come to

him.

Strangely enough, his most bitter resentment was lodged against the

wife who had stood by him all these years, through thick and thin,

through incessant storm and hardship, with a staunchness that now

maddened him, because, down in his heart, he could see no guile in her.

She was too good for him; she held herself above him; she made him to

feel that he was not of her world--from the beginning. She was loyal

because it would have put her in his class if she had lifted her voice

in public complaint. He knew that she loathed him; he hated her for the

virtue which gave her the right to despise him and yet to remain loyal

to him. His sodden, debased soul resented the odious comparison that

his own flesh and blood justly could make. There had been bitter

moments when this maudlin wretch almost convinced himself that he could

rejoice in the discovery that Christine was not of his flesh and blood,

that this too virtuous woman was not pure, after all.

His sullen despair brought him to even lower depths. In half-sober

moments he began to realize that his daughter feared and despised him.

She had come to feel the distinction between her parents, and she had

done the perfectly obvious thing in following the instincts of the

gentle blood that was in her: she had cast her lot with her mother. He

forgot his own aspirations and hopes for her in this bitter hour. He

wanted to hurt her, so that she might cry out with him in ugly rage

against the smug, serene paragon. If he only could bring Mary to his

level, so that Christine might no longer be so arrogantly proud of the

blood that came through the Portmans.

He drove himself at last into such a condition of hatred for all that

was good and noble that he would have hailed with joy the positive

proof that his wife had been untrue to him!

All day long he had been singularly abstemious. His brooding had caused

him to forget or to neglect the appetite that mastered him. Toward

evening he resumed his drinking, however, mainly for the purpose of

restoring his courage, which had slumped terribly in this estimate of

himself.

When the time came to go over the receipts with the ticket-sellers he

pulled himself together and prepared to assert his authority. He tossed

away the empty bottle and advanced upon the wagon, his face blanched by

self-pity. He was confounded by the sight of Colonel Grand, sitting

inside and going over the cash with Hanks, the seller.

"What do you want?" demanded Colonel Grand, when Braddock, after trying

the locked door, showed his convulsed face at the little window. Hanks

looked uncomfortable.

"Let me in there, Grand!" grated the man outside.

"I'll attend to this. We can't have you bothering with the finances--"

"I'll kick that door in," roared Braddock; "and I'll kill somebody!"

Colonel Grand picked up the treasurer's revolver. He smiled indulgently.

"I'm taking care of the money after this, Brad."

"I own this show, damn you! I-I-I'll fix you!" sputtered the other. He

began to cry.

"Get away from that window!" snapped Grand, his eyes glittering.

"Oh, say now Bob, treat me fair, treat me right," pleaded Braddock, all

at once abject.

"I'll talk to you later on. Get away!"

"Don't throw me down, Bob. I've always done the square thing by you.

Didn't I pay up everything I owed you by--"

"Are you going to leave that window?" demanded Grand.

The miserable wretch looked into the deadly eyes of the man inside, and

realized. A great sob arose in his throat. He held it back for a

moment, but it grew and grew as he saw no pity in the steely eyes

beyond.

"My soul!" he groaned, with the bursting of the sob. He withdrew his

ghastly face and rushed away in the night, stumbling over ropes and

pegs, creating no end of havoc among the men who happened to toil in

his path. They ran from him, thinking him mad.

Half an hour later Ernie Cronk came upon him. He was sitting on the

curb across the street from the circus lot, his elbows on his knees,

his chin in his hands--staring, staring through dry, hot eyes at the

tented city that was slipping away from him.

"What's the matter?" asked the hunchback, in his high, querulous voice.

The older man did not respond. He did not alter his position when the

questioner spoke to him.

"What are you looking at?" asked the other.

"Ernie," began Braddock in a voice that sent a shiver across the boy's

crooked back, it was so sepulchral, "let me take your pistol a second."

Ernie Cronk drew back a step. He eyed Braddock narrowly.

"Who are you going to kill?" he asked after a moment.

"Myself," said Braddock, lifting his haggard face.

Again the hunchback looked long at the man. Then, without a word, he

handed a new revolver to Thomas Braddock. It was not the small

derringer he was wont to carry.

Braddock seemed surprised by the boy's readiness. He received the

weapon gingerly. A sudden spasm shook his big frame.

"Is--is it loaded?" he inquired, less lugubrious than he had been

before.

"No," said Ernie shortly. Braddock's chest swelled suddenly. "I suppose

you think I'm fool enough to let you kill yourself with my gun and me

right here where they could nab me. It's got blank ca'tridges, that's

all. Somebody changed 'em on me last night--just before that--that

sneak went away on the train."

Volumes could not have told more than that single sentence.

Braddock handed the weapon back to him.

"But if you really want to shoot yourself," went on Ernie maliciously,

"I've got a round of real ca'tridges here. While you're loadin' the gun

I can make a sneak. If I was you, though, I'd go up that alley there,

Brad. It's terrible public here."

"You wicked little brute, you!" cried Braddock in horror, coming to his

feet and drawing away as if from a viper. "You cold-blooded whelp! I--I

never heard of such--"

"Ain't you going to kill yourself?" demanded Ernie, grinning.

Braddock appeared to ponder. "No," he said with eager finality; "not

just now. I've changed my mind. I'm going to have it out with her

first. Then, maybe I won't do it at all."

Without another glance at the hunchback he swung off toward the

dressing-tent. Ernie's scoffing laugh followed him into the shadows. It

was the last straw. He was an object of derision to this thing of jibes

and sneers.

The flush of anger had come back into his bloated cheeks by the time he

had slipped under the sidewall into the dressing-tent. A sense of

loneliness struck him with the force of a blow as he paused to survey

the conglomerate mass of gaudy trappings: the men, the women, the

horses, the dye-scented paraphernalia of the ring. The very spangles on

the costumes of these one-time friends seemed to twinkle with merriment

at the sight of him; the tarletan skirts appeared to flaunt scorn in

his face. There was mockery in everything. His humiliation was complete

when this motley array of people disdained to greet him with the eager

concern that heretofore had marked their demeanor. No one appeared to

notice him, further than to offer a curt nod or to exchange sly grins

with the others.

Christine was in the ring. Mrs. Braddock stood over by the tattered red

curtains, peering out into the "big top." He knew just where to look

for her; she always stood there while her daughter was performing with

old Tom Sacks. Not Tom Braddock, but all the others, noted the weary

droop of her shoulders.

She started violently when he came up from behind and spoke to her.

"Well, how does it look without the gentleman in stripes?" he asked

coarsely. "It ain't so refined, eh?"

She faced him, hesitated an instant, and then said, without a trace of

emotion in her voice:

"Tom, do you think Colonel Grand would be willing to buy out my share

in the show?"

He stared. Then he laughed sardonically.

"What are you givin' us? Buy out your share? I should say not. He might

buy you, but not your share."

"You are a beast, Tom Braddock," she said, the red mounting slowly to

her pale cheek. "Why do you say that to me?"

"Say, don't you suppose I know how it stands with you and him?" he

retorted. "Come off, Mary. You're both trying to freeze me out. I'm on

to the little game."

"Don't speak so loudly," she implored, clasping her hands.

"Oh, I'm not tellin' any secrets," he snarled. "It's common property.

Everybody's on. I should think you'd be ashamed to look Christine in

the face."

"God forgive you, Tom Braddock," she cried, abject horror in her eyes.

"Say, I've got to have an understanding with you," he went on

ruthlessly. "I'm going to find out just how I stand in this here

arrangement. Grand's taken charge of the money box. He says it's you

and him against me. He's going to--"

"He lies! He lies!"

"Oh, let up--let up! I'm no fool."

"Tom Braddock, are you--are you _accusing me?_" she cried, all

a-tremble.

He opened his lips to utter the words which would have ended everything

between them. His eyes met hers and the words slipped back into his

throat. The spark of manhood that was left in him revolted against this

wanton assault upon the pure soul that looked out upon him.

His gaze was lowered. He began fumbling in his pocket for a cigar.

"Course not," he said reluctantly. He peered hard at the opaque

sidewall uncomfortably conscious of the scornful look she bent upon

him. Neither spoke for a long time.

"How much lower can you sink?" she asked in low tones.

"Don't you turn against me like this," he returned sullenly.

"I have endured too long--too long," she said lifelessly.

"Now, shut up, Mary. Shut up your trap. I'm sick of having you whining

all the time--"

"Whining!" she cried. "God in heaven!"

"Well, belly-achin', then." Her bitter laugh irritated him. "Say, I got

to talk this business over with you. We've got to understand each

other."

"We _do_ understand each other," she said, a note of decision in her

voice. "You are ready to prostitute me for the sake of worming money

out of that horrid beast. I loathe him. You know it, and yet you force

me to meet him. I am going to end it all. Either he leaves this show,

or I do. I will not endure this unspoken but manifest insult a day

longer. Do you understand me?"

"I'd like to know how you're going to help it," he said, glaring at her

with half-restored belligerence. "You can't get out without losin' what

you've got in the business, and he _won't_ get out."

"Are you going to permit him to continue paying his odious attentions

to me--to your wife?" she cried.

"I don't care what he does," roared Braddock. "That's his business. You

don't have to give in to him, do you? If he thinks you've got a price,

that's his lookout, not mine."

"Not yours?" she gasped. "Oh, Tom! Tom! What manner of man have you

come to be?"

"Well, I'm just tellin' you, that's all."

"You--you surely are not in your right mind."

"You bet I am! Now, you listen to me. You are going to stick right with

this show--you and Christine. And you're going to do what I tell you to

do. You got to treat Bob Grand half-way decent. He's liable to leave us

in the lurch any time. How'd you suppose we'd get on without his help

right now? Just as soon as we get on our feet I'll put an end to his

funny business. I'll show him what's what. He'll get out of the show

business a heap sight wiser man than he is now. But we need him now. We

got to stand together, you and me. No flunking, see. We--"

"Stop!" She stood before him like an outraged priestess. This time he

did not shrink, but glared back at her balefully. "This is the end! We

have come to the parting of the ways. I will never call you husband

again. If you even speak to me, Thomas Braddock, I shall ask any one of

a dozen men here to beat you as you deserve. Oh, they will be only too

happy to do it! Now, hear me: I am going to take Christine away from

you--forever. Don't curse me yet! Wait! I am not through. This very

night I shall offer my share in this show to Colonel Grand. He may have

it at his own price. If he will not buy, then I shall go forth and look

for another purchaser. I--"

"You're my wife. You can't sell without my consent," he exclaimed.

"Then I will ask the court to give me the right. Now, go! I--"

"You can't take Christine. She's as much mine as she is--"

"I will hear no more. I have given you the last chance to be a man.

This ends it!"

She turned and walked away from him. He knew that it was all over

between them.

Considerably shaken, he went over and sat down on a trunk near the

wall. Suddenly he sprang to his feet with a curious half-laugh,

half-sob. He glared at the flap through which she had disappeared. A

cunning, malevolent expression came into his pop-eyes.

"Sell out, will you?" he muttered. "I'll block that game. I'll sell out

to him myself. That's what he wants."

He lifted the sidewall and passed out into the open air, directing his

footsteps toward the ticket-wagon. Colonel Grand was leaving it as he

came up.

"Hello, Brad," he said quite genially. "If I was a bit rough awhile

ago, I apolo--"

"Say, I want to talk privately with you, right away. I've got a

proposition to make. It's final, too,--and it's friendly, so don't look

as if you're going to pull a gun on me. Come on to the hotel. Oh, I'm

not as drunk as you think!"

"Mrs. Braddock expects me to escort her to the hotel--"

"No, she don't," rasped the other. "She's all right. Leave her alone.

Are you coming?"

Colonel Grand was struck by the man's behavior. He shrewdly saw that

something vital was in the air.

"All right," he said. "I'll go with you."

They were soon closeted in the room back of the hotel bar, a bottle

between them on the table. The door was locked. Their conversation

lasted an hour. When Colonel Grand arose to depart he stood a little

behind and to the left of Braddock's chair, a soft, sardonic smile on

his lips. He held a sheet of paper in his hand. Pen and ink on the

table, alongside the more sinister bottle, told of an act of penmanship.

"We'll have the night clerk and some one else witness the signatures,"

he said quietly.

"All right," said Braddock hoarsely. He was staring at his fingers,

which he twiddled in a nerveless, irresolute manner.

"The inside conditions are between you and me personally. You'll have

to live up to them, Braddock."

"Oh, I'm a man of my word, don't fret."

"You are to get out at the end of the week. That's plain, is it?"

"If the cash is passed over. Don't forget that. Say, Bob, I swear,

you're treating me dirt mean. I ought to have five times more than you

are payin' me, and you know it. Five thousand dollars! Why, it's givin'

the show away, that's what it is. I've built up this here show--"

"It is your own proposition. I didn't suggest buying you out. You came

to me to sell. If you don't want to let it go at the price we've agreed

on I'll tear up this bill of sale."

"I've got to take it, so what's the use kicking? I'm going to get out

of the business. My wife's against me. Everybody is. Damn them all!"

Colonel Grand knew quite well that Mrs. Braddock, as the man's wife,

could interpose legal objections to the transfer, but he was not really

buying Tom's interest in the show; he was deliberately paying him to

desert his wife and child. That was the sum and substance of it.

Braddock was not so drugged with liquor that he could not appreciate

that side of the transaction quite as fully as the other.

Down in his besotted soul there lurked the hope that some day, in the

long run, through the wife whom he was selling so basely, he might

succeed in obtaining the upper hand of Bob Grand, and crush him as he

was being crushed!

"It will be a week before the currency can get here from Baltimore. I

refuse to draw on my banker in the regular way. This money, being evil,

must come from an evil source. My dealers will send it from the

'place.' Now, again, you understand that I can put you in the

penitentiary if you go back on your word. You _did_ take the boy's

money out of the dressing-tent. My man saw you."

"I don't see why you hired a canvasman to watch me," growled the other,

pouring another drink. "Mighty cheap work, Bob Grand."

"I always go on the principle that it isn't safe to have business

dealings with a man until you know all that is to be found out about

him. In your case I had to choose my own way of finding out."

"I'll knock off a couple of hundred if you'll tell me the name of that

sneaking--"

"You need the two hundred more than I do, Brad," said Grand with

infinite sarcasm--and finality.

"Well, I'm a Jonah in the show business. I guess it's the best thing I

can do to get out of it. You'll do the right thing by Mary and--and--"

he swallowed hard, casting a half glance at the other out of his bleary

eyes--"and the young 'un. They'll get what's coming to them, Bob?"

"Certainly."

"I wouldn't sell out like this if--if Mary had acted decent by me," he

said, trying to justify his action. He was congratulating himself that

he had sold her out before she had the chance to sell him out. He

closed his eyes to the real transaction involved in the deal. It gave

him some secret satisfaction, however, to contemplate the futility of

Colonel Grand's designs upon Mary Braddock.

"Of course," said Bob Grand.

"I am going to California," said Tom Braddock, for the third time

during the interview.

"I've asked you not to mention that fact to me, Braddock. You are

supposed to stay with the show as manager and overseer."

"Humph!" grunted the other. "You want to be as much shocked as the rest

of 'em when I skip by the light of the moon, eh?"

"We'll sign the paper," was the only response of the purchaser.

Ten minutes later, after two men had witnessed their signatures, the

document reposed in Bob Grand's pocketbook.

The next morning Mary Braddock appeared before the master of Van Slye's

Circus and offered her interest for sale. He calmly announced that he

could not afford to put any more money into the concern.

"I must sell out," she said. "All the money I have in the world is in

this show."

"It could not be better invested," he said. She shrank from the look in

his eyes.

"But I need it for Christine's education," she began.

"I will see to it that Christine is given the best of everything, Mary.

Leave it to me. She shall be sent abroad next year, if you think best."

"I am asking no favors of you, Colonel Grand."

"It may interest you to know that I have purchased your husband's

entire interest in this show," he said softly.

She stared, spellbound.

"He--he has sold out to you?" she murmured, going white to the lips.

"You seem surprised."

"He could not do it! It is necessary to have my consent. I--I--" Her

brain was whirling.

"I understood that he was a perfectly free agent. I can send him to the

penitentiary if he has swindled me. If you and Christine care to take

that sort of stand against him, I'll have to do it. I should be

terribly sorry on the girl's account, but--Oh, well, I'm sure it won't

come to that."

"He--he has sold me out?" she cried weakly.

"Oh, hardly that!"

Unable to speak another word to him, she turned and blindly made her

way to the women's dressing-room. The Colonel smiled comfortably as he

lifted his hat to her retreating back.

Late that night four or five persons slipped out of the hotel by the

rear doors. At the mouth of the dark alley a hack was waiting. With the

utmost caution this small, closely huddled group approached the rickety

vehicle. Three women climbed in, followed by numerous valises and small

bags; their two male companions mounted the seat with the driver. Off

through the still night rattled the mysterious cab, clattering across

the cobbled streets for many minutes until at last it drew up at the

darkest end of the railway station platform. Three trunks stood against

the wall of the station building. One of the men attended to the

checking of these heavy pieces, presenting two railway tickets for the

guidance of the sleepy agent. The other stood guard over the cab and

its occupants.

A train thundered in. The station platform was quite deserted except

for the few belated revelers who had remained in town for the night

performance of Van Slye's circus. When the train pulled out, a woman

and two men stood beside the hack, where tearful farewells had been

uttered and Godspeed spoken. Toward the east sped a tall woman and a

slim, beautiful girl. In the outskirts of the town the train swept past

a string of huge, cumbersome, ghostly wagons, all of them slinking away

into the night-ridden pike that led to another city where the young and

curious were already dreaming of the morning hours that were to bring

the "circus to town."

"Good-by--good-by!" sobbed the girl, who had been peering intently

through the window of the car. The tall woman did not look forth, but

sat with her eyes riveted on the seat ahead.

"Yes, it is good-by, my darling," she said in very low tones.

Back at the railway station, after the rear lights of the train had

disappeared, the lone woman turned her tear-stained face to the man

whose arm was about her shoulder.

"Do you think we'll ever see them again, daddy?" she moaned.

"Yes," said the man huskily. "She said she'd let me know, one way or

another, when it is safe to do so. Don't cry, Ruby. They're better off.

They couldn't 'ave stayed on, God knows. And God will take care of 'em."

"I wish she'd said just where she's really bound for," muttered the

other man, a tall ungainly fellow. "She's mighty near dead-broke, and

I'm--I'm uneasy, Joey."

"She'll get on, Casey, confound you!"

"If she'd only make up her mind to go back to her father," said the

girl.

"That's just it. If she's going back to 'im, it's best nobody knows

yet--not even us. I've got their two letters for David, if he ever

comes looking them up, as he said he would. Well, God bless 'em. I--I

'ates to think wot the show will be without 'em. Come on; let's get

back to bed."

And so it was, many days afterward, that David Jenison came "looking

them up," only to find that they were gone and that no one could tell

him whither they had fled. It was significant that Colonel Bob Grand

was not with the show; he had gone away in a great rage when the

discovery of the flight became known to him. Tom Braddock, strangely

sobered and bleached out by a tardy remorse, went about mechanically in

the management of the show which he no longer owned.

Joey Grinaldi delivered two precious, carefully preserved missives into

the hands of the distracted Virginian.

One of these letters said that the writer would wait for him to the end

of time, loving him always with all her heart. The other, much longer,

came to its conclusion with these words, written by a wise, far-seeing

woman whose heart was breaking:

"... And now, David, good-by. We love you. Be content to let us go

temporarily out of your life, if not from your thoughts or your heart.

Always think of us with love and tenderness, my dear boy, as we shall

never cease to think of you. You are young. Christine is young. You are

not so wise now as you will be five years hence. I shall try to mold

Christine into the kind of woman you could take as a wife to Jenison

Hall. In five years, God willing, the circus ring and its spangles will

be so remotely removed from her that no one can find the trace of them.

In five years, David. That may seem ages to you and to her, who have

youth and all of life ahead of you. When five years have gone by,

David, I shall let you know where we are to be found. If you still care

for her then, and she for you, no matter what the circumstances of

either may be, no human power can keep you apart. You will come to her

and say it all over again, and you will be happier because of this

brief probation. If you should find, through the mature workings of a

man's heart, that you have grown to love another, then you will both

see for yourselves that my present course is right, and that your ways

must continue, as now, along absolutely separate paths. Do not attempt

to find us. Your own futile efforts, dear David, in that direction

might be the means of bringing other and unkind searchers to our place

of refuge. I know you would not bring greater trial and tribulation to

us, who love you, than you have seen us suffer in the past."

BOOK TWO

CHAPTER I

THE DAUGHTER OF COLONEL GRAND

Snuggling down in a nest built of certain westward hills in fair

Virginia, near the head of a valley long noted for healing waters that

spring, warm and cold, from subterranean alchemies into picturesque

pools and steaming rivulets, lies the ancient village of Hollandville,

with its quaint, galleried facades; its flower gardens and its

mill-race; its ambient clouds and drowsy sunshine, and the

ever-delicious somnolence that overcomes the most potent vigor with an

ease that mystifies. Beyond Hollandville, less than half a league

distant, against the mountainside, facing the great ridge opposite,

stands a time-honored, time-perfected hostelry inside whose walls and

upon whose galleries the flower and chivalry of Virginia have clustered

for generations. Names historic are to be found on the yellow pages of

venerable and venerated ledgers and day-books, names of men and women

known and cherished before the dauntless settler had turned his

footsteps toward the territories of the Middle West. Here had come the

famed Virginia and Maryland beauties of an ancient day, and here still

came their great-great-granddaughters to create envy among the flowers

that steal from the earth to bloom in this valley of delight. Here came

Washington and Jefferson and others whose names will never die so long

as there is an American heart-beat among us; came with their coaches,

their servants, their horses and--their livers: for they had livers

even in those good old days. If one were to call upon the sweet night

air, and spirits were allowed to respond, the fair face of Dolly

Madison would emerge from the shadows, attended by all the wits and

beauties of her luxurious day. Betty Junol, too, held court in this

primitive Spa. Here duels were fought for ladies fair, and here the

hearts of the noblest women of our land were won by gallants who will

live forever.

Beaten roads that stretch off down the valley and wind through the

hills could tell countless tales of those who, in one glorious century,

rode hand-in-hand and unarmored to the lists of love and fell together

in the joyous combat. To this very day the lists are open and the

contenders as resolute, as gentle and as brave as in the ages when

Washington was a boy and men wooed with a sword at their hip.

Still stand the narrow, thatched cottages, immersed in honeysuckle and

ivy, that sheltered the fathers of the Constitution; still wind the

beaten roads over which rolled their coaches in days before the

American historical novel was more than a remote probability. Heroes of

a later war than that which gave us our freedom come now to this

sequestered spot, men whose grandfathers fought with our George against

the George of England. But, as their forefathers came, still come they,

and will come for generations, for this is the ancient Mecca of

Virginia gentlefolk to whom tradition is treasure and companionship

wine.

Late in the spring of 1880, when the dogwood was repainting the

hillsides and wild-flowers were weaving a new carpet of many hues for

the feet of wandering lovers, the company of guests assembled at the

Springs--as yet numerically small--included no fewer than a dozen girls

whose beauty was famed from one side of the Southland to the other.

Attendant upon these dainty American princesses, there were again as

many young men, rivals all for favors small.

A chill, moist wind of a certain evening blew down from the

mist-shrouded ridge, driving all guests to the glow of the fireplaces

or to the seclusion of coveted nooks in shadowy halls, where staircases

held secrets as tenderly inviolate now as on the nights of a dim,

forgotten past. About the great fireplace in the general lounging-room

a merry crowd of young people were gathered, discussing the plans for a

projected trip to the Natural Bridge, quite a two days' journey by

coach.

A tall, lean-faced young man of twenty-three or four stood beside the

fireplace, his elbow on the ancient mantel, his shapely legs crossed.

There was a moody expression in his handsome face, albeit he smiled in

quiet enjoyment of the vivacious conversation that went on around him.

Half a dozen girls chatted eagerly, excitedly, in response to certain

arguments advanced by young men who had the expedition in hand.

Arrangements were being discussed, approved or set aside with an

arbitrariness that left no choice to the proposers. From time to time

disputed questions were referred to the tall young man at the

mantelpiece. He appeared to be a person of consequence in the eyes of

all; his decision was accepted, even by the most arrogant of rebels.

Not one of these fair girls looked into his dark, steady eyes without

hope that the thought which lay deep in them was of her and of no

other, and yet each was painfully certain that he thought of some one

else, whether present or absent they could not conceive.

He gravely twisted the point of a small, dark mustache, then in vogue

among the fashionables, and proffered his suggestions with the quiet

assurance that comes from a thorough appreciation of the deference due

the man who is "real quality" in the Southland, and yet without the

faintest suggestion of superciliousness or conceit in his manner.

This man was born to it; it had come to him through the blood of

unnumbered ancestors. He was an aristocrat among aristocrats, as fair

Virginia produced them. Notwithstanding he had arrived at the Springs

no earlier than the forenoon of the day at hand, without knowledge of

previous plans regarding the expedition, he was nevertheless

established by common though unspoken consent as the arbiter of all its

features. He had come among friends who knew him of old--last year, the

year before, and the years before that.

For this tall young man who leaned so gracefully against the

mantelpiece was the master of Jenison Hall--the last of the Jenisons.

And that was saying all that could be said, so far as a Virginian was

concerned.

Their council was disturbed by the arrival of the belated night coach

that came over the mountains from the nearest railway station. The

shouts of the driver and the darky hostlers, the pounding of horses'

feet in the bouldered yard below, the rush of footsteps across the

broad veranda, and the sudden opening of the door by an ebony

porter,--all went to divert the attention of those who waited eagerly

by the fireplace to catch a glimpse of new arrivals.

Preceded by bags and satchels and rugs, there came two women out of the

drenched night into the glow of the firelit room. Two of the girls in

the circle stared for a moment, and then, with sharp cries of surprise,

rushed over to the desk where the newcomers stood, having been

conducted by the porters: two pretty girls from Baltimore. The group

looked on with interest while greetings were exchanged.

The arrivals were persons of consequence. Two French maids followed

them into the room and stood at the foot of the staircase, respectful

but with the composure which denotes tolerance. In those days few

people in the South presented an opulence extending to French maids.

The younger of the two women at the desk was tall, slender and

strikingly attractive: of the dashing, brilliant type. She was not more

than twenty, but there was an easy assurance in her manner that bespoke

ages of conquest and not an instant of defeat. The elder was an

aristocratic woman past middle age, the possessor of cold, aquiline

features and smileless eyes. Her hair was almost snow white, but her

figure was straight and youthful.

Presently they were conducted to their rooms by an obsequious porter,

and the young girls returned to the group at the fireside. There was a

common, ridiculously casual movement among the older people in the

room; the newcomers were barely out of sight in the upper hall before

the first of the curious ones was looking over the register. Inside of

three minutes a score of persons had glanced at the freshly written

names and passed on to the water cooler, thence back to their seats, a

fresh topic for conversation well in mind.

"Who is she?" demanded an eager young man from Richmond.

The Baltimore girls were visibly excited.

"I didn't know they had returned to this country, did you, Nell?

They've been living abroad for several years. Goodness, how that girl

has blossomed out. I'd never have known her if she hadn't been with her

mother."

"Do you think she's so very pretty?" enquired the other, quite

naturally.

"She's a dream!" cried the Richmond young man, before the other could

give her opinion. "But who is she?"

"Roberta Grand. She's a Baltimore girl and--"

"What name did you say?" asked the tall young man beside the fireplace,

suddenly interested.

The name was repeated. He listened to a long discourse on certain

school day friendships, succeeded by a period of separation in which

the subject of all this interest had traveled abroad with her mother,

completing an education that, if one were to judge from the

descriptions volunteered by her former classmates, gave small promise

in the beginning of attaining much beyond the commonplace.

"She was a dreadfully stupid girl at Miss Ralston's," proclaimed Miss

Baltimore. "Wasn't she, Nell?"

"Indeed she was. She--"

The master of Jenison Hall was staring across the room in the direction

of the register. He interrupted again.

"Grand? Are there many Grands in Baltimore?" he asked.

"Why are you so interested, Dave?" demanded one of the men.

"I once knew a man from Baltimore whose name was Grand, that's all. I'm

wondering if she can be--"

"Her father is Colonel Robert Grand. He's the great racehorse man.

Every one knows _him,_" said one of the Baltimore girls.

"Colonel Bob Grand?"

"Yes. Of course he and Mrs. Grand don't live together any longer. They

were divorced about five years ago. Didn't you see the account of it in

the Richmond papers? It seems that he ran off with an actress--to

London, they say. Oh, I don't remember all the details. Mother wouldn't

let us read the stuff in the papers. But I do remember that he bought a

house in London for the woman and he never even fought the divorce. He

treated Mrs. Grand shamefully, I know that much. Father says he is a

terrible man."

David Jenison was very pale and very still. He did not take his eyes

from the face of the speaker.

"Who was this actress?" asked some one. He went very cold. He tried to

close his ears against a name he dreaded to hear on the lips of the

fair gossip.

"I don't know. Some one you never heard of. Just a common, ordinary

actress, as I remember."

Jenison abruptly left the group and strode out upon the porch, leaving

the others to puzzle themselves over his unexpected defection.

In the five years that had passed since his brief but ever green

experience with the circus he had not come upon a single trace of Mary

Braddock and Christine. With all the impulsiveness of boyhood he had at

first made feverish efforts to find them. Detectives in his employ

followed the circus for several weeks, keenly alert to discover

anything that might put them on the track. Others shadowed the

disgruntled Colonel; while Blake, his old pursuer, went to New York

and, reinforced by agency men of Gotham, watched the home of Albert T.

Portman. But they had disappeared so completely that every effort to

unearth them proved futile. David was in college the following winter

when he heard, through Dick Cronk, that Colonel Grand had sold out the

circus to P. T. Barnum, with whose vast enterprises it was speedily

amalgamated. As the concern was sold at private sale, by actual

premeditation, Mary Braddock's interests were undefended. There was

talk among the circus people, however, to the effect that Grand, after

certain judgments had been satisfied, advertised throughout the country

for Mrs. Braddock, conveying to her notice by this means the fact that

he held in his possession many thousand dollars belonging to her.

Whether this tempting bait found her in such dire distress that she

could not remain in hiding while it was being offered, no one seemed to

know. If she had come forth to claim her portion of the proceeds, the

fact remained unknown to the old friends.

Tom Braddock, so David learned, forsook the show soon after his wife's

disappearance, and went to the Middle West. From time to time news of

him reached David in roundabout ways. He had developed quite naturally

into a common street loafer in Chicago, preying on the generosity of

his old acquaintance and living the besotted life of a degenerate. Of

certain cheerful wights who made up David's secret circle of intimates

we may expect to hear more as we go along. Suffice it to say, he kept

in close touch with them during his years at the University and

subsequently as the recognized "lord of the manor," excepting a rather

lengthy period devoted to travel abroad. On more than one occasion he

responded generously to diffident appeals for help, coming from one or

the other of his old friends. He never failed to contribute from his

store of wealth, for young Jenison was the richest as well as the

kindliest planter in all Virginia.

Jenison farm lands stretched far and wide; Jenison town property was to

be found in no less than five cities of importance; Jenison securities,

as sound as Gibraltar, were piled up in New York vaults, and the

Jenison collection included more than a score of the rarest paintings

ever developed under the magic of Rembrandt, Franz Hals, Turner,

Gainsborough, Velasquez, Stewart and others.

He was more than a person of landed importance, however. His story was

so well known that wherever he fared he was hailed as a hero. In his

own sunny land he was a hero-prince with as many retainers and loyal

subjects as ever bent knee to an Eastern medieval potentate. Rich in

fair looks as well as in worldly possessions, the owner of a

distinctive charm of manner, combined with the poise of good breeding,

a certain interesting reticence and a wonderfully impelling smile, he

was more than a hero to the young, and little short of an idol to the

old.

Countless assaults had been made against his heart. Every wile known to

beauty had been employed in a hundred sieges. But the Jack Snipe of

eighteen was still the lonely Jack Snipe at twenty-three: his heart was

sheathed in a love that harked back to a rough, picturesque development

and was strong by virtue of its memories.

At no time in all these spreading years had Christine Braddock's

flower-face and girlish figure faded from his vision. On this misty

night in early June, while others were thinking of him, he was thinking

of her and the promise made five years before. In five years, they both

had said. The term of probation was drawing to an end. He was waiting

now for the redemption of that promise.

Once, and once only, had he heard from them, and then in the most

mysterious way. Soon after his return to the University an envelope

containing four hundred dollars in crisp new bills was delivered to him

by Jeff, his body-servant, who came all the way up from the plantation

to say that it had been left at the Hall by a man who offered no

explanation except that his master would understand.

No day passed that he did not look for some sign from Mary Braddock.

She had promised, and he knew that she would not fail him. His mind was

charged with the wildest speculations. What would be the nature of the

resurrection? What word would come from the present to greet the past?

From what mysterious hiding-place would come the call? Even now, at

this very instant, from some far-away spot in the great wide world a

voice might be winging its way to him. What tidings were in the air?

What word of the girl he loved?

And now, like an icy blast, came the appalling possibility that the

world knew more of Mrs. Braddock's whereabouts and actions than he, who

was so vitally interested. The word "actress" as supplied by the

contemptuous Baltimore girl conveyed to his soul a sharp, sickening

dread. Was Mary Braddock the one? Had she given way under the strain?

Had circumstance cowed her into submission? Was she the one who

occupied the little house in London-town?

If so, what of Christine?

He smoked as he paced the long veranda. In a dark corner at the lower

end, sheltered from the mist by trailing arbutus, a group of three

persons from the inexperienced, uncouth North, were drinking juleps

served by an impassive but secretly disdainful servant bent with age

and, you might say, habitual respect. Jenison did not notice them in

his abstraction, but his ears would have burned if he could have heard

the things the two women were saying about him to their male companion.

As he passed the broad office door in one of his rounds it was opened

and in the full glow of light from within appeared the tall, graceful

figure of Roberta Grand. She remained there for a moment, looking out

into the sombre night. Their eyes met as he passed. She was exceedingly

fair to look upon, golden-haired and _spirituelle_, but he could see

only the repulsive, hated features of Colonel Bob Grand, destroyer.

When he returned to the group at the fireplace, half an hour later, she

was sitting with the others, her back toward him as he approached. He

was at once presented by the girl from Baltimore.

Miss Grand looked up into his face with cool, indifferent eyes.

"I have heard so much of you, Mr. Jenison," she said. Her voice was

soft and pleasant.

"We live in a very small world, Miss Grand," he said. "One's reputation

reaches farther than he thinks."

"It depends on the method by which it is carried," she responded

enigmatically. He started.

"I trust mine has been delivered by kindly messengers."

"Both kindly and gentle," she said.

"Some girl, I'll bet," remarked one of the young men.

"Not so singular as that, Mr. Priest. The plural is 'girls,'" said Miss

Grand.

"I am relieved," said David. "It's much easier to understand the plural

of girl. Girl in the first person singular is incomprehensible."

"Do you really think so?" asked Miss Grand calmly. He bowed very low

and said no more. It occurred to him in a flash that this fair girl

knew more of him, in a way, than any one present.

Later on, at the foot of the stairs, she came up with him. Without the

slightest trace of embarrassment she remarked:

"I think you knew my father, Mr. Jenison."

He flushed in some confusion. "Your father is Colonel Robert Grand?"

"Yes. It was he who told me your story, long ago. I have always been

interested."

David hesitated for an instant, then boldly put his question: "May I

ask where Colonel Grand is at present? I hear you no longer live in

Baltimore."

It was a very direct attack, but he justified himself through the

impression that she invited it.

"We live in Washington, Mr. Jenison, my mother and I. My father's home

is in New York. Some time, while we are here, I hope you won't mind

telling me something of your experiences with the--the circus. My

father often spoke of you. He said they called you--was it Jack Snipe?"

David was taken aback. The girl's frankness amazed, unsettled him.

"A name given me by one of the performers," he murmured.

"The proprietor's daughter, Christine Braddock. Oh, you must not be

surprised. I know her."

"You know her?" he asked quickly.

"That is, I once knew her. She came out to my father's stables years

ago to practice her riding. I used to envy her so! You see, I wanted to

be a circus rider." She laughed very frankly.

"Do you know what has become of her?" he asked, risking everything. He

watched carefully to catch the expression in her face.

"No," she replied, hesitating. "I have not seen my father since our

return from Europe."

The words were ominous. He experienced a sinking sensation.

She continued: "I supposed that you knew something of _our_ family

history, Mr. Jenison." He looked sufficiently blank. "My father and

mother lead absolutely separate lives. It happened four years ago.

Perhaps you have forgotten."

"I did not hear of it at the time, Miss Grand,' he explained.

"We have lived abroad ever since. So, you see, I have had little or no

opportunity to talk with my father. We write to each other, of course,

but letters are not like talks. I am to visit him next month in New

York. I can hardly wait for the time to come." She was now speaking

rapidly, eagerly. "I--I don't believe that all the things they said

about him in the newspapers were true. My mother's lawyers brought up

everything they could think of, whether it was true or not. You

see--Oh, you don't mind hearing me talk like this, do you?" She

interrupted herself to insert this question.

He hastened to assure her that she might speak freely to him, and with

perfect confidence in his discretion. But, he suggested, it would be

better if they were to continue the conversation in a place less

conspicuous. He led her to a distant corner of the room, where they

might be quite free from interruption. Her peculiar attitude interested

and disturbed him. It was quite plain, from a single remark of hers,

that her sympathies were with her father, although she had remained at

her mother's side.

"You knew my father quite well, didn't you, Mr. Jenison? He has often

told me of the close friendship that existed between you in those days,

how he tried to help you and how appreciative you were."

David concealed his astonishment.

"They were wretched days for me," he said evasively.

"I am sure you wouldn't believe all the horrid things they said about

him, knowing him, as you did, for a kindly, honorable gentleman. My

mother was desperate, Mr. Jenison. She believed everything the lawyers

put into her head. Of course, I understand now why it was so necessary

to blacken his character. It was for the money--the alimony, they call

it. And, more than that, it was to compel the court to give me into her

custody. I had no choice in the matter, it seems, in spite of the law

which says a child may elect for herself after she is fourteen. They

made it so dreadful for him, that he could not take me, although I

would have gone with him, oh, so gladly. I--" She stopped short.

He waited for a moment, appalled by this undisguised antipathy to the

mother, who, as he knew so well, had been wronged beyond measure by the

beast whom the girl, in her ignorance, defended. "My dear Miss Grand,"

he said, "I am more than sorry if any rude inquisitiveness on my part

has led you to--"

"Oh, I want to talk about it to you," she interrupted with a directness

that made him more uncomfortable than ever. "I know that you knew my

father for what he really was. You knew how kind and good he was, and

how nobly he befriended the Braddocks and all those wretched show

people. You know how they treated him in return for his generosity. I

feel as if I had known you always."

"It's very nice of you," he mumbled helplessly. "You say the show

people turned against him. Do you mean at the--er--the trial?"

She lifted her brows, a sudden coldness in her manner.

"Not at all. I refer to what happened afterward."

"I am quite ignorant, Miss Grand," he said, a certain hoarseness

creeping into his voice.

"He was actually compelled to pay something like twenty thousand

dollars on the complaint of Mary Braddock, who set up the claim that

she owned part of the show. It was a blackmailing scheme, pure and

simple, but he paid it. He is a man. He took his medicine like one."

David glowed. He felt the blood surge to his head; he grew warm with

suppressed joy.

"When did this happen?" he asked, the tremor of eagerness in his voice.

"Oh, I don't remember--three or four years ago. It really never came to

a public trial. He settled her infamous claim out of court. Her lawyers

hounded him as if he were a rat."

"I happen to know that Mrs. Braddock was part owner in the show," he

said quietly.

"But he had already bought her out," she exclaimed. "He wrote all of

this to me, after it came out in the papers. I had the whole story from

him, just as it really happened. No, Mr. Jenison, he was compelled to

pay twice."

He was half smiling as he looked into her face. The smile died, for he

saw in the features of Bob Grand's daughter a startling resemblance to

the man himself, hitherto unnoted but now quite assertive. A moment

before he had thought her pretty; now he realized that he had scarcely

looked at her before. There was the same beady, intent gleam in her

dark eyes, which were set quite close to each other over a straight

nose with rather flat nostrils. Her mouth and chin were unlike Grand's.

They were perfect, they were beautiful. The eyes were unmistakably his,

and therefrom peered the character of the girl as well as that of the

man.

David was sharply cognizant of a feeling of repugnance. Much that had

puzzled him a moment before was perfectly plain to him now. She

championed the father because he had been stronger in her creation than

the mother.

"Did Mrs. Braddock prosecute her claim in person?" he asked, subduing

the impulse to set his friend right in the eyes of this girl.

"Not at all. She kept out of sight. Lawyers did it all."

"Did your father say where she was living at the time?"

"Oh, I know where she was living in London."

"London?" he said, suddenly cold.

"Yes. We saw her there, Centennial year. She had a home in one of those

nice little West End streets. Of course, we could have nothing to do

with her."

"Of course not," murmured he dumbly. "And Christine?"

"She was at the Sacred Heart Convent in Paris,--at school, you know.

Father wrote me about her."

He could not ask her the sickening question that was in his mind: was

Mary Braddock the woman in the case? But his heart was cold with

despair. He could not, would not believe it of her, and yet the

circumstances were damnably convincing.

"In a month, Mr. Jenison, I will be of age. I am sure that you, having

been such a friend to him, will be glad to know that I am going to him.

If he wants me, I shall stay with him."

"You--you will leave your mother?" he demanded, unconsciously drawing

back in his chair.

"Just because my mother cast him out is no reason why I should do

likewise. I love my father--I adore him! What did you say?"

Under his breath he had uttered the word "God!"

"I beg your pardon," he said hurriedly He felt like cursing her. "I

just happened to think of something," he explained.

"I am sorry to have bored you. I thought you'd like to know about

father after all these years. Pray forgive me."

"You intimated awhile ago that perhaps he could tell me where Mrs.

Braddock is living, he said. His forehead was covered with moisture.

"I've no doubt he knows, Mr. Jenison. She is living in New York."

She was perfectly calm and matter-of-fact about it. If there was more

that she could have told him, her inscrutable smile signified plainly

that it should be left for him to find out for himself.

He looked into her eyes for a moment without speaking. A feeling of

loathing such as he had never known before welled up in his heart

against this girl. He hated the sight of her face. He almost imagined

he could see its soft, warm tints changing subtly into the gray,

putty-like complexion of his oldtime enemy. A beastly jowl seemed

suddenly to spread from her smooth round cheek and sag heavy over her

neck; her smile, bewitching to other eyes than his, took on a

mysterious breadth that horrified him. He was seeing visions. He knew

that there was no change such as his mind pictured, and yet he could

not cast out the illusion. He arose abruptly, fearful that she might

see the repugnance in his eyes. He could not sit there an instant

longer, facing this reminder of Bob Grand. Something atavistic in his

nature urged him to strike out with all his strength at the fantastic

face that forced itself upon him.

"I beg your pardon," he said, and his voice sounded queer in his own

ears, "but I must get off some letters to-night. May I take you to the

stairs?"

A few minutes later he was lying flat on his back, fully dressed, on

the bed in his chamber, staring up at the ceiling, his brain a chaos of

anguish, dread, pity--and faith, after all, in Mary Braddock. The walls

seemed papered with the faces of Bob Grand and Roberta Grand. He was

haunted by them.

At daybreak he arose, without a single instant of sleep behind him. His

mind was made up to one purpose. He could not stay in the same house

with Roberta Grand.

Before going in to breakfast at eight o'clock, one of the young men in

the party of the night before asked the clerk at the desk if Mr.

Jenison had come down.

"Mr. Jenison left by the morning stage, Mr. Scott. He had a letter

calling him back to Jenison Hall. Something very important, sir. He

left a note for Miss Beaumont, I believe, to tell her he can't be back

in time for the trip to Natural Bridge."

CHAPTER II

THE STRANGER AT THE HALL

The letter that called David to Jenison Hall came, by curious

coincidence, at a most opportune time. He had decided to leave the

Springs within a day or two, cutting short his proposed stay of a month

almost at its beginning. The advent of Roberta Grand, heretofore an

unknown quantity, brought with it new and unpleasant complications. Her

revelations disturbed him, her attitude angered and disgusted him. It

was from this girl, so amazingly like her father, that he would have

fled in any event. His nature revolted against the possibility of

constant association with her, he scarcely could have maintained even a

perfunctory show of consideration for her. And then something told him

that her confidences would grow, that she would go farther in the

effort to justify her father. He realized that he could not stand by

and hear the things she doubtless would feel called upon to say in

respect to Mary Braddock. His sleepless night had drawn many ugly

pictures for him to efface before he could be at peace with himself.

All through that dismal night he had given his thoughts to these

people, and to three cities,--London, Paris and New York.

In the last of these, Mary Braddock was living. Staring up at the dim,

flickering shadows on the ceiling, he traveled in horrid conjecture

from one to the other of these immense wildernesses. Ahead of him

stalked the ugly figure of Robert Grand, who _knew_--who perhaps had

known all the time; at his side was the knowledge that the five years

had come to an end. Was Mary Braddock, after all, in a position to

redeem her promise?

The candle sputtered and went out. But he was no more in the dark than

he had been all along. If there was to be light, he must make it for

himself. He would not wait for her to speak out of the darkness. He

would search her out, come what may; he would claim Christine.

With his mind full of the decision to go to New York as soon as

possible, where it would be an easy matter to find Colonel Grand, at

least, he hurried down to an early breakfast, successfully evading his

body-servant. There were two letters in his box, products of the night

mail.

One of them caused him to start and almost cry out aloud. It was from

Artful Dick Cronk. The envelope bore the Jenison crest and it had come

from Jenison Hall. A year had passed since he had heard from the

pickpocket.

The missive was brief, as were all of Dick's communications, written or

oral. It said: "Just stopped off on my way north. Niggers say you are

at the Springs. I'll wait here till you come back, if it ain't too

long. Hope this reaches you prompt, because I am in a hurry to get up

to New York. Don't write. You can get here just as quick as a letter.

Maybe quicker."

Except for the schoolboyish signature, that was all; but there was a

world of importance between the laconic lines. David caught the early

morning stage and was on his way over the ridge to the railroad with

old Jeff, before eight o'clock.

He reached home that night, surprising the housekeeper and servants. To

his amazement, they knew absolutely nothing of Dick Cronk. He had not

been there, nor any one answering to the description. David was

thunderstruck. He carefully examined the letter, which he had retained.

There could be no mistake as to the stationery or the postmark. He went

to his room, gravely mystified by the circumstance. A messenger was

sent post haste to the village hard by, with instructions to find Dick

if he were at either of the boarding-houses. The master of Jenison Hall

could not help chuckling to himself in contemplation of the crafty

tricks the writer of the letter had employed in securing his

information and in appropriating stationery.

It was nearly eleven o'clock when the darky boy returned with the word

that no one fitting the description had been seen in the village.

"But he must be there," said the young master, vastly perplexed and not

a little annoyed.

"Yas, sah," agreed the darky, not for a moment questioning the

assertion that fell from his master's lips. If "Marse David" said he

was there, he _was_ there; that is all there could be to it. "He

suttinly mus' be thah, sah. But I 'spec's he mussa fo'got to tell

anybody 'bout hit, sah."

"Ask Jeff to call me early in the morning, Pete," said David. "Good

night."

"Good night, Marse David."

The boy went out, gently closing the door behind him. Almost instantly

it was reopened.

"What now, Pete?" demanded David, who, with his back to the door, was

advancing to the mahogany bureau across the room. He came in line with

the tall mirror that surmounted the chest of drawers. His fingers

stopped suddenly in the light task of removing a pin from his scarf.

Just inside the door stood Artful Dick Cronk, a genial smile reflecting

itself in the mirror which confronted the other. David stared

unbelievingly for a few seconds and then whirled to face the--but it

was not an apparition.

The lean, cunning visage of the pickpocket was illumined by the

never-to-be-forgotten smile of guilelessness that so ably stood him in

hand in moments of peril. The humor of it gradually succumbed to the

satirical leer that always came to translate his strange sophistry into

something more expressive than mere words. He was plainly enjoying the

effect of his magic invasion. To make the puzzle all the more

startling, Mr. Cronk was attired in one of David's loose

dressing-gowns. He wore a pair of comfortable slippers and he smoked

David's picturesque Algerian pipe. A picture of domestic contentment

was he. You might have taken him to be the owner of the house, and not

the sly intruder.

"What are you doing in my room?" Dick demanded, assuming an air of

severity.

David's astonishment gave way to a hearty laugh. He advanced with his

hand extended.

"Well, you _do_ beat the world," he exclaimed. "In the name of heaven,

where did you come from?"

They shook hands. Dick's sprightly face presented a myriad of joyous

wrinkles.

"Where did I come from, kid--I should say, Mr. Jenison? I--"

"Call me David," interrupted the other.

"Sure! Come from? Take a seat, kid. You are my guest for the evening.

Make yourself at home. I've got a couple of toddies planted here behind

the dresser. You see, I was expectin' you." He went over and, reaching

down behind the bureau, came up with two toddy glasses in which the ice

clinked cheerily. "I made 'em just before you came in," he explained.

David passed his hand across his brow. Then he accepted one of the

glasses from the pseudo host.

"Do you mean to tell me that you were in this room all the time I sat

over there waiting--"

Dick put his finger to his lips. "Sh! Not so loud, please. I'm not

really supposed to be here, you know. Just think what heart disease

would do to the wooly old boy that runs the front door if he heard you

talking to me at this time o' night. I'm glad to see you, David. You

got my letter, I see. Well, well, it's wonderful what a two-cent

stamp'll do sometimes. A postage stamp is the greatest detective I know

of. I've had 'em find me time and again, right off the real, when

twenty plain-clothes men couldn't get a smell of me to save their

souls. Sit down, David. Make yourself at home. It's good to see you

here, old chap. I'm sorry you must be leaving so soon."

"Leaving so soon?"

"Yep. You're going away to-morrow." He was sitting now, with his long

legs crossed, leaning lazily back in the lounging chair at the end of

David's desk.

"Don't talk in riddles, Dick. What's up? And how do you happen to be

here, occupying my house without the knowledge of my servants?"

"A simple question, with a simple answer. I've been here two days and

two nights, right here in the house. My bedchamber is down the hall

there, and this has been my lounging room. Of course, I had my meals in

the dining-room--my after-the-theater suppers, you might say. It's been

good fun, foolin' the servants. I hope you don't mind my fakin' grub

from your larder, kid. I used to sit around, unbeknownst to the

niggers, and listen to them talk about spirits and ghosts and all that

sort of thing. It was most amusin'. They couldn't account for the

disappearance of pies and cakes and Sally Lunn--say, how I do love

Sally Lunn. And jam, too. To say nothin' of fried chicken. Say! I've

been living like a prince, kid. Sleepin' in a real bed and hangin'

around in swell togs like these. Say! You _do_ know how to live, David.

You'd have been very much entertained half an hour ago if you could

have seen me swipe a Washington pie and a quart of milk right out from

under the nose of old Aunt Fanny. Milk is my favorite beverage, David.

You notice I'm not drinkin' this fire-water. I made two of 'em for

company's sake, but I still turn my back on the wine when it's pink.

Not for me--not for little Dicky-bird."

"I don't see how you do it, Dick," cried David delightedly.

"That's part of my game, kid--not letting people see how I do anything.

But it's as simple as rollin' off a log, as the jays say. I must

confess--and that is something I make it a rule never to do--that this

high living is not good for me. I'll get into awful habits, if I keep

it up. I won't be satisfied with pretzels and bologny sausages. Seems

to me I feel a touch of the gout coming on now."

"You will have breakfast with me in the dining-room to-morrow morning,

Dick," announced the master of the house. "It won't be necessary to

swipe it, as you call it."

Dick grinned. "My dear chap," he mimicked, "I have my breakfast stowed

away in the garret at this minute. Never put off till to-morrow what

you ought to do to-day. In time of plenty prepare for famine. Still, if

you insist, I'll join you at some ham and eggs--and coffee. I _do_ miss

my coffee, old chap. We take a train for Richmond at nine A. M."

David's patience gave out. "What does it all mean, Dick? I must know at

once. It must be important or you wouldn't--"

"Maybe it's important and maybe it ain't," philosophized Dick,

relighting the long pipe.

"Well, let's have it."

"Tom Braddock's out."

"Out? I don't understand."

Dick's surprise was genuine. "You don't mean to say you never heard

what happened to him?"

"Joey wrote me that he had gone completely to the dogs in Chicago."

"Joey's off his nut. Brad's just out of Sing Sing."

"Sing Sing! The penitentiary?"

"The sure-enough cooler. He's been there for nearly three years."

"Christine's father a convict!" groaned David.

"As I said before, he's out. It may interest you to know that I spent a

year's vacation up there in '78. I needed the rest, old chap. Brad came

in shortly after I got settled. He _had_ been in Chicago for two years,

boning his friends and living like a gutter-snipe. We spent most of our

evenings at Sing Sing on the same piazza. During the day we sauntered

back and forth between our apartments and the academy for physical

research. Just to amuse ourselves we learned to make barrel staves

between times. It was two months before we managed to speak to one

another. After that we corresponded quite reg'lar. I had notes from

him, and he from me. I soon got on to Brad's troubles. Seems that Bob

Grand owed him several thousand dollars. He had owed it for more 'n two

years. Some deal in connection with the show. You remember Brad was

froze out soon after his wife left the aggregation in '75. He says

Grand bulldozed him into duckin' the--I mean, leavin' the show, all the

time owin' him the long green. Seems that Brad hadn't delivered all the

goods mentioned in the bill of sale. Bob wouldn't settle until he got

the goods.

"Well, Brad hung around Chicago, fightin' firewater and always gettin'

licked at it, for two years or more. Then he up and sashayed to New

York for a show-down with our old friend Robert. He had blood in his

eye, Brad had. He'd been buncoed bad, and a bad man hates that worse

than the thought of hell. When he got to New York he hunted up Mr. Bob

Grand, who was just leavin' for England. It seems that Brad's wife and

girl had been located over there by the Colonel, who had never stopped

lookin' for them. Which is more than you could say for Brad. Mrs.

Braddock, through her father and a firm of lawyers, had forced old

Colonel Dough-face to fork over a big wad of greenbacks. Her share in

the show, you understand. Brad heard of it in some way. So he concludes

he'll get in his little graft. He goes to the Colonel's rooms in a

hotel on Broadway, but misses him. Then he lays for him on the street.

They have it hot and heavy, back and forth, and it all ends with the

Colonel puttin' over a job on Brad that lands him in the cooler. Charge

of highway robbery. Brad gets three years in the pen. I'll say this for

him, though; I'm dead sure he wasn't guilty."

Dick paused to relight his pipe.

David was trembling with eagerness. "What did he have to say of Mrs.

Braddock and Christine? I am interested only in them, Dick."

"He's up a tree regardin' them. They never peeped, so far as he's

concerned. He never heard from them after they dusted that time. Of

course, he thinks it was a put-up job, that gag of the Colonel's,

payin' her all that money. He argues that it was all understood between

'em, and that it wasn't a squeeze on her part. The Colonel denied it,

mighty strong, sayin' he had never heard from Mrs. Braddock until her

lawyers and old man Portman came down on him, just after his own wife

had got a divorce from him."

"I have heard," ventured David, "that Mrs. Grand based her complaint on

the fact that her husband was mixed up in some way with an actress."

"She had to have _something_, Davy," said the other. "They faked up an

imitation--that ain't the word--an imaginary actress for the occasion.

Joey Noakes told me all about that. She first tried to get some of the

old crowd to swear that Mrs. Braddock was the one, but she got a

terrible throw-down there. They was all for Mary Braddock, strong. Then

what do you think her lawyers up and does? They actually went to Joey

and offered him ten thousand if he'd let 'em use Ruby's name."

A spasm of rage transfigured the face of the imperturbable rascal. His

hands were clenched and the veins stood out in his temples.

"What a cowardly, outrageous thing to do!" cried David.

Dick did not speak for several minutes, but sat staring at his hands,

his thoughts five hundred miles away. At last his lips spread into a

dry, crippled smile.

"Joey told 'em to go to hell. And he rather helped the guy along the

route by kickin' him half-way down stairs. If he hadn't caught himself

against the railing half-way down, he'd 'a' been in the bad place these

last four years. I wish to state at this point, Davy, that for the past

four years I've made it my business to make that guy wish he was there

a hundred times over. It's mighty hard to do a lawyer, but I've got

that feller so's he sits up nights, looking like a ghost, waitin' to

see what's going to happen to him if he should accidentally fall

asleep. But, 'nough of that. After I got out of the pen I dropped in to

see Joey. He was just organizin' that road pantomime show of his. He

told me all about Mrs. Grand's proposal, and I was for cutting the

dame's throat, only he wouldn't hear to it. You been in Joey's home in

Tenth Street, haven't you? I mean the old one, just a little ways off

Broadway. Well, you remember _them_ stairs? Can you imagine bein'

kicked down them stairs? Gee whiz! How I'd like to ha' been there!

Well, you know all about Joey's pantomime fizzle. It almost busted the

old boy's heart. He went stony broke the first year. Him and Ruby had

to go over to live in an awful place on the east side, just off the

Bowery. It happened to be right near the joint where Ernie and me hang

out in the winter time. Our palatial residence then was back of a

cobbler's shop, two flights off the sidewalk. I can't say that it's as

sunny and as nicely aired as your joint here, kid, but it's harder to

get inside of. And it would be impossible to get out if you once got

in, unless you had a recommend from one of the gang. Seven of us hangs

out there now. Maybe I'll show you the joint some time, if you can keep

your jaw shut about it.

"But I'm gettin' off the trail. After Joey's bust up, Centennial year,

who comes along and offers him a stake but old Colonel Grand. Offers to

lend him money enough to start all over again. That's where Joey made

his mistake. The old jay took the money and started all over again

with--"

David started to his feet. "Impossible!" he exclaimed. "Why, I--I

myself, Dick, lent him the money three years ago to get on his feet

again."

"Sure you did. I haven't come to that yet. I said he took a couple of

thousand from the Colonel. That was before you come into it, and he was

so ashamed of it he never told you. Well, out they go on the road

again, with him as the clown, Ruby as the columbine, Casey as harlequin

and a guy named Smith as pantaloon. They had a show something like

Humpty Dumpty. But you know all about that."

"Perfectly," said David, smiling reflectively. "I was with the show for

a week on the road in '78. I must say I liked the rough old tent days

better than the life they led in those abominable country town opera

houses."

"Umph!" was the other's comment. "That's originally the way the

Colonel's wife took it into her head to drag Ruby in if she could.

Well, what does the Colonel do, after the show gets to going well, but

drop in occasionally just as he did to Van Slye's circus, and proceed

before long to make love to Ruby. Yes, sir! That's what he did, the

hell-rotter that he is. Soon as Joey finds out his game, he up and

takes a fall out of him. Then the Colonel threatens to put him out of

business. Right then and there is where Joey writes to you for help.

You fork over proper-like, as you should, and he pays back what he owes

Grand, preferring to owe you. So he got rid of the devil for more than

forty days. That's about the time I goes to the pen. I carelessly lets

myself get nabbed, actin' on Ernie's advice. He's a slick kid, that boy

is. He ain't goin' to let me get hung if he can help it. You see, I'm

booked for hangin', sure as fate; he knows it as well as I do, only

he's smart enough to want to put it off till I'm so old I won't mind

it. So I goes to the pen just to keep from killin' Bob Grand. A year in

the cooler makes you see things most sensible-like. I knowed that when

I went in. If I'd waited a week after hearin' Joey's story of that

dog's attentions to Ruby, I'd ha' been in Kingdom Come long ago, and so

would he. We'd both been down below to welcome Mrs. Grand's lawyer when

he arrived. So, actin' on Ernie's advice, I gets pinched the second

night after hearin' about it. Ernie's a humane cuss. He saved two

lives, then and there."

"You deliberately put yourself in prison?" cried David.

"Just to postpone the hangin', kid, that's all."

"It's all rubbish, this talk of hanging," protested the other. "You're

too kind-hearted, Dick, to kill a fly."

"There'll be a rope around my guzzle some time, Davy, just as sure as

you're sittin' there," said Artful Dick, and, notwithstanding his

careless laugh, a perceptible gleam of terror showed in his eyes for an

instant. "But I'm wandering again. When I was up to Sing Sing I tumbled

to what was on Brad's mind. He thinks she turn him down for Grand. The

more he thought of it, the more full of the devil he got. Just before I

left the place he wrote me a long letter and slipped it to me in a hunk

of bread. He said he'd made up his mind to kill her and Grand as soon

as he got out. You can tell by a convict's looks whether he's bluffin'

or not. I tell you, Davy, I sees it in Brad's face. He meant what he

said. He's going to do it, as sure as fate. He ain't got anything to

live for and he ain't going to let the two of 'em live any longer than

he does."

"And you say he's out? Dick, we must do something to prevent this

awful--"

"Sit down, Davy. You can't get a train till tomorrow. Besides, there's

time enough. The first thing I does after I leaves the coop was to

hustle down to see Joey. I put him on to Brad's bad talk, and he

promised to keep a sharp lookout for him. At that time Mrs. Braddock

was livin' in London, but Joey didn't know it. I found out later on

through Ernie. He got her whereabouts by pumpin' a coachman who worked

for her father, old man Portman. It seems that while she wouldn't take

money from the old man, she appealed to him to help her in gettin' what

was due her from the sale of the show. She went to Europe a couple of

months after she left the show, a school friend puttin' up for her, I

understand. Her dad was willin' to forgive her, after she'd tied the

can to Brad, but she says nix. She changed her name and took charge of

this school friend's children who were being educated in London, givin'

their mother a chance to chase around Europe without bein' bothered by

kids. When she got the dough out of old Bob Grand she puts Christine in

a school some 'eres and--"

"Thank God, and you, Dick, for this news," cried David fervently. "I

knew that she could do nothing but the right thing. Go on!"

"Well, about six months ago, her stepmother up and dies. The old man

promptly sends for her to come back and cheer his declinin' years, as

the novel writers say. Ernie writes all this to me and I gets the

letter a couple of months ago down in New Orleans, where I was

attendin' Mardi Gras, a sort of annual custom of mine, don't you know,

old chap, by Jove! I'm terrible careless about my correspondence, which

accounts for my neglectin' to write this to you. However, I'm not so

careless that I neglected to write this to Ruby--a thing I do reg'lar

every month, some months. Four days ago, in Looieville, I gets two

letters, one from her and one from Ernie. Ernie knows everything. He's

seen Christine nearly every day for three months, but she ain't seen

him. Poor devil of an Ernie! I made him what he is--I banged him up for

life."

"It was an accident, Dick. Don't take it--"

"Nix. It ain't no accident when you kick a four-year-old kid down a

flight of stairs. Well, anyhow, they both write me that Tom Braddock is

in New York and actin' terrible ugly. He's layin' for Bob Grand. As

luck would have it, the Colonel is off attendin' the races along the

spring circuit, and Ernie says he won't be back in New York for three

or four days. Mrs. Braddock has got her father down South some-'eres,

but the servants are expectin' 'em back this week."

"Then we may be in time. We must not lose a minute, Dick. If Tom

Braddock carries out his threat, we'll be to blame--you and I.

Christine,--where is she? What is she like? What do they say of her?"

"Ruby's been on the road, so she don't mention having seen her. And,

say, Davy, don't be sore at me for what I'm going to say now. It's this

way: Ernie made me promise never to tell you anything about her--how

she looks--how she acts, where she is, or anything. I've only told you

where her mother is, mind you. You'll have to guess about Christie. You

see, Davy, that boy's sure jealous of you yet. I--I--guess you

understand."

David nodded his head without speaking. He understood. There was

nothing for him to say. "I'll find her myself," he said, beginning to

pace the floor in his excitement. "She must be beautiful. She must be

all that her mother promised. But, Dick!"

He stopped short, struck by a sudden thought. "Why hasn't Mrs. Braddock

written to me? She promised. The five years have passed. We were to see

each other at the end of five--"

"Well, maybe you will, kid. Don't get peevish. I guess Mrs. Braddock

knows her business. Has it ever occurred to you that there might be

another Romeo lookin' at Christie? Five years is quite a spell. Girls

are fickle brutes."

"For God's sake, Dick, if you _do_ know of anything like that, tell me."

"Cross my heart, Davy, I _don't_ know, and that's straight."

"We _must_ catch the first train in the morning."

"Don't hop around like that, Davy; you'll upset something. You can't

hurry a train, kid. We'll catch it, all right. Sit down. Get a pipe and

take a smoke. Keep cool. That's our game, kid. If you go bumpin' into

old man Portman's house without bein' sure you're wanted, you might

get--well, I won't say what!"

"You're right, Dick. She may have forgotten me. She may have asked her

mother not to write to me. I've waited and hoped and counted on having

her--I've checked off the weeks and months and years. I wonder if you

can understand how it is when you care as much as I do, and always

have? No one knows. It's all in a fellow's own heart. It--"

"Oh, I've had a case or two myself, kid. It ain't nothin' new, this

crimp you've got," said Dick, putting his heels on the desk. "Adam had

it. So did Solomon, only he had it in so many places he got so he

didn't mind it. Think of them guys that have harems. Think of Brigham

Young. Why, kid, you don't know the first thing about love pains. Think

of the guy with the harem and _his_ guesswork! He's got something to

worry about, he has. It's awful when you've got to love a couple of

hundred of 'em at once, and them all hatin' you like poison. And old

Brigham--think of him settin' up all hours of the night, wonderin'

whether she loves him as much as she used to, and not being able to

remember just which _she_ he's thinkin' about. Brace up, kid. It's only

a rash you've got. If Christie has given you the shake just remember

how easy it was for Brigham to collect 'em. The woods are full of 'em."

"But, good Lord, Dick," cried David, laughing in spite of himself, "I'm

not a Mormon."

"Kid, every man's a Mormon at heart. Just cram that in your pipe. And

every woman, no matter how ugly she is, thinks she's a siren. It's in

the blood of both sexes, this Mormonism and sirenism. Oh, don't look so

surprised, kid. I got some of my views out of the dictionary, but most

of 'em came from observin' people as they look to me from my own level.

I have a way of bringin' everybody down to my own level, kid, and I

find, except for that commandment about stealin', we all have about the

same amount of cussedness in us some'eres. It's human nature to be bad,

or to want to be bad. We'd all be a little bit bad, from time to time,

if we wasn't afraid of being found out. Course, it comes in different

size doses. Some girls think it's terrible bad just to wink at a

feller, but they do it because it's bad and not because it's

sanctimonious, you bet. Then there are other girls who'd cut your

throat with a razor while you're asleep. You bet they wouldn't be doing

that if it was considered good. All men have got deviltry in 'em, and

all women mischief. The women like the men for the deviltry, and it's

the mischief in women that plays the devil with the men. It don't

appear on the surface, but it's there just the same."

"What amazing philosophy," laughed David.

"I've been gettin' philosophy up in your attic, Davy," said Dick with a

quaint grin. "I read some'eres that all philosophers get in their real

work in attics. Now, I guess we'd better turn in. I don't think you'll

do much sleepin' to-night, so you'd--"

"First, Dick," interrupted David, rising to pull the old-fashioned bell

cord in the corner of the big chamber, "we'll have a bite of supper. I

want to introduce you to my servants."

"Hold on!" Dick came to his feet quickly. "It's my treat. You wait

here. I've got a fine supper goin' to waste up in the garret. I copped

it out early this evening. Poke up the fire there, Davy, and don't try

to foller me."

He was gone, the door to the hall closing gently behind him. There was

not a sound to be heard in the house. Outside the frogs were

chattering, and a nearby owl hooted dolefully. David stood still in the

center of the room, his gaze fixed on the hall door. He counted the

minutes, expecting, in spite of his preparedness, to be startled when

the door opened with ghostly ease to admit the lank figure of the

"dip." There was a certain sense of dread in the knowledge that

somewhere off in the dark, silent halls a stealthy, noiseless, almost

sinister thing was moving--moving with the swiftness and caution of a

weasel, but with all the merry purpose of a harlequin. David

experienced a grewsome, uncanny desire to shiver. He remembered Dick's

admonition and was about to turn to the fireplace, in which the logs

were no longer blazing.

Suddenly the door opened. He could have sworn that the knob had not

turned. There had not been the faintest sound, and yet Dick Cronk

stepped quickly, confidently into the room, a grin on his face. In one

hand he bore a fair-sized package, done up in a napkin.

"You are the ghostliest thing I've ever known," said David with a

nervous laugh of relief. "How do you do it?"

"Simple twist of the wrist," said Dick, employing a phrase of the day.

"Gee, how tired you must be, after pokin' up the fire like that!"

David hastened to do his part of the pantomime. When he turned from the

replenished fireplace a cold supper was spread on the desk, the napkin

serving as a tablecloth. There were knives, forks and spoons, and a

china plate apiece. A pitcher of milk stood at one end, a bottle of

claret at the other, with tumblers beside them. In the center of the

board was a plate of fried chicken, some young onions, freshly baked

bread, salt, pepper, and, most wonderful of all,--Aunt Fanny's newest

marble-cake, huge and aggressive.

The master of the house stared open-mouthed at this amazing feast.

Where had it all come from? How had it been transported?

"Well, I'll be hanged!" he gasped.

Dick shuddered. "Don't say that! It gives me the Willies. Sit down,

friend, and make yourself at home. Ah! This is real comfort! Don't you

think I'd make some woman a fine husband? I'm no slouch as a provider,

am I?"

It was after two o'clock when Artful Dick Cronk whispered good night

and slipped out into the hall. He carried with him all the plates,

cutlery and remnants of the midnight feast, having remarked in advance

that a careful operator never left anything "half finished." It was his

purpose to restore every article except the food, to the place from

which he had taken it. He and David chuckled joyously over the fresh

amazement of Aunt Fanny in the morning; she had been living in a state

of dread for three appalling days, as it was.

The next morning Dick appeared at breakfast with his host. He rescued

Zuley Ann's greatly prized silver watch from the steaming coffee urn,

and picked Jeff's pocket-book from the mouth of a lamp chimney,

afterwards restoring the thirty-eight cents it contained. Strangely

enough, he took the coins from the wool on Jeff's head. If ever a

negro's wool undertook to stand on end it was at that moment. Zuley

Ann's eyes were permanently enlarged. I have it on excellent authority.

At eight o'clock they were off for Richmond and the New York express.

CHAPTER III

THE MAN WHO SERVED HIS TIME

Long before the train reached the station in New York, David and Dick

parted company. The shrewd but whimsical scamp presented at

considerable length the problem of virtue and vice stalking arm in arm,

as it were, through the streets of New York; he pictured, with extreme

unction, the doleful undoing of virtue and the practiced escape of vice.

"Kid," said he, "the first cop that laid eyes on us meanderin' down

Broadway would land on us like a rat-terrier. Being a clever devil, I'd

hook it and give him the slip. But you, kid! Where would you be, little

innocent? How far would virtue and justice carry you up an alley with a

cop at your coat tails? Nix, kid. We go it alone after we leave Newark.

That's the trouble with this world. Nothing's plumb square. Now, here's

the point: Virtue's all right if it trots alone. But just let Virtue

hook up with Vice for ten minutes, unsuspecting like, and see what the

world says. Kid, that little ten minutes of bad company would upset a

lifetime of continuous Sundays. 'Specially in the eyes of a cop. A cop

ain't acquainted with virtue. My advice to the young and innocent is to

avoid evil companions and cops. It's a long ways to heaven, and

lonesome traveling at that, but it's only a step to hell, and the

crowdin' is something awful. It's mighty nigh impossible to turn back

once you get started, on account of the mob. I'm not saying you won't

run across worse guys than I am at the swell hotel you'll stop at, but

they ain't on speaking terms with the police."

David went to one of the big hotels patronized by all well to do

Southerners of the day. At the railway station he looked about for the

philosophic jailbird, but he was not to be seen. The Virginian drove to

the hotel, conscious of a strange loneliness, now that the resourceful

rogue was not at his elbow. He found some consolation in Dick's promise

to communicate with him before the close of the following day, when

doubtless he would be able to furnish news of interest, if not of

importance.

The next morning saw David on his way to the home of Joey Noakes, far

down town and to the west of Washington Square. He knew the house. He

had been there before. A narrow, quaint little place it was,

reminiscent in an exterior sort of way of the motley gentleman who

solemnly called it his castle. You climbed a tall stoop flanked on

either side by flower boxes, and rattled a heavy knocker that had all

the marks of English antiquity,--and English servility,--and then you

waited for the trim little housemaid, who betimes was a slavey below

stairs and not permitted to answer the knocker until she had donned her

cap and apron and rolled down her sleeves--and slipped on her cuffs,

for that matter. If you were an unpleasantly long time in gaining

admittance, you might be sure that she was also changing her shoes or

perhaps brushing her hair. In any event, after you knocked it was some

time before she opened the door, and then you were immediately

impressed by the conviction that her brightly shining face had scarcely

recovered from the application of a convenient "wash rag," and that she

seemed deplorably out of breath. But she was neat and clean and quite

English.

As for that, everything about the establishment was English. The

window-boxes, from basement to garret; the way the curtains hung in

rigid complaisance; the significant name-plate on the middle panel of

the door: "Joseph Grinaldi, Esq."; the minute plot of grass alongside

the steps that led to the basement, with a treasured rose-bush in the

corner thereof. You were positive, without looking, that Joey had a

back yard which he called a garden, and that it possessed everything

desirable except a vista--and he would have that if it were not for

"the houses in between," to say nothing of the high board fence he had

built to keep out all prowling beasts--including humanity--with the

double exception of cats and sparrows. Although it was a typical,

hemmed-in New York house, you wouldn't have thought of calling the

chimneys anything but pots, nor would you have called the shingles by

any other name than slates.

Joey was at home. He was expecting David, which accounts for the prompt

appearance of the sprightly maid, and the genial shout of welcome from

the top of the stairs.

"Come in, my lad," called Joey, bounding down the steps with all the

resilience of a youth of twenty. "My crimes, I'm 'appy to see you."

They shook hands warmly, the little maid bobbing her head in rhythmic

appreciation.

"You knew I was coming?" asked David, following the old man into the

"drawing-room."

"I found a note under the door this morning, David, left there

mysterious-like during the night. It was left by the fairies, I

daresay, although the 'and-writing was scarcely wot you'd call dainty."

Joey pulled a knowing wink.

"Dick Cronk," announced David. "He came up with me. Braddock is in the

city, Joey."

"Sit down in that chair by the winder, David. So! Wot a 'andsome chap

you've got to be! My eye! Ruby will be proper crazy about you. I beg

pardon: you mentioned Tom Braddock. Well, he was a setting right there

where you are not more than twenty-four hours ago."

"You don't mean it!"

"Ruby will be in before long," rambled the old clown, thoroughly

enjoying himself. "She's off to the market. Do you know, Davy, she's a

most wonderful manager, that girl o' mine. We've been in from the road

for nearly a month now--closed the most prosperous season on record at

Rochester, New York, on the 17th of May--and Ruby 'ad the 'ouse running

like it 'ad been oiled inside o' two hours arfter we got off the cars.

She's a--Oh, we was talking of Brad, wasn't we? Well, let me see. Oh,

yes, he was 'ere yesterday. And now you're 'ere to-day. It's marvelous

'ow things do go. Brad asked arfter you."

"I suppose so," said David impatiently. "But, tell me, Joey, what is

his game? What is he in New York for?"

The old clown did not answer at once. He pursed his lips and stared in

a troubled sort of way at the leg of David's chair. Then he began to

fill his pipe. His hand trembled noticeably.

Saving the snowy whiteness of his hair, Grinaldi did not appear to be

an hour older than in the days of Van Slye's. His merry, wrinkled face

was as ruddy, as keen, as healthy as it ever had been. No one would

have called him sixty-five, and yet he was beyond that in years.

"He's 'ere for no good purpose, I'm afraid," said he, at last. "In a

way, I'm kind o' sorry for Brad, David. He'd 'a' been a different sort

o' man if it 'adn't been for Bob Grand. If ever a chap 'ad an evil

genius, Brad 'ad one in that man. I suppose Dick told you Brad's been

up for two or three year, doing time. Not but wot he deserved it, the

way he treated Mary, but it don't seem just right that Bob Grand should

be the one to send 'im up. Mary 'ad nothink to do with it, but you

can't make Brad believe that. He's got it in 'is 'ead that she's been

working with Grand all along. I talked to 'im for two hours yesterday,

but I couldn't shake 'im. He's a broken man--but he's a determined one.

The time served up at Sing Sing 'ad one benefit to it: it dried up all

the whiskey that was in 'im. He came out of there with 'is eyes and 'is

mind as clear as whistles, and he's not the feller you used to know,

David. He's twenty years older, and his face ain't no longer bloated;

it's haggard and full o' lines. His hair is nearly as white as mine.

And 'ere's the great thing about 'im: he ain't drinking a drop. He says

he never will drink another drop, so long as he lives. Do you know why?"

The old man leaned forward and spoke with a serious intentness that

sent a cold chill to the heart of his young friend.

"He says he ain't going to take any chances on bungling the job he's

set out to do," went on Joey slowly. "He wants to be plumb sober when

he does it, so's it will be done proper."

"You mean--murder?"

"That's just it, David. He's going to kill Bob Grand."

"Joey, we must prevent that!" exclaimed David, rising and beginning to

pace the floor. "There is time to stop him. Grand is not in the city.

We must get Braddock away. Think what it would mean to--to Christine

and her mother! Why, it's--"

"Brad ain't going to stop to think about 'ow it will affect them. He's

only got one idea in his 'ead. He'll 'ave it out with Mary beforehand,

if he gets the chance, but he won't do 'er bodily injury. He swears he

won't do that. He admits he's done 'er enough 'arm. Do you know wot he

told me?--and he cried like a baby when he told me, too. David, he

actually sold 'is wife to Bob Grand when he gave up the show."

"Good heaven, Joey!"

"He told me so 'isself, sitting right there. But he says he 'ad sunk so

low in them days, pushed along by Grand, that there wasn't anything too

mean for 'im to do. He told me he stole your pocket-book--and a lot of

other cruel nasty things he did besides. But he said it was

whiskey--and I believe 'im. You see, David, I knowed 'im when he was as

straight as a string, and a manly chap he was, too--even if 'is father

was an old scamp. He ain't making any excuses for 'isself--not a bit of

it. He says he's a scoundrel."

David sat down limply, stunned by the news of Tom Braddock's depravity.

"But if he is sober and in his right senses, he must feel the most

poignant remorse after that one terrible act," cried the young man. "He

surely must know that she did not fall into the trap--that she actually

fled to escape it. He knows all this, Joey. I think he loved her--in

his way. I know he loved Christine. We must get at him from that

side--the side of his love for the girl, the side of fairness. If he

feels remorse, as you say, all is not lost to him. Where can we find

him to-day, Joey? To-morrow may be too late."

"Wot does Dick say?" asked the old clown, puffing at his pipe. His

calmness served its purpose. David stared and then relaxed.

"To tell you the truth, I'd forgotten Dick. Before we parted yesterday,

it was understood between us that I was to do nothing until I had heard

from him. He promised to find Braddock and report to me--by letter. Of

course, he did not know that you had seen him, or he would have come

last night to talk it over with you in--"

Joey held up his hand and shook his head. "Oh, no, he wouldn't, David.

Dick thinks too much of me to come 'ere. You see, it would never do for

him to be seen frequentin' this 'ouse. I've _invited_ him 'ere, I'll

say that; but he's too square to come. He says it would injure me, and

my 'ouse would be watched as long as I live in it. And, besides, it

wouldn't be right to Ruby. Once or twice he 'as sneaked in as a peddler

or a plumber, by arrangement, poor chap, but never openly."

To David's annoyance, Joey went into a long dissertation on the

inscrutable virtues of Dick Cronk, concluding with the sage but

somewhat ambiguous remark that it not only "takes a thief to catch a

thief," but that an honest man is usually a thief when he is caught in

the company of thieves.

"You see, Davy, we ain't with the circus now. We're at 'ome in our own

'ouse, and things is different. A circus is one thing and a man's

castle is another. Leastwise, that's wot Dick says. He says I'm too old

to be caught in bad company. I'd die before I could live it down. He's

an odd chap, he is. And now, in regard to Brad, just you keep cool

until you 'ears from Dick. You can't afford to stir up a row. Old man

Portman and Mary and Christine won't thank you for stirring things up.

They're not anxious to 'ave a scandal. If you go arfter Brad too rough,

it will percipitate matters instead of 'olding them back. And he'll

know to onct that you are acting for his wife--a sort of go-between,

don't you see. That will make it the wuss for 'er. So, just 'old

yourself in, David. Now, let's talk about somethink else. Yourself, for

instance."

David resignedly settled back, and was at once involved in an exchange

of personal narrative.

"I 'ave retired from the stage," remarked Joey, putting his thumbs in

the armholes of his velvet waistcoat. "I am too old to go clowning it

any longer. This was my last season. I've got a comfortable income,

thanks to you, David, and I'm going to spend the rest of my days in

peace and quiet--if you call New York quiet, wot with the church bells

and the milkmen. Three seasons in the pantomime, doing all the

one-night stands in this bloomin' country, is enough for Joey. If you

'adn't staked me when I was stony broke three years ago, Davy, I'd be

in the poor 'ouse now, I daresay. You saved the show for me and I'm

properly grateful to you, even though you won't let me mention it. Next

season Ruby will go out with the show, but I'm getting a new clown.

That is, she'll go unless something important 'appens to pervent."

He screwed up his eye very mysteriously.

"What is likely to happen, Joey?"

"Well," said he, "girls do get married."

"You don't mean to say Ruby's going to be married!" David's thoughts

ran to Dick Cronk, although he knew there was no possible chance for

him.

"Well, there's a chap mighty attentive to 'er these days. You never can

tell. She's a 'ansome girl and--but I daresay it's best not to count

chickens before they're 'atched. I don't mind saying, 'owever," he went

on rather wistfully, "I'd like to see Ruby 'appily married and retired

from the stage. It's wuss than the circus, my lad. The temptations are

greater and there ain't so much honor among the people you're thrown

with. The stage is surrounded by a pack of wolves just as vicious as

Bob Grand ever was, and a girl's got to be mighty spry to dodge 'em."

"Is--her best young man a desirable fellow?" asked David, feeling very

sorry for the outcast who had not so much as asked for a chance.

"Capital chap. He's a newspaper man, but I can't say that it's anything

very damaging against 'im. He seems a very sober chap and thrifty. You

wouldn't believe it, but it's quite true."

"I'm sure I wish her all the happiness in the world."

"She can't quite make up 'er mind to leave the stage," mused Joey. "And

he won't 'ave 'er unless she does, for good and all. So there you are."

"If she loves him, she'll give it up."

"She loves 'im all right," said Joey. "I know it, because she never

talks about 'im. I don't see wot's keeping her. She could ha' gone to

market and back five times--Hello!" He was peering through the little

front window. A huge smile beamed in his face. With a chuckle, he

called his visitor to the window. "Sh! Don't let 'er see the curtain

move! She'd take our 'eads off. See that chap? _That_'s why she's been

so long to market."

Ruby was walking slowly down the opposite sidewalk, attended by a tall,

strong-featured young fellow whose very attitude toward her bespoke

infatuation. They crossed the street and stood for a long time at the

bottom of the steps, laughing and talking, utterly unconscious of

surveillance. Then she shook hands with her courtier, tapped his cheek

lightly with the grocer's book which she carried, and ran lightly up

the steps. The tall young man, his face aglow, stood motionless where

she left him, his straw hat in hand, until she entered the house and

closed the door behind her. David's last glimpse of the suitor

presented that person, with his chest out, his hands in his pockets,

striding off down the street, very much as if he owned it. The young

Virginian barely had time left to turn away from the window before Ruby

swept into the room.

He had noted, as she stood below, that her figure was a trifle fuller;

she was a bit more dashing, and a great deal handsomer than when he had

seen her last. Somehow, David, without intending to do so, found

himself mentally picturing her ten years hence: a stout, good-natured

matron with a double chin and a painful effort to disguise it.

He was not taken aback when she rushed over, with a little scream of

delight, and kissed him resoundingly. After which she shook hands with

him. It was what he expected. You could have heard the three of them

talking if you had been on the sidewalk, but you could not have made

head or tail of the conversation. Joey repeated a single remark four

times, without being heard by either of his companions. It referred to

a joyful reunion and a mug of ale.

At length Ruby gave over rhapsodizing on the tallness, the broadness

and the elegance of their visitor, and rushed to the hall door. Raising

her voice, she called out to some one down the hall:

"Millie!"

"Yes, Miss Ruby," came the instantaneous response, suggesting a

surprised propinquity.

"Goodness! I thought you were downstairs--But never mind! Don't forget

what I told you about the new radishes."

"No, Miss Ruby, they shall not be forgot," said the trim little maid,

bobbing in the doorway.

"Mr. Jenison likes his waffles crisp," added Miss Noakes. To David she

said: "I love waffles and honey for lunch, don't you?"

"I do," responded David. "But I didn't know I was to stop for lunch."

"Father, didn't you tell him?" demanded Ruby.

"I surely did," prevaricated Joey; "but you were both talking so 'ard

he didn't 'ear me."

During luncheon, which was blissfully served by Millie, David took

occasion to compliment Ruby on her good looks, her success and her

prospects.

"Don't guy me, David," she cried, turning quite red.

"If every girl I know could enjoy such improvement in five years, I'm

sure--" began David gallantly.

"I suppose you're thinking of Christine Braddock when you say that,"

said she shrewdly.

He had the grace to blush.

"Well, let me tell you, David, she's the prettiest thing on two legs--I

should say, on two continents. Goodness, a girl does pick up such awful

expressions on the stage! I'm just perfectly awful."

"She is beautiful?" asked David, his heart-beats quickening.

"She's what you might call ravishing," proclaimed Ruby. "And she's very

elegant, too."

"She don't forget 'er old friends, though," said Joey hastily. "She

sent me that geranium over there larst month and she--"

"Never mind, dad. David isn't interested in her or what she does. Tell

me about Colonel Grand's daughter."

"How do you happen to know--"

"Oh, a little Dicky-bird told me," she said. "It was in the newspaper I

take that you and she were at the Springs at the same time. Oh, I read

the society news. Is she pretty?"

"She reminds me of her father."

"Then she looks like that African gazelle we had with Van Slye's! Poor

girl!"

"I don't like her," said David. Then he related his experience with the

young woman. His hearers were disgusted but not surprised.

"They're all alike," commented Joey. "They're bad, them Grands--father,

mother and daughter. First one, then the other tried to bribe me and

Ruby. I sometimes believe the wife's as bad as he is, only in a

different way."

They were still seated at the table, discussing the Grands, when a

heavy knock came at the front door.

"Who can that be?" said Joey, glancing at his daughter, who was

suddenly quiet. The knock was repeated before Millie was instructed to

go to the door.

She admitted some one, after a moment's parley. The husky, low-toned

voice of a man came to the ears of those in the dining-room. As Joey

arose to investigate, the maid came in.

"It's the same man who was 'ere yesterday, Mr. Noakes. He says as he's

'ungry."

"Braddock," said Joey in a half whisper.

The man was standing just inside the front door; his dim figure was

silhouetted red against the narrow, colored glass window in the

casement. Something told them he was fumbling his hat and that his head

was bent.

"Ask him to come in here, father," said Ruby promptly. "I can't bear to

see a man hungry. I don't care who or what he is."

Joey looked at David in doubt and perplexity. David, who had clutched

the back of his chair with tense fingers, nodded his head. The old man,

obeying the second but unvoiced entreaty of his daughter, strode out

into the hall. They heard the low mutter of masculine voices, one in

evident protest, the other cordially insistent.

"He's changed quite a bit," whispered Ruby,

David rose to his feet and stood staring blankly at the man who

followed Joey into the dining-room, the man who had struck the

never-to-be-forgotten blow. Could this gray, lean, shuffling creature

be the leonine, despotic Tom Braddock of other days?

The man stopped just inside the door and fixed his sullen gaze steadily

upon the face of the Virginian. Without glancing at Ruby, he uttered a

curt "Howdy do, Ruby."

"I guess we ain't expected to shake hands," said Braddock, a twisted

smile on his lips.

"I can't shake the hand that struck me as yours did when I could not

defend myself," said David coldly.

"'Ere, 'ere," remonstrated Joey nervously. "We can't 'ave any old

quarrels took up in my 'ouse."

"_I'm_ not quarreling, Joey," said Braddock, still watching David's

face. David had the feeling, quite suddenly, that he was looking into

eyes he had never seen before--intent, hard, steady eyes that were full

of purpose. They were no longer blood-shot and protruding: they seemed

to slink back under the pallid, bony brow, looking forth with a sort of

cunning that suggested a hiding animal, nothing less.

The change in Tom Braddock was astounding. David had always thought of

him as the bullying, bloated giant, purple-faced and blear-eyed. His

face was thin and gray--with the pallor of the prison still upon it;

his cheeks were sunken, and the heavy stubble of beard that filled the

hollows was a dirty white. One would have guessed this apparition of

Tom Braddock to be sixty years of age, at least. His hair, still rather

closely cropped, was no longer black, but a defiant, obtrusive gray.

The heavy neck was now thin and corded; the broad shoulders drooped as

if deprived of all their youthful power. His aggressive mustache of the

old days was gone, laying bare a broad, firmly set lip. The cheap jeans

clothing that fell to him when he left the penitentiary hung loosely on

his frame, for he had lost many pounds; the coat was buttoned close

about his throat, albeit the day was warm. He wore no collar. His

"hickory" shirt was soiled. He had slept in these garments for many

nights.

The contrast was appalling. That this cadaverous, prideless individual

could once have been the vain-glorious showman was almost

inconceivable. It is no wonder that David stared.

"Well, I guess you've changed about as much as I have," said Braddock,

reading the other's thoughts. He uttered a bitter laugh as he turned to

drag a chair up to the table, with something of the assurance of old.

"I hope I've changed as much for the better as you have, Braddock,"

said David, and he meant it.

Braddock whirled to glare at him in wonder. He was silent for a moment.

Then he flung himself into the chair, his jaws setting themselves

firmly, no trace of the sarcastic smile remaining.

"I guess you have, David," he said shortly. "You're not what you were

when you joined us five years ago." A sneer came to his lips. "What a

high and mighty chap you've come to be. No wonder you won't shake hands

with a jail-bird."

"Stop talking, Tom Braddock," said Ruby, a gleam of anxiety in her

eyes. "Here's what's left of the lamb and here's--"

"Wait a minute, Ruby," said he. With his elbows on the edge of the

table and his chin in his broad, sinewy hands he leaned forward and

spoke again to David. "I've been out three weeks. I was up there for

two years and a half. I'm just telling you this so's you'll know why

I've changed. The whiskey's all out of me. There never will be any more

inside of me, do you understand that? Ten years ago I was a man--wasn't

I, Joey? I was a dog when you knew me, Jenison. Now, I'm a man again.

See these hands? Well, they've been doing honest work, even if it was

in a convict barrel factory. I'm ten times stronger than I was before.

There isn't a soft muscle in my body. What you miss is the fat--the

whiskey fat. I'm gray-headed, but who wouldn't be? But that is not what

I'm trying to get at. I saw Dick Cronk this morning. I don't know how

he found me. He told me you were up here to take a hand in my affairs.

What I want to know, right here, Jenison, is this: Where is your friend

Bob Grand and where is _she?_"

He spoke quite calmly, but there was a deliberate menace in his tones.

David was startled. An angry retort leaped to his lips, but he choked

it back.

"You are very much mistaken, Braddock, if you consider me the friend of

Colonel Grand. I hate him quite as bitterly as you do. I--"

"Oh, no, you don't," snapped the other. "No one in all this world, from

its very beginning, has ever hated as I hate."

"He is no friend of mine," reiterated David. "I think you know me well

enough to believe that I do not lie. I have not seen him in five years."

Braddock stared hard at him. Suddenly he leaned back with a deep breath

of relief. "I believe you," he said. "You don't know how to lie. Well,

what are you doing here, then, mixing in my affairs?"

"We'll talk about that later on," said David. "Here is food, man. Eat.

You are half-starved. Have you no money?"

"Money? Say, do you think they pay you up _there_? I _am_ hungry. Not a

mouthful since yesterday noon. Before I touch this grub, Joey, I want

to say to you that I don't deserve it of you. I sold you all out. I

wasn't square with you. But it was drink and--and that devil behind me

all the time. I took your pocket-book that night, David. I stole it. I

guess I was crazy most of the time in those days. I don't say I'll ever

pay it back. I'm not apologizing for it, either. I'm just telling you.

I meant to get all you had, but--well, I wasn't mean enough to crack

you over the head. It would have been the only way--"

"Don't speak of it, Braddock," interrupted Jenison painfully. "That's

all past and gone."

"I've paid for some of my sins--but not all of 'em," said Braddock.

"Not all of 'em."