He fell to eating ravenously. The others sat back, stiff and

uncomfortable, watching him. His sunken but powerful jaws crunched the

food with some of the ferocity of a beast. It came forcefully to the

minds of the two men that they were looking upon a man whose great

sinews were of steel, who could have crushed either of them in the

long, hard arms that stretched forth to seize the food Ruby had placed

before him. They were slowly coming to realize the bent of this man's

mind during its savage development in prison. He had slaved to a

purpose. The same thought grew in the mind of each observer: what

chance would Robert Grand have in the naked hands of his enemy?

Joey was the first to broach the subject.

"Brad," he said soothingly, "you want to think twice before you do

anything desperate."

Braddock gave an ugly laugh as he jabbed a fork into a piece of meat.

"Joey," he said, "I've already thought ten thousand times."

"What do you intend to do?" asked David.

"I'm going to get square with Bob Grand," said he very quietly. "I'm

not going to be rash about it. I'm going to take my time and be _sure_."

"We'll have to do something to prevent--" began David.

"You can't do anything. I'm not saying what I'm going to do to him, so

don't get fidgety."

"You intend to kill him!"

"He sent me up, didn't he? Without cause, too. He swore me into the

pen. Said I tried to kill him. I never tried it. He owed me money. I

asked him for it." He suddenly sprang to his feet. "By Jove, I try not

to think that _she_ had anything to do with it. I don't want to believe

it of her."

"She didn't 'ave anything to do with it," cried Joey. "Get that idea

out of your 'ead. You treated 'er like a dog, Brad, but she never

turned on you like that. I can swear it."

Braddock went over to the window and stared out upon the little garden.

A long interval of silence ensued before he turned to face the others.

"Don't look so scared, Ruby," he said, noting the girl's expression.

"I'm not going to hurt _her_. I guess I've hurt her enough already.

She's living as she'd ought to live, and so is--so is Christine. I'm

not going to begrudge _them_ anything. But I'm going to have a talk

with her." His manner was ugly.

"I'm going to ask her two questions. She'll tell me the truth, I know.

That's all I ask."

"She has always hated Bob Grand," cried Ruby, "if that's what you mean."

"That's what I mean. But I'm going to ask her just how much he has

pestered her since--well, since that time with the show. I'm going to

ask her if she knows what I did to her in the sale of my interest. I'm

going to find out if he told her. Oh, you needn't worry! I won't do

anything to hurt her or Christine. If she don't know already what I did

to her, I'm going to tell her myself. If I get a chance to see my girl,

I'm going to tell her just what I did to her mother."

"Braddock, you must listen to reason!" cried David. "No good can come

of this. They are happy and contented. Don't spoil it all for them. Go

away, man. Try to forget your grievance against Colonel Grand. God will

punish him and--"

"I'll tell you what I came here for to-day, Jenison," said Braddock

levelly. "Dick says you're still crazy about my--about Christine. He

swears you haven't seen her in five years--some kind of a promise my

wife made, he says. I came to ask you this question: will it make any

difference in your intentions regarding her if I--if her father should

happen to end his life on the scaffold? I don't say feelings, mind

you,--I said intentions."

"I mean it. Would you still want her if--if it turned out that way?"

David looked helplessly from Joey to Ruby and then at the set,

emotionless face of the questioner.

"Braddock, I can tell you this from my soul: nothing you may do will

alter my feelings or my intentions. Christine is in no way responsible

for your transgressions. I am only sorry that she has such a father. If

she still cares for me, I shall ask her to be my wife, even though you

are strung up a hundred times. But this is beside the question. _You_

should think of her happiness, her peace of mind. All her life she will

have to think of you as a--a--well, I won't say it. You--"

"I'll say it for you," interrupted the gray-faced listener: "as a

gallows bird--as scaffold fruit."

"Please don't, Tom," cried Ruby.

"You would better a thousand times shoot yourself than to bring that

black shadow into her life," said David. "Suicide is bad enough

but--ugh!" He shuddered.

"Look here, Jenison, I might have been a good man if it hadn't been for

Bob Grand. I always would have been a showman, I reckon, but I'd have

been fairly self-respecting. Today, instead of being what I am, I'd

still have the love of my wife, the respect of my girl, and--oh, well,

you can't understand. You all are against me--and have been for years.

I don't blame you--not a bit of it. I deserve it. Grand deliberately

set out to ruin me--to pull me down. You know why. We won't go into

that. I happen to know he afterwards paid her a lot of money for her

interest in the business. When she tells me it was a square transaction

I'll believe it, but not before."

He paced the floor, his hands in his coat pockets, his brows drawn down

in a thoughtful scowl.

"You can stop me, I suppose, by having me locked up--but you can't keep

me there forever. I'll get out some time. I don't say I'm going to

shoot Bob Grand. I want you all to bear witness to this statement:

whatever I do to him will be with these two hands. See 'em? Don't they

look competent? He didn't use weapons on me, and I'm not going to use

'em on him. It's just a case of who has the best hands in this little

game."

"Why, man, it would be cowardly in you to put your strength against

his. You could crush him," groaned David.

Braddock smiled, almost joyously. "Won't it be a pretty sight? My hands

on that fat neck of his! Ha!"

"And the 'angman's rope on that neck of yours," put in Joey, wiping his

moist forehead.

"That's not the point," said Thomas Braddock.

He picked up his hat, which he had cast upon a chair, and, without

another word to either of them--no word of thanks to Ruby, no word of

appreciation to David, no word of gratitude to Joey--he strode out into

the hall, through the door and down the steps.

They sat still looking at each other for a long time.

"He can't do it to-day," said Joey in hushed tones. "The man's still

out o' town."

CHAPTER IV

THE DELIVERY OF A TELEGRAM

On David's return to the hotel he found a hastily scrawled note from

Artful Dick Cronk. He had remained at the Noakes' until mid-afternoon,

discussing the sinister attitude of Thomas Braddock. Joey stubbornly

maintained that it was worse than useless to have the man locked up; it

would merely delay the consummation of his purpose, and it would add

fuel to the fierce flames that already were consuming his brain. He was

for temporizing methods, attended by shrewd efforts to keep the enemies

apart. It was his opinion that Braddock would listen to reason before

many days. Certainly there could be no immediate danger with Grand out

of the city. Jenison at last came to his way of thinking, although not

without a twinge of misgiving. He had no respect, no sympathy for

Braddock. It was his firm opinion that the man had in no way reformed;

that he was as bad, if not worse, than ever, for now he was himself and

not crazed by drink.

Dick's note bore the disturbing news that Colonel Grand had returned to

town, and that Mrs. Braddock was expected the following day. Ernie had

obtained this information through the friendly Portman servant, who (to

quote Dick) affected the hunchback's society because he believed that

the "touching of a hump would bring good luck!" Old Mr. Portman, it was

given out, was on his way to his summer place in the Adirondacks,

Naturally he would be accompanied by his daughter and Christine. They

were due to arrive at four o'clock, and expected to remain in town for

ten days before going up to the cool hills. The closing sentences of

the pickpocket's note were quaintly satirical: "Brad says he can't

afford to be seen in my company. You know how politely he would say it,

don't you? He says he can't take chances now. But I staked him to a bed

for to-night and I told him I'd give him grub money. It seemed to

tender him up a bit. He's hanging round with Ernie to-day and I'm going

to see him to-night. Did I tell you that Ernie has a little apartment

all to himself over on Fourth Avenue? He's some elegant. Of course, it

won't do for me to be seen around his shack much. I might accidentally

give the place a bad name, see? Well, I'll close, but will write again

to-morrow. DICK. P. S. They come in on the Pennsylvania."

David spent a miserable night. He was obsessed by the fear that

Braddock would seek out Grand that very night, and that it would all be

over in the morning. At breakfast he scanned the newspapers closely,

half expecting to find the dreaded head-lines. As the morning wore away

his spirits lifted. He had made up his mind to go to the railway

station. From an obscure corner he would see her without being seen. It

was his whim to see her first in this manner, to stare to his soul's

content, to compare her in the flesh to the glorious picture his brain

had painted. He made no doubt that she would far surpass the portrait

in his mind: did not Ruby say she was ravishingly beautiful? His heart

leaped fiercely to the project in hand; more than once he found himself

growing faint with the intensity of yearning and impatience.

He took Joey and Ruby to luncheon at Delmonico's. All through the meal

he was busy picturing to himself the girl who was whirling northward,

nearer and nearer to him with each minute of time. She would be tall

and slender and shapely. His mind's eye traveled backward. Her hair

would be brown--But, even as he constructed her to please his eager

imagination, he quailed before the spectre of doubt: was the heart of

the girl of fifteen unchanged in the woman of twenty?

Ruby was glibly telling him of the young men who paid court to the

granddaughter of old Mr. Portman. Both she and Joey found rich

enjoyment in the fact that these sprigs of gentility knew nothing of

the circus-riding epoch in Christine's life; they wondered what the

effect would be when the truth came out. Joey ventured the opinion that

"the devil would be to pay," and Ruby added the prophecy that "they

would drop her like a hot poker." Strange to say, David found

considerable satisfaction in these dolorous predictions.

He caught the ferry soon after luncheon, and was in the station on the

other side of the river long before the train was due.

Buying a newspaper, he took a seat in a far corner of the concourse. He

read but little and that without understanding. His mind was quite

fully occupied in peering over the top of the sheet in the direction of

the sheds. Finally he became convinced, by certain psychic processes of

the mind, that some one was staring at him. He looked about in all

directions. At last his eyes rested on a squat, misshapen figure far

over by the ferry entrance.

He had no difficulty in recognizing Ernie Cronk. His presence there was

disquieting in more than one sense. Dick had said that Braddock was

"hanging 'round" with his brother. This, of itself, was sufficient to

create alarm in David's mind. He searched the scurrying throng for a

glimpse of the drab, sinister figure of Christine's father, all the

while conscious that Ernie Cronk's baleful gaze was upon him. The beady

eyes seemed to penetrate shifting obstructions, never changing, never

wavering.

David considered briefly, and then decided to consult the cripple. As

he made his way over to him he noted that Ernie was flashily dressed,

almost to the point of grotesqueness. One might have forgiven the vivid

checked suit on the person of a buoyant barber, but it was grewsome in

its present occupation. Its gaudy, insistent cheapness leaped out at

the observer with much the same appeal for favor that one imputes to

the garments of a clown. One might have read the envy in Ernie's soul

as his eyes swept the tall, straight, simply clad Southerner who

approached. He stood his ground defiantly, however; there was no smile

of friendliness on his thin lips.

"Hello, Ernie," said David. Ernie's arms were folded across his breast.

As he gave no sign of unfolding them, David did not proffer his hand.

"You don't have to speak to me if you don't want to," muttered Ernie,

his eyes snapping.

"Where is Braddock?" asked the other, imperturbably.

The rat-like eyes glittered with a cunning smile. "Don't ask me. Got

you worried, eh?"

"We are trying to keep him from hurting Christine, that's all," said

David tactfully.

"He ain't going to do that," said Ernie quickly. A shadow of anxiety

crept into his face, however. "He's after Grand."

"Just the same, we are afraid. Is he here?"

"No. He's asleep at my place, if that'll do you any good. I'm not going

to turn against her father, which is more than the rest of you can say.

You can tell her, if you want to, that I'm still his friend." It was

plain to be seen that he was adopting this pitiful policy as a means of

gaining the attention of the otherwise unapproachable Christine. "He

was up all night--_looking!_"

"For Grand?"

"I didn't ask," leered the hunchback. Suddenly his eyes flew wide open.

He was staring past Jenison. "Say! Speaking of angels, look behind you."

David turned. Not twenty feet away stood Colonel Grand, twirling a

light walking-stick and surveying the throng with disinterested eyes.

He had seen and ignored Ernie, but had failed to recognize the young

man whose back was toward him.

David experienced a sickening sense of disappointment. His heart sank

like lead. Grand's presence in the station could have but one meaning.

A great wave of revulsion swept through the Virginian. He forgot the

anticipated joy of the moment before in contemplation of this

significant proof of an understanding.

His lips were dry. He moistened them. Ernie, observing the movement,

concluded that he was muttering something to himself.

"Say it to his face, why don't you?" he recommended sarcastically.

Before David could interpose, the hunchback called out to Colonel

Grand. The latter turned quickly. For a moment he stared intently at

the face of the tall young man. Suddenly light broke in upon him.

"Why, it's Jenison," he exclaimed, and advanced, an amiable smile on

his lips. David ignored the hand that he extended; he could only stare,

as if fascinated, at the puffy face of the speaker.

Grand had altered but little in appearance during the five years that

had passed. He seemed to have grown no older, nor was he less repulsive

to look upon. As of old, he was carefully, even immaculately dressed.

Ernie Cronk moved away. They might have heard him chuckling softly to

himself.

"Let me see, it's five years, isn't it?" went on the Colonel suavely.

He did not appear to resent David's omission. "You've changed

considerably. The mustache improves you, I think."

His voice was as oily as ever, his eyes and his nose as sheep-like.

Something arose in David's throat, bringing a certain hoarseness to his

voice.

"Time has not affected you, Colonel," he retorted.

"So they tell me," said the other. "Are you waiting to meet some one?"

"Yes," said David, and nothing more.

The Colonel twirled his stick. "My daughter is arriving by the

four-twenty," he announced. "Beastly old station, this. What a godsend

a destructive fire would prove if it took it from one end to the other."

"Your daughter is coming?" asked David. The note of eagerness and

relief in his voice caused the other's eyes to narrow suddenly.

"You've met her, I believe," he said, studying David's face.

"Once,--at the Springs."

"She's coming rather unexpectedly to make me an extended visit. I

should deem it quite an honor, David, if you would give us the pleasure

of your company some evening for dinner--"

"My stay here is to be very brief, Colonel Grand, and my time is

entirely taken up," said David coldly.

"I'm sorry," said the Colonel, shrugging his shoulders in

self-commiseration.

It was on the tip of David's tongue to ask him if he knew of Thomas

Braddock's presence in town, but timely reflection convinced him that

it would be unwise. The Colonel, in his alarm, might set about to have

Braddock hunted down and confined without delay; and there was no

telling what crime he would lay at Braddock's door in order to secure

long imprisonment.

"I met your wife, also, at the Springs," said David, coolly

substituting the thrust.

The Colonel frowned slightly. "You are doubtless aware that my wife and

I are no longer living together," he said, his lips straightening.

"I have heard something to that effect," said David easily,--so easily

that the other could not mistake the insolence of the remark.

Grand flushed. "I am happy to say, young man, that my train is pulling

in. I must therefore deny myself the pleasure of conversing with you

any longer. Good-day, sir."

He did not bow as he turned away. A moment later he was threading his

way through the crowd. David sauntered over to his first place of

waiting, a smile on his lips. He was immensely relieved now, and not a

little ashamed of a certain unworthy suspicion.

He fixed his eager gaze on the throng of people that came up from the

train, pouring into the big waiting-room. First, he saw Roberta Grand

as she came rushing up to her father. He was struck by the swift change

that came over the Colonel's face, who stared in amazement over the

girl's shoulder, even as he embraced her. David allowed his gaze to

return to the oncoming crowd.

Mary Braddock approached, apparently unconscious of the presence of

either of her old associates. She walked beside a decrepit old

gentleman whom David at once surmised to be Albert Portman. A maid and

a male attendant followed close behind. Christine was not in sight.

Mrs. Braddock saw Grand when not more than half a dozen paces separated

them. She almost stopped in her tracks. David detected the look of

surprise and dismay in her face. She and Grand were staring hard at

each other, but neither made the slightest pretense of anything more

than visual recognition. She averted her gaze after a moment of

uncertainty, and, with her head erect, passed close by the Colonel and

his daughter, both of whom were scrutinizing her with brazen interest.

She did not see David Jenison, although he might have touched her by

moving two steps forward. Disconcerted by the rude, insolent stare that

was leveled jointly by her old enemy and his daughter, a vivid flush

mantled her cheek and brow.

Time had made few changes in her appearance. Her face was softer,

gentler if possible; her carriage was as erect and as proud as ever.

She was modestly, unobtrusively attired, as David expected she would be.

After she had passed, the young man turned his attention again to the

crowd, his nerves jumping with eagerness. Christine was sure to be not

far behind her mother.

He saw her at last, a laggard at the end of the hurrying procession.

She passed close by him. He stood motionless, seeing no one else,

thinking of no one but this slim, adorable girl who had no eyes for

him. At her side strode a tall, good-looking fellow whose manner toward

her could be mistaken for nothing short of simple adoration.

She was smiling brightly, even rapturously up into the eyes of this

eager swain. In another instant they were lost in the crowd that rushed

to the ferry, but David was never to forget that passing glimpse of

her--not to the day of his death.

She was all that his fondest dreams, all that his fairest prophecies,

had promised--nay, she surpassed them!

The pure, girlish face--the one of the deep, earnest eyes and tender

lips--had been toned and perfected and rechiseled by the magic hand of

Time. She was taller by several inches; a lissome creature who moved

with the sureness and grace of an almost exalted symmetry.

His dazzled, gleaming eyes followed her into the vortex below. A vast

wave of exultation suddenly rushed over him. He had held her in his

arms--he had kissed this beautiful, joyous creature--this product of

enchantment! Now, more than ever, was he resolved to claim her for his

own. It was as good as settled, in his enraptured mind! Nothing could

keep her from him now. He had loved her, he had waited for her, and he

would have her in spite of everything.

What could it matter to him that she was coveted by all the men who

knew her? He rejoiced in the fact that they were at her feet. It was

left for him to look down upon them in the end, and smile with all the

arrogance of triumphant possession!

Even as he exulted, a dissolving element was flung upon the crystal in

which he saw his own glorification. A harsh, discordant voice was

speaking at his elbow. He turned. Ernie Cronk was standing beside him.

It required a moment of concentration on the part of the infatuated

David to grasp the significance of a certain livid hue in Ernie's face.

The hunchback was looking up at him. His eyes were bleak with

unhappiness. There was no anger in them: only despair.

"That's the fellow," he was saying, his voice cracking hoarsely. "He's

the one she's in love with."

David started. "You mean--she's in love with him?" he demanded blankly.

"That's Bertie Stanfield. He's a great swell. He was here to meet her.

I saw him. It's--it's no use, David. No one else has got a show." His

inclusion of David in his own misfortune, though by inference, would

have been amusing at another time. Somehow, at this moment, it struck

David as tragic. Was it possible that he was to find himself in the

same boat with this unhappy, uncouth worshiper?

He pulled hard at the end of his short mustache, and swallowed hard

with involuntary abruptness.

"I--I have heard of him," he said, a sudden chill creeping into his

veins.

"Did she--did she speak to you?" asked Ernie. The hard look was

creeping back into his eyes.

"She didn't see me," muttered David.

"She spoke to me. She always does," said Ernie, twisting his fingers.

"But," he went on, almost in a wail, "it's because she--she pities me!"

David's heart was touched. He laid his hand on Cronk's shoulder and was

about to speak kindly to him. The other drew back, shaking off the

compassionate hand.

"None o' that, now. I don't need any pity from you. Keep your trap

closed about me." He jammed his hands into his coat pockets and allowed

his gaze to travel toward the ferry entrance. The despondent note

returned to his voice. "Shall we take this boat or wait for the next?"

he asked. It was as if he had said: "We are companions in misery, you

and I. Let's make the best of it."

David looked at him for a moment oddly. The humor of the situation

struck him all at once; but the smile of derision died on his lips.

After all, perhaps he was in the discard with Ernie Cronk.

"I'm going to catch this boat," he said decisively. He started off,

followed by his unchosen comrade, and caught the boat almost as it cast

off in the slip.

Mrs. Braddock and Christine were far forward. They were chatting gayly

with the blonde Mr. Stanfield, who appeared to be giving them the

latest news of the town. Old Mr. Portman sat against the deck house.

David watched the little group at the rail from a safe distance. He

allowed his fancy full play; his hopes rebounded; his confidence

revived. By the time the ferry-boat was locked in the Manhattan slip he

was buoyant with the hope and resolution of unconquered youth. He would

win her away from them all.

All the way across the river he had been aware of Colonel Grand's close

proximity to the little party of three. He stood, with Roberta, across

the forward deck, leaning against the rail, his arms folded. At no time

did he withdraw his gaze from the figure of Mary Braddock. Her back was

toward him,--resolutely, it seemed to David,--and she must have been

conscious of the carnal eyes bent upon her. Somehow David had the

feeling that she was battling against the impulse to turn in response

to the hypnotic command.

He hung back, biding his time, until the party had disappeared inside

the ferry building. Then he hastened toward one of the exits, intent on

securing a cab. He had made up his mind not to accost them; he would

not present himself unexpectedly at a time and place when embarrassment

to them might be the result.

From somewhere at the edge of the crowd a thin, sardonic voice called

out to him:

"So long, David. You know how it feels yourself now, don't you?" He

knew who the speaker was without looking.

Mrs. Braddock was standing at the counter of the telegraph office near

one of the street doors. He did not see her until he was almost upon

her. She was alone and engaged in writing out a telegram. His plans

were altered in an instant. A moment later, he was at her side, his

face flushed and eager.

For many seconds she stared wonderingly into his smiling eyes. Before

uttering a word she glanced at the message she had finished and was

about to hand it to the clerk; then her gaze returned to his face.

"David Jenison," she said, and there was something like awe in her

voice, "is it really you? How strange--how very strange!"

"I'm not a ghost," he cried. "You look at me as if I had crept out of

my grave."

She looked again at the telegram. "Why, David," she began falteringly.

Then her face cleared. A glad smile broke over it, and both her hands

were extended. "It really _is_ you? I am not seeing visions? Yes, you

are flesh and blood! You dear, dear David! I am _so_ glad to see you.

How does it happen that you are here? Where do you come from and--" She

went on with the eagerness of a child, asking more questions than he

could remember, much less answer. "And how wonderfully you have grown

up!"

"I have seen Christine," he said eagerly. "She is perfection--she is

marvelous."

"Seen her? Where? But we cannot talk here. We must have hours and hours

all by ourselves. Come to my father's house to-night. We are living

with him, you know. There is so much that we have to tell each

other--all that has happened in the five long years."

"I am here solely to remind you that the five years are ended, Mrs.

Braddock. Mahomet has come to the mountain, you see."

Her face clouded. She glanced quickly through the window. His gaze

followed hers. Christine and young Stanfield were driving away together

in a hansom. He read her thoughts. "I'll take my chances," he remarked

confidently.

"I know that she has not forgotten, David," she said after a moment of

deliberation, "but--well, I will be frank with you. She has suddenly

shot past my comprehension. It is the privilege of a girl to change her

mind, you know, when she changes the length of her frocks."

"You haven't changed, have you?" he asked bluntly. She stared. "I?"

"I mean, you are still my champion?"

"Of course," she replied readily.

"Then, as I said before, I'll take my chances with the rest. I'll not

hold her to that girlhood bargain. That would be unfair. But, if you'll

permit me, I'll go in and win her as she is to-day--if I can."

She smiled at his ardor. "I hope you may win, David. But you must win

for yourself. Do not look to me for help. She must decide for herself."

He did not refer to the young man who had taken her away in the cab.

Mrs. Braddock noted this and was not slow to divine the well-bred

restraint that lay behind the omission.

"That was young Stanfield," she observed. "He is delightful. My father

is devoted to him."

David smiled. "I hope to have the pleasure of meeting him soon."

"You may meet to-night."

If she expected to see a trace of annoyance in his face, she was

disappointed. He gracefully confessed his interest in the prospective

meeting.

"I shall be more than delighted to come," he said.

"And I am glad he will be there to engage Christine's attention while I

devote myself to you, Mrs. Braddock."

"You nice boy!"

She extended her hand. "I must not keep my father waiting out there.

You don't know how glad I am that you are here, David." Suddenly a wave

of red mounted to her cheek; an expression of utter loathing came into

her deep eyes. In some alarm he glanced over his shoulder.

Colonel Grand was standing at the door through which she would have to

pass. He was not looking at her, but his motive in placing himself

there was only too plain.

"Confound him!" involuntarily fell from David's lips.

"If he dares to address me--" she began, her face going white. "David,

I have not seen that man since the day I left the show. Why is he here

to-day? Is it to annoy--to torment me in--"

"He won't do that," announced David firmly.

"I have a strange foreboding, David,--of evil, of something dreadful.

Perhaps it is due to the unexpected sight of--his horrid face. I--"

"That's it," said he promptly. Nevertheless, a slight chill entered his

heart. There was Tom Braddock to be considered. "I'll come early

to-night, if I may," he said, more soberly than he meant. "There are

some very important things to discuss. Now I'll take you to your

carriage."

During their talk she had absently folded the telegram. He observed it

in her hand and said:

"The telegram--don't forget that, Mrs. Braddock."

Her smile was enigmatic. With a diverted smile for the waiting clerk

she said: "I shall not send it, after all."

David walked with her to the door. They passed so close to Colonel

Grand that David's elbow touched his arm, but neither of them looked at

him. She hastily entered the waiting carriage, a sort of panic

overtaking her.

Thrusting the crumpled bit of paper into David's hand, her eyes

steadfastly held against the impulse to look at the satiric figure in

the doorway, she said in a half-whisper:

"Take it, David--and come to-night."

He stood there with his hat in his hand as the carriage drove off,

sorely perplexed by her action. Suddenly a light broke in upon his

understanding. He spread out the small sheet and read:

"The five years have passed. I redeem my promise. You are not obliged

to keep yours, however." It was signed "Mary Braddock."

Colonel Grand was smiling sardonically in the doorway.

CHAPTER V

THE LOVE THAT WAS STAUNCH

"I shall depend on you, David, to bring my husband here to see me.

Search for him until you find him."

The white-faced, distressed woman said this to David Jenison a few

hours later in the Portman library. They sat alone in the half-light.

Stanfield's married sister had taken Christine off earlier in the

evening, to a concert. Mrs. Braddock, in a spirit of whimsicality,

forbore mentioning the appearance of David to the girl, planning to

surprise her when she returned from the concert. If David was

disappointed at not finding her, he went to considerable pains to hide

the fact from the mother. As a matter of fact he was secretly relieved,

strange as it may seem, after the first shock of disappointment.

Christine's absence was providential, after all. He had ugly news for

Mrs. Braddock; he could wait on the opportunity to see Christine, but

what he had to say to the mother could not be put off for a moment.

He had gone at once to his room in the hotel after leaving Mrs.

Braddock at the ferry. He was startled almost out of his boots by the

discovery that Dick Cronk was there ahead of him, calmly occupying the

easiest chair and reading the evening paper. A skeleton key had

provided the means of admission to the room; a brave heart and cunning

brain did the rest.

Dick's news created great unrest in David's breast. Braddock, it

appeared, had gone, early in the afternoon, to the apartment hotel in

which Grand lived. Fortunately the Colonel was not about the place.

Dick, on missing the ex-convict, had hurried at once to Grand's hotel,

finding his man there, seated in the small lobby, a sinister example of

respectability, waiting patiently for the return of his enemy. The

self-appointed guardian coaxed him away from the place, conducting him

to the cheap, ill-favored thieves' lodging-house where he had taken a

single room for temporary occupancy. Braddock, after a show of

obduracy, finally had consented to make an effort to see his wife

before visiting his wrath upon Colonel Grand.

Dick informed David: "He's set on doing something nasty, kid, that's

all there is to it. He _won't_ be turned aside. Those years in the pen

have put something into his backbone that never was there before. Maybe

Mrs. Braddock can talk him out of it, but I dunno. She always had

influence over him, but that was before he took to getting tight. It's

different now. If we can't do anything else we'll have to warn Grand,

that's all. I hate to do it, but--I guess it's the only way left."

For the first time in their acquaintance David saw Dick lose control of

himself. His face was convulsed by an expression so violent that the

Virginian drew back in alarm.

"David, I hate the sight o' that man. I'd go to hell to-morrow if I

thought I could have a place where I could look on and see him burn

forever. I never see him now without wanting to stamp that face of his

to jelly. It's growing on me, too. Oh, to kick that white, putty face

until there was nothing left of it! I'd give--" But David had grasped

his arm, to shake him out of his frenzy, speaking to him all the while.

He grew calm as abruptly as he had gone to the other extreme. His brow

was moist, but the old, quizzical smile beamed beneath it. "I'm going

on like a crazy man, ain't I? Well, forget it, kid. I'm off my nut, I

guess. Get back to business. You got to fix it up with her to see

Brad." He paused and eyed David's face narrowly. "Say, are you still

worryin' about what I said about trampin' on his face?"

David had cause afterward to recall the ugly sensation that this

extraordinary burst of rage created in his mind.

Before leaving, Dick announced that he was eager to start West to

connect with Barnum's circus, complaining of the unprofitable idleness

that had been forced upon him. He expressed the confident hope that

Braddock might be persuaded to leave with him.

"I can't afford to be loafin' around New York this season of the year,"

he reflected in the most _degage_ manner imaginable. "It's expensive,

the way Ernie and me are living nowadays. I got to get out and round up

the rubes. Now, kid, don't preach. Oh, by the way, has Joey told you

the good luck that's happened to Ruby? Going to marry Ben Thompson, a

newspaper man. I'm mighty glad she's gettin' a chap like him, and not

one of them rotten guys that hang around the op'ry houses. She's--she's

a fine girl, Davy--a plum' daisy."

Jenison once more impulsively offered to provide a refuge and

employment for life on his plantation for the delectable scalawag, but

Dick laughed at him in fine scorn. He departed a few minutes later,

sauntering down the hall with a complacency that fairly scoffed at

house detectives and their ilk.

David went to the Portman home in a state of suppressed eagerness and

anxiety, one emotion topping the other by turns as he was being driven

toward Washington Square. He expected to see Christine. He was counting

on it with all the pent-up fervor of a long-denied lover. The brief

glimpse he had had of her in the afternoon drove out all doubts as to

his own state of mind concerning her. She was incomparably beautiful;

she had the air of the high-bred; she was worthy of the attentions of

the well-born; she possessed poise, manner--all that and more: the

indefinable charm that radiates in some mysterious way from the

superlatively healthy.

His admiration for her, instead of suffering the shock that might have

been anticipated--and which was secretly dreaded, to be quite

candid--had grown more intense under the test. What would be her

attitude toward him? That was the question. What had the five years and

new environment done for her?

Eager as he was to discover the state of her feelings, he recognized,

however, the more pressing matters that were to be considered. The

peace and welfare of the girl herself demanded his first thoughts, his

most devoted efforts. Tragedy stalked close beside her. He was afraid

to think how close it was, or when it would make its ugly presence felt.

He lost no time, therefore, in apprising Mary Braddock of the true

state of affairs. She sat before him, a great dread in her dark eyes,

the pallor of helplessness on her cheek, listening to the direful tale

he told. He did not make the mistake of minimizing the situation. He

spared her not the details, nor softened the stubborn facts. As clearly

as possible he drew for her the picture of Thomas Braddock as he had

seen him. He repeated faithfully all that Dick Cronk and the Noakeses

had told him, neglecting no particular in the known history of her

husband since the old circus days.

She was very still and tense. Her eyes never left his face while he was

speaking, except once when she looked toward the door in response to a

sound that led her to believe that Christine was returning. There were

times when he imagined that she was not breathing. After the first few

minutes she asked no questions, but mutely absorbed the story as it

fell from his lips. The light of joy and gladness in her eyes that had

been his welcome was gone now. In its place was the dark gleam of dread

and anxiety.

She interrupted him once, to ask him to tell her again how Braddock

looked and how he had acted. As he repeated the description, her

perplexed, even doubting, expression caused him to hesitate, but she

shook her head as if putting something out of her mind and signified

that he was to proceed.

"I would not have known him," he concluded, "he was so unlike the man I

knew."

"He had not touched whiskey, you say--not since--"

"Not in three years. It has wrought an unbelievable change in him."

"I knew him, David, before he drank at all," she said, staring past

him. "Perhaps the change would not be so great to me."

"He has aged many years. There are hard, desperate lines in his face.

You _would_ see a change, I am afraid, Mrs. Braddock."

She was silent for a moment. "Go on, David," she said, suddenly passing

her hand before her eyes in a movement as expressive as it was

involuntary. "Dick Cronk has a certain amount of influence over him,

you say."

"It will not last. When Colonel Grand hears that he is back in town his

first step will be to have him thrown into jail on one pretext or

another. Braddock realizes this. He has made up his mind to strike

first. I think he believes in you, Mrs. Braddock--in fact, I am sure he

does. I know he loves Christine. But he hates Colonel Grand even more

than he loves her or--you. He--"

"Oh, he does not love me, David. You need not hesitate," she said

drearily.

"As I have already said, he gave Dick a half-promise that he would try

to see you. He has two questions he intends to ask, I believe. I think,

Mrs. Braddock, you will be doing a very wise thing if you see him--of

your own free will. He will probably insist on seeing you in any

event--even in the face of opposition. You can avoid a great deal of

trouble by--well, by not barring him out. I know how it must distress

you. I wish I could take all the worry, all the trouble off your

shoulders. But there would be only one way in which I could do it--and

that would be a desperate one."

It was then that she laid her trembling, icy hand on his, and said,

"Search for him until you find him."

David hesitated a moment before putting his next question. It touched

on a very tender subject.

"Have you thought of divorcing him?"

"No, David," she said quietly. "I made my bed years ago, as Joey would

say. Tom is Christine's father. He is my husband. You may well say, God

help both of us. But, David, while I cannot live with him, I intend to

remain his wife to the end. I am ready to promise anything to him if he

will go away. I will give him all of the money I received for my share

of the hateful business. He must accept it quietly, sanely. It is for

_her_ sake, and he must be made to see it. The world knows that I ran

away to be married, but it has forgotten the circumstances. The general

belief is that my husband died years and years ago, and that I have

lived abroad ever since. There is one thing to his credit, David. I

shall not forget it. When he was arrested, he thought of Christine

and--and--well, he gave an assumed name, an alias, to the police.

Colonel Grand kept his own silence, and for years he has held this over

me as a threat. I have had many letters from him, believe me. Christine

is no longer the little, unheard-of circus rider. She is--well, she is

a _personage_. Do you understand?"

He nodded his head. She went on hurriedly.

"Tell Tom I _want_ to see him. Tell him I am ready to discuss

everything with him. Tell him that nothing must happen that can injure

her."

"He may insist on seeing--her."

"She does not know that he has been in prison," she said miserably.

"But if he should insist?"

"I should have to prepare her, David. She knows that he is alive--but--

Listen, David!" She leaned forward to give emphasis to her words. "If

he comes to her now with the story of his--his wrongs, of his

sufferings, she will forget all that has gone before. Her heart is

tender. I am afraid of the stand she may take--and she may compel me to

take it with her."

"I'll do all that I can, Mrs. Braddock, to--" he began. The sound of

voices in the vestibule came to them at that moment. Good nights were

being called from the steps to the street below. Then the door was

opened and closed quickly. Some one came rapidly down the hall. There

was a swift rustling of skirts, the low humming of an air from

"Pinafore." David was on his feet in an instant, visibly excited by the

impending encounter.

Christine came into the library. She was half-way across the room

before she realized that the tall young man beside her mother was a

stranger... She stopped. Her questioning gaze lingered on his face. His

smile puzzled her. Her eyes narrowed, then suddenly they were

distended; her lips parted in amazement, tremulously struggling into a

smile of wonder and unbelief. No one had spoken.

"It--it is David," she said, a quaver of breathlessness in the soft

tones.

He sprang forward, his hands extended.

"Yes," he cried, transported by the new aspect of loveliness.

She stood straight and slim before him, still unbelieving. Slowly her

hands were lifted to meet his, as if impelled by a power not her own.

He clasped them; they were cold. Something in their limp

unresponsiveness chilled him as if he had been touched by ice. He

gently released them and drew back, dismayed within himself.

"Why--why didn't you tell me, mamma?" she cried, the flutter in her

voice increasing. A swift wave of color rushed to her cheeks. She

suddenly held out her hands to him again, an eagerness in the action

that caught him unawares and lifted his spirits to dizzy heights. "Oh,

I am so glad--so glad to see you, David," she cried. Her firm little

hands were warm now, and trembling.

"Christine," he half whispered, "are you--are you truly glad to see me?

Do you mean it?"

She was looking straight into his eyes. In her own glowed a dark

appeal; she seemed to be delving in the secret recesses of his heart.

"David," she cried, forgetful of everything else in the world, "does it

mean that you--you still care for me? You haven't changed? I have been

wondering--oh, how I have been--"

The plaintive note drove all doubt from his mind. He was suddenly

exalted. Speech was beyond him. His dream had come true. She was

incomparably fairer than his waking hours had pictured her during the

five years of probation; only in fond dreams had she appeared to him as

she now appeared in reality. He could only look down into her face,

mute under the seal of wonder. All that he had longed for and prayed

for was here revealed to him; he could have asked for no more. He went

suddenly weak with joy.

"My little Christine," he murmured.

"I have been so afraid," she was saying, still searching his soul

through his eyes. "I am still afraid, David. It has been a long time.

So many things may have happened. We were such young, foolish things.

Oh, David, you don't know how I have worked and planned and striven to

make myself what you would like, if you were ever to come to see me

again. I--"

"You are perfect--you are divine!" he cried, all the passion of his

soul ringing in the tender words. "I can't believe it! You really care,

Christine? You have not changed? It has always been the same with you?"

"Changed, David," she whispered, her lip trembling, a sudden mist

swimming in her sweet young eyes. "Changed?"

"You _do_ love me? I am not dreaming? It is really _you?_"

She suddenly lowered her eyes, the warm flush spreading to her throat,

her neck, her ears. She caught her breath in a half-sob.

[Illustration: Her lips parted in amazement, tremulously struggling

into a smile of wonder and unbelief]

Both had forgotten the tall woman who stood over there by the window,

her hands clasped, her heart in the eyes that looked upon them. They

did not see the beatific smile that came to her colorless lips. Nor

were they aware of the fact that she turned away, to gently draw aside

the curtain that she might look out, unseeing, upon the gloom of the

night beyond.

He quickly lifted the girl's hands to his feverish lips. There he held

them for many minutes while he steadied his rioting senses, regaining

control of his nerves. He looked down upon the dark, soft hair and

worshiped. A red rose rested there. He bent over and kissed her

hair--and the rose.

Then she looked up.

"I do love you, David," she said softly, "are you--are you sure that

you--Oh, David, are you sure?"

For answer, his eager arm stole over her shoulder and she was drawn

close to his breast. She raised her lips to greet the kiss. Her little

hand clutched his with a sudden convulsive ecstasy. He felt the warm,

quick breathing--and then their lips met.

"I am very sure," he murmured, his voice husky with emotion. "There

never has been a minute in which I was not sure, Christine, my darling."

"You have forgotten--you can overlook those old days when I was Little

Starbright?" she whispered wonderingly. "They will make no

difference--now?"

"I loved you then. You and I and my love have grown older and stronger

and dearer with the years that have--"

She broke away from him, putting her hands to her cheeks in pretty

confusion. Her eyes were shining brightly as she looked beyond him.

"Oh, mother! I--I forgot that you were there. I forgot everything." She

ran to her mother and buried her face on her shoulder. "I told you it

would come true, mother. I knew it would. Oh, I am so happy! Have I

been ridiculous? Have I been silly, mother?"

It was the ecstatic David who reassured her on that point. In his

unbounded joy he rushed over and enveloped the two of them in his long,

eager arms.

Later on, after Mrs. Braddock had gone to her father's room, he sat

with Christine on the low, deep sofa under the bookshelf gallery. Her

hands were clasped in his. They had but little to say to each other in

words. Their eyes spoke the thoughts that surged up from their reunited

hearts. She had thrown aside the light, filmy wrap, and the sweet,

velvety skin of her neck and shoulders gleamed in the soft light; her

perfectly modeled, strong young arms were as clear and white as marble.

He was lost in admiration--in marveling admiration. For long stretches

at a time he permitted himself to fall into silent, rapt contemplation

of this perfected bit of womanhood. Every childish feature that he

remembered so well had been subtly vignetted by the soft touch of

nature; he was sensing for the first time the vast distinction between

fifteen and twenty--the distinction without the difference; for she was

the same Christine, after all. It was unbelievable. A delicate bit of

magic was being performed before his very eyes; the slim, girlish

sweetheart of other days was being effaced. The soft, insinuating

loveliness of young womanhood, with all its grace, all its charms, was

being revealed to him as if by some wonderful process in

photography--new shades, new lights, new tints, all ineffably joyous in

tone. He could not remember that her hair was so soft and wavy at the

temples, nor had it ever seemed to caress her ears so adorably. Why was

it that he had never noticed the delicate arch of her eyebrows? Why had

he failed to see the limpid sweetness in her eyes? And her hair, too,

seemed to cling differently above the slim, round neck. What magic

sculptor had chiseled her lips into their present form? Her chin; her

nose; her broad, white brow--why had he never observed them before? And

what was this strange, new light in the dark eyes? This look that was

no longer childish, no longer inquisitive, but steady with

understanding!

The girl of fifteen was gone. This was the perfect, well-blown human

flower, the woman. The woman! Slender, beautifully molded, sinuous,

incomparably fine--the woman! He closed his eyes in sudden subjection

to that thing called rapture. He held her close, strained to his own

triumphant, vigorous body. She was his! The woman! Ah, it _was_

different!

"How beautiful--how wonderful you are, Christine," he whispered. "I

can't believe that you are _my_ Christine."

She could only smile her confirmation. No words could have told so

clearly the sensuous delight that stilled her tongue. There was joy in

her soft breathing, in the gently spreading nostrils, in the

half-closed eyes. She was experiencing the unspeakable thrill that

comes but once in the dream of love.

When he spoke, at uneven intervals, his voice was husky with the

passion that consumed him.

Once he was saying: "It is too good to be true. I came unbidden,

determined to learn how I stood with you. I could not wait. When I saw

you to-day, I said to myself that you had grown away from me. I told

myself I should have to win you all over again. You seemed

unapproachable. You were so wonderful, Christine--so utterly beyond

anything I had expected to find. I was alarmed, I was actually

dismayed. But I told myself that I would win you; I would begin all

over again and I--"

"You saw me to-day?" she interrupted in surprise. "Where?"

"I was waiting for you at the station--far back in the crowd. I wanted

to see you in that way first. Your mother and I met there. She did not

tell you. She asked me to come to-night, but she was careful to give me

no hope. You will never know the doubts and fears that have beset me

all this long evening. And then you came in. I was dazed. I was all

a-tremble. And then to find that--that I had had all my fears for

nothing! Why--why, I could have died for joy! You did not hesitate. You

swept me off my feet. When you kissed me, Christine, I--I--it was as if

night had turned to day in--"

"I have gone on loving you, David, from the beginning. There never has

been a moment in which I have ceased to do so. Ah, you had nothing to

fear. But I! Oh, my dear one, I was never free from doubt--never quite

certain. You were so far above me that I--"

"Don't say that!"

"That I was sure you would not take our--our love dream seriously. When

you came to be a man, with all that manhood meant to you, I felt

somehow that you would forget the little circus girl who--"

He kissed her. Then she was silent for a long time.

"Your mother was telegraphing me to-day to come," he said after a time.

"Did you know that she intended to do so?"

"No. I only knew that she would do it--soon. She had promised--both of

us, you know."

"Have you never asked her to send me the message?"

"Never! How could I? I would not have held you to the compact. Nor

would she."

"And have you not told her that you cared for me all these years?

Didn't she know?"

"Listen, David," she said seriously. "My mother has never spoken of our

compact. She did nothing to influence me. She was content to let time

take its course--and nature, too. Ah, how wise she is! But all this

time I have been conscious of a strange feeling that she was making me

over anew with but one object in view. She wanted me to be all that you

could expect, demand, exact, if you were to come some day to--to look

me over, to see if I was--was worth the effort. Yes, David, she

prepared me against this day. She worked with me, she planned, she

denied herself everything to give me all that you might wish for in a--"

"My dear, you had everything to begin with," he began gallantly, but

she checked him with a shake of her head.

"No, I did not. True, I had not been brought up as other circus

children were. But I had a point of view that required years of

training to destroy. We won't speak of my father. I don't like to think

of him. David, as we used to know him, you and I. There was a time when

he was different--and I loved him. But that was long before. I--I think

he has gone out of my life altogether."

David realized then and there that she should not be kept in the dark

regarding her father's whereabouts and designs. She was sensible, she

was made of strong timber. She could face the conditions, no matter

what they proved to be.

The thought was responsible for the irrelevant remark that followed. "I

must have a word or two with Mrs. Braddock before I leave to-night."

She looked up quickly. "A word concerning--you and me?" she asked.

"Yes."

Her eyes were lowered again, this time with some of the life gone from

them. A shadow crossed her face.

"David," she said, "I trust you, I know you are staunch and true. But,

dear, are you considering well? Are you sure that you will never

regret--this? No, don't speak yet, please. We must be frank with each

other. I am not a silly, romantic girl, believe me. I have faced and

can still face the real things of life. You are not driving yourself to

forget or to overlook all the conditions that surround me, are you? I

was a rider. My father was a rider. Oh, you are going to say that my

mother was different. But what has that to do with it? What does it

matter that she has brought me here, to this home of plenty and of

respectability and--well, let us say it, of position. I am the

granddaughter of Albert Portman. That may stand for something--yes, it

_does_ stand for a great deal. But do not forget, David, dear, that I

am the daughter of Tom Braddock. I am the granddaughter of old Stephen

Braddock, who was a--a--"

"Don't say it, dearest! Why should you be saying all this to me? You,

an angel among--"

"I must, David," she went on resolutely. "You have come here to ask me

to be your wife--to hold me to a promise. You must think all this out

in time, David. Please don't laugh in that scornful way. It hurts. I am

very serious. Your friends, your people, will welcome me gladly as the

granddaughter of Albert Portman, but will they take me, can they accept

me, as the granddaughter of Stephen Braddock? As the product of a

fashionable convent they may rejoice in me, but as the pupil of the

sawdust ring,--as Little Starbright, a thing of spangles! Ah! How about

that side of me? Who were my childhood friends and associates? Don't

misjudge me. I loved them all--I love them now. They were the best

friends and the truest. But could they ever be the friends of your

friends?"

"They are _my_ friends," he said simply, struck by her earnestness.

"Are you forgetting what they meant to me in the old days? And what was

I? A fugitive with a price on my head. A--"

"Ah, but you were different--you always had been different. You were a

Jenison. What are you going to say when some one--and there always will

be the miserable some one--reminds you that he saw your wife when she

was Little Starbright? What--"

"Don't look so miserable, Christine! If any one says that to me I shall

congratulate him."

"Congrat--Oh, do be serious! It doesn't matter what I am to-day, David;

it's what I was such a little while ago. I am not trying to belittle

myself. _I_ am proud of what I am. Don't misunderstand me. I am a

Portman! _Her_ blood is in me--her mind, her soul. But I am not all

Portman. Suppose, David--suppose that my father were to come back some

day. We know what he is--what he was. Perhaps the world may have

forgotten, but suppose that he reminds the world of the fact that he is

my father--"

"Christine! You are working yourself into a dreadful state over all

this--"

"Am I not calm? Am I excited? No; you see I am not."

"Dearest, I want you to be my wife. You urge me to think in time.

Haven't I thought it all out? What more is there for me to think about,

save my love for you? You are not presenting new conditions to me,

sweetheart. They are old ones. I do not intend that either of us shall

sail under false colors. When you go to Jenison Hall as my wife, it

shall also be as the daughter of Thomas Braddock, the showman."

"But, David, he may have fallen so low--he may have sunk to the very

lowest--oh, you must understand. We have heard nothing from him. We

don't know where he is, nor what his life has been. Suppose--oh, I

can't bear to think of it."

He put his hands on her cheeks and turned her face so that he could

look squarely into her eyes. He saw the trouble there, the agony of

doubt.

"Look at me, Christine," he said gently. The light in his eyes held

her. "It doesn't matter what he was, what he is or what he may become.

I love you, as I have always loved you. You are going to be my wife.

That is the end of it all."

His heart was sinking, however, under the weight of the thing he knew,

the thing she was yet to know. He would have given all he possessed in

the world for the power to shield her from the blow that was yet to

fall.

There came swiftly to mind the hazy, indistinct interior of a

dressing-tent, with its mysterious lights and strange people, just as

it had appeared to him on that first, never-to-be-forgotten night. He

felt himself again emerging from that state of insensibility to look

upon the queer, unfamiliar things that were to become quite real to

him. And out of the phantasmalian group of objects there grew a single

slim, well-remembered figure in red, to dazzle him with her strange,

unexpected beauty, and to soothe him with an unspoken faith that began

then and had not yet faltered in her lovely eyes. She had given him

food. She had said he was no thief. It all came back to him. He had

looked upon her as an angel then--a strange, unfamiliar angel in the

garb she wore, but an angel, just the same.

Now he knew that love began with the first glimpse he had of her. It

was as if she had been revealed to him in a vision. His mind swept

along over the rough days that followed. He saw her again in the ring,

in the dressing-tent--everywhere. Then there was that night under the

grocer's awning--that sweetest of all nights in his life!

And now she was here, with him again, but amidst vastly different

surroundings. She was here, and she would need him now as he had needed

her then. It was for him now to present himself as the bulwark between

her and the fickle, disdainful world of which she had become a part.

She was no longer the self-reliant, petted creature of the circus,

where environment and adversity formed a training-school for disaster,

but a delicate, refined flower set out in a new soil to thrive or

wither as the winds of prejudice blow. In the other days she could have

laughed with glee at the vagaries of that self-same wind, but now, ah,

now it was different. She was not Little Starbright.

He drew her closer. She trembled in the clasp of his arms. Her firm,

full young breast rose and fell in quick response to the driving

heart-beats. Again his thoughts shot back to the prophetic, perfect

figure of the girl at fifteen. He fought off a certain delicious,

overpowering intoxication, and forced himself to a bewildered

contemplation of her present powers of resistance to the hard problems

of life. She was strong of body, strong of heart, strong of spirit, but

was she strongly fortified with the endurance that must stand unshaken

through a period of sorrow and shame and--disgrace?

Again he looked into her half-closed eyes. He saw there the serene

integrity of Mary Braddock; the light of that woman's character was

strongly entrenched in the soul of Christine Braddock. He experienced a

sudden sense of relief, of comfort. She was made of the flesh and

spirit that endures. Product was she of Thomas Braddock in his

physically honest days, and of Mary, his wife, in whose veins flowed

the strain of a refinement elementally so pure that the bitterest

things in life had proved incapable of destroying a single drop of its

sweetness.

"What are you thinking of, David?" she asked, impressed by the look in

his eyes and the unconscious nodding of his head.

"Of you," he said, catching himself up quickly. "Always of you,

dearest."

"You were thinking of what I said to you a moment ago," she said

steadily.

"Yes," he agreed, "and of what you said to me five years ago."

Soon afterward he prepared to depart. She ran upstairs to tell her

mother that he wanted to see her. She had kissed him good night. He did

not see her again. Later on, she stood straight and tense, in the

center of her bedroom floor, her hands to her breast, waiting for her

mother's return. Vaguely she felt that something harsh and bitter was

to be made known to her before she slept that night.

In lowered tones David Jenison was saying to Mary Braddock: "She must

be told everything to-night. It isn't safe to put it off. She is strong

and she knows that I am staunch. Nothing else should matter. We don't

know what to-morrow may bring, but she must be as fully prepared for

the worst as we are. It isn't fair to her. Tell her everything."

"Yes," she said steadily. "And you will try to find him to-night?"

"I will," he said.

CHAPTER VI

DOOR-STEPS

David hurried off toward the car-line, bent on reaching Joey's home

before that worthy retired for the night.

At the top of a flight of stone steps leading to the doors of an

imposing mansion across the street from the Portman home a motionless

figure sat, as bleak as the shadows in which it was shrouded. Like a

malevolent gargoyle it glowered out upon the deserted street; a tense,

immovable chin rested in a pair of clenched hands, knees supporting the

elbows. This desolate, forbidding figure had been there for an hour or

more--ever since Christine's return from the concert. Not once were the

burning eyes removed from the lighted windows across the way. At last,

long after the footsteps of the anxious Virginian had died away in the

night, and the lights were extinguished in the house opposite, the

silent watcher moved for the first time. Slowly he came to his feet,

his eyes still upon the solitary window in which a light had lingered

long after all the others were gone.

"Well, they're through discussing me," muttered Tom Braddock, thinking

aloud. Shivering, as if from a mighty chill, although the night was

warm, he stalked down from his perch and went swiftly up the street, a

gaunt, broad-shouldered figure whose step seemed to suggest purpose

more than stealth.

As he slunk past the approach to a basement hard-by, a stealthy figure

slipped out from the recess and kept pace with him, not twenty feet

behind. A block farther up the street this second watcher quickened his

pace. He came alongside the man ahead.

"Hello, Brad," fell upon the ears of the stalked. He betrayed no

surprise, no sign of alarm. He did not check his pace, nor look around.

"Confound you, Dick," he said, as if pronouncing sentence, "if you

don't quit dogging me like this I'll kill you, so help me God."

"You might have known I'd be somewhere around," said the other quietly.

They were now side by side, gaunt, slouching figures, both of them.

"I thought I'd given you the slip."

"Umph," was the expressive comment.

"What did you follow me over here to-night for?" demanded Braddock

fiercely, after thirty steps.

"You know why, Brad. Don't ask."

"This is my affair," went on the big man. "I was doing no harm, sitting

across there. Can't a man sneak off for a single look at his own

child--in the dark, at that--without being hounded by--Say, you must

stop dogging me, d' you hear? I'm not a rat. I'm a human being. I've

got feelings. I wanted to have a look at her. She's my girl and--"

"Not so loud, Brad. Remember who you are with. You are in bad company,

old man. Don't draw attention to the fact. Take a word of advice from

me. Keep away from that house. Don't--"

"I don't want to hear anything more out of you," grated Braddock. "I

know what I'm doing. I'm living up to my promise, ain't I? Didn't I say

I'd see Mary before I--Say," he broke off incontinently, his thoughts

leaping backward, "that was my girl that said good night to the swells

back there--mine! Did you see how prettily she was dressed? Did you

hear how sweet her voice was? I--I--" Something came up in the man's

throat to cut off the words; and a long silence fell between them.

Not until they were turning into Fourth Avenue did Dick Cronk speak

again. Somehow he felt the emotion that struggled in the breast of the

man beside him. For the first time in his life he was sorry for him.

"Where are you going now, Tom?" he asked, knowing full well what the

spiritless answer would be.

"To that hell-hole of a place you call home," said Braddock. Dick

slipped his hand through the other's arm; they turned oft into one of

the cross streets, wending their way through the sodden community, one

with his head erect, the other with his chin on his breast, his hands

in his coat pockets.

Half an hour later a cab stopped at a corner not far from a Pell Street

intersection. Two men got down and picked their way through the vile

street, searching out the house numbers as they progressed. They passed

the all-night dives and brothels, whence came the sounds of

unrestrained and unrefined revelry, and came at last to a spot beneath

a huge wooden boot that hung suspended above the door of the most

unholy structure in the narrow street. A man in his shirt sleeves sat

back in the shadow of the tumbledown stoop, smoking a pipe. At his left

a narrow, black passage led down between two squalid buildings, one of

which was dark, the other lighted so that the vicious revelers within

might see and be seen.

The uncertain, timorous actions of the strangers in Thieves' Alley

brought a fantastic smile to the lips of the smoker. He watched them as

they looked up at the boot and compared notes in rather subdued tones.

"This must be the place," said one of the men. There was no mistaking

the note of disgust in his voice.

"Looking for some one, gents?" demanded the smoker, without rising from

the stool on which he sat leaning against the wall.

"Is this No. 24--Hello! It's Dick!"

"Ain't you afraid to be seen down here, Joey?" asked the man on the

stool, chuckling.

"It's worth an honest man's life to be seen 'ere," said Joey Noakes, in

hushed tones. "God 'elp 'im as can't 'elp 'isself if he ever strolls in

'ere unawares."

"It's rather late in the night for any one to be about," said Dick

Cronk. "Still, I've been expecting you, gents. That's why I'm sitting

out here, takin' things easy--and makin' things easy for you. If you

don't mind I'll keep my seat, David. It ain't wise to be seen

hobnobbin' with swell gents at this time o' night--in Hell's Kitchen

particularly. I know what you're here for. _He's_ back there asleep.

Don't worry. I've got him safely sidetracked."

He jerked his thumb over his shoulder to indicate the narrow passage.

The others looked down that filthy corridor and shuddered.

"What a place!" muttered David Jenison.

"Wot 'as Brad been up to to-night?" demanded Joey.

Without changing his position, Dick Cronk, in as few words as possible,

told them of Braddock's vigil.

"Don't hang around here a minute longer than you have to," he said in

conclusion. "There are a hundred eyes on you right now. You don't see

'em, but they're looking, just the same. I thought you'd be blame'

fools enough to come, so I waited up. Something told me you would go to

Joey's when you left her, kid, and you'd make him come along to hunt me

out. Brad's safe, and he's not going to do anything just yet. So go

home and go to bed. I'll see you to-morrow and we'll arrange for a time

when she can talk with him. She'll see him, won't she?"

"Of course. She is eager to see him. I am to bring him to her as soon

as--"

"We've got to handle him carefully or--" began Dick.

Joey interrupted him. "The devil's to pay in another direction, Dick,"

he said. "Bob Grand 'as 'eard that Brad's out and that he's been

'anging around his 'otel, nasty-like. Who should come to my 'ouse in a

cab at nine o'clock to-night but Bob Grand 'isself. He finds me alone,

Ruby being off with 'er young man. When I sees who is coming up my

steps, I almost keels over. The first words he says took my breath

away. I was getting ready to kick 'im into the gutter when he puts a

check on my leg, curious-like, by remarking that he's looking for Tom

Braddock. He came to arsk me where he could be found. I told 'im I

didn't know, and, if I did, I'd be hanged if I'd tell 'im. We 'ad some

pretty sharp words, you may believe. But he took all the impudence out

of me by announcing most plainly that he understood Brad wanted to kill

'im and that I'd best 'ave a care how I acted, because my 'ouse was

being watched by secret service men. There was a lot more, but I

'aven't time to tell you. The upshot of it is, he's going to 'ave Brad

nabbed and put where he can't do any 'arm. And, see 'ere, Dick, I don't

want to be mixed up in this business. You've got to get Brad out of

town to-night. He's done for now and--"

Dick Cronk interrupted his old friend with a snarl of impatience. "Get

him away yourself! I'm doing the best I know how. He won't leave of his

own free will. He's here to do that man and he won't be put off. And

what's more, Bob Grand ought to get it good and hard. Somebody ought to

spike him, and who's got a better right than Tom Braddock? I'm ashamed

of you, Joey! If you'd been half a man you'd 'a' beat his head off

to-night when he put his foot on your doorstep, after what he put up to

Ruby. I--I wish I'd been there!"

The bowl of the clay pipe dropped to the bricks. He literally had

ground the stem in two with his teeth.

"Go home now--both of you," he said, a moment later, following his own

awkward laugh. "You can't afford to be seen here. I'll look out for

Brad. The Colonel won't come here a-lookin' for him, you can bet your

life on that. You'll hear from me to-morrow. Maybe you think I ain't

sick of this business? If it wasn't for you, Davy, I'd cut it in a

minute and dig for the wooly West, where Mr. Barnum and Mr. Forepaugh

are dying for my society. Move along now! Don't block the sidewalk!

Can't you see the ladies want to pass?"

Two maudlin women of the underworld lurched by, with coarse, ribald

comments on the "swells." David felt himself grow hot with shame and

disgust. After their laughter had died away he turned to the grinning

Dick.

"But we must do something to-night--" he began imploringly.

Dick lifted his hand. "Correct," he said. "We must do some sleeping."

He strode to the mouth of the forbidding passage. A light from a saloon

window shone out upon a long flight of rickety steps at the farther

end, leading up to the darkness above. "See that stairway? Well, I

wouldn't advise you to follow me up there. It ain't a Romeo and Juliet

balcony, gents. Good night!"

He turned into the passage with a wave of the hand. They saw him pass

up through the shaft of light from the window and disappear in the

shadows. Then they hurried away from the foul place, almost running to

the cab at the corner.

David did not sleep that night. He tossed on his bed, beset by the

direst anxiety and dread, his eyes wide open and staring. He dozed off

at six, but was wide awake before seven, when he arose and partook of a

hurried, half-eaten breakfast. It was not likely that he would hear

from Dick Cronk before the middle of the forenoon. Until then he was to

be harassed by doubts and fears that would not be easy to suppress in

his present unquiet frame of mind. While he was obliged to stand idle

and impotent, the very foundation of all the future happiness of the

girl he loved might be irreparably shattered. Silent, deadly,

purposeful forces were working toward that end. Her mother would, no

doubt, prepare her in a way for the crash, but there always would be

the memory of the cruel blow that might have been prevented.

He crossed into Madison Square, taking a seat where he could watch the

entrance to his hotel, though the hour was so early that it seemed

sheer folly to expect Dick Cronk. A dozen times in the first half-hour

he looked at his watch. Would the hands never reach nine o'clock? He

knew that Dick would make his approach slyly. Perhaps if he returned to

his room he would find him there. It would not be an unusual

circumstance, he recalled.

Had Colonel Grand's detectives swooped down upon Tom Braddock? Was

Christine's father already in jail? Was Grand in a position to hold a

new club over the heads of the two women? Were the newspapers preparing

to revel in the great story--

He was in the midst of these direful questions when some one tapped him

lightly on the shoulder from behind. He turned and glanced upward, his

nerves a-tingle.

"Dick!" he exclaimed, leaping to his feet.

"Sit down!" commanded the pickpocket warily.

David dropped to the bench, his eyes fastened on the white, drawn face

of the pickpocket. A thick, white bandage was wrapped around his

forehead, partially hidden by the slouch hat he wore. The man seemed

faint and unsteady on his feet.

"I say, Dick," cried David, "what has happened? You are hurt. Who--"

With a rigid grin Dick put his hand to his head.

"Braddock," he said succinctly.

"You don't mean--Tell me what has happened? Wait! Do you require the

attention of a surgeon?"

"Sit still, kid. I'm all right. You might pass me a quarter or

something, just to make people think I'm boning you for a breakfast.

Thanks! Well, Brad's gone."

"Gone?"

"He cracked me good and hard, that's what he did. I told you he

wouldn't be held down long. He's in no mood to be kind to them that are

trying to be kind to him. He's past all that. He means business, Brad

does. This morning about six he got up. I was watchin' him. He said he

was going over to see his wife. He said he wanted to see her before

Christine was awake, or out of bed. I told him they wouldn't let him in

at that time of day. He said he'd get in or know the reason why. Then

he opened up on me about all of us trying to manage his affairs for

him. I tried to quiet him. But the devil of it was he was quiet enough.

He was _too_ quiet. It looked bad. When he started for the door I took

hold of him. He--well, he shoved me off. When I jumped in front of the

door he picked up a chair and let me have it over the head. I didn't

know anything for a long time. When I came to he was gone. Jimmie

Parsons, who was in the room with us all the time, also tried to stop

him after he biffed me. Jimmie's got two wonderful black eyes as a

result."

"The man must be insane!" cried David, aghast. Dick shook his head.

"Not a bit of it. He's the sanest man I know."

"Where has he gone? You said he started for Mrs. Braddock's? Great

heavens, Dick, he may do her bodily harm! He may have shot her down in

cold--"

"Easy, easy! He ain't likely to do anything like that until after he's

got Bob Grand."

"Then he will shoot Bob Grand this morning, mark my words. He--"

"He won't shoot anybody. He hasn't any gun. He says he don't need one.

If he gets Grand, it won't be with a weapon of any kind. That's what he

says, and he means it. If Bob Grand dies from a bullet, you can bet

your life it won't come from Tom Braddock. But all this can wait. I

stopped off at Joey's. He sent Ruby down to Mr. Portman's at once, and

he's gone over to keep watch around the hotel where Grand stops. The

thing for you to do is to make tracks for Portman's. I'm going to--"

But David did not wait to hear what Dick intended to do. He was rushing

off to hail a passing hansom.

Dick followed him to the curb. "If you see Brad tell him there's no

hard feelings, Davy. It was a dirty smash, but I deserve it for not

ducking. And say, be careful how you tackle him. Remember that thing

about wisdom being better than--what's the word? Nerve?"

The hansom turned and sped down Fifth Avenue with its nervous

passenger. Dick shook his head wearily. Then he smiled. From his coat

pocket he slyly extracted a shining revolver. Three minutes before it

had been in David Jenison's pocket. "He's better off without a thing

like this," mused the clever philosopher.

Thomas Braddock rang the door-bell at the Portman home shortly after

eight o'clock. He was perfectly calm and in full possession of himself.

A brisk manservant opened the door and faced the strange caller.

"I want to see Mrs. Braddock," said the man in the vestibule.

"Call again," said the servant curtly.

"Just a minute, please," said Braddock. He did not offer to resist the

closing of the door in his face. There was something in his tone,

however, that caused the footman to hesitate. He took a second,

surprised look at the gray, set face of the caller.

"Mrs. Braddock is occupied," he announced.

"You mean she isn't up yet. I'll wait," remarked Braddock, still very

quietly. The man stared hard at him, suddenly struck by the pallor of

his face. His eyes swept the grim figure in the ill-fitting suit of

jeans.

"What do you want? Can't you leave a message?"

"Want? I want to see her." The footman glanced back over his shoulder

as if searching for some one on whom he could shift an amazing

responsibility. Recalling his dignity, he essayed to close the door in

Braddock's face.

"I am her husband," announced the caller, his hands still in his

pockets. The servant's hand was stayed.

"Won't you call again?" he temporized. "I don't quite understand. It

don't go down very easy, I'll say that. At any rate, you can't see her

now, no matter who you are. She was up all night with Miss Braddock,

who took sick suddenly. Mrs. Braddock has just laid down for a--"

"Christine sick?" demanded Braddock. The new note in his voice

commanded attention. "It--it can't be serious. She was all right when

she came in last night. What's the matter with her? Speak up! What does

the doctor say?"

"They didn't call a doctor."

He was surprised to see the ominous glare fade from Braddock's eyes.

They wavered and then fell. An uneasy, mirthless laugh cracked in his

throat; then his lip quivered ever so slightly--Brooks could have sworn

to it. His hand shook as it went up to fumble the square chin in

evident perplexity. For a moment Thomas Braddock stood there,

reflecting, swayed by an emotion so unexpected that he was a long time

in accounting for it. Indecision succeeded the arrogant assurance that

had marked his advances. He looked up quickly, suspecting the lie that

might have been offered as an excuse to get rid of him.

"Are you lying to me?" he demanded.

"Sir!"

Braddock's mind, long acute, worked swiftly. He went back of the

servant's statement with an intelligence that grasped the true

conditions quite as plainly as if they had been laid bare before him.

Christine was ill. No physician had been called. He knew what the

servant could not, by any chance, have known. He knew why Mary Braddock

sat up with her daughter. A doctor? As if a doctor could prescribe for

the affliction that beset her! Too well he now understood what had

transpired in that upstairs room. A thing of horror had come to rack

the soul of that happy, beautiful girl--had come suddenly because the

time was ripe. She was suffering because _he_ was near! _He_ understood.

A tense, bitter oath struggled through his lips.

"Well, it's time she knew," he muttered in self-justification. Impelled

by a strange anxiety--perhaps it was apprehension--he strained his eyes

in the effort to penetrate the depths of the unfriendly hall at the

servant's back. His ear seemed bent to catch the sounds of sobs or

moans that he knew must reach him if he listened closely.

He again questioned the servant with his eyes, a long, intense scrutiny

that confused the man.

Then he turned away.

"All right," he said sullenly, putting his hands into his pockets once

more and drawing up his shoulders as if he were cold. "I'll come again.

Tell Mrs. Braddock I was here and that I'll be back in a couple of

hours." Another glance through the half-open door, over the footman's

shoulder, and he stalked off, his jaw set, his hands clenched in the

pockets of his coat. At the foot of the steps he shot a quick,

involuntary glance upward, taking in the second story windows. The

wondering servant looked after him until he turned the corner below.

Brooks had seen men with the prison pallor in their faces before.

He was not long in apprising Mrs. Braddock of the stranger's visit. She

was with Christine when he made the unhappy announcement. If he

expected a demonstration of concern or surprise, he was disappointed.

"I will see Mr. Braddock when he returns," said his mistress quietly.

Brooks blinked two or three times, his only tribute to the stupendous

shock he had experienced.

Thomas Braddock walked to the Battery. There he sat down on one of the

benches and glowered out upon the blue waters of the bay for an hour or

more. No muscle moved in his face. He waited with a patience that was

three years old.

When David drove up to the Portman place, Mrs. Braddock herself arose

from one of the chairs in the narrow stone porch at the top of the

steps. She, too, had been waiting, but not for the young man who dashed

up the steps.

"He has been here," she said, as she gave him her hand. The tenseness

of the clasp revealed the strain that was upon her. He noted the pallor

in her cheek, the dread in her eyes. The hot glare of the June sun

seemed to bring out gray hairs he had never seen before. He had not

thought of her as growing old until now.

"Yes?" he cried anxiously. "Where is he? I tried to get here in time.

Did he--"

"Sit down, David--here, please, behind the balustrade. I am waiting out

here for him. He went off in that direction. I've been watching for

nearly an hour. He is coming back."

She resumed her chair, facing the direction which Braddock had taken.

"You--you sent him away?"

"I did not see him. You must not think, David, that I am afraid to see

him. I am nervous, upset, but it really isn't fear.

Christine--Christine knows everything. I told her last night. She

is--well, you can imagine, she is very unhappy. Everything looks black

to her. I did not hide anything. She is crushed."

"Where is she? I must see her. I can comfort her, Mrs. Braddock. Let me

see her before he comes back." He was standing over her, his face

working.

"She will not see you, David," she said in dull tones. He started.

"What do you mean? She _must_ see me." "Her father was in the

penitentiary." That was all; but it told all there was to tell.

It required a moment or two for comprehension. Then he cried out

reproachfully: "Does she think that will make any difference in my--"

She held up her hand. "She knows it won't. That's what distresses her.

I am afraid, David, after all, you have brought your honor to a

wretched market. We are what we are, we Braddocks. We can't look beyond

our environment. You cannot marry a convict's daughter. It was bad

enough before. I should have seen all this. But I was blind only to her

happiness. We can't--"

His jaws were set. "Mrs. Braddock," he said, his voice quivering with

decision, "I am not going to be put off like this. You may as well

understand that, first and last. I love her. I want her. She loves me,

thank God. It won't be so hard to make her understand how impossible it

is for anything to come between us. She is going to marry me, Mary

Braddock."

A great light leaped into her eyes, even as she shook her head. The

words of protest she would have uttered failed to pass her lips. She

reached out as if to clasp his hand, a movement as involuntary as it

was instinctive. He had turned and was facing the closed portals behind

which his heart's desire was beating all joy and hope out of her poor

tormented soul. The tears rushed to his eyes.

"I can't stand it," he cried. "She must hear the words _now_--this is

the time for me to go to her and say that I love her better than all

the world. Nothing else matters."

In his eagerness he was starting for the door when a sharp cry fell

from her lips. He hesitated, struck by the note of consternation in the

cry.

A carriage had drawn up at the curb in front of the house. A face

appeared at the open window of the vehicle, a never-to-be-forgotten

face that brought to mind the African gazelle in Van Slye's.

David turned. For a moment he could not believe his eyes. He stood

rigid in the paralysis of stupefaction. Then a cold perspiration

started from every pore of his body. He sprang to Mrs. Braddock's side.

She was even then peering down the street, a great fear in her heart,

every fiber quivering with alarm.

Colonel Grand was assisting his daughter to the sidewalk. Already he

had lifted his hat and sent a nauseous smile to the woman above.

David's gaze followed hers in quest of a more sinister actor who might

even then be coming upon the scene for the tragic climax.

The young man recognized the necessity for quick action. Colonel Grand,

whatever his motive for appearing so unexpectedly at the Portman house,

must be turned away without ceremony or consideration. At any minute

Thomas Braddock might return. A tragedy would be the result; that was

inevitable.

David started down the steps, passing the rigid, staring woman at the

top. He was vaguely aware of Roberta Grand's bow and of the look of

annoyance in the Colonel's face. Half-way down he called out:

"Colonel Grand, you must not stay here--not a second longer. I will

explain if you will let me ride with you for a couple of blocks."

Grand advanced.

"Young man," he said coldly, "I am here to see Mrs. Braddock on a

matter of importance. You will do well to subside."

David flushed angrily. "But Mrs. Braddock does not care to see you.

She--"

Grand came on up the steps, ignoring Jenison, addressing himself to

Mary Braddock.

"I have come to discuss Tom with you, Mary," he said. She started at

the use of her name, a hot wave of anger rushing over her.

"Go away!" she cried, in low, intense tones. "How dare you come here,

Colonel Grand? Go!"

He stopped, raised his hat, shrugged his shoulders in a deprecating

manner, and then quickly lifted his free hand to check the approach of

the young man who was ominously near at hand.

"I fancy it will be best for all concerned if we avoid tableaux. Still,

I will go away if you see fit to send me--"

"I do see fit! Go!"

Roberta Grand was staring at the speaker from the bottom of the steps.

"Don't haggle with her, father," she cried venomously. "Bring her to

time!"

"You have met my daughter, Mrs. Braddock?" said Grand in his most suave

manner. "What are you looking at, Jenison?" he demanded, suddenly

noting the young man's frozen stare, directed down the street.

David passed his hand over his damp brow and turned to look helplessly

into Mary Braddock's face.

Tom Braddock was standing across the street at the corner below,

clutching a lamp-post for support. He was staring with wide open eyes

at the group on the steps.

CHAPTER VII

TOM BRADDOCK'S PROMISE

She had seen Braddock turn the corner. Her eyes were closed now, as if

to shut out the disaster that must rush down upon them in the next

instant; her thrumming ears waited for the sound of running footsteps

and the crack of a revolver. David started up the steps toward her.

"It will be best for you to hear what I have come to say," observed

Grand, ignorant of the peril that lay behind him. He resumed his

progress up the steps, Roberta following close behind.

"For Heaven's sake, man, go while you can," cried David hoarsely.

"Don't you see--"

"Mary, will you listen to me? We've got to come to an understanding

concerning Tom. He's in town. We must come to some agreement, you and

I, as to whether a scandal is to follow his arrest--a scandal which

will blast you and Christine forever in New--"

"Is there no way to stop him?" groaned Mary Braddock, opening her eyes

to look again upon the sinister figure across the way. She had not

heard a word of Colonel Grand's minacious overture.

"By this time Braddock has been taken by the police,--as Sam Brafford,

the ex-convict and yeggman. Is he to go up this time as the father of

Christine--"

David sprang to his side, seizing his right arm in a grip of iron. In

the same movement he whirled the older man about and pointed toward the

figure at the corner.

"It's Braddock!" he hissed. "Now we're in for it. By heaven, he ought

to kill you!"

"Braddock!" gasped Grand. "Why, he is in jail--" The words died on his

lips. He recognized the man. His eyes bulged, his grayish face seemed

to freeze stiff, with the lower lip and tongue hanging loose.

Transfixed, he saw Thomas Braddock straighten up, relinquish his grip

on the iron post, and start diagonally across the street, his head bent

forward, his lower jaw extended. His unswerving gaze never left the

face of Robert Grand.

"Get into the carriage, Roberta," shouted Grand, suddenly alive to his

peril. He trembled, but he was not the man to run from an adversary,

nor was he likely to sell his life cheaply. With a quick, desperate

tug, he jerked himself free of David's grasp. His hand flew to his

inside coat pocket.

Thomas Braddock had reached the curb. Miss Grand stood directly in his

path, petrified by terror. Like a cat he sprang forward, cunningly

putting her body between him and Grand, making it impossible for the

latter to shoot without imperiling the life of his daughter.

A revolver gleamed in the hand of the man on the steps.

David's wits worked quickly. It may have been that he was inspired.

Instead of attempting to grasp or disarm Colonel Grand, he decided to

let the situation take care of itself for the moment. Neither of the

men could make a move to attack the other.

"Here, I say!" gasped the Colonel. "He can shoot me down like a dog.

Stop him, Jenison! Don't you see I can't protect myself?"

David took advantage of the knowledge that Braddock was unarmed.

"Colonel Grand," he cried out sharply, "if you attempt to kill that man

I'll see that you suffer for it."

"But, damn it, he is here to kill me! I have the right to kill in

self-defense if--"

"Then why doesn't he kill you? He has you in his power. He is not here

to attack you. That must be plain, even to you. Mr. Braddock has come

to see his wife before leaving the city."

He caught the cunning gleam in Tom Braddock's eyes. His heart gave a

great bound of relief. The man was not so mad as to court certain death

by attacking his enemy under the present conditions. Christine's father

was perfectly cool; he was absolute master of himself. Nothing could be

farther from the mind of Thomas Braddock than the desire to be shot by

Robert Grand. It was his one purpose in life to kill, not to be killed.

He realized that he was powerless. Grand could shoot him down like a

dog--an inglorious end to the one spark of ambition left in him. The

workings of Braddock's mind were as plain to Jenison as if the man were

expounding them by word of mouth.

"Before leaving the country," David substituted. The ghost of a sneer

flickered about Braddock's lips. He spoke for the first time, hoarsely,

but with wonderful calmness.

"I came to see Mary," he said. "You'd better go, Grand. I don't want

anything to do with you. It won't be healthy for either of us if we see

too much of each other."

"Stand out from behind my daughter, you coward," shouted Grand.

"Don't shoot, father!" screamed the girl, terror-stricken.

"Go ahead!" said Braddock grimly.

The driver of the cab was looking wildly about in quest of a policeman.

Two women had stopped on the opposite side of the street, and were

staring at the group in front of the Portman mansion.

"Shall I call a cop?" called out the cabby, addressing himself to the

one person who seemed to belong on the premises--Mrs. Braddock.

"No! No! Take them away!" she cried. "That's all I ask of you!"

"Wait!" said Colonel Grand, master of himself once more. "We may just

as well understand each other. I had an object in coming here. It

concerns this man. He--"

David broke in peremptorily. It was time to bring the distressing scene

to an end, if it were possible to do so without inviting the actual

catastrophe. He realized that he would have to act quickly in order to

anticipate the curious crowd and to be ahead of the police.

"Colonel Grand, you have put yourself in an unpleasant, uncalled-for

position," he said. "I am of half a mind to hold you here until the

police arrive. Cabby, I call upon you to witness, with all the rest of

us, that Colonel Grand has drawn a revolver with the design to kill an

unarmed, unoffending man. You have seen everything. Mr. Braddock saved

his life only by--"

"Unarmed!" shouted Colonel Grand. "Why, he is armed to the teeth. He's

after me. He's going to kill me on sight, I swear--"

"What is to prevent him from doing so now, Colonel?" demanded David.

"You are in a position where you cannot shoot. He could drill you full

of holes if that were his intention. Mr. Braddock, are you armed?"

"No," said Braddock. "Do you suppose, if I had a gun, I would be

standing behind this girl?"

"Do you hear that, cabby? Do you, Colonel? Now, I want to say just this

to you, sir; I am going to the nearest police station and swear out a

warrant for your arrest. I can't hold you myself, but I can do the next

best thing. I can land you in jail for attempted murder."

Colonel Grand stared at him with uncomprehending eyes, a sickly smile

on his lips.

"You know better than--" he began.

David cut him short with an exclamation. Then he walked out to the

curb, opened the cab door and coolly motioned for Colonel Grand to step

down and enter.

Mary Braddock waited no longer. She sped down the steps, passing the

slow-moving, stupefied Colonel, and ruthlessly shoved Roberta Grand to

one side, taking her stand in front of her husband, facing his foe.

"It isn't necessary for my husband to shield himself behind your flesh

and blood, Colonel Grand," she said, her head erect. "Now, if you care

to shoot, you have both of us at your mercy."

"I came to propose a peaceful--" began the Colonel, baffled.

"Step lively, Colonel Grand!" commanded Jenison. "Permit me, Miss

Grand."

"Don't touch me," hissed Roberta, disdaining his assistance. The look

she bestowed upon her father, as she passed him, was not a pleasant

one. He had promised her a different reception at the Portman home,

secretly depending on his power to force Mrs. Braddock to welcome an

armistice, no matter how distasteful it may have been to her. He had

not anticipated the outcome. Miss Grand accompanied him, meanly it is

true, in the hope that she might gloat over the Braddocks in their

humiliation.

She entered the cab, frightened and dismayed. Her father, still

grasping his pistol, followed her. He cast a defeated, almost appealing

glance at the uncompromising face of the young man who held open the

door.

"You can't obtain a warrant for me," he said nervously. "I have the law

on my side. I can prove that this man threatened--"

"Drive on, cabby," said David relentlessly. "I've taken your number.

You will be called on as a witness. Don't argue! I mean it!"

Muttering excitedly, the driver, without the customary "where to?"

started off down the street. Colonel Grand leaned forward to send a

menacing scowl toward the group on the sidewalk. He smiled sardonically

when he saw that Mary Braddock still kept her place in front of her

husband, evidently afraid that he would fire from the window of the

departing cab. Then he called out his instructions to the driver and

settled back in the seat.

The gritting of Tom Braddock's teeth did not escape the tortured ears

of his wife. She looked up quickly. He was glaring after the cab, a

look of appalling ferocity in his face.

"Come into the house, Tom," she said quickly.

He turned on her with a snarl.

"I won't keep you long," he grated. "I've got other business on hand."

It occurred to him to tender David his meed of praise. "That was pretty

sharp in you, David, staving him off like that. I owe you something for

doing that."

"I knew you were unarmed. You would have had no chance."

They were going up the steps, Braddock between the others. Brooks, the

footman, was holding the door open. He had been a politely interested

witness to the startling encounter.

Braddock seemed to be studying each successive slab of stone as he

ascended. The muscles of his jaw were working. He seemed to have formed

a habit of jamming his hands far down into his coat pockets.

"That was the only chance _he'll_ ever have," was his sententious

remark. No other word was uttered until they were inside the house,

Mrs. Braddock's gasp of relief could not have been called a sigh.

"Thank God!" she breathed, sinking upon the hall seat and clasping her

clenched hands to her breast.

Braddock shot a quick glance up the broad stairway. The surroundings

were strange to him,--he had never been inside the home of his

father-in-law before,--but he knew that Christine was somewhere

overhead.

"How's Christine, Mary?" he asked roughly.

"She is wretchedly unhappy, Tom."

"Umph!" was the way he received it, but a close observer might have

seen the flutter of his eyelids and the sharp, convulsive movement in

the coat pockets. "I don't want her to see me," he said.

"She wants to see you--"

He faced her angrily. "No! I've got to take care of my nerves. I can't

take any chances on having 'em upset. See here, David," he said,

lowering his voice and speaking with deadly emphasis, "that talk of

yours about swearing out a warrant for Grand don't go, do you

understand? I don't want him to be arrested. I don't want him locked

up. I want him to be _free_. He'd be too safe behind the bars?"

The sound of a door opening above came to them at this juncture,

followed by the swift rush of feet and the rustle of skirts. Braddock

looked up and instinctively drew back into an obscured recess at his

left.

Christine's face appeared over the railing above. She leaned far

forward and called out in the high, tense tones of extreme nervousness:

"Father! Is it you? Are you there?"

There was no response.

David, standing on the lower step, permitted his gaze to swerve from

the sweet, eager face of the girl above to that of the man in the

corner.

The effect on Braddock was astounding. Signs of a great convulsion

revealed themselves in his face. His lips were parted and drawn as if

in pain; his eyes were half closed, screening the emotion that groped

behind the lids. It was the face, the figure of a man mightily shaken

by an unexpected emotion. Slowly his eyes were opened. An expression of

utter despair and longing had come into them. Mrs. Braddock was staring

at her husband as if she could not believe her senses.

Words came hoarsely, unbidden from the man's lips, spoken as if from

the bottom of his soul after years of subjection and restraint, so

nearly whispered that they came to David's ears as if from afar off.

"Oh! How lonesome I've been all these years, just for the sound of her

voice!"

His wife's hand went out to him involuntarily. He looked at it for a

second, then into her eyes, waveringly, uncertain as to the impulse

that moved her. He suddenly regained control of himself. He grasped the

slender hand in his great, crushing fingers; the sullen, repellent

glare leaped back into his eyes; alert and shifty, he held up his free

hand to command the silence of David. Then, like a hunted creature at

bay, he glanced over his shoulder. Seeing an open door almost at his

elbow, he resolutely drew his wife after him into the room beyond. As

he turned to slam the door with vicious energy, the tense, incisive

voice called out once more from the head of the stairs:

"Father!"

The door banged as if propelled by the added energy of sudden fear.

An instant later, David was dashing up the stairs, three steps at a

time. She had started down. He met her at the bend.

"Not just now, dearest," he cried. "Wait! He wants to see your mother

first."

She clutched the rail, putting one hand out as if to ward him off. The

dread in her eyes went straight to his heart. Her lips were stiff, her

voice was low with anxiety.

"Is--is she safe, David,--is he himself? Oh, I must go down there. I

know I can reason--"

He stopped her gently. "Please, Christine," he commanded. She suddenly

put her hands to his face, and looked into his eyes.

"If anything were to happen to her," she whispered in agony, "I would--"

"She is perfectly safe," he broke in. "Your father will not mistreat

her." He clasped her hands and held them to his breast. "My poor

darling!"

Her head dropped, her lip quivered. Then she quietly withdrew her hands

and sank to a sitting posture on the step, leaning her head wearily

against the banister.

Ruby Noakes, a discarded wet towel in her hand, came into the hallway

above them. She saw them, hesitated for a moment, and then quietly

returned to Christine's bed-chamber.

David dropped to his sweetheart's side. His arm fell about her

shoulders. She did not offer to remove it, but sat listless,

unresponsive, her eyes lifted to a narrow window beyond which the hot

sky gleamed.

He began by whispering words of encouragement and sympathy, his soul in

every syllable. She was so quiet, so hurt, so forlorn; never had she

been so precious to him as now.

"David," she interrupted, closing her eyes as if through faintness, "it

is so good of you to say these things to me, but--but--oh, can't you

see how impossible it is now? Don't stay here! Go away, David. Do you

think that I can marry you now? It was bad enough before--but now! What

am I that you should take me to be your wife! You must go away and

forget--"

Her drew her head to his breast, smothering the heartbroken cry by the

fierceness of his embrace.

"Open your eyes, Christine! Look at me." She looked up, utter

desolation in her eyes. "Nothing on earth can keep you from being my

wife--nothing! I couldn't give you up. What am I for, if not to cherish

and protect and comfort you? What is the real meaning of the word

'love'? Husband! What does that stand for? A stone wall between pain

and peril and trouble; that's what it means. And I'm going to be all of

that to you--a stone wall for all your life, Christine. It is settled.

The strongest man in the world is not strong enough for the weakest

woman. I will never cease being proud of the fact that you are my wife.

Don't speak! Lie quiet, dearest. Nothing can change things for you and

me."

"It cannot be, David,--it cannot be!" she moaned, covering her face

with her hands. He held her there, sobbing, against his breast.

Meanwhile Thomas Braddock was pacing the floor of the library almost

directly beneath them. His wife watched him in silence; her eyes

followed the tall, bent figure as it swung back and forth with the

steadiness of a clock's pendulum. He had not spoken since they entered

the room, nor had she moved from the spot where he left her when he

released her hand. All this time she had been holding the wrist he had

grasped so cruelly. It pained her, but she was only physically

conscious of the fact; her mind was not comprehending it.

It was the first time she had seen him in five years. A curious

analysis was going on in her perturbed brain. The change in him! She

could not take her eyes from the haggard, heavily-lined face, so unlike

the blithe, youthful one she had loved, or the bloated, bestial one she

had feared and despised. The coarseness, the flabbiness, the purplish

hues were no longer there. The bulging, bleary eyes, on which the glaze

of continuous dissipation had once settled as if to stay, were not as

she remembered them. Instead, they were bright and clear, and lay deep

in their sockets. The lips, now beardless, were no longer thick and

repulsive. She marveled. This was not the vacillating, whiskey-willed

man she had known for so long; here was a determined character,

swelling with force, fierce in the resources of a belated integrity of

purpose. No longer the careless, handsome youth, nor the honorless man,

but a power! Whether that power stood for good or evil, it mattered

not; he was a man such as she had never expected him to be.

She was sensitive to one thing in particular, although the realization

of it did not come to her at once, she was so taken up with the study

of him as a whole: she missed the cigar from the corner of his mouth.

He stopped in front of her.

"This is the first time I have ever been asked into this house," he

said, his lips curling in a bitter, unfriendly smile. "Where is your

father?"

"His rooms are in the other end of the house, upstairs. He sleeps till

noon," she answered mechanically.

"Umph!" he grunted, resuming his walk.

"Tom," she said, taking a firm grasp on her nerves, "let us talk it

over quietly. Sit down."

He halted. "I can talk better standing," he said grimly. He came up

close to her. She stood her ground, looking him squarely in the eyes.

"There isn't much to say, Mary. You know me for what I am, and you know

who made me so. He's got to pay, that's all. We won't go into the past.

It's not easily forgotten. I guess we remember everything."

"Everything," she said.

"I'm not excusing myself. I'm past that, and besides it wouldn't go

down with you. You know where I've been, and you must give me credit

for trying to shield Christine a little bit. I took my medicine, and

nobody but you and Grand knew that her father was up there until now,

excepting Dick. I want to say to you, Mary, I was railroaded for a

crime I didn't commit. I was jobbed. He was at the back of it. He was

afraid of me--and well he might have been. I did a lot of rotten things

while you and I were ploddin' along through those last two years with

the show--you know what they were. But it was whiskey! I took money

that didn't belong to me--yours and Christine's, and Grand's, and

Jenison's. I did worse than that, Mary. I sold you out to Bob

Grand--you knew that, too. But I'm going to try to pay up all my

debts--all of 'em, in a day or two. I owe you my ugly, worthless life.

I'm going to pay you in full by ending it. I owe Colonel Grand for

everything I was, for what I am. I'm going to pay him, so help me God.

Don't interrupt! My mind's made up. Nothing above hell can change it. I

came here to ask you just two questions. I want you to answer them. I'm

going to believe you. You never lie, I know that."

"I will answer them, Tom."

He hesitated, his gaze wavering for the first time. "I--I hate to ask

you this first one, Mary," he said.

"Go on. Ask it."

"It's a mean question, but I've just _got_ to hear you say no. Did you

go to England with Bob Grand?"

"No."

He breathed deeply. "That's one," he said.

"Here's the other. Did he give you money to live on, to educate

Christine with, abroad?"

"No.",

"I'll ask still another. Where did you get the money?"

"Some of it from my father. Afterwards I brought suit against you and

Colonel Grand for an accounting. He was compelled to pay into court all

that was due me as part owner of Van Slye's. I had my own money in the

show. I could not be robbed of that."

"I'm glad you did that. It must have been a nasty dose for him."

"His wife tried to make trouble for me. You heard that?"

"I knew she would, sooner or later."

"You knew it?"

"She wasn't blind."

"But how could she dare to think that I--"

"She knew her husband's reputation, that's all. He was careless about

women." His face went black as a thundercloud. "But he's had his day!"

"Tom," she cried, clutching the lapels of his coat, "you shall not

leave this house until you've promised me to do nothing--"