Late into the night Stephen Van Landing kept up his hurried walking.
Again and again he had stopped and made inquiries of policemen, of
children, of men and women, but no one knew that of which he asked. A
blind man who played the harp, a child named Carmencita, a boy called
Noodles, a settlement house, he supposed, over which Mother Somebody
presided--these were all he had to go on. To ask concerning Miss
Barbour was impossible. He could not bring himself to call her name.
He would have to go to headquarters for help. To-morrow would be
Christmas eve. He _would not_ spend Christmas alone--or in the usual
way.
"Say, mister, don't you wish you was a boy again? Get out the way!"
With a push the boy swept by him, pulling on a self-constructed sleigh
a still smaller boy, and behind the two swarmed a bunch of yelling
youngsters who, as they passed, pelted him with snow. One of them
stopped to tie the string of his shoe, and, looking down, Van Landing
saw--Noodles.
With a swift movement he reached down to grab him, but, thinking it
was a cop, the boy was up and gone with a flash and in half a moment
was out of sight. As swiftly as the boy Van Landing ran down the
street and turned the corner he had seen the boy turn. His heart was
beating thickly, his breath came unevenly, and the snow was blinding,
but there was no thought of stopping. He bumped into a man coming
toward him, and two hats flew in the air and on the pavement, but he
went on. The hat did not matter, only Noodles mattered, and Noodles
could no longer be seen. Down the street, around first one corner and
then another, he kept on in fierce pursuit for some moments; then,
finding breathing difficult, he paused and leaned against the step
railing of a high porch, to better get his bearings. Disappointment
and fury were overmastering him. It was impossible and absurd to have
within one's grasp what one had been looking for all day and part of
two nights, and have it slip away like that.
"Come on. No use--that--" The policeman's voice was surly. "If you'll
walk quiet I won't ring up. If you don't you'll get a free ride. Come
on."
"Come on?" Van Landing put his hand to his head. His hat was gone. He
looked down at his feet. They were soaking wet. His overcoat was
glazed with a coating of fine particles of ice, and his hands were
trembling. He had eaten practically nothing since his lunch of
Tuesday, had walked many miles, and slept but a few hours after a
night of anxious searching, and suddenly he felt faint and sick.
"Come on?" he repeated. "Come where?"
"Where you belong." The policeman's grasp was steadying. "Hurry up. I
can't wait here all night."
"Neither can I." Van Landing took out his handkerchief and wiped his
face. "I wish you'd get my hat." The crowd was pressing closer. He was
losing time and must get away. Besides, he could not trust himself.
The man's manner was insolent, and he was afraid he would kick him.
Instead he slipped some money in his hand.
"Mistake, my friend. You'd have your trouble for nothing if you took
me in. There's no charge save running. I want to find a boy who
passed me just now. Name is Noodles. Know him?"
For a moment the cop hesitated. The man's voice, dress, manner, were
not the sort seen in this section, and the bill slipped in his hand
had a yellow tinge--still--
"I've dropped my hat. Get it, will you?" Van Landing threw some change
in the still gathering crowd, and as they scampered for it he turned
to the policeman, then caught hold of the railing. A hateful faintness
was coming over him again. On the edge of the crowd a girl with a
middle-aged woman had stopped, and the girl was making her way toward
him.
"What is it, Mr. Cronklin? Not one of our boys?" The clear voice
reached him as if at his side. He steadied himself, stared, and tried
to speak.
"Frances," he said, and held out his hands. "You've made me walk so
far, Frances, and Christmas is--"
In the snow his feet slipped. The cop was such a fool. He had never
fainted in his life.
Some one was standing near him. Who was it, and where was he? This
wasn't his room. On his elbow, he looked around. Nothing was
familiar. It must be a woman's room; he could see photographs and a
pin-cushion on the bureau, and flowers were growing on a table near
the window. The bed he was in was small and white. His was big and
brass. What had happened? Slowly it came to him, and he started to get
up, then fell back. The surge of blood receded, and again there was
giddiness. Had he lost her? Had she, too, slipped out of his hands
because of his confounded fall? It was a durned outrage that he should
have fallen. Who was that man with his back to the bed?
The man turned. "All right, are you? That's good!" His pulse was felt
with professional fingers, but in the doctor's voice was frank
interest. "You were pretty nearly frozen, man. It's well she saw you."
"Where is she?" Van Landing sat up. "Where are my clothes? I must get
up."
"I guess not." The doctor laughed, but his tone was as decisive as his
act. Van Landing was pushed back on the pillow and the covering pulled
up. "Do you mean Miss Barbour?"
"Yes. Where is Miss Barbour?"
The doctor wrote something on a slip of paper. "Down-stairs, waiting
to hear how you are. I'll go down and tell her. I'll see you in the
morning."
"Where am I? Whose house is this?"
"Your house at present." The doctor laughed again. "It's Mother
McNeil's house, but all who need it use it, and you needed it, all
right. You struck your head on the bottom step of the porch three
doors from here. Had it been an inch nearer the temple--Pretty bad
knock-out, as it was, but you'll be all right to-morrow. If you wake
up in a couple of hours take another one of these"--a pill was
obediently swallowed--"but you're to see no one until I see you again.
No talking."
"Sorry, but I must see Miss Barbour." In Van Landing's voice was sharp
fear. "Christmas isn't over yet? I haven't missed it, have I? Are you
sure she's in this house?"
"Sure. She's getting ready for to-morrow. To-morrow will be the
busiest day in the year. It's Christmas eve."
Van Landing slipped down in the bed and his face went deep in the
pillows. Reaction was on. A horrible fear that he was going to cry,
going to do some abominably childish thing, made him stuff the
covering in his mouth and press his feet hard against the foot of the
bed. He would _not_ be cheated out of Christmas! He had believed he
hated it, thought he wanted to be dead during it, and now if it were
over and nothing done--Presently he spoke.
"Will you ask Miss Barbour if I may speak to her in the
morning--before she goes out? My name is Van Landing--Stephen Van
Landing. I was a friend of hers once."
"One now." The doctor's voice was dryly emphatic. "Lucky she
recognized you. Rather startled her, finding an old friend so
unexpectedly." Over his spectacles his kind, shrewd eyes looked down
on the man in the bed. "I'll see her. Miss Barbour is an exceptional
woman, but she's a woman, which means when she knows you are all right
she may not have time to see you. At present she's outside your door.
That's her knock. Guess she's got the milk."
With breath held, Van Landing listened. Very low were the words
spoken, then the door was closed again. His heart was calling to her.
The long and empty years in which he had hoped against hope, and yet
could make no effort to find her, faded as mist fades before the light
that dawns and glows; and to say no word when she was near, to hold
hands still that longed to outstretch, to make no sign when he would
kneel for pardon at her feet--it was not to be endured. He would not
wait; the doctor must let her in!
But it was not the doctor who was at his bed. It was a short, plump
woman of more than middle age, with twinkling gray eyes and firm, kind
hands and a cheery voice.
"It's the milk, my son," she said, and the steaming glass was held to
his lips. "When you've had it you will sleep like a baby. It's warm,
are you--and the feet good and hot? Let me feel that water-bag? Bless
my soul if it's even lukewarm, and your feet still shivery! It's no
wonder, for they were ice itself when they brought you in."
With dexterous fingers the hot-water bag was withdrawn from the foot
of the bed and Mother McNeil was out of the room. Back again, she
slipped it close to his feet, tucked in the covering, patted the
pillows, and, lowering the light, turned to leave the room. At the
door she stopped.
"Is there anything you're needing, my son--anything I can do for you?"
For a moment there was silence, broken only by the ticking of a tiny
clock on the mantel, then Van Landing spoke.
"Yes." His voice was boyishly low. "Will you ask Miss Barbour if I may
see her to-morrow before she goes out? I _must_ see her."
"Of course I will. And you can tell her how it happened that you were
right near our door when you fell, and you didn't even know she was in
town. Very few of her up-town friends know. There wasn't time for both
up-town and down-town, and there were things she wanted to find out.
She tells me you are an old friend, and I'm glad you've come across
each other again. It pleases some folks to believe in chance, but I
get more comfort thinking God has His own way. Good night, Mr. Van
Landing. Good dreams--good dreams!"
The door was closed softly, and under the bedclothes Van Landing again
buried his face in the pillows, and his lips twitched. Chance--was it
chance or was it God? If only God would give him a chance!