The sky was beginning to get gray with morning when the night express,
more than a hundred and fifty miles from its starting point, rushed into
a little station and halted a moment for water, panting and fretting to
be on its way. A figure stepped from it to the platform, staggering a
little as from the motion of the train. It was a young man. His eyes
were bloodshot, his face stained with the grime of travel. His soft felt
hat and his short, velvet coat were covered with cinders and dust. One
would hardly have recognized the artist, Julian Goetze.
The station agent stood a few feet away with a lantern. He looked up
somewhat astonished as this odd figure approached him. "Some drunken
showman," he thought.
The man came closer, as if to speak to him.
"How far back to Saint Louis?" he asked, anxiously.
"One hundred and fifty-three miles."
"When can I get a train?"
"At eleven-thirty, if it's on time."
"Is it usually on time?"
"Hardly ever; four hours late yesterday."
"Good God! Is there no other train?"
"There's a cattle train lying up there on the switch now. Pulls out soon
as this one leaves."
"And what time will that reach Saint Louis?"
"No telling, depends upon what luck it has; possibly by four or five
o'clock."
The artist did not wait to hear more. Anything was better than remaining
here on an uncertainty. He sped away up the track to where lay the long
line of waiting cars.
He had been awakened by the stopping of the train, and a realization of
affairs had flashed over him like lightning. He was far away from Saint
Louis, and at six o'clock that night he had an appointment with Eva
Delorme.
The effects of his self-abasement and the strong liquor had worn away.
The fever and the delirium of last night were as a bad dream. He would
hasten back to Eva. He had sinned--fallen almost to the lowest
depth--but it was over now. He would see Evelin March no more. If Eva
accepted him they would go away at once. Oh, if kind Providence would
but help him to reach the appointment in time!
The conductor whom he asked, noting his anxiety, assured him that it was
quite probable they would reach the city by five o'clock.
It was growing light rather slowly. The sky was overcast with clouds,
and the air had the feeling of a storm. It seemed to Julian that the
train crept along like a farm wagon. For a long time he looked out at
the gray monotonous landscape, then he lay down on the cushioned benches
of the caboose and tried to sleep. Now and then he would doze a little,
but his mind was too full of anxiety and impatience to obtain rest.
Terrifying dreams forced themselves upon him, and he awoke often, sick
and frightened.
And so through that dreary autumn day the heavy train rumbled along
across the wide stretch of country that divided him from that which fate
was at that moment busily preparing--an experience as strange, as weird,
as terribly fantastic as was ever accorded to human being before.
The little Swiss cottage of Julian Goetze was very silent that day. All
through the forenoon no one entered, although the street door was
unlocked and the studio door was open. As the afternoon wore away, the
clouds and smoke that hung heavily over the city seemed to settle lower
and lower, until within the narrow hall-way it was almost dark.
Just after the clock on the mantel of the inner room had chimed three, a
cloaked figure passed through the hall and entered the studio. It was
Evelin March. Her eye fell upon the portrait of Eva Delorme still
resting upon the easel, and she glanced about hastily for the artist. He
was not there. For some reason she did not remove her wrap, but stood
still, listening. A wagon rattled by outside, but within all was silent.
"Paul!" she called, softly.
There was no reply.
"He has stepped out for a moment," she thought; "he will be back
presently."
She approached the face on the easel, cautiously, as though it were
alive.
"I wonder who she is," she muttered; "I have seen her somewhere
before--or I have dreamed it. He said it was his masterpiece. I hate
her!"
She seated herself before the picture, studying it silently. Little by
little a fear invaded her bosom--a strange fear, such as she had never
known before. A fear of this portrait, of the lonely room, of the
weapons upon the wall. It seemed to her that something horrible was
about to happen.
She started up and began to pace up and down the room to drive away this
feeling. Why did the artist not come? She parted back the draperies and
looked into the room beyond. He could not have gone far; his coat was
hanging upon the rack, and his velvet studio jacket was gone. Entering,
she approached the coat and put her hand against it in a sort of caress.
How she loved him! She seemed to have forgotten or forgiven the offered
insult of yesterday. Turning back the garment she touched her lips to
the silk lining where it had covered his heart. As she did so she
noticed the tinted edge of a narrow envelope in the inner pocket. In an
instant she was seized with a passion of curiosity. All her jealousy and
suspicions of the sweet-faced girl in gray came rushing back. She
listened at the curtained arch for a moment, but there was no sound of
approaching footsteps; then, her eyes flashing, and her cheeks flaming
guiltily, she snatched the delicate missive from its concealment, and
with trembling hands tore it from its covering. In another instant her
suspicions were verified. The woman reading seemed suddenly to have
become deranged.
"Coward!--liar!--cur!" she screamed.
She tore the letter in halves, crumpled it in her hands, and flung it
upon the floor. Then suddenly becoming calm she gathered up the pieces
hastily and concealed them in her bosom. A look of peculiar cunning had
come into her eyes.
"So he is going to meet her," she muttered, savagely; "but they will not
meet alone. I, too, will go to No. 74 West L---- Street, east side."
Then she hesitated. "Perhaps I would not be admitted," she thought.
Plans for overcoming this obstacle flashed through her brain like
lightning. She seized upon what appeared to her the most feasible.
"If I will counterfeit her," she said, feverishly; "I will disguise
myself."
She hurried back into the studio and stood for a moment before the
easel. Yes, yes; she could do it. Her figure was much the same, dress
gray and plain, hair low upon the forehead--a veil would make it
complete.
"Oh," she muttered, "how I hate your baby face! Look! I will kill you,
you fool--you fool!"
Again that sickening, fascinating terror of this unknown woman came upon
her. Hastily turning from the portrait she listened a second for the
artist's step. As she did so her eye caught the weapons on the wall.
Without a moment's hesitation she plucked the jewel-hilted stiletto from
its place, and concealing it beneath her cloak hurried from the house.
* * * * *
An hour later the artist burst into the studio. His bloodshot eyes, and
face blackened with travel, made him almost unrecognizable. Hurrying
through to his room beyond he glanced eagerly at the clock. It was on
the stroke of five.
"Just time to make myself presentable and reach the place by six," he
thought.
Then, turning, he surveyed himself in a mirror.
"Good heavens, what a spectacle I am! People must have thought I was a
maniac--and they were not far from wrong--but I am all right now. I am
going to Eva and confess my villainy, and ask her forgiveness. I will
swear my faith to her. She will forgive me--she must forgive me. And as
for Evelin, all is over with her after what passed last night. Last
night! was it only last night? It seemed an age."
He made a quick motion as if to drive away an unpleasant memory, then
throwing off his outer garments he opened the door of a little
dressing-room.
"I will bathe, and confess, and be born again," he said, with a little
laugh.
Twenty minutes afterward he emerged a new man in reality--as far as
outward appearances were concerned. Cleanly shaven and scrupulously
attired, no one would have recognized in him the dusty, wild-looking
figure of an hour before. He glanced at the clock.
"Yes--I have plenty of time," he thought. "No. 74 West L----Street, east
side; I will look at her letter again to make sure. Bless her sweet
face! I can hardly wait until I see it again. If she only is not ill,
but--good God, it is gone!"
He had looked in the breast pocket of his street coat, that still hung
on the rack; it was empty. He stood holding the coat, with a puzzled
expression on his face, trying to think.
"I know I put it in that pocket--I recollect it distinctly," he said,
aloud; "perhaps it fell out when I took off my coat."
He looked hastily about the floor, then hurried out into the studio,
searching rapidly and carefully. His face grew more and more troubled.
Could anyone have come in during his absence and picked it up? Perhaps
Harry had been here; if so, it was safe. As he stood there reflecting,
trying to solve the mystery, he was looking directly at the weapons upon
the wall. All at once he noticed that there was something different
about their arrangement. Something was missing. It was the dagger! Then
it all came to him. "Evelin!" he shouted. "Good God!"
He had wasted valuable time searching for the letter. He could hardly
reach the place of appointment by six unless he could catch some kind of
a vehicle.
"My God--my God! she will kill her--she will kill her! and all through
my treachery."
He had fled from the house and was now speeding wildly westward. No cab
was in sight and he could not wait to find one.
"She will kill her--she will kill her!" he groaned, over and over. "Oh,
my God--my God!"