AFTER THE TRAGEDY
Mary Randall stood beside the dead body of Carter Anson. Such tragedy had
not entered into her plans, nor had she conceived what it might be to see
a man die bearing the bullet intended for her own intrepid heart. A
strange numbness possessed her faculties.
She heard the voice of Mrs. Welcome beside her. The mother was speaking
with anguished entreaty to Elsie. The girl had risen to her feet and was
gazing with a dreadful fascination at Druce, writhing in the grasp of the
officers who seized him.
"Come, Miss Randall," one of her police aids said to the reformer. "This
is no place for you--now."
"There must be something I can do," she spoke with a flash of her usual
energy, then laid her hand on Mrs. Welcome's arm.
"Harvey Spencer is here," she said. "There he is trying to get through
the crowd to us now. Perhaps he can help you to persuade your daughter to
go away with you."
Elsie Welcome looked at Mary Randall, who was destined never to forget
the pitiful revelation of the girl's dark eyes. Mary Randall read that
despair of the lost mingled with woman's intense clinging to the man she
has chosen,--her strange stubborn clinging, when, entangled, she hears an
echo of happier and purer love.
"How dare you meddle in people's affairs like this and put us into such
dreadful trouble?" Elsie asked of the one who would help her. Then to her
mother, pulling away from her longing clasp, "You understand that at a
time like this my place is with my husband."
Elsie doubled under the arms which would have detained her and ran out of
the cafe.
"Go to Millville, Mrs. Welcome, back to your old home, as soon you can.
Let me look after Elsie. Go to this boarding-house (handing her a card).
Go there with Patience tonight, and I will send you some money tomorrow."
Miss Randall spoke quickly, and before Mrs. Welcome realized it, had
hurried in pursuit of Elsie.
But Elsie Welcome had disappeared.
Mary Randall found herself standing, as all who work for those who sin
and suffer must often stand, baffled by evil's resistance. Saddened by
somewhat of a divine sadness, Mary went across to the rendezvous where
her faithful Anna awaited her and left the field.
Harvey Spencer came to her downtown office early next day. He found her
surrounded by her strongest allies, already in conference as to the best
means of pursuing their crusade which had aroused Chicago with the
startling news of The Raid of Mary Randall on the Cafe Sinister,
headlined in the morning newspapers.
Harvey Spencer had taken Mrs. Welcome to the boarding-house designated by
Miss Randall where she was joined by Patience--and of Patience you shall
know presently. The remainder of the night, or most of it, he spent
trying to learn what had become of Elsie.
"I thought she might be still in that--hotel, as they call it," Harvey,
haggard with his night's search, told Miss Randall. "I went to the jail
too, but of course they would not let her inside there so late, even if
she had wanted to."
"She is sure to go there today to see Druce. Try again, Mr. Spencer, when
you go out from here," said Miss Randall.
"And keep you eye on Druce. Nobody will suspect you of being a detective.
You can telephone here if you see any activity around him," said a clever
special from headquarters.
"Good scheme," commended the journalist, another of Mary Randall's
strongest aids.
Harvey Spencer made notes of the right steps to take and, thanking Miss
Randall with a curious humility, went out again on his quest.
"Now we must learn what the vice-moneymakers will try to do next," said a
former high official in the municipality. "Our one safe bet is that they
will all get together and that John Boland, the boss of the bunch, will
map out the fight against us."
"Is it a losing fight?" asked a famous banker, known among his intimates
as the hard-headed enthusiast.
"Right against wrong can never be permanently a losing fight," quietly
said a small muscular clergyman from the northwest side.
"It has taken two thousand years for mankind to begin this fight against
buying and selling young virgins who can be coaxed or thrust into the
market-place," said Mary Randall. "We must fight on, even in one
seemingly losing field. It is not to be believed that the people of this
nation will be content to submit very much longer to the presence of a
band of prowling wolves tolerated by courts and protected by rascally
lawyers whose acknowledged trade is to destroy virtue,--the latent
motherhood of young women,--whose whole activity is directed to the
exploitation of our little lost sisters."
"Chicago has to lead the fight, as she has been one of the leaders in the
trade," said the banker. "Now, for our next step!"