"To the Bond Street Station, sir. You are to come at once."
"How do I get there?"
"I'll show you," volunteered Leo. "Is the electric out, Ferguson?"
"I don't think so, Miss."
"Order it around at once." She turned to Victor. "Don't worry. Aunt
Louise is not easily rattled. She is able to command all the help that
is necessary. She will have her own lawyer and will see that everything
is done to shield your mother from harm."
He was aching with remorseful fear. "Oh, if we had not stayed so long,"
he groaned, all the beauty and charm of the morning swept away by a wave
of guilt. "Only think! I left the house without a word of greeting to
her! Doesn't it show that there is no peace or security for either of us
so long as we remain here? I have tried twice to get away from this, and
now--"
The electric carriage came smoothly to the door, and Leo, dismissing the
driver, motioned Victor to enter. "I'll drive," she said; and they swept
out of the gate and down the boulevard as if, by a wafture of the hand,
this young girl had invoked the aid of an Oriental magician.
The run was easy and swift, till they reached the crowded cross-street
which led westward into the city deeps; and as the carts thickened and
coarse and vicious humanity began to swarm Victor was moved to assert
the man's prerogative. He resented the admiring glances which the
loafers addressed to his companion, and a feeling of awkward
helplessness came upon him. "I wish you'd let me run this car," he said,
morosely.
Slowly they felt their way to the west, straight on toward a great
railway depot, with Leo deftly winding her way amid trucks and express
wagons, darting past clanging street-cars, and plowing through swarms of
nondescript men and slattern women, till at last she halted on a
crossing, and, leaning from the window, inquired of the police officer
the way to the Bond Street Station.
"Right around the corner, Miss," he replied, with a smile, pointing the
way with his club.
She turned up a narrow alley which ran parallel with the great domed
shed of the railway, and drew up before an ugly doorway in a grimy brick
building of depressing architecture.
Victor alighted with a full realization of having left heaven for a
filthy, squalid hell. The clang and hiss of engines in the shed, the jar
of heavy trucks, the cries of venders, the grind and howl of cars, the
sodden stream of humankind, deafened and appalled him. Nevertheless, he
took the lead into the gloomy anteroom of the station, which was half
filled with officers in uniform escorting or placidly watching
dull-hued, depressed, and unkempt men and women in arrest.
On inquiry of another officer, they were directed to the door of a long
hall, which was in effect a tunnel. "You'll find your party in the
court-room," the officer said.
Victor led the way through this battered hallway, and at the end of it
came into a large, bare room lighted with dusty windows on the north. It
was in effect a hall divided in halves by an open railing. In the
eastern end of the chamber the judge was seated surrounded by his clerks
examining a little group of silent men. In the western half of the room,
outside the railing, sat a somber and motley assemblage of negroes,
Italians, and Greeks, mostly young, each presenting a savage and sullen
face. In the midst of such a throng of miscreated beings Leo seemed of
angelic loveliness and purity.
Before the crowd became aware of her, the keen-eyed girl had discovered
the objects of their search. "There they are," she whispered, pointing
to the corner at the judge's right, where Mrs. Joyce and Mrs. Ollnee
were seated, in close conversation with a dark, smoothly-shaven man of
middle age. "Oh, I'm so glad," she added, "Mr. Bartol is with them."
She led the way, quite fearlessly, through the aisle and directly up to
the gate, where she was met by the bailiff, or warden of the room, a
sullen-faced, sloppy Irishman. He was too keen-eyed not to be
immediately impressed by her beauty and something strong and clear and
fine in her glance, but before he had time to ask her what she wanted
the gentleman whom she called Bartol came forward, and at his touch the
officer gave way respectfully, and the two young people entered the
inclosure.
Mrs. Ollnee rose upon seeing Victor, and lifted her arms to his neck.
"Oh, I'm so glad you've come," she murmured, in deep relief.
A rustle of profound interest passed over the court-room, and such
shuffling of feet and murmur of voices arose that the bailiff rapped
querulously on the railing with the handle of his mallet and glared, in
a vain effort to restore silence. Even the judge, accustomed as he was
to every phase of the human comedy, turned a sympathetic gaze upon the
girl. He was a middle-aged man, with a pale and sensitive careworn face,
and as he resumed his address to the men before him his gentle voice
could be heard above the roar of the street in grave reprimand. The
sodden convicts who stood unshaved and spiritless before him excited his
pity not his wrath.