THE CRISIS
In a small, shabbily furnished room at the top of a tall apartment
house, Virginia was living through what seemed to her, as indeed it was,
a grim little tragedy. On the table before her was her little purse,
turned inside out, and by its side a few, a very few coins. The roll of
notes, which she had not changed, and which formed the larger part of
her little capital, was gone, hopelessly, absolutely gone. It was
nothing less than a disaster this, which she was forced to face. She had
left the purse about in her rooms in Coniston Mansions, or there were
many other places in which an expert thief would have found it a very
easy matter to remove the little bundle and replace it with that roll of
paper which she found in its place.
Her first wild thought of rushing to the police-station she had
dismissed as useless. She had no idea when or where the theft had been
accomplished; only she knew that she was alone in a strange city, and
that the few shillings left to her were not even sufficient to pay for
the rent she already owed for her room.
She dragged herself to the window and stood looking out across the grimy
house-tops. Her eyes were blurred with tears. It is doubtful whether she
saw anything of the uninspiring view, but it seemed to her that she
could certainly see the wreck of her own short life. She seemed to
realize then the mad folly of her journey, the hopelessness of it from
beginning to end. Quite apart from her failure, there was also a madness
of which she refused even to think, the aftertaste of those few hours of
delicious happiness. Had he ever tried to find her out, she wondered,
since that day when she had fled with burning cheeks and aching heart
from her rooms in Coniston Mansions, and sought to hide herself in the
cold bosom of this unlovely city. In any case she would never see him
again. Her one desire now, if it amounted to a desire, when all ways in
life seemed to her alike flat and profitless, was to find her way
somehow or other back to America, and to carry the bad news herself to
the little farmhouse in the valley.
She looked at her pitiful little store of coins, and the problem of
existence seemed to become more and more difficult. After all, there was
another way for those who did not care to live. She found herself
harbouring the thought without a single sign of any revulsion of
feeling, accepting it as a matter to be seriously considered with dull,
calculating fatalism. What was the use of life when nothing remained to
hope for! It was, after all, an easy way out.
She opened the window and looked below. The seven stories made her
dizzy. Nevertheless, she looked with a curious fascination to the stone
courtyard immediately underneath the window. Death would probably be
instantaneous. She leaned a little further out and then started suddenly
back into the room. A revulsion of feeling had overtaken her. It was a
hideous idea, this. For the sake of the others she must put it away from
her. She walked up and down the narrow confines of her room, and then
the necessity for action of some sort drove her out into the street.
Curiously enough, though she was being searched for by at least half a
dozen detectives and inquiry agents, she had taken no particular pains
to conceal herself beyond the fact that she had chosen a crowded and
low-class neighbourhood, and had seldom ventured out before dark. She
walked now to the office of a shipping agent which she had noticed on
her way here, and addressed herself to the clerk who hastened forward to
ascertain her wishes.
"I want," she said, "to get to America, and have no money. All that I
had has been stolen. Could I get a passage and pay for it when I arrive?
A second class passage, of course."
The clerk shook his head dubiously.
"Have you no friends in London," he asked, "to whom you could apply for
a loan?"
"Not a single one," she answered.
"Why not cable?" he suggested. "You could have money wired over here to
your credit."
"I do not wish to do that," Virginia answered.
The young man shrugged his shoulders.
"The only other course," he said, "would be to apply to the Embassy.
They might advance the money."
Virginia walked out thoughtfully. After all, why not? Mr. Deane, she
knew, was a friend of her uncle's. He would perhaps let her have the
money, and she could send it back later on. She walked to the great
house in Ormande Gardens and asked to see Mr. Deane. The servant who
admitted her hesitated a little.
"There is no one in just now, miss," he said, "except Mr. Deane, and he
is busy with a gentleman. If you will come into the waiting-room, I
will ask him whether he can spare you a moment when the gentleman
has gone."
Virginia sat upon a very hard horsehair chair in a barely furnished
room, and waited. The table was covered with magazines, but she did not
touch them. She sat nervously twisting and untwisting her fingers. Then
the sudden sound of voices outside attracted her attention. The door of
the room in which she sat had been left ajar, and apparently two men,
passing down the hall from a room on the other side, had paused just
outside it.
"Of course, I don't know what you will do with it, Vine," she heard some
one say, "but if you take my advice, you will find a secure hiding place
without a moment's delay. I am very sorry indeed that I cannot help you
out any longer, but I know you don't want me to run risks."
"Rather not," Vine answered. "To tell you the truth, I think my mind is
made up. I am going to spend a little fortune cabling to-night."
"Well, I am not sure but that you are wise," was the reply. "It's one of
those things the result of which it is quite impossible to prophesy.
Good luck to you anyway, Vine, and do, for the next few hours, take care
of yourself."
Then Virginia heard a parting between the two men. One of them
apparently left the house, the other returned to the room from which
they had issued. Virginia did not hesitate for a moment. She passed on
tiptoe out of the room into the hall. A servant stood at the front door,
having that moment let Vine out.
"I have decided not to wait for Mr. Deane any longer," she said. "I
will call and see one of the secretaries sometime to-morrow."
The man let her out without question. She was just in time to see Vine
turn the corner of the square. She followed him breathlessly, then
paused and stopped a passing hansom.
"Coniston Mansions," she told the man. "Please go as quickly as you
can."
She was driven there, and passed quickly through the hall and entered
the lift. The commissionaire hurried up to her.
"Several people, miss, have been asking for your address since you
left," he announced.
"I will leave it before I go," she answered hurriedly.
She got out at the fifth floor, and without hesitation she walked
straight across to Norris Vine's rooms. She was as pale as death. After
that last visit of hers she felt a horrible shrinking from entering the
place. Nevertheless, she drew a key from her pocket, turned the lock,
entered, and found, as she supposed, that she was there first. She
looked around, at first in vain, for some hiding place. All the while
she was struggling to put everything else out of her mind except two
great facts. Norris Vine was going to bring that paper back to his
rooms! It was her last chance! If she failed this time, there was
nothing left for her but despair! On the right of the outside door was
a small clothes cupboard. It was the only place in the two rooms where
concealment seemed in any way possible, and Virginia, with beating
heart, stepped into it and drew the door to after her. She was scarcely
there before she heard the sound of a key in the lock. She drew back,
holding her breath as he passed. Norris Vine entered and stepped into
the sitting-room. She heard him take off his hat and coat and throw them
down. She heard the sound of a chair drawn up to the table. He was
preparing, then, to write out his cable!