the floor in the open door, and the messenger scurried away.
Antony looked cautiously around the door, and as he looked his eyes
grew large and round, for there before him lay a mammoth tray
filled with dainties to wake an appetite in one far less famished
than poor Antony. Two half-emptied bottles reared their grateful
promise high in the middle, and the jellied fowl vied with the
crusted croquet, the rich pâté gleamed among the feathery wheaten
rolls, the lobster nestled coyly in his luscious mayonnaise,
seeming indeed to blush under the young man's ardent and
devouring gaze. Breathlessly he lifted it, eagerly he bore it to
that musty upper room, and there, with soft little cries of
surprise from her and long-drawn sighs of satisfaction from him,
they fell upon it. With every morsel of the food, with every
throatful of the heartening, still beaded wine, courage, nay,
audacity, crept softly over their jaded spirits, as the gentle but
inevitable tide creeps up the beach.
"To Miss Delia Nolan!" he cried lightly, raising high his glass;
"long life to her and her coachman!"
And "long life to her and her coachman!" Nette echoed, smiling from
the broken chair she sat upon at Antony, who knelt before the tray.
Through the chinks of the closed, dusty blinds vivid pencils of
light streaked her delicate dress: she gleamed like a modish crocus
in the bare lumber room. The rich viands before her, the dainty
opalescence of the frozen sweet she held in a tinted, flower-shaped
glass, the very dusk of the closed chamber, making her youth and
loveliness more jewel-like, all enhanced the piquancy of the
picture she presented. Antony's resolution flamed high in him:
should such pluck, such beauty, such resource, be captured
now, now after all they had gone through?
Never! He swore it.
As he registered this oath she rose lightly from her chair, and
still jealously protecting her billowy skirts, began to peer about
the room. Of a sudden she stopped and stood like a pointer dog, one
finger raised to command his attention.
"What is in that basket?" she whispered excitedly.
There was no need to whisper, for not only the laundry but all the
ground about it was absolutely deserted. But secrecy and flight
have but one language and must conspire in whispers at the Pole
itself. The basket in question, which lay in the darkest corner of
the room, was of the description commonly in use among laundresses
when they would return the purified objects of their toil. Bending
over this, Nette fumbled a moment among its contents, and with a
triumphant exclamation held up to Antony's bewildered vision a
fresh, creased garment striped alternately with blue and white.
"And here is the apron! And here is the cap!" she murmured
exultantly, "now I defy that horrid Mr. Williamson to find
me! 'A marked woman,' indeed!"
Instantly the feasibility of the plan struck him, and he
congratulated her warmly.
"Now all we need is to know where we are," he assured her, "and
enough money to get away from it, wherever it is, and we are safe!
I will step out and look about a bit while you change your dress; I
feel confident that we shall find some means--luck would not have
the heart to desert us now!"
He tiptoed, needlessly, it is true, down to the laundry, and in the
very act of opening the door stumbled upon a plump old gentleman--
the very gentleman upon whose doubtless paternal arm the frost-like
bride had preceded Antony to the altar. Ere the youth had time to
catch his breath the portly one addressed him querulously.
"Oh! how d'ye do? So dark in here--senseless place to send a man!
No more sweet peas, that I can see--can you? Pack-horse, too, I
suppose like the rest of us? Fine business for my guests!"
"There is not a sweet pea left, sir," said Antony respectfully,
"and if there were any I should certainly not allow you to
undertake the transportation of them. You have enough on your
mind, I should say." With a long drawn sigh the portly gentleman
sank upon an inverted wash tub and wrung his hands miserably.
"Never in my life!" he mourned, "never in all my entire life!"
Antony uttered a soothing sound, of vague but apparently
satisfactory import.
"Not that we mind the loss of the car at all," continued the old
gentleman, more collectedly now, "only this morning his mother told
me with tears in her eyes that she had offered him the price of it
to give it up; so far as that goes, she is, as she only just now
informed me, thanking her Creator on her bended knees and begging
Him never to let us see or hear of that horrible machine again.
Ammy promised her on his honour that if anything happened to
this one, he would never buy another. It was his seventh."
Antony's heart leaped up, but he spoke decorously.
"It seems to me, sir," he said, "that you will, in all human
probability, never see that car again."
"Thank God!" said his host fervently. "What is a stickpin to
Richard?" he demanded explosively, "what, in heaven's name, do I
care for a paltry fresh water pearl? It is the disgrace, the
publicity; the laughing stock--in my house they tell me, these
scoundrels are! At my daughter's wedding. Eating my food at this
moment, perhaps, Mr. Williamson warns me!"
"This Mr. Williamson," said Antony gently, "seems to be a very keen
person."
"The keenest," replied the old gentleman eagerly, "he is hunting
for the woman now. It is unfortunate that he is the only one of the
ushers who did not know Ammy, you see."
"I see. It was certainly unfortunate," said Antony suavely.
"Ammy is due in a few minutes," said the old gentleman, pulling out
a wealthy gold watch, "and here I am sitting here! I am so
overcome, you must excuse me. The five:three. I was to send
someone."
"Can I not go, sir?" Antony asked feverishly, "just get me
somebody's trap--anybody's--and let me go to get him and save you
any further trouble."
"Why, that is very kind, I am sure," said Gertrude's father, "I
will call the first one I see."
There was a scurrying down the narrow stair and as the old
gentleman turned to go, a neat and very pretty housemaid rushed
towards him.
"O sir, excuse me, sir," she cried, blushing delightfully, "but
Miss Gertrude said I was to ask you for five dollars, sir, to pay
for the C. O. D, at the station, sir. She wants it immediately. If
some one is going down, sir, could he take me?"
With a practiced hand the father of the bride reached into his
pocket, lifted from it a thick, green bundle, and placed a bill in
the pink trembling hand held out for it.
"This gentleman here will take you down directly, Mary--Delia--er,
my dear," he said kindly, "I don't recall his name at the moment,
but we are all very informal to-day, and I'm sure he won't object.--
Here, boy, call me a carriage--anybody's! I'll see you later,
my dear boy, and I am much obliged."
"Don't mention it, sir," Antony replied, and leaped nimbly into a
gorgeous station-waggon, taking his seat beside the driver. The
housemaid, displaying, as she mounted to the back seat, remarkable
hosiery and footgear for one in her humble walk of life, followed
quickly, and forth they drove.
The blood was tingling in his fingertips, his head reeled with a
strange mixture of terror and delight--the intoxication of the
artist in dangerous adventure--but Antony's voice was level as he
inquired of the driver beside him:
"And what's the next station up the road, do you know?"
"Brookdale, sir, and there you can get the other road if you want
it."
"I see. And is this the up train?"
"Yes, sir. I suppose Mr. Amory had to go out of his way to make any
connection--the trains are poor here, sir. Mr. Ashley had to have
two specials put on for to-day. You see, Cliffwood is a small
place, sir."
Cliffwood! Antony could have kicked himself for not
recognising in all this pomp of iron-gated villas, the scattered
collection of estates thus poetically christened.
"That's a bad business about them murdering thieves, isn't it,
sir?" pursued the driver confidentially.
Antony's heart sank like lead. "Murdering?" he gasped, "did the
Frenchman die, then?"
"Oh, him!" returned the driver scornfully, "no, he didn't, the
foreign pup. How could he--that old snake hasn't a fang in his
head!"
Antony grasped the seat beneath him and drew a long, deep breath.
"I--I am glad to hear it," he said concisely, and as he spoke the
incoming train whistled--a mellow, pleasing note that sang of
freedom (yea, and guiltless freedom!) to wedding guest and
housemaid alike.
Forth from the train, ere hardly it had stopped, leaped an eager
pair, a man and a maid, not too precisely attired, for their
garments were rumpled and not such as the critical in these matters
assume when bound for a wedding festival. Yet they did not seem
unhappy, these two, but rather lenient and tender in their
judgments upon all the world, for they smiled sweetly upon
the empty platform, and sweetly, if a little vaguely, upon Antony,
who advanced to meet them, hat in hand.
"Mr. Amory, I presume?" he said airily. "I came down to get you,
but I find I must send a telegram, on account of the trains running
so poorly here, and so I will not detain you a second, as I am sure
you cannot see Mrs.--Mrs. Richard too soon. They will send back for
me."
"Thanks, old man--are they caught?" cried the lately arrived,
making for the station-waggon, and staring at the diamond horseshoe
in Antony's pearl grey tie, Antony touched it knowingly and smiled.
"No. They are not caught yet," he said, "but we're on the scent!"
"Good!" exclaimed the other, "now jump in, dear," and as the last
bit of baggage left the train and the waggon turned, Antony fled
through the station and raced up the steps of the moving car, hand
in hand with the pretty housemaid.
They seated themselves amid curious and friendly smiles.
"I will speak when the wheels are well started," thought Antony,
and then, "when she gets her breath, I will say something,"
but with each minute overwhelming embarrassment wrapped him, more
deeply, and he sat, with averted eyes, in silence. Just as they
slackened pace to pause at Brookdale and he motioned her to rise,
she spoke, huskily and with an evident effort.
"What will you do with the chain and the pin?"
"Put them, with all these clothes and five dollars, in the trunk,
row the three pieces across the river, meet them with a cart and
express them to Mr. Ashley from Turnersville," he answered,
promptly and with a rapid lucidity which astonished himself.
"They will be surprised," she remarked indifferently, as she
descended the steps of the train, and:
"It is probable that they will," he agreed.
* * * * *
It was some three hours later that a vehicle conducted by one horse
moved solitary under a rich and rising moon along the fair
white road that leads to one of the most venerable if not the
largest of our colleges. Dogged by its own black shadow, whose
wheels, smaller but no less symmetrical, rolled silently beside
it, this vehicle would inevitably have stirred romantic interest
in the breast of any imaginative spectator of its progress. And
this with reason, for one of its two occupants was a girl, who slept,
white-faced beneath the moon, her head, on which was perched askew a
housemaid's cap, drooped forward on her breast, her lips slightly
parted. The other, a well-dressed young man, allowed the easy-going
beast to pick its own way, the while he gazed at the sleeping face,
compassionately, it would seem, for all at once, with a pitying
exclamation, he slipped his arm behind her, and gently guided her
head to his shoulder. With a sigh of relief she nestled against him
and her face relaxed with the comfort of her new attitude, while
still she slept. Thus they drove on for many minutes, nor did his
eyes once leave that white, appealing face. So small she seemed, so
helpless--could this slender creature have stood by him so
gallantly, have matched her wits so triumphantly against the
incredible crises of the past day? Day? Antony felt that the
ordinary partitions of time had henceforth no meaning for him and
that the philosopher who questioned the validity of time itself
knew well whereof he had written.
What a spirit the girl had! How beautiful she had looked in the
wood! He sighed, and at that or some other slight sound she opened
her eyes and gazed in terror at him. And as she gazed the terror
slowly melted and disappeared, a lovely child-like confidence grew
in its place, and she spoke softly.
"It is you!" she said, and half awake, she smiled deliciously,
straight into his bending eyes, "you are here?"
A great wave seemed to break in Antony's breast.
"Here?" he cried, deep voiced, "where could I be but here--with
you? Who could be here--but me?"
Fully awakened now, she started from him, a flood of red sweeping
her pale face as she saw where she had been resting.
"No--no!" she stammered, "you are--we are--I was only dreaming
that----"
With his eyes he entreated her, for their steed, spying the lights
of home, had started forward and Antony's hands were busy.
"Ah, Nette, dearest Nette," he begged her, and something in his
voice shook her so that she trembled beside him, "if waking makes
you hate me again, then dream! For when you dream, I am sure you
love me."
"I do not! I do not!" she cried, covering her face with her hands.
The eager horse tugged at the bit: Antony forced her by his mere
will to meet his eyes.
"Not?" he said, low and clearly, "Not? Not after to-day, Nette?"
She bit her lip, and then, as the old college bell rang out nine
sharp strokes she laid her arms swiftly about his neck and his
cheek quivered under her warm soft hair.
"You are right," she whispered, "after to-day--everything!"
The streets were no longer empty. They sat, separate, with whirling
hearts, trembling under the mounting moon. They were in the
familiar street. . . .
"After to-day--after to-day!" he muttered dizzily, when
suddenly she laughed out beside him, sobbed brokenly, then laughed
again.
"To-day is the first of April!" she cried.
And once again the polished moon threw her needless glory over
youth and love and laughter.