Hawkins, laid his two hands on the other's shoulders. He was calmer now.
“Yes, I love her,” he said huskily. “And I think--I am not sure--but I
think now there is a chance that she can be made to change her mind even
here at the last minute. But that means I must see her; or, rather, that
she must see me.”
Hawkins paused in the twisting of his felt hat to raise bewildered eyes.
“I've got the car here,” he said. “I'll take you down.”
“The car!” exclaimed John Bruce quickly. “Yes, I never thought of that!
Listen, Hawkins! Claire refused to see me this afternoon, or even to
talk to me over the telephone. I am not quite sure why. But no matter
what her reason was, I must see her now at once. I have something to
tell her that I hope will persuade her not to go on with this to-morrow
morning--or ever.” His voice was growing grave and hard. “I hope you
understand, Hawkins. I believe it may succeed. If it fails, then neither
you nor I, nor any soul on earth can alter her decision. That's all that
I can tell you now.”
Hawkins nodded his head. A little color, eagerness, hope, had come into
his face.
“That's enough,” he said tremulously, “as long as you--you think there
is a chance even yet. And--and you do, don't you?”
“Yes,” said John Bruce, “I think there is more than a chance--if I can
see her alone and make her listen to me. The car will be just the thing.
But she would refuse to come out, if she knew I were in it. I depend
on you for that. We'll drive down there, and you will have to make some
excuse to get her to come with you. After that you can keep on driving
us around the block until I either win or lose.”
Hawkins rose hurriedly to his feet.
“Let us go, John Bruce! For God's sake, let us go!” he cried eagerly.
“I'll--I'll tell her Mrs. Hedges--that's my landlady--has got to see her
at once. She'll come quick enough.”
John Bruce put on his hat and coat, and without a word led the way
to the door--but at the door he paused for an instant. There was
Larmon--and Crang was back. And then he shook his head in quick
decision. There was time enough later. It would serve no purpose to tell
Larmon now, other than the thankless one of giving Larmon a restless
night.
John Bruce went on. He did not speak again until, outside the hotel, he
stepped into the traveling pawnshop as Hawkins opened the car door for
him.
“You will have to make sure that Crang has gone,” he said quietly.
“Don't stop in front of the house, Hawkins.”
“I'll make sure,” whispered Hawkins, as he climbed to his seat. “Oh, my
God, my little girl!”
The old car jolted forward. John Bruce's face was set again in hard,
chiselled lines. He tried to think--but now his brain seemed curiously
impotent, as though it groped through chaos and through turmoil only to
stagger back bewildered, defeated, a wounded thing. And for a time it
was like that, as he sat there swaying with the lurch of the speeding
car, one thought impinging fast upon another only to be swallowed up so
quickly in turn by still another that he could correlate-no one of them.
And then, after a little time again, out of this strange mental strife
images began to take form, as sharply defined and distinct one from
the other as before they had been mingled in hopeless confusion--and he
cried out aloud in sudden agony of soul. It was to save his life that
this had happened. He had wrung that knowledge from Crang. That was the
lever he meant to use with Claire now, and it _must_ succeed. He must
make it succeed! It seemed to drive him mad now, that thought--that
to-morrow morning she should die for him. Not physical death--worse than
that! God! It was unthinkable, horrible, abominable. It seemed to flaunt
and mock with ruthless, hell-born sacrilege what was holiest in his
heart. It stirred him to a fury that brought him to his feet, his fists
clenched. Claire in her purity--at the mercy of a degenerate beast!
He dropped back on the seat. He battled for calmness. In a little while
Claire would be here beside him--_for a little while_. He shook his
head. This was not real, nothing of his life had been real since that
moon-mad night on the sands of Apia. No; that was not true! Soul,
mind and body rose up in fierce denial. His love was real, a living,
breathing, actual reality, Claire----
John Bruce sank his face in his hands. Hours seemed to pass. And then he
was conscious that the car had stopped. He roused himself, and drawing
the window curtain slightly, looked out. Hawkins had stopped a few
houses down past the one-time pawnshop.
John Bruce rose suddenly and changed his seat to the one in the far
opposite corner, his back to the front of the car. The time seemed
interminable. Then he heard a light footstep ring on the pavement, and
he heard Hawkins' voice. The car door was opened, a dark form entered,
sat down, the door closed, and the car started forward.
It was strange! It was like that, here in this car, that he had stepped
in one night and found Claire--as she would now find him. That was
so long ago! And it seemed so long too since even he had last seen
her--since that night when, piqued so unwarrantably, he had left Paul
Veniza's house. He felt his hands tremble. He steadied himself. He did
not want to frighten or startle her now.
“Claire!” he said softly.
He heard a slight, quick rustle of garments--and then the light in the
car was flashed on.
She was leaning tensely forward, a little figure with loose cloak flung
over her shoulders, without hat, a wondrous sheen from the light on the
dark, silken hair, her eyes wide, her finger still on the electric-light
button.
“You!” she cried sharply. “And Hawkins, too, in this!”
She reached for the door handle; but John Bruce caught her hand.
“Claire!” he pleaded hoarsely. “Wait! If it is a trick, at least you
know that with Hawkins and me you will come to no harm. What else could
I do? You would not speak to me this afternoon, you would not let me see
you, and I must talk to you to-night.”
She looked at him steadily.
_“Must?”_ she repeated coldly. “And to-night? Why to-night?”
“Because,” John Bruce answered quickly, “to-morrow would be too late. I
know about to-morrow morning. Hawkins told me. He was outside the door
of that room when Crang was talking to you to-night.” She sank back
in her seat with a little cry. Her face had gone white--but again she
steadied herself.
“And--and do you think that is any reason why you should have inveigled
me into this car?” she asked dully. “Do you think that anything you can
say will alter--to-morrow morning?”
“Yes; I do!” said John Bruce earnestly. “But”--he smiled a little
bitterly--“I am afraid, too, that it will be hopeless enough if first
you will not tell me what has so suddenly come between us. Claire, what
is it?”
The dark eyes lighted with a glint, half angry, half ironical.
“Is _that_ what you brought me here for?”
“No,” he said quietly.
“Then,” she said coolly, “if you do not know, I will tell you. I read
a letter that you wrote to a certain Mr. Larmon.”
It was a long minute before he spoke.
“I--I thought it might be that,” he said slowly. “I knew you had
seen it. Crang told me so. And--and I was afraid you might believe
it--Claire.”
“Believe it!” she returned monotonously. “Had I any choice? Have I any
now? I knew you were in danger. I knew it was written to save your life.
I knew it was your handwriting. I knew you wrote it.” She turned away
her head. “It was so miserable a lie, so cowardly a betrayal--to save
your life.”
“But so hard to believe, and so bitter a thing to believe”--there was a
sudden eager thrill in John Bruce's voice--“that you wept upon it. Look,
Claire!” he cried. “I have that letter here--and this, that I took from
Crang to-day when I turned the tables on him. See! Read them both!” He
took from his pocket the letter and the slip cut from the bottom of the
sheet, and laid them in her lap. “The bottom was written in invisible
ink--the way always communicated privately with Larmon. Salt brings it
out. I knew Larmon would subject it to the test, so I was willing to
write anything that Crang dictated. I wrote that secret message on the
bottom of the paper while Crang was out of the room where he had me a
prisoner. Oh, don't you see now, Claire? When your tears fell on the
paper faint traces of the secret writing began to appear. That gave
Crang the clew, and he worked at it until he had brought out the
message, and then he cut off the bottom before delivering the letter to
Larmon, and----”
John Bruce stopped. Claire's face was buried in the cushions, and,
huddled in the corner of the car, she was sobbing bitterly.
“Don't! Don't cry, Claire!” John Bruce whispered, and laid his hand over
hers where it crushed the letter in her lap.
“I believed it,” she said. “I did you that wrong. There is no
forgiveness for such meanness of soul as that.”
“No,” John Bruce answered gently, “there is no forgiveness--because
there is nothing to forgive. It was only another piece of that miserable
hound's cunning that tricked us both. I did not appreciate what he was
after in that reference to you; I thought he was only trying to make the
letter bullet-proof in its plausibility for Larmon's benefit--I never
thought that he would show it to you.”
She had not drawn her hand away, but her face was still hidden; and for
a moment there was silence between them.
“Claire,” John Bruce said in a low voice, “the night I left your house
you said that, rather than regretting your promise to marry Crang, you
had come to be glad you had made it. Can you still say that?”
She lifted her face now, tear-stained, the brown eyes strangely radiant
through the wet lashes.
“Yes,” she said. “I am glad. So glad--because I know now that it was
worth it all so many, many times over.”
“Claire”--his voice was lower still--“I left your house that night,
angry, jealous, misjudging you because you had said that. You asked for
forgiveness a minute ago when there was nothing to forgive; I asked for
forgiveness from you after that night, but even then I did not know how
far beyond the right to forgiveness I had gone.”
She stared at him in a startled way.
“What--what do you mean?” she breathed.
And now John Bruce's face was alight.
“You have confessed your love, Claire!” he cried passionately. “It was
not fair, perhaps, but I am past all that now--and you would not have
confessed it in any other way. Glad! I was a stranger that night when
you bought my life--and to-night you are glad, not because my life is
now or ever could be worth such a sacrifice as yours, but because love
has come to make you think so, sweetheart, and you care--you care for
me.”
“You know!” Her face was deathly white. “You know about--about that
night?” she faltered.
John Bruce had both her hands imprisoned now.
“Yes; I know!” He laughed with a strange buoyancy; passion, triumph,
were vibrant in his voice. “Did Crang not tell you how near to death he
came to-day? I choked the truth out of him. Yes; I know! I know that it
was to save my life you made that promise, that you sold everything you
held dear in life for me--but it is over now!”
He was beside her. He raised her two hands to draw her arms around his
neck.
She struggled back.
“No, no!” she cried wildly. “Oh, you must not--you must not!”
“Must not!” His voice rang his challenge to the world. The blood was
pounding in mad abandon through his veins. His soul itself seemed
aflame. Closer, closer he drew her to him. “Must not! There is only you
and me--and our love--on all the earth!”
But still she struggled---and then suddenly the tears came.
“Oh, you are so strong--so strong,” she sobbed--and like some weary
child finding rest her head dropped upon his shoulder and lay hidden
there.
“Claire! Claire!” It was his soul that spoke.
He kissed the silken hair, and fondled it; and kissed the tear-wet eyes;
and his cheek lay against hers; and she was in his arms, and he held her
there tight-clasped so that she might never go again.
And after a time she sobbed no more; and her hand, lifting, found his
face and touched it gently, and creeping upward, brushed the hair back
from his forehead--and then suddenly she clung to him with all her
strength and drew his head down until her lips met his.
And there was no world about them, and time was non-existent, and only
they two lived.
It was Claire at last who put his arms from her in a wistful, lingering
way.
“We have been mad for a little while,” she whispered. “Take me back home
now, John--and--and you must never try to see me again.”
And something seemed to grow chill and cold within John Bruce's heart.
“Not that, Claire!” he cried out. “You do not mean that--that, after
this, you will go on with--with tomorrow morning!”
A brave little effort at a smile quivered on her lips.
“We have had our hour, John,” she said; “yours and mine. It can never be
taken from us, and I shall live in it all my life; but it is over now.
Yes; I shall go through with it to-morrow morning. There is no other
way. I must keep my promise.”
“No!” he cried out again. “It shall never be! Claire, you cannot
mean what you are saying! A promise like that! It was forced upon you
inhumanly, horribly. He would have murdered me.”
“But to-night you are alive,” she answered quietly.
“Alive! Yes!” he said fiercely. “I am alive, and----”
“It is because you are alive that I promised,” she broke in gently. “He
kept his word. I cannot break mine.”
“Alive!” John Bruce laughed now in sudden, bitter agony. “Alive--yes!
And do you think that I can walk about the streets, and talk, and
smile, and suck the honey out of life, while you have paid for it with a
tortured soul? Claire, you shall not! That man is---- No, wait! There is
myself. He called me a snivelling hypocrite. You shall know the worst of
me before you know the worst of him. There is not much to tell--because
he has told you. I am a gambler. All my life I've gambled. As far back
as I can remember I've been a rolling stone. My life has been useless,
utterly worthless. But I was never ashamed of it; I never saw any reason
to be ashamed until you came into my life. It hasn't been the same since
then '--and it will never be the same again. You have given me something
to live for now, Claire.”
She shook her head. “You do not argue well,” she said softly. “If I have
brought this to you, John, I am so glad--so glad for this, too. Oh, I
cannot tell you how glad I am, for, because I loved you, the knowledge
of what your life was hurt me. But I had faith in you, John, as I always
shall have. So don't you see”--the brave little smile came again--“that
this is a reward, something tangible and great, to make still more worth
while the promise that I made?”
He stared at her. He swept his hand across his eyes. She seemed--she
seemed to be slipping away from him--beyond--beyond his reach.
“That man!” he said desperately. “You said you knew him--but you do not
know him. He is the head and front and brains of a gang of crooks.
I know! He held me a prisoner in their dirty lair, a hidden place, a
cellar over in the slums--like rats they were. He is a criminal, and a
dangerous one--while he masquerades with his medicine. God alone knows
the crimes, if there are any, that he has not committed. He is a foul,
unclean and filthy thing, debauched and dissolute, a moral leper.
Claire, do you understand all this--that his life is pollution and
defilement, that love to him is lust, that your innocence----”
With a broken, piteous cry, Claire stopped him.
And again he stared at her. She did not speak, but in her eyes he read
the torment of a far greater and fuller appreciation of the price than
he, he knew, though it turned his soul sick within him, could ever have.
And suddenly he covered his face with his hands.
“Bought!” he said brokenly in his agony. “Oh, my God, this has bought
me!”
He felt his hands drawn away, and her two palms laid upon his cheeks. He
looked at her. How white she was!
“Help me, John,” she said steadily. “Don't--don't make it harder.”
She reached out and touched the bell button beside the seat. In a
subconscious way he remembered that was the signal for Hawkins to bring
the traveling pawn-shop to the end of its circuit around the block in
its old-time trips to Persia. He made no effort to stop her. There
was something of ultimate finality in her face and eyes that answered,
before it was uttered, the question that stumbled on his lips.
“Claire! Claire!” he pleaded wildly. “Will nothing change you?”
“There is no other way,” she said.
He stretched out his arms to draw her to him again, to lay her head once
more upon his shoulder--but now she held him back.
“No!” she whispered. “Be merciful now, John--my strength is almost
gone.”
And there was something in her voice that held him from the act.
The car stopped.
And then, as the door was opened and she stood up, suddenly she leaned
swiftly forward and pressed her lips to his--and springing from the car,
was gone.
John Bruce groped his way out of the car. Across the sidewalk the
door of Paul Veniza's house closed. Hawkins, standing by the car door,
clutched at his arm. And Hawkins' hand was trembling violently. Slowly
his eyes met Hawkins'.
He shook his head.
The old lined face seemed to gray even in the murky light of a distant
street lamp.
“I'd rather see her dead,” said the old cab driver brokenly.
John Bruce made no answer.
Then Hawkins, gulping his words, spoke again:
“I--where'll I drive you?”
John Bruce started blindly on past Hawkins down the street.
“Nowhere,” he said.