Starr was very angry with Michael when he left her. There was perhaps
more hurt pride and pique in her anger than she would have cared to
own. He had failed to succumb to her charms, he had not seemed to
notice her as other men did; he had even lost the look of admiration he
used to wear when they were boy and girl. He had refused utterly to
tell her what she had a great curiosity to know.
She had been sure, was sure yet, that if Michael would tell her what he
had against Stuyvesant Carter she could explain it satisfactorily. Her
flattered little head was almost turned at this time with the adoration
she had received. She thought she knew almost everything that
Stuyvesant Carter had ever done. He was a fluent talker and had spent
many hours detailing to her incidents and anecdotes of his eventful
career. He had raced a good deal and still had several expensive racing
cars. There wasn’t anything very dreadful about that except, of course,
it was dangerous. He used to gamble a great deal but he had promised
her he would never do it any more because she thought it unrefined. Of
course it wasn’t as though he hadn’t plenty of money; and her mother
had told her that all young men did those things. No, not her father of
course, for he had been unusual, but times were different nowadays.
Young men were expected to be a little wild. It was the influence of
college life and a progressive age she supposed. It didn’t do any harm.
They always settled down and made good husbands after they were
married. Michael of course did not understand these things. He had
spent a great many years in Florida with a dear old professor and a lot
of good little boys. Michael was unacquainted with the ways of the
world.
Thus she reasoned, yet nevertheless Michael’s warning troubled her and
finally she decided to go to the best source of information and ask the
young man himself.
Accordingly three days after Michael’s visit when he dropped in to ask
if she would go to the opera that evening with him instead of something
else they had planned to do together, she laughingly questioned him.
“What in the world can you ever have done, Mr. Carter, that should make
you unfit company for me?”
She asked the question lightly yet her eyes watched his face most
closely as she waited for the answer.
The blood rolled in dark waves over his handsome face and his brows
grew dark with anger which half hid the start of almost fear with which
he regarded her.
“What do you mean, Starr?” He looked at her keenly and could not tell
if she were in earnest or not.
“Just that,” she mocked half gravely. “Tell me what you have been doing
that should make you unfit company for me? Some one has been trying to
make me promise to have nothing to do with you, and I want to know what
it means.”
“Who has been doing that?” There were dangerous lights in the dark
eyes, lights that showed the brutality of the coward and the evildoer.
“Oh, a man!” said Starr provokingly; “but if you look like that I
shan’t tell you anything more about it, I don’t like you now. You look
as if you could eat me. You make me think there must be something in it
all.”
Quick to take the warning the young man brought his face under control
and broke into a hoarse artificial laugh. A sudden vision of
understanding had come to him and a fear was in his heart. There was
nothing like being bold and taking the bull by the horns.
“I’ll wager I can explain the riddle for you,” he said airily. “I lost
my way the other evening coming home late. You see there had been some
mistake and my car didn’t come to the club for me. I started on foot,
leaving word for it to overtake me—” He lied as he went along. He had
had a short lifetime of practice and did it quite naturally and easily,
“and I was thinking about you and how soon I dared ask you a certain
question, when all at once I noticed that things seemed sort of
unfamiliar. I turned to go back but couldn’t for the life of me tell
which way I had turned at the last corner—you see what a dangerous
influence you have over me—and I wandered on and on, getting deeper and
deeper into things. It wasn’t exactly a savory neighborhood and I
wanted to get out as soon as possible for I suspected that it wasn’t
even very safe down there alone at that hour of the night. I was
hesitating under a street light close to a dark alley, trying to decide
which would be the quickest way out, and meditating what I should do to
find a policeman, when suddenly there loomed up beside me in the dark
out of the depths of the alley a great tall brute of a fellow with the
strangest looking yellow hair and a body that looked as if he could
play football with the universe if he liked, and charged me with having
come down there to visit his girl.
“Well, of course the situation wasn’t very pleasant. I tried to explain
that I was lost; that I had never been down in that quarter of the city
before and didn’t even know his girl. But he would listen to nothing.
He began to threaten me. Then I took out my card and handed it to him,
most unwisely of course, but then I am wholly unused to such
situations, and I explained to him just who I was and that of course I
wouldn’t want to come to see _his_ girl, even if I would be so mean,
and all that. But do you believe me, that fellow wouldn’t take a word
of it. He threw the card on the sidewalk, ground his heel into it, and
used all sorts of evil language that I can’t repeat, and finally after
I thought he was going to put me in the ditch and pummel me he let me
go, shouting after me that if I ever came near his girl again he would
publish it in the newspapers. Then of course I understood what a
foolish thing I had done in giving him my card. But it was too late. I
told him as politely as I knew how that if he would show me the way to
get home I would never trouble him again, and he finally let me go.”
Starr’s eyes were all this time quizzically searching his face. “Was
the man intoxicated?” she asked.
“Oh, I presume so, more or less. They all are down there, though he was
not of the slums himself I should say. He was rather well dressed, and
probably angry that I had discovered him in such haunts.”
“When did this happen?”
“About a week ago.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about it before?”
“Oh I didn’t want to distress you, and besides, I’ve had my mind too
full of other things. Starr, darling, you must have seen all these
weeks how much I love you, and how I have only been waiting the proper
opportunity to ask you to be my wife—”
Starr was in a measure prepared for this proposal. Her mother had
instructed her that the alliance was one wholly within the pale of
wisdom; and her own fancy was quite taken up with this handsome new
admirer who flattered her hourly and showered attentions upon her until
she felt quite content with herself the world and him. There was a
spice of daring about Starr that liked what she thought was the
wildness and gaiety of young Carter, and she had quite made up her mind
to accept him.
One week later the society papers announced the engagement, and the
world of gaiety was all in a flutter, over the many functions that were
immediately set agoing in their honor.
Michael, at his desk in the busy office, read, and bowed his head in
anguish. Starr, his bright beautiful Starr, to be sacrificed to a beast
like that! Would that he might once more save her to life and
happiness!
For the next few days Michael went about in a state that almost
bordered on the frantic. His white face looked drawn, and his great
eyes burned in their clear setting like live coals. People turned to
look after him on the street and exclaimed: “Why, look at that man!”
and yet he seemed more like an avenging angel dropped down for some
terrible errand than like a plain ordinary man.
Mr. Holt noticed it and spoke to him about it.
“You ought to drop work and take a good vacation, Endicott,” he said
kindly. “You’re in bad shape. You’ll break down and be ill. If I were
in your place I’d cancel the rent of that office and not try to start
out for yourself until fall. It’ll pay you in the end. You’re taking
things too seriously.”
But Michael smiled and shook his head. He was to open his own office
the following week. It was all ready, with its simple furnishings, in
marked contrast to the rooms that would have been his if he had acceded
to his benefactor’s request. But Michael had lost interest in office
and work alike, and the room seemed now to him only a refuge from the
eyes of men where he might hide with his great sorrow and try to study
out some way to save Starr. Surely, surely, her father would do
something when he received his letter! It was long past, time for an
answer to have come. But then there was the hope that he was already
doing something, though he was unwilling to afford Michael the
satisfaction of knowing it.
He gave much thought to a possible cablegram, that he might send, that
would tell the story to the father while telling nothing to the world,
but abandoned the idea again and again.
Sam came up from the farm and saw Michael’s face and was worried.
“Say, pard, wot yer bin doin’ t’yersef? Better come down t’ th’ farm
an’ git a bit o’ fresh air.”
The only two people who did not notice the change in Michael’s
appearance were Hester and Will. They were too much engrossed in each
other by this time to notice even Michael.
They had fallen into the habit of leaving the rooms in the alley
earlier than Michael and going home by themselves.
They left him thus one night about three weeks after Starr’s engagement
had been announced. Michael stayed in the room for an hour after all
the others had gone. He was expecting Sam to return. Sam had been up
from the farm several times lately and this time without any apparent
reason he had lingered in the city. He had not been to the room that
night save for ten minutes early in the evening when he had mumbled
something about a little business, and said he would be back before
Michael left.
Michael sat for a long time, his elbow on the table, his head in his
hands, trying to think. A way had occurred to him which might or might
not do something to prevent Starr from throwing away her happiness. The
morning paper had hinted that plans for a speedy wedding were on foot.
It was rumored that Miss Endicott was to be married as soon as her
father reached home. Michael was desperate. He feared that now the
father would arrive too late for him to get speech with him. He had
begun to know that it was hard to convince people of the evil of those
they had chosen as friends. It would take time.
There was a way. He might have the whole story published in the papers.
A public scandal would doubtless delay if not altogether put a stop to
this alliance; but a public scandal that touched Mr. Carter would now
also touch and bring into publicity the girl whose life was almost
linked with his. Not until the very last resort would Michael bring
about that publicity. That such a move on his part would beget him the
eternal enmity of the entire Endicott family he did not doubt, but that
factor figured not at all in Michael’s calculations. He was not working
for himself in this affair. Nothing that ever happened could make
things right for him, he felt, and what was his life, or good name
even, beside Starr’s happiness?
Wearily, at last, his problem unsolved, he got up and turned out the
lights. As he was locking the door his attention was arrested by two
figures standing between himself and the street light at the end of the
alley. It was a man and a woman, and the woman seemed to be clinging to
the man and pleading with him.
Such sights were not uncommon in the alley; some poor woman often thus
appealed to all that used to be good in the man she married, to make
him stay away from the saloon, or to give her a little of his money to
buy food for the children.
More than once in such instances Michael had been able successfully to
add his influence to the wife’s and get the man to go quietly home.
He put the key hastily in his pocket and hurried toward the two.
“You shan’t! You shan’t! You shan’t never go back to her!” he heard the
woman cry fiercely. “You promised me—”
“Shut up, will you? I don’t care what I promised—” said the man in a
guarded voice that Michael felt sure he had heard before.
“I shan’t shut up! I’ll holler ef you go, so the police’ll come. You’ve
got a right to stay with me. You shan’t do me no wrong ner you shan’t
go back to that stuck-up piece. You’re mine, I say, and you promised—!”
With a curse the man struck her a cruel blow across the mouth, and
tried to tear her clinging hands away from his coat, but they only
clung the more fiercely.
Michael sprang to the woman’s side like a panther.
“Look out!” he said in clear tones. “You can’t strike a woman!” His
voice was low and calm, and sounded as it used to sound on the ball
field when he was giving directions to his team at some crisis in the
game.
“Who says I can’t?” snarled the man, and now Michael was sure he knew
the voice. Then the wretch struck the woman between her eyes and she
fell heavily to the ground.
Like a flash Michael’s great arm went out and felled the man, and in
the same breath, from the shadows behind there sprang out the slender,
wiry figure of Sam and flung itself upon the man on the ground who with
angry imprecations was trying to struggle to his feet. His hand had
gone to an inner pocket, as he fell and in a moment more there was a
flash of light and Michael felt a bullet whiz by his ear. Nothing but
the swerving of the straggling figures had saved it from going through
his brain. It occurred to Michael in that instant that that was what
had been intended. The conviction that the man had also recognized him
gave strength to his arm as he wrenched the revolver from the hand of
the would-be assassin. Nobody knew better than Michael how easy it
would be to plead “self-defense” if the fellow got into any trouble. A
man in young Carter’s position with wealth and friends galore need not
fear to wipe an unknown fellow out of existence; a fellow whose friends
with few exceptions were toughs and jail birds and ex-criminals of all
sorts.
It was just as he gave Carter’s wrist the twist that sent the revolver
clattering to the ground beside the unconscious woman that Michael
heard the hurried footsteps of the officer of the law accompanied by a
curious motley crowd who had heard the pistol shot and come to see what
new excitement life offered for their delectation. He suddenly realized
how bad matters would look for Sam if he should be found in the embrace
of one of Society’s pets who would all too surely have a tale to tell
that would clear himself regardless of others. Michael had no care for
himself. The police all about that quarter knew him well, and were
acquainted with his work. They looked upon him with almost more respect
than they gave the priests and deaconesses who went about their errands
of mercy; for Michael’s spirit-look of being more than man, and the
stories that were attached to his name in the alley filled them with a
worshipful awe. There was little likelihood of trouble for Michael with
any of the officers he knew. But Sam was another proposition. His life
had not all been strictly virtuous in the past, and of late he had been
away in New Jersey so much that he was little known, and would be at
once suspected of having been the cause of the trouble. Besides, the
woman lay unconscious at their feet!
With a mighty effort Michael now reached forth and plucked Sam,
struggling fiercely, from the arms of his antagonist and put him behind
him in the doorway, standing firmly in front. Carter thus released,
sprawled for an instant in the road, then taking advantage of the
momentary release struggled to his feet and fled in the opposite
direction from that in which the officers were approaching.
“Let me go! I must get him!” muttered Sam pushing fiercely to get by
Michael.
“No, Sam, stay where you are and keep quiet. You’ll gain nothing by
running after him. You’ll only get into trouble yourself.”
“I don’t care!” said Sam frantically, “I don’t care what happens to me.
I’ll kill him. He stole my girl!”
But Michael stood before him like a wail of adamant in the strength
that was his for the extremity.
“Yes, Sam, my poor fellow. I know,” said Michael gently, sadly. “I
know, Sam. He stole mine too!”
Sam subsided as if he had been struck, a low awful curse upon his lips,
his face pale and baleful.
“You, too?” The yearning tenderness went to Michael’s heart like sweet
salve, even in the stress of the moment. They were brothers in sorrow,
and their brotherhood saved Sam from committing a crime.
Then the police and crowd swept up breathless.
“What does all this mean?” panted a policeman touching his cap
respectfully to Michael. “Some one been shooting?”
He stooped and peered into the white face of the still unconscious
woman, and then looked suspiciously toward Sam who was standing
sullenly behind Michael.
“He’s all right,” smiled Michael throwing an arm across Sam’s shoulder,
“He only came in to help me when he saw I was having a hard time of it.
The fellow made off in that direction.” Michael pointed after Carter
whose form had disappeared in the darkness.
“Any of the gang?” asked the officer as he hurried away.
“No!” said Michael. “He doesn’t belong here!”
One officer hurried away accompanied by a crowd, the other stayed to
look after the woman. He touched the woman with his foot as he might
have tapped a dying dog to see if there was still life there. A low
growl like a fierce animal came from Sam’s closed lips.
Michael put a warning hand upon, his arm.
“Steady, Sam, steady!” he murmured, and went himself and lifted the
poor pretty head of the girl from its stony pillow.
“I think you’d better send for the ambulance,” he said to the officer.
“She’s had a heavy blow on her head. I arrived just in time to see the
beginning of the trouble—”
“Ain’t she dead?” said the officer indifferently. “Best get her into
her house. Don’t reckon they want to mess up the hospital with such
cattle as this.”
Michael caught the fierce gleam in Sam’s eyes. A second more would have
seen the officer lying beside the girl in the road and a double tragedy
to the record of that night; for Sam was crouched and moving stealthily
like a cat toward the officer’s back, a look of almost insane fury upon
his small thin face. It was Michael’s steady voice that recalled him to
sanity once more, just as many a time in the midst of a game he had put
self-control and courage into the hearts of his team.
“Sam, could you come here and hold her head a minute, while I try to
get some water? Yes, officer, I think she is living, and she should be
got to the hospital as soon as possible. Please give the call at once.”
The officer sauntered off to do his bidding. Michael and Sam began
working over the unconscious girl, and the crowd stood idly round
waiting until the ambulance rattled up. They watched with awe as the
form of the woman was lifted in and Michael and Sam climbed up on the
front seat with the driver and rode away; then they drifted away to
their several beds and the street settled into its brief night respite.
The two young men waited at the hospital for an hour until a
white-capped nurse came to tell them that Lizzie had recovered
consciousness, and there was hope of her life. Then they went out into
the late night together.
“Sam, you’re coming home with me tonight!” Michael put his arm
affectionately around Sam’s shoulders, “You never would come before,
but you must come tonight.”
And Sam, looking into the other’s face for an instant, saw that in
Michael’s suffering eyes that made him yield.
“I ain’t fit!” Sam murmured as they walked along silently together. It
was the first hint that Sam had ever given that he was not every whit
as good as Michael; and Michael with rare tact had never by a glance
let Sam know how much he wished to have him cleaner, and more suitably
garbed.
“Oh, we’ll make that all right!” said Michael fervently thankful that
at last the time had come for the presentation of the neat and fitting
garments which he had purchased some weeks before for a present for
Sam, and which had been waiting for a suitable opportunity of
presentation.
The dawn was hovering in the East when Michael led Sam up to his own
room, and throwing wide the door of his own little private bath-room
told Sam to take a hot bath, it would make him feel better.
While Sam was thus engaged Michael made a compact bundle of Sam’s old
garments, and stealing softly to the back hall window, landed them by a
neat throw on the top of the ash barrel in the court below. Sam’s
clothes might see the alley again by way of the ash man, but never on
Sam’s back.
Quite late that very same morning, when Sam, clothed and in a new and
righter mind than ever before in his life, walked down with Michael to
breakfast, and was introduced as “my friend Mr. Casey” to the landlady,
who was hovering about the now deserted breakfast table; he looked
every inch of him a respectable citizen. Not handsome and distinguished
like Michael, of course, but quite unnoticeable, and altogether proper
as a guest at the respectable breakfast table of Mrs. Semple.
Michael explained that they had been detained out late the night before
by an accident, and Mrs. Semple gave special orders for a nice
breakfast to be served to Mr. Endicott and his friend, and said it
wasn’t any trouble at all.
People always thought it was no trouble to do things for Michael.
While they ate, Michael arranged with Sam to take a trip out to see
Buck.
“I was expecting to go this morning,” he said. “I had my plans all
made. They write me that Buck is getting uneasy and they wish I’d come,
but now”—he looked meaningly at Sam—“I think I ought to stay here for a
little. Could you go in my place? There are things here I must attend
to.”
Sam looked, and his face grew dark with sympathy. He understood.
“I’ll keep you informed about Lizzie,” went on Michael with delicate
intuition, “and anyway you couldn’t see her for sometime, I think if
you try you could help Buck as much as I. He needs to understand that
breaking laws is all wrong. That it doesn’t pay in the end, and that
there has got to be a penalty—you know. You can make him see things in
a new way if you try. Are you willing to go, Sam?”
“I’ll go,” said Sam briefly, and Michael knew he would do his best. It
might be that Sam’s change of viewpoint would have more effect upon
Buck than anything Michael could say. For it was an open secret between
Sam and Michael now that Sam stood for a new order of things and that
the old life, so far as he was concerned, he had put away.
And so Sam was got safely away from the danger spot, and Michael stayed
to face his sorrow, and the problem of how to save Starr.