The driver threw on his high speed
after a promise that his fine would be paid and ten
dollars over should they be stopped. He made
the house in fifteen minutes and was lucky enough
not to pass a policeman. Donaldson jumping out
bade him wait for further orders.
Donaldson received no response to
his ring. He tried the latch and found the door
locked. On a run he skirted the house to the
rear. The back door was open. He pushed
through into the cold kitchen, through this into the
dining room, and so into the hall. There was
no sign either of the servant or of the girl herself.
He was now thoroughly alarmed.
As he ran up the stairs he was confronted
by what he took to be an old witch in a purple wrapper.
She barred his way in a decidedly militant manner,
her sunken black eyes flashing anger. She seemed
about to spring at him.
“Bien,” she croaked, “qui diable
are you?”
He paused.
“You are Marie?” he demanded.
“Bien, and you?”
A voice came from a room leading from
the hall. “Marie, who is it? Is
it Ben?”
“I know not who it is,”
Marie shouted back; “but if he comes up another
step I will tear out his eyes.”
“Miss Arsdale,” called
Donaldson, “is anything the trouble? It
is I Donaldson.”
“You!”
Her voice, which had at first sounded
weary, as the voice of one who has waited a long while,
gathered strength.
“It is all right, Marie,”
she called. “This this is my
friend.”
Marie relaxed and gripped the banister
for support. She was weak.
“I have never seen him before,” she challenged.
There was a movement at the door.
“No, you have never seen him. Come here
a moment, Marie.”
With difficulty the old woman hobbled
back into the room to her mistress, and for a few
moments Donaldson waited impatiently for the next
development. It came when he heard her voice
asking him to come in. He was in the room in
three strides. She was sitting in her chair
with her head bandaged, Marie sitting by her side as
though liking but little his intrusion. At sight
of the white strip across her forehead, he caught
his breath.
“What does this mean?” he demanded with
quick assumption of authority.
“You must n’t think it
is anything serious,” she hastened to explain,
awed by the fierceness of his manner. “It
is only that that he came back.”
“Arsdale?”
“Yes.”
“Where is he now?”
“He went away again. Marie
and I tried to hold him, but we weren’t strong
enough.”
“It would be easier to hold the devil,”
interpolated Marie.
“But you,” asked the girl, “I
was afraid you had met with an accident.”
“I?” he cried. “I was asleep asleep
like a drunken lout.”
“All yesterday all last night?”
she asked in astonishment.
“Yes,” he admitted, as though it were
an accusation.
“Ah, that is good,” she replied.
“You needed the rest.”
“Needed rest, and you in this
danger?” he exclaimed contemptuously. “It
was unpardonable of me.”
“No! No! Don’t
say that. You could have done nothing had you
been here.”
“If ever I get my hands on him again,”
he cried below his breath.
“Mon Dieu,” broke in Marie. “If
I, too ”
“Hush,” interrupted the
girl. “It is quite useless for any of us
to attempt more until his money gives out. He
came back and found a few dollars in my purse.”
She had fought this madman, she and
this rheumatic old woman, while he had slept!
She had called to him and he had not answered!
The blood went hot to his cheeks. It was enough
to make a man feel craven.
The wounded girl rested her bandaged
head on the back of the chair. At the light
in Donaldson’s eyes, Marie straightened herself
aggressively.
“Are you badly hurt?” he asked quietly.
“Only a bump,” she laughed,
remembering how he had stood by the ladder. “Marie
insisted upon this,” she added, lightly touching
the cloth about her forehead.
“A bump?” snorted Marie.
“It is a miracle that she was not altogether
killed. She ”
But a hand upon the old servant’s
arm checked her indignation.
“You two women cannot remain
here any longer alone,” he said authoritatively.
“Either you must allow me to take you to the
shelter of some friend or ”
“There is no one,” she
interrupted quickly. “No one to whom I
would go in this condition. They would not understand.”
“Then,” he said, “I must secure
a nurse for you.”
“Am I not able to care for the p’tite?”
demanded Marie. “A nurse!”
“A nurse is needed to care for
you both. I am going downstairs now to summon
one.”
She protested feebly, and Marie vigorously, but he
was insistent.
“I ought to call your family physician ”
“No, Mr. Donaldson, you must not do that.”
She was firm upon this point, so he went below to
do what else he might.
At the telephone he found the explanation
of his inability to get the house in the fact that
the receiver was hanging loose. It was another
accusation. Doubtless in her weakened condition
she had dropped it from her hand and turned away,
too dazed to replace it. The hot shame of it
dried his tongue so that he could scarcely make himself
understood. In spite of this he accomplished
many things in a very few minutes. The operator
gave him the number of a near-by reliable nurse, and
finding her in, he sent off the cab for her.
Then through an employment bureau he secured a cook
who agreed to reach the house within an hour.
He then telephoned the nearest market and ordered
everything he could think of from beefsteak to fruit,
and to this added everything the marketman could think
of. He had no sooner finished than the nurse
arrived.
By the greatest good luck Miss Colson
proved to be young, cheerful, and capable. She
followed Donaldson upstairs and succeeded in winning
the confidence of both the girl and Marie at once.
Donaldson left them together. A little while
later he was allowed to come up again.
“I feel like an unfaithful knight,”
he said, as he entered. “I deserve to
be dismissed without a word.”
“Because you slept? It
was not your fault. I fear I have left you little
time for rest.”
“Why did n’t you tell
them to break down the doors to get
me!”
Her face clouded for a moment.
She saw how chagrined he still felt.
“Don’t blame yourself,”
she pleaded. “It’s all over anyway
and you ’ve done everything possible.
You ’ve been very thoughtful.”
“I was a fool to leave you here. I should
have stayed.”
“That was impossible.”
Donaldson marveled that she could
pass off the whole episode so generously. He
refrained from questioning her further as to what had
happened. It was unnecessary, for he knew well
enough.
“Let us choose a pleasanter
subject,” she said. “Tell me how
you became a great hero.”
“A sorry hero,” he answered,
not understanding what she meant.
“No. No. It was fine! It was
fine!”
He was bewildered.
“You don’t mean to say
you have n’t seen the papers but then,
of course, you have n’t, if you were asleep
all day Sunday. Please bring me that pile in
the corner.”
He handed them to her and she unfolded
the first page of the uppermost paper. He found
himself confronting a picture of himself as he had
stood, the centre of an admiring crowd, in front of
the big machine which had so nearly killed Bobby.
He shared the first page with the
latest guesses concerning the Riverside robberies.
“Well,” he stammered, “I ’d
forgotten all about that!”
“Forgotten such an act! You don’t
half realize what a hero you are.
Listen to the headlines, ‘Heroic Rescue,’
’Young Lawyer Gives
Remarkable Exhibition of Nerve,’ ’The
Name of Lawyer Donaldson
Mentioned for Carnegie Medal,’ ‘Bravest
Deed of the Year,’ ’Faced Death
Unflinchingly.’”
And the pitiful feature of it was
that he must sit and listen to this undeserved praise
from her lips. That, knowing deep in his heart
his own unworthiness, he must face her and see her
respond to those things as though he really had been
worthy. He, who had done the act under oath,
was receiving the reward of a man who would have done
it with no false stimulus. He, who had been
unconsciously braced to it by the fact that he had
so little to lose, was receiving the praise due only
a man who risks all the happiness of a long life.
He had faced death after flinching from life.
He was sick of his hypocrisy; he would be frank with
himself. He would be frank with her; he had a
right to it this once. He pressed down the paper
she was reading.
“Don’t repeat it,” he commanded.
“It is n’t true! It’s all
wrong!”
“What do you mean?”
“That it’s all a lie!”
“But here ’s your picture. And that
’s you.”
“Oh, the naked facts are true.
But the rest about, ” it was hard
to do this with her eyes upon him, “the rest
about being a hero about nerve and bravery.
It’s rot! It is n’t so!”
She threw back her head, resting it
upon the top of her chair, and laughed gently.
The color had come back into her cheeks and even the
dark below her eyes seemed to fade.
“Of course,” she returned,
“you would n’t be a truly hero if you knew
you were one.”
“But I know I ’m not.”
“Of course and so you are!”
The impulse was strong within him
to pour out to her the whole bitter story. Better
to stand shorn and true before her than garbed in such
false colors as these. But as before, he realized
that her own welfare forbade even this relief.
The nurse approached with a cheery
smile, but with an unmistakable air of authority.
“You will pardon me,”
she interrupted, “but we must keep Miss Arsdale
as quiet as possible. I think she ought to try
to sleep a little now.”
Sorry as he was to go, Donaldson was
relieved to know that he was leaving her in such good
hands.
The ringing of the front door-bell
startled her. She shrank back in her chair.
The nurse was at her side instantly.
“You had better leave at once,”
she whispered to Donaldson.
“It’s only the new cook,” he answered.
He went downstairs and ushered her in, and led her
to the kitchen.
“The place is yours,”
he said, waving his hands about the room, “and
all you ’ve got to do is to cook quickly
and properly whatever order is sent down to you.
Get that?”
The woman nodded, but glanced suspiciously
about the deserted quarters. The place looked
as when first opened in the Fall, after the return
from the summer vacation.
“The family,” Donaldson
went on to explain, “consists of three.
If you succeed in satisfying this group I ’ll
give you an extra ten at the end of the week.”
“I ’ll do it, sor.”
She looked as though she was able.
“Anything more you want to know?”
“The rist of the help, sor, ”
“You ’re all of it,” he answered
briefly.
Before leaving the house he did one
thing more to allay his fears. He called up
a private detective bureau and ordered them to keep
watch of the house night and day until further notice.
They were to keep their eyes open for any slightly
deranged person who might seek an entrance. In
the event of capturing him, they were to take him into
the house and put him to bed, remaining at his side
until he, Donaldson, arrived.
Then he ordered his cab to the restaurant of Wun Chung.