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Black Bag, The

<h2 align="center">VI</h2> <h3 align="center">"BELOW BRIDGE"</h3> In silence Mrs. Hallam turned to Kirkwood, her pose in itself a question and a peremptory one. Her eyes had narrowed; between their lashes the green showed, a thin edge like jade, cold and calculating. The firm lines of her mouth and chin had hardened. Temporarily dumb with consternation, he returned her stare as silently. "Well, Mr.&#8212Kirkwood?" "Mrs. Hallam," he stammered, "I&#8212" She lifted her shoulders impatiently and with a quick movement stepped back across the threshold, where she paused, a rounded arm barring the entrance, one hand grasping the door-knob, as if to shut him out at any moment. "I'm awaiting your explanation," she said coldly. <ANTIMG src="images/frontis2s.jpg" alt= ""I'm waiting your explanation," she said coldly." align="middle"> He grinned with nervousness, striving to penetrate the mental processes of this handsome Mrs. Hallam. She seemed to regard him with a suspicion which he thought inexcusable. Did she suppose he had spirited Dorothy Calendar away and then called to apprise her of the fact? Or that he was some sort of an adventurer, who had manufactured a plausible yarn to gain him access to her home? Or&#8212harking back to her original theory&#8212that he was an emissary from Scotland Yard? ... Probably she distrusted him on the latter hypothesis. The reflection left him more at ease. "I am quite as mystified as you, Mrs. Hallam," he began. "Miss Calendar was here, at this door, in a four-wheeler, not ten minutes ago, and&#8212" "Then where is she now?" "Tell me where Calendar is," he retorted, inspired, "and I'll try to answer you!" But her eyes were blank. "You mean&#8212?" "That Calendar was in this house when I came; that he left, found his daughter in the cab, and drove off with her. It's clear enough." "You are quite mistaken," she said thoughtfully. "George Calendar has not been here this night." He wondered that she did not seem to resent his imputation. "I think not&#8212" "Listen!" she cried, raising a warning hand; and relaxing her vigilant attitude, moved forward once more, to peer down toward the Embankment. A cab had cut in from that direction and was bearing down upon them with a brisk rumble of hoofs. As it approached, Kirkwood's heart, that had lightened, was weighed upon again by disappointment. It was no four-wheeler, but a hansom, and the open wings of the apron, disclosing a white triangle of linen surmounted by a glowing spot of fire, betrayed the sex of the fare too plainly to allow of further hope that it might be the girl returning. At the door, the cab pulled up sharply and a man tumbled hastily out upon the sidewalk. "Here!" he cried throatily, tossing the cabby his fare, and turned toward the pair upon the doorstep, evidently surmising that something was amiss. For he was Calendar in proper person, and a sight to upset in a twinkling Kirkwood's ingeniously builded castle of suspicion. "Mrs. Hallam!" he cried, out of breath. "'S my daughter here?" And then, catching sight of Kirkwood's countenance: "Why, hello, Kirkwood!" he saluted him with a dubious air. The woman interrupted hastily. "Please come in, Mr. Calendar. This gentleman has been inquiring for you, with an astonishing tale about your daughter." "Dorothy!" Calendar's moon-like visage was momentarily divested of any trace of color. "What of her?" "You had better come in," advised Mrs. Hallam brusquely. The fat adventurer hopped hurriedly across the threshold, Kirkwood following. The woman shut the door, and turned with back to it, nodding significantly at Kirkwood as her eyes met Calendar's. "Well, well?" snapped the latter impatiently, turning to the young man. But Kirkwood was thinking quickly. For the present he contented himself with a deliberate statement of fact: "Miss Calendar has disappeared." It gave him an instant's time ... "There's something damned fishy!" he told himself. "These two are playing at cross-purposes. Calendar's no fool; he's evidently a crook, to boot. As for the woman, she's had her eyes open for a number of years. The main thing's Dorothy. She didn't vanish of her own initiative. And Mrs. Hallam knows, or suspects, more than she's going to tell. I don't think she wants Dorothy found. Calendar does. So do I. Ergo: I'm for Calendar." "Disappeared?" Calendar was barking at him. "How? When? Where?" "Within ten minutes," said Kirkwood. "Here, let's get it straight.... With her permission I brought her here in a four-wheeler." He was carefully suppressing all mention of Frognall Street, and in Calendar's glance read approval of the elision. "She didn't want to get out, unless you were here. I asked for you. The maid showed me up-stairs. I left your daughter in the cab&#8212and by the way, I hadn't paid the driver. That's funny, too! Perhaps six or seven minutes after I came in Mrs. Hallam found out that Miss Calendar was with me and wanted to ask her in. When we got to the door&#8212no cab. There you have it all." "Thanks&#8212it's plenty," said Calendar dryly. He bent his head in thought for an instant, then looked up and fixed Mrs. Hallam with an unprejudiced eye, "I say!" he demanded explosively. "There wasn't any one here that knew&#8212eh?" Her fine eyes wavered and fell before his; and Kirkwood remarked that her under lip was curiously drawn in. "I heard a man leave as Mrs. Hallam joined me," he volunteered helpfully, and with a suspicion of malice. "And after that&#8212I paid no attention at the time&#8212it seems to me I did hear a cab in the street&#8212" "Ow?" interjected Calendar, eying the woman steadfastly and employing an exclamation of combined illumination and inquiry more typically British than anything Kirkwood had yet heard from the man. For her part, the look she gave Kirkwood was sharp with fury. It was more; it was a mistake, a flaw in her diplomacy; for Calendar intercepted it. Unceremoniously he grasped her bare arm with his fat hand. "Tell me who it was," he demanded in an ugly tone. She freed herself with a twist, and stepped back, a higher color in her cheeks, a flash of anger in her eyes. "Mr. Mulready," she retorted defiantly. "What of that?" "I wish I was sure," declared the fat adventurer, exasperated. "As it is, I bet a dollar you've put your foot in it, my lady. I warned you of that blackguard.... There! The mischief's done; we won't row over it. One moment." He begged it with a wave of his hand; stood pondering briefly, fumbled for his watch, found and consulted it. "It's the barest chance," he muttered. "Perhaps we can make it." "What are you going to do?" asked the woman. "Give Mister Mulready a run for his money. Come along, Kirkwood; we haven't a minute. Mrs. Hallam, permit us...." She stepped aside and he brushed past her to the door. "Come, Kirkwood!" He seemed to take Kirkwood's company for granted; and the young man was not inclined to argue the point. Meekly enough he fell in with Calendar on the sidewalk. Mrs. Hallam followed them out. "You won't forget?" she called tentatively. "I'll 'phone you if we find out anything." Calendar jerked the words unceremoniously over his shoulder as, linking arms with Kirkwood, he drew him swiftly along. They heard her shut the door; instantly Calendar stopped. "Look here, did Dorothy have a&#8212a small parcel with her?" "She had a gladstone bag." "Oh, the devil, the devil!" Calendar started on again, muttering distractedly. As they reached the corner he disengaged his arm. "We've a minute and a half to reach Charing Cross Pier; and I think it's the last boat. You set the pace, will you? But remember I'm an oldish man and&#8212and fat." They began to run, the one easily, the other lumbering after like an old-fashioned square-rigged ship paced by a liner. Beneath the railway bridge, in front of the Underground station, the cab-rank cried them on with sardonic view-halloos; and a bobby remarked them with suspicion, turning to watch as they plunged round the corner and across the wide Embankment. The Thames appeared before them, a river of ink on whose burnished surface lights swam in long winding streaks and oily blobs. By the floating pier a County Council steamboat strained its hawsers, snoring huskily. Bells were jingling in her engine-room as the two gained the head of the sloping gangway. Kirkwood slapped a shilling down on the ticket-window ledge. "Where to?" he cried back to Calendar. "Cherry Gardens Pier," rasped the winded man. He stumbled after Kirkwood, groaning with exhaustion. Only the tolerance of the pier employees gained them their end; the steamer was held some seconds for them; as Calendar staggered to its deck, the gangway was jerked in, the last hawser cast off. The boat sheered wide out on the river, then shot in, arrow-like, to the pier beneath Waterloo Bridge. The deck was crowded and additional passengers embarked at every stop. In the circumstances conversation, save on the most impersonal topics, was impossible; and even had it been necessary or advisable to discuss the affair which occupied their minds, where so many ears could hear, Calendar had breath enough neither to answer nor to catechize Kirkwood. They found seats on the forward deck and rested there in grim silence, both fretting under the enforced restraint, while the boat darted, like some illuminated and exceptionally active water insect, from pier to pier. As it snorted beneath London Bridge, Calendar's impatience drove him from his seat back to the gangway. "Next stop," he told Kirkwood curtly; and rested his heavy bulk against the paddle-box, brooding morosely, until, after an uninterrupted run of more than a mile, the steamer swept in, side-wheels backing water furiously against the ebbing tide, to Cherry Gardens landing. Sweet name for a locality unsavory beyond credence! ... As they emerged on the street level and turned west on Bermondsey Wall, Kirkwood was fain to tug his top-coat over his chest and button it tight, to hide his linen. In a guarded tone he counseled his companion to do likewise; and Calendar, after a moment's blank, uncomprehending stare, acknowledged the wisdom of the advice with a grunt. The very air they breathed was rank with fetid odors bred of the gaunt dark warehouses that lined their way; the lights were few; beneath the looming buildings the shadows were many and dense. Here and there dreary and cheerless public houses appeared, with lighted windows conspicuous in a lightless waste. From time to time, as they hurried on, they encountered, and made wide detours to escape contact with knots of wayfarers&#8212men debased and begrimed, with dreary and slatternly women, arm in arm, zigzaging widely across the sidewalks, chorusing with sodden voices the burden of some popularized ballad. The cheapened, sentimental refrains echoed sadly between benighted walls.... Kirkwood shuddered, sticking close to Calendar's side. Life's naked brutalities had theretofore been largely out of his ken. He had heard of slums, had even ventured to mouth politely moral platitudes on the subject of overcrowding in great centers of population, but in the darkest flights of imagination had never pictured to himself anything so unspeakably foul and hopeless as this.... And they were come hither seeking&#8212Dorothy Calendar! He was unable to conceive what manner of villainy could be directed against her, that she must be looked for in such surroundings. After some ten minutes' steady walking, Calendar turned aside with a muttered word, and dived down a covered, dark and evil-smelling passageway that seemed to lead toward the river. Mastering his involuntary qualms, Kirkwood followed. Some ten or twelve paces from its entrance the passageway swerved at a right angle, continuing three yards or so to end in a blank wall, wherefrom a flickering, inadequate gas-lamp jutted. At this point a stone platform, perhaps four feet square, was discovered, from the edge of which a flight of worn and slimy stone steps led down to a permanent boat-landing, where another gas-light flared gustily despite the protection of its frame of begrimed glass. "Good Lord!" exclaimed the young man. "What, in Heaven's name, Calendar&#8212?" "Bermondsey Old Stairs. Come on." They descended to the landing-stage. Beneath them the Pool slept, a sheet of polished ebony, whispering to itself, lapping with small stealthy gurgles angles of masonry and ancient piles. On the farther bank tall warehouses reared square old-time heads, their uncompromising, rugged profile relieved here and there by tapering mastheads. A few, scattering, feeble lights were visible. Nothing moved save the river and the wind. The landing itself they found quite deserted; something which the adventurer comprehended with a nod which, like its accompanying, inarticulate ejaculation, might have been taken to indicate either satisfaction or disgust. He ignored Kirkwood altogether, for the time being, and presently produced a small, bright object, which, applied to his lips, proved to be a boatswain's whistle. He sounded two blasts, one long, one brief. There fell a lull, Kirkwood watching the other and wondering what next would happen. Calendar paced restlessly to and fro upon the narrow landing, now stopping to incline an ear to catch some anticipated sound, now searching with sweeping glances the black reaches of the Pool. Finally, consulting his watch, "Almost ten," he announced. "We're in time?" "Can't say.... Damn! ... If that infernal boat would only show up&#8212" He was lifting the whistle to sound a second summons when a rowboat rounded a projecting angle formed by the next warehouse down stream, and with clanking oar-locks swung in toward the landing. On her thwarts two figures, dipping and rising, labored with the sweeps. As they drew in, the man forward shipped his blades, and rising, scrambled to the bows in order to grasp an iron mooring-ring set in the wall. The other awkwardly took in his oars and, as the current swung the stern downstream, placed a hand palm downward upon the bottom step to hold the boat steady. Calendar waddled to the brink of the stage, grunting with relief. "The other man?" he asked brusquely. "Has he gone aboard? Or is this the first trip to-night?" One of the watermen nodded assent to the latter question, adding gruffly: "Seen nawthin' of 'im, sir." "Very good," said Calendar, as if he doubted whether it were very good or bad. "We'll wait a bit." "Right-o!" agreed the waterman civilly. Calendar turned back, his small eyes glimmering with satisfaction. Fumbling in one coat pocket he brought to light a cigar-case. "Have a smoke?" he suggested with a show of friendliness. "By Heaven, I was beginnin' to get worried!" "As to what?" inquired Kirkwood pointedly, selecting a cigar. He got no immediate reply, but felt Calendar's sharp eyes upon him while he manoeuvered with matches for a light. "That's so," it came at length. "You don't know. I kind of forgot for a minute; somehow you seemed on the inside." Kirkwood laughed lightly. "I've experienced something of the same sensation in the past few hours." "Don't doubt it." Calendar was watching him narrowly. "I suppose," he put it to him abruptly, "you haven't changed your mind?" "Changed my mind?" "About coming in with me." "My dear sir, I can have no mind to change until a plain proposition is laid before me." "Hmm!" Calendar puffed vigorously until it occurred to him to change the subject. "You won't mind telling me what happened to you and Dorothy?" "Certainly not." Calendar drew nearer and Kirkwood, lowering his voice, narrated briefly the events since he had left the Pless in Dorothy's company. Her father followed him intently, interrupting now and again with exclamation or pertinent question; as, Had Kirkwood been able to see the face of the man in No. 9, Frognall Street? The negative answer seemed to disconcert him. "Youngster, you say? Blam' if I can lay my mind to him! Now if that Mulready&#8212" "It would have been impossible for Mulready&#8212whoever he is&#8212to recover and get to Craven Street before we did," Kirkwood pointed out. "Well&#8212go on." But when the tale was told, "It's that scoundrel, Mulready!" the man affirmed with heat. "It's his hand&#8212I know him. I might have had sense enough to see he'd take the first chance to hand me the double-cross. Well, this does for him, all right!" Calendar lowered viciously at the river. "You've been blame' useful," he told Kirkwood assertively. "If it hadn't been for you, I don't know where I'd be now,&#8212nor Dorothy, either,"&#8212an obvious afterthought. "There's no particular way I can show my appreciation, I suppose? Money&#8212?" "I've got enough to last me till I reach New York, thank you." "Well, if the time ever comes, just shout for George B. I won't be wanting.... I only wish you were with us; but that's out of the question." "Doubtless ..." "No two ways about it. I bet anything you've got a conscience concealed about your person. What? You're an honest man, eh?" "I don't want to sound immodest," returned Kirkwood, amused. "You don't need to worry about that.... But an honest man's got no business in my line." He glanced again at his watch. "Damn that Mulready! I wonder if he was 'cute enough to take another way? Or did he think ... The fool!" He cut off abruptly, seeming depressed by the thought that he might have been outwitted; and, clasping hands behind his back, chewed savagely on his cigar, watching the river. Kirkwood found himself somewhat wearied; the uselessness of his presence there struck him with added force. He bethought him of his boat-train, scheduled to leave a station miles distant, in an hour and a half. If he missed it, he would be stranded in a foreign land, penniless and practically without friends&#8212Brentwick being away and all the rest of his circle of acquaintances on the other side of the Channel. Yet he lingered, in poor company, daring fate that he might see the end of the affair. Why? There was only one honest answer to that question. He stayed on because of his interest in a girl whom he had known for a matter of three hours, at most. It was insensate folly on his part, ridiculous from any point of view. But he made no move to go. The slow minutes lengthened monotonously. There came a sound from the street level. Calendar held up a hand of warning. "Here they come! Steady!" he said tensely. Kirkwood, listening intently, interpreted the noise as a clash of hoofs upon cobbles. Calendar turned to the boat. "Sheer off," he ordered. "Drop out of sight. I'll whistle when I want you." "Aye, aye, sir." The boat slipped noiselessly away with the current and in an instant was lost to sight. Calendar plucked at Kirkwood's sleeve, drawing him into the shadow of the steps. "E-easy," he whispered; "and, I say, lend me a hand, will you, if Mulready turns ugly?" "Oh, yes," assented Kirkwood, with a nonchalance not entirely unassumed. The racket drew nearer and ceased; the hush that fell thereafter seemed only accentuated by the purling of the river. It was ended by footsteps echoing in the covered passageway. Calendar craned his thick neck round the shoulder of stone, reconnoitering the landing and stairway. "Thank God!" he said under his breath. "I was right, after all!" A man's deep tones broke out above. "This way. Mind the steps; they're a bit slippery, Miss Dorothy." "But my father&#8212?" came the girl's voice, attuned to doubt. "Oh, he'll be along&#8212if he isn't waiting now, in the boat." They descended, the man leading. At the foot, without a glance to right or left, he advanced to the edge of the stage, leaning out over the rail as if endeavoring to locate the rowboat. At once the girl appeared, moving to his side. "But, Mr. Mulready&#8212" The girl's words were drowned by a prolonged blast on the boatswain's whistle at her companion's lips; the shorter one followed in due course. Calendar edged forward from Kirkwood's side. "But what shall we do if my father isn't here? Wait?" "No; best not to; best to get on the Alethea as soon as possible, Miss Calendar. We can send the boat back." "'Once aboard the lugger the girl is mine'&#8212eh, Mulready?&#8212to say nothing of the loot!" If Calendar's words were jocular, his tone conveyed a different impression entirely. Both man and girl wheeled right about to face him, the one with a strangled oath, the other with a low cry. "The devil!" exclaimed this Mr. Mulready. "Oh! My father!" the girl voiced her recognition of him. "Not precisely one and the same person," commented Calendar suavely. "But&#8212er&#8212thanks, just as much.... You see, Mulready, when I make an appointment, I keep it." "We'd begun to get a bit anxious about you&#8212" Mulready began defensively. "So I surmised, from what Mrs. Hallam and Mr. Kirkwood told me.... Well?" The man found no ready answer. He fell back a pace to the railing, his features working with his deep chagrin. The murky flare of the gas-lamp overhead fell across a face handsome beyond the ordinary but marred by a sullen humor and seamed with indulgence: a face that seemed hauntingly familiar until Kirkwood in a flash of visual memory reconstructed the portrait of a man who lingered over a dining-table, with two empty chairs for company. This, then, was he whom Mrs. Hallam had left at the Pless; a tall, strong man, very heavy about the chest and shoulders.... "Why, my dear friend," Calendar was taunting him, "you don't seem overjoyed to see me, for all your wild anxiety! 'Pon my word, you act as if you hadn't expected me&#8212and our engagement so clearly understood, at that! ... Why, you fool!"&#8212here the mask of irony was cast. "Did you think for a moment I'd let myself be nabbed by that yap from Scotland Yard? Were you banking on that? I give you my faith I ambled out under his very nose! ... Dorothy, my dear," turning impatiently from Mulready, "where's that bag?" The girl withdrew a puzzled gaze from Mulready's face, (it was apparent to Kirkwood that this phase of the affair was no more enigmatic to him than to her), and drew aside a corner of her cloak, disclosing the gladstone bag, securely grasped in one gloved hand. "I have it, thanks to Mr. Kirkwood," she said quietly. Kirkwood chose that moment to advance from the shadow. Mulready started and fixed him with a troubled and unfriendly stare. The girl greeted him with a note of sincere pleasure in her surprise. "Why, Mr. Kirkwood! ... But I left you at Mrs. Hallam's!" Kirkwood bowed, smiling openly at Mulready's discomfiture. "By your father's grace, I came with him," he said. "You ran away without saying good night, you know, and I'm a jealous creditor." She laughed excitedly, turning to Calendar. "But you were to meet me at Mrs. Hallam's?" "Mulready was good enough to try to save me the trouble, my dear. He's an unselfish soul, Mulready. Fortunately it happened that I came along not five minutes after he'd carried you off. How was that, Dorothy?" Her glance wavered uneasily between the two, Mulready and her father. The former, shrugging to declare his indifference, turned his back squarely upon them. She frowned. "He came out of Mrs. Hallam's and got into the four-wheeler, saying you had sent him to take your place, and would join us on the Alethea." "So-o! How about it, Mulready?" The man swung back slowly. "What you choose to think," he said after a deliberate pause. "Well, never mind! We'll go over the matter at our leisure on the Alethea." There was in the adventurer's tone a menace, bitter and not to be ignored; which Mulready saw fit to challenge. "I think not," he declared; "I think not. I'm weary of your addle-pated suspicions. It'd be plain to any one but a fool that I acted for the best interests of all concerned in this matter. If you're not content to see it in that light, I'm done." "Oh, if you want to put it that way, I'm not content, Mr. Mulready," retorted Calendar dangerously. "Please yourself. I bid you good evening and&#8212good-by." The man took a step toward the stairs. Calendar dropped his right hand into his top-coat pocket. "Just a minute," he said sweetly, and Mulready stopped. Abruptly the fat adventurer's smoldering resentment leaped in flame. "That'll be about all, Mr. Mulready! 'Bout face, you hound, and get into that boat! D'you think I'll temporize with you till Doomsday? Then forget it. You're wrong, dead wrong. Your bluff's called, and"&#8212with an evil chuckle&#8212"I hold a full house, Mulready,&#8212every chamber taken." He lifted meaningly the hand in the coat pocket. "Now, in with you." With a grin and a swagger of pure bravado Mulready turned and obeyed. Unnoticed of any, save perhaps Calendar himself, the boat had drawn in at the stage a moment earlier. Mulready dropped into it and threw himself sullenly upon the midships thwart. "Now, Dorothy, in you go, my dear," continued Calendar, with a self-satisfied wag of his head. Half dazed, to all seeming, she moved toward the boat. With clumsy and assertive gallantry her father stepped before her, offering his hand,&#8212his hand which she did not touch; for, in the act of descending, she remembered and swung impulsively back to Kirkwood. "Good night, Mr. Kirkwood; good night,&#8212I shan't forget." He took her hand and bowed above it; but when his head was lifted, he still retained her fingers in a lingering clasp. "Good night," he said reluctantly. The crass incongruity of her in that setting smote him with renewed force. Young, beautiful, dainty, brilliant and graceful in her pretty evening gown, she figured strangely against the gloomy background of the river, in those dull and mean surroundings of dank stone and rusted iron. She was like (he thought extravagantly) a whiff of flower-fragrance lost in the miasmatic vapors of a slough. The innocent appeal and allure of her face, upturned to his beneath the gas-light, wrought compassionately upon his sensitive and generous heart. He was aware of a little surge of blind rage against the conditions that had brought her to that spot, and against those whom he held responsible for those conditions. In a sudden flush of daring he turned and nodded coolly to Calendar. "With your permission," he said negligently; and drew the girl aside to the angle of the stairway. "Miss Calendar&#8212" he began; but was interrupted. "Here&#8212I say!" Calendar had started toward him angrily. Kirkwood calmly waved him back. "I want a word in private with your daughter, Mr. Calendar," he announced with quiet dignity. "I don't think you'll deny me? I've saved you some slight trouble to-night." Disgruntled, the adventurer paused. "Oh&#8212all right," he grumbled. "I don't see what ..." He returned to the boat. "Forgive me, Miss Calendar," continued Kirkwood nervously. "I know I've no right to interfere, but&#8212" "Yes, Mr. Kirkwood?" "&#8212but hasn't this gone far enough?" he floundered unhappily. "I can't like the look of things. Are you sure&#8212sure that it's all right&#8212with you, I mean?" She did not answer at once; but her eyes were kind and sympathetic. He plucked heart of their tolerance. "It isn't too late, yet," he argued. "Let me take you to your friends,&#8212you must have friends in the city. But this&#8212this midnight flight down the Thames, this atmosphere of stealth and suspicion, this&#8212" "But my place is with my father, Mr. Kirkwood," she interposed. "I daren't doubt him&#8212dare I?" "I ... suppose not." "So I must go with him.... I'm glad&#8212thank you for caring, dear Mr. Kirkwood. And again, good night." "Good luck attend you," he muttered, following her to the boat. Calendar helped her in and turned back to Kirkwood with a look of arch triumph; Kirkwood wondered if he had overheard. Whether or no, he could afford to be magnanimous. Seizing Kirkwood's hand, he pumped it vigorously. "My dear boy, you've been an angel in disguise! And I guess you think me the devil in masquerade." He chuckled, in high conceit with himself over the turn of affairs. "Good night and&#8212and fare thee well!" He dropped into the boat, seating himself to face the recalcitrant Mulready. "Cast off, there!" The boat dropped away, the oars lifting and falling. With a weariful sense of loneliness and disappointment, Kirkwood hung over the rail to watch them out of sight. A dozen feet of water lay between the stage and the boat. The girl's dress remained a spot of cheerful color; her face was a blur. As the watermen swung the bows down-stream, she looked back, lifting an arm spectral in its white sheath. Kirkwood raised his hat. The boat gathered impetus, momentarily diminishing in the night's illusory perspective; presently it was little more than a fugitive blot, gliding swiftly in midstream. And then, it was gone entirely, engulfed by the obliterating darkness. <ANTIMG src="images/illp115s.jpg" width-obs="462" height-obs="800" border="0" alt="The boat gathered impetus."> Somewhat wearily the young man released the railing and ascended the stairs. "And that is the end!" he told himself, struggling with an acute sense of personal injury. He had been hardly used. For a few hours his life had been lightened by the ineffable glamor of Romance; mystery and adventure had engaged him, exorcising for the time the Shade of Care; he had served a fair woman and been associated with men whose ways, however questionable, were the ways of courage, hedged thickly about with perils. All that was at an end. Prosaic and workaday to-morrows confronted him in endless and dreary perspective; and he felt again upon his shoulder the bony hand of his familiar, Care.... He sighed: "Ah, well!" Disconsolate and aggrieved, he gained the street. He was miles from St. Pancras, foot-weary, to all intents and purposes lost. In this extremity, Chance smiled upon him. The cabby who, at his initial instance, had traveled this weary way from Quadrant Mews, after the manner of his kind, ere turning back, had sought surcease of fatigue at the nearest public; from afar Kirkwood saw the four-wheeler at the curb, and made all haste toward it. Entering the gin-mill he found the cabby, soothed him with bitter, and, instructing him for St. Pancras with all speed, dropped, limp and listless with fatigue, into the conveyance. As it moved, he closed his eyes; the face of Dorothy Calendar shone out from the blank wall of his consciousness, like an illuminated picture cast upon a screen. She smiled upon him, her head high, her eyes tender and trustful. And he thought that her scarlet lips were sweet with promise and her glance a-brim with such a light as he had never dreamed to know. And now that he knew it and desired it, it was too late; an hour gone he might, by a nod of his head, have cast his fortunes with hers for weal or woe. But now ... Alas and alackaday, that Romance was no more! <center> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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