“Gee whiz!” he exclaimed, “you shook me that time, Soapy! Where’ve you blown in from—”

“An’ what th’ hell are you nosin’ around here for, anyway?” snarled M’Ginnis, shutting the heavy safe with a fierce slam; “since you’ve come in you can get out again—right now!”

Soapy seated himself upon a corner of the desk and placidly breathed out two spirals of cigarette smoke.

“Heard about Hermy bein’ married, Bud?” he enquired.

“Married? You’re a liar! Hermy married? It’s not so!”

“‘S right!” nodded Soapy. “She’s married th’ millionaire guy as got shot—you know—got shot in that wood—you’ll remember, Bud!”

M’Ginnis sank into a chair and fell to biting his nails, staring blindly before him.

“Is—this—straight goods?” he enquired thickly, without altering his gaze.

“Sure! Y’ see, she nursed him through his sickness, Bud—kind of did the piller-smoothin’ an’ brow-strokin’ act. Oh, I guess she comforted him quite some.”

M’Ginnis stared before him, worrying his nails with sharp white teeth.

“Ravenslee’s a well man again, I hear, an’ they’re honeymoonin’ at his place on the Hudson—devotion ain’t the word, Bud! ‘S funny,” said Soapy, “but th’ bullet as downed this guy drove Hermy into his arms. ‘S funny, ain’t it, Bud?”

With a hoarse, inarticulate cry that was scarcely human, M’Ginnis sprang from his chair, his quivering fists up-flung. For a moment he stood thus, striving vainly for utterance, then wrenched loose his neckerchief, while Soapy methodically lighted a new cigarette from the butt of its predecessor.

“Easy, Bud, easy!” he remonstrated gently, when M’Ginnis’s torrent of frenzied threats and curses had died down somewhat. “If you go on that way, you’ll go off—in a fit or something an’ I shouldn’t like t’ see ye die—that way!”

“Up the river, is he?” panted M’Ginnis.

“‘S right, Bud, up the river in his big house—with her. I—”

“Is he, by—”

“A dandy place f’ honeymoonin’, Bud!”

“Loan me your gun, Soapy. I’ll get him, by God! if I have t’ shoot him in her arms—loan me y’r gun!”

“I guess not, Bud, no, I guess not. I’d feel kind o’ lonesome without th’ feel of it. Ask Heine; he’ll loan you his; it’s gettin’ t’ be quite a habit with him, ain’t it, Heine?”

M’Ginnis sat awhile glaring down at his clutching right hand, then he rose, opened his desk, and took thence a heavy revolver, and slipped it inside his coat.

“You’re comin’ with me, Heine,” said he, “I’ll want you.”

“Sure thing, Bud,” nodded Heine, chewing his cigar. “But what about lettin’ Soapy tag along too.”

“Soapy,” said M’Ginnis, striding to the door, “Soapy can go t’ hell right now.”

“Why then, Bud,” drawled Soapy, “I’ll sure meet you—later. S’long.”

Left alone, Soapy’s languor gave place to swift action. In two strides, it seemed, he was in the saloon, had beckoned the quick-eyed bartender aside and put the question: “Where’s the Kid, Jake?”

The bartender lifted an eyebrow and jerked a thumb upward.

“Shut-eye,” he nodded, and turned back to his multifarious duties.

Up a narrow stair sped Soapy and, opening one of the numerous doors, crossed to a truckle bed wherefrom a tousled head upreared itself.

“Who th’—”

“Say, Kid, are ye drunk or only asleep?”

“What yer want, Soapy? You lemme be—what yer want?” began Spike drowsily.

“Nothin’ much, Kid, only Bud an’ Heine’s gone t’ shoot up y’r sister’s husband.”

“Husband!” cried Spike, drowsy no longer. “Husband—say, d’ ye mean Geoff?”

“That’s who, Kid. You was crackin’ on t’ me about wantin’ t’ make good; well, here’s y’r chance. Bud aims t’ get there ‘bout midnight—up th’ river, you know—so you got two hours. You’ll have t’ go some t’ get in first, but I guess you can do it.”

“I will if it kills me!” cried Spike, springing toward the door.

“Hold on, Kid, you’ll need some mazuma, maybe. Here’s a ten-spot. It’ll be more useful t’ you than me after t’night, I reckon. So get your hooks on to it, an’ now—beat it!”

Without more words Spike snatched the money, crammed it into his pocket and, running down the stairs, was gone.

Then, after having lighted another cigarette, Soapy descended to M’Ginnis’s dingy office, where having dragged away the desk, he brought a chair and sat with his ear against the safe, turning the combination lock with long, delicate fingers. To and fro he turned it, very patiently hearkening to the soft clicks the mechanism gave forth while the cigarette smouldered between his pallid lips. Soapy, among other accomplishments, was a yeggman renowned in the profession, and very soon the heavy door swung softly back, and Soapy became lost in study. Money there was and valuables of many kinds, and these he didn’t trouble with, but to the papers he gave a scrupulous attention; sometimes as he read his white eyelids fluttered somewhat, and sometimes the dangling cigarette quivered. Presently he arose and bore these many papers to the sheet iron upon which stood the rusty stove; here he piled them and set them alight and stood watching until they were reduced to a heap of charred ash. Then, returning to the safe, he took out a bundle of letters tied up in a faded blue ribbon, and seating himself at M’Ginnis’s desk, he slipped off the ribbon and very methodically began to read these letters one after the other.

But as he read the humble entreaties, the passionate pleading of those written words, blotted and smeared with the bitter tears of a woman’s poignant shame and anguish, Soapy’s pendent cigarette fell to the floor and lay there smouldering and forgotten, and his lips were drawn back from sharp, white teeth—pallid lips contorted in a grin the more awful because of the great drops that welled from the fierce, half-closed eyes. Every letter he read and every word, then very methodically set them back within the faded blue ribbon and sat staring down at them with eyes wider open than usual—eyes that saw back into the past. And as he sat thus, staring at what had been, he repeated a sentence to himself over and over again at regular intervals, speaking with a soft inflection none had ever heard from him before:

“Poor little Maggie—poor little kid!”

CHAPTER XLII

TELLS HOW RAVENSLEE BROKE HIS WORD AND WHY

“Past eleven o’clock, dear,” said Hermione.

“Still so early?” sighed Ravenslee.

They were sitting alone in the fire glow, so near that by moving his hand he could touch her where she sat curled up in the great armchair; but he did not reach out his hand because they were alone and in the fire glow, and Hermione had never seemed quite so alluring.

“How cosy a fire is—and how unnecessary!” she sighed contentedly.

“I’m English enough to love a fire, especially when it is unnecessary,” he answered.

“English, dear?”

“My mother was English; that’s why I was educated in England.”

“Your mother! How she must have loved you!”

“I suppose she did; but, you see, she died when I was a baby.”

“Poor lonely mite!” Here her hand came out impulsively to caress his coat sleeve and to be prisoned there by two other hands, to be lifted and pressed to burning lips, whereat she grew all rosy in the fire glow.

“I suppose,” said he, the words coming a little unevenly, “it would be too much to ask my wife to—come a little—nearer?”

“Nearer? Why, Geoffrey, dear, our chairs are touching now.”

“Our chairs? Why, yes—so they are! I suppose,” sighed he, “I suppose it would be breaking my word to my wife if I happened to—kiss my wife?”

“Why, Geoffrey—of course it would!”

“Yes, I feared so!” he nodded and kissed her hand instead, and there fell a silence.

“How heavenly it is!” she whispered softly, leaning a little nearer to him.

“Heavenly!” he answered, leaning a little nearer to her and watching the droop of her lashes.

“So—so quiet and—peaceful!” she added, drawing away again, conscious of his look.

“Horribly!” he sighed.

“Geoffrey!”

“Quiet and peace,” he explained, “may hold such an infinitude of possibilities impossible of realisation to a husband who is bound by promises, that it is apt to be a little—trying.”

Hermione didn’t speak but drew his hand to be caressed by the soft oval of a cheek and touched by the velvet of shy lips.

“And yet,” he went on, staring resolutely at the fire, “I wouldn’t change—this, for anything else the world could offer me!”

“Bear with me—a little longer, dear!” she murmured.

“As long as you will, Hermione—providing—”

“Well, my Geoffrey, dear?”

“That it is only—a little longer.”

“You don’t think I’m very—silly, do you, dear?” she enquired, staring into the fire.

“No, not very!”

“Oh!” she said softly, glancing at him reproachfully. “You don’t think me—cruel?”

“Not very,” he answered, kissing her hand again.

“Dear Geoffrey, you don’t think I’m very selfish, do you?” she questioned wistfully.

“No—never that!” he answered, keeping his gaze averted.

“Because if—”

“If?” said he.

“If it is hard for you—” the soft voice faltered.

“Yes, Hermione?”

“If you really think I’m—cruel and—silly, you—needn’t wait—any longer—if you wish—”

His arms were about her, drawing her near, clasping her ever closer, and she held him away no more, but—beholding her wistful eyes, the plaintive droop of her vivid mouth, and all the voiceless pleading of her, he loosed her and turned away.

“I love you so much—Hermione, so much, that your will shall be my will.”

She rose, and leaning against the carved mantel stared down into the fire; when at last she spoke, there was a note in her voice he had never heard before,

“Geoffrey, dear, this world is a very bad world for a lonely girl, and sometimes a very hateful world, and I have been lonely nearly all my life—and I didn’t think there were such men as you; I didn’t think any man could love so unselfishly. All my life I shall—treasure the recollection of this hour—yes, always! always!”

Then she turned and, ere he knew, was on her knees before him, had twined soft arms about his neck, and was looking up at him through shining tears.

“Yes, I’m—crying a little! I don’t do it often, dear—tears don’t easily come with me. But now I’m crying because—oh, because I’m so proud—so proud to have won such a wonderful love. Good night—good night! Oh, break your word for once—kiss me, my husband!”

So while she knelt to him thus, he kissed her until she sighed and stirred in his embrace. Then she rose and hand in hand they crossed the room and he opened the door; for a blissful moment they stood there silent in the shadows, but when he would have kissed her again she laughed at him through her tears and fled from him up the wide stairway.

CHAPTER XLIII

HOW SPIKE GOT EVEN

A clock in the hall without struck midnight, but Ravenslee sat on long after the silvery chime had died away, his chin sunk on broad chest, his eyes staring blindly at the fading embers, lost in profound but joyful meditation; once he turned to look where she had stood beside the mantel, and once he reached out to touch the thrice-blessed chair that had held her.

The curtains stirred and rustled at the open window behind him, but he sat looking into the flickering fire, seeing there pictures of the future, and the future was full of a happiness beyond words, for in every picture Hermione moved.

All at once he started and glanced swiftly around, his lounging attitude changing to one of watchful alertness, for he had heard a sound that drew rapidly nearer—the hiss and pant of breath drawn in quick gasps. Silently he arose and turned to see the curtains swing apart and a shapeless something stagger forward and fall heavily. Then he reached out to the switch beside the hearth, and the room was flooded with brilliant light; the figure kneeling just inside the swaying curtains uttered a strangled cry and threw up a hand before his face, a hand dark with spattering blood.

“Oh, Geoff—oh, Geoff!” panted Spike, “I ain’t—come thievin’ this time—honest t’ God, I ain’t!”

“Why, you’re hurt—what’s the matter?”

“They see me down th’ road as I came an’ shot me, but this ain’t nothin’. Out th’ lights, Geoff—out ‘em—quick!”

But Ravenslee had crossed the room, had seized the lad’s arm, and was examining the ugly graze that bled so freely.

“That ain’t nothin’—douse th’ lights, Geoff—out ‘em quick. Bud’s coming here close behind—Bud an’ Heine—they mean t’ plug you—oh, put out th’ lights—”

Instinctively Ravenslee turned, but even as he did so Spike uttered a hoarse cry.