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by Howard Chandler Christy


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Title: The Last Woman


Author: Ross Beeckman



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Language: English

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[Illustration: Cover]

THE LAST WOMAN

by

ROSS BEECKMAN

Author of "Princess Zara"

Frontispiece by Howard Chandler Christy







[Illustration: Frontispiece]



New York
Grosset & Dunlap
Publishers

Copyright, 1909--by
W. J. Watt & Company

Published August




                    _THE THEME_

     _If I could have my dearest wish fulfilled,
           And take my choice of all earth's treasures, too,
     And ask of Heaven whatsoe'er I willed--
               I'd ask for you._

     _There is more joy to my true, loving heart,
           In everything you think, or say, or do,
     Than all the joys of Heaven could e'er impart,
               Because--it's YOU._




CONTENTS

         CHAPTER                                   PAGE

         I.  THE PRICE                              11

        II.  ONE WOMAN WHO DARED                    36

       III.  A STRANGE BETROTHAL                    56

        IV.  THE BOX AT THE OPERA                   79

         V.  BEATRICE BRUNSWICK'S PLOT              96

        VI.  A REMARKABLE MEETING                  115

       VII.  THE BITTERNESS OF JEALOUSY            126

      VIII.  BETWEEN DARKNESS AND DAYLIGHT         142

        IX.  PATRICIA'S COWBOY LOVER               147

         X.  MONDAY, THE 13TH                      164

        XI.  MORTON'S ULTIMATUM                    176

       XII.  THE QUARREL                           185

      XIII.  SALLY GARDNER'S PLAN                  192

       XIV.  PATRICIA'S WILD RIDE                  201

        XV.  ALMOST A TRAGEDY                      216

       XVI.  THE AUTOMOBILE WRECK                  232

      XVII.  CROSS PURPOSES AT CEDARCREST          243

     XVIII.  MYSTERIES BORN IN THE NIGHT           258

       XIX.  RODERICK DUNCAN SEES LIGHT            272

        XX.  THE LAST WOMAN                        285

       XXI.  THE REASON WHY                        294

      XXII.  THE MYSTERY                           307





THE LAST WOMAN




CHAPTER I

THE PRICE


The old man, grim of visage, hard of feature and keen of eye, was
seated at one side of the table that occupied the middle of the floor
in his private office. He held the tips of his fingers together, and
leaned back in his chair, with an unlighted cigar gripped firmly in
his jaws. He seemed perturbed and troubled, if one could get behind
that stoical mask which a life in Wall street inevitably produces; but
anyone who knew the man and was aware of the great wealth he possessed
would never have supposed that any perturbation on the part of Stephen
Langdon could arise from financial difficulties. And could his most
severe critics have looked in upon the scene, and have seen it as it
existed at that moment, they would unhesitatingly have said that the
source of his discomfiture, if discomfiture there were, was the
queenly young woman who stood at the opposite side of the table,
facing him.

She was Patricia Langdon, sometimes, though rarely, addressed as Pat
by her father; but he alone dared make use of the cognomen, since she
invariably frowned upon such familiarities, even from him.

In private, among the women with whom she associated, she was
frequently referred to as Juno; and when she was discussed by the
gossips at the clubs, as she frequently was (for there are no greater
nests of gossip in the world than the men's clubs of New York City),
she was always Juno. There was a double and subtle purpose in both
cases; one felt it rather a dangerous proceeding to speak
criticizingly of Patricia Langdon, lest somehow what was said should
get to her ears. She was one who knew how to retaliate, and to do so
quickly. She was like a man in that she feared nothing, and hesitated
at nothing, so long as she knew it to be right. A precedent had no
force with her; if she desired to act, and there was no precedent for
what she wished to do, she established one.

All her life, Patricia had been her father's chum; ever since she
could remember, they had talked together of stocks and bonds, and puts
and calls, and opening and closing quotations, and she knew every
slang word that is uttered in "the street," that is used on the floor
of the stock-exchange, or that appears in the financial columns of the
newspapers.

And these two, father and daughter, were as much alike in outward
bearing, in demeanor and in appearance, in gesture and in motion, as a
man and a woman can be when the man is approaching seventy and the
woman is only just past twenty.

These two had been discussing an unprecedented circumstance. The
daughter was plainly annoyed, as her glowing cheeks and flashing eyes
evidenced. The man, if one could have read his innermost soul, was
afraid; for he knew his daughter as no other person did, and he feared
that he had gone, or was about to go, a step too far with her.

The room was the typical private office of a present-day financial
king, who is banker as well as broker, and who speaks of millions, by
fifties and hundreds, as a farmer talks of potatoes by the bushel. It
was a large, square room, solidly but not luxuriantly furnished. The
oblong table at which Stephen Langdon was seated, and upon which his
daughter lightly rested the tips of the fingers of one hand, was one
around which directors of various great corporations gathered, almost
daily, to be told by "old Steve" what to do. Over in a far corner was
a roll-top desk with a swivel chair, at which Langdon usually seated
himself when he was attending to his correspondence, or looking over
private papers; beside it was a huge safe, and beyond that another,
smaller one. Then, there were several easy chairs upholstered in
leather, a couch and two other desks. There were three doors: one of
these communicated with the main office of Stephen Langdon & Company,
Bankers and Brokers; another was a private entrance from the street
that ran along the side of the building, which Langdon owned; the
third communicated with a smaller room, really the _sanctum sanctorum_
of Stephen Langdon, into which it was his habit to take any person
with whom he wished to have an absolutely confidential chat.

This room was supposed never to be entered save by himself and those
whom he took with him--and by the cleaners who once a week attended to
it. These three doors were now closed.

"Old Steve" moved nervously in his chair, shifted his feet uneasily,
and rolled the unlighted cigar from one corner of his mouth to the
other, biting savagely upon it as he did so.

"Well, Pat," he said, with as much impatience as he ever showed, "have
you nothing to say?"

"There seems to be nothing for me to say, dad," replied his daughter,
and the intonation of her voice was different from the one she was
accustomed to use in addressing her father, whom she adored. He
attributed it, doubtless, to his abbreviation of her name, for he
smiled grimly.

"Haven't you heard what I said?" he demanded.

"Certainly."

"Well, then, you know the situation, don't you?"

"I am not quite sure as to that," she replied, meditatively. "You have
been somewhat ambiguous, and certainly quite enigmatical in your
statement. Am I to gather from what you have told me that you are
really facing failure?"

"God knows I have made it plain enough," was the quick response and
Langdon pushed his chair away from the table, stretched his legs out
straight in front of him, and thrust his hands deep into his
trousers-pockets.

"I had not supposed it possible for you to face failure," said
Patricia, with her eyes fixed upon her father's mask-like face; "but
if it is so, won't you tell me more about it?"

"It all came about through those infernal bonds that I have just
described to you. The men who were to go into the deal with me
withdrew at the last moment; I have already explained that fully to
you, and now, this Saturday afternoon, I find myself in a position
such as I have never faced before--where there are demands upon me
which I cannot meet; and those demands, Patricia, must be met,
somehow, at ten o'clock on Monday morning, or Stephen Langdon must go
to the wall."

"It amazes me," she said, speaking more to herself than to him; and
she tapped lightly with her gloved fingers upon the table before her.
"It amazes me more than I can say. I thought myself closely familiar
with all the ins and outs of your business, dad, and I find now that I
knew nothing about it at all."

"You have never known very much about it," he replied, with a
half-laugh, but with a kindly smile, which changed his iron face
wondrously, and which was reflected by a softened expression in his
daughter's eyes.

"Is there no one to come to your aid?" she asked him.

"No, Patricia, there is no one to whom I could apply without betraying
my condition and situation, and that would be fatal. Such a course
would be equivalent to going broke; for when once a man loses his
credit, even for an instant, in Wall Street, it is lost forever,
never to be regained. People will tell you that there are exceptions
to this, but I have been fifty years among the bulls and bears, and
wolves, too, and I know better. When a man who occupies the position
that I have held, and hold now, goes to the wall, it is the end."

During this statement, she had walked to one of the windows and stood
silently looking out, for she wished to ask a question which her own
intuition had already answered. She knew what the answer would be, but
she did not quite know what form it would take. She felt that sort of
misgiving which belongs only to women, and she feared that there was
something beyond and behind, and perhaps beneath, all this present
circumstance, which was being kept from her. For Patricia Langdon did
know of one man who would go to her father's assistance, and she could
not understand why he had not already applied to that person.

Presently, she returned to the table.

"Patricia," said her father, with some impatience, "I wish to the Lord
you'd sit down. You make me nervous keeping on your feet all the
while, and with those big eyes of yours fixed on your old dad's face
as if they had discovered something new and strange in the lines of
it."

She paid no heed to this remark--one would have supposed she did not
hear it; but she asked:

"Will you tell me why you sent for me? and why you wished to consult
with me?"

Again, the cigar was whipped sharply to the opposite corner of the old
banker's mouth; and he replied quickly, almost savagely:

"Because I have thought of a way by which you can help me out."

His daughter caught her breath; it was a little gasp, barely audible;
but she uttered only one word in reply. It was:

"How?"

For an instant, the banker hesitated at this abrupt question; then,
with a suggestion of doggedness in his manner, he thrust forward his
aggressive chin and shut his teeth so tightly together that the cigar,
bitten squarely off, dropped unheeded upon the rug where he stood. By
way of reply, he spoke a man's name.

"Roderick Duncan," he said, sharply.

Patricia did not seem to heed the strangeness of her father's reply,
nor did she alter the expression of her eyes or features. She seemed
to have anticipated what he would say. After a moment, she remarked
quietly:

"I should think it very likely that Roderick would assist you in your
extremity. I see no reason why he should not do so. His father was
your partner in business. Indeed, I should regard it as his duty to
come to your aid, in an extremity like this. But why, if I may venture
to ask, was it necessary to consult me in regard to any application
you might make to him?"

The old man did not reply; he remained silent, and continued doggedly
to stare at his daughter. Presently, she asked him: "Have you already
made such a request of Mr. Duncan?"

A smile took the place of the old man's frown; his face softened.

"No; that is to say, not exactly so," he replied.

"You have, perhaps, suggested the idea to him?"

Old Steve shrugged his shoulders, and dropped back into the chair,
kicking away the half of the cigar in front of him as he did so.

"Yes," he said, "I have suggested the idea to him, and he met the
suggestion more than half way, too. The reply he made to me is what
brings your name into the question. If it were not for the fact that I
know you to be fond of him, and that you are already half-promised--"

"Is that why you have sent for me?" She interrupted him with quiet
dignity, although the expression of her eyes was suddenly stormy.

"Yes; it is."

"Would you please be more explicit? I am afraid that I do not clearly
understand."

"Well, Pat, to put it in plain words, Roderick's answer implied that he
would be only too delighted to advance the sum I require--twenty-million
dollars--to his prospective father-in-law!"

Patricia stiffened where she stood. Her eyes fairly blazed with the
sparks of anger they emitted. The hand that rested upon the table was
clenched tightly, until the glove upon it burst. Otherwise, she showed
no emotion.

"So, that is it," she said, presently. "Roderick Duncan has made a bid
for me in the open market, has he? I am to be the collateral for a
loan which you are to secure from him. Is that the idea? He has made
use of your financial predicament to hasten matters with me. I
understand--now!"

"Humph! Roderick would be very much astonished if he heard your
description of the situation. He thought, and I thought, also--"

"But that is what it amounts to, isn't it?"

"Why, no, child; no, that is not what it amounts to, at all. You ought
to know that. Roderick has loved you ever since you were boy and girl
together, and you were always fond of him. His father and I both
believed that some day you would marry. I know that Duncan has asked
you time and time again, and I know, too, that you have never refused
him. You have just put him off, again and again, that is all. You have
played fast and loose with him until he is--"

"Wait, dad. There is one thing that you never knew; or, if you did
know it once, you have forgotten what little you knew about it then. I
refer to a woman's heart. You ignored that part of me when you made
your bargain. You forgot my pride, too. It is quite true that I have
been fond of Roderick Duncan, all my life. It is equally true that he
has asked me to be his wife, and that I have seriously considered his
proposals. It is even true that I have thought of myself as his wife,
that I have tried to believe that I loved him. All that is true, quite
true--too true, indeed. But now--How dared you two discuss _me_, in
the manner you have?" She blazed forth at her father suddenly,
forgetting her studied calm. "Oh, I read you correctly when I first
entered this room. I could see, even then, that some plot was afoot.
But I never guessed--good heaven! who could have guessed?--that it
was anything like this. Do you realize what you have done? Your words,
thus far, have only implied it, but I know! Shall I tell you?"

"My dear--!"

"You have found yourself in this financial muddle--if, indeed, it is
true that you are in one--and--"

"It is quite true."

"So much the worse for making me the victim of it. You have applied to
Roderick Duncan for some of his millions; and you two, together, have
discovered in the incident a means of coercing me. Oh, it is plain
enough. You are a poor dissembler in a matter of this kind, however
excellent you may be in others. I see it all, now, as clearly as if
you had expressed it in words. You have asked Roderick, by intimation,
if not in actual words, to go to your assistance to the amount of so
many millions; and he, the man who professes to love me, whom I have
thought I loved--he has, as bluntly, replied--oh, it is too terrible
to contemplate!--he has told you that if I will hasten my decision, if
I will give my consent at once to the wedding he proposes, he will
supply the cash you need. You offer your daughter, as security for the
loan; he accepts the collateral! That is the exact situation, isn't
it?"

"I suppose it is about that, although you put it rather brutally," he
replied.

"Brutally!" she laughed. "Why, dad, is not that the way to put it?
Horses and cattle are bought and sold at auction, knocked down to the
highest bidder, or purchased at a private sale. The stocks and bonds
and securities in which you deal are handled in precisely the same
way. And now, when you are in an extremity, when your back is to the
wall, a man whom I had always supposed to be at least a gentleman
calmly makes a bid for your daughter, and you, my father, are willing
to sell! Is not brutality the fitting word for you both? It seems so
to me."

"Look here, Pat--"

"Stop, father; let me finish."

The old man shrugged his shoulders, and the daughter continued:

"It is a habit with people to say, 'If I were in your place I should'
do so-and-so. I tell you, had I been in your place when such a
suggestion as that one was made I should have struck the man in the
face; but you see in me a value which I did not know I possessed. My
father, who has been my chum since I was a child, is willing to
dispose of his daughter for dollars and cents. And a man whom I have
infinitely respected, calmly offers to make the purchase." Patricia
clenched her hands and glared stormily at her father. Then, when he
made no reply, she turned and walked to the window, staring out of it
for a moment, while the old man remained silently in his chair,
knowing that it were better for him not to speak, until the first
violence of the storm had passed. He knew this daughter of his, or
thought he did; but he was presently to discover that he was less wise
than he had supposed. After a little, she returned and stood beside
him, leaning against the table with her hands behind her, clenching
it; but her words came calmly enough, when she spoke.

The old man raised his eyes to hers, as she approached him, and his
own widened with amazement when he studied his daughter's face with
that quick and penetrating glance which could read so unerringly the
operators of Wall street. He could not comprehend precisely what it
was that he saw in Patricia's face at this moment--only, he realized
it to be the expression of some kind of settled purpose. He had never
seen her thus before. Her strangely beautiful eyes had never blazed
into his in just this way. He had seen her tempers and had contended
against them, more or less, since she was left to his sole care, at
her birth; but this attitude assumed now was new to him. Stephen
Langdon knew, by his knowledge of himself, that Patricia was like him;
but here was something new, strange, almost unreal. He wondered at it,
shrank from it, not knowing what it was. Settled purpose was all that
he was enabled to recognize. But what sort of settled purpose? What
was it that his daughter had decided upon?

He was not long in doubt. Her words were sufficiently direct, if the
hidden purpose behind their outward meaning was not.

"Father," she said, with distinct calmness, "I will use a phrase that
is familiar to you. It seems to fit the occasion. You may tell
Roderick Duncan that you will deliver the goods! Tell him to have the
twenty millions ready for you to deposit in your bank at ten o'clock
Monday morning, and that you will be ready with the collateral he
demands."

"But, Patricia, my daughter, you take an unjust view of--"

"Stop, father! He must be told still more: he must be told that the
collateral, having certain rights and values of its own, will insist
upon a few stated conditions; and when the bargain is concluded, at
ten o'clock Monday morning, Mr. Duncan must first have accepted those
conditions."

She walked around to the other side of the table again and faced her
father across it; then she added, slowly and coolly:

"There must be a legal form of document drawn, in this transaction,
and it must be signed, sealed and delivered exactly as would be done
if the collateral offered, and the thing ultimately to be sold in this
instance, were the stocks and bonds in which you usually deal. He must
agree, in this document, that on the wedding day the woman he buys
must receive an additional sum in her own name, of ten million
dollars. One as rich as he is known to be will not object to a
pittance like that. You can make your own arrangements with him
concerning the loan of the twenty millions to you, the interest it
draws, and when the sum will be due; but the consideration paid for
me, to me, must be absolute, and in cash, before the marriage-ceremony."

She turned quickly and strode to the end of the room. There, she threw
open that door which has been described as communicating with the
inner sanctum of the banker, and standing at the threshold, she said,
in the cold, even tone in which she had pronounced the ultimatum to
her father:

"I have surmised that you are in this room, Roderick Duncan. If I am
correct, you may come out, now, and conclude the terms of your
purchase. Do not speak to me here, and now. It would not be wise to do
so. You have heard, doubtless, all that has been said in this room."

She turned again, and before Stephen Langdon could intervene, had
passed him, going into the main office of the suite, and thence to the
street.

Outside the Langdon building was a waiting automobile which had taken
Patricia to the office of her father for that interview, the purport
of which she had not then even vaguely guessed. Under the
steering-wheel of the waiting car was seated a young man,
smoothed-faced, keen of eye, strong-limbed, and muscular in every
motion that he made. A pair of expressive hazel eyes that seemed to
take in everything at a glance, looked out from his handsome,
clean-cut face, the attractiveness of which was augmented rather than
marred by the strong, almost square chin, and the firm but perfectly
formed lips, just thin enough to show determination of character, yet
sufficiently mobile to suggest that the man himself, though young in
years, had met with wide experiences. His personality was that of a
man prepared to face any emergency or danger that might arise, and to
meet it with a smile of entire self-confidence in his ability to
overcome it. The rear seats of the waiting car were occupied by two
young ladies, friends of Patricia; and the three were laughing and
talking together when Stephen Langdon's daughter approached them. She
did not wait to be assisted, but sprang lightly into the seat beside
the young man who has just been described; and she said rather
shortly, for she was still angry:

"Please, take me home, now, Mr. Morton."

He turned to face her, meeting her stormy eyes laughingly; and
exclaimed:

"Gee! Miss Langdon, you sure do look as if you'd been having a run-in
with the governor. I'd hate mightily to meet up with you, if I were
alone and unprotected, and you were as plumb sore at me, as you are
now at somebody you have just left inside that building. I sure would.
Yes, indeed!"

He chuckled audibly as the car started forward toward Broadway. For a
time, he gave his entire attention to the management of the car,
purposely ignoring the young woman who was seated beside him, for
notwithstanding the fact that he had chaffed her about the anger in
her eyes, he was fully aware that she had met with an unpleasant
experience of some sort, while he and the others were waiting outside
the building.

The hiatus offered sufficient time for Miss Langdon entirely to
recover her equanimity, and when at last Richard Morton's glance again
sought her, he met the same cold, calm, unflinching gaze from her
beautiful eyes that he had discovered there less than two weeks
before, and, since, had never been able to forget for a single moment.

"Miss Langdon," he said, with his characteristic smile, "if you had
been raised out west, in the country where I come from, you sure would
have been bad medicine for anybody who tried your temper a little bit
too far."

"What do you mean by that?" she asked him, quickly, but without
offense. She was smiling now, and Morton's colloquialisms always
interested her.

"Well, I mean a lot--and then some. If you'd been raised with a gun on
your hip, and had been born a man instead of a woman, I reckon you'd
have been an unsafe proposition to r'il. You certainly did look mad
when you came out of that office-building; and the only regret I feel
about it, is that I didn't stand within comfortable easy reach of the
gazabo that made you feel like that. One of us would--have gone out
through the window."

"It was my father," she said, simply, but smilingly.

"Oh! was it? Well, even so, I'm afraid I wouldn't be much of a
respecter of persons, if you happened to be on the other side of the
scales. I reckon your dad wouldn't look bigger than any other man.
Have you forgotten what I said to you the second time I ever saw you?"

"No," she replied, gently, "I haven't forgotten it, and I never will
forget it; but I must remind you of your promise to me, at that same
meeting."

"Won't you call it off for just five minutes, Miss Langdon?" he asked
in a low tone which had begun to vibrate with emotion. "Just call it
off for one minute, if you won't let it go for five. It sure is hard
to sit here, alongside of you, and not only to keep my hands and eyes
away from you, but to keep my tongue cinched with a diamond hitch. I
suppose I am hasty, and a mighty sight too previous for your customs
here in the East, but I can't see why you won't take up with a chap
like me; and, besides--"

"Mr. Morton!" She turned to him unsmilingly, her eyes cold and
serious, and she spoke in a tone so low that even the sound of it
could not extend to the young ladies who occupied the rear seats in
the tonneau. "It is my duty to tell you that I have just become a
willing party--a willing party, please understand--to a business
transaction, by the terms of which I am now the affianced wife of--"
Patricia paused abruptly. Morton, still guiding the machine delicately
in and out through the traffic of the street, turned a shade paler
under his sun-burned skin, and Patricia could see that his hand
gripped almost fiercely upon the steering-wheel. She realized that he
had understood the important part of what she had said, and she did
not complete the unfinished sentence. There was a considerable silence
before either of them spoke again, and then Morton asked calmly, but
in a voice that was so changed as to be scarcely recognizable:

"Of whom, Patricia?" He made use of her given name unconsciously, and
if she noticed the slip, she did not heed it.

"I need not mention the gentleman's name," she told him. "It is
unnecessary."

"What do you mean by referring to it as a business transaction?" he
demanded, turning his face toward hers for an instant, and showing an
angry glitter in his eyes. "If it is something that was forced upon
you--"

"I meant--it doesn't matter what I meant, Mr. Morton."

For just one instant, he flashed his eyes upon her again, and she saw
the lines of determination harden upon his face.

"It sounded mighty strange to me," he said, quietly, but with studied
persistence. "I don't mind confessing that I can't quite savvy its
meaning. I didn't know that 'business transaction,' was a stock
expression here, in the East, in connection with an engagement party.
But I suppose I'm plumb ignorant. I feel so, anyhow."

"You have forgotten one thing, Mr. Morton; you have forgotten that I
used the words, 'a willing party.'" She spoke calmly, half-smiling;
but he was still insistent.

"Did you mean by their use that I am to understand that the
circumstance meets with your entire approval?" he asked, slowly and
with distinctness. A heavy frown was gathering on his brows.

"Yes; quite so."

"Do you love the man who is the other party to the--er--business
transaction?" This time, he turned his head and looked squarely at
her, gazed with his serious hazel eyes, deep into her darker
ones--gazed searchingly and longingly.

"You have no right to ask me such a question as that," she told him.

"I beg your pardon, Miss Langdon." He turned his eyes to the front
again; "but I think I have a distinct right to do so, and I don't
believe it is your privilege to deny it. I have loved you from the
first moment I saw you. Please, don't interrupt me now, for I must say
the few words I have in mind. I'll not look at you. The others won't
hear me. By reason of my great love for you, even though there is no
response in your heart for me, I certainly have the right to ask that
question; and, also, I believe I have the right to demand an answer.
If you love that other man, and if you will tell me that you do, I
shall have nothing more to say; but if you do not love him, you shall
not be his wife so long as I have my two hands and can remember how to
hold a gun." It sounded theatrical, but he did not mean it so; and a
"gun" and its use, was the strongest form of expression he could think
of, at that moment. It had formed the court of last resort throughout
his youth in the great West, and just now he felt that the expression
fitted the present case admirably. What reply Patricia might have made
to this characteristic statement by the young Montana ranchman will
never be known, for at that instant they were interrupted by the other
passengers of the car, who sought to draw Patricia into conversation
with them.

She accepted the interruption gratefully as well as gracefully; it
offered an easy escape from a trying situation, and it was not until
the car was drawn up in front of the door of her own home and she was
about to leave it that she spoke again with Morton, save in a general
way. Now, he leaned quickly nearer to her and said, in a tone so low
that the others could not hear:

"I shall call upon you to-morrow evening--Sunday--if I may." Then he
laughed and, with narrowed eyelids, added: "I'll come to the house
whether I may or not. But you will receive me, won't you? Say that you
will!" And Patricia nodded brightly, in reply, as she crossed the
pavement toward the front steps of her father's princely mansion. At
the door, she paused and looked after the car as it rolled up the
avenue; and, with a half-smile of troubled perplexity, she murmured:

"I wish, now, that I had not given my word to that 'business
transaction.' Richard Morton might have offered a better solution of
my problem. Only, it would have been unfair--and cruel; and I have
never been either the one, or the other; never, yet!" Then, she passed
into the house.

       *       *       *       *       *

Downtown in the private office of Stephen Langdon, Roderick Duncan
stepped from the inner sanctum into the presence of the banker just as
the latter started to his feet after the sudden and unexpected
departure of his daughter. For an interval, the young man and the old
faced each other in silence, the latter with a cynical and satirical
smile on his strong face, the former with an unmistakable frown of
anger.

"You're a darned old fool, Langdon!" Duncan exclaimed hotly, after
that pause; and he clenched his hands until his knuckles turned white
under the strain, half-raising the right one, until it seemed as if he
intended to strike a blow with it. But Patricia's father gave no heed
to the gesture. Instead, he dropped back upon his chair, and laughed
aloud, ere he replied:

"I suspect, my boy, that there is a pair of us."




CHAPTER II

ONE WOMAN WHO DARED


These two men, the banker who had weathered so many financial storms
of "the street" and had inevitably issued from the wreckage unscathed
and buoyant, and the young multi-millionaire who faced him with
uplifted hand even after the former returned to his chair, were exact
opposites in everything save wealth alone. Roderick Duncan, son and
heir of Stephen Langdon's former partner, was the possessor, by
inheritance, of one of those colossal fortunes which are expressed in
so many figures that the average man ceases to contemplate their
meaning. Nevertheless, Duncan had kept himself clean and straight. In
person, he was tall, handsome, distinguished in appearance, and
genuinely a fine specimen of young American manhood. The older man
regarded him with undoubted approval, and affection, too, while Duncan
lowered the partly uplifted arm, and permitted the anger to die out of
his face slowly. But there remained a decidedly troubled expression in
his gray eyes, and there were two straight lines between his
brows--lines of anxiety which would not disappear, wholly. He was
plainly perplexed and, also, as plainly frightened by the almost
tragic climax that had just occurred.

The elder man, whose face was always a mask save when he was alone
with his daughter, or with this young man who now stood before him,
had been at first angered by the words and conduct of Patricia. But
the exclamation uttered by the young Croesus impressed him
ludicrously, notwithstanding the financial straits he was supposed to
be in, and he grinned broadly into the anxious face that glowered upon
him. Langdon's heart was not at stake; he had no woman's love to lose,
or even to risk losing; and so far as the financial character of his
troubles was concerned, he knew that Roderick Duncan would provide the
millions he needed, in any case. That fact was not dependant upon any
whim of Patricia's. Langdon could afford to laugh, believing that the
rupture in the relations of these young people would be healed
quickly. The old man did desire that the two should marry; he wished
it more than anything else, save possibly the winning of his "street"
contests.

It was the younger man who broke the silence. He did it first by
striking a match on the sole of his shoe and lighting a cigar; then by
crossing to one of the chairs at the oblong table, into which he
literally threw himself; and as he did this, he exclaimed, with an
expression of petulance that might have belonged to a boy better than
to a man:

"Well, you've made a mess of it, haven't you? You have got us both
into a very devil of a fix. I ought to have shot you, or myself,
before I consented to such a fool plan as that one was. Oh, yes; we're
in a fix all right!"

"How so?" asked the old man, rising and selecting a chair at the
opposite side of the table, and calmly lighting a fresh cigar, while
he swung one leg across the corner of the solid piece of furniture.

"Patricia won't stand for that little scheme of yours, not for a
minute; and you know it, Uncle Steve." This was an affectionate term
of familiarity which Duncan sometimes used in addressing Patricia's
father. "I was afraid of it when you proposed it, but I allowed
myself, like an idiot, to be influenced by you. I tell you, Langdon,
she won't stand for it; not for a minute. I have made her angry, many
times before now, but I have never known her to be quite so
contemptuously angered."

"No," said Langdon, and he chuckled audibly. "I agree with you. I
think my little girl is going to make it hot for you before we are
through with this deal. In fact, I shouldn't wonder if she made it
warm for both of us. She is like her old dad about one thing--she
won't be driven."

The younger man said something under his breath which, because it was
not audible to his companion, need not be repeated here; but it was
probably not an expression that he would have used in polite society.
He drummed on the table with his fingertips, and smoked savagely.

"You're mighty cheerful about it, aren't you?" he demanded, with
sarcastic emphasis. "What I want to know is, how are we going to fix
it up?"

"Fix what up?"

"Why, this business about collateral, and all that rot, with Patricia.
How are we going to square ourselves? That's what I'd like to know!
Maybe you can see a way out of it, but I'm darned if I can."

The banker took the cigar from his mouth, flicked the ashes into the
cuspidor, removed his leg from the table, and replied calmly, with a
half-smile:

"It looks to me as if it were all fixed up, now. Patricia has agreed
to marry you all right; she told me in plain English that I could
deliver the goods. You heard her, didn't you? As far as I can see,
she has only raised the ante just a little--a small matter of ten
millions, which you won't mind at all. What's the matter with you,
anyhow? You get what you wanted--Patricia's consent to an early
marriage." The old man grinned maddeningly at his companion.

"Confound you!" shouted Duncan, starting to his feet, and he smashed
one hand down upon the top of the table, in the intensity of the
resentment he felt at this remark.

"Do you suppose--damn you!--that I want her like that? Can't you see
how the whole thing outraged her? She hates me now, with every fibre
of her being. She hates me, and you, too, for this day's work!"

Langdon shrugged his shoulders.

"You want her, don't you?" he asked, placidly, as if he were inquiring
about a quotation on 'change.

"Of course, I want her. God only knows how greatly I want her."

"Well, you get her, don't you, by this transaction? She'll keep the
terms of the agreement. She's enough like me for that. She said I
could deliver the goods. She meant it, too. You get her, don't you?"

"Yes--but how?" was the sulky reply. "How do I get her? What will she
do to me, after I do get her? Tell me that, confound you!"

The old man chuckled again. "I am not a mind-reader," he said.

"What will she do to me, Uncle Steve? What did she threaten? What am I
to expect from her, now?"

"Oh, I don't know. I confess that I don't. Sometimes, Patricia is a
little too much for the old man, Roderick," he added, wistfully. Then,
with another change of manner, he exclaimed: "But you get her! And I
get the twenty-millions credit. What more can either of us ask? Eh?"

"The twenty millions have nothing to do with it, and you know it. They
never did have anything to do with it, and you know that, also. It was
only your cursed suggestion, that we should make her promise to marry
me the condition of keeping you from failure. You know as well as I do
that there is nothing belonging to me which you cannot have at any
time, for the asking; and that you do not stand, and have not stood,
in any more danger of failure than I do."

"I would have failed if I had not known where to get the credit for
the twenty millions," the banker remarked, quietly.

"Yes; but--confound it--you did know. You only had to ask me. But
instead of doing it in a straight, business-like way, you set that
horrible fly to buzzing in my ears, that we could make use of the
circumstance to compel Patricia to an immediate consent. And I, like a
fool, listened to you. Patricia never meant not to marry me; but
now--!"

He strode across the floor, then back again to his chair and flung
himself into it. The old man watched him warily, keen-eyed, observant,
and with a certain expression of fondness that no one but his daughter
and this young man had ever compelled from him. But, presently, he
emitted another chuckling laugh; and said:

"That was a sharp stroke of hers to have the ten millions paid over to
her. It was worthy of her old dad; eh? She is a bright one, all right.
She's a chip off the old block, my boy. I couldn't have done it
better, myself."

"Damn you!" Duncan exclaimed, and he sprang to his feet, grasped his
hat, and rushed from the office to the street with much more apparent
excitement than Patricia herself had shown. He had the feeling that he
had allowed himself to be tricked into the commission of an unmanly
act, and he was thoroughly ashamed of it.

Stephen Langdon, left alone, chuckled again, although his face quickly
fell into that reposeful, mask-like expression which was habitual to
it--an expression not to be changed by the loss or gain of millions.
He remained for a time quietly in the chair he had been occupying, but
soon he rose and crossed to his desk, throwing back the top of it. He
pulled a bundle of papers from one of the pigeonholes and calmly
examined certain portions of them. He glanced over three letters left
there by his stenographer for him to sign and post. These he signed,
and after enclosing them in their respective envelopes, dropped them
lightly into a side-pocket of his coat. Then, he pulled toward him the
bracket that held the telephone, and placed the receiver against his
ear. Having presently secured the desired number, he said:

"I wish to speak with Mr. Melvin, personally."

"Mr. Melvin is not in his office at the present moment," came the
reply over the telephone. "Who is it, please?"

"This is Stephen Langdon, and I wanted to speak--"

He was interrupted by the person at the other end of the wire, who
uttered an exclamation of surprise, followed by these words:

"Why, Mr. Langdon, Mr. Melvin has gone to your house to see you, as we
supposed. A telephone call came from your residence, and he departed
at once, saying that he would not return to the office to-day."

"The devil he did!" exclaimed the banker, as he hung up the receiver.
Then, he leaned back in his chair and smoked hard for a moment, with
the nearest approach to a frown that had appeared on his face during
all that exciting afternoon; and he did another thing unusual with
him: he spoke aloud his thoughts, with no one but himself for
listener.

"I'll be blowed if I thought Patricia would go as far as that!" was
what he said. "If she hasn't sent for Malcolm Melvin to draw those
papers she hinted at, I'm a Dutchman! By Jove, I begin to think that
Duncan was right after all, and that he is up against it in this
little play we have had this afternoon. But I hadn't an idea that my
girl would go quite so far. H'm! It looks as if it is up to me to
spoil her interview with Melvin, if I can get there in time."

Five minutes later, he left the banking-house, paused at a letter-box
long enough to drop in the correspondence he had signed, and then went
swiftly onward to the subway, by which he was conveyed rapidly to the
vicinity of his home. Somewhat later, when he entered the sumptuously
appointed library, he discovered precisely what he had expected to
find: his lawyer, Malcolm Melvin, and his daughter Patricia were
facing each other across the table, the former having before him
several sheets of paper, which were already covered with the penciled
notes and memoranda he had evidently been engaged in making.

Langdon stopped in the middle of the floor and looked at them. For the
first time since the beginning of the interview with his daughter at
the office, he realized that she had been in deadly earnest at its
close. He understood, suddenly, how deeply her pride had been wounded,
and he knew that she was enough like himself to resent it with all the
power she could command.

"Since when, Melvin, have you ceased to be my attorney!" he inquired
sharply, determined to put an end to the scene, at once.

The elderly lawyer and the young woman had raised their heads from
earnest conversation when Stephen Langdon entered the room. The
lawyer, with a startled, although amused, expression on his
professional face; the daughter with a cold smile and an almost
imperceptible nod of her shapely, Junoesque head. But her black eyes
snapped with something very nearly approaching defiance, and she
replied, before Melvin could do so:

"Do not misunderstand the situation, please," she said, quickly. And
her father noticed with deep misgiving that she omitted the customary
term of endearment between them. "Mr. Melvin is here at my request,
and because he is your attorney. I have been instructing him how to
draw the papers that are to accompany the collateral offered for your
loan, and the bonus that goes with it; and just how those papers are
to be used, in accordance with the discussion between you and me, at
the bank, this afternoon. I told you, then, to inform Mr. Duncan that
you would meet his requirements. Later, when I realized that he had
overheard us--"

"What's the matter with you, Pat?" demanded the father, interrupting
her with a touch of anger. "Have you lost your head, entirely?"

"No," she replied, with utter calmness; "I have only lost my Dad. I
went down to his office this afternoon to see him, and I left him
there. Just now, I have been instructing Mr. Melvin concerning the
particulars of the agreement I want drawn and signed in the
transaction that is to take place between you and Roderick Duncan, in
which I am, personally, so deeply concerned, in which I am to figure
as the collateral security."

The old man stared at his daughter, with an expression that had made
many a Wall-street financier turn pale with apprehension. It was a
grim visage that she saw then--hard and set, stern and unrelenting,
and many a strong man had surrendered to Stephen Langdon, frightened
by the aspect of it. Not so this daughter of his. She met his gaze
unflinchingly and calmly, without a change in her outward demeanor.
After a moment, Langdon turned with a shrug toward the lawyer.

"Melvin," he said, "how many years have you been my attorney?"

"Fourteen, I think, Mr. Langdon," was the smiling reply. One would
have thought that the man of law found something highly amusing in
this incident.

"About that--yes. Well, do you see that door?" He half-turned and
indicated the entrance he had just used. "Melvin, I want you to pick
up those papers and tell John, outside, to give you your hat; then I
want you to get out of here as quick as God'll let you. If you don't,
our relations are severed from this moment. And if you complete the
draft of those papers, without my permission, or submit them to any
person whatever, without my having seen them first, I will have
another attorney to replace you, Monday morning. Go right along now.
You needn't answer me. If you don't want my business, all you've got
to do is to say so. If you do want it, you'll come mighty near doing
what I have told you to do, just now."

The lawyer, quietly, but with dignity, rose from his chair, folded the
papers, placed them in an inner pocket of his coat, bowed to Patricia
and then to her father, and without a word passed from the room,
closing the door quietly behind him; but before he quite accomplished
this last act, the clear even tones of the girl called after him:

"I am sure, Mr. Melvin, that we had quite concluded our conference. I
will ask you please to draw those papers as I have directed. You may
submit copies to Mr. Langdon at the time you bring the originals to
me."

He did not answer, for there was no occasion to do so, and a second
later Stephen Langdon and his daughter were alone together for the
second time that afternoon.

"Now, Patricia," he said, turning toward her, with his feet wide
apart and his hands thrust deep into his trousers-pockets, "what in
blazes is this all about?"

His daughter replied coldly and precisely:

"I have merely been dictating to your lawyer the substance of the
conditions I wish to have embodied in the papers that are to complete
the transaction we have discussed at your office. I selected Mr.
Melvin because I knew him to be in your confidence, and I surmised
that you would prefer that the condition of affairs under which you
are now struggling, which forces you to borrow twenty-million dollars,
should not be made known to an outsider."

"Well, I'll tell you that I won't hear of it! It's got to stop right
now. I won't have those papers drawn at all. I won't have it. The
whole thing is preposterous, and you seem to be determined to make a
fool of yourself. I won't have it!"

"But you must have it," she said, quietly.

"Must have it? Patricia, there isn't a man in the city of New York who
dares to say that to me."

"Possibly not, sir; but there is a woman in New York who dares to say
it to you, and who does say it, here and now. That woman is,
unfortunately, your daughter."

"Patricia! Are you crazy?"

"No; but I am more hurt and angry, more outraged and incensed, than I
believed it possible ever to be. I shall insist upon the drawing of
those papers, and the fulfillment of the stipulations I have directed.
If you are determined that Mr. Melvin shall not finish what he has
begun for me, I shall select another lawyer, and shall have the papers
drawn just the same."

"But, my child, it is all foolishness. The papers are not necessary.
Roderick will supply what cash I need without anything of that sort,
and you know it!"

"Am I to understand, sir, that you have lied to me?"

Langdon dropped upon a chair, breathing an oath which his daughter did
not hear, and she continued, without awaiting a reply from him:

"You have taught me, since I was a child, that in a business
transaction in the Street, where there is no time for the drawing of
papers, a man must live up to his word, absolutely. I took you
seriously in what occurred at your office this afternoon. I surmised,
when we were near the end of our interview,--nay, I assumed it--that
Roderick Duncan was inside the inner office. My surmise proved to be
true, and now I have only this to say: We shall carry out the
transaction precisely as it was stipulated between us, and according
to the papers I have dictated to Mr. Melvin, or I shall go to another
lawyer and have those same papers drawn and offered to you and to Mr.
Duncan, for your signatures. He overheard our conversation, and thus
became a party to it. I was forced into the situation without my
consent, and I shall now insist upon a certain recognition of my
rights in the matter. If you choose to deny me those rights, the fact
will not deter me from proceeding in my own way--a way which Mr.
Melvin, your attorney, thoroughly understands. I have explained it
fully to him."

The old man leaned back in his chair, glaring at his daughter, and yet
in that burning gaze of his there was undoubted admiration. He liked
her pluck, and deep down in his heart he gloried in her ability to
maintain the position she had assumed, where she literally held him
helpless. For it would never do that she should be permitted to go to
another lawyer; such a proceeding would betray to other parties the
financial embarrassment into which he had been drawn. The news would
get out. There would be a whisper here, a murmur there, and before
noon on Monday, all New York would know it. His daughter understood
her momentary power over him, and she was determined to make the most
of it.

Patricia returned her father's gaze for a moment, then turned
negligently away and moved toward the door.

"Wait," he called to her.

"Well?" She stopped, and half-turned.

"Don't you know, girl, that the whole business was tomfoolery?"

"No; and I would not believe you, or Mr. Duncan--now."

"Wait just a minute longer, Patricia; let me explain this thing to
you, fully. Let me make you understand just how it came about," her
father exclaimed. "It was all a mistake, you know, and I must confess
that the mistake was mostly mine. Of course, Roderick was ready to let
me have the twenty millions, or fifty if I had asked for them. There
was never any doubt about that, and could have been none. He has the
money, and there never has been a time, since he inherited it, when I
could not use it as if it were my own. You knew that. I have never
hesitated to go to him, either. That is why I went to him to-day.
Before I had an opportunity to explain the purpose of my call, he
asked about you, and the question suggested to my mind the idea of
utilizing the desperate situation I was in to hasten your marriage to
him. You know how I have looked forward to that. I have known, or at
least I have supposed I knew, for years, that you thought more of him
than of anyone else. You are twenty years old now; it is high time
that you were married, and it would break my old heart to see you take
up with any of those society-beaux who hover around you at every
function where you appear. On the other hand, I shall be very glad
when you are Roderick Duncan's wife. He is the son of the best friend
I ever had, the only man I ever trusted. And he is every bit as good a
man as his father was. He is square and on the level. He has wealth,
and he doesn't go bumming around town, giving champagne parties, and
monkey dinners. He knows how to be a good fellow without making a fool
of himself, and that is more than you can say of most young men who
have money to burn. You have grown up together, and why in the world
you have kept putting him off is more than I can guess. Besides all
that, he is easily worth a hundred millions. But this has nothing to
do with the present question. I want you to have him, and I want him
to have you; and if he didn't have a dollar in the world, I should
feel just the same about it. All that happened to-day was at my
instigation; not at his. And now, daughter, you must find it in your
heart to forgive him--and me."

She listened to him to the end, quietly and outwardly unmoved. When he
concluded, she replied in the same even tone she had used ever since
her father entered the library:

"I don't know, and I don't care to know, any of the particulars
regarding how the arrangement came about between you and Mr. Duncan.
What I do know is this: the arrangement was made between you, and was
agreed upon between you. I was called in, to be consulted, at your
private office, with the third interested party concealed like a spy
in an inner room. I agreed to the transaction as I understood it. I
will carry it out as I agreed to do, while at your office, and in no
other way. If Roderick Duncan wishes to make me his wife, he must do
it according to the stipulations I have dictated to Mr. Melvin, this
afternoon, or he can never do it at all. That, sir, is all I have to
say."

She turned and went from the room, closing the door behind her as
softly as the lawyer had done.

The old man slipped down more deeply into his chair, covered his eyes
with one hand, and murmured, audibly:

"I have had to live almost seventy years to find out that, after all,
I am nothing but an old fool."




CHAPTER III

A STRANGE BETROTHAL


When dinner was served at seven that Saturday evening, the banker and
his daughter faced each other in silence across the table. There was
no wife and mother in this money-king's family, for she had passed out
of life when Patricia came into the world. This, perhaps, may account
for the close intimacy that had always existed in the relations of
father and daughter, between whom there had never been any break or
shadow, until this particular Saturday afternoon.

"Old Steve," iron-faced, heavy jawed, and steady of eye, wore his
Wall-street mask at this particular dinner; and he wore it as grimly
as ever he did when encountering a financial storm or a threatened
panic. He felt that he had more to conceal, just now, than any
financial problem could ever compel him to face. He was no longer
"dad." Patricia had practically omitted the use of even the less
endearing term of father; but whether intentionally or not, even the
shrewd old banker could not determine. For years, he had forgotten
that he had a heart, save when he and his daughter were alone
together. The money whirlpool of the financial section of the city had
made him colder of aspect, harder in nature, and less considerate of
the feelings of others. It had never even remotely occurred to him
that there could be any rupture between himself and Patricia, or that
a yawning gulf, like this one was, could separate them.

But now there was one, and he recognized its breadth and its depth. He
knew that he could not cross it to her, and that it would never be
bridged, save by Patricia herself. He had offended her beyond
forgiveness, almost. He had not entirely realized that Patricia's
nature and characteristics were so like his own, save only where they
were feminine instead of masculine, that she would now adopt the
course he would have pursued under circumstances which might, by a
stretch of the imagination, be called parallel.

Patricia's face was almost as mask-like as her father's, save that her
great, dark eyes were stormy in their depths, and would have suggested
to one who had sailed the Southern seas the brooding and far away
approach of a monsoon. Her olive-tinted skin had in it a suggestion of
pallor; but only a suggestion. When she spoke at all it was to John,
the butler who served them; and then it was always in her accustomed
low, evenly modulated tone. Not perceptibly different to the butler
were her tone and manner, and yet even the servant, wise in his
generation, sensed the unsettled condition of things, and moved about
like a phantom; perhaps also he was a trifle more assiduous than usual
in his efforts at perfect service.

Patricia ate sparingly, but bravely. There was nothing of the
shrinking or pouting, or even of the petulant, in her character. Her
father ate nothing at all. He dawdled with his soup, turned his fish
over and sent it away, and sniffed contemptuously at everything else
that was placed before him. He made his dinner of coffee and cognac,
and seemed to be greatly interested while he burned the latter over
three dominoes of sugar.

When the moment came to leave the table, there had been no word
exchanged between them; but then, with an effort, the banker assumed
his brightest and most kindly tone; and he asked, cheerily:

"Well, what have you on for to-night, my dear?"

"Nothing at all," she replied, indifferently, as if the question held
no interest for her--as, indeed, it did not, for the moment; but she
followed him from the dining-room into the library, as was their
usual custom whenever they had dined alone. Now, as they entered it,
the banker, with an assumption of high spirits he did not feel,
remarked:

"If you don't object to a Saturday-night opera, Garden is singing
'Salome' at the Manhattan to-night, and I should like to hear it. Will
you go, with your old dad?"

"No, thank you," she replied, indifferently. "I shall remain at home."

She was standing at the table, turning the leaves of a magazine, and
her father glanced keenly at her across the intervening space, while
he lighted a cigar. Then, with a shrug of his shoulders, and a sigh
which could not have been seen or heard, and which only he himself
knew to have existed, he crossed the floor. As he was passing from the
room, he said, as indifferently as she had spoken:

"Then, I suppose, I will have to take it in, alone."

"You might ask Roderick to go with you," she threw at him, as he
passed into the hallway; but Langdon pretended not to hear, for he
called back at her:

"I'll get Beatrice, I think, and ask her to play daughter for me; eh?"

Patricia made no comment upon this suggestion; but having awaited,
where she was, the sound of the closing outer door, she slowly crossed
the room.

The drop-light at her favorite chair was adjusted, and she began the
reading of a new book which someone had placed on the table beside it.
She read on and on, apparently with interest, but really without
knowing at all what she did read, until more than an hour had passed;
and then a card was brought to her.

She glanced at it, although she believed she knew perfectly well what
name it bore, before she did so. Her lips tightened for an instant,
and she frowned ever so little. But she said to the footman:

"You may bring Mr. Duncan here, James."

Patricia did not rise from her chair when her caller entered the
library. Duncan moved toward her eagerly, but meeting her eyes, which
she raised quite calmly to his as he crossed the floor, he paused, and
remained at about midway of the distance.

"Good evening, Patricia," he said. "I'm awfully glad to have found you
at home. I was afraid you might go out before I could get here."

"I expected you," she told him, without returning his salute. "I have
been expecting you for an hour. In fact, I have been waiting for you."

"That is very pleasant news, indeed, Patricia." Duncan was startled
by it, however. He had not expected it, and he did not quite like the
tone in which Patricia uttered it.

"I am glad you take it so," she returned. "It was not pleasant for me
to wait for you, and it is not distinctly agreeable to me to receive
you. But I believed that you would think it necessary to call, in
order to make some effort at explaining the occurrences of this
afternoon. Let me tell you, before you begin, that there exists no
necessity for any sort of explanation. My father has fulfilled that
duty quite fully, and I listened to him, throughout. He has exonerated
you--"

Duncan took a hasty step toward her, but stopped again, even more
abruptly than before, repelled by the cold barrier that the expression
of her dark eyes built up between them. Whatever it was that he had in
mind to say remained unspoken. He turned away and sought a chair
opposite her, ten feet away, utterly repelled, for although these two
had grown to manhood and womanhood together, she had always had the
power to lift a sudden barrier between them. Though he believed he
knew every mood and characteristic of this proud young woman, just
now, for the first time within his recollection, there was a
strangeness about her that he could not fathom. Long habit had made
him almost as much at home in this house, as in his own. He had been,
ever since he could remember, considered and treated like a member of
the family. And so, now, before seating himself, he sought to put
himself more at ease by indulging in a liberty which had always been
accorded to him. He selected a cigar from Stephen Langdon's box, and
lighted it. Then, remembering that conditions were changed, he threw
it down with an angry gesture, upon a receptacle for ashes that was on
the table. Patricia watched all these proceedings, unmoved.

"Patsy!" he exclaimed, abruptly, making use of an expression of their
childhood; and he would have continued with rapid speech, had she not
made a quick gesture of aversion that interrupted him. Then, she said,
quietly:

"I would prefer, if you don't mind, that you should henceforth use my
full name in addressing me."

"Patricia, you have just told me that your father has exonerated me;
and if that is so, why do you receive me in just this manner? I need
exoneration, all right; and I deserve it, too, for honestly, dear, I
never thought of offending you. I thought, until the last moment, that
you would take it all as a huge joke. It never occurred to me that
you would be so deeply wounded. I should never have agreed to the
crazy compact that your father and I made together, if I had realized
the seriousness of it."

"No," she replied, quietly. "You should not have agreed to it. It was
the mistake of your life, and, perhaps, of mine."

"You know how I love you, dear," he began, half-starting from his
chair. But the expression of her eyes, without the slightest motion
otherwise, made him pause again, without completing what he had
started to say.

"It is best that we should be quite frank with each other," she said,
calmly. "That is why I waited so patiently for you, to-night. Please
do not interrupt me; let me say what I have in mind to say to you."

"I would like it much better if you would hit me over the head with
one of those bronze ornaments, as you would have done ten or twelve
years ago; or if you would fly into one of your tempers just as you
used to do, Patricia. I would like anything better than this cold
calmness. It makes me shudder; it freezes me; it fills me with
apprehension. I love you so, dear! and I have loved you all my life.
You know it; I don't need to tell you! And if I have made a mistake,
surely you can find it in your heart to forgive, because of my great
love? No, I will not stop," he ejaculated, when she made a gesture of
impatience. "I will finish what I have to say, even braving your anger
to do so. I would like to make you angry just now, Patricia. I would
delight to see you in one of those tantrums of fury that you used to
have when you and I were children together. Do you remember that I
bear a scar now, inflicted by a tennis-racket in your hand, when you
were ten years old? I think more of that scar than of any other
possession I have, for even you cannot take it away from me. I love
you with all the manhood there is in me, and I can't remember a time
when I did not; and I have thought that I knew, all these years, that
you loved me; I believe it now, even though the scorn in your eyes
denies it. You may have convinced yourself that you do not, but you
are working from a wrong hypothesis. I know why you have put me off,
time and again, when I have besought you to name our wedding-day. It
has been because you were not quite ready. Isn't that true, dear? You
have not denied me because you did not love me; you have put me off
only because you were not ready to become a wife. But you have loved
me; I am sure of that. You have never said that you would not be my
wife; and in fact you have often shown me that some day you would be;
you have only declined to say when. I have come to you to-night,
Patricia, to tell you that I will wait, on and on, counting only your
own pleasure in the matter, until you are willing to appoint the time,
if only you will say that you forgive me for the apparently despicable
part I have played in the tragedy of this afternoon."

"That is a very pretty speech you have just made. It sounds well, and
is quite characteristic," she replied to him, calmly. "I shall be as
frank with you in my reply."

"Well?" he said, and waited. Her tone and manner startled him. There
was a suggestion of finality in her attitude that was alarming. She
continued, speaking almost gently:

"I have believed in your love for me, as sincerely as I have believed
in my father's love for me; and I think now that you were more to me
than I realized. But, Roderick, have you ever watched a woodman in the
forest chopping down a tree? And have you ever seen that tree fall,
when its natural prop was stolen away by the sharp edge of the axe? It
may have taken that tree a hundred, or a thousand years to grow; but
when it crashes down, it is gone forever. A little, puny man has gone
into the forest with an axe upon his shoulder, and has ruthlessly
attacked one of God's greatest creations, a gorgeously abundant tree.
He had no thought of what he was doing, of what he was destroying. His
only thought was of a purpose he had in view; and it was somehow
necessary to destroy that tree in order to accomplish the purpose. The
thing that nature created, which had required years to bring to
perfection; the thing that God made beautiful was, in a few minutes,
shorn of its splendor by this little, ruthless creature, who went into
the forest with the axe on his shoulder. That is what you have done to
whatever love I may have felt for you, Roderick Duncan. It lies
prostrate now, and it has borne down with it, all the lesser verdure,
all the little trees and bushes and vines that grew about it, and has
left only a bare spot--and the wounded stump. You were the woodman
with the axe."

"My God, Patricia!" he cried out, appalled by the agony of his loss.
He understood, suddenly, that this proud young woman would have
forgiven downright disloyalty more readily than such hurt to her
pride.

She continued as if he had not spoken:

"My father informed me, this afternoon, as you are aware, of certain
financial straits in which he has suddenly become involved. I know
enough about the methods and habits of 'the street,' to realize how
impossible it was for him to betray his condition to certain forces
and powers that are exerted there, lest, despite what he could do, he
should lose the great influence he now has over all the immense wealth
of this country. While he was telling me about his condition, I
naturally thought of you; and I wondered why he had not gone to you
instantly; or, if you knew of the circumstance, I wondered the more,
why you had not as instantly gone to him, and offered the assistance
he needed. Then, little by little by little, the plot which you two
had concocted together, was unveiled to me."

"But, Patricia, dear, won't you--?"

"Let me finish, please. I have not quite done so, as yet."

"Well, dear?"

"I have agreed to the terms that were adjusted between you and my
father, respecting the loan of a certain sum of money by you to him.
Of course, you may repudiate those terms if you please, and it is a
matter of indifference to me whether you do so, or not. You may loan
the money to my father without accepting me as the collateral for it;
that also is a matter of indifference to me. But I wish to tell you,
and I wish you thoroughly to understand, that, unless you carry out
the terms of this compact precisely as it was agreed upon between you
and my father, with the added stipulations which I have requested Mr.
Melvin to draw for me, I will never under any circumstances be your
wife, or receive you again. That, I think, concludes this interview. I
shall be ready Monday morning, at ten o'clock, to fulfill my part of
the agreement. You and Stephen Langdon may do as you please. And now,
please, bid me good-night--I prefer to be alone."

Duncan started from his chair and took two steps toward her, where he
paused. His face was pale, but his finely chiseled features were set
in firm lines; and his tall, athletic figure, was drawn to its full
height, as he replied, with slow emphasis:

"In that case, Patricia, we shall carry out the compact as agreed
upon, and I shall conform to whatever stipulations you have made," he
said. "Good-night."

He turned and went swiftly from the room. He seized his coat and hat
before James, the footman, could assist him, and he went out at the
front door, with more bitterness and more anger in his soul than he
remembered ever to have felt before against any man or woman. But
just now the bitterness and the anger were directed chiefly against
himself.

For a moment, he stood on the bottom step at the entrance to the
mansion, undecided as to which way he should go or what he should do.
Then, he turned about and again rang the bell at Stephen Langdon's
door; and the instant it was opened, he brushed savagely past the
astonished James, and made his way to the library, unannounced. He
pushed the door ajar noiselessly, without intending to do so, and
halted on the threshold, amazed by what he saw there. He had not meant
to intrude in that silent fashion upon the privacy and grief of the
woman he loved, and as soon as he could master his emotions, he
stepped quickly backward into the hall, re-closing the door as softly
as he had opened it. Patricia had given way at last. She had thrown
herself upon the couch, and with her face buried among the pillows,
she was sobbing as if her heart would break. His first impulse, when
he discovered her so, was to rush to her side, to take her in his
arms, and to tell her over and over again of his love. But he knew
instinctively that Patricia would bitterly resent such an effort on
his part, that he would again offend her sense of pride if she should
know that he had found her in tears.

Outside the door, when he had closed it, he hesitated for a time;
finally he wrote rapidly on the back of one of his cards, as follows:

"There will be little time on Monday morning to inspect the papers you
mentioned. I shall be glad if you will direct Mr. Melvin to submit them
to me at my rooms, between five and six o'clock to-morrow afternoon.

                                        R. D."

He gave this written message to James, instructing him not to
deliver it until Miss Langdon summoned him to her, or she should
leave the library. Then, he asked the footman:

"Do you happen to know where Mr. Langdon has gone, to-night, James?"

"To the opera, sir," replied the footman.

"Alone?"

"Quite so, sir, I believe."

Duncan walked the distance, which was considerable, from the Langdon
mansion to the Opera House, where he went directly to Stephen
Langdon's box, believing that he would find the banker to be it's
solitary occupant, and there were reasons why he greatly desired a
private conference with Patricia's father. He entered the box without
announcement and came to a sudden pause when he discovered that the
banker was not alone. Beside him, with her white arm resting upon the
rail at the front of the box, was seated a young woman whom Duncan
knew well; and she happened to be the one person in New York who came
nearest to being on terms of intimacy with Patricia. For Miss Langdon
was one who had never permitted herself to be intimate with anybody.
Others might be intimate with her, as Beatrice Brunswick had been, but
that close and personal relation which so often exists between two
young women, and which is so beautiful in its character, was something
Patricia Langdon had never permitted herself to know. She was not even
aware that this was so. The condition arose from no lack of sympathy
for others, and from no want of affection for her friends; it was a
characteristic reserve of manner and method, inherited from her
father, which had been cultivated by and through her association with
him, all her life long.

While Roderick Duncan halted for an instant, to consider whether, or
not, he should proceed with his original design, and while he still
stood there, holding the curtains apart and appearing much as if he
were a stealthy observer of the scene before him, the young woman
turned her head and discovered him. She smiled brightly and uttered an
exclamation of pleasure as she started to her feet and approached him
with out-stretched hand. One could have seen that the pleasure she
manifested, was very real. It was at once evident that she liked
Duncan.

"How good of you to come, and how fortunate!" she said, when he took
her hand and raised it to his lips, just as the banker turned about in
his chair, and with a grim smile also made Duncan welcome.

"Hello," he said. "Glad you came! I have been wondering all the
evening where you were. Had an idea you would show up somewhere. Sit
down and keep still until this act is finished, for I don't want to
lose it. After that, we'll chat a little. There are things I wish to
discuss with you, Roderick."

Roderick Duncan was in a mood that was strange to him. It affected him
to recklessness, though he could not have told why it was so, or in
what form of recklessness he might indulge. The discovery he had made
when he returned to the library and found Patricia in tears, was still
having its effects upon him, for he did not understand the cause for
those tears. He knew only that he had made her cry, that her
abandonment of grief was due to his acts, and her father's. By a
strange paradox, he pitied himself as deeply as he did the woman he
loved. He felt that he had been forced into a second false position
by so readily accepting the terms Patricia had insisted upon for their
betrothal. She had told him plainly that if she ever became his wife
at all, the fact could be accomplished only in the manner she
dictated; that if he repudiated it, he would not even be received at
her home. Impulsively, he had accepted her dictum, and now, at the end
of his long and solitary walk to the opera-house, he realized that the
change from frying-pan to fire was a simile true as to his present
condition. Practically, the end so long sought had been attained. In
effect, he and Patricia were betrothed--but such a betrothal! For the
moment, he regretted his ready acquiescence to Patricia's terms. He
believed that it would be better to lose her entirely than to take her
under such conditions.

The meeting with Beatrice Brunswick and her sincere welcome warmed
him, and he found a ready sympathy in her eyes and manner for his
condition of mind. He wanted company and he wanted sympathy; chiefly,
he had wished to discuss the present situation of affairs with old
Steve; but now, since his arrival at the box, he decided that it would
be a splendid opportunity to talk the matter over with Beatrice
Brunswick. She had always shown him great consideration. He had
regarded her as Patricia's dearest friend, and had ultimately placed
her in that relationship to himself, for she was one of those rare
young women whom men class as "good fellows." And Beatrice was as good
as she was beautiful. Her merry laugh and quick wit always acted upon
Duncan like a tonic. Just now, he was especially glad to find her
there, and he showed it.

Beatrice Brunswick was unmistakably red-headed. Referring to her hair
in cold-blooded terms, no other hue could have described it. It was
like that old-fashioned kind of red copper, after it has been hammered
into sheets, in the manner in which it was treated before less arduous
methods were invented. It was remarkable hair, too--there was such a
wealth of it! It had always impressed Duncan with the idea that each
individual hair was in business for itself, refusing utterly to stay
where it was put. A young woman's crowning glory, always, this
happened to be particularly true in the case of Miss Brunswick, for,
although her features and her figure and her graceful motions left
nothing to be desired, it was her wonderful hair, emphasized by the
saucy poise of her head, that became her crowning glory, indeed.
Duncan took a seat near to her, so that she was between him and the
banker; and presently Beatrice inclined her head toward him, and
whispered:

"What's the matter, Roderick? You look like a banquet of the Skull and
Bones, which my brother described to me once, when he was at Yale."

"I'll tell you about it later," was the response; and Duncan shut his
jaws, and bent his attention grimly upon the stage.

"Why not now?" She asked.

"There isn't time; and besides--"

"Have you been quarreling with our Juno? Have you two been scrapping?"
She whispered, smiling bewitchingly, and bending still nearer to him.
Miss Brunswick was sometimes given to the milder uses of slang.

Duncan nodded, without replying in words. He kept his eyes directly
toward the stage. But Miss Brunswick was insistent.

"Is Patricia on her high horse to-night?" she asked, with a light
laugh.

Duncan replied to her with another nod, and a wry smile.

"She wants to look out about that high horse of hers, Roderick, or
sometime it will hit the top rail and give her a fall that she won't
get over for a while. What our beautiful Juno needs most is what I
used to get oftenest when I was about three years old. Perhaps you can
guess what it was; if you can't, I won't tell you."

"I expect you were a regular little devil then, weren't you?" he
asked, endeavoring to assume a cheerfulness he was far from
experiencing at that moment.

"I expect I was; and the strange part of it is that there are lots and
lots of people who insist that I have never got over it. But I can
read you like a book. You and Mr. Langdon and Patricia have been
having no end of a row. He might just as well have told me that much
when he came after me and insisted that I should accompany him to the
opera to-night. He said that Patricia wouldn't, and he wanted me to
take her place. I wish you would tell me all about it." Then, with a
slight toss of her head, Beatrice added: "I suppose Patricia has
refused you again?"

"No. She has accepted me, this time," was the blunt reply.

Beatrice stared straight in front of her for a moment, and there was a
suggestion of gathering pallor in her face. Then, she drew backward,
away from her companion, and her blue eyes widened. If there was a
shock to her in the knowledge she had just received, she accepted it
with a very clever little laugh which she always had ready at hand.

"So," she said, "that is what makes you so glum, is it? Really, you
are a most amazing person. I had supposed that when Patricia accepted
you, finally, and set the day--"

"The day hasn't been set. It may be a week, a month, or a year hence,
for all I know." This was said harshly, and while Duncan's eyes were
fixed steadily upon Mary Garden, on the stage.

"How intensely interesting!" Beatrice exclaimed, under her breath. "I
shall insist upon your taking us to supper after the opera, and
telling me all about it."

The loud bars of music which announce the finale of an act and the
entrance of the chorus precluded the possibility of further
conversation just then; and as soon as the curtain was down and the
applause had ceased, Stephen Langdon left his chair and reached for
his coat and hat. Then, he addressed the two young people who were his
companions in the box.

"If you two youngsters care to see this out, I'll leave you here,
together," he said. "I have just remembered something I should have
attended to, to-night. I must see Melvin, my lawyer. You won't mind,
Beatrice, will you, if I leave you in Roderick's care? Possibly, I'll
return before the show is out."

Before either of them could answer, Langdon had passed out into the
aisle, and hurried away, leaving Duncan and Miss Brunswick alone
together in the box. If Roderick Duncan had really desired an
opportunity to confide his troubles to Beatrice, it was afforded him
then; but now that it was at hand, he felt suddenly uncertain about
the wisdom of such a proceeding.




CHAPTER IV

THE BOX AT THE OPERA


Duncan stared helplessly at the spot where the curtains had fallen
together behind the departing figure of Stephen Langdon; then he
turned his eyes toward Beatrice, to discover that she was convulsed
with laughter. But whether her demeanor and her quick surrender to
expressions of levity had been excited by the departure of the banker,
or by Duncan's attitude of dismay, the young man could not have told.
He laughed with her, for there was a distinctly ludicrous side to the
situation, following, as it did, so closely upon the announcement of
his engagement to Patricia.

By mutual consent, they withdrew to the rear of the box, and then
Beatrice, with a touch of teasing witchery in her voice and with
laughter still in her eyes, asked him:

"Don't you think that this is rather a compromising situation,
particularly in view of the fact that you have only just become
engaged to Patricia? Really, you know, it is dreadful; isn't it?"

"I hadn't thought of that," he replied, quite truthfully. "I was
thinking of what Langdon said, when he left us. It recalled
something--"

"About leaving us two 'youngsters' alone together?" she asked him,
with a pretense of frightened expression in her eyes.

"No, that wasn't the last thing he said."

"What was it? I didn't hear it."

"He said he was going to see Melvin. I suppose you know who Melvin is,
don't you?"

"Oh, yes, indeed. Mr. Melvin and I are great friends. I think he is
about the nicest old gentleman of my acquaintance; don't you? He is
what I should call the _arbiter elegantiarum_ of the Langdon court, if
one could imagine Old Steve as a Cæsar, and Patricia as--" Beatrice
paused, and flushed hotly. She had not considered to what length her
words were reaching. She had almost cast a reflection upon her friend,
which would have been as unkind as it was unmerited. She added,
quickly: "But why, if I may ask, did the mention of Mr. Melvin's name
interest you?"

Duncan gazed at his companion rather stupidly, for a moment, for his
mind had suddenly become intent upon the complications of the day, and
he had forgotten for the time being, where he was, and with whom he
was talking. But Beatrice's smile and the mockery in her eyes brought
him back to the present.

"I remembered that I should have gone, myself, to see Melvin,
to-night," he told her, quietly. "It really was quite important. I
should have sought him, instead of coming here."

"Indeed?" Beatrice laughed, brightly. "Mr. Melvin seems to be in great
demand. Are you and Patricia to follow the French fashion of drawing
the marriage-contract? and is Mr. Melvin to act the part of a French
notary?" There was a touch of irony in her question, a little shaft of
sarcasm that brought a quick flush to Duncan's face. He was reminded
instantly of the tentative betrothal with Patricia, and his misgivings
concerning it. Beside him was seated the one person who might aid them
both; and with sudden resolution, acted upon as quickly as it was
formed, he reached out and took one of Miss Brunswick's hands, holding
it between both his own.

"Beatrice," he said, with quiet emphasis, "you have always been a good
fellow, if ever there was a girl born in the world who was one. I
wonder if you could be persuaded to give me the benefit of your
advice, and, possibly, your active assistance?"

She flushed a little under the praise and the intimately personal
request that came with it, but he did not notice this as he went on:
"I've somehow got things into the biggest kind of a muddle to-day, and
I have a notion to tell you all about it; I have the impulse to take
you into my confidence and to ask you to help me out. I know you can
do it. By Jove, Beatrice, I think you are the only person in the world
who can do it! Will you?"

She shrugged her shoulders ever so little, and the flush left her
cheeks, rendering them paler than was their wont. It suddenly came
home to her that he was asking a favor that might prove extremely
difficult to grant.

"I cannot say as to that until I hear what you wish me to do," she
replied.

"I want you to help me square myself," he said, quickly.

"To square yourself?" She raised her brows in assumed surprise. "With
whom?"

"Why, with Patricia, of course."

"Help you to square yourself with Patricia?" She laughed outright, but
without mirth. "I am afraid I don't at all understand you, Roderick. I
supposed you had already accomplished that much, for you told me--did
you not?--that Patricia has just accepted you?"

"Yes, and that's the devil of it!" was the unexpected astounding
reply. Beatrice moved farther away from him, and took her hand from
his grasp, in well-simulated horror of what he had said.

"Let us, at least, confine ourselves to the usages and language of
polite society;" she said, with mock severity. "We will leave the
devil out of it, if you please. Besides, you amaze me! Patricia has
just accepted you, and that is 'the devil of it.' Really, I can't
guess what you mean by such a paradoxical statement as that."

"Forgive me. I am so wrought up that I scarcely know what I am talking
about, or what I am doing. As I said before, I have managed to get
things into a terrible mess, and I believe that you, Beatrice, are the
only person alive who can unravel the tangle for me. Will you help me
out? Will you?"

"You must tell me what it is, before I commit myself. You are so very
aggravating, in words and manner, that I cannot even attempt to
understand you."

For just a few moments, he hesitated. There was within him the
feeling that he would outrage Patricia's ideas of the fitness of
things, if he should take Beatrice Brunswick into his confidence and
relate to her all that had occurred this afternoon and evening. But,
on the other hand, he saw in this beautiful girl a personification of
the straw at which a drowning man grasps. He knew that she was,
personally, closer to Patricia than any other friend had been, and
that she understood Patricia better than did anyone else, save Stephen
Langdon, perhaps. He knew, also, that he could trust her, and that he
could rely, implicitly, upon her loyalty. He knew that she would never
betray the secrets he would be obliged to tell concerning Stephen
Langdon's affairs. He had tried her often, and he had never found her
wanting. Therefore, he felt that the greatest secret of all,
concerning the financial extremity in which Stephen Langdon had become
involved, would be safe with Beatrice Brunswick. Manlike, he began
very stupidly and very strangely.

"By Jove, Beatrice!" he exclaimed. "I wish I might have fallen in love
with you, instead of with Patricia! You would never have seen things
in the light she does!"

Beatrice's eyes widened and deepened; then, they narrowed so that she
almost frowned. She bit her lips with vexation, and for an instant
was angry. At last, she laughed. She did not wish him to know how
deeply he had wounded her by that careless statement, so she uttered a
care-free ripple of laughter.

"I don't quite know whether I should take that as a compliment or
not," she replied. "It is more than likely that I would have conducted
myself very much worse than Patricia has done in this affair which you
have not as yet explained to me. Perhaps, it is a fortunate thing for
both of us that you did not fall in love with me, instead of her. I'm
sure I don't know what I should have done with you, in such a case.
But I will help you if I can; only, understand in the beginning that
if you tell me the story at all, you must tell me all of it. I don't
want any half-confidences, Roderick."

Duncan did tell her all of it then, leaving nothing to be added, when
he had finished; and she listened to the end of his tale in utter
silence, with her head half-turned away and her chin supported by the
palm of one of her jeweled hands. They did not move to the front of
the box again, nor give any heed to the rise of the curtain or to what
was taking place on the stage, during the ensuing act. Duncan talked
straight on, through it all; and Beatrice listened with close
attention. One might have supposed that the music and the singing did
not reach the ears of either of them, and one would not have been very
wrong in that surmise. The tragic fate of John, the Baptist; the
unholy, unnatural passion of a depraved soul for the dead lips of a
man who had spurned her while he lived; the exquisite music of
Strauss; the superb scenery and stage-setting; the rich and gorgeous
costumes--all remained unseen and unheard by these two, one intent
upon reëstablishing himself in the esteem of Patricia Langdon, the
other disturbed by emotions she could not have named, which she would
have declined to recognize, even had they presented themselves frankly
to her. She had known, of course, of Duncan's love for her friend, but
until this hour there had always existed an unformed, unrecognized
doubt in the mind of Beatrice that it would ever be requited.

When he had finished, she was still silent, and for so long a time
that at last, with some impatience, he bent nearer to her, and
exclaimed:

"Well, Beatrice? What do you think of it all?"

She shuddered a little. There was still another interval before she
spoke, and then, with calm directness, she replied:

"I think you are both exceedingly brave to be willing to face the
situation that exists."

"Eh?" he asked her, not comprehending.

"Why, if you carry out this compact that you have made, if Patricia
Langdon becomes your wife according to the terms she has dictated to
Melvin--for I can guess, now, what they are--you will both be casting
yourselves straight down into hell. I speak metaphorically, of
course," she added, with a whimsical smile. "I have been told that
there isn't any hell, really. But I mean it, Roderick. If there isn't
a hell, you two seem to be bent upon the arrangement of a correct
imitation of one."

"How is that?" he demanded, frowning. "I don't know what you mean."

"Our friend has not been named 'Juno' for nothing. She is a strange
girl; but I love her, almost as much as you do," Beatrice continued,
as if she had not heard his question. "She possesses characteristics,
the depth of which I have never been able to sound, and I am her best
and closest friend. If you two live up to this agreement, in the
spirit in which it was made, and conclude it in the spirit in which
she has dictated her conditions to Melvin, I tremble for the
consequences that will ensue, for I can almost foresee them. Patricia
is not one who forgives easily, and she will resent a hurt to her
pride with all the force there is in her."

Beatrice rose to her feet, standing before him, and he, also, stood
up, facing her. She reached out both her hands toward him, and he took
them; and there were tears in her big blue eyes, when she added, with
a depth of feeling that he did not understand:

"Roderick Duncan, it would be better for you, and for Patricia as
well, if you never saw each other again. You might far better, and
with much greater hope of happiness, cast your future lot with some
other woman whom you have never thought of as a wife, than marry
Patricia Langdon upon such terms as you have outlined. Have you known
her so intimately all your life without understanding her at all? She
might have forgiven disloyalty, or unfaithfulness, or at least have
condoned such--but an offense against her pride? Never! You would be
undergoing much less risk if you should select an utterly unknown
woman from one of these boxes, and should take her out of this theatre
now, and marry her instead!"

Having delivered this remarkable statement, Beatrice burst into
laughter. Duncan, suddenly alive to her beauty and her nearness,
deeply impressed by what she had said, and fully alive to the truth of
her utterances, retained the grasp he had upon her hands, and drew her
toward him, quickly.

"Why not?" he demanded, hotly. "I'll do it if you say the word! But
not a strange woman. You, Beatrice--you!! I'll dare you!!! We'll go to
the 'Little Church Around the Corner.' I dare you! I dare you,
Beatrice! They always have a wedding ceremony on tap, there; if you've
got the sand, come on. It offers a solution of everything. Come on,
Bee--marry me!"

She raised her eyes to his, and he understood, instantly, how he had
wounded her; he saw that her laughter had not been real, and that she
was very near to tears. But the fact that she shrank away from his
impetuous words and manner, only spurred him on anew. He caught her
hands again.

"Let's do it, Beatrice," he said rapidly, bending forward with sudden
eagerness. "I hate all this mess and muddle of affairs. I hate it! Say
yes, Bee."

He stood with his back toward the curtains at the rear of the box; she
was facing them. He saw her eyes dilate suddenly, and he had the
sensation that she had discovered another person near them, or in the
act of entering the box; and then, with more astonishment than he
would have believed himself capable of feeling, he realized that
Beatrice Brunswick had thrown herself forward and that her white arms
were wound clingingly about his neck; at the same time, with evident
design, she turned him still more, so that he could not see the
curtains which screened the entrance to the box.

The last and final shock of that eventful day, came to him then, for
he did turn, in spite of Beatrice's restraining arms--he turned to
find that the curtains were drawn apart, and in the opening thus
created stood Patricia Langdon. Duncan knew that she had both seen and
heard.

He could not have moved, had he attempted to do so, although somewhere
deep down inside of him he felt that it was his duty to untwine those
clinging arms and somehow to account for the appalling situation.
Beyond where Patricia stood, he saw and recognized two other figures
that were moving steadily forward toward them, but he had the
subconscious assurance in his soul that neither Stephen Langdon nor
his lawyer, Melvin, had noticed the scene which Patricia had
discovered. He could not guess that it had been the consequence of
sudden inspiration on the part of Beatrice, who had thrown her arms
around his neck at the very instant when she had intended to
administer a rebuff.

He did not imagine that she had discovered the approach of Patricia
before she made this outward demonstration in acceptance of his mad
proposal. Duncan felt very guilty indeed, in that trying moment;
nevertheless, he was not one to attempt an ignominious escape from a
predicament in which he believed himself to be wholly at fault. But
Beatrice was not yet through with acting a part. She drew away from
Duncan quickly, with an exclamation of mingled disappointment,
pleasure and alarm. She cried out the single ejaculation, "Oh!" and
dropped backward upon the chair she had recently occupied. But there
was a gleam of mischief in her eyes, which belied the confusion
otherwise expressed upon her face.

"So sorry to have interrupted you at such a critical moment," said
Patricia coolly, at once master of herself and of the situation.
"Good-evening, Beatrice. I hope you have enjoyed the opera. I decided
to come at the last moment, and met my father at the door of the
theatre, as I was entering. He insisted on seeing Mr. Melvin to-night,
so we drove to his house together and brought him here. I thought I
would enjoy the last act."

One might have thought that Roderick Duncan did not exist. Patricia
did not so much as glance in his direction, but she moved forward to
the front of the box and took her accustomed seat, just as Stephen
Langdon and the lawyer, Melvin, entered it.

All this had passed so quickly that the interval it occupied could be
reckoned only by seconds. Beatrice Brunswick's face was flushed, and
her eyes were alight with mischief, or with something deeper, as she
greeted the two gentlemen. Duncan's countenance was like marble; he
realized that the mess was bigger now, by far, than it had been
before.

Langdon and his lawyer perceived nothing unusual in the attitude of
any person in the box; both were preoccupied with the discussion upon
which they had just been engaged. Patricia's eyes were already fixed
on the stage, and evidently her entire attention was devoted to it.
She appeared to have forgotten the propinquity of other persons.

There was a vacant chair beside her which Duncan should have taken,
and, doubtless, he would have done so, had not the lawyer stupidly
preëmpted it for his own use. The banker occupied the middle chair,
and the consequence was that Duncan was given no choice, but was
literally forced into the one next to Beatrice. Not that he would
have preferred it otherwise, at the moment. Not he. He was angered by
Patricia's conduct toward him; he resented the whole circumstance--and
possibly, too, he still felt something of the thrill induced by the
clinging arms of Beatrice Brunswick. He stared silently toward the
stage, seeing nothing upon it. He was endeavoring to arrange, in some
comprehensive form, the combination of circumstances and scenes which
it had been his misfortune to encounter, and in part enact, since noon
that day. But the more he tried, the more difficult became the task.
The whole thing was as exasperating as an attempt to put together,
within an alloted time, a puzzle-picture which has been cut into all
sorts of sizes and shapes. It was not a panorama of events, as he
recounted them in his own mind; it was a kaleidoscope, a jumble of
colors and figures, of angles and spaces--or to put it in his own
words, it was literally a mess.

He turned toward Beatrice, whose right hand was negligently waving a
fan. He reached out and claimed it, and she did not resent the act. He
drew it toward him, and she looked up and smiled into his eyes with an
expression he did not understand. She made no effort to withdraw her
hand, nor any attempt to resist his advances. He bent nearer.

"Will you do it?" he asked her, whispering. "Will you do it,
Beatrice?"

She made no reply, and he bent still nearer, seizing her hand in both
his own, now.

"Will you do it, dear?" he repeated, a third time. "I'm game, if you
are. It is a solution of the whole beastly muddle. Come on. I'll stump
you! That is what we used to say, when we were kids. By Jove, girl,
you're in as deep as I am, now; and, besides, you gave me your word
that you'd help me, didn't you? Turn your eyes toward me. Tell me
you'll do it. Say yes. Come on, Bee. I'll dare you. We can slip away
from here while their backs are turned. What do you say? Will you
marry me?"

"Yes," she replied, without moving or withdrawing her gaze from the
stage, and she repeated: "yes, if you wish it." He could not see her
face.

"Will you do it now?" Duncan demanded, half-startled by her ready
acquiescence.

"Yes."

"Good! I knew you were game!"

He left his chair quickly and secured her wraps and his own coat and
hat. Then, he stepped to the opening between the curtains and turned
expectantly toward her.

She had not moved; but now, as if she had seen his every act without
looking toward him, she turned her head slowly, observing him coolly,
and she gave a little nod of comprehension and assent. He returned the
nod, touched his fingers to his lips to enjoin silence, and passed
outside. In another moment, she had glided softly but swiftly from her
seat, and, unnoticed by the other occupants of the box, followed him,
dropping the curtains silently after her.

He put her opera-cloak about her shoulders, and swiftly donned his own
coat and hat, and so without as much as "by your leave," they left the
theatre together and waited in the foyer while the special officer in
gray called a taxicab for their use.

Duncan led her across the pavement to the cab, and assisted her
inside.

"Do you know where the Church of the Transfiguration is located?" he
asked the chauffeur.

"I do, sir," was the reply.

"Drive us there, and be quick about it," said Duncan, and he sprang
inside and banged the door shut after him.




CHAPTER V

BEATRICE BRUNSWICK'S PLOT


The chauffeur to whom the order was given that the taxicab be driven
to the Church of the Transfiguration, proved to be an adept and
skillful driver; one of those who can exceed the speed limit and then
slow down his machine so quickly and quietly at the sight of a
bluecoat that he inevitably escapes arrest for his transgression. As
a consequence, there was very little time for conversation between
these two apparently mad young persons during the journey between the
opera-house and the church.

Little as there was, the greater part of it was passed in silence. But
when they were quite near to their destination, Beatrice spoke up
quickly and rather sharply to her companion.

"Roderick, have you for a moment supposed that I have taken you
seriously in this mad proposition you have made to me, to-night?" she
demanded. "Surely, you don't think that, do you?"

Duncan stared at her, speechless. Then, with a vehemence that can
better be imagined than described he exclaimed, half-angrily,
half-resentfully:

"Then, in God's name, Beatrice, why are we here? and why should we go
to the church at all?"

"Were you serious about it?" she asked.

"I certainly was--and am, now!"

"Foolish boy!" she exclaimed, laughing with nervous apprehension. What
more she might have said on this point was interrupted by the skidding
of the taxicab as they were whirled around the corner of Twenty-ninth
street.

"Why, in heaven's name, are we here, then?" he demanded, just as they
were drawn swiftly to the curb, and the cab came to a stop in front of
the church.

"You requested my help, did you not?" she replied.

"I certainly did."

The chauffeur, in the meantime, had leaped to the pavement and thrown
open the door of the cab.

"You may close the door again, chauffeur, and wait where you are for
further orders," Beatrice told him, calmly. And when that was done,
she again addressed her companion. "You have called me a 'good fellow'
to-night," she said slowly, with quiet distinctness, "and I mean to
be one. I have always meant to be one, and to a great extent I think I
have succeeded. But I would have to be a much better fellow than I am
to go to the extent of marrying a man who does not love me, and who
does love another, simply to help him out of a mess in which his own
stupidity has involved him. Wouldn't I? Ask yourself the question!"

Duncan shrugged his shoulders and parted his lips to reply, but she
went on rapidly:

"That is asking me to go rather farther than I would care to venture,
my friend; or you, either, if you should stop to think about it. Your
proposition is utterly a selfish one. You must know that. You have
thought only of yourself and the mess you are in. You do not consider
me at all. You would cheerfully use me as a means of venting your
spite--or shall I call it, temper?--against Patricia. For the moment,
you are intensely angry at her. Not only that, you feel that you have
been out-done, at every point. That she has acted unreasonably, I will
not deny. But what a silly thing it would be for you and me to stand
together at the altar, and pledge ourselves to each other for life, or
until such time as the divorce-courts might intervene, just because of
the events of to-day!" She was smiling upon him now, as if he were,
indeed, a foolish boy who needed chiding.

Duncan pulled himself together. For the first time since their exit
from the opera-house, and for perhaps the first time since the moment
when Patricia discovered him in the private office of her father, he
was capable of acting and thinking quite naturally.

"Beatrice," he said, "if the sentiments you have just expressed are
the same as those you felt before you left the box at the opera-house,
would you mind telling me why in the world you have acted as you have
done? Why, in the name of all that's phenomenal and strange, are we
here?"

She turned her head away from him, and peered through the glass door
at the chauffeur, who was striding slowly up and down the pavement
outside, and who had taken the opportunity to indulge himself in a
smoke.

"I did it," she said, "because I thought I saw a way to help you and
Patricia out of your difficulties. I saw that we could leave the box
without her knowledge, and believed that neither she nor her
companions would discover our departure for some time afterward. I
remembered just then that Patricia had witnessed the tender and
somewhat touching scene in the box between you and me. My goodness,
Roderick! I hope you didn't think that I meant _that_! It was all done
for Patricia's benefit, you goose! Didn't you know that? Did you
suppose that I had suddenly fallen head over heels in love with you?
You're not very complimentary, are you? Or is it that you were
throwing bouquets at yourself?"

"Will you tell me why you did it?" he asked, flushing hotly under the
jibe.

"Because I wished Patricia to see it."

"Why?"

"I thought it might bring her to her senses."

"How, Beatrice?"

"Jealousy, you dunce!"

"But why the rest of your superb play-acting?"

"It all works out toward the same end. Don't you suppose that Patricia
is in hot water, by this time? When she realized that we had sneaked
away, to put it plainly, don't you think she would put two and two
together, and make four out of it?"

"It strikes me," he interrupted her, with a light laugh, "that this is
a case where two are supposed to make one."

"We won't joke about it, if you please. Still, that isn't a bad idea.
But, at all events, I wish Patricia to believe that we left the
opera-house because, for the moment at least, you preferred my society
to hers. If we can convince her that we ran away to be married, so
much the better!"

"You are deeper than I am, Bee. I confess that you've got me up a
tree. I haven't the least idea what you are driving at, but I am quite
willing to be taught. What is to be the next play in this little game
of yours?"

"You need not be nasty about it, when I'm trying to help you," she
retorted.

"What's the next move, Bee? I couldn't induce you to give me another
hug, could I? There, now--don't get angry. I liked it, whether you
did, or not. You put a lot of ginger into it, too. Oh, yes, I liked
it!"

For a moment, it seemed as if she would resent his bantering tone;
then she shrugged her shoulders, and smiled.

"I did it to help you--to make Patricia jealous." She laughed lightly,
still keeping her face turned away from him. "I saw the curtains part,
and recognized Patricia. With the recognition, there came also a
revelation as to how I could best help you both. If I had dreamed that
you would suppose for a moment I was in earnest, do you think I would
have done it? And when I told you that I would come here, to this
church, and would marry you like this--good heavens!--did you flatter
yourself I meant _that_?"

"Of course, I did."

"Are you in earnest, Roderick Duncan? If I thought your selfishness,
your egotism, was as great as that, I--I don't know what I'd do! Have
you so little regard for me that you think I would become your wife,
in this manner, knowing as I do that you love another--and when that
other is my best friend--when I know that Patricia Langdon loves you?
For I do know it. Do you--did you think that of me--did you think that
of me?" She was a-tremble with indignation, now.

"By Jove, Bee, I acted like a brute, didn't I? I didn't consider you;
I was selfish enough to think of no one but myself. But, all the same,
my girl, I was in dead earnest. If you've got the pluck and the spirit
to go through with it, now, we'll see the thing out, side by side,
just as we started, and I will make you, perhaps, a better husband
than if the circumstances were different. You say that Patricia loves
me: I doubt it. I thought so once, but I don't now. It doesn't matter,
anyhow. I shall ask you again calmly, with all humility and respect;
with all seriousness, too: will you be my wife, and will you marry me,
now?"

"I will reply with equal seriousness, Roderick," she retorted,
mockingly. "No."

He uttered a sigh, and there was so much satisfied relief in it that
she laughed aloud, but without bitterness.

"Then, what shall we do? Sit here in this cab, in front of the Church
of the Transfiguration, for the balance of the night? Or shall we go
around to Delmonico's and have some supper?" he asked her.

"I think that last suggestion of yours is a very excellent one," she
replied, naïvely. "But we will wait yet a few moments before we start.
We haven't been at the Church of the Transfiguration quite long enough
to have been married, and to have come out of it again."

Duncan stared at her. Then, slowly, a smile lighted up his eyes and
relaxed the lines of his face, so that after a moment he chuckled.
Presently, he laughed.

"By Jove, Bee, you're a corker!" he said. "You can give me cards and
spades, and beat me hands down, when it comes to a matter of finesse.
Is it your idea to play out the other part of the game? What will it
avail, if we do?"

"Never mind that," she replied. "In order to carry out the scheme, and
to make it work itself out, as it should, one thing more is necessary.
It will be great fun, too--if we don't carry it too far."

"What is that?" he asked her. "What more is necessary?"

"I want you to tell the chauffeur to stop for a moment at the
side-entrance to the Hotel Breslin; there I wish you to leave me alone
in the cab, while you go inside, and telephone to the opera-house, to
have Jack Gardner and his wife meet us as soon as they can, at
Delmonico's for supper. You may not have noticed, but they occupied
their box, which is directly opposite the Langdon's. One of the ushers
will carry the message to him, and Jack will come, if he has no
previous engagement."

"But what in the name of--what in the world do you want of Jack
Gardner and his wife? what have they to do with it?"

"I want them to take supper with us, that is all; and then I want a
few moments' conversation with Jack, while you talk with Sally."

They were driven to the Breslin, and the telephone-message was sent.
Duncan waited for a reply, and received one, to the effect that Mr.
and Mrs. Gardner would come at once. And so, not long afterward, the
four occupied a conspicuous table of Beatrice's selection, at the
famous restaurant.

Recalling the injunction put upon him to occupy himself with Sally
Gardner, Duncan began to get a glimmer of understanding regarding the
plot that Beatrice had concocted. He, therefore, gave all of his
attention to the spirited and charming wife of the young copper-king.
Jack Gardner was everybody's friend. He loved a joke better than
anyone else in the world, and a practical joke better than any other
kind. He was especially fond of Roderick Duncan, and both he and his
wife were intimate friends of Beatrice. Duncan noticed, while talking
with Sally, that Jack and Beatrice had drawn their chairs more closely
together, toward a corner of the table, and were now whispering
together with low-toned eagerness. He could hear no word of what
Beatrice said, but an occasional exclamation of Gardner's came to him.
He saw that Beatrice was talking rapidly, with intense earnestness,
and that Gardner seemed to be highly amused, even elated, by what she
was saying. Such expressions as, "By Jove, that's the best, ever!"
"Sure, I can do it!" and, "You just leave it to me!" came to his
ears, from Gardner; and presently the latter excused himself and left
the table.

If they had followed him, they would have seen that he went to the
telephone, where he called up several numbers before he obtained the
person he sought; but he presently returned, apparently in the best of
spirits, and with intense satisfaction written upon every line of his
smiling features.

As he seated himself at the table, other guests were just assuming
places at another one, quite near to them, and he bent forward toward
Beatrice, saying in a tone which their companion could not hear:

"I say, Beatrice, it's all working out to the queen's taste! When you
get a chance, look over your left shoulder. Gee! but this is funny!
All the same, though, I expect I'll get myself into a very devil of a
stew. When that reporter discovers that I've given him an out-and-out
fake, he'll go gunning for me as sure as you are alive."

"Is he coming here to see you?" she asked him.

"Sure. He will be here in about twenty minutes."

"Now, tell me who it is at the table behind me. I don't care to look
around, to discover for myself."

"Why, Old Steve and his Juno; and they've got Malcolm Melvin with
them." He leaned back in his chair, and laughed; then, he emptied the
champagne-glass he had been playing with. Presently, he chuckled
again.

"Tell you what, Beatrice," he said, in an undertone, "I almost wish
that you had taken Duncan at his word, and married him. You should
have called that bluff. Sure thing! Think of the millions he's got,
and--"

"Hush!"

"Oh, all right. All the same--"

"Hush, I tell you! Don't you see that Sally is trying to talk to you?"

After that, the conversation became general among the four. During it,
Jack Gardner sought and found an opportunity to wave a greeting to the
late arrivals, whose names he had just mentioned to Beatrice. Duncan,
observing him, glanced also in that direction, and, meeting Patricia's
eyes fixed directly upon him, flushed hotly as he, also, bowed to her.
Then, Sally and Beatrice turned their heads and nodded, as another
course of the service was placed upon the table before them.

It was not yet finished when the head-waiter brought a card to Jack
Gardner, who instantly left his seat for the second time that evening,
and, with a curt, "I'll be back in a moment," departed, without
further excuse. The person whose card he had received, was awaiting
him in one of the reception-rooms; and the two shook hands cordially,
for they were old acquaintances and on excellent terms with each
other. It was not the first time they had got their heads together
concerning matters for publication, although, in this instance, the
newspaper man was to be made a wholly innocent party in the affair.

Burke Radnor was a newspaper man of prominence in New York. He was one
of the few men of his profession who have succeeded in attaining
sufficient distinction to establish themselves independently, and his
"stories" were eagerly sought by all of the great dailies.

The two seated themselves in a corner of the room, and talked together
earnestly, although in whispers, for a considerable time. It was
Gardner who did most of the talking; Radnor only occasionally
interjected a questioning remark. When they parted, it was with a
hearty hand-clasp, and this remark from Radnor:

"I'll fix it up all right, old man; don't you worry. Nobody shall know
that I got the story from you. But it is a jim dandy, and no mistake!"

"Which of the papers will you use it in, do you think?" asked
Gardner.

"I am not sure as to that. To the one that will pay the best price for
a first-class 'beat,' for that's what it is. Anyhow, that part of it
is none of your business. Now that I've got the story, I shall handle
it as I think best, and you can bet your sweet life it will be used
for all it's worth!"

Gardner returned to the dining-room, with vague misgivings concerning
what he had done; his smile was a bit less self-satisfied. Radnor,
apparently, left the building. But the shrewd news-gatherer went no
farther than the entrance, where he wheeled about and returned; and
this time he sent his card to Roderick Duncan. Having "nailed the
story," the proper thing now was to obtain an interview with one of
the principals concerned in it; with both, if possible.

Duncan received the card, wonderingly. He knew Radnor, and liked him;
but he could not imagine what the newspaper man could want with him at
that particular time. The truth about it, did not even vaguely occur
to him.

Excusing himself, he left the table and presently found Radnor in the
same room where the recent interview with Jack Gardner had taken
place.

"Hello, Radnor," said Duncan, cordially, extending his hand. "There
must be something doing when you call me away from a supper table, at
Del's. Make it as brief as possible--won't you?--because I am dining,
and--"

"Oh, I won't keep you but a moment, Mr. Duncan," was the quick reply.
"I just want to ask you a question or two about the interesting
ceremony that took place this evening--that is all."

"Eh? What's that? Ceremony? What the devil are you talking about?"

"Look here, Mr. Duncan, you know perfectly well that I am your friend,
and that I'll use you as handsomely as possible in the columns of any
paper that gets this story. But I've got the straight tip, and I know
what I am talking about. I thought, possibly, you might wish to say a
few words in explanation--just to tone the thing down, to give it the
mark of authenticity, you know. I thought you'd like to be quoted, and
to know, from me, that the story'll be all right. On the level, now,
isn't that better?"

Duncan laughed. He did not in the least understand. He had the idea
that Radnor had been drinking.

"Burke," he said; "upon my life, this is the first time I ever saw you
when you had taken too much to drink."

"Is that the way you are going to reply to me?" asked Radnor, with all
the insistence of a thoroughly trained newspaper man. "You'd best use
me right, you know. It's a great 'beat,' and I want all of it. I'd
like to talk with the bride, too, if you can fix--"

"But I don't know what the blazes you are talking about, man."

"I am talking about the little ceremony that took place this evening
at the Little Church Around the Corner, and was indulged in between
you and the former Miss Brunswick; as a sort of _entr'acte_ to the
opera of Salome," said Radnor, with slow distinctness.

Duncan stiffened where he stood. The smile left his face, and his eyes
narrowed, while his clean-cut features seemed to harden in every line
of them.

"Radnor," he said with a slow drawl, which to those who knew him best
betrayed intense anger, "you will be good enough to explain to me,
here and now, in plain English and in as few words as possible,
exactly what you mean."

"I mean," was the ready retort, "that you and Miss Beatrice Brunswick
were married to-night at the Little Church Around the Corner, between
two of the acts of Salome. I mean that I've got the straight tip, and
I know it to be true. I wish to quote you, if possible, in what I
shall write about it for the morning papers. I'd like to get a
statement from the bride, too."

"Are you crazy, Radnor?" asked Duncan, bending forward, his face white
and set, and his eyes hard and cold; for Roderick Duncan, with all his
apparent quietude, was a man whom it was not safe to try too far.

"No, I'm not crazy. I'm just telling you what's what. I'll get the
whole story, and what's more, I'll print it in the morning papers! If
you wish to say anything in explanation of the incident, I shall be
glad to quote you; but, otherwise, I shall take the liberty of drawing
my own inferences, and assuming my own conclusions, from the story I
have heard. I tell you, Mr. Duncan, I've got it straight, and I know
it to be true."

"It is not true," said Duncan, quietly. "The person who told you such
a story as that lied."

Radnor shrugged his shoulders, and laughed, ironically.

"I don't know that I blame you for denying it," he said, "but I happen
to know differently. If you choose to deny it, I'll send my card
inside to Mrs. Duncan, and we'll see, then, what we shall see. You
can't bluff me, Mr. Duncan. I'm not that sort. If you won't talk,
perhaps the former Miss Brunswick, will, and--"

Radnor got no further than that. Duncan's rage, the moment he
understood the situation and fully realized the possible consequences
of it in the hands of this ubiquitous newspaper man, overcame him,
utterly. His right arm shot out with terrific force, his clenched fist
caught Radnor squarely on the point of the chin, and the latter was
knocked half-senseless to the floor. Waiters, and attendants about the
place rushed toward them; but Duncan slowly drew a handkerchief from
one of his pockets, and, calmly wiping his hands upon it, said to the
manager:

"Kick the dog into the street; that is what he deserves. He probably
followed me when I came away from the opera-house, and now he is
trying to make capital out of a meaningless incident. Put him out, and
don't permit him to pass the door again to-night; otherwise, he will
seek to annoy a lady who is here."

Then, he turned calmly about, and, although his features were still
pale, reëntered the dining-room as if nothing had happened. Duncan
confidently believed that he had correctly estimated the cause of
Radnor's quest for news. It never occurred to him that Beatrice
Brunswick was herself, through the agency of Jack Gardner, the cause
of it.




CHAPTER VI

A REMARKABLE MEETING


When Jack Gardner returned to the dining-room after his interview with
Radnor, he was vaguely troubled, notwithstanding the fact that he was
also highly amused. There were elements associated with the thing he
had just done that might stir up unpleasant consequences. His
inordinate love for a practical joke had led him into it willingly,
and he had thought he saw in this affair the best and greatest joke he
had ever attempted to perpetrate. But he began to understand that
there was a tragic element to it which he could not deny to himself;
and, when he was in the act of resuming his chair beside Beatrice, he
was more than half-inclined, even then, to rush from the building in
the pursuit of Burke Radnor, and to withdraw the whole story that he
had given to the newspaper man.

When, a few moments later, Radnor's card was brought to Duncan, the
sense of impending disaster was stronger than ever upon Gardner, and
he watched the departure of the young millionaire with many
misgivings, not one of which he could have defined in words. But he
watched the doorway through which Duncan passed, and, during the
interval that ensued, he was very palpably disturbed and uneasy. He
had recognized the card, although he had been unable to see the name
that was engraved upon it. He had not supposed that Radnor would so
quickly pursue his investigation of the story, and it had not even
remotely occurred to the young copper-king, that the newspaper man
would dare to go so far as to seek an immediate interview with Duncan.
Even had the man selected Beatrice, it would not have been quite so
bad.

Nobody knew Duncan better than did Jack Gardner, and he realized what
a strong and stirring effect this fake-story, as made up between
himself and Beatrice, might have upon one who was such a stickler for
certain forms as he knew Duncan to be. His impulse was to follow his
friend from the room, but he resisted it, although he did keep his
gaze spasmodically fixed upon the door by which Roderick must reënter
the dining-room.

Gardner was the first of the party to discover him, when he did
return, and was quick to see that something unusual had happened
during the interval outside, which had been all too short to have
been fruitful of any other result than violence of some sort. He saw,
by the set expression of his friend's face and by the pallor upon it,
that something had gone wrong, and he started to his feet and moved
rapidly forward, so that he met Duncan half-way between the entrance
and the table where Beatrice and Sally Gardner were now left alone
together. He grasped his friend by the arm, and drew him aside, saying
rapidly, as he did so:

"For God's sake, Dun, what has happened? Tell me quickly."

Roderick Duncan looked down calmly, and without change of expression
upon Gardner, for he was considerably taller than his friend; and he
said, slowly, in reply:

"Without answering your question, Jack, I wish to ask you one. Was it
Burke Radnor whom you were called out to meet, a little while ago, in
the reception-room?"

Not thinking of the possible consequences of his response, Gardner
admitted, hastily, that it had been Radnor, and Duncan asked another
question.

"Did Radnor question you about a marriage-ceremony that is supposed to
have taken place between Beatrice Brunswick and myself, to-night?"

"Well, you see--"

"Answer me yes, or no, Jack, if you please."

"Well, then, he did."

"Have you any idea, Jack, where he obtained the nucleus for such a
story?"

Gardner hesitated, and Duncan from his greater height, bent forward
quickly, and with a strong grip, seized the young copper-king by the
shoulder.

"Jack Gardner," he demanded, "did you, at the instigation of Beatrice,
concoct that story? Have I you to thank for it? You need not answer,
Jack. I can read the reply in the expression of your face." He
withdrew his hand from its detaining grasp upon his friend, and took a
half-step backward; then, he added: "Jack, if we were anywhere else
than in a public dining-room, I should resent what you have done
bitterly--and by actions, not words. As it is, I demand that you
instantly seek, and find, Burke Radnor, and retract whatever you have
said, or inferred, during your conversation with him. I warn you,
Gardner, that if one single line appears in any of the papers
to-morrow morning on this subject I'll find a way to resent it, which
will make you regret, all your life, your nameless conduct of
to-night."

Gardner turned decidedly pale, not because of any physical fear he
felt of Duncan, but in dread of the possible consequences of what he
had permitted himself to do.

"Where is Radnor, now?" he exclaimed, quickly.

"I left him half-conscious, on the floor of the reception-room,"
replied Duncan, calmly. "I knocked him down."

"Good God!" exclaimed Gardner; and he turned and rushed away with
precipitate haste.

Duncan went on toward the table at which Beatrice and Sally were
seated, but as he approached it, a desire to hear the sound of
Patricia's voice possessed him, and he turned abruptly toward that
other table, occupied by Stephen Langdon, with his daughter and the
lawyer.

Devoting a careless nod to the two men, Duncan addressed his fiancée,
speaking loudly enough so that her companions might hear.

"Patricia," he said, "will you do me a very great favor? It is of
vital importance, otherwise I would not ask it."

"Indeed?" she replied, raising her big, dark eyes to his. "Your
question and your manner as well imply something that is almost
tragic, Roderick. What is it that you wish me to do?"

"A very little thing, Patricia. Will you, for a moment, accompany me
to the table where Beatrice and Sally Gardner are dining?"

"Why, most certainly," she replied. "You give a very big reason for a
very small thing, don't you? Of course, I will go to them." She left
her seat instantly, and crossed to the other table; Duncan followed,
closely. Patricia accepted the chair that Jack Gardner had occupied,
which Duncan drew out for her. Then, he resumed his own. As soon as
they were seated, the young millionaire, drawing his chair a bit
closer, said, addressing them, generally:

"I have something to say which I wish each of you to hear. To-night, a
rumor has been started, somehow, that Miss Brunswick and I were
married an hour or so ago, at the Church of the Transfiguration."
Patricia gave a slight start, but he continued, unheedingly: "A
certain newspaper man, Radnor by name, has already sought to interview
me, and he went so far as to insist that he was positive in his
assertions as to such a ceremony having taken place. Of course,
Beatrice and I both know it to be untrue, and I now make this
statement in order to warn you all of what may possibly appear in the
morning papers; that is all I have to say on the subject."

Beatrice had flushed hotly at the beginning of his statement, and,
while he continued, she turned deadly pale. Sally, who it will be
remembered had not been taken into the confidence of the intriguers,
laughed. Patricia was the only one who appeared to be unmoved by the
announcement, but she kept her eyes fixed upon the face of her friend,
and she correctly interpreted the changing colors and expressions of
Beatrice Brunswick's face.

Whatever might have been the consequences of Duncan's announcement and
Miss Brunswick's emotions, her conscious blushes and subsequent
pallor, it was interrupted by the sudden and swift return of Gardner,
who exclaimed, excitedly:

"Sally, I want you right away; and you, too, Beatrice. It's almost a
matter of life and death. Never mind the supper--we can have one some
other time. Duncan, you won't mind, will you, if I take them away?" He
leaned forward and added, in a whisper: "I am carrying out what you
asked me to do, and I need their help." Then, straightening himself,
he addressed Patricia: "You will excuse us all, won't you? Come,
Sally; for heaven's sake, make haste! There isn't a moment of time to
lose."

Sally Gardner had never seen her husband in quite such a state of
excitement, but as she was one of the kind that is always ready for
anything in the shape of adventure, and scented one here, she lost no
time in complying with his request. Beatrice's expression was first of
amusement; then, of comprehension. Almost before any of the party
fully realized what had happened, Jack Gardner and his companions were
gone. Patricia and Roderick Duncan were alone at the table.

She turned her expressive eyes toward him and regarded him closely,
but in silence, for a moment. Then, in a low tone, she inquired:

"May I ask if you understand this amazing succession of incidents? To
me, it is entirely incomprehensible. If you can explain it, I wish you
would do so."

"I am afraid, Patricia, that it cannot be explained--that is, any
farther than I've already done so," he replied.

"Who is responsible for this remarkable story you say the newspaper
man asked you about?"

Duncan hesitated. Then, he replied:

"When Beatrice and I left the opera-house to-night, we entered a
taxicab, and we did drive as far as the iron gateway that admits one
to the Church of the Transfiguration. We did not enter; in fact, we
did not leave the cab at all. It is possible, though hardly probable,
that we were followed by some reporter."

"But why did you drive to the Church of the Transfiguration, at all?"
she asked him, with a smile upon her face that had something of
derision in it, for she plainly saw that Duncan was floundering badly
in his effort to explain. When he hesitated for a suitable reply, she
continued: "Why, may I ask, did you leave the box at the opera-house,
in such a surreptitious manner? It seems to me that the Church of the
Transfiguration was an odd destination for you to have selected, when
you did leave it, with Beatrice for a companion. Or was there a
pre-arrangement between you. Was it her suggestion, or was it yours,
Roderick?"

"It was mine," he replied; and he could not help smiling at the
recollection of it, even though the present moment was filled with
tragic possibilities.

"It seems to amuse you," she told him.

"It does--now."

"Had you, for the moment, forgotten that you were under contract with
me, for Monday morning?"

Instead of replying at once, he leaned forward half-across the table
toward her, and, fixing his gaze steadily upon her, said, with low
earnestness:

"Patricia, for God's sake, let us cease all this fencing; let us put
an end to this succession of misunderstandings. You know how I love
you! You know--"

"I know that this is a very badly chosen time and place for you to
make such declarations, or for me to listen to them. Will you come
back with me now to the other table, and join Mr. Melvin and my
father? People have begun to observe us. If these rumors bear any
fruits, such a course seems to me to be the best one to adopt, under
the circumstances."

She arose without awaiting his reply, and he followed her.

"Melvin," he said to the lawyer, as soon as he was seated at the other
table, "Miss Langdon will agree with me, I think, that it is quite
necessary I should accompany you to your home when we leave this
place, in order to examine with you certain papers which you have
drawn, or are to draw, at her request. Have I your permission,
Patricia?" he added.

"I see no objection, if that is what you mean," Patricia replied;
"although I think it would be better that we should all drive together
to Mr. Melvin's house for the papers--"

"I have them here, in my pocket," the lawyer interrupted her.

"So much the better, then," Patricia continued, rapidly. "I think the
best arrangement, all circumstances considered, would be to go
together to my father's house, so that all the interested parties may
be present at the interview."

Notwithstanding the lateness of the hour, this was agreed upon, and in
due time the four were grouped in the library of the Langdon home,
where Malcolm Melvin, with the notes he had made that afternoon before
him, began in a monotonous voice to read the stipulations of the
document upon which Patricia Langdon had decided that she could rely,
to supply a soothing balm for her wounded pride. It was a strange
gathering to assemble at two o'clock in the morning, but none of them,
save possibly the lawyer, seemed cognizant of the curious aspect of
the meeting.




CHAPTER VII

THE BITTERNESS OF JEALOUSY


James, the footman, entered the library before Malcolm Melvin had
completed the first sentence of the reading of Patricia's
stipulations, and deferentially addressed himself to Roderick Duncan:

"Pardon me, sir," he said, "but there is an urgent demand for you at
the telephone--so urgent that I thought it necessary to interrupt
you."

"For me? Are you sure?" asked Duncan, in surprise. For, at the moment,
he could not imagine who sought him at such an hour, or how his
presence at Langdon's house, was known.

"Yes, sir. Mr. Gardner is on the wire."

Duncan started to his feet, and hurried from the room, while Patricia,
after a moment's hesitation, arose and followed him, glancing toward
the big clock in one corner of the library as she passed it, and
observing that it was already Sunday morning.

She waited in the hallway, outside the library door, until Duncan
reappeared, after his talk with Jack Gardner over the telephone, and
she stopped him, by a gesture.

"What is it, Roderick?" she asked. "I think I know what it must be. If
it is anything that concerns me, I should like to know about it at
once. It is something about the--the rumor of your marriage to
Beatrice?"

"It concerns you only indirectly, Patricia," he replied. "I am afraid
that I must defer the reading of those stipulations until another
time. Gardner is very anxious for me to go to him at once."

"Why?" It was a simple, but a very direct question, which there was no
possibility of avoiding.

"Gardner has kidnapped Radnor, and has him now at his own house.
Radnor is the newspaper man whom I--who sought to interview me.
Beatrice is there, with Sally. You know, they left Delmonico's
together. My presence is insisted upon in order properly to clear up
this unfortunate business. I really must go, you see. It is necessary
for all concerned that this matter go no farther."

He would have said more, but she turned calmly away from him, and
spoke to the footman.

"James," she said, "have Philip at the front door with the Packard, as
quickly as possible." Then, to Duncan, she added: "I'll go with you;
I shall be ready in a moment. You must wait for me, Roderick."

"But, Patricia," exclaimed Duncan, startled and greatly dismayed by
her decision, reached so suddenly, "have you thought what time it is?"

"Yes," she responded, moving toward the stairway. "I have just looked
at the clock. It is two o'clock, Sunday morning. I understand, also,
that the conventions would be shocked, if the conventions understood
the situation; but, fortunately, the conventions do not. You and I
will drive to Sally Gardner's home together. I shall bring Beatrice
back with me when we return. Please, make our apologies to my father
and Mr. Melvin. I shall rejoin you in a moment."

There was no help for it, and Duncan waited, for he knew that, even if
he should hasten on alone, Patricia would follow in the automobile, as
soon as Philip brought it to the door. He sent James into the library
with the announcement, and a moment later assisted Patricia into the
hastily summoned car. The drive to the home of Jack Gardner was a
short one, and was made in utter silence between the two young persons
so deeply interested in each other, yet so widely separated by the
occurrences of that fateful Saturday afternoon. Duncan knew that it
was useless to expostulate with Patricia; and she, following her
adopted course of outward indifference to everything save her personal
interests, preferred to say nothing at all.

When the automobile came to a stop before Gardner's door, Jack himself
rushed down the steps; but he paused midway between the bottom one and
the curb, when he discovered that Duncan was not alone in the car, and
he uttered a low whistle of consternation. He said something under his
breath, too, but neither of the occupants of the automobile could hear
it; and then, as he stepped forward to assist Patricia to alight, she
said to him, in her usual quiet manner:

"Inasmuch as I am an interested party in this affair, Jack, I thought
it important that I should accompany Mr. Duncan. I hope you do not
regret that I have done so."

"Why--er--certainly not; not at all, Patricia. I don't know but that
it is better--your having done so. You see--er--things have somehow
got into a most damna--terrific tangle, you know, and I suppose I am
partly responsible for it; if not wholly so. I--"

"You need not explain; believe me, Jack," she interrupted him, and
passed on toward the steps, ascending them alone in advance of the
two men who had paused for a moment beside the automobile, facing each
other. Then, things happened, and they followed one another so swiftly
that it is almost impossible to give a comprehensive description of
them.

Philip, the chauffeur, sprang out from under the steering-wheel and
for some reason unknown to anyone but himself, passed around to the
rear of the car. He had permitted the engine to run on, merely
throwing out the clutch when he came to a stop. The noise of the
machinery interfered with the low-toned conversation that Duncan
wished to have with Jack Gardner, and so the two stepped aside, moving
a few paces away from the car, and also beyond the steps leading to
the entrance of Gardner's home. Patricia passed through the open door,
unannounced, for the owner of the house had left it ajar when he ran
down the steps to greet Duncan. Miss Langdon had barely disappeared
inside the doorway, when the hatless figure of a man sprang through
it. He ran down the steps, and jumped into the driver's seat of the
Packard car before either Duncan, or Gardner, whose backs were
half-turned in that direction, realized what was taking place.

The man was Radnor, of course. He had found an opportunity to escape
from his difficulties, and had taken advantage of it, without a
moment's hesitation. He had argued that there would still be time,
before the last edition of the newspapers should go to press, if he
could only get to a telephone and succeed in convincing the night
editor of the wisdom of holding the forms for this great story. Any
newspaper would answer his purpose, for he believed that he could hold
back any one of them a few moments, if only he could get to a
telephone.

Radnor had not reckoned on the automobile, but he knew how to operate
a Packard car as well as did the chauffeur himself, and he had barely
reached the seat under the wheel when the big machine shot forward
with rapidly increasing speed. He left the chauffeur, and the two
young millionaires gaping after it with unmitigated astonishment and
chagrin. Duncan and Gardner, both, realized that the newspaper man had
escaped them, and each of them understood only too well that at least
one of the city newspapers was now likely to print the hateful story
of the supposed marriage, beneath glaring and astonishing headlines,
the following morning.

Duncan swore, softly and rapidly, but with emphasis; Jack Gardner,
broke into uproarous laughter, which he could not possibly repress or
control; the chauffeur started up the avenue on a run, in a fruitless
chase after the on-rushing car, which even at that moment whirled
around the corner toward Madison avenue, and disappeared. Gardner
continued to laugh on, until Duncan seized him by the shoulder, and
shook him with some violence.

"Shut up your infernal clatter, Jack!" he exclaimed, momentarily
forgetful of his anger at his friend. "Help me to think what can be
done to head off that crazy fool, will you? It isn't half-past two
o'clock, yet, and he will succeed in catching at least one of the
newspapers, before it goes to press; God only knows how many others he
will connect with, by telephone. What shall we do?"

"I can get out one of my own cars in ten minutes," began Gardner. But
his friend interrupted him:

"Come with me," Duncan exclaimed; and, being almost as familiar with
the interior of the house as its owner was, he dashed up the steps
through the still open doorway, and ran onward up the stairs toward
the smoking-room on the second floor, closely followed by Gardner.
There he seized upon the telephone, and asked for the _New York
Herald_, fortunately knowing the number. While he awaited a response
to his call he put one hand over the transmitter, and said, rapidly,
to his companion:

"Jack, I have just called up the night city editor of the _Herald_.
While I am talking with him, I wish you would make use of the
telephone-directory, and write down the numbers of the calls for the
other leading newspapers in town. This is the only way possible by
which we may succeed in getting ahead of Radnor."

Any person who has ever had to do with newspaper life will understand
how futile such an attempt as this one would be to interfere with
interesting news, during the last moments before going to press. City
editors, and especially night city editors, have no time to devote to
complaints, unless those complaints possess news-value. Nothing short
of dynamite, can "kill" a "good story," once it has gone to the
composing-room. Whatever it was that Duncan said to the gentleman in
charge of the desk at the _Herald_ office, and to the gentlemen in
charge of other desks, at other newspaper offices, need not be
recorded here. Each of the persons, so addressed, probably listened,
with apparent interest, to a small part of his statement, and as
inevitably interrupted him by inquiring if it were Mr. Duncan in
person who was talking; and, when an affirmative answer was given to
this inquiry, Roderick was not long in discovering that he had
succeeded only in supplying an additional value to the story, and in
giving a personal interview over a telephone-wire. He realized, too
late, that instead of interfering with whatever intention Burke Radnor
might have had in making the escape, he had materially aided this
ubiquitous person in his plans. The mere mention by him to each of the
city editors that Radnor was the man of whom he was complaining, gave
assurance to those gentlemen that some sort of important news was on
the way to them, and therefore Duncan succeeded only in accomplishing
what Radnor most desired--that is, in holding back the closing of the
forms, as long as possible, for Radnor's story, whatever it might
prove to be.

Meanwhile, directly beneath the room where Duncan was so frantically
telephoning, a scene of quite a different character was taking place.

When Patricia entered the house, she passed rapidly forward to the
spacious library, encountering no one. Entering it, she found Sally
Gardner seated upon one of the chairs, convulsed with laughter, while
directly before her stood Beatrice, her eyes flashing contemptuous
anger, and scorn upon the fun-loving and now half-hysterical young
matron, who seemed to be unduly amused. Neither of them was at the
moment, conscious of Patricia's presence. She had approached so
quietly and swiftly that her footsteps along the hallway had made no
sound.

"You helped Burke Radnor to escape from us, Sally!" Beatrice was
exclaiming, angrily. "I haven't a doubt that you put him up to it. I
believe you would be delighted to see that hateful story in the
newspapers. It was a despicable thing for you to do."

"Oh, Beatrice!" Sally exclaimed, when she could find breath to do so.
"It is all so very funny--"

She discovered Patricia's presence, and stopped abruptly; then, she
started to her feet, and, passing around the table quickly, greeted
Miss Langdon with effusion.

"Why, Patricia!" she exclaimed. "I had no idea that you were here."

Beatrice turned quickly at the mention of Patricia's name, and her
anger at Sally Gardner was suddenly turned against Patricia Langdon,
with tenfold force and vehemence. It is an axiom that blue-eyed women
have more violent tempers than black-eyed ones, once they are
thoroughly aroused. Your brunette will flash and sputter, and say
hasty things impulsively, or emotionally, but her anger is likely to
pass as quickly as it arises, and it is almost sure to leave no
lasting sting, behind it. Your fair-haired, fair-skinned, man or
woman, when thoroughly aroused, is inclined to be implacable,
unrelenting, even cruel.

Beatrice Brunswick's eyes were flashing with passionate fury, and,
although she did not realize it, the greater part of her display of
temper, was really directed against herself, because deep down in her
sub-consciousness she knew that she alone was responsible for the
present predicament. But anger is unreasoning, and, when one is angry
at oneself, one is only too apt to seek for another person upon whom
to visit the consequences. Patricia made her appearance just in time
to offer herself as a target for Miss Brunswick's wrath; and Beatrice,
totally unmindful of Sally's presence, loosed her tongue, and
permitted words to flow, which, had she stopped to think, she never
would have uttered.

"It is you! you! Patricia Langdon, who are responsible for this
dreadful state of affairs," she cried out, starting forward, and, with
one hand resting upon the corner of the library table, bending a
little toward the haughty, Junoesque young woman she was addressing.
"It is you, who dare to play with a man's love as a child would play
with a doll, and who think it can be made to conform to the spirit of
your unholy pride as readily. It is your fault that I am placed in
this dreadful position, so that now, with Sally's connivance, this
dreadful tale is likely to appear in every one of the morning papers.
You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Pat Langdon, for doing what you
have done! You ought to get down on your knees to Roderick Duncan, and
beg his eternal pardon for the agony you have caused him, since noon
of yesterday. I know it all--I know the whole story, from beginning to
end! I know what your unreasoning pride and your haughty willfulness,
have accomplished: they have driven almost to desperation the man who
loves you better than he loves anything else in the world! But you
have no heart. The place inside you where it should exist is an empty
void. If it were not, you would realize to what dreadful straits you
have brought us all, and to what degree of desperation you have driven
me, who sought to help you. I tell you, now, to your face, that
Roderick Duncan is one man in ten thousand; and that he has loved you
for years, as a woman is rarely loved. But you cast his love aside as
if it were of no value--as if it were a little thing, to be picked up
anywhere, and to be played with, as a child plays with a toy.
Possibly it may please you now to hear one thing more; but, whether it
does or not, you shall hear it. Roderick was in a desperate mood,
to-night, because of your treatment of him, and he did ask me to marry
him. So there! He did ask me! And I--I was a fool not to take him at
his word. But he doesn't--he didn't--he--" She ceased as abruptly as
she had begun the tirade.

Patricia had started backward a little before Beatrice's vehemence,
and her eyes had gradually widened and darkened, while she sought and
obtained her accustomed control over her own emotions. Now, with a
slight shrug of her shoulders and a smile that was maddening to the
young woman who faced her, she interrupted:

"You should have accepted Mr. Duncan's proposal," she said, icily,
"for, if I read you correctly now, the fulfillment of it would have
been most agreeable to you. One might quite readily assume from your
conduct and the words you use that you love Roderick Duncan almost as
madly as you say he loves me."

"Well?" Beatrice raised her chin, and stood erect and defiant before
her former friend. "Well?" she repeated. "And what if I do?"

Patricia shrugged her shoulders again, and turned slowly away, but as
she did so, said slowly and distinctly:

"Possibly, I am mistaken, after all. I had forgotten the attractive
qualities of Mr. Duncan's millions." Beatrice gasped; but Patricia
added, without perceptible pause: "I should warn you, however, that
Mr. Duncan is under a verbal agreement with me! We are to meet and
sign a contract, Monday morning. It seems to be my duty to remind you
of that much, Miss Brunswick."

Patricia did not wait to see the effect of her words. Outwardly calm,
she was a seething furnace of wrath within. She turned away abruptly,
and passed through the open doorway into the hall. There, she stopped.
She had nearly collided with Duncan and Jack Gardner, who were both
standing where they must have heard all that had passed inside the
library. Both were plainly confused, for neither had meant to hear,
but there had been no way to escape. Patricia understood the situation
perfectly, and she kept her self possession, if they did not. For just
one instant, so short as to be almost imperceptible, she hesitated,
then, addressing Gardner, she said in her most conventional tones:

"Jack, will you take me to my car, please?"

"It's gone, Patricia," he replied, relieved by the calmness of her
manner. "Radnor took it, you know, when he made his escape. I suppose
it is standing in front of some newspaper office, at the present
moment, but God only knows which one it is. I'll tell you what I'll
do, though: I'll order one of my own cars around. It won't take five
minutes, even at this ungodly hour. I always keep one on tap, for
emergencies."

"I prefer not to wait," she replied. "It is only a short distance. I
shall ask you to walk home with me, if you will."

"Sure!" exclaimed Gardner, glad of any method by which the present
predicament might be escaped; and he called aloud to one of the
servants to bring him his hat and coat.

Duncan had moved forward quickly, toward Patricia, to offer his
services, but had paused with the words he would have said unuttered.
He understood that the trying scene through which Patricia had just
passed, had embittered her anew against him; and so he stood aside
while she went with Gardner from the house to the street. His impulse
was to follow, for he, also, wished to escape. Then, he was aware that
he still wore his hat. During the excitement, he had not removed it,
since entering the house. He started for the door, but was arrested
before he had taken two steps, by Sally Gardner's voice calling to him
frantically from the library.

He turned and sprang into the room, to find that Beatrice was lying at
full length on the floor, with Sally sobbing and stroking her hands,
and calling upon her, in frightened tones, to speak. But Beatrice had
only fainted, and, when Duncan knelt down beside her, she opened her
blue eyes and looked up at him, trying to smile.

In that instant of pity and remorse, he forgot all else save the
stricken Beatrice, and what, in her anger, she had confessed to
Patricia. The rapidly succeeding incidents of that day and night had
unnerved him, also. He was suddenly convinced of the futility of
winning the love and confidence of Patricia, and, with an impulse
born, he could not have told when, or how, or why, he bent forward
quickly and touched his lips to Beatrice's forehead.

"Is it true, Beatrice? Is it true?" he asked her, in a low tone; and,
totally misunderstanding his question, entirely misconstruing it's
meaning, she replied:

"God help me, yes. God help us all."

Then, she lapsed again into unconsciousness.




CHAPTER VIII

BETWEEN DARKNESS AND DAYLIGHT


Sally Gardner had found time during this short scene to recover from
her moment of excitement. She had heard, and she thought she
understood. Being a many-sided young matron, the best one of all came
to the surface now--the one that even her best friends had never
supposed her to possess. Underneath her fun-and-laughter-loving
nature, Sally was gifted with more than her share of rugged
common-sense, inherited, doubtless, from her Montana ancestors.

Even as Duncan bent above Beatrice's unconscious form, and before he
spoke to her, Sally had started to her feet and pressed the
electric-button in the wall, with the consequence that, at the instant
when Beatrice became unconscious the second time, two of the servants
entered the room.

"Miss Brunswick has only fainted," she told them, rapidly. "Lift her,
and carry her to my room. Tell Pauline to care for her, and that I
shall be there, immediately." She stood aside while they carried out
her commands; then, she turned upon Duncan.

"You are a great fool, Roderick!" she exclaimed, without stopping to
weigh her words. "I thought you had some sense; but it seems that you
have none at all. Leave the house at once; and don't you dare to seek
Beatrice Brunswick, until you have settled, in one way or another,
your affairs with Patricia Langdon. Now, go! Really, I thought I liked
you, immensely, but, for the present moment, I am not sure whether I
hate you, or despise you! Do go, there's a good fellow; and I'll send
you word, in the morning, how Beatrice is."

"Sally, what a little trump you are!" he exclaimed. "I know I'm a
fool; I have certainly found it out during the last twelve or fourteen
hours. You'll have to help me out of this muddle, somehow; you seem to
be the only one in the lot of us who has any sense."

"Then, help yourself out of the house, as quickly as you know how,"
she retorted; and she ran past him up the stairs, toward the room
where she had directed that Beatrice should be taken.

Duncan sighed. He looked around him for his hat, to find that it was
still crushed down on the back of his head, and, smiling grimly to
himself, he passed out of the house upon the street.

       *       *       *       *       *

Only one of the great dailies of New York City, published that Sunday
morning, contained any reference whatever to the supposed incident of
the wedding ceremony between Roderick Duncan and Miss Brunswick, at
"The Little Church Around the Corner." The editors had been afraid to
use Radnor's story, without verification. To them, it had seemed
preposterous and unnatural, and especially were they reluctant to
print anything concerning it when Radnor was forced to admit to them
that Jack Gardner had ultimately denied the truth of the story he had
first told.

But there is one paper in the city that is always eager for
sensations, and unfortunately it is not very particular concerning the
use of them. This paper published a "story," as a newspaper would call
it, which was told so ambiguously and with such skill as to preclude
any possibility of a libelous action, while the suggestions it
contained were so strongly made that the article was entertaining, at
least, and it supplied, in many quarters, an opportunity for
discussion and gossip. It hinted at scandal in association with
Roderick Duncan and his millions. What more could be desired of it?

The story was merely a relation of the events as we know them, at the
outset. It told of the party in the box at the opera-house, of the
departure therefrom of Duncan and Miss Brunswick and of their
destination when they entered the taxicab; after that, everything
contained in the article, was surmise, but it was couched in such
terms that many who read it actually believed a marriage-ceremony had
taken place. During Sunday, Duncan was sought by reporters of various
newspapers. He readily admitted them to his presence, but would submit
to no interview further than to state that the rumor was absolutely
false, was utterly without foundation, and that he would prosecute any
newspaper daring to uphold it. Miss Brunswick could not be found by
these news-gatherers. Old Steve Langdon laughed when they sought him,
and assured them that there was no truth whatever in the rumor.
Patricia, naturally regarded as an interested party, declined to be
seen.

Radnor himself sought out Jack Gardner, but it is not necessary that
we should relate the particulars of that interview. Suffice it to say
that no further reference was made to the supposed incident by any
newspaper, and that it was quickly forgotten, save by a very few
individuals, who made it a point to remember.

During the day, Duncan sought to communicate with Sally Gardner over
the telephone, but succeeded only in obtaining a statement from one of
the footmen, to the effect that Mrs. Gardner presented her compliments
to Mr. Duncan, and wished it to be said that she would communicate
with him by letter; and that, in the meantime, there existed no cause
whatever, for anxiety on his part.




CHAPTER IX

PATRICIA'S COWBOY LOVER


On Sunday evening Patricia Langdon was alone in the library of her
home, occupying her favorite corner beneath the drop-light. For an
hour she had tried in vain to interest herself in the reading of the
latest novel. Try as she might, she could not center her mind upon the
printed words contained in the volume she held, for, inevitably, her
thoughts drifted away to the occurrences of the preceding day and
evening. No matter how assiduously she endeavored to put those
thoughts aside, they insisted upon looming up before her, and at last,
with a sigh, she closed her book and laid it aside. The hour was still
early, it being barely eight o'clock, when James, the footman, entered
the room and announced:

"Miss Houston; Miss Frances Houston."

Patricia had fully intended to instruct the servants that she was not
to be at home to anyone, that evening, but, absorbed by other
thoughts, she had forgotten to do so, and now it was too late; so she
received the two young ladies who were presently shown into the
library. She greeted them in her usual manner, which was neither
cordial, nor repellant, but which was entirely characteristic of this
rather strange young woman. She understood perfectly well why they had
called upon her at this time. They had not missed seeing that article
in the one morning paper where it appeared.

"You see, Patricia," exclaimed Miss Houston, whose given name was
Agnes, "Frances and I happened to read that remarkable tale that was
printed in one of the papers this morning, about a marriage between
Rod Duncan and Beatrice. We thought it so absurd: We couldn't resist
the temptation to come over to see you, for a few minutes this very
evening, and discuss it; could we, Frances?"

"No, indeed," replied her sister.

"I have not seen any such article," said Patricia; and, indeed, she
had not. "But I don't know why either of you should wish to discuss it
with me; so, if you don't mind, we'll change the subject before we
begin it."

"Why, you see," began Agnes Houston, with some evidence of excitement;
but she was fortunately interrupted by the footman, who entered, and
announced in his automatic voice:

"Mr. Nesbit Farnham."

The workings of the human mind will forever remain a mystery. Had
Nesbit Farnham been announced before the arrival of the two young
women, Patricia would undoubtedly have denied herself to him; but,
with the announcement of his name, there came to her the sudden
recollection of the ultimatum pronounced by Richard Morton the
preceding afternoon, when he had brought her home from her father's
office in his automobile, the tonneau of which had been occupied by
the two young women who were now present with her in the room. Why the
announcement of Farnham's name should remind her of Morton's promise
to call, this Sunday evening, cannot be said; but it did so, and she
nodded to James.

"Hello, Patricia!" Farnham exclaimed, as he entered the room
vigorously, for this young society beau and cotillion-leader had long
been on terms of intimacy with the Langdon household, and was, in
fact, a privileged character throughout his social set. "I am mighty
glad that you received me. It's rather an off night, you know, and I
wasn't sure, at all that you would do so. Good-evening, Agnes. How
are you, Frances? Jolly glad to see you. I say, Patricia, what's all
that nonsense I saw in the paper this morning, about Duncan and
Beatrice getting married last night? Do you know anything about it?"

"I know nothing whatever about it, Nesbit, save that it is untrue,"
replied Patricia, calmly. "That much I do know; but I don't care to
discuss it."

Farnham flirted his handkerchief from his pocket, and patted it softly
against his forehead, smiling gently as he did so. Then, he said:

"To tell you the truth, Patricia, the news was rather a facer, don't
you know; for my first impulse was to believe it. Oh, I won't discuss
it; you needn't frown like that; but I just want to tell you that I've
been looking all over town for Duncan, and I couldn't find him. Then,
about an hour ago, I called upon Beatrice, only to be informed that
she was not at home, and had not been, ever since yesterday evening.
You see, I didn't get out of bed till two this afternoon, and it was
four by the time I was dressed and on the street. I didn't take much
stock, myself, in the report I read in the paper, until I was told
that Beatrice had disappeared. But that got me guessing, and so I came
to you, to find out the truth about it. Please tell me again that it
isn't true, and I'll be satisfied."

"It isn't true," replied Patricia, calmly.

James, the footman, made another appearance on the scene at that
moment, and proclaimed the arrival of Mr. Richard Morton, who stepped
passed him into the library as soon as the announcement was made.

He stopped just inside the threshold, and the chagrin pictured upon
his face when he found that Patricia was not alone was so plainly
evident, that even Patricia smiled, in recognition of it. Morton was
known to Patricia's other callers, having met them frequently since
his coming to New York, and, as soon as greetings had been exchanged,
they all drifted into a general conversation, which had no point to it
whatever, but was, for the most part, the small-talk of such impromptu
social gatherings. The subject of the supposed clandestine
marriage-ceremony between Duncan and Beatrice was not mentioned again,
and fifteen minutes later Miss Houston and her sister arose to take
their departure. Farnham, also, got upon his feet, and, stepping
lightly and quickly across the room toward Patricia, said to her in a
low tone:

"Won't you tell me where I can find Beatrice? I think you can do so,
if you will. Please, Patricia. You know why I ask."

"If you should call upon Sally Gardner and ask her that question, I
think it would be answered satisfactorily," replied Patricia, smiling
at him. "Go and see her, Nesbit, by all means."

A moment later, Miss Langdon found herself alone with Morton, who,
true to his promise of the preceding evening, had come to her. She had
forgotten him temporarily, but now she was not sorry that he had
called. Nevertheless, as she turned toward him, after bidding her
friends good-night, Patricia was conscious that the atmosphere had
suddenly became surcharged with portentous possibilities. She had
recognized in that expression of disappointment, so plainly depicted
upon Morton's face when he entered the room, that he had come to her
with a self-avowed determination to continue the conversation
interrupted by the Houston girls when he was bringing her home, the
preceding afternoon. On the instant, she was sorry that she had
permitted the others to leave her alone with this man. For some
inexplicable reason, she was suddenly afraid of him. She who had never
acknowledged fear of any person, who had always met every circumstance
calmly as it arose, found herself confronted now by a condition of
affairs that rendered her less self-reliant. Her mind was in a turmoil
of a hundred doubts and fears, and there was a vague sense of
apprehension upon her, which she could not dismiss, and which she
found it difficult to control.

"I told you that I would come, Patricia, and I am here," said Morton,
stepping forward quickly, and taking one of her hands, before she
could resume her seat. She attempted to withdraw it, but he held it
firmly in his own strong clasp; and that expression of unrelenting
determination was again in his face and eyes.

"No, Patricia," he said calmly, but in a tone of finality which there
was no denying, "I will not release your hand, just yet." He was
half-smiling, but wholly insistent and determined. "You see," he went
on, "I am taking advantage of your known qualities of courage. I have
come to you, determined to say something--something that is very close
to me." Patricia's arm relaxed; she permitted her hand to lie limply
inside his larger one. Then, she raised her eyes to his, and looked
calmly up at him.

As he gazed steadily and keenly into her dark eyes, Morton's face was
pale, under the tan of his skin, and he had the look of one who
ventures his all upon a single chance. In that moment, Patricia
admired him more than she had ever before, and, as he continued to
gaze upon her, she permitted her features slowly to relax, and,
gradually, a winning smile, which to Richard Morton was overwhelming,
was revealed upon her lips and in her eyes.

"You have no right to speak to me like that, Mr. Morton," she said.
"Still less have you the right to hold my hand, against my will. The
men of my acquaintance, with whom I have associated all my life, would
not do as you are doing now; but"--she shrugged her shoulders--"I
suppose it is a matter of training."

The words were like a blow, although she smiled while she uttered
them. With a sharp exclamation that came very near to being an oath,
he threw her hand from him with such force that she was half-turned
around where she stood, and he started back two paces away from her,
and folded his arms.

"Thank you," said Patricia, still smiling; and she crossed to the
chair she had previously occupied.

Morton did not move from the position he had assumed. He stood with
folded arms in the middle of the room, staring at her with set face
and hard eyes, wondering for the moment why he had been fool enough to
go there at all, and trying to read in her face, what was the charm
of her that so fatally attracted him.

"I do a great many things, Miss Langdon, that I have no right to do,"
he said, after a pause. "That, also, is a matter of training, as you
so fittingly adjudged my conduct, just now. But I was trained in the
open country, where one can see the sky-line toward any point of the
compass; I was trained in the West, where a man is a man, and a woman
is a woman, and they are judged only by their conduct toward others,
and toward themselves. It is true that I know very little about this
Eastern training, to which you have just now called my attention, but
from what little I have seen of it, I can't believe that it is
wholesome, or good. I was trained to tell the truth, and to insist
that the truth be told to me; I find here, in the East, that the truth
is the very last thing to be uttered; that it is avoided as long as it
possibly can be. In this way, Miss Langdon, our trainings differ.
Naturally, then, I am not like the men of your knowledge."

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Morton, I didn't mean to give offense by what
I said." The girl was more amazed than she cared to show by his
vehemence.

"The fault is mine," he said to her. "I have no right to expect you to
meet me on the plane of my own past life, and with the freedom and
candor of the West, any more than you can demand from me, the usages
and customs of your social world in New York."

"Won't you sit down?" she asked him. She was beginning to be a bit
uneasy, because of Morton's determined attitude, and because she
realized that nothing she could say or do would turn him from his set
purpose of saying what he had come there to tell her.

"Not yet," he replied. "I can talk much better on my feet. I want you
to tell me what you meant by two expressions you used in your speech
with me yesterday, after you came from your father's office."

"We will not return to that subject, if you please, Mr. Morton," she
replied to him, coldly.

"Pardon me, Patricia, we must return to it--at least, I must. You
don't want me to kill anybody, do you?" He smiled grimly as he asked
the question, hesitatingly; "you need have no fear on that point, for
I probably won't have to."

"Probably won't have to kill anyone?" She raised her eyes to his, but
there was no fear in them; there was only amazement in their depths,
astonishment that he should dare to say such a thing to her.

"The qualification of my statement was made because I reserve the
right to do what I please, toward anyone who dares to bring pain upon
you, Patricia Langdon," he said, incisively; "but I tell you now that
I wouldn't trust myself not to kill--again my Western training is
uppermost, you see--if I were brought face to face with any man who
had dared to bring any sort of an affront upon you. Do you love this
man to whom you referred yesterday? Answer me!" The question came out
sharply and bluntly. It was totally unexpected, and it affected her
with a sort of shock she could not have described.

"You are impertinent," she replied.

"Impertinent, or not, I desire an answer. If you refuse an answer, I
shall find other means of ascertaining. Great God, girl, do you
suppose that, when my whole life is at stake, I am going to stand on
ceremony and surrender to a few petty conventions, just to please an
element of false pride that you have built around you, until there is
only one way of getting past it? I'm not the sort of man who stands
outside, and entreats. My training has taught me to get inside; and,
if there isn't a gate, or an opening of any sort, why, then I tear
down the barrier, just as I am doing now. Do you love that man?"

"I will not answer the question."

He laughed, shortly.

"From any other woman than you, such an answer as that would be
tantamount to an affirmative; but you are a puzzle, Patricia. You are
not like anybody else. There is a depth to you that I cannot sound.
There is a breadth to you that is like the open country of the
Northwest, where one cannot see beyond the sky-line, ever, and where
the sky-line remains, always, just so far away."

"I think I'll ask you to excuse me, Mr. Morton," she said, making as
if to rise. "This interview is not a pleasant one. You are not kind,
or considerate."

He did not move from his position, as he replied, as calmly as she had
spoken:

"I shall not go until I have finished. I came here to-night to tell
you, again, that I love you. You need not resent the telling of it,
for it can in no way offend you, or, at least, it should not. You told
me, yesterday, that you had agreed to some sort of business
transaction, as you called it, with some man whom you did not name,
by which you are to become his wife. I told you then, and I repeat
now, that, if you will but say you love this man, whoever he is, I'll
hit the trail for Montana without a moment's delay, and you shall
never be annoyed again by my Western training; so, answer me."

"I will not answer you." She looked him steadily in the eyes, and, all
unconsciously to herself, she could not avoid giving expression to
some small part of the admiration she felt for this daring, intrepid
ranchman, who defied her so openly, in the library of her own home.

"Who is the man?" he demanded, sharply.

"Again, I will not answer you."

"I shall find it out, then, and, when I have discovered who he is, I
shall go to him. Maybe, he will be able to answer the questions. If he
refuses, by God, I'll make him answer!"

She started from her chair, appalled by the implied threat. She did
not doubt that he meant every word of it.

"You would not dare do that!" she exclaimed. It was beyond her
knowledge that any man should have the courage so far to transgress
conventional usages. But he heard the word "dare," and applied to it
the only meaning he had ever known it to possess. He laughed outright.

"Not dare?" he exclaimed; and he laughed again. "I would dare
anything, and all things, in the mood I am in, just now."

Looking upon him, she believed what he said; and, strange to say, she
was more pleased than outraged by his determined demeanor.
Nevertheless, she realized that she was face to face with an emergency
which must be met promptly and finally, and so she left her chair, and
drew herself to her full height, directly in front of him.

"Mr. Morton," she said, slowly, and coldly, "I have had occasion, once
before, to refer to your training and to mine. We are as far apart as
if we belonged to different races of mankind. If you have really loved
me, which I doubt, I am sorry because of it, for I tell you, plainly
and truly, that I do not, and cannot, respond to you. I have given my
promise to another, and very shortly I shall be married. This sudden
passion for me that has come upon you, is an affair of the moment,
which you will soon forget when you become convinced that it is
impossible of fruition. I am the promised wife of another man, and
even your Western training, which you have chosen sarcastically to
refer to since I made my unfortunate remark about it, will tell you
that, no matter what rights you believe you possess, you certainly
have none whatever to compel me to listen to your declaration of
love." Her manner underwent a sudden and marked change, as she
continued rapidly, with a suggestion of moisture in her eyes: "Believe
me, I am intensely sorry for the necessity of this scene between us. I
do not, and I cannot, return the affection you so generously offer me;
and, whether I love another, or do not--whether I have ever loved
another, or have not--it would be the same, so far as you are
concerned. I am not for you, and I can never be for you, no matter
what may happen." She took a step nearer to him, and reached out her
hand, while she added, with her brightest smile: "But I like you, very
much, indeed. I should like to have you for a true, good friend. It
would be one of the proud moments of my life, if I could know that I
might rely upon you as such, and that you would not again transgress
in the way you have done to-night. Will you take my hand and be my
friend. Will you try and seek farther for someone who can appreciate
the love you have offered to me? I need a friend just now, Richard
Morton. Will you be that friend?"

For a time, he did not answer her. He stood quite still, staring into
her eyes, and through them and seemingly beyond them, while his own
face was hard, and set, and paler than she had ever seen it, before.
Presently, his lips relaxed their tension; the expression of his eyes
softened, and he drew his right hand across his brow.

He took the hand that was extended toward him, and held it between
both his own, and, for a full minute after that, he stood before her
in silence, while he fought the hardest battle of his life. When he
did speak, it was in an easy, careless drawl.

"I reckon you roped and tied me that time, Patricia," he said,
smilingly. "You've got your brand on me, all right, but maybe the iron
hasn't burnt quite as deep as it does sometimes; and, as you say,
possibly there will come a day when we can burn another brand on top
of it, so that the first one will never be recognized. Will I be your
friend? Indeed, I will, and I'll ask you, if you please, to forgive
and forget all my bad manners, and the harsh things I've said."

"It is not necessary to ask me that, Mr. Morton."

"Patricia, if you'll just call me Dick, like all the boys do, out on
the ranch, and if you'll grant me the permission which I have never
asked before, of addressing you as I have just now, it will make the
whole thing a heap-sight easier. Will you do it?

"I'd much rather call you Dick than anything else," she told him,
still permitting him to hold her hand clasped between his own.

He bent forward, nearer to her; and, although she perfectly understood
what he intended to do, she did not flinch, or falter.

He touched his lips lightly to her forehead, and then, with a
muttered, "God bless you, girl!" he turned quickly, and went out of
the room, leaving Patricia Langdon once again alone with her
thoughts.




CHAPTER X

MONDAY, THE THIRTEENTH


The monotonous, but not unpleasing voice of Malcolm Melvin began the
reading of the stipulations in the contract to the three persons who
were seated before him around the table in the lawyer's private
office. The time was Monday morning, shortly after ten o'clock.

"This agreement, hereinafter made, between Roderick Duncan, of the
City, County, and State of New York, party of the first part; Stephen
Langdon, of the same place, party of the second part; and Patricia
Langdon of the same place, party of the third part, as follows: First,
the party of the first part--"

"Just wait a moment, Mr. Melvin, if you please," Duncan interrupted
him. "If it is all the same to you, and to the other parties concerned
in this transaction, I don't care to hear all that dry rot, you have
written. If you will be so kind as simply to state in plain English
what the stipulations are, it will answer quite as well for the
others, and it will suit me a whole lot better."

"It is customary, Mr. Duncan, to listen carefully to a legal document
one is about to sign with his name," said the lawyer, with a dry
smile.

"I don't care a rap about that, Melvin; and you know I don't. The
others know it, too."

"I think," said Patricia, quietly, "that the papers should be read,
from beginning to end."

"Nonsense!" exclaimed her father; "and besides, Pat, I haven't time. I
ought to be down-town, right now. Let Melvin get over with this
foolish nonsense, as quickly as possible; and then, if you and
Roderick will only kiss, and make up--"

Patricia interrupted him:

"Very well, Mr. Melvin," she said. "You may state the substance of the
agreement."

The lawyer turned toward Duncan. There was a twinkle of amusement in
his eyes, although his face remained perfectly calm and
expressionless.

"According to these papers as I have drawn them, Mr. Duncan," he said,
slowly, "you loan the sum of twenty million dollars to Stephen
Langdon, accepting as security therefor, and in lieu of other
collateral, the stated promise of Miss Langdon to become your wife.
She reserves to herself, the right to name the wedding-day, provided
it be within a reasonable time."

"May I ask how Miss Langdon defines the words, a reasonable time?"
asked Duncan, speaking as deliberately as the lawyer had done. "As for
the loan to Mr. Langdon--he already has that. But, the reasonable
time: just what does that expression mean?"

"I suppose, during the season; say, within three, or six, months from
date," replied the lawyer.

"That will do very well, thank you. You may now go on." Duncan was
determined, that morning, to meet Patricia on her own ground.

"The loan you make to the party of the second part, to Mr. Langdon, is
to be repaid to you at his convenience, and with the legal rate of
interest, within one year from date. At the church where the wedding
ceremony shall take place, and immediately before that event, you are
to give to Miss Langdon, a cashier's check for ten-million dollars,
which she will endorse and send to the bank, before the ceremony
proceeds. It is Miss Langdon's wish to have her maiden name appear as
the endorsement on that check. Later, she will have the account
transferred from Patricia Langdon to Patricia Duncan. You are--"

"Just one moment, again, Mr. Melvin." Duncan reached forward and
pulled the papers toward him. "Will you please show me where I am to
sign? What remains of the stipulations, I can hear at another time.
Unfortunately, at the present moment, I am in haste, and I happen to
know that Mr. Langdon is very anxious to get away."

"Is it your habit to sign legal papers without reading them?" demanded
Patricia, with just a little touch of resentment in her tone. She had
rather prided herself upon the wording of this document, which she had
so carefully dictated to Melvin, and it hurt her to think that her
stipulations were passed over so easily.

But the lawyer, who saw in the whole circumstance nothing but a huge
joke, which would presently come to a pleasant end, had already
pointed out to Duncan the places on the three papers where he was to
put his signature, and the young man was signing them, rapidly. He did
not reply until he had written his name the third time. Then, he left
his chair, and with a low and somewhat derisive bow to his affianced
wife, said:

"No, Patricia, it is not; but these circumstances are different from
those in which one is usually called upon to sign documents. I
certainly should have no hesitation in accepting, without reserve,
any conditions which you chose to insist upon, so long as those
conditions, in the end, made you my wife. You may sign the papers at
your leisure; but I shall ask you to excuse me, now." He bowed
smilingly to her, shook hands with the lawyer, and called across the
table to the banker:

"So long, Uncle Steve; I'll see you later." A moment afterward the
door closed behind him.

"The whole thing looks to me like tomfoolery!" ejaculated the banker,
as he drew the papers toward him, and signed them rapidly. "Patricia,
you are the party of the third part, here, and you can sign them at
your leisure. I've got to go, also. Melvin, you can send my copy of
the contract direct to me, when it is ready."

"It is your turn now, Miss Langdon," said the lawyer, in his most
professional tone, as soon as her father had gone. But, instead of
signing, Patricia, for the first time since the beginning of this
confused condition of affairs, lost her pride and became the emotional
young woman that she really was.

Without a word of warning, she burst into a passion of tears. Throwing
her arms upon the table, she buried her face in them, and sobbed on
and on, convulsively, vehemently, inconsolably.

The lawyer, stirred out of his professional calm by this human side of
the cold and haughty young woman, placed one hand tenderly, if
somewhat tentatively, upon her shoulder. For a time, he patted her
gently, while he waited for her tempest to pass.

"There, there, my dear. Don't let it affect you so," he said. "It is
nothing but a storm-cloud, that will quickly pass away. It is just
like a thunder-shower, very dark while it lasts, but making all the
brighter the sunshine that follows it. I know how you have been tried,
and how your pride has been hurt; but, child, there are two kinds of
pride in everybody, and it is never quite easy to determine which is
which. I strongly suspect, my dear, that you have been actuated by a
feeling of false pride, in the position you have taken as to this
matter. I won't attempt to advise you, now. Don't sob so, my dear. It
will all come out right."

She raised her head from the table, and looked at him, pathetically.

"I am so sorry, Mr. Melvin," she said, slowly, with a catch in her
breath as she spoke. "I seem to have done everything wrong, in this
matter. I've made everybody unhappy." Again, she buried her face in
her arms, and sobbed on, with even more abandon than before.

"My child," said the lawyer, "I've lived long enough in the world to
discover that it is never wise to permit ourselves to be actuated by
false motives. You will discover the truth of that statement, later
on; you are only just beginning to realize it, now."

She made no reply to this, but a moment later she started to her feet,
and again became the haughty, self-contained, relentless, Juno.

"Give me the pen," she said. "I will sign."

"If you will take my advice," replied the lawyer, without moving, "you
will tear up those three documents, or direct me to do so, and leave
things as they are."

"No," she replied. "I will sign."

"Very well, Patricia." He pushed the documents toward her, and watched
her with a half-smile on his professional face, while she appended her
signature to each of them. A moment later, he escorted her from the
office, and assisted her into the waiting car. Then, he stood quite
still and watched it as it carried her away from the business-section
of the city. He shook his head and sighed, as he reëntered the
building where his office was located.

"Poor child," he was thinking to himself; "she didn't tee-off well, in
the beginning of this game, and she encountered the worst hazard of
her life when she came up against her own unyielding pride. Poor
child! So beautiful, so good, so tender of heart, she hides every real
emotion she possesses behind an impenetrable barrier, barring the
expressions of her natural affections with an icy shield which she
permits no one to penetrate. For just a moment, she let me see her as
she is; I wonder if she has ever permitted others." He got out of the
elevator, and walked slowly toward his office-door, pausing midway
along the corridor, and still thinking on, in the same fashion. "I
must find a way to help her, somehow. Old Malcolm Melvin, whose heart
is supposed to be like the parchments he works upon, must make himself
the champion of this misguided girl. Ah, well, we shall see what can
be done. We shall see; we shall see." He passed inside his office
then, and in a moment more had forgotten, in the multitudinous affairs
of his professional life, that such a person as Patricia Langdon
existed.

       *       *       *       *       *

That Monday, in the evening, at his rooms, Roderick Duncan received
two letters. One was delivered by messenger; the other came by post.
He recognized the handwriting on the envelope of each, and for a
moment hesitated as to which of the two he should read first. One, he
knew, was sent by Sally Gardner; the other was from Patricia.

He laid them on the table in front of him, and stood beside it looking
down upon the two envelopes with a half-smile upon his face, which was
weary and troubled; then, with a broader smile, he took a coin from
his pocket and flipped it in the air.

A glance at the coin decided him, and he took up Sally's letter and
broke the seal. He read:

"My Dear Roderick:

"I promised you, when you left me Saturday night, to communicate with
you at once. Beatrice is quite ill, although you are not to infer from
this statement that her indisposition it at all serious. I have merely
insisted that she should remain in bed at my house yesterday and
to-day.

"On no account should you seek her at present nor should you attempt
to communicate with her. I will keep you informed as to her condition
because I realize that you will be anxious, inasmuch as you doubtless
hold yourself responsible for the present state of affairs. Be
satisfied with that, and believe me,"

"Loyally your friend,

                                        "SALLY GARDNER.

"P. S. Doubtless you will see Jack at the club this evening. Let me
advise you not to discuss with him anything that happened Saturday
night after his departure with Patricia. I have thought it best to
keep that little foolish affair a secret between ourselves.

                                        S. G."

Duncan stood for a considerable time with the letter held before his
eyes, while he went over in his mind the chain of incidents that
followed upon his meeting with Beatrice Brunswick in the box at the
opera-house. Presently, he returned the letter to the envelope, and
laid it aside, while he took up the other one, addressed in the
handwriting of Patricia.

He read it slowly, with widening eyes; and then he read it again, more
slowly, as if he were not certain that he had read it aright before.
Finally, with something very nearly approaching an oath, he crushed
the short document in his hand, and strode to the window, where he
stood for a long time, staring out into the darkness, without moving.
His valet entered the room and made some remark about dressing him for
the evening, but Duncan sharply ordered the man away, telling him to
return in half an hour. Afterward he went back to the table where
there was more light, and smoothed out the crumpled page of
Patricia's letter, so that he could read it a third time.

It was very short and very much to the point; and it had brought with
it a greater shock than he could possibly have anticipated. The
strange part of it was that he did not comprehend the precise
character of that shock. He did not know whether he was pleased, or
displeased; whether he was amused, or angry--or only startled.
Certainly, he had never thought of expecting such a communication as
this from Patricia Langdon. The letter was as follows:

Four, P. M., Monday.

"Dear Roderick:

"According to the document signed jointly by you, my father and
myself, and witnessed by Mr. Malcolm Melvin at his office at ten
o'clock this morning, I was given the undisputed right to name the day
for the ceremony, which is to complete the transaction as agreed upon
among us three, but more particularly between you and me. I have
thought the matter over calmly and dispassionately, since I parted
with you at the lawyer's office, and have decided that, all things
considered, it will be best not to defer too long the conditions of
that transaction.

"I have decided that the ceremony--a quiet one--shall be performed by
the Rev. Dr. Moreley, at the Church of the Annunciation, at ten
o'clock in the morning, one week from to-day, which will be Monday,
the thirteenth.

"If there should be any important reason why you prefer to change this
date, you may communicate the same to me at once, and I shall consider
it; but if not, I greatly prefer that matters should stand as I have
arranged them.

                                        "PATRICIA LANGDON."




CHAPTER XI

MORTON'S ULTIMATUM


Oddly enough, Roderick Duncan and Richard Morton had never met.
Although Morton, during the two weeks of his acquaintance with
Patricia Langdon, had been as constantly in her company as it was
possible for him to be, there had been no introduction between the two
young men. They frequented the same clubs, and Morton had made the
acquaintance of many of Duncan's friends; they knew each other by
sight, and Duncan had heard, vaguely and without particular interest,
that Morton had fallen under the spell of Patricia's stately
loveliness. That was a circumstance which had suggested no misgivings
whatever to him. He had long been accustomed to such conditions, for
it was a rare thing that a man should be presented to Patricia without
being at once attracted and charmed by her physical beauty, as well as
by her brilliancy of wit.

It was, therefore, with unmasked astonishment that, upon responding to
a summons at his door, still holding Patricia's letter in his hand,
he found himself face to face with the young Montana cattle-king.

"Mr. Roderick Duncan, I believe?" said Morton, without advancing to
cross the threshold when Duncan threw open the door.

"Yes," he replied. "Won't you come inside, Mr. Morton? I know you very
well, by sight and name, and, although it has not been my privilege to
meet you socially, you are quite welcome. Come inside, won't you?"

The handsome young ranchman bowed, and passed into the room. He strode
across it until he was near one of the windows; then, he turned to
face Duncan, who had re-closed the door, and had followed as far as
the center-table where he now stood, gazing questioningly at his
visitor.

"Won't you be seated, Mr. Morton?" Duncan asked.

"Thank you, no. I intend to remain only a moment, and it is possible
that the question I have come to ask you may not be agreeable for you
to hear, or to answer. If you will repeat your request after I have
asked the question, I shall be glad to comply with it."

"I haven't the least idea what you are talking about, Mr. Morton,"
said Duncan, smiling, "and I can't conceive how any question you care
to put to me would be offensive. However, have it your own way. Will
you tell me, now, what that remarkable question is?"

Morton was standing with his feet wide-apart, and with his back to the
window. His hands were thrust deep into his trousers-pockets. He
looked the athlete in every line of his muscular limbs and body, and
the frankness and openness of his expression at once interested
Duncan.

"Mr. Duncan," he said, "in the country I come from, we do things
differently from the way you do them here. I was born on a ranch in
Eastern Montana, and I have lived all my life in a wild country. I
began my career as a cow-puncher, when I was sixteen, and not until
the last two or three years of my life have I known anything at all of
that phase of existence which is expressed by the word 'society.' I
indulge in this preamble in order to apologize in advance, for any
breaks I may make in that mystical line of talk which you call, 'good
form.'"

Duncan nodded his head smilingly, and Morton continued:

"Several years ago, I made my 'pile,' as we express it out there, and
since that time it has steadily increased in size, so that, lately, I
have indulged myself in an attempt to 'butt in' upon the people in
'polite society.' The question I have to ask you will amaze and
astonish you, but I shall explain it, in detail, if you desire me to
do so."

"Very well, Mr. Morton, what is the question?"

"Are you engaged to marry Miss Patricia Langdon?" demanded Morton,
abruptly; and there was a tightening of his lips and a slight forward
thrust of his aggressive chin.

Duncan received the question calmly. He thought, afterward, that he
had almost anticipated it, although he could not have told why he
should do so. He permitted nothing of the effect the question had upon
him to appear in the expression of his face, or eyes, and he continued
to gaze smilingly into the face of the young ranchman, while he
replied:

"I see no objection to answering your question, Mr. Morton, although I
do not in the least understand your reason for asking it. Miss Langdon
and I are engaged to be married, and the wedding-day is already fixed.
It is to be next Monday morning, at ten o'clock. I hope, sir, that you
are quite satisfied with the reply?"

Morton did not speak for a moment, but he reached out one hand and
rested it on the back of a chair, near which he was standing. Duncan,
perceiving the gesture, asked again:

"Won't you be seated, Mr. Morton?"

"Thank you, yes."

He dropped his huge body upon the leather-upholstered chair beside
him, and crossed one leg over the other, while Duncan retained his
attitude beside the table, still with that questioning expression in
his eyes.

"I suppose I ought to make some farther explanation," said Morton,
presently. He spoke with careful deliberation, choosing his words as
he did so and evidently striving hard to maintain complete composure
of demeanor under circumstances that rendered the task somewhat
difficult.

"I think one is due to me," was the reply.

"Mr. Duncan, when I hit the trail for this room, to have this talk
with you, I sure thought that I had mapped out pretty clearly what I
had to say to you. I find now that it's some difficult to express
myself. If we were seated together in a bunk-house on a ranch in
Montana, I could uncinch all that's on my mind, without any trouble. I
hope you don't mind my native lingo."

"Not in the least," replied Duncan, still smiling. "I find it very
expressive, and quite to the point."

"Well, it's this way: I arrived in the city about three weeks ago, and
one of the first persons I met up with, who interested me was Miss
Langdon. There isn't any reason that I know of why I shouldn't admit
to you that she interested me more, in about three seconds of time,
than anybody else has ever succeeded in doing, during the twenty-eight
years I have lived. I was roped, tied, and branded, quicker than it
takes me to tell you of it; and the odd part of the whole thing is
that I enjoyed the experience, instead of resenting it. I think it was
the second time I met up with her when I told her about it, and it is
only fair to her, and to you, to admit that she said 'No,'
Johnny-on-the-spot. But, somehow, it didn't strike me that it was a
final 'no,' or that she had anybody's brand on her; and so I didn't
lose the hope that some day I might induce her to accept mine. Last
Saturday afternoon, I took her in my car, in company with two other
ladies, to her father's office, down-town. She had an interview with
her father and somebody else, I suspect, while she was in the office,
and whatever that interview was, I am plumb certain that it didn't
please her. She come out of the building with her eyes blazing like
two live coals, and she was mad enough to shoot, if I am any judge."

He paused, as if expecting some comment from Duncan, but the latter
made no remark at all; nor did he change his attitude or the smiling
expression of his face. Truth to tell, he was more amused than
offended by the other's confidences. Morton continued:

"I had half-promised Miss Langdon that I wouldn't speak to her again
of love, but I sure couldn't hold in, that afternoon. I needn't tell
you what I said; but the consequence of it was that she told me she
had just concluded a business transaction--that was the expression she
used--by which she had promised to marry a man whom she would not
name. Since that time, I have studied the situation rather deeply,
with the result that I came to the conclusion you were the man to whom
she referred. That is why I have called upon you this evening, to ask
you the question you have just answered."

"Well?" said Duncan. His smile was more constrained, now.

"I'm sure puzzled to know what Miss Langdon means by the 'business
transaction' part of it, Mr. Duncan, and I have come up here, to your
own room, to tell you that, if Patricia Langdon loves you--"

"One moment, if you please, Mr. Morton. Don't you think you're going
rather too far, now?"

"No sir, I don't."

"Very well, I'll listen to you, to the end."

"If Patricia Langdon loves you, Duncan, I'll hit the trail for Montana
and the sky-line this afternoon, and I'll ask you to pardon me for any
break I have made here, this evening; but, if she doesn't love you,
and if, as I suspect, you are coercing her in this matter--"

Again, Duncan interrupted the ranchman. He did it this time by
straightening his tall figure, and raising one hand for silence.

"I think, Mr. Morton," he said, coldly, "that you are presuming rather
too far. These are personal matters between Miss Langdon and myself,
which I may not discuss with you."

Morton sprang to his feet, and faced Duncan across the table.

"By God! you've got to discuss this with me!" he said; and his jaws
snapped together, while he bent forward, glaring into Duncan's eyes.
"I've got to know one thing from you, Mr. Roderick Duncan; and I've
got just one more thing to say to you!"

"Well, what is it?"

The question was cold and very calm. Duncan's temper was rising.

"I'll say it mighty quick and sudden. It is this: If you are forcing
Patricia Langdon into this marriage against her will, I'll kill you."




CHAPTER XII

THE QUARREL


Duncan's first impulse, begotten by the sudden anger that blazed
within him, was to resent most bitterly the threat thus made against
him. But, behind his anger, he was conscious of a certain feeling of
respect and admiration for this frank-faced, keen-eyed young Montana
ranchman. He saw plainly that Morton was in deadly earnest in what he
had said; but he realized, also, that Morton's resentment, as well as
the threat he had made, was due, not to any personal feeling harbored
against the man he now faced, but was entirely the result of the sense
of chivalry which the Western cowboy inevitably feels for every woman.
Duncan understood, thoroughly, that Morton's sole desire was to
announce himself as prepared to protect, to the last ditch, the young
woman with whom he had fallen so desperately in love; and for this
Duncan respected and esteemed the man.

In this instance, Duncan was a good reader of character, and, before
venturing to reply to the last remark of Morton's, he compelled
himself to silence; he tried to put himself in this young man's place,
wondering the while if under like circumstances he would have had the
courage to do as Morton had done.

"Sit down again, Mr. Morton," he said, presently, waving his hand
toward the chair the ranchman had previously occupied.

"No, sir; not until you have answered me."

Duncan smiled, now. He had entirely regained his composure, and was
thoroughly master of his own ugly temper, and of the situation, also,
as he believed.

"Mr. Morton," he said, "when you entered this room, I did you the
honor to listen to your unprecedented statement, without interruption.
I now ask you to treat me as fairly as I treated you. Be seated, Mr.
Morton, and hear what I have to say."

The ranchman flushed hotly, at once realizing that this young
patrician of the East, had, for the moment got the better of him. He
resumed his seat upon the chair, and absent-mindedly withdrew from one
of his pockets a book of cigarette-papers and a tobacco-pouch.

"Morton," said Duncan, "I am going to speak to you as man to man; just
as I think you would like to have me do. I am going to meet you on
your own ground, that of perfect frankness; for I do you the honor to
believe that you are entirely sincere in your attitude, in your
conduct, and in what you have said to me."

"You're sure right about that, Mr. Duncan. Whatever may be said about
Dick Morton, there is nobody--at least nobody that's now alive--who
has ever cast any doubts upon my sincerity, or my willingness to back
up whatever I may have to say."

"You came here out of the West, Morton, and, as you express it, met up
with Patricia Langdon. In your impulsive way, you fell deeply in love
with her, almost at first sight."

"That's no idle dream."

"You conceived the idea that she wore nobody's brand, which is another
expression of your own, which I take to mean that you thought her
affections were disengaged."

"That was the way I sized it up, Mr. Duncan."

"Therefore, I will tell you that Patricia and I have been intimate
companions, since our earliest childhood. I can't remember when I have
not thought her superior to any other woman, and I have always
believed, as I now believe, that deep down in her inmost heart she
loves me quite as well as I love her. There was an unfortunate
circumstance, connected with our present engagement, which,
unfortunately, I cannot explain to you, since it is another's secret,
and not mine. But I shall explain, so far as to say that the
circumstance deeply offended her; that when she made the remark to
you, in the automobile, which aroused your resentment, she did it in
anger; that, far from coercing her in this matter, I have not done so,
and have not thought of doing so; and, lastly, I shall tell you, quite
frankly, that the engagement between Patricia and myself and the date
of the wedding which is to follow are both matters which she has had
full power to arrange to her own satisfaction."

Duncan hesitated a moment, and then, as Morton made no response, he
suddenly extended Patricia's letter, which he still held in his hand.

"Read that," he said. "I don't know why I show it to you, save that I
feel the impulse to do so. It is entirely a confidential
communication, and I call upon you to treat it as such. But read the
letter from Patricia Langdon, which I have just received, Mr. Morton;
it will probably make you wiser on many points that now confound you."

Morton accepted the letter, but the lines of his face were hard and
unrelenting; his jaws and lips were shut tightly together; his
aggressive chin was thrust forward just a little bit, and his hazel
eyes were cold and uncompromising in their expression.

He read the letter through to the end, without a change of expression;
then, he read it a second time, and a third. At last, he slowly left
his seat, and, stepping forward, placed the document, which he had
refolded, upon the table. He reached for his hat, and smoothed it
tentatively with the palm of one of his big hands. But all the while
he kept his eyes fixed sternly upon the face of the young Croesus he
had gone there to interview.

"Mister Roderick Duncan," he drawled, in a low, even tone, "I don't
savvy this business, a little bit. Just for the moment, I don't know
what to make of you, or of Miss Langdon, but I am going to work it out
to some sort of a conclusion; and, when I have found the answer to the
questions that puzzle me now, I'll let you know."

He moved quickly toward the door, but with the lightness of a panther
Duncan sprang between it and him.

"One moment, Morton," he said, coldly.

"Well, sir?"

"I have been very patient with you, and extremely considerate, I
think, of your importunities and your insolence; but you try my
patience almost too far. Take my advice, and don't meddle any farther
in matters that do not, and cannot, concern you."

For a moment, the two men faced each other in silence, and both were
angry. Duncan was not less tall than Morton, but was slighter of
build, and very different--with the difference that will never cease
to exist between the well-groomed thoroughbred of many experiences
and the blooded young colt. Morton's wrath flamed to the surface, and,
forgetting for the moment that he was not upon his native heath, that
he was not dressed and accoutred as was his habit when riding the
range, he reached down for the place where his holster and
cartridge-belt would have been located had he been dressed in the
cowboy costume of his native Montana.

It was a gesture as natural to the young ranchman as it was to
breathe, and he was ashamed of it the instant it was made. He would
have apologized had he been given time to do so. Indeed, he did flush
hotly, in his confusion. But Duncan, quite naturally, misinterpreted
the act. He thought, and with good reason, that Morton was reaching
for his gun; the flush of shame on Morton's cheeks served only to
strengthen the conviction. And so, with a cat-like swiftness, he took
one step forward and seized the wrist of Morton's right arm, twisting
it sharply and bending it backward with the same motion, whereby the
ranchman was thrown away from him, and was brought up sharply against
the table, in the middle of the room.

Duncan was smiling again now; but it was the smile of intense anger,
and not pleasant to see. Without waiting for Morton to recover
himself, Duncan calmly turned his back upon the ranchman, and threw
open the door; then, stepping away from it, he said, with quiet
dignity:

"This is your way out, sir."




CHAPTER XIII

SALLY GARDNER'S PLAN


What might have happened between those two fiery natures at that
crisis will never be known, because at the moment when Duncan threw
the door ajar, and uttered his dismissal, Jack Gardner appeared
suddenly upon the scene, having just stepped from the elevator. If he
heard that expression of dismissal, he showed no evidence of it, or he
did not comprehend its significance; and, if he saw in the attitude of
the two men anything out of the ordinary, he gave no sign that he did
so. But Jack Gardner, too, was from Montana; and he had learned, long
ago, how to conduct himself in emergencies. It was a fortunate
interruption, all around. Duncan, although apparently calm, was in a
white rage. He would not have hesitated to meet Morton more than
half-way, in any manner by which the latter might choose to show his
resentment for the twisted arm. As it was, Gardner was the savior of
the situation.

"Hello, Duncan! How are you?" he exclaimed, in his usual manner.
"Why, Dick! I didn't expect to find you here; didn't know that you and
Dun were acquainted." He shook hands with both the men, one after the
other, in his accustomed hearty and irresistible manner, grinning at
them and utterly refusing to see that there was restraint in the
manner of either.

"It is my first acquaintance with Mr. Morton," replied Duncan easily,
and touched a lighted match to the cigar he had previously taken from
his case. He was, outwardly, entirely at ease. "He did me the honor to
call upon me, and we have been chatting together for more than half an
hour. Will you sit down, Jack? Mr. Morton, be seated again, won't
you?"

The ranchman looked upon his late antagonist with utter amazement. It
was an exhibition of a kind of self-control that was strange to him.
It angered him, too, because of his own inability to assume it. He was
suddenly ashamed. Patricia's reference to his "training," recurred to
him. He understood, now, exactly what she had meant--it had not been
plain to him before. Here before him was "the man of the East," at
whom he had so often scoffed, for the word "Tenderfoot" had, until
now, been synonymous with contempt. But Morton felt himself to be the
tenderfoot, in the present case. He replied, stiffly, to the
invitation to be seated.

"Thank you," he said. "I find that I am neglecting an engagement." It
was the only excuse he could think of.

"Wait just a minute, Dick, and I'll go along with you," said Gardner.
"I only stepped in a moment to give Duncan a message from my wife. She
says, Roderick, that she would like to have you drop around at the
house, for a moment, if you can make it. She is not going out. Now,
Dick, if you are ready, I'm with you. So long, Duncan; I'll see you
later, at the club."

       *       *       *       *       *

Just previous to Jack Gardner's interruption of the almost tragic
scene at Duncan's rooms, he had been having what he called "a
heart-to-heart" talk with his wife, and the message he now delivered
to his friend from Sally was, in part, the outcome of that interview.

Sally Gardner had been greatly troubled since the occurrences of
Saturday night. Being herself intensely practical, she had sought
deeply, through her reasoning powers, to find a means whereby she
might be instrumental in helping out of their difficulties her
several friends whom she so dearly loved. She believed that she had
succeeded in hitting upon a scheme which would, at least, bring things
to a focus. She was sure that, if she could bring all the parties
together under one roof, matters would straighten themselves without
much outside assistance. Jack and Sally owned a beautiful country
place, within easy motoring distance of the city, and the young
matron, having decided upon what course she would adopt, had lost no
time in summoning her husband to her, taking him into her confidence,
and convincing him of the wisdom of her project.

"Jack," she told him, when he was seated opposite her, "I don't
suppose you realize into what a terrible mess and muddle you got
things last Saturday night, by reason of your fondness for a joke?"

"Oh, confound it, Sally, drop it!" he exclaimed, smiling, but annoyed
nevertheless.

"No," she said, "we can't drop it, Jack. You're responsible for the
whole affair. I have seen the necessity of finding a way out of it,
for all of us--although my heart bleeds for poor Beatrice."

Jack shrugged his shoulders, and lighted a cigar. Then, he thrust his
feet far out in front of him, and studied the toes of his tan shoes
intently.

"What's the matter with Beatrice?" he asked, presently.

"She is in love with Roderick Duncan," replied his wife, with an
emphatic nod of her blond head.

"Eh? What's that? In love with Rod? Nonsense!"

"She is, Jack; I know she is."

"Gee, little girl, but it surely is a mix up! What are you going to do
about it? Why in blazes didn't she marry him, then, when she had the
chance?"

"I've thought of a way Jack, if you will agree to it, and help me
out--a way by which things can be smoothed over. Will you help me?"

"Yes, I will. What is it?"

"Could you tear yourself away from the city for two or three days,
beginning to-morrow morning?" she asked him.

"I guess so, Sally."

"Are you willing to go out to Cedarcrest for a few days, and entertain
a select party, there?"

"Suit me to death, girl. Glad you thought of it. Whom will you ask?
And what is the game?"

"I have made out a list," replied Sally, meditatively. "I shall read
it off to you, if you will listen."

"Go ahead."

"It includes Beatrice and Patricia, of course; Dick Morton and--"

"Wait a moment, Sally. I've got a sort of a notion in my head that
neither Beatrice nor Patricia, will care to go to Cedarcrest on such
an expedition as that, under the present circumstances."

"My dear John"--she sometimes called him John when she was
particularly in earnest, and when she attempted to be especially
dignified--"you may leave all the details of this arrangement to me. I
merely wished your consent to the plan."

"Oh, well, if you can manage it, Sally, you've got my consent, all
right. What do you want me to do about it? You didn't have to consult
me, you know."

"I want you, first, to listen to the list I have made out, and, after
that, to carry out my directions in regard to it."

"Good girl; I can do that, too."

"Patricia and Beatrice, Roderick Duncan and the Houston girls, Richard
Morton, Nesbit Farnham; and, to supply the other two men who will be
necessary to make up the party, you yourself may make the selection. I
only wish them to be the right sort."

"What's the scheme, Sally?"

"I want to get these warring elements together, under one roof."

"Whew! You've got more pluck than I thought you had, Sally."

"Listen, Jack: When you go out this evening, find Roderick, and send
him here, to me. I have written him not to come here, but that won't
make any difference. He'll come if you give him my message. Afterward,
you may look up Dick Morton, and the other two men you are to ask, and
give them the invitation."

"For when?"

"For to-morrow. Tell them all to be at Cedarcrest before dark,
to-morrow. That is all. As I said before, I'll attend to the details."

Jack Gardner left his chair, and, having kissed his wife, was on the
point of departure when he paused a moment on the threshold, and,
looking back over his shoulder, said, laughingly:

"Sally, I always gave you credit for having more sand than any three
ordinary women I've ever known, but, I'll give you my word, I never
supposed you had grit enough to undertake any such thing as this one.
Talk about me getting things into a mess! Great Scott! if you don't
get into one, out at Cedarcrest, with that sort of a mix-up to take
care of, I'm a sheep-herder. Maybe you haven't got on to the fact, my
girl, but, as sure as you're the best little woman in all New York,
Dick Morton is so dead stuck on Patricia Langdon that he can't forget
it for a minute. If you bring all that bunch together, you'll have Rod
Duncan and Dick at each other's throat, before you get through with
it. And besides--"

Sally sprang to her feet, clapped her hands and laughed, to her
husband's utter amazement.

"Splendid!" she exclaimed. "No, I did not know that; but it simplifies
matters, wonderfully, Jack."

"Oh, does it?"

"Assuredly."

"Huh! I'm glad you think so. It looks to me as if it were just the
other way around. Take my word for it, my girl, there'll be a 'will'
in that drive of yours--maybe a tragedy, as well. Duncan is quite
capable of committing one, in his present mood; and Dick
Morton?--Well, you'll see."

"I'm awfully glad you told me. It's perfectly splendid," said Sally,
unmindful of, or indifferent to, the warning. "It's perfectly
splendid!"

"Oh, it is, eh? Well, I'm glad you think so. To me, it looks a good
deal like a mix-up, Sally. Rod is in love with Patricia; Beatrice is
in love with him; Nesbit Farnham is so dead stuck on Beatrice that he
doesn't know where he's at, more than half the time; and Patricia--Oh,
well, I give it up. I'll do what you told me to, and leave the rest to
you;" and Gardner laughed his way through the hall and out upon the
street; and he continued chuckling to himself, all the way to his
club. But Sally ran after him before he got quite away from her, and
called to him from the bottom of the steps.

"One thing more, Jack," she said.

"Well, my dear; what is it?"

"We will take Beatrice with us, in our car, and you may include one of
the gentlemen I have given you permission to ask. When you ask Dick
Morton, tell him that he is to bring Patricia and the two Houston
girls. That's all."

"How about the others, how are they going to get there?"

"The others may walk, for all I care," said Sally, and she returned to
the library.




CHAPTER XIV

PATRICIA'S WILD RIDE


It was a gay party that assembled around the dinner-table at
Cedarcrest, shortly after eight o'clock on Tuesday evening, although,
had one possessed the ability to analyze deeply, it would have been
discovered that the gaiety was somewhat forced. Each person present at
the gathering was burdened by the intuitive perception of something
ominous in the atmosphere; there was a portentous quality about the
environment that had more or less a depressing effect upon Sally
Gardner's guests, and each one was conscious of a determined, but
silent effort to overcome this feeling, in the belief that he or she
was the only one who experienced it.

Two of the expected guests had not arrived. They were Patricia and
Richard Morton; but, because no message of any sort had been received
from Morton, it was the generally accepted idea, that something had
happened on the road to delay his car, and they were expected to
arrive at any moment. The serving of the dinner was delayed as long
as possible in expectation of their coming, but at last the other
guests seated themselves around the table to enjoy the feast so
carefully prepared by Jack Gardner's high-salaried chef. Agnes and
Frances Houston, who were to have come out in Richard Morton's car
with Patricia, arrived on time, accompanied by an uninvited guest,
although he was one who was on such terms of intimacy with the
Gardners that he had not hesitated to attend this country party, when
the idea was suggested to him. It was the lawyer, Melvin; and the
suggestion that he should be present, and that he should take out the
Houston girls, had, strangely enough, been made by Morton. The young
ranchman had gone to the lawyer's office early in the day of that
Tuesday, and the conversation he held with Melvin will give a good
idea of the drift of his intentions, and of his hitherto latent
talents for planning and scheming. And the shrewd old lawyer quite
readily fell in with the suggestions that were made to him.

The invitation extended to Morton, the preceding evening, by Jack
Gardner, and the directions given him at the time, as to whom he
should take with him to the party, had suggested to him a novel plan,
which he lost no time in taking measures to carry out. It is true, he
was delighted on learning that he was expected to take Patricia to
Cedarcrest, but he was just as greatly disappointed by the idea that
Agnes and Frances Houston were to occupy the tonneau of his car, and
therefore he planned to avoid the disturbing element. The presence of
the lawyer at the club where Gardner and Morton held their
conversation, suggested to the latter what he would do, for he knew of
the intimate friendly relations existing between Melvin and the
Gardners, and did not doubt that the great legal light would be an
acceptable addition to the party which Sally had planned. Had he known
all of Sally's reasons for the arrangements she had made, and had he
realized exactly why the party had been got up, he might have
hesitated to do what he did; possibly, he would have refused to attend
at all--but developments will show how he took the information, when
at last it was given to him. It must be remembered that Morton knew
nothing at all of the real incidents of the preceding Saturday, and
was aware only of the fact that something was wrong; that something
had occurred to annoy and disturb Patricia Langdon out of her
customary self-repose. Nevertheless, Morton was convinced,
notwithstanding his interview with her and with Duncan, that she was
somehow being forced into a position abhorrent to her. He had
promised to be her friend, and Dick Morton knew of only one way to
fulfill that promise. Whatever he undertook to do, he did thoroughly,
and always his first impulse, whenever one of his friends needed aid
of any sort, was to fight for that friend.

His initial occupation that Tuesday morning was to visit the garage
where his two automobiles were kept, and the instructions to his
chauffeur were given rapidly and to the point. An hour later, when he
called upon the lawyer, he said, after greetings had been exchanged:

"Melvin, I don't know whether you are aware of it or not, but Jack
Gardner and his wife are having a little impromptu house-party, at
their place, Cedarcrest, beginning at dinner time, this evening. I
believe it is to continue till the week-end, and of course I know it
is impossible for you to leave your business for that length of time;
but I--"

"What are you talking about, Morton?" the lawyer interrupted him.
"Neither Jack nor Sally have thought to invite me to their gathering."

"Oh, well, that doesn't count, you know--not in this instance. I want
you to do me a favor. That's the size of it. The point is this: I was
told to take Miss Langdon and the Misses Houston, to Cedarcrest, in my
White Steamer. I have just discovered that the car is temporarily out
of commission, and so I am reduced to the necessity of using my
roadster. I came down here to ask you to take the Houston girls to
Cedarcrest, for me."

The shrewd old lawyer threw back his head, and laughed, heartily.

"You're not very deep, Morton," he said, presently. "I can see through
you as plainly as if you were a plate-glass window. You have come here
to induce me to relieve you of the necessity of taking Agnes and
Frances Houston to Cedarcrest, in order that you may have Patricia
Langdon alone with you in your roadster. And I'll wager that your
chauffeur is out of commission, too."

"There will be my machinist in the rumble-seat," replied Morton,
blushing furiously. "You see, Melvin, I happen to know that you are
always an acceptable addition to any party at that house, and--and
so--"

The lawyer laughed again, and raised his hand for silence.

"Don't try to explain," he said, still chuckling. "'Least said,
soonest mended,' you know. I'll help you out, for I don't think your
suggestion is a bad one, at all. You may leave it all to me, without
even going so far as to communicate with the two members of your
party whom you wish to rid yourself of. I'll attend to that, by
telephoning; and I'll take them to Cedarcrest for dinner, and remain
for the night; but I shall have to return early to-morrow morning.
When the hour comes for you to start, Morton, you have only to drive
around after Miss Langdon." Thus, it happened that, when the party was
seated in the splendidly decorated dining-room at Cedarcrest, there
were two absentees; as there was, also, one guest who had not been
expected, and who, for once in his life, was not entirely welcome at
Sally Gardner's country home. For Sally had a wholesome respect for,
as well as an intuitive perception of, the old lawyer's shrewdness.
Quick to scent a plot of any sort, Mrs. Gardner saw in this
incident--the arrival of Melvin with the Houston girls, and the
absence of her star guest and escort--certain circumstances that
smelled strongly of pre-arrangement. She remembered what her husband
had said to her, the preceding day, when she suggested the party; she
recalled Jack's statement to the effect that Morton was in love with
Patricia, and, because her acquaintance with the young cattle-king had
begun in their childhood in Montana, she realized just what he was
capable of doing, if by any chance he had been made aware of the
circumstances which were the occasion of the gathering at Cedarcrest.
Melvin had explained, in as few words as possible, how it happened
that he was there; but his explanation only added to the foreboding in
Sally Gardner's mind, which grew and grew when daylight faded to
twilight, and then to darkness, and still Morton's roadster had not
arrived.

Nesbit Farnham was in the seventh heaven of bliss because he was
seated at the table beside Beatrice, who bore no outward evidence of
having been ill, and who, for the moment at least, was the life of the
party; for she compelled herself to a certain gaiety of manner which
she did not feel. Duncan had been told, by his host, to bring out the
two men who were to complete the party, and he had given little
thought to the arrangement made for him until after his arrival at
Cedarcrest, when he discovered that the young ranchman and Patricia
were alone together, somewhere on the road between the city and their
destination. He felt certain misgivings, then, although he could not
have defined them; but he recalled the scene that had occurred between
himself and Morton, the preceding evening, which had so nearly
developed into an open quarrel, and he wondered what the strenuous
young ranchman might not attempt to do, in making the most of the
opportunity thus afforded him.

Patricia Langdon had received her invitation to Sally's party, and had
given her reluctant acceptance, over the telephone, at a late hour the
preceding evening. Sally had also told Patricia of the arrangement
made for taking her to Cedarcrest. The girl had demurred, at first,
and expressed a desire to use her own car; but she had been argued
into a final acceptance of Sally's arrangement. It was, therefore,
with some amazement that she received Richard Morton, at four o'clock
Tuesday afternoon, when he went after her with his roadster, and
discovered that they were to ride alone together, to Cedarcrest; for
Morton had decided to do without the services of his machinist this
afternoon. He was determined to have no third person present, during
the thirty miles drive from the city. The lawyer's shrewd guess about
the chauffeur being put out of commission had certainly furnished a
suggestion for Morton to follow. Patricia hesitated to accompany him,
in that manner, but finally consented, though not without reluctance;
and so, shortly before five o'clock, they started. They should easily
have arrived at Cedarcrest between six and seven.

We already know that they had not put in their appearance at half-past
eight. The reason for this delay, was somewhat startling.

When Patricia was well ensconced in the bucket-seat of the roadster
beside Morton, he started the car forward at as rapid a pace as the
city ordinance would permit. Both were silent for a considerable time,
but, at last, Patricia asked him:

"Will you be good enough to tell me why Mrs. Gardner's arrangement for
this afternoon, was not carried out?"

Morton turned his face away from her, in order to conceal the smile of
amusement in which he indulged himself, and he replied, with apparent
carelessness:

"My big car was out of commission, temporarily. I happened to see
Melvin, and he agreed to take Miss Houston and her sister to
Cedarcrest, for me."

"Oh, indeed! What has happened to your White Steamer? It was only the
other day that you told me how proud you were of it because it never
got out of order."

He turned his face toward her and replied slowly and with
distinctness:

"I won't lie to you about it, Patricia; that wouldn't be fair. I put
the car out of commission, myself; or, rather, it was done by my
order, because I wanted to take this ride alone with you."

"You should have told me that before we started," she said to him.

"Why? Would it have made any difference in your going?"

"Most certainly it would."

"Do you mean that you would have declined to come with me?"

"I do."

"But why?"

"Chiefly, because I do not approve of plots and schemes, in any form.
Had you asked me, frankly and openly, to drive to Cedarcrest with you,
I should have felt no hesitation in accepting; as it is, you have
given offense, Mr. Morton."

"So much so that you won't even call me Dick?" he said, with a light
laugh that was more forced than real.

"Yes. You have not proven yourself quite the friend I hoped you would
be. Friends don't plot against each other."

"Shall I turn the car about and take you home?" he asked shortly, with
tightening lips, angered unreasonably by the attitude she had
assumed.

"No; you may take me to our destination, Cedarcrest."

They drove on in silence for a considerable time after that, and, as
soon as they were in the country, on less-frequented roads, Morton
increased the speed of his roadster until they were flying along the
highway in utter and absolute defiance of the statutes. When they
presently arrived at a turn within a few miles of their destination, a
turn that would have taken them directly to the house they sought,
Morton did not move the steering-wheel of the car, but kept on,
straight ahead, and with ever increasing speed.

Patricia knew the road very well indeed; she had been over it many
times, and now she called out to her companion:

"You have taken the wrong road. You should have gone around that last
turn."

Morton did not reply, or attempt to do so. He seemed not to have heard
her.

"Won't you please slow down a little?" she asked, after another
moment; and the question came somewhat tremulously, because, strange
to say, Patricia was just a little frightened by the circumstance that
now confronted her.

Again, Morton made no reply, nor did he comply with her request, and
the car flew on and on, while Patricia tried to collect her thoughts,
and to determine what were best for her to do toward restraining this
head-strong companion of hers, who now seemed like a runaway colt that
has taken the bit in its teeth, and has found the strength to defy
opposition.

"Richard Morton!" she exclaimed sharply, touching his arm,
tentatively. "Why don't you answer me? What are you trying to do?
Where are you taking me?"

For just an instant, he flashed his eyes into hers; then he replied,
grimly:

"I am taking you for a good ride. We'll steer around to Cedarcrest by
another road, presently."

"But I wish to go there at once."

"You can't."

"Do you mean that you refuse to do as I request?"

"Yes," he replied, shortly; and shut his jaws together with a snap
like a nut-cracker.

"You dare?"

"I dare anything, Patricia, when I am brought to it. I would like to
keep this machine going, at this pace, for hours and days and weeks,
with you seated there beside me, and never thinking of a stop until I
had you out yonder, in the wild country, where I was born and raised."

Again, she reached out and touched him on the arm, for she was more
frightened than she would have confessed to herself; but, before she
could speak, he called to her in a tone that was almost savage in its
intensity:

"Be careful, please. Don't interfere with my steering, or you will
ditch us."

"I demand that you bring this car to a stop," she said coldly,
controlling herself with an effort. "I insist that you turn it about,
and go back. I am amazed at your conduct, Mr. Morton--amazed and hurt.
You are offending me more deeply than you realize."

Again, he did not answer her, and Patricia, now thoroughly alarmed,
sought vainly for a means of bringing this impetuous and dare-devil
young ranchman to his senses. She thought once, as they ascended a
short hill, of leaping from the car to the ground, but the speed was
too great for her to take such a risk. It even occurred to her to
seize the steering-wheel, and to give it a sharp turn, thus wrecking
the machine; but she shuddered with terror when she thought of the
possibilities of such an act.

Half a mile farther on, Morton turned the car from the main highway
they had been following, and drove it at full speed along a narrow
road, where the going was somewhat rough, and where both had to give
their entire attention to retaining their seats.

"Are you mad?" she cried out to him, at last. She did not remember
ever to have been so frightened before. Actual fear was a new
sensation with Patricia Langdon.

Still, he did not answer her, and Patricia started to her feet,
determined to make the leap to the ground, risking broken limbs, or
worse, to escape from this situation, which was becoming more awful
with every moment that passed. A sudden terror lest the man beside her
had gone mad, seized her. But Morton grasped her with his left hand,
and pulled her back into the seat.

"Don't do that!" he ordered her, crisply.

"Then, stop the car," she replied. "Oh, please, do stop the car. You
have no idea how you frighten me. It is very dark, here, and this is a
terrible road. Please stop, Mr. Morton."

"Call me Dick, and I'll stop."

"Please stop the car--Dick!"

He closed the throttle, and applied the brake. In another moment the
speedy roadster slowed down gradually, and came to a stop, just at the
edge of a wood, where there was no house, or evidence of one, visible
in any direction; and, then, Richard Morton and Patricia Langdon
stared into each other's eyes through the gathering darkness, the
former with set jaws and a defiant smile, and the latter with plainly
revealed terror.




CHAPTER XV

ALMOST A TRAGEDY


Morton's passion for the beautiful girl beside him had overcome his
discretion to such an extent that he was hardly responsible for what
he did. The exhilaration of this swift ride through the gathering
darkness, the sense of nearness to the woman he believed he loved with
every force in him, the certainty that they were alone, and that, for
the moment at least, she was his sole possession, stirred up within
the young ranchman's mind those elements of barbaric wildness which
had grown and thrived to riotousness and recklessness during the life
he had lived on the cattle-ranges of Montana, but which had been more
or less dormant during his Eastern experiences. He forgot, for the
moment, the Sunday-night scene wherein he had promised to be
Patricia's friend, and had ceased to be her lover; he remembered only
that she was there beside him, with her terror-stricken eyes peering
into his beseechingly, and that she looked more beautiful than ever
she had before. But, more than all else, the influence she had had
over him was absent, and this was so because her haughty defiance and
the proud spirit she had hitherto manifested in her attitude were
gone. He had never seen her like this before, with the courage taken
out of her. It was a new and unknown quality, alluringly feminine,
wholly dependent, that possessed her now. She was frightened. And so
Morton forgot himself. He permitted the innate wildness of his own
nature to rule. He followed an impulse, as wild as it was unkind. He
seized her in his arms, and crushed her against him, raining kisses
upon her cheeks and brow, and upon even her lips. Patrica strove
bravely to fight him off; she struggled mightily to prevent this
greatest of all indignities. She cried out to him, beseeching that he
release her, but he seemed not to hear, or, if he heard, he paid no
heed, and, after a moment more of vain effort, Patricia's figure
suddenly relaxed. She realized the utter futility of her effort to
hold the man at bay, and she was suddenly inspired to practise a
subterfuge upon him. She permitted herself to sink down helplessly,
into his confining grasp, and she became, apparently, unconscious.

It was Richard Morton's turn to be frightened, then. On the instant,
he realized what he had done. The enormity of the offense he had
committed against her rushed upon him like a blow in the face, and he
released her, so that she sank back into the confining seat beside
him.

"Patricia! Patricia!" he called to her. He seized her hands, and
rubbed them; he turned them over and struck the palms of them sharply,
for he had somewhere heard that such action would bring a person out
of a swoon; but, although he struggled anxiously, doing whatsoever he
could to arouse her, and beseeching her in impassioned tones to speak
to him, she seemed to remain unconscious, with her head lying back
against the seat, her eyes closed, and her face paler than he had ever
seen it before.

The car had stopped before the edge of a wood. Just beyond it, there
was a bridge over which they must have passed, had they continued on
their way. Morton raised his head and looked despairingly about him.
He saw the bridge, and experience taught him that there must be a
stream of water beneath it. With quick decision, he sprang from the
car and ran forward, believing that, if he could return with his cap
filled with water, he might restore his companion to consciousness.
Then, strange to relate, no sooner had he left the car than Patricia
opened her eyes, straightened her figure, and with a quick leap
changed her seat to the one beneath the steering-wheel. She
accomplished this while Morton was speeding away from her, toward the
water.

She saw him arrive at the bridge and disappear down the bank, beneath
it; and forthwith, she reversed the gear of the steamer, and opened
the throttle. The engine responded instantly, and at the imminent risk
of wrecking the car, she backed it, and turned it, reversing and going
forward several times, before she quite succeeded in bringing it
around, within the narrow space. But, at last, she did succeed, and,
just at the moment when the car was headed in the opposite direction,
Richard Morton reappeared. He saw, at a glance, what had happened
during his short absence. He understood that Patricia had outwitted
him, and he ran forward, shouting aloud as he did so.

Patricia caught one glimpse of him over her shoulder, and saw that he
carried in his hands the cap he had filled with water to use in
restoring her to consciousness--a consciousness she had not for a
moment lost, which now was so alert and manifest in effecting her
escape.

She paid no heed to his shouts. She opened the throttle wider and
wider, and the steam roadster darted away through the darkness, with
Patricia Langdon under the wheel, leaving Richard Morton, cap in
hand, standing in the middle of the highway, gazing after her,
speechless with amazement and more than ever in love with the
courageous young woman who could dare, and do, so much.

Patricia Langdon was thoroughly capable of operating any automobile,
as was demonstrated by this somewhat startling climax to the
unpleasant scene through which she had just passed. Beneath her
customary repose of manner, her outward self-restraint and her
dignified if somewhat haughty manner, there was a spirit of wildness,
which, for years, had found no expression, till now. But, the moment
she turned the car about and succeeded in heading it in the opposite
direction, the instant she realized that she was mistress of the
situation, which, so short a time before, had been replete with
unknown terrors, she experienced all that sense of exhilaration which
the winner of any battle must feel, when it is brought to a successful
issue. She heard herself laugh aloud, defiantly and with a touch of
glee, although it did not seem to her as if it were Patricia Langdon
who laughed; it was, perhaps, some hitherto undiscoverable spirit of
recklessness within her, which called forth that expression of defiant
joy, which Richard Morton could not fail to hear.

The night was dark, by now, and there were only the stars to light the
narrow way along which Patricia was compelled to guide the flying car;
but she thought nothing of this, for she could dimly discern the
outlines of the roadway before her, and she believed she could follow
it to the main highway, without accident. Morton had not lighted his
lamps. There had been no opportunity to do so. But the road was an
unfrequented one; and Patricia, as she fled away from Morton, through
the darkness, thought only of making her escape, not at all of the
dangers she might encounter while doing so.

Several times, she caught herself laughing softly at the recollection
of how she had triumphed over the daring young ranchman, and at the
predicament in which she had left him, standing there near the bridge,
in a locality that was entirely unknown to him, from which he must
have some difficulty in finding his way to a place where he could
secure another conveyance. He might know what it meant to be left
horseless on the ranges of the West, but this would be a new and a
strange--perhaps a wholesome--experience for him.

Presently, she came to the turn of the road that would bring her upon
the main highway; and here she stopped the car, and got down from it,
long enough to light the lamps. This done, she went on again, as
swiftly as she dared, yet not too rapidly, because now she felt that
she was as free as the air singing past her. The highway she traversed
was almost as familiar to her as the streets of New York City.

The exhilaration she had experienced when she triumphed over Richard
Morton and escaped from him, increased rather than diminished as she
sped onward, and when, almost an hour later, she guided the car
between the huge gate-posts which admitted it to the grounds of
Cedarcrest, and followed the winding driveway toward the entrance to
the stone mansion, she was altogether a different Patricia Langdon
from the one who had started out, in company with the young Westerner,
shortly after five o'clock that afternoon.

She brought the car to a stop under the _porte-cochère_, and announced
her arrival by several loud blasts of the automobile-horn; a moment
later, the doors were thrown open, and Sally Gardner rushed out to
receive her.

"I am afraid I am late, Sally," Patricia called out, in a voice that
was wholly unlike her usual calm tones. "Will you call someone to care
for the car?" Without waiting for a reply, she sprang from beneath
the wheel, and with a light laugh returned the impetuous embrace with
which the young matron greeted her.

In some mysterious manner, word had already been passed to the guests
that Patricia Langdon had arrived in Richard Morton's car, but alone;
and so, by the time Patricia had released herself from Sally's
clinging arms, Roderick Duncan, followed by the others of the party,
appeared in the open doorway. Duncan came forward swiftly, but his
host forestalled him in putting the question he would have asked.

"I say, Patricia!" Jack Gardner called out. "What have you done with
Morton? Where is Dick?"

"Really, Jack, I don't know," replied Patricia, standing quite still,
with her right arm around Sally's shoulders, and lifting her head like
a thoroughbred filly. Mrs. Gardner's left arm still clung around her
waist. "Mr. Morton is back there, somewhere, on the road. If he
doesn't change his plans, he should arrive here, presently." She
laughed, as she replied to the question, perceiving, at the moment,
only the humorous side of it. She was still under the influence of
that swift ride alone; still delighted by the thought of the
predicament in which she had left her escort, because of his
outrageous conduct toward her.

"Did you meet with an accident? Has anything happened to Mr. Morton?"
inquired Agnes Houston.

Patricia shrugged her shoulders, and, again laughing softly, withdrew
from Sally's embrace and began to ascend the steps. One of the
Cedarcrest servants appeared at that moment, to take the car around to
the garage; and for some reason each member of the party stepped
aside, one way or another, so that Miss Langdon was the one who led
the way into the house, the others falling in behind her, and
following. The circumstance of her arrival in such a manner and the
suggestion of mystery conveyed in Patricia's answer to Jack Gardner's
question convinced all that something had happened which needed an
explanation. Patricia's demeanor was so different from her usual
half-haughty bearing, that it was, in a way, a revelation to them all.
Each one there had his or her own conception of the occasion, and
probably no two opinions were the same; but at least they were all
agreed on one point: that there had been a scene somewhere, and that
Richard Morton had got the worst of it.

Patricia led the way to the dining-room. Her head was high, her eyes
were sparkling. Duncan hastened to her side, but she took no notice of
his nearness. As she entered the room, she called out:

"Do order some dinner served to me, Sally. I am as hungry as the
proverbial bear. You see, I had anticipated a hearty dinner with you,
and the long ride I have had--particularly that part of it which I
have taken alone--has whetted my appetite."

Sally nodded toward the butler, and waved him away, knowing that he
had overheard Patricia's words, and that she would speedily be served;
the others of the party resumed their former seats around the table,
and the practical Sally turned and faced Patricia, again, her eyes
flashing some of the indignation she felt because of her guest's
evident reluctance to explain the strange circumstance of her arrival
at Cedarcrest alone.

"Patricia Langdon," she said, "I think you might tell us what has
happened. We are all on edge with expectancy. Where is Dick Morton?"

"Oh, he is somewhere back there on the highway, walking toward
Cedarcrest, I suppose," replied Patricia smilingly, dropping into a
chair beside the table.

"Did you start out from New York together?" persisted Sally.

"Oh, yes."

"Won't you please tell us what has happened?"

Patricia's lips parted, while she hesitated for a reply. She had no
desire to tell these people of the incidents that had actually
occurred. Many another, in her position, would have revealed at once
the whole truth, and would have made these others acquainted with the
conduct of Richard Morton, during that wild ride she had been forced
to take with him through the gathering gloom. But Patricia was not
that kind. She was quite conscious of the strangeness of her arrival
at Cedarcrest alone, in Morton's car, and of the wrong constructions
which might be given to the incident. She knew that every man who was
present in the room, would bitterly resent the indignities Morton had
put upon her, if she should relate the facts. But she believed that
Morton had been sufficiently punished. She even doubted if he would
appear there, at all, now; and so, instead of replying to Sally's
repeated request, she shrugged her shoulders, and responded:

"I think I'll leave the explanation to Mr. Morton, when he arrives."

Food was placed before her at that moment and she transferred her
attention to it; while her friends, perceiving that she was not
inclined to take them into her confidence, started other subjects of
conversation, although the mind of each one of them was still intent
upon what might have happened during Patricia's journey from New York
in the company of Richard Morton.

Roderick Duncan had not resumed his seat at the table; he had remained
in the background, and had maintained an utter silence. But his
thoughts had been busy, indeed. He knew and understood Patricia,
better than these others did--with the possible exception of Beatrice,
who also was silent. But, now, he passed around the table until he
stood behind Patricia's chair. Then, he dropped down upon a vacant one
that was beside her, and, resting one elbow on the table, peered
inquiringly into the girl's flushed face, more beautiful than ever in
her excitement. That strange feeling of exhilaration was still upon
her, and there was undoubted triumph and self-satisfaction depicted in
her eyes and demeanor.

"What happened, Patricia?" he asked her, in a low tone, which the
others could not hear.

"Nothing has happened that need concern you at all," she replied to
him, coldly.

"But something must have happened, or you--"

"If something did happen," she interrupted him, "rest assured that I
shall tell you nothing more about it, at the present time. If Mr.
Morton chooses to explain, when he arrives, that is his affair, and
not mine. I am here, and I am unharmed. Somewhere, back there on the
road my escort is probably walking toward Cedarcrest; or, perhaps,
away from it. You will have to be satisfied with that explanation,
until he arrives--if he does arrive." She spoke with such finality
that Duncan changed the character of his questioning.

"I have not seen you, Patricia, since the receipt of your letter,
fixing our wedding-day for next Monday," he persisted. "It now occurs
to me that, in the light of the contents of your letter, I have a
right to ask you for an explanation of the incidents of to-night."

Patricia turned her eyes for an instant upon him, and then withdrew
them, while she said, coldly:

"If you have taken time to read carefully the stipulations in the
contract you signed yesterday morning, at Mr. Melvin's office, you
will understand why I deny your right to do so."

"Has Morton affronted you in any way?"

"Ask him. I have no doubt that he will answer you."

"Patricia, are you going to persist in this attitude toward me, even
after we are married?" Duncan inquired, anxiously. But, instead of
replying, she raised her head in a listening attitude, and announced
to all who were present:

"I hear the horn of an approaching automobile. Perhaps, Mr. Morton has
caught a ride."

"Answer me, Patricia," Duncan insisted.

"My conduct will be the answer to your question," she said, with her
face averted.

Jack Gardner hurriedly left the room, accompanied by Sally. A moment
later, when the automobile horn sounded nearer, Duncan left his place
beside Patricia, and followed. Melvin, the lawyer, also went out, and
then one by one the others, until Patricia was the only guest who
remained at the table. She continued to occupy herself with the food
that had been placed before her, while the flush on her cheeks
deepened, her eyes shone with added brightness, and she smiled as if
she were rather pleased than otherwise by the predicament in which
Morton would find himself, when he should be closely questioned by
Jack and Sally Gardner and the guests as well, whose curiosity, she
knew, would now far exceed their discretion.

It never once occurred to her that Dick Morton, having had time to
think over the occurrences of the afternoon and evening, and to
realize the enormity of the offense he had committed, would tell the
truth about it. Men within her knowledge, who belonged to the society
with which she was familiar, would temporize, under such
circumstances, would seek, by diplomatic speech to shield the woman in
the case from the comment that must follow a revelation, would make
use of well-chosen words to escape responsibility for what had
occurred; would practise a studied reserve until certain knowledge
could be obtained of what the woman might have said, upon her arrival.

The doors had been left open, and Patricia was conscious of loud tones
proceeding from the veranda at the front of the house; of masculine
voices raised in anger; and then she heard the sound of a blow,
followed instantly by a heavy fall. Almost at the same instant, the
sharp crack of a pistol smote upon the air, for an instant stiffening
her with horror. She started to her feet in terror, her face gone
white, her eyes dilated with apprehension. Then, she somehow stumbled
to her feet, and stood there, trembling in every nerve, until she
could gather strength to run forward.

A horrified and silent group of persons surrounded the principals in
the scene that had just occurred, for there had not yet been time for
any of them to recover from the paralyzing effect of what had
happened.

Richard Morton was on the floor of the veranda where he had raised
himself upon one elbow, and he still held in his right hand the small
revolver from which the shot that Patricia had overheard, had come.
Roderick Duncan was standing a few feet away, and he was holding in
his arms the limp form of Beatrice Brunswick, whose head had fallen
backward, as if she were unconscious, or dead. Just at the instant
when Patricia caught a view of this strange tableau, the other
spectators threw off the momentary lethargy that had overpowered them,
and rushed forward toward the principal actors in the scene that had
passed, each shouting a different exclamation, but all alike in their
expressions of horror and loathing for the man who was down--Richard
Morton.




CHAPTER XVI

THE AUTOMOBILE WRECK


Thirty minutes after the happening of the incidents just related, a
remarkable scene took place in Jack Gardner's smoking-room. There were
present only the men of Sally's impromptu week-end party.

If the friends whom Jack Gardner had made since his sojourn in the
East could have seen him at that moment, they would not have
recognized in the coldly stern, keen-eyed copper magnate, the
happy-go-lucky, devil-may-care Jack, of their acquaintance. The almost
tragic occurrences of the evening had brought the real Jack Gardner to
the surface, and he was for the moment again the dauntless young miner
who had fought his way upward to the position he now held, by sheer
force of character; for it requires a whole man to lift himself from
the pick and shovel, and the drill and fuse, to the millionaire
mine-owner and the person of prominence in the world such as he had
become. He stood beside the small table at one end of the room;
Morton occupied the center of it, facing him. Grouped around them, in
various attitudes, were the others of that strange gathering. Duncan
leaned idly against the mantel, and smoked his cigar with
deliberation, although his gray eyes were coldly fierce in their
expression, and his half-smile of utter contempt for the man who
occupied the center of the scene rendered his face less handsome and
attractive than usual. Malcolm Melvin was alert and attentive, from
the end of the room opposite Gardner, and the other gentlemen of the
party occupied chairs conveniently at hand.

It would be hard to define Richard Morton's attitude from any outward
expression he manifested concerning it. He stood with folded arms,
tall and straight, facing unflinchingly the accusing eyes of his
life-long friend, Jack Gardner. His lips were shut tightly together,
and he seemed like one who awaits stoically a verdict that is
inevitable.

"Morton," said Gardner, speaking coldly and with studied deliberation,
"you have been a life-long friend of mine, and, until to-night, I have
looked upon you almost as a brother; but, to-night, by your own
confession and by your acts which have followed upon that confession,
you have destroyed every atom of the friendship I have felt for you.
You have made me wish that I had never known you. You have outraged
every sense of propriety, and every feeling of manhood that I thought
you possessed. Fortunately for us all, no one is much the worse for
your scoundrelism; I can call it by no other word. You have shown
yourself to be, at heart, an unspeakable scoundrel, as undeserving of
consideration as a coyote of the plains."

Morton's face went white as death at these words, and his eyes blazed
with the fury of a wild animal that is being whipped while it is
chained down so that it cannot show resentment. He did not speak; he
made no effort to interrupt. Gardner continued:

"When Miss Langdon arrived here alone, in your roadster, she gave us
no explanation whatever of what had happened, and, while we believed
that some unpleasant incident must have occurred, we did not press her
for the story of it. Then, you came, and without mincing your words
you told the whole brutal truth; and you uttered it with a spirit of
brutality and bravado that would be unbelievable under any other
circumstances. And when, in your own self-abasement for what you had
done, you confessed to the acts of which you were guilty toward Miss
Langdon, you received, at Duncan's hands, the blow you so thoroughly
merited; I am frank to say to you that, if he had held his hand one
instant longer, it would have been my fist, instead of his, that
floored you. But that is not all. You have been a gun-fighter for so
many years, out there in your own wild country, that, before you were
fairly down after you received the blow, you must needs pull your
artillery, and use it. Do you realize, I wonder, how near to
committing a murder you have been, to-night? If Miss Brunswick had not
seen your act, if she had not started forward and thrown herself
between your weapon and its intended victim, thus frightening you so
that you sought at the last instant to withhold your fire, I tremble
for what the consequences might have been. As it happened, no one has
been harmed. You deflected your aim just in time to avoid a tragedy;
but it is not your fault that somebody does not carry a serious wound
as the consequence of your brutality. Were it not for Miss Brunswick's
act, there would be a dead man at this feast, and you would be his
murderer. But even that, horrible as it might have been, is less a
crime than the other one you have confessed. You, reared in an
atmosphere where all men infinitely respect woman-kind, deliberately
outrage every finer feeling of the one woman you have professed to
love. That, Richard Morton, is very nearly all that I have to say to
you. I have asked these gentlemen to come into the room, and to be
present during this scene, in order that we may all bind ourselves to
secrecy concerning what has happened to-night. I can assure you that
nothing of this affair will leak out to others. I have quite finished
now. One of the servants will bring your roadster around to the door.
Our acquaintance ends here."

He turned and pressed a button in the wall behind him, and a moment
later the door opened; but it was Beatrice Brunswick who stood upon
the threshold, and not the servant who had been summoned.

She hesitated an instant, then came forward swiftly, until she stood
beside Morton, facing his accusers. With one swift glance, she took in
the scene by which she was surrounded, and with a woman's intuition
understood it. Turning partly around, she permitted one hand to rest
lightly upon Morton's arm, and she said to him, ignoring the others:

"It is really too bad, Mr. Morton. I know that you did not mean it;
and I am unharmed. See: the bullet did not touch me at all. It only
frightened me. I am sure that you were over-wrought by all that had
happened, and I'll forgive you, even if the others do not. I am sure,
too, that Patricia will forgive you, if you ask her. Come with me; I
will take you to her."

She tightened her grasp upon his arm and sought to draw him toward the
door, but Jack Gardner interrupted, quickly and sharply.

"Stop Beatrice!" he said. "Mr. Morton is about to take his departure.
This is an occasion for men to deal with. Morton cannot see Miss
Langdon again unless she seeks him, and that I don't think she will
do."

"I'll get her; I'll bring her here!" exclaimed Beatrice, starting
toward the door alone; but this time it was Morton's voice that
arrested her--the first time he had spoken since he entered the room.

"Please, wait, Miss Brunswick," he said, and the quiet calmness of his
tone was a surprise to everyone present. It belied the expression of
his eyes and of his set jaws. "I thank you most heartily for what you
have said, and for what you would do now. Miss Langdon won't forgive
me, nor, indeed, do I think she ought to do so. I have not attempted
to make any explanation of my conduct to these gentlemen, but to you I
will say this: I realize the enormity of it, thoroughly, and, while I
can find no excuse for what I have done, I can offer the one
explanation, that I was, for the moment, gone mad--locoed, we call
it, in the West. If Miss Langdon will receive any message from me at
all, tell her that I am sorry."

He bowed to her with a dignity that belied his training, and, stepping
past her, opened the door, holding it so until she had passed from the
room. Then, he turned toward the others.

"I am quite ready to go now," he said. "Gardner, if you will have my
car brought around, I shall not trouble you further."

With another slight inclination of his head, he passed out of the room
and along the hall to the front door, where he paused at the top of
the steps, waiting till his car should be brought to him; and no one
attempted to follow, or say another word to him.

Standing alone at the top of the steps, while he waited for the car,
Morton was presently conscious of a slight movement near him, and he
turned quickly. Patricia Langdon slowly arose from one of the veranda
chairs, and approached him. She came quite close to him, and stopped.
For a moment, both were silent; he, with hard, unrelenting eyes, which
nevertheless expressed the exquisite pain he felt; she, with
tear-dimmed vision, in which pity, regret, sympathy and real liking
strove for dominant expression.

"I couldn't let you go, Mr. Morton, without a few more words with you,
and I have purposely waited here, because I thought it likely you
would come from the house alone."

"Thank you," he replied, not knowing what else to say.

"I am so sorry for it all, Mr. Morton; and I cannot help wondering if
I am to blame, in any measure. I wanted you to know that I freely
forgive you for whatever offense you have committed against me. I
think that is all. Good-night."

She was turning away, but he called to her, with infinite pain in his
voice:

"Wait; please, wait," he said. "Give me just another moment, I beseech
you."

She turned to face him again.

"I have been a madman to-night, Miss Langdon, and I know it," he told
her rapidly. "There is no excuse for the acts I have committed; there
can be no palliation for them. I would not have dared to ask for your
forgiveness; I can only say that I am sorry. It was not I, but a
madman, who for a moment possessed me, who conducted himself so vilely
toward you. I shall go back to my ranch again. My only prayer to you
is, that you will forget me, utterly."

Patricia came a step nearer to him, reaching out her hand,
tentatively, and said, in her softest tone, while tears moistened her
eyes:

"Good-bye, and God bless you."

But Morton, ignoring her extended hand, cleared the steps of the
veranda at one leap, and disappeared in the darkness, toward the
garage.

Five minutes later, while Patricia yet remained at the top of the
steps where Morton had left her, the steam-roadster that had been so
closely related to her experiences of the night rushed past the house
and disappeared along the winding roadway toward the Cedarcrest gate.
And she remained there, in a listening attitude, as long as she could
hear the droning murmur of its mechanism. When that died away in the
distance, she sighed, and turned to reënter the house; but it was only
to find that she was no longer alone. Roderick Duncan appeared in the
doorway, and came through the entrance, to meet her.

"Was it Morton's car that just went past the door?" he asked her.

"Yes," she replied, shrinking away from him.

"Did you see him, and talk with him, before he went away?" he asked,
partly reaching out one hand, but instantly withdrawing it.

"Yes," she answered again, retreating still farther from him.

"That was like you, Patricia. I am rather sorry for the poor chap,
despite what he did to you, to-night. You see, I know what it means,
to be so madly in love with you that it is barely possible for one to
stand or sit beside you, without crushing you in one's arms. Oh,
Patricia, won't you be kind to me? Won't you forgive me, too, as I
know, just now, you forgave that poor chap? Surely, my offense was not
so great as his."

"It has been infinitely greater," she told him, coldly; and, with head
erect, but with averted face, she went past him, through the doorway.

Down the highway, half-way between Cedarcrest and the city, was a
place where building operations were in progress; where huge rocks had
been blasted out to make room for intended improvements; where
derricks and stone-crushers and other machinery were idly waiting the
dawn of another day, when the workmen would arrive and resume their
several occupations.

Richard Morton, dashing along this highway with ever-increasing speed,
utilizing the full power of his racing roadster, remembered that place
along the highway. With cold, set face and protruding chin, he set
his jaws sharply together, and wondered why his flying car would go no
faster. He did not realize that he was covering more than a mile with
every minute of time. The pace seemed slow to him, for he had suddenly
determined what he would do. He had thought of a plan to expiate his
follies of the night.

At last, almost directly beneath an arc-light along the highway, he
saw, dimly, the spot where the stone was being quarried, and, as he
recognized it, he laughed aloud with a sort of desperate joy, because
of the plunge he intended to take. He threw the throttle wide open,
and after another moment he saw the derrick loom before him. With
careful deliberation, he turned the steering-wheel.

There was a loud crash in the darkness; the roadster leaped into the
air like a live thing, and turned over, end for end, twice. Then, it
seemed to shoot high into the air, and fell again, in a confused heap
of wreckage, among the broken stones of the quarry. Morton was thrown
from it, like the projectile from a catapult, and he came down in a
crumpled heap, somewhere among that mass of rocks; and after that
there was silence.




CHAPTER XVII

CROSS-PURPOSES AT CEDARCREST


At Cedarcrest, the night was still young. Patricia, and then Morton,
had arrived at the country home of the Gardners while the several
guests were still at table, and the scenes which followed their coming
had passed with such stunning rapidity that every one of the party was
more or less affected by them, each one in his or her separate manner.
The men of the party were silent and preoccupied. The scene enacted
just before the departure of Morton weighed more or less heavily upon
them, and while each one felt that the young ranchman had "got what
was coming to him," there was not one among them who did not
experience a thrill of sympathy for the young fellow, who had been so
well liked by the new acquaintances he had made in the East.

The two gentlemen strangers, who had brought Morton to the house in
their car, were the first to take their departure, after Morton's
dramatic exit, although they remained long enough to imbibe a
whisky-and-soda, and to hear what Jack Gardner still had to say. That
was not so very much, but, like all he had said that night, it was
straight to the point.

"Gentlemen," he said to them, standing with his glass in hand and
addressing all, impersonally, "what I have to say now, is said to all,
alike. Two of you are strangers to me; the others are more or less
intimately my friends. It is my particular wish that we should all
bind ourselves to secrecy, concerning what has happened at Cedarcrest,
and in this vicinity, to-night. It happens that no real harm has been
done; no one has been injured; amends have been made to Miss Langdon,
so far as it has been possible to make them, and I am quite sure of
her desire never to hear the subject mentioned again."

There was a generally affirmative nodding of heads about him as he
spoke, and after an instant, he continued:

"In what has occurred in this room, I have had to assume a triple
obligation: that of host, that of self-appointed champion of the young
woman who received the affront from another of my guests, and that of
a life-long acquaintance with the man whom I was compelled, by
circumstances, to expel from my house. The last was the most
difficult of all to fill. There is not one of you who could not
readily have assumed two of the responsibilities; the last one I have
named has been distinctly unpleasant. I have known and liked Dick
Morton, since we were boys. We hail from the same state, and from a
locality there where we were near neighbors, during our youth. He is
somewhat younger than I--about two years, I think--and, until
to-night, I have never known him to be otherwise than a brave and
chivalrous fellow, ready to fight at the drop of the hat. We must
agree that no matter what his conduct was, prior to the scene in this
room, he conducted himself, while here, in a manner that was beyond
reproach. He realized the enormity of the outrage he had committed,
and he took his medicine, I think, as a fighter should. He is gone
now, and I doubt if any of us see him again. That is all, I think,
that need be said." It was then that Roderick Duncan silently put
aside his glass, and went out of the room, unnoticed by the others. He
knew that a general discussion of the incidents of the evening would
follow, and he had no wish to take part in it. He anticipated that the
two gentlemen who had brought Morton to the house, would be asked to
remain, and that he would therefore see them again, later on, and so
he took the opportunity that was afforded him to escape unseen and
unnoticed.

The whole affair weighed heavily upon him. He realized much better
than Patricia did that she alone was to blame for it all; and the fear
lest the responsibility of it should come home to her drove him to
seek her at once, even before Morton had had time to get beyond the
gates of Cedarcrest. Patricia was, of course, unaware of the scene
that had taken place at Duncan's rooms just before the informal
invitations to Cedarcrest were issued, but Duncan recalled that
circumstance now, with a deeper understanding of all that had happened
as a sequel to it; and he believed that the time was ripe for a better
understanding between himself and Patricia. Therefore, he left the
room to seek her.

Outside the door, he came to a pause, in doubt which direction to
take. From where he stood, he could see into a part of the
dining-room, and instinct told him that it was deserted, save by the
butler, who was yet at his post. He approached the music-room, and,
screened by a Japanese curtain that hung across the entrance, peered
inside. Beatrice and Sally were there, with the other ladies of the
party, but Patricia was nowhere to be seen. It occurred to him that
she might have sought solitude in some other part of the great house,
and he had turned away, striving to think where he might find her,
when the whirr of an automobile engine came to him through an open
window from the rear of the building.

He guessed, at once, that it would be Morton's roadster, ready to take
him away, and, impelled by a sudden spasm of pity for the man who was
now tabooed he hurried toward the front entrance--and fate willed it
that he should arrive at the threshold just at the very instant when
Patricia took that impulsive step nearer to Morton, reaching her arms
out toward him, as she did so, and Duncan plainly heard the words she
uttered, "Good bye, Dick; and God bless you." He had heard no word
which preceded them; he had seen nothing till that instant; but he did
see the tears in Patricia's eyes, and hear the pathos in her voice
when she spoke those last words to the man who was supposed to have
offended her past forgiveness: and he saw Morton leap into the roadway
and start toward the garage to meet his machine.

Duncan waited a moment before he advanced farther; watching Patricia
from his sheltered place near the door. Then, he stepped forward to
meet the young woman to whom he was betrothed--stepped forward to
plead with her once more, and to be rebuffed in the manner we have
seen.

When she had left him, he dropped upon one of the veranda chairs, and
with his head upon his hand gave himself up to bitter thought--bitter,
because of his utter inadequacy to cope with the conditions by which
he was surrounded.

Duncan was aroused, presently, by the approach of Beatrice and Sally.
They came through the door with their arms encircling each other's
waist, and walked forward together until they stood at the edge of the
top step, under the _porte cochère_.

"It's a shame," Beatrice was saying, impulsively. "I feel that the
whole thing is more or less my fault, Sally, and--" a warning cough
from Duncan told them that they were not alone; and also, at that
moment, the other guests trooped out upon the broad veranda; all save
Patricia, who did not appear.

The two gentlemen who had brought Morton to the house after he was
deserted by Patricia on the road, declined to remain, pleading other
engagements, and soon their car whirred itself away down the road, and
was gone. Nesbit Farnham contrived to secure a _solitude-à-deux_ with
Beatrice, who, however, turned an indifferent shoulder to his eager
words; Agnes and Frances Houston strolled into obscurity with the two
"extras" who had been asked there to fill out Sally's original plan;
Sally disappeared into the house, evidently in search of Patricia;
Jack Gardner and the lawyer lighted cigars and betook themselves to an
"S" chair at a far corner of the veranda. Duncan remained where he
was, alone, screened from view by overhanging vines, as desolate in
spirit as any man can be, who is suddenly brought face to face with an
unpleasant truth.

Nothing had mattered much, in a comparative sense, until this last
scene with Patricia. He had been convinced all along, until now, that
Patricia loved him and that her strange conduct during the last
upheaval in their relations had been the result of wounded pride,
only; it had not even remotely occurred to him that she did not love
him. They had been together all their lives; he had never known a time
when he did not love her; he believed that there had never been a
time, since their childhood, when she did not expect some day to
become his wife.

But that short scene he had witnessed on the veranda, when Patricia
bade Morton good-bye, had changed all this. He doubted the correctness
of his previous convictions. He saw another and an entirely different
explanation for Patricia's conduct toward him, for her attitude in the
matter of the engagement contract which Melvin had been compelled to
draw, and which he, himself, had likewise been compelled to sign. He
read in that last scene between the ranchman and Patricia a fondness
on her part for the young cattle-king which had been forced into the
"open" of her own convictions, by the principal episode of the
evening. He saw the utter wreck of his own hopes, of his entire scheme
of life.

While he sat there in the shadow of the vine, unseen and unseeing, he
made still another discovery, a grim one, which brought with it a
better realization of Morton's incentives, than anything else could
have done. He realized that he hated Morton; hated him wholly and
absolutely--hated him suddenly and vehemently. He knew, then, why
Morton had attempted to kill him, for, if Morton had made a
reappearance at that moment, Roderick Duncan would have taken the
initiative, and would have been the one to do the killing.

Yet, he made no move. If you had been watching him from beyond the
screen of vines, no indication of what was passing in his thoughts
would have been noticeable. The fierce hatred he so suddenly
experienced was not made manifest by any act or expression, although
it was none the less pronounced, for all that. And, strangely enough,
it did not lead him to any greater consideration of Morton, or of his
acts; rather the contrary.

Once, while he was preoccupied in this manner, he was again conscious
of the distant whirr of an automobile engine, but he gave it no
thought, till afterward. He did notice that Jack Gardner also heard
it, and took his cigar from his mouth while he listened to it; but at
once resumed his conversation with the lawyer. Soon afterward,
Roderick left his chair under the vine, and passed inside the house.

"Hello, Rod," Jack called after him. "I didn't know you were there.
Won't you join Melvin and me, in our cozy corner?" to which Duncan
called back some casual reply, and passed on.

He had made up his mind that he would seek out Patricia, at once, and
tell her of the discovery he had just made; that he had been a fool
not to realize before, that Morton was the man of her choice, and that
she could have the fellow if she wanted him; that he would not only
release her from the tentative engagement, but that he would repudiate
the contract entirely, and that, as soon as he could secure his own
copy of it from the strong-box where he had put it, he would tear it
into ten thousand pieces; that he would have no more of her, on any
conditions, and that--oh, well, he thought of many bitter and biting
things that he would say to her the moment he should find
her--possibly in tears because of Morton's enforced departure from
Cedarcrest, or in the act of weeping out the truth on Sally Gardner's
shoulder. He thought he understood the situation now, as he had not
seen it before.

Duncan searched in the drawing-room, the music-room, the dining-room;
he explored the snuggery, the library, and even Jack's own particular
den; he sought the side piazzas; he went outside among the trees to
certain hidden nooks he knew. But Patricia was nowhere to be
discovered. Neither had he been able to see Sally anywhere about, and
the conviction became stronger upon him that the two were somewhere
together, and that Patricia, her pride forgotten, was keeping the
young hostess with her while she told of the terrible predicament in
which she now found herself to be enmeshed; for it would be a most
stupendous predicament for Patricia to face--the realization that she
was in love with Morton, in spite of the contract in writing she had
forced Roderick Duncan to sign with her.

Returning to the house, he found the butler, and was about to send him
in search of his mistress, when he discovered Sally, descending the
stairway.

"Where is Patricia?" Each asked the question simultaneously, so that
the words were pronounced exactly together; and yet neither one
smiled. Each question was a reply to its mate.

"I have been searching everywhere for her," said Duncan.

"So have I," replied Sally. "Where can she be?"

"I haven't an idea. Isn't she up-stairs?"

"No. Couldn't you find her, outside?"

"No."

"I haven't seen her since--since that dreadful scene on the veranda,"
said Sally. "Have you seen her, Roderick?"

"Yes."

"When? Where?"

"I saw her taking leave of Morton, when he went away," he replied,
with such bitterness that Sally stared at him; but, wisely, she made
no comment; nor did she attempt to stay him when he turned abruptly
away from her, and walked rapidly toward one of the side entrances.
But he stopped and turned, before he left the room.

"Sally," he said, "I am going to ask you to excuse me. I want to get
away. I would rather not explain to the others--I would rather not
attempt to explain to you. But I want to go. You will excuse me? and
if those who remain should happen to miss me, will you make whatever
excuse seems necessary?"

"None will be necessary, Roderick. Oh, you men! You make me tired! You
do, really! It is inconceivable why you should all fall hopelessly in
love with one woman, and utterly ignore the others who are--" She
stopped suddenly. She had been on the point of saying too much, and
she did not wish to utter words she would be sorry for, afterward.
Duncan did not attempt any reply, and was turning away a second time,
when she called after him: "If you would only be really sensible,
and--"

"And what, Sally?" he asked her, when she again hesitated.

"Nothing."

"But you were about to make a suggestion. What was it?"

"If it was anything at all, it was that you chase yourself out there
among the trees, find Beatrice and Nesbit Farnum, and take her away
from him," exclaimed this impetuous young woman, who found delight in
expressing herself in the slang of the day. Duncan shrugged his
shoulders, and uttered the one word:

"Why?"

But Sally did not vouchsafe any reply at all, to the question. She
tossed her head, and darted along the wide hall toward a rear door.

Duncan gazed after her for a moment, and then, with another shrug of
his shoulders, he passed on out of the house, and made his way swiftly
toward the stables and the garage, for he was determined to get out
his car and to return to the city, forthwith.

His surprise was great, when, on arriving at the door of the garage,
he found that Sally had preceded him, and, as he drew near, she turned
a white, scared face toward him, exclaiming:

"Oh, Roderick! What do you think? Patricia has gone."

"Gone!" he echoed. "Gone where? Gone, when? What do you mean, Sally?"

"She has gone. She has taken one of Jack's cars, and gone home."

"Alone?"

"No. She took Patrick with her, to drive the car. They left here half
an hour ago, I am told. Why do you suppose she did such a thing,
without consulting me, Roderick? Why? Why?"

"Why?" he echoed her question a second time. Then, he laughed, and it
was not a pleasant laugh to hear. All the bitterness of those moments
under the vine on the veranda was voiced in that laugh. "It isn't a
difficult question to answer, Sally. She has followed Morton--that is
why;" and, while Mrs. Gardner stared at him, uncomprehendingly, he
turned to one of the stablemen who was near, and who had been Sally's
informant about the movements of Patricia, and called out:

"Tell my man to fetch my car to me, here. I shall go, at once, Sally."
His car was already moving toward him, and, as it stopped and he put
one foot upon the step, Sally replied:

"I'll say that you and Patricia went away together. It will sound
better."

"Pardon me, Sally, but you will say no such thing--with my permission.
Go ahead, Thompson." He sprang into the car, and it sped away with
him, leaving Sally staring after him, wide-eyed with the amazement she
felt. Already, she realized that her house-party, from which she had
expected such wholesome results, had proven disastrous all around. Her
husband's prophecy concerning it had been correct. But she did not
know, and could not know as yet, just how disastrous it had been, for
there had been no prophet to foretell the catastrophe at the stone
quarry, toward which Patricia Langdon had started, half an hour
earlier, in one of Jack Gardner's cars, guided by one of Jack's most
trusted servants; and, oddly enough, by one who had formerly been in
the employ of Stephen Langdon, and who, as a servant, had fallen under
the spell of the daughter of the house to such an extent that he had
never ceased to quote her as the criterion of all things in the way of
excellence to be attained by an employer. And toward this quarry
Duncan was now hastening at the full speed of his big Packard-sixty,
with the trusted Thompson at the wheel; and toward it, as the chief
actor, Richard Morton had started away from Cedarcrest with a broken
heart, and with a brain crazed by the calamities that had rushed so
swiftly upon him.




CHAPTER XVIII

MYSTERIES BORN IN THE NIGHT


When the car, driven by Thompson, drew near to the derrick which had
been to Morton the suggestion of an unholy impulse, he slowed the big
Packard and leaned ahead, far over the wheel, for his keen eyes had
already discerned something beside the road which had not been there
when he had passed earlier in the evening. He stopped the car, and
that fact awoke Duncan to a recollection of his surroundings.

"What is it, Thompson?" he asked. "Why have you stopped?"

Thompson was peering anxiously toward the jumbled mass of broken stone
ahead of him, and there was an instant of silence before he replied.
Then--

"There has been a wreck here, sir," he told his employer.

Instantly, Duncan thought of Patricia. He forgot Morton. He was out of
the car even before Thompson could slide from under the
steering-wheel, and started ahead at a run, toward the remnants of
the wreck which he could now see quite plainly.

The roadster, in making its last leap, had literally climbed the rocky
place, and then, turning end for end twice, had finally alighted upon
a heap of stone, from which it could be seen from the roadway. It was
now a mass of iron, a twisted chaos of castings and machinery,
recognizable only as something that had once been an automobile; but
the experienced eyes of Thompson, trained to the quick and perfect
recognition of all cars that he had ever seen, identified the mass of
wreckage as soon as he got near enough to see it clearly. One
comprehensive glance sufficed for him. He straightened up after that
quick search for identification marks, which was his first instinct,
and said, quietly:

"It is Mr. Morton's roadster, sir."

"My God!" cried Duncan, with a catch in his breath. The truth of the
matter seemed to rush upon him on the instant, although he afterward
refused to recognize it as truth. But, as Thompson made the statement,
Duncan saw again the despairing face of Richard Morton which had still
had in it a hidden determination to do something that Duncan had not
even tried to guess at the time. "Was this what he intended to do?"
Duncan asked himself, silently.

"Yes, sir; it is Mr. Morton's roadster," Thompson repeated, with
entire conviction. "He must have been hitting up a great gait, when he
struck, too. I never saw such a wreck; never, sir. He must be
somewhere about, sir."

"True. Look for him, Thompson; look everywhere."

He started forward himself, leaping over the stones, and plunging into
every place where the body of a man might have fallen, after being
hurled from the wrecked car. They searched distances beyond where it
was possible that the body of a man might have been thrown, but they
did not find Morton.

"It is possible that he escaped," said Duncan, at last, pausing and
wiping perspiration from his brow. "He might have alighted on his feet,
and--"

"No, sir. Pardon me. It is not possible. No man could go through such
a wreck as that one, and in such a place, and escape alive. Besides,
sir--look here."

The man struck a match, and held the blaze of it toward a pile of
sharp stones. Duncan bent forward, peered at the spot indicated by
Thompson, and drew back again with a sharp exclamation of horror.

There was blood on the stones; quite a lot of it, partly dried. And
near it, half-hidden among the jagged stones, were Morton's watch and
fob. The fob was instantly recognizable for it was totally unlike any
other that Duncan had ever seen, formed of nuggets in the rough,
linked together with steel rings, instead of with gold, or silver. The
watch was smashed almost as badly as the automobile. Duncan took it in
his hand, held it so for a moment, and at last, with a shudder,
dropped it into one of his pockets.

"What does it mean, Thompson? Where is he?" he asked.

"I think it is likely, sir, that someone passed the spot, either at
the time of the accident or directly after it happened. Of course,
sir, the body would not have been left here under any circumstances."

"The body? You think he must be dead?"

"There can be no doubt of it, sir," said Thompson, with conviction.
"Shall we go on, sir? Nothing more can be done here."

They returned to their own car, and the journey toward the city was
resumed. Not another word was spoken until they were in the city
streets, and then the only direction that Duncan gave his chauffeur
was that he be taken directly to his rooms, where, as soon as he
entered, he seized upon the telephone. One after another, he called up
every hospital in the city, and it was not until he found his search
to be entirely unavailing that it occurred to him Morton would have
been taken to some place nearer the scene of the accident. Then, he
bethought himself to communicate with police headquarters.

"I will give," he said, "a thousand dollars for positive information
about the fate of Richard Morton, provided the same is brought to me
before daylight, and that my request be kept a secret. This is not a
bribe, but a spur to great effort. You have facilities for making such
inquiries. Find Morton for me, before morning, if you can, no matter
where he is. Keep it from the newspapers, too. Then, come to me for
the check." He explained fully the locality of the accident--and then
he waited.

He did not occupy his bed that night, and he could not have explained
why he did not do so. He kept telling himself that Richard Morton was
nothing whatever to him; that it did not matter what had happened to
the fellow; that Morton deserved death for what he had done--and a lot
of other things of the same character. But all the while he paced the
floor, and waited for information; or, he seated himself in a corner
of the room and smoked like a furnace chimney. Just as daylight was
breaking, while gazing through his window toward the eastward, he
started, and asked himself, guiltily:

"Am I hoping all the time that he is dead? Have I offered that
thousand dollars only for assurance of his death?"

Fortunately, he was not compelled to reply to the self-accusing
question, for there came a summons at his door, and an officer from
headquarters entered to announce that, although diligent search and
inquiry had been made in every conceivable quarter, not a word of
information regarding Richard Morton could be obtained. Duncan
listened in silence to the report, and, when it was finished, said:

"Very well; continue the search. Find the man, or find out what became
of him. I will defray all the expenses, and will pay the reward I
offered, too. But I must have the information at once, and everything
relative to this affair must be kept from the newspapers."

The officer had just gone when a ring at Duncan's telephone took him
quickly to it--and the voice of Jack Gardner at the other end of the
wire alarmed him unduly, considering that there was no known reason to
feel alarm. Gardner, upon being assured that he was talking directly
with his friend, said:

"You'll have to pardon me, old chap, for calling you out of bed at
this ungodly hour, but I just had to do it."

"You needn't worry, Jack. I haven't been in bed. What's up?" Duncan
replied.

"Why; you see there is a mystery developed, just now. If you haven't
been in bed, I have. I was called out of it by this confounded
telephone--twice. The first call was to tell me that some sort of an
accident had happened to Dick Morton. I couldn't gather what it was,
and didn't really take much stock in it, so far as that goes. Then,
the second call came. I was mad by that time, and didn't have very
much to say to the chap at the other end of the wire--till Sally put
me up to calling you."

"What was the second call about?" asked Duncan, gritting his teeth and
almost fearing to hear what it might have been.

"Why, my Thomas car--the one that took Patricia away, you know--has
been found somewhere in the streets of New York, deserted, apparently.
I can't understand it. They identified the car by the number, you
know. When I told Sally what had been said to me, she immediately had
a spasm of fear lest the accident reported to have happened to Morton
might have been Patricia, instead. I thought I'd ask you about it;
that's all."

"Wait a minute, Jack. Just let me think, a minute; then I'll answer
you."

Duncan put the receiver down on the table, and crossed the room. He
found it difficult to grasp the situation. Until that moment, it had
not occurred to him that Patricia might have been the one to find
Morton, or Morton's body, at the scene of the wreck. He had forgotten
that she must have passed that way within half an hour from the time
of the piling of the steamer upon the mass of sharp stones. Presently,
he returned to the telephone, and told his friend all that he knew
about the circumstances, and all that he had done since Thompson and
he came away from the scene of the wreck.

"But I don't see what your Thomas car has got to do with it," he
concluded. "Your man Patrick was driving it, wasn't he? I know he was.
He used to be with Langdon, you know. He isn't a chauffeur, but he's a
lot more competent to be one than half the men who are. I say, Jack,
have Sally call up Patricia, right away. You--"

He heard a click over the wire which told him that connection was cut
off; and after that he paced the floor again, wishing and hoping for
the ringing of his telephone-bell.

"We are coming to the city at once," Gardner told him, when at last it
did ring, and Duncan had taken down the receiver. "What the devil is
the matter with everything, anyhow? You had better hump yourself,
Duncan, and get busy. I don't believe that Morton was hurt half so
badly as you and Thompson seemed to think. Anyhow, the only way I can
see through it all is that Patricia was the one who found him. But,
even so--"

"Hold on a minute, Jack. You are getting too swift for me. What did
Sally find out when she telephoned to Patricia?"

"Oh! Didn't I tell you that? Patricia hasn't been home, at all. They
thought, at Langdon's, that she was here. She certainly hasn't shown
up there. And you say that Dick has disappeared, after leaving his
gore spread all over the place where his car was smashed. And, then,
my car is found somewhere down there, abandoned. I can't make it out,
at all. Sally is sure that something dreadful has happened. We're
starting now. Sally won't wait another minute. I'll see you as soon as
I get into town."

He did not delay to say good-bye, but hung up the receiver at his end.

Duncan did not await the arrival of Gardner. He summoned his valet,
and gave him strict directions about the reception of any news
concerning the mysteries of the night. Then, he hurried to Stephen
Langdon's home where he was admitted at once to the old banker's
sleeping apartment.

"What in heaven's name is the matter now, Rod?" the financier
demanded, testily. "It is bad enough to have you and Patricia at
sword's points, but to rout out an old fellow like me from his bed at
this hour, is rubbing it in."

"I suppose you haven't heard that Patricia did not come home last
night, have you?" Duncan said, by way of reply.

"No, I haven't. I should have been surprised, if I had heard it. She
wasn't expected to come home. She went to the Gardners."

"Well, sir, there is a lot that you ought to know, before you step out
of this room, to face all sorts of statements and inquiries. That is
why I am here. I thought I was the best one to tell you."

"To tell me what?"

"It will be something of a shock, sir. Brace yourself for it. I don't
think that a soul in the world except me, guesses at the truth."

"Guesses at what truth? What the devil is the matter with you? What
are you trying to tell me? Out with it, whatever it is!"

"Patricia has run away with Richard Morton. He was hurt last night.
She was in love with him, and--"

"Stop! Stop where you are, Rod. You're crazy. You're stark, staring,
raving crazy! Why in heaven's name should Patricia want to run away
with Morton? It is true that I have always wanted her to marry you,
but, if she wanted _him_, she knows mighty well she could have him. I
wouldn't put out a finger to stop her from marrying anybody of her
choice, so long as the man was morally and mentally fit. Sit down over
there; take a drink. You look as if you needed one. Don't utter a word
for five minutes, and then begin at the beginning and tell me all
about it."

But Duncan would listen to neither request. He began at once and told
of the occurrences of the night, from the moment when Patricia had
arrived at Cedarcrest alone, till the receipt of the telephonic
messages from Gardner; and he concluded by saying:

"There is no mystery in the affair, at all, as I regard it. Patricia
left the house, at Cedarcrest, half an hour after Morton left it. She
found the wrecked car, near the derrick, as Thompson and I found it,
later on. But she found Morton, too. Patrick was with her, and Patrick
is devoted to Patricia. He wouldn't consider the fact that he is, or
was, in Jack's employ, if it came to a question of obedience to her
wishes; he would serve her. You see, Patricia found out that she loved
Morton, when he got his calling-down; only, I suppose, even then, she
wasn't quite sure. But, when the time came for him to go away
entirely, she had no more doubts about it! She didn't remain long at
Cedarcrest, after that; she followed him. She knew that Patrick was
there, and that he would go with her. Well, they found the wreck of
Morton's car, along the road; then, they found Morton. Probably, he
wasn't much hurt; chaps like him don't mind the loss of a little
blood. Patricia and the man helped him into the car. It was just the
proper scene, with all the best kind of setting for a mutual
confession of their love, and--there you are."

"Go on, Roderick. Finish all you have to say, before I begin. What
next?"

"Why--oh, what's the use? There isn't any more to say. Morton
probably asked her to go away with him, and she went. That's all. I
thought you ought to know it."

"You don't know it yourself, do you?"

"No--not positively, of course."

"You have just guessed it."

"I suppose that's true, too."

"I wonder if your guessing has gone far enough to enlighten me on two
important points."

"What do you mean?"

"I'd like to know why Morton would want her to run away with him at
all, and why she should think of consenting to such a thing, if he
did. Patricia isn't one of the run-away kind. I should think you would
know that. And they didn't have to run."

"Why, Morton had just been virtually kicked out of Jack Gardner's
house. He was--"

"Well? Well? Couldn't Stephen Langdon's daughter kick him into it
again? Or into any other house on God's green earth, for that matter,
if she tried to do so? Do you suppose he'd have to pay any attention
to a little, petty ostracism, on the part of such puppets of society
as gathered out there, if he became the husband of Patricia Langdon?
Don't be an ass, Roderick! You are just plain jealous, and I don't
know that I blame you--for that."

"I'm not jealous."

"Then, you're a fool, and that's a heap worse."




CHAPTER XIX

RODERICK DUNCAN SEES LIGHT


The police department of the city of New York did not earn the
thousand dollars reward offered by Roderick Duncan. The mystery of the
abandoned car, owned by Jack Gardner, was not explained. Patrick
O'Toole did not return to his duties at Cedarcrest. The story of the
wreck of the White Steamer on the rocks under the derrick remained
untold. Patricia Langdon did not reappear among her friends and
acquaintances in the city. The mysteries born of that party at
Cedarcrest continued unsolved.

Roderick Duncan, having arrived at a conclusion about all those
matters which was quite satisfactory to himself, declined to concern
himself farther about them; he believed that he perfectly understood
the situation, and he let it go at that--although he engaged the
services of every clipping-bureau in the city, in an effort to find
announcement somewhere of the marriage of Patricia Langdon to Richard
Morton. But no such record was discovered, nor was any evidence found
that suggested such a possibility. He withdrew very much into himself,
shunned his clubs, avoided his friends, and could not himself tell why
he did not go away somewhere, to the other side of the world, seeking
to forget what he had lost. He went so far in his studied aloofness as
to keep entirely away from Stephen Langdon, and was perhaps all the
more surprised when, as time elapsed, Patricia's father did not send
for him. The utter silence of Stephen Langdon, and his entire
inactivity concerning the absence of his daughter convinced Duncan, as
it did also Patricia's, friends, generally, that he knew perfectly
well where she was. It was a logical conclusion, too, for, if Stephen
Langdon had not known, it is safe to say that he would have moved
heaven and earth to find his daughter.

Jack and Sally Gardner went to Europe and took Beatrice with them.
Nesbit Farnham followed them, on the next steamer. The Misses Houston,
also, disappeared. The newspapers had contained merely a mention of
the wreck, nothing more of consequence. The destruction of the machine
was told, and it was hinted that the chauffeur was slightly injured;
nothing was said to suggest that Richard Morton had been hurt at all.
The police, to whom Duncan had telephoned, made no bones of
pooh-poohing the entire matter, and laughing in their sleeves about
it. The police had their own ideas about the whole thing--and speedily
forgot them all.

Stephen Langdon was strangely grim and silent, those days; he was also
unusually dangerous to his rivals in "the street." Every energy that
he possessed seemed bent upon ruining somebody, anybody. It did not
occur to Duncan that the old man avoided him, because he was guilty of
the like avoidance himself; but, had he been less concerned with his
own sorrows, and given some thought to Stephen Langdon's, he would
have been quick enough to discover that the old financier dodged him,
studiously.

There was no gossip about the disappearance of Patricia, because
nothing was known about it. She was out of town, as were most of her
associates; traveling somewhere, doubtless, or was passing the time
among her numerous friends.

The first week after the beginning of the mystery was lived through in
a state of unrest by Duncan, and the second and third weeks brought no
change to him. With the beginning of the fourth week, he encountered
Burke Radnor, and the mere sight of the newspaper man recalled to the
young millionaire that bitterly unpleasant episode in which his name
and that of Beatrice Brunswick were coupled. Radnor was seated in the
lobby of the Hotel Astor, when Duncan entered the place. The man had
been drinking just enough to render him a bit boisterous and a trifle
loud in his talk and demeanor, when Duncan saw him. He was seated with
several other men, and all of them were talking and laughing together
at the moment when Duncan passed them on his way to the desk to
inquire for a guest whom he desired to see. He took no notice whatever
of Radnor, and was passing on, when a remark dropped noisily by the
newspaper writer arrested him. It brought him to a halt so suddenly,
that he sank at once upon a chair near at hand, and remained there
without realizing that he did so, for the sole purpose of hearing what
else Radnor might have to say upon this particular subject. He would
have passed on, even then, had he not been convinced that Radnor had
not seen him, and did not suspect his nearness. As he listened, he
gathered that Radnor was boasting of a prospective news story which he
had in prospect, and for the publication of which he needed only a few
additional facts.

"--elopement in high life, with an automobile wreck, a broken head--a
broken heart also, only that was quickly mended--and a bunch of other
little details thrown in, you know," was the remark that was overheard
by Duncan, as he strolled past the group; was his reason for dropping
down upon a convenient chair and remaining there, to listen. "The lady
in the case is a swell who is away up in the top rank of the
'two-hundred-and-fifty;' and the man--well, he is up in high C, too,
for that matter. One of the newly-rich, you know, lately materialized
out of the wild and woolly. Fine stunt, that story; only, I can't seem
to nail the few additional facts I need," Radnor continued, while
Duncan listened with all his ears. "There are certain elements
connected with the story that make it especially attractive to me,
for, in addition to getting a clear scoop in the biggest sensation of
the year, I can clean up an old grudge of mine, bee-eautifully. And
won't I clean it up, when I get my hooks fairly into it! Well! You can
take it from me."

"Oh, go on, Radnor, and tell us about it!" urged one of his
companions--another newspaper writer, evidently. "How'd you get next
to it in the first place?"

"Oh, that was an accident--a series of accidents, it might be called.
I don't mind telling you that part of it, without names. I mentioned
a broken head, just now. Well, I had a line on a dandy story that was
located out of town, and so I borrowed Tony Brokaw's automobile to go
after it, because the story was located some distance off of the main
line of travel. I was bowling along quite merrily, all alone in a car
that is made to carry seven. It was just in the shank of the evening,
and--"

"All this happened out of town, didn't it, Radnor?"

"Yes--a little way out. I came to a place where there had been a
wreck, and--well--seated on the ground at the scene of the disaster,
was the lady in the case, holding the head of the man in the case, in
her lap, and moaning over it to beat the band. Standing beside them,
like a big dog on guard, was a 'faithful servant.' It made a picture
that couldn't be beaten, for suggestive points, provided the
likenesses were made good enough. I took the whole thing in, at a
glance, and sized the situation up rather correctly, too. The young
woman was rattled clean out of her senses, and kept moaning something
about it's being all her fault--I wasn't able to get just the gist of
that part of it. She knew me by sight, and remembered my name. I
offered my assistance, and then fell to examining the injured man. I
discovered that he wasn't dead by a long shot, although he had been
hurt quite badly, and he'd bled a lot. But I've been a war
correspondent; I know all about first aid to the injured; I have seen
wounds of all kinds, and it didn't take me long to estimate 'mister
magusalem's' chances at about a thousand to one, for recovery. I made
the chauffeur help me, and together we toted the wounded man to my
car, and put him in the tonneau. The lady climbed in beside him--and
ordered her chauffeur to follow her, and help her with the injured
man. All the time, I was keeping up a devil of a thinking, wondering
what it was all about. You see, I knew who the man and the woman were,
but I couldn't fix the facts of the case sufficiently clear to satisfy
me. I knew it would be a dandy sensation for the morning papers, but
there was yet plenty of time to get it in, over a wire--besides, I
wanted it to go in late, so that other papers than the one I gave it
to, couldn't get a line on it. I got into my car--that is, the one I
had borrowed, you understand--wondering where I would take the bunch,
when another car stopped alongside of us, and a man, also alone, asked
what was the matter. I found out that he was a doctor, and got him to
take a look at the wounded man. To make a long story short, he
dressed the wound then and there, said there wasn't any immediate
danger--and a lot more--and went on his way. That decided me. I knew
of a place about twenty miles away where I could take them, where the
man would have the best of care, and--best of all--where I could fix
things up to keep everything quiet till I found out all the facts. You
see, I scented the greatest sensational story of my career--and I
wasn't far out, either, if ever I get all of it."

"But, great Scott, man, didn't you have it then?"

"You'd have had it, Sommers; but not I. I knew there was more to it.
When the doctor pulled his freight out of there, I didn't lose any
time in getting a move on me, too. And the girl never asked a
question; not one; I had told her that I would take them to a place
where the man could get well, and she seemed satisfied. The chauffeur
never peeped a word. I let the motor skim along at a good rate, and
wasn't long in bringing the bunch to the place I had thought of, which
happens to be a small, private sanatorium, which isn't known to be one
at all, save by those who patronize it and who want to put their loved
ones away for a time, secretly. But the doc who runs it, is a good
fellow, a good friend of mine, and when I told him that we didn't
want a word said about the affair--and particularly when he discovered
who the parties were and that there was a heap of dough in it for
him--he fell into my plans without a dissenting vote."

"Say, Radnor, that's a long winded yarn, all right, but it's
interesting. I wish, though, that you'd open up with the names."

"Not I, Sommers. I haven't got to the real mystery of the
affair--yet."

"You don't say! What is it?"

"Well, when I had fixed things to suit me, and had received the thanks
of the lady, when I had also satisfied myself that she was just as
anxious for secrecy about the thing as I was, although I couldn't tell
exactly why she was so, I hiked it back for town. It was too late,
then, to get the other story I had been after, and I had ceased to
care much about it, anyhow; and then, when I was ready to leave, out
came the chauffeur, and he said, if I didn't mind, he'd ride part of
the way back with me. He and the woman had been whispering together,
just before that, and I sized it up that she had given him certain
instructions to carry out. Anyhow, when we arrived at the scene of the
accident, the chauffeur got down, and I came on, to the city, alone.
I'm not going to tell you why the chauffeur left me, at the scene of
the accident, because that would give you a pointer which I don't wish
you to have. He had a certain duty to perform which I did not guess
at, just then, but which was all plain to me the next A. M., if
anybody should ask you. It amazed me, and it added immensely to the
mystery. And now, brace yourself, fellows, for the real mystery--the
one I am chasing at the present time."

"We're all ears, Radnor."

"I telephoned to my friend the doc, the next morning. He reported that
the man was doing well, and that the lady was hanging over him like a
possum over a ripe persimmon. I telephoned again that afternoon, again
the next morning, and every day after that, but the doc kept telling
me that, although the man was doing well, and the lady was still there
with him, I had better not butt in until he tipped me the wink--and
I'll give you my word that he managed to keep me on the hooks for ten
days before I tumbled."

"Tumbled to what?"

"You shall hear. I got leary about things on the tenth day, for this
telephoning was getting monotonous, and borrowed Brokaw's car again,
but when I got to the little hidden sanatorium, my birds had flown,
and--"

"Your birds had flown! What do you mean, Radnor?"

"Just what I say. The man and the woman had gone, and the doc wouldn't
tell me when they went away, or anything at all about them. He said he
had been well paid for keeping quiet, and I couldn't get any more
information out of him than you could dig out of a clam. What is more,
that chauffeur hadn't been seen by anybody since I dropped him out of
the machine, at the scene of the accident--and that is the story. I
don't know whether the doc lied to me, or not. He wouldn't let me go
through his place, and, for all I know, the man and the girl were both
there when I went back. On the other hand, they might have been gone a
week, already. I've been unearthing every clue I could think of, since
then, to get trace of them, but you might as well look for saw dust in
hades, as for clues about those two--or rather the three of them, for
I am satisfied that the chauffeur returned to the sanatorium after he
had performed the errand he was sent to do."

"What gets me," said Sommers, "is how people as prominent as you say
they were could fade out of sight like that, and leave no trace behind
them. I should have thought there would be a hue and cry after them
that would have stirred every newspaper in town."

"Well--all that rather gets me, too. Of course, I could make a big
story out of it, as it stands; but that isn't all of the story, and I
want it all."

"There is a scandal in the thing, too, Radnor."

"Of course, man! The fellow wasn't so badly hurt but what he must have
been around again, by the time I went back to the sanatorium. The girl
was certainly in her right senses. She remained there with him,
hanging over him and helping to take care of him--and there wasn't a
thing said about any marriage-ceremony. Oh, it's a big story all
right, no matter how it turns out. You see, there are some remarkable
circumstances associated with the case. For instance, there are two
men in town now, both of whom should be very greatly concerned over
the mystery. I have had them both watched, and, while both seem
anxious about something, neither one seems to give a hang about an
affair which I know they would have broken their necks to have
prevented. There's a nigger in the fence, somewhere; and those two men
avoid each other as if one had the smallpox and the other was down
with yellow fever. Whenever I have asked any of the intimate friends
about the principals in the case, I have been told enough to inform
me that the intimate friends know as little as I do, and don't guess
anything about it, at all. Oh, it's a fine mix-up! But just where the
trouble is located, I can't make out."

"Put me wise, Radnor, and let me help you. Then, we'll do the story
together," said the man called Sommers.

"Not much. It's my story, and I'm going to hang to it. If you can make
anything out of what I have told you, you're welcome. You can't! The
young woman in the case has got more brains than half the business
men, down-town. The man and the woman have both got millions to burn;
and there you are. Come on; let's have something. I'm dry as a bone."

The members of Radnor's party marched past Roderick Duncan without
seeing him; and he, totally forgetful of the errand that had taken him
to the hotel, passed swiftly out of it, hailed a taxi, and gave the
address of Malcolm Melvin, the lawyer; and then he was whirled away as
swiftly as the driver of the cab dared to take him through the streets
of the teeming city.




CHAPTER XX

THE LAST WOMAN


Stephen Langdon was seated at one end of the table, Roderick Duncan
was at the opposite one. Melvin, the lawyer, was behind it. Duncan had
just related the story he had overheard told by Radnor, and he had
brought his recital to a close by making a remarkable statement, which
had brought at least one of his hearers to a mental stand-still.

"I am a party to an agreement which was signed, sealed and delivered,
in this office, Mr. Langdon," he said. "You are also a party to that
document. Your daughter also signed it. By the terms of that document,
Patricia Langdon became my promised wife. Under the terms recited in
that document, she named a day when we were to be married. That day
has come and gone, and I have received no word of any kind from her. I
am convinced that you, her father, know where she is, where she can be
found, and now I demand of you that information, in order that I may
seek her. It is my wish to know from her own lips if she repudiates
that contract, or if it is still her intention to live up to it. I
have asked you, in Mr. Melvin's presence, twice, to give me the
information I wish for. I have asked you once on the ground of our
mutual friendship: you declined to answer. I have asked you, the
second time, on the ground of love and affection, for you and for your
daughter: you have refused. I ask you now on the ground of a
commercial transaction, just as Miss Langdon insisted upon viewing it,
and with all personal considerations put aside. If you again decline
my request, I give you warning that I shall make a call upon you
within an hour, for the loan I have advanced. I have that right, under
the terms of the agreement, and I shall take advantage of it. That is
all I have to say. It is my last word."

Stephen Langdon left his chair. His face was cold, stern,
expressionless. It wore the mask which long years in "the street," had
given it. He did not look toward Duncan, but turned his face to the
lawyer, and said, with cold preciseness:

"Mr. Melvin, you may say for me, to all who may be concerned, that I
shall be prepared within an hour to meet all demands that may be made
upon me."

With a slight inclination of his head, he left the office of the
lawyer. He walked as erect as ever; he carried himself no less
proudly, although he knew that he was going to his financial ruin
unless the unexpected should happen. Twenty millions is a large sum to
pay at an hour's notice. It was not a tithe of the fortune which
Stephen Langdon was supposed to possess; yet his circumstances at the
moment were such that terrible disaster would immediately follow upon
the demand for its payment. He knew it; Melvin knew it; Roderick
Duncan knew it. But the fighting blood of Roderick Duncan's father was
surging in his son's soul, just then; and, in his day, "Old Man
Duncan" had been a harder and a more relentless financier than ever
his partner, Stephen Langdon, had become.

"You will not insist, will you, Roderick?" the lawyer asked, as soon
as they were alone.

"I shall insist," replied Duncan, with decision.

"Even in the event that I might give you the information you seek?
Even in that case, will you insist upon forcing your father's life-long
friend to the wall? For that is what it will amount to."

"No. In that case I shall not insist upon calling in the loan. I seek
only the information. It doesn't matter where I get it, so long as I
do get it, and it proves to be correct. That is all I require."

The lawyer drew a pad of paper toward him and hastily wrote a few
lines upon it. Then, tearing off the sheet, he rang a bell and gave
the written message into the hand of a clerk.

"Mr. Langdon just left this office," he said. "Overtake him and give
him this message. See to it that you do not fail to place it in his
hands at once." He waited until the door had closed behind the
retreating figure of the clerk; then he turned toward Duncan again.

"Mr. Langdon is only a very little wiser than yourself about what has
happened to his daughter, during the last few weeks," he said, with a
touch of coldness in his tones. "I am somewhat better informed than
either of you, and in order to save my old friend from utter ruin--in
order to save his life, for ruin would spell death to him--I shall
tell you what you wish to know, even though I have been implored not
to do so. Frankly, I believe it better that you should know the truth,
only"--he hesitated a moment--"I shall ask you to remember who you are
and what you are, and to govern yourself as your father's son should."

"Well, Mr. Melvin?"

"Miss Langdon is at Three-Star ranch, in Montana. She has been
there--"

"One moment, Melvin!"

"Well?"

"You said, _Miss Langdon_. Do you wish to correct that statement by
any change of name? Was it a slip of the tongue, caused by momentary
forgetfulness?"

"No."

"'Three-Star' is the name of a brand owned by Richard Morton, is it
not?"

"Yes."

"Three-Star ranch is one of his many properties, I believe."

"It is."

"Go on, please."

"I repeat: Miss Langdon is at Three-Star ranch, in Montana. She has
been there since a little more than a week after her disappearance. I
was the first to be informed of the fact. The information came to me
through a letter written by her to me. I have fulfilled the requests
made to me in that letter--until now, when I am revealing truths which
she wished untold. Through me, her father has settled one million
dollars upon her. She now enjoys the income of that amount. That is
all."

"The letter! May I see it?"

The lawyer methodically took a red-leather pocketbook from his coat,
extracted an envelope therefrom, and passed it across the table to
Duncan.

"Dear Mr. Melvin," the young man read, half-aloud, although to
himself, "I am at Three-Star ranch, one of the properties of Mr.
Richard Morton, in Montana. The full address is inclosed, written upon
an additional slip of paper which I trust you will destroy at once;
also this letter. I am with Mr. Morton; I am caring for him. More than
that, you need not know. I desire you to tell my father that it is my
wish to forego any inheritance I might have received from him, but
that if he is disposed to make any present settlement upon me, I shall
cheerfully receive it. I shall not communicate with him; I do not wish
him to communicate with me. I cannot command your silence, or his,
concerning me; but I expect it. Unless he should demand of you
knowledge of my place of abode, I prefer that you withhold it from
him. Concerning others, I implore your entire silence and discretion.
I shall communicate with you again only in the event that it should
become necessary to do so.--Patricia Langdon."

The letter fluttered from Duncan's hands to the floor. He bent forward
and picked it up, his face white and drawn and set and suddenly
haggard. He folded the letter carefully, returned it to the envelope,
and then, with slow precision, tore it into bits, carried the mass of
fragments to the hearth, piled them into a heap and touched a lighted
match to it. The lawyer watched the proceeding without emotion,
without a change of expression. But he gave a slight nod of
satisfaction when it was done.

Duncan did not return to his chair. He stood for a moment before the
hearth, with his back turned toward the lawyer; then he wheeled about
and came forward three steps, until he could reach his hat which was
on the table.

"Thank you, Melvin," he said. "I shall entirely respect your
confidence. Good-day."

"Where are you going, Duncan?"

"I don't know. I haven't thought of that--yet."

The lawyer rose from his chair, and rested the tips of his fingers on
the table in front of him, bending slightly forward.

"She was a good girl; and you loved her. Don't forget that," he said.

"No; I won't forget it, Melvin."

"And--there are others, just as good; don't forget that, either."

"No. There are no others like her. She was the last woman--for me; the
last woman; and she is dead."

"The last woman? Nonsense!"

"The last woman, Melvin. You don't understand me."

"No, I do not understand you."

"Good God! Don't you see how it all came about? Don't you know
Patricia Langdon?"

"I know that I won't hear a word against her, even now--even from you,
Duncan," said the lawyer, with a touch of savagery.

"Don't you understand that, having put her name to a written contract
with me, she would not break that contract, or repudiate it? And don't
you see that she has intended, all along, to force me into a position
where I would be the one to repudiate its terms? You're a poor judge
of character, Melvin, if you don't see that. You have never known
Patricia Langdon, if you don't understand her, now. And"--he hesitated
an instant--"your association with me has taught you mighty little
about my character, if you haven't guessed what I will do--now!"

"What will you do, Roderick? What do you mean?" asked the lawyer,
alarmed by the deep intensity with which Duncan spoke those last
words.

"I shall go to Montana. I shall start to-night. I shall find Patricia
Langdon. I shall live up to the terms of the contract I made with her,
and I shall compel her to do the same. I shall make her my wife. I
shall bring her back to New York, to her father, to her home, as Mrs.
Roderick Duncan. That is what I shall do. That is what I mean."

"God bless you, boy! But--it can't be done."

"It shall be done."

"But, she will never consent to such an arrangement. She is the last
woman in the world to drag your name--"

"The last woman; that is it. She is the last of the Langdon's; she
shall be the last of the Duncan's, too. She will keep to the letter of
her contract, if I force her to it. I know that. And I will force her
to it."

"But the man! What will you do with him?"

Duncan stared a moment. Then, he smiled, as he replied:

"After Patricia Langdon has become Patricia Duncan, I will kill him.
Good-day, Melvin."




CHAPTER XXI

THE REASON WHY


Roderick Duncan traveled westward in a special train made up of his
own private car, a regular Pullman, and a diner. With his valet for
company, Duncan constituted the personnel of the first of these; the
second was occupied by the Reverend Doctor Moreley, his wife and two
daughters. The reverend gentleman was aware of a part of the purpose
of that trip; the members of his family were yet to be told of it. A
lavish use of the magician, Money, had prepared everything in advance
for Duncan, and he had now only to carry out the arrangements he had
made. There was a slight delay in making the start, but after that all
things moved as smoothly as possible. Ultimately, the special train
was sidetracked at a point that was within a few miles of the house
and outbuildings of Three-Star ranch.

The state of Montana held no finer ranch and range, no better or more
up-to-date buildings, no better outfit in all respects, than
Three-Star. The house, set well up along the side of a hill, faced
toward the south, and commanded a view which had been the pride of its
former owners, before Richard Morton bought up all the rangeland in
that locality and converted it into one huge estate of his own. A
broad veranda extended from end to end, at the front, and from that
vantage point miles upon miles of rich pasture could be seen, dotted
with grazing thousands of cattle. Trees, set out with a view to the
future, by the creators of the ranch, imparted an aspect of homely
comfort, of seclusion, peace and contentment to it all.

Just at sundown when Patricia Langdon came through the wide door and
stepped out upon the veranda toward the broad flight of steps which
led down to the flowered inclosure in front of the house, she stopped
suddenly, her right hand flew toward her throat, and her face, flushed
and angry until that instant, went as pale as death itself. She gasped
and caught her breath, swayed a second where she stood, and then drew
herself upright again; and she stood straight and tall and brave, face
to face with Roderick Duncan who appeared at the top step at the
instant when Patricia advanced toward it.

For a space, neither one uttered a word, or made another gesture,
save that, in the first instant, Roderick raised his hat in silent
salutation, and now stood with it held in his hand.

Patricia's first act was to cast a half-furtive and wholly
apprehensive glance over her shoulder, toward the doorway through
which she had just passed. Then, she sprang forward like a young fawn
and darted down the steps toward the pathway.

"Come with me," she threw back at him. "There must be an interview,
but it cannot be held here. Follow me."

Duncan obeyed her, but without haste; and she led him into a pathway
among the trees, soon emerging upon an open space in the center of
which a rustic pavilion had been erected. It was overgrown by a riot
of climbing vines; an inclosure with windows at every side of it,
occupied the center of the space beneath the roof, and inside the
inclosure were all the evidences of feminine occupancy. Wicker chairs
and chairs of willow, rugs, hassocks, cushions, pillows with
embroidered covers, littered the place. One could discern at a glance
that it was a place of retreat and rest for a woman of taste. In
reality, it was Patricia Langdon's place of refuge--at least, she so
regarded it.

She did not speak again until she had mounted the steps which led up
to it; nor did the man who followed her. But then, when they were
beneath the roof of the pavilion, she turned about and faced him.

"Now," she said, "why are you here? Why have you dared to come to this
place, in search of me?" She spoke without emphasis, but the very
absence of all emotion gave her words the more weight and power.

Duncan stood tall and straight before her, calmly facing her. If her
face showed no emotion, now that she had regained control over
herself, neither did his. Before he replied to her question, he took a
folded paper from the breast-pocket of his coat, and held it in his
hand.

"I have a document here, which bears your signature, and mine," he
said, then. "It recites the terms of a certain contract which you have
agreed to fulfill. I am here to insist that you carry out the terms of
this agreement. It is time now, for action on your part."

Patricia gasped. She took a single step backward, and rested one hand
upon the top of a willow armchair. Her composure seemed about to
forsake her utterly, but by a great effort she controlled herself,
lifting her free hand to her throat as if something were choking her.

"It--is--impossible--now," she muttered, at last; and she swayed where
she stood, as if she might fall.

"Be seated, Patricia," he said, using her name for the first time;
and, when she had complied, he passed around the chair until he stood
behind her. It was a delicate act on his part--a consideration for her
feelings which might not have been expected, under all the
circumstances. He thought he understood how terrible this interview
must be to her, and he did not wish to compel her to face him, while
it endured. Patricia shivered when he passed her; otherwise she gave
no sign. "It is not impossible," he went on, without perceptible
pause. "It has never been impossible; it can never be so. On the
contrary, it is imperative; more than ever imperative, now."

She shivered again, and did not reply when he paused. He continued:

"Patricia Langdon, you are not one to refuse the terms of a written
contract which you have signed and sealed with a full knowledge of its
meaning, particularly when the other party to it insists upon its
fulfillment. I am the other party to this contract, and I do insist
upon its complete fulfillment. You are the last woman in the world
to--"

"I am the last woman in the world--the very last!" she interrupted
him, vehemently, but she did not turn her head toward him. He
continued as if he had not heard her:

"--to repudiate the distinct terms of an agreement you have knowingly
made."

"I have already repudiated them."

"No, you have not. And you shall not."

"Shall not?"

"No."

"Do--do you mean that you would force me to a compliance with the
conditions of that agreement you hold in your hand?"

"Yes--if such a course is necessary."

"But you cannot! You cannot!"

"Yes, I can; and I will, Patricia."

"Don't speak my name!" she cried out, hotly. "Don't utter it again!
Don't you dare to do so! Don't you dare!"

"Very well."

"How will you force me? You cannot do it."

"There is a penalty attached to all legally drawn contracts," he lied,
glibly enough; and, realizing that she was startled by what he had
already said, he did not hesitate to add more to it. "I have come
here prepared to insist that you fulfill your obligation. You know
that I am not one to relent, once I have set my course. There are
officers of the law in this county and state, as well as within the
county and state where you made the contract." He stopped a moment
when she shrank visibly in her chair, for he was about to say a really
cruel thing. He would not have said it, had he not deemed it entirely
necessary, in order to coerce her to his will; but he went on,
relentlessly: "If you make it needful to do so, I shall not hesitate
to send officers here, to take you before a court, there to relate why
you will not carry out the conditions of your contract."

Duncan expected that Patricia would fly into a rage, at this; he
thought she would leap to her feet, confront him, and defy him. He
looked for a tirade of rage, of abuse, or of despair; or, failing
these, for an outburst of pleading on her part that he would relent.

There was no evidence of any of these emotions. Indeed, for a moment
it seemed as if she had not heard him, so still did she sit in her
chair, so utterly unmoved did she appear to be by the statement he had
made.

If, at that moment he had stepped around in front of her and looked
into her face, he would have been amazed by what he saw. He would have
seen great tears welling in her eyes, held in check by her long
lashes; he would have seen a near approach to a smile behind those
tears, although she was unconscious of that, herself; he would have
noticed that she caught her breath again, but not in the same manner,
nor from the same cause that had led to the like effort, earlier in
their interview. When, at last, she did reply to him, it was in a
far-away, uncertain voice, so soft, and so like the Patricia of quiet
and sympathetic moods, that Roderick was startled, and he found
himself compelled to hold his own spirit in check, lest he should
forget the studied deportment he had determined upon for the occasion.

"Why do you insist upon it?" she asked him. He replied, without
hesitation--and coldly:

"Because I love you."

"Because ... you ... love ... me," she said, slowly, and so softly
that he barely heard the words. They did not form a question; they
comprised a statement, like his own.

"Yes," he said.

"But"--she hesitated--"there is another reason."

"Yes. We need not dwell upon that."

"Nevertheless, I should like to hear it."

"No."

"You will not tell me what it is?"

"It is not necessary. It is begging the question."

"You wish to give me the protection of your name. I think I
understand."

"Have it so, if you wish."

"You wish to make me your wife. I am beginning to comprehend you,
Roderick." The name slipped out, unconsciously, on her part, although
he was tragically aware of it. "Have you remembered--have you thought
of--are you quite aware of what you are doing?"

"Quite. I have remembered everything, thought of all things."

"And your reason for all this is--what? Tell me again, please."

"You make my task harder," he said, coldly. "My reason is that I love
you."

Again, Patricia was silent for a time. Then:

"How do you propose to carry out this chivalrous conduct? Who will
marry us, if I agree to your absurd proposal?"

"It is not absurd. It is the only logical thing for you to do. Doctor
Moreley will marry us. He came with me, in my special train." She
caught at the arms of the chair, and clung to them. "Mrs. Moreley,
with Evelyn and Kate, accompany him. It is a short ride to where the
cars are sidetracked, waiting. You can ride there in the morning--or
go there with me this evening, if you will."

"Do ... they ... know--?"

"They know nothing save the one fact that we are to be married, that
Doctor Moreley is to perform the ceremony, and that the members of his
family are to act as witnesses. Nobody knows anything at all, save
that. Nobody ever shall know. Your absence from New York has
occasioned no suspicion--save only in the mind of one man, Radnor. The
fact of our marriage will be published and broadcast at once, and even
his suspicions will be stilled."

"And ... afterward ... after we are married--what?"

"We will discuss that question after the ceremony."

"No. We will discuss it now. Afterward--what?"

"You will be my wife, then. It is right and proper that you should
return to New York, that you should live in my house. I shall take you
there, and install you, properly. I shall insist upon that much.
There is no way for you to escape the fulfillment of your contract.
When you are my wife, you will have entered upon another contract
which you will also keep. The contract to honor and obey."

"To love, honor, and obey," she corrected him.

"I shall not insist upon the first of those terms. The second one I
shall endeavor to merit. The third one, I shall insist upon. Now, when
will you--"

"Wait. You are sure that you do this because you love me?"

"Yes."

"And you are ready to sacrifice your name, your life, to a creature
who, according to your view of conditions, should be the very last
woman to bear your name--to become your wife? You do this because you
love me? It must be a great love, indeed, Roderick, to compel you to
such an act--oh it must have been a very great love, indeed."

"It is a great love; and there will be no sacrifice: there will be
satisfaction."

She arose from the chair, but stood as she was, with her back toward
him.

"You have forgotten one thing," she said, gently.

"I have forgotten nothing."

She raised her right arm, and pointed toward the house, through the
trees.

"You have forgotten the man, in there," she said, no less gently. It
was his turn to shudder, but he repeated with doggedness in his tone:

"I have forgotten nothing."

"You mean to deal with him--afterward?"

"Yes."

"How? If I consent to all that you have asked, will you deal with
him--gently?"

"Can you plead for him, even now, when--?"

"Hush! Answer my question, if you please."

"I will deal with him more gently than he deserves. I promise you
that."

"I shall be satisfied with that promise." She turned about and faced
him, and there was a smile on her lips, now, although Roderick
entirely misunderstood the cause of it. He drew backward, farther away
from her. But she followed after him, holding out one hand for him to
take, and persisting in the effort when he refused to see it. There
were tears under her lashes again, but she was smiling through them;
and then, while she followed him, and he still sought to avoid her,
Patricia lost all control over herself. She half-collapsed, half-threw
herself upon the chair again, and buried her face in her hands,
sobbing.

"Don't Patricia; please, don't," he said to her, brokenly. "You make
it much harder for both of us. This has been a terrible scene for you
to pass through, I know, but after a little you will realize its
wisdom--and the full justice of the cause I plead."

She controlled herself. She started to her feet.

"Come with me," she cried out to him; and then, before he could stop
her, she darted away out of his reach, flew down the steps, and along
the pathway, toward the house. He followed. There was nothing else for
him to do. She waited for him at the top of the steps where he had
first seen her; and, when he would have detained her, she eluded him a
second time, and fled through the doorway, into the wide hall of the
house--of Richard Morton's dwelling place.

"Come," she called after him again; and again he followed.




CHAPTER XXII

THE MYSTERY


The house was a large one. It covered a great deal of ground although
it was only one story high. A wide hall ran through the center of the
main building, and there were doors to the right and the left. Through
the first doorway to the right, Patricia made her escape; and, through
it, Roderick Duncan followed her. But he brought up suddenly, the
instant he had crossed the threshold, and stood there, staring.
Patricia had passed swiftly ahead of him, and Roderick saw her drop
upon her knees beside a couch-bed, whereon a man was lying--and that
man was Richard Morton.

Duncan was too greatly amazed for connected thought, but he was
conscious of the fact that Morton's eyes sought him over the shoulder
of Patricia, who knelt beside the couch. He had never thought that
Morton's eyes were quite so expressive. They seemed almost to speak to
him, to wonder at his presence there; but, stranger than all else, to
express unquestionable pleasure because of his presence. He thought
it remarkable that Morton did not move; that the man made no effort to
rise, or to speak; that there was neither smile nor frown upon his
white, still face. Then, Patricia's voice broke the spell that was
upon him. She turned, and beckoned to him.

"Come here, Roderick," she said, softly. "Come and speak to Richard.
Tell him that you have come all the way out here, by a special train,
to marry me, and that you have brought a minister along with you to
perform the ceremony. Come, Roderick, come. He will be made very happy
by the news." She turned toward the stricken man, again, and added:
"Won't you, Richard?"

Slowly the lids dropped for an instant over those strangely brilliant
eyes, and, when they were raised again, the eyes seemed to smile at
Roderick; but there was no other emotion visible about the prostrate
man.

"I have not told you about him, Roderick," Patricia said, rising to
her feet, "but I will do so now, in his presence. He wishes it so; do
you not, Richard?"

Again, those eyes closed for an instant, and Roderick understood that
the gesture, if gesture it could be called, meant an affirmative.

"Richard wishes you to know all the truth about him," she continued.
"I have promised him, many times, that some day I would tell you. He
meant to kill himself that night, when he drove his roadster away from
Cedarcrest. He guided his car, purposely, into the mass of rocks at
the roadside. I found him there. Patrick O'Toole, who is devoted to
me, was with me, you know. We saw the wreck, and stopped. Then, we
found Richard. Oh, it was awful. I thought he was dead, and I believed
that I was his murderer. I still think that I was the unconscious
cause of it all, although he will not have it so. I was moaning over
him, when Mr. Radnor--you remember him?--found us. He took us to a
sanatorium that he knew about, where he said there was a good doctor;
and so it proved. I forgot all about Jack Gardner's car, but later I
sent Patrick back after it."

Morton's eyes began to wink rapidly, and Roderick called Patricia's
attention to the fact.

"Yes; I know that I am getting ahead of my story," she said, as if she
perfectly understood what the winking meant. "Richard was like a dead
man when we arrived at the sanatorium--all save his eyes, and the fact
that he breathed. He was completely paralyzed; only his eyes, and the
lids over them, retained the power of motion. He was terribly
injured. The doctor said he would not die, but that he would never
move a muscle of his body again, no matter how long he might live. The
power of speech was gone, too. Only his eyes lived; the rest of
him--all but his eyes and his great heart--was dead."

Morton's eyes began to wink rapidly, again.

"Yes, I shall tell it all; only, let me do it in my own way," Patricia
said to him. "Mr. Radnor told me that he had given fictitious names
for both of us to the doctor. At first, I was offended because of it,
but later, I was glad. The doctor permitted me to assist in the
nursing--I ... I told him that I was Richard's wife. Mr. Radnor had
already given that impression. I did not deny it; I made it more
emphatic, in order that I might take the direction of affairs. When
Mr. Radnor went away, he said he would return the following day; but I
did not want him to do that, and so, when the next day came, I
persuaded the doctor to telephone to him that he must not come. Also,
when Mr. Radnor took his departure, I sent Patrick with him, to care
for Jack's car. I told him to deliver it at the garage, and then to
return to me, at the sanatorium, for further orders. But, when he
came back, he told me he had abandoned the car in the streets of New
York, knowing that it would be found and claimed, and wishing to avoid
the necessity of answering questions. Am I telling the story
satisfactorily now, Richard?"

Slowly, the speaking eyes drooped their assent, and she went on:

"At the end of a few days, Richard was much better of his hurts. There
was no change in the other condition--the one that still holds him so
helpless. I seemed to have a positive genius for understanding him,
and he made me know--you see, I kept asking questions till he made the
positive or the negative sign. I hit upon that idea because once,
Roderick, you made me read 'The Count of Monte Cristo,' and I
remembered old Nortier--Well, Richard made me understand several
things. One was that he wished to come here, as soon as possible;
another was that, most emphatically, he did not wish to have any of
the old friends and acquaintances in New York know what had happened
to him. Fortunately, he had a large sum of money in his pockets--What
are you insisting about now, Richard?" she concluded, with a smile,
perceiving that the eyelids of the stricken man were working rapidly.
He looked steadily at her, and she shrugged her shoulders.

"Very well," she said, "I understand you. Roderick, he wishes me to
tell you that he had the money with him because he intended to run
away with me, that evening, and that he came very near to doing so. He
wants me to tell you that he was a brute, and everything bad and mean
and low and--there! I hope you are satisfied, Richard."

The eyes slowly closed and opened again.

"Richard had a large sum with him. I, also, had a considerable amount
with me. I had had some thought of running away from all of you, and
had prepared myself for such an emergency. Well, when I knew what
Richard wanted, I took command of things. I did not consult him at
all, but went directly ahead, in my own way. I always did that, you
know, Roderick. I engaged a private car and a special train to bring
us here; engaged them in the name of--in the assumed name, you know.
One week from the day we entered the sanatorium, we left it again,
went aboard the special train, and came here. Patrick came with us. He
refused to leave.

"Oh, yes; I am forgetting something. You needn't wink so hard,
Richard. I shall tell all of it. Richard protested with his eyes
against my accompanying him. I do believe that he never once stopped
blinking them, all the way out here. He would have said horrid things
to me, if he could have spoken. I think that I was sometimes really
glad he could not do so, fearing what he might have said. But nobody
else could understand him; I could, and did. He was utterly helpless,
and it was my fault that he was so. Yes, it was, and is, Richard, so
stop protesting. I bribed the doctor at the sanatorium, to say nothing
at all about us, and above all to keep every bit of information away
from Mr. Radnor. Then, we came here.

"At first, it did not occur to me that I should remain, but, when I
understood how entirely dependent Richard was upon me, I had to stay.
Think of what he had been, Roderick, and of the condition to which I
had brought him! It seemed a very little thing for me to do, to stay
here and be his wife--Yes, that is what I decided to do; only, he
would not let me. Just think of it! I have begged and pleaded with him
to marry me, and he has refused."

Again, the eyes began a violent winking, and Patricia, smilingly,
said:

"Oh, yes. He wants me to tell you that he has begged and pleaded, just
as hard, for me to return to New York, and leave him here, helpless
and alone, and that I have been just as contrary about this, as he was
about the other. There! Can you imagine our quarreling, Roderick?
Well, just before you appeared here, this evening, we had been having
a violent quarrel. I was really angry at Richard, when I went out upon
the veranda--and met you. He had ordered me out of the house. He had
said, as plainly as he could look it, that he didn't want me here;
that I was only a trouble to him; that I made him unhappy by
remaining; that he would be much better in every way if I were gone.
He ... he made me understand that my ... my good name was in question;
that I would be talked about. I confess that I had never thought of it
in that light, before. I asked him again to marry me, and let me
remain; but he refused. Then, I left him, in a huff, declaring that he
couldn't drive me away. And then"--she turned directly toward Roderick
this time, and held out both her hands--"I almost ran into your arms,
Roderick."

"Do it now, Patricia," he replied, taking her hands, and drawing her
closer.

"I can't. You are much too near to me. But--"

She did not finish what she was about to say; and Roderick held her
tightly in his embrace for just one glorious moment, while the eyes of
the stricken man glowed upon them with unspeakable joy in their living
depths.

Patricia drew slowly and reluctantly away from Roderick's embrace, and
once more got upon her knees beside the couch.

"You were right, Richard, after all," she said. "I think it would have
killed me if I had found Roderick again, after I was the wife of
another. You were right, dear one. You have always been right. But
everything is made clear, now. Roderick is here. He loves me. You are
pleased that he is here, and that he does love me, and my cup of
happiness is filled to the brim. Speak to him, Roderick."

"Dick Morton, I think you are the bravest man I ever knew," said
Roderick, stepping forward and permitting his hand to rest for a
moment upon Morton's forehead. "I want you to be my friend, as long as
you live, and I want Patricia to continue to care for you, just as
long as you need her. We will go back East in a day or so, and you
shall go with us."

The eyes winked a vehement negative, but Roderick continued:

"Oh, you'll think differently about it, after a bit of thought. In
the meantime, how would it suit you to have a wedding, right here, in
your room, before your eyes? Eh? He says 'Yes' to that, Patricia."

It was twenty-four hours later. Patricia and Roderick Duncan had just
been united in marriage by the Reverend Dr. Moreley, and had turned
about on the platform which projected from the front of the veranda to
receive the congratulations of their witnesses, who were made up of
the entire outfit of Three-Star ranch. The couch of the invalid was
beside them, a cheer was still ringing in the air, when two
dust-covered horsemen rode upon the scene.

They came to a sudden halt when it was discovered what they had
intruded upon, but Burke Radnor, never at a loss for words, jumped
from the saddle and came swiftly forward. The bride saw him,
recognized him instantly, and smiled. Then, she beckoned to him.

"Come up here, Mr. Radnor," she called. "You were very good to me when
I needed a friend, and I want to thank you for your silence, since
then." Radnor flushed. "Please shake hands with my husband, and
remember that I want both of you to forget your old differences. There
shall be nothing but happiness here, now. And this is our dear friend,
Mr. Richard Morton. He cannot shake hands with you, but he can look
his pleasure at greeting you."

"How are you, Radnor?" said Roderick. "I think, we'd better follow
Mrs. Duncan's advice, and be friends; eh? I think I know why you came,
and now I'll see to it that you have a good story to wire to your
paper, to-night. It will beat the one you hoped to get, all hollow.
I'll get you to one side and alone, presently, and tell you all about
it. Listen to those cowpunchers cheer, will you! But, I'll tell you
what, it isn't a patch on the cheer that is in my heart."

"You have won the first woman in the land, Duncan," said Radnor,
shaking hands heartily.

"The first woman? No, the last. It takes the last woman to do things,
Radnor."

"And the best; eh?"

"Both, old chap."


THE END




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Transcriber's note:

   Minor inconsistencies in spellings have been corrected;
   the original spelling has been retained.

   page 303: In the sentence: "The fact of our marriage will
   be published broadcast at once, and even his suspicions
   will be stilled." The word "and" has been added after
   "published."

   The table of contents was created for this eBook and
   does not appear in this form in the original text.




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