In the interim that followed Shirley and Miriam leaned over and shook hands with Thorne.
"We can't lose," whispered Miriam; and again there returned to her face that mysterious expression of confidence which was decidedly inexplicable to her lawyer. And so it was that a little while later he turned to Shirley and said:—
"Does she understand that we must lose?"
Miss Bloodgood shook her head.
"Oh, no! No one can tell her that." And bestowing on him a rare smile, she added: "And now, Mr. Thorne, after what you have said no one can tellmethat either."
Well pleased with her flattery, Thorne returned the smile, but he warned her that when those twelve men got into the jury room they would get down to facts.
And it so happened that the twelve men got down to the facts before they even started for the jury room, for already the prosecutor had begun his speech and was stripping the case of everything save the truth.
"This, gentlemen," he now told the jury, quietly, "is not an unusual case; it's an every-day story growing out of jealousy and hatred; one bad man shot another bad man—that's all."
At this the temperature of the crowd dropped from the fever-heat of frenzied sympathy down to the freezing-point of common-sense. Challoner stirred uneasily; Shirley Bloodgood shivered; only Miriam Challoner sat with the same placid look on her face.
Murgatroyd now left his jury, walked to the table where the prisoner sat, and without taking his eyes from the face of the accused, he continued:—
"... This man Challoner is a wilful, deliberate murderer! This is not his first offence—he began to murder years ago...."
At this point the prosecutor went back to the time when Challoner married a beautiful young girl, emphasising the fact that he had married this mere slip of a girl for her money.
"Her money! And he has never earned a dollar since!" he told his listeners with great scorn. "And his life! What has he made of it? Ah! You men know the things that are done in this city between midnight and morning, and the up-hill fight that is being made to clean it of corruption and vice! Well, this degenerate, this profligate, did these things of the under-world. They appealed to him; he was no mere youth to be led astray!"
Challoner winced; not that he quailed before the menacing posture that the prosecutor had assumed, but because of a guilty consciousness that the accusing lips meant every word that they uttered. The audience shifted uneasily in their seats; Shirley Bloodgood held her breath as she placed a protecting arm about Miriam, which Miriam gently shook off; for what need had she for sympathy?
Murgatroyd returned to his place in front of the jury rail, and briefly reviewed the evidence.
Then with great emotion in his voice he went on:—
"And what part, gentlemen, did the wife have in all this? His wife, who sat through the weary hours of the night waiting for the thing she loved, while her husband not only lavished his affections but her money on others—his friends. His friends! Had he friends? If so, where are they? No, long ago he turned his back on his real friends; they were in the light; he sought the darkness."
As the prosecutor went on with his merciless flaying, Challoner grew hot and cold by turns.
"... Gentlemen, behold the result of riotous living!" he declared, pointing his finger at the prisoner. "The pace that kills!...
"And so, in view of these facts, in view of the prisoner's private history, I tell you that the defence here is absurd, ridiculous. Gentlemen, on behalf of the people, in the name of justice, I ask you to convict this man."
For an instant he stood eyeing the twelve jurors. Then, raising his right hand solemnly he brought it down with full sudden force upon the railing between himself and them.
"And let me warn you, gentlemen of the jury," he continued ominously, "that the honour, the integrity of this metropolis hangs in the balance. If you acquit this defendant and set him free, the people of this State, the people of the country, will say henceforth that all that a murderer need have to secure an acquittal—his freedom, is money, money, money."
As the prosecutor seated himself, there was a gasp of relief from the people in the court-room. Broderick ventured inside of the railed space set aside for counsel and shook hands with Thorne.
"Counsellor," he said, "you certainly handled that trial like a veteran. You saw your duty and you did it."
Thorne nodded his thanks, and answered:—
"I held Murgatroyd down to the woman in the case, all right. He had to stick to that one motive. This verdict will let everybody out——"
"But Challoner," added Broderick.
"Everybody but Challoner," agreed Thorne; "and the incident will be closed."
Broderick, with a certain self-satisfied air, went on:—
"When you were talking, I put up ten dollars with a chap back there in the court-room that Challoner'd go free."
"Not in a thousand years!" declared Thorne, flatly.
"I'm afraid you're right," said Broderick, and added with a twinkle in his eye: "I hate to lose that ten. Still if I do lose it, it'll be tougher for Challoner and her—" he jerked his head toward Mrs. Challoner at the other end of the table—"than it will be for me. Oh, well, such is life! The world is full of the wives of criminals, and they all marry again and have children and live happily ever after."
Once more, he glanced in the direction of Miriam Challoner, and presently commented in a low voice:—
"There's a plucky little woman, Thorne; nothin' can feaze her. I've been watchin' her; and she's just as sure of that jury as I am of my own assembly district after it has gone through my trousers pockets the night before election." And clapping Thorne on the shoulder familiarly, he took his departure, saying:—
"I'll be back to hear the verdict."
It was nearly two o'clock. The Court had charged the jury; the jury had filed out; they were still locked up in the jury-room. The crowd had left the court-room, Challoner had been taken down-stairs, Pemmican had been housed in jail under the gambling warrants; only Thorne, Miriam and Shirley remained.
"Wasn't that a terrible arraignment of Prosecutor Murgatroyd!" exclaimed Shirley. "When he faced Laurie and told him what he thought of him—it was simply awful!" and the girl covered her face with her hands as if to shut out the sight of it all.
"Why, Shirley," said Miriam quietly, "it's a prosecutor's business to say these things about a prisoner. It's all in a day's work, isn't it, Mr. Thorne?" And she smiled faintly.
Thorne was about to speak when a uniformed attendant suddenly entered at one door and swung across the court-room to another. In passing, he called to Thorne:—
"The jury has agreed!" He disappeared in the direction of the prosecutor's private office.
A moment later another court-officer strode toward the judge's private chambers, and likewise announced in passing:—
"The jury's coming in!"
Thorne looked cheerful, by way of encouragement to the women. Shirley blanched, her lips whitened, she trembled from head to foot; but Thorne noted that Miriam's eyes only grew brighter; she concealed her agitation well.
"It will all be over in a minute now," Miriam exclaimed joyfully, "and he'll be free, free!"
Without, within, everywhere was bustle, expectation. The crowd filed back into the court-room; Murgatroyd came in from his private office; the Court took its seat upon the bench; and then just as Broderick waddled in, the barred door in the far corner opened, and Challoner, as though in a daze, walked down the aisle, an officer in front and one behind him. The clerk glanced about him to see that all was in readiness, and then nodding to an officer, he said:—
"Bring 'em in!"
A minute that seemed minutes elapsed, and then the jury filed in—a jury whose faces, whose demeanour told nothing, gave no sign. Then there was an interval of silence, and in that interval a cutting pang seized upon the soul of every human present—the agony of suspense, the travail that precedes the birth of a verdict.
"Gentlemen of the jury," said the clerk rapidly, "have you agreed upon your verdict?"
"We have," came in chorus.
"Who do you say shall answer for you?"
The eleven men pointed toward their foreman.
"Gentlemen of the jury," said the clerk, "look upon the prisoner; prisoner, look upon the jury. Gentlemen of the jury, how do you say you find—guilty or not guilty?"
The foreman glanced upon the piece of paper which he held in his left hand and gripped the rail before him with his right.
"Guilty," he replied.
"What's that?" exclaimed Graham Thorne in affected astonishment.
"What?" came from Miriam Challoner shrilly; and the next moment all the colour had left her face; she was pale as death.
"Guilty, your Honour," repeated the foreman in a louder tone.
"Guilty of what?" queried the Court impatiently.
"Of murder in the first degree," answered the jury as one man.
"Gentlemen of the jury, your verdict is guilty of murder in the first degree, and so say all of you?" reeled off the clerk, looking at his minutes.
They nodded.
"You are discharged, gentlemen, with the thanks of the Court," announced the Court with approval. "Be here to-morrow morning at ten o'clock."
Meanwhile Challoner sat sullen, desperate, his chin resting on his hand, glaring into space. Around him was confusion, expostulation. The spectators were pressing forward toward the rail to get another look at the accused, while the jury was passing out. All of a sudden the sound of buzzing whispers died down and was followed in a moment by an intenser silence. There was a stir among those in the front seats, and the judge, looking up, was surprised to see that it was caused by the defendant's wife, who had moved from her place and was making her way to the prosecutor's desk, determination standing out on her countenance. Immediately all eyes were fixed on her, as she placed her hand upon Murgatroyd's arm, and looking him full in the face, exclaimed hysterically:—
"They found him guilty—guilty, do you understand? What have you got to say?"
Murgatroyd looked at her, but he did not answer. Her grasp became a clutch as she repeated:—
"What have you got to say to me? Speak!"
Murgatroyd was imperturbable.
Miriam, aghast at his coolness, stared at him; then she began again:—
"You—you—" Her voice failed her, and relaxing her grasp, she clung to the table for support. Shirley ran to her, held her, saying gently:—
"Miriam, dear, you are beside yourself—come, come away!"
But Miriam braced herself and resolutely shook herself free from her friend.
"No," she replied evenly, "I am not going!" and her voice rose as she went on: "Don't let anybody go! What I have to say I want all of you to hear!" And tottering over toward the bench as the spectators pressed tumultuously forward, Peter Broderick among the rest, she exclaimed:—
"Your Honour! Your Honour!"
"What is it, Madam?" asked the justice. And considering that the Court believed that it had to deal with a case of hysteria, the voice was surprisingly little tinged with irritability; but then the learned judge felt that he must make some concession to a woman of Mrs. Challoner's high social standing; and therefore he added politely: "You must be brief."
"I shall be brief," answered Mrs. Challoner, sending an accusing glance toward the prosecutor. "I desire to make a charge against Mr. Murgatroyd, the prosecutor of the pleas!" She was well contained, but her tone was harsh, cutting.
The Court glanced sympathetically at her, and then smiled gently, indulgently in the direction of the prosecutor.
"I accuse him of bribery!" she went on. "He promised to set my husband free!"
Shirley Bloodgood clutched her once more, pleading with her to stop.
"Miriam, what are you saying? You must stop this...."
"Bribery?" asked the justice, somewhat startled. "Bribery?"
For an instant there was a subdued uproar. Graham Thorne pressed forward toward the Court; Broderick from the crowd behind pushed his way into the enclosure; reporters thrust their pads and pencils into the scene; spectators stirred, became noisy; but Murgatroyd never moved.
"Let Mrs. Challoner go on," demanded Thorne.
The Court rapped loudly with his gavel; the crowd slumped into silence.
"Clear this court-room!" ordered the justice, standing up until his command was obeyed.
The process took five minutes. At the end of that period none was left within the room except the officers and those within the rail, which included Broderick. No court-officer who valued his position dared to disturb Broderick.
"Now close the doors!" ordered the justice.
That took an instant more. At last, the Court said:—
"Now, Mrs. Challoner...."
Miriam's Challoner's eyes flashed fire.
"I want everybody here," she cried, "to know and understand what this man has done! He arrested my husband," she went on, her face still turned toward Murgatroyd, her eyes holding his glance; "I begged of him to set him free—he refused. He told me he could do nothing for me—could do nothing but his duty. I couldn't move him; he wouldn't budge an inch until finally I offered him money."
She paused. Peter Broderick moved a few steps nearer, gnawing his finger-nails; Thorne watched Murgatroyd closely; but Murgatroyd was unmoved. He returned Miriam's glance with interest; he gave no sign.
"... until I offered money," she repeated. "I offered him one hundred thousand dollars; he refused to take it."
"Naturally," interposed the Court.
"He refused to take it," went on Miriam, irritated by the interruption, "because he knew there was more. He demanded eight hundred and sixty thousand dollars—all I had,—to set my husband free! He took it and agreed to set him free. And now," she concluded, advancing toward Murgatroyd as though with a threat upon her tongue, "see how he has kept his word!"
"It can't be true," Shirley Bloodgood was heard to say, half aloud.
Broderick crept up close to Thorne and nudged him. The latter interpreted correctly the action.
"Let Mrs. Challoner go on," suggested Thorne; and the Court ordered Mrs. Challoner to proceed.
"That's all," said Miriam, quite close to the prosecutor now, "except what I have to say to Mr. Murgatroyd."
And now as she stood before him, her eyes glistening, her breast heaving, remembering only that she was a woman robbed of her mate, she cried:—
"I am going to make you suffer for this as you made him suffer in this court-room," and she waved her hand toward Challoner. "I'll invoke every law against you," she went on, "and if the law can't help me, I'll spend my life to make you pay for this. You made an agreement with me and you must keep it, or I will...." Suddenly she sank exhausted into the chair next to Challoner and buried her face upon the prisoner's shoulder.
"Laurie, Laurie," she sobbed in her despair. For the first time Challoner showed some feeling; he found her hand and patted it with affection for a moment.
The justice shook his head. Presently he said incredulously:—
"Mrs. Challoner, this is a terrible charge to make."
She sprang up but immediately sank back again.
"It's true, it's true," she wailed.
Shirley turned to Thorne and said feelingly:—
"The trial has been too much for her. She's overwrought."
Broderick, who overheard the remark, grinned sardonically. Turning to Thorne, he remarked:—
"I'm an expert in these matters. It's got all the earmarks of the real thing. Murgatroyd did well." And then, as one who enjoyed all the privileges of the court-room, he advanced close to the bench, and shading his mouth, while he spoke, suggested genially:—
"Your Honour, get out the Penal Code."
But the Court merely beckoned to Thorne and suggested that he take charge of his client; that the strain had been too much for her. And much as Thorne wanted to believe her story, he felt as the Court felt: that the tale was little short of preposterous.
"But—it's true," Miriam persisted to her counsel, "incredible as it may seem."
Thorne eyed her steadily for a few moments. At last, he said:—
"At any rate, it may have some effect upon the verdict." And then addressing himself to the bench, he exclaimed: "Your Honour, Mrs. Challoner assures me that this charge is absolutely true." And finally turning to Murgatroyd: "I should like to hear from Prosecutor Murgatroyd as to the truth or falsity of this?"
As the two men faced each other, Shirley once more touched Miriam's arm, and said affectionately:—
"Miriam, do you realise all that you are saying?—Look into my eyes, dear, and tell me candidly is it true?..."
"Before God, I swear it." And a moment later she added: "And he never kept his word."
"Well, Mr. Prosecutor, what have you got to say?" asked the Court, a trifle apologetically.
During the pause that immediately ensued, Miriam Challoner wondered what Murgatroyd would say; what he could say; what was left for him to say. The prosecutor stood in the centre of an open space, and looking first at Miriam, then at Thorne, and finally at the Court, he answered gravely:—
"Your Honour, I have heard the charge. I don't see that it behooves me to answer it at this time, nor indeed," bowing toward the Court, "before this tribunal. If it be a charge made in earnest—as it seems to be—then the only question that can possibly interest this Court, is whether I have done my duty toward the people of the State. The charge assumes the proportions of a bribe to free a guilty man. My answer is, I have convicted Challoner. If there was a bribe, it was a bribe that didn't work."
The Court stared with the rest. Peter Broderick gazed at Murgatroyd in open-mouthed admiration; even Miriam felt baffled unaccountably.
"Mr. Thorne," said the Court, "if this charge be made in good faith, and even assuming it to be literally true, isn't the prosecutor right? It cannot be that this charge is true; but if Mrs. Challoner claims it to be true, if you believe it to be true, her remedy, then, is to go to the Grand Jury and indict, to the legislature and impeach." He paused judicially, and added: "The fullest refutation, after all, is that the prosecutor did convict."
Thorne considered for an instant.
"I agree entirely with your Honour," he assented, bowing.
"The incident is closed," went on the Court, rising. "You have your remedy—Good afternoon!" And he left the court-room.
And still Murgatroyd stood his ground while the others stood aloof. Presently two officers seized Challoner and disappeared with him through the barred door. Graham Thorne then approached the prosecutor and exclaimed:—
"Prosecutor, we have wondered all along just what your price might be. Now we know."
"The last dollar that a woman has," sneered Peter Broderick.
And still Murgatroyd gave no sign. It was only when Shirley Bloodgood approached him and he heard the tremor in her voice that the man trembled imperceptibly.
"Mr. Murgatroyd," she declared, "I am forced to believe all that Miriam has said. Oh, Billy, Billy, it is inconceivable that you are the man that I have respected all these years! You have lost the one thing I admired most in you." Her voice broke, and turning to Miriam, she cried: "Come, Miriam, dear, we're going home."
Mrs. Challoner touched Thorne upon the arm, and said with a final look at Murgatroyd:—
"I want you to take every legal measure to indict, to impeach this man, and I want you to begin at once."
After all had gone, Murgatroyd remained for some time where they had left him, imperturbable, inscrutable, gazing doggedly into space.
"I came here again, thinking perhaps you might wish to explain your action." The words came from Mrs. Challoner, who, unattended, had found her way into the prosecutor's office.
Murgatroyd quickly laid down his cigar. Doubtless he was annoyed, but in spite of himself he could not help admiring the pluck which she showed in coming directly to him; and as he came forward to meet her, he saw that it was with difficulty that she kept on her feet. For a moment they faced each other in silence, yet in the eyes of each there was a look of fearful misunderstanding. Again the woman spoke.
"What have you to say to me?"
Murgatroyd frowned, his bearing slipped off some of its deference when he retorted in a voice full of emotion:—
"What haveyouto say tome?..."
The prosecutor's perfect self-possession and earnestness unnerved her for an instant.
"I—" she faltered and stopped before his scornful glance.
"Yes, you, Mrs. Challoner. Do you recall our compact? Your silence was the essence of it. Why did you break it?"
Miriam Challoner checked a wild desire to laugh hysterically.
"But you broke it first!"
Murgatroyd smiled.
"How?"
The woman looked steadily at him.
"By this conviction!"
"What was our compact?" he asked sternly.
Miriam's courage was returning; it was with an indignant tone that she replied:—
"That you should set my husband free!"
Murgatroyd tapped the table with his hand.
"And have I failed as yet?"
"Yes," she answered fiercely. "You have convicted him."
Murgatroyd drew his head slightly to one side; pursed up his lips; drew his brows together; and narrowed his eyes before he spoke:—
"Did you assume for an instant, Mrs. Challoner, that I was such a bungler as to release your husband at the first trial—for all the world to know—to suspect? When I said to you that I would set your husband free, did I say—when?"
Of the scene that followed Miriam Challoner never retained a very clear impression. She remembered that at first, as if in a trance, she kept repeating his last word, while by degrees its meaning stole in upon her; then of a sensation of being about to faint through mere excess of joy. Suddenly the thought of her temerity flashed through her brain—the enormity of the thing she had done; and she would have gone on her knees at his feet had he not caught her in time. Quickly recovering, she looked up at him. Somehow his face seemed to hold little resentment now—too little, in fact, to suit her surprising desire to humble herself in his sight.
"After all, she's rather a fool of a woman," his expression had plainly said to her overwrought senses, "and I will spare her." And yet she craved so to hear words of pardon from his lips, that she broke out almost breathlessly:—
"You will forgive me—you must.... I have done you an unutterable injury, I know." She stopped, and then with a sudden lapse to her old air of fear: "Oh, but what will happen now—what will happen to Laurie? I have failed you; you have the right to ..."
Once more cold and indifferent, Murgatroyd looked out of the window, though he interrupted her last words by saying frigidly:—
"When I make agreements, Mrs. Challoner, I keep them. You may be sure that I shall keep this one."
Still awed in a measure by his masterful personality, but with joy in her heart, Miriam Challoner started to leave the office.
With a gesture Murgatroyd checked her quickly.
"Mrs. Challoner," he said with reproof still lingering in his voice, "there is no necessity henceforth for personal interviews. In the future if you have anything to say to me, kindly let it come through your counsel, Mr. Thorne. It is much better so—much safer. I prefer to deal with him only."
Miriam bowed acquiescence.
Directly on leaving him Miriam Challoner went to Thorne's office. It was in accordance with her promise to aid him in formulating the charges which he was preparing against the prosecutor on her behalf. These charges were for the legislature and the Grand Jury: on the one hand, impeachment; on the other, indictment. Now whether the accusation had been true or false mattered little to Thorne. On the whole, perhaps, he was inclined to disbelief; but Broderick, his colleague in the organisation, was by no means of that opinion. In any event, since it came from such an authoritative source—the lips of Mrs. Challoner—it was a charge that possessed merit, inasmuch as it would injure Murgatroyd—and Thorne was not slow to recognise that. In consequence, then, there was, unmistakably, a note of gratification in the words with which he greeted Mrs. Challoner that afternoon in his office.
"Here it is—in the form of an affidavit—just what you told me, Mrs. Challoner. Please read it."
Trembling slightly while searching her mind for some clever way in which she might express her change of plan, Miriam Challoner slowly read the document. Nothing was left out, nothing exaggerated, and without a word she returned it.
"Will you sign here, please?"
There was no time to arrange any idea she may have had for new tactics: it was Thorne's voice that was insisting; it was Thorne who was holding a pen for her and indicating the correct place for her signature. And with a violent effort, Mrs. Challoner braced herself for the first lie in her life.
"It's not true. I cannot sign it."
Thorne started back. Instantly he was spluttering his annoyance at what he considered merely a woman's whim.
"Not true! Why only a short time ago you declared it was true."
"So it was—but only in a way," she said laboriously. Her face burned and paled. "I tried to bribe him, but——"
"Bribe him! How?..."
"With the money—the money I had left," she replied cautiously.
"What have you left?" he ventured.
Curiously enough, Mrs. Challoner found herself taking a certain amount of satisfaction in telling her lawyer what now was unquestionably true.
"My home—only."
"But that's mortgaged, I understand?" There was more than idle curiosity in the speaker's eyes.
"Yes. But there's an equity of about twenty or twenty-five thousand," she explained.
"And you tried to bribe Murgatroyd with twenty thousand dollars?"
There was no answer; and interpreting her silence as assent, he went on persistently:—
"And he refused?"
Miriam was very white now.
"He did."
"I should think so," returned Thorne. "Two hundred and fifty would be more like Murgatroyd's price—if he can be bought."
"No, he cannot be bought," Miriam ventured with perhaps a trifle more confidence in her tone than Mr. Thorne liked; and then she added, in a changed voice: "I want you, please, to retract this story. I want to take it all back. I was unstrung, I——"
"I will retract nothing," he cut in rudely. "Not a thing. Leave it as it is. If you begin to retract you'll get yourself in trouble. If Murgatroyd desires to make a move, let him...."
And with a promise to that effect, a hurried acknowledgment with an inclination of the head that she accepted his words as ending her interview, she left the office, leaving him far from certain that Peter Broderick's appraisement of Murgatroyd's character was not a correct one.
That night when the papers came out, people read them in anger and dismay; by the next morning they merely laughed; likewise the Court.
"If he were bribed," said public comment, "it was a bribe that didn't work."
And Murgatroyd, submitting to interview after interview, reiterated over and over again to the reporters:—
"I point with pride, gentlemen, to the conviction of Lawrence Challoner. That's all I have to say."
The fiasco had helped Murgatroyd infinitely more than it had hurt him, Thorne felt in his inmost soul. For once the masses refused to believe what on its face appeared to be true.
One evening a few weeks later, while Murgatroyd was dressing to dine at his club, as was his custom nearly every night, his servant handed him a note which the bearer had said was to be delivered immediately. It was but seldom that a square white envelope came at this time, and with a pardonable look of surprise and curiosity on his face Murgatroyd opened it and read:
"I must see you. Will you come to the house to-night?"S. H. B."
"I must see you. Will you come to the house to-night?
"S. H. B."
An hour more, and he was in Mrs. Bloodgood's drawing-room, waiting more nervously than he would have cared to acknowledge to himself for the daughter of the house to appear. It was the first time that she had ever sent for him to go to her, and he was conscious of some degree of anxiety as to her motive. Clever lawyer though he was, he dreaded her catechising, particularly so, because he knew that whether she acknowledged it to herself or not, that it was at her instigation that he had adopted the rôle which, with or without her approval, he was now determined to play through to the end. The sound of a light step on the threshold of the room checked his disturbing speculations, and he looked up to see Shirley Bloodgood entering the room. As usual she did not permit him to open the conversation after the preliminary courtesies of greeting between them.
"Something very urgent made me send for you, Mr. Murgatroyd," she began, but her lips trembled so that she stopped abruptly after adding: "I want to talk with you."
An instinct told Murgatroyd that it would be a grievous mistake not to accept without a protesting word the note of aloofness, the desire to avoid any suggestion of former intimacy that was in her tone. Rightly he told himself that the slightest advances on his part would result in adding to her distress; that however much he would like to break down the barrier that had arisen between them, he must bide his time and trust to her emotional nature to accomplish that. And he was not mistaken, for presently an impulse to speak her mind at any cost took possession of her, and she burst forth:—
"Billy, why did you take this money? Why?..."
Carried away by the tender accents with which she pronounced his name, Murgatroyd essayed to speak, but she interrupted him.
"Don't"—covering her ears with her hands—"don't tell me! I know you did it—because I—I—oh, why did you listen to me! I thought I knew what I was talking about," she went on, while he sought control of himself by looking away from her; "but I knew nothing of conditions; of men. I thought that a man—that you could accomplish anything you really wanted to do. But you were right. There are impossibilities. I understand now—now that it's too late. I have had my lesson. Only a few months ago you were honest, and now you are corrupt, and I alone am responsible!"
By the time she had finished speaking Murgatroyd had become as imperturbable as he had been at the trial, and there was only a hint of tenderness in the reassuring words that he now uttered.
"You must not blame yourself—" he was neither admitting nor denying the impeachment—"for anything I may have done."
"But I do, I do," she cried bitterly. "And you must blame me. I always thought Adam was a coward to cast the blame on Eve. But now my sympathies are with him—the woman was to blame then—I am to blame now. I gave you of the apple, and you—Oh, there would have been no apple—nothing but Eden if I had only listened to you and you had closed your ears to me."
"Eden," he said wistfully. "Yes, but hardly the Eden you cared for."
Abruptly her mood changed. She lost all semblance of calm, and her voice rang with a scorn that, before she ceased, seemed to include him as well as herself.
"What do I care for success or failure! I could cut my tongue out for telling you that my father was a failure. A failure! Why, I know that not only was he not a failure, but that he was really great! A man in the highest sense of the word—and that's all I want you to be. I don't care an iota that you should be a senator—I don't want you to be a senator. I have sent for you to-night to tell you so—to stop for good and all the thing I set in motion." She was silent for an instant; and then suddenly with a quick return to gentleness, and with appeal in her eyes, she murmured: "I want you to come back—come back."
In turn he murmured words that sounded to her like "to you."
Shirley shook her head as though that were a thing out of the question.
"No, to your honest self," she said earnestly but kindly. "To the Billy Murgatroyd that was."
For a moment they looked steadily into each other's eyes. From the time of Miriam's exposure of him in the court-room there had never been any admission, any concession on Murgatroyd's part. Nor was there any now; but unknown to himself, there was an air of appeal, not wholly free from anxiety even, for her face was again showing signs of hardness as he spoke:—
"I can hardly do that. I cannot stop. And if I should—where is the inducement? You have no apple to offer me; you are beyond my reach."
And as if to disprove his own words, an impulse of adoration, too powerful to be checked, seized him, and he caught her hand and pressed it.
A brief moment only Shirley allowed it to rest in his, then slowly withdrew it; and her action told him plainer than words that there was to be nothing further between them—she was through with him—she must despise him. As an evangelist, as the good friend she had sent for him, but as lovers—no, that was all over. And yet, had she faltered once, had she but opened her arms to him, if only for the last time, Murgatroyd could not tell what he would have done. In all probability he would have suffered exile—sackcloth and ashes for his huge misdeed.
And the girl! Shirley felt, knew that there could be no compromise. Murgatroyd must purge himself, even though it involved a lifetime of shame. And after he had yielded up his shameless gains, what then? Shirley did not know—she could not tell. But it was not given to Murgatroyd to know that he was the subject of her perplexities; nor could he read, as he should have, any hope in the words which she now spoke:—
"And if I am out of your reach—it's your own fault. If you had been half the man I thought, you would never have listened to me. But you never cared for me, even though you said so," Shirley said, casting her eyes down, not daring to look him in the face. "What you did, you did for yourself and not for me. You were weak from the start. Any man who would surrender his honesty even for a woman is not a man. I see now that I ought not to have sent for you. I take back everything I have said." She paused, and then concluded with a little shake of the head:—
"I wouldn't marry you now if you were the last man on earth!"
Both rose to their feet. Habit, perhaps, rather than any regret for her words, induced her to dismiss him with a tender expression on her face. And Murgatroyd bowed low over the hand she offered him, pressed it and without a word of protest went out of the room. With his departure went out the last glimmer of hope that he would ever return to his better self. Nothing could stop him now. As for Shirley? The moment the door closed on him she sank with a moan into a chair.
Thorne took an appeal from the verdict of conviction. He had been careful to take exception to each bit of questionable evidence.
"I think," he assured Mrs. Challoner, "that I have found more than one hook to hang a hat on. It looks to me like a reversal."
"I am sure it will be," she replied.
Her assurance was the same assurance that had sustained her in the trial. There was still that mysterious something that Thorne could not understand. She seemed the incarnation of hope.
"What do you think, chief?" asked McGrath of Murgatroyd, one day after the appeal had been argued.
Murgatroyd shrugged his shoulders.
"That verdict will stick," was his only comment.
"By the way," said McGrath, "Pemmican keeps mum up there in jail; but he's getting restless as thunder. He wants to know how soon you're going to try him on this gambling charge."
Murgatroyd smiled.
"In due course," he returned, "but you can tell Pemmican unofficially that the quickest way for him to get on trial—or in fact the quickest way for him to get off without trial—to get out of jail, is to let me know the name of the man higher up. I'm looking for John Doe, and I expect to keep Pemmican under lock and key until I get him. You understand?"
"He sure does kick," laughed McGrath.
Shirley and Miriam and even Challoner watched the course of events with great interest. Miriam's mouth was sealed upon the question of the bribe, but Challoner absorbed what he had heard in the court-room, and hazy though it had been, he noted that Miriam's manner was still hopeful, in fact, certain. Shirley, too, felt, rather than knew, that Murgatroyd had removed from himself not the taint of bribery, but the violation of his compact. She felt the thing was cut and dried.
One day the Clerk of the Court of Errors and Appeals placed in the hands of a special messenger a document some five pages long. It was a carbon copy.
"Take that to the prosecutor of the pleas," he commanded, "and tell him it's advance. The original," he added, "will be on file to-morrow."
Murgatroyd received and read it with inward satisfaction. As he was perusing it, Mixley rushed into his private room, and yelled in alarm:—
"Chief! Chief! Look at this!" He, too, held in his hand a document composed of several sheets of yellow paper, scribbled over with a soft, black, lead-pencil. "It's from the warden—" he whispered.
Murgatroyd laid down his carbon copy and took Mixley's yellow sheets. He read the first page and rose to his feet.
"When did all this happen, Mixley?" he asked in a tense voice, with difficulty restraining his excitement.
"About an hour ago."
"Who was the keeper that took this down?"
"Jennings."
Murgatroyd tapped the yellow sheets impatiently, and asked:—
"How did he kill himself?"
"Cyanide! Smuggled in somehow, nobody knows."
Murgatroyd read the yellow sheets again.
"Great Cæsar!" he exclaimed.
Mixley, still lingering, now asked:—
"Any news from the Court of Errors and Appeals?"
Murgatroyd nodded.
"Here's their opinion—just handed down."
"Reversal?"
Murgatroyd shook his head.
"No. Affirmed. By the way, Mixley," he added, "take this carbon copy over to Thorne, will you? He'll want to see it."
"Shall I tell him?" faltered Mixley.
"Tell him nothing," Murgatroyd replied. "Officially I know nothing of this other thing. I'll investigate it first, then I can talk to him."
That very day, Thorne, disappointed as he was, sent a copy of the opinion up to Mrs. Challoner, without comment. Later over the phone he told her:—
"There is no hope."
But Miriam Challoner was not downcast. She had doubted once; but now she held to her faith in Murgatroyd; she knew that Murgatroyd would keep his word. Shirley, though, shook her head. She felt that Challoner was doomed. But when Thorne told her, she begged him not to tell Challoner until it was absolutely necessary.
And also on that same day Murgatroyd jumped into a cab and rode off on a tour of private inspection. Entering a large building he asked:—
"I want to see Jennings, if you please."
The next day he sent for Thorne.
"Before making things public, Thorne," he said, "I wanted you to read that."
Thorne read with bulging eyes the yellow sheets that were thrust before him. Over and over again he read them; then he leaned over and touched Murgatroyd on the arm, saying:—
"Don't make it public."
"Why not?"
"There are political reasons—many of them," pleaded Thorne.
"But it's bound to leak out——"
"Never mind. I don't want it made public." Thorne seemed terribly uneasy.
But again Murgatroyd persisted:—
"What of Mrs. Challoner?"
"I'll take care of Mrs. Challoner," responded Thorne. "Just leave the whole thing to me. I'll see that everything is done."
"I'll go with you before the Court at any time you please," said Murgatroyd.
And that very day they did go before the Court. The Court opened its eyes and heard what they had to say.
"Well, well!" exclaimed the Court.
A little while afterward Broderick and Thorne sat closeted. Every crisis found them with their heads together.
"Broderick," said the lawyer, "this is going to hurt Cradlebaugh's more than ever. The Challoner case has jumped from the frying pan into the fire." His grip tightened on Broderick. "This thing has got to be hushed up."
"If it's got to be, it can be," declared the politician.
"But there's the Court order?"
Broderick grinned as he said:—
"There's men has got to file it—men that know how to file papers so blamed far in the pigeon-holes that even a newspaper man can't crawl in after 'em. They'll do just as I say."
"Somebody's bound to find it out."
"Not if I stretch out this hand," answered Broderick. "That there hand has covered a multitude of sins." He squinted at Thorne. "But there's just one person I'm afraid of in this thing."
Thorne's nod seemed to say:
"Murgatroyd."
Broderick shook his head.
"No, not a bit of it. You take my word for it, Murgatroyd will never open his mouth again on the subject of the Challoner case. He took that cash—he can't fool me!"
Thorne sighed:—
"You think we're safe with him?"
Broderick dismissed the subject of the prosecutor with a wave of the hand.
"Mrs. Challoner is the fly in the ointment."
Thorne, in turn, quite as vigorously dissented:—
"You're wrong there. I'll handle Mrs. Challoner. If she ever asks questions, I'll answer her with the right kind of answers. Don't worry, Broderick," and looking at his watch, added: "You'd better be about it and do your little part."
"I'll do mine as soon as you do yours."
"What's mine now?"
Broderick held out his hand, and said:—
"A little cheque, counsellor."
And again on that very day the doors of the big building that Murgatroyd had visited opened wide. From them there stepped forth a man—no, four men—four men laden heavily. With these four men was a fifth, but he was unseen. Between them, in the full light of day, the four men carried a long, oak box, carried it quietly but swiftly, and swung it suddenly into a battered-looking hearse.
"That's the end of him!" they said among themselves.
Somewhere on the East Side, beyond Gramercy Park and Irving Place, with their beautiful old houses; beyond Stuyvesant Square, once equally famous for the princely hospitality of its residents; still further on in that section which lies toward the river, where the women and children as well as the men toil unceasingly for the bare necessities of life, where evidences of poverty and suffering are all about, and which is commonly termed "the slums"; somewhere there, we say, in one of the smaller tenement buildings, some months later, Miriam Challoner, one time wealthy and fashionable woman of society, took refuge.
Within this new-found home—a nest consisting of two rooms—everything was scrupulously neat; but except for a small gilt chair that caught the rays of the sunlight, and that seemed fully as incongruous to its surroundings as was the woman herself, there was nothing in its furnishings to remind one of former prosperity. In a far corner of the adjoining room was a stove on which a frugal meal was cooking, sending its odour throughout the small apartment—a meal that in former days she would not have thought possible even for her servants. At the window of this room,—which was bedroom and living-room combined,—upon a small table was a typewriter, before which sat Miriam Challoner, clad in a sombre dress that was almost nun-like in its severity. She was pale, and on her face was the look of a woman acquainted with grief.
She read as she wrote:—
"Now this indenture witnesseth,—comma,—that the said party of the first part,—comma,—for the better securing the payment of the said sum of money mentioned in the condition of the said bond or obligation,—comma,—with interest thereon,—comma,—according to the true intent and meaning thereof,—semicolon,—and also for and in consideration of the sum of one dollar,—comma,—to him in hand well and duly paid——"
Suddenly she halted and fingered the copy lying on the table at her right.
"Twenty more pages—I can't do them now ..." she muttered half-aloud, and crossing the room unsteadily, threw herself upon the bed—a cheap bed that groaned and creaked as if it felt her weight upon it.
"... tired—I'm so tired," she moaned, as she lay there supinely for some time. All of a sudden, she sat bolt upright in bed, for the sound of a timid knock on the door had reached her ears; but thinking, perhaps, that she had been dreaming, she waited until the knock was repeated, and only then did she cry out:—
"Well? What is it?"
There was no answer. A moment more, and she was at the door confronting a man and a woman, both gaily caparisoned. They stood hand in hand, sheepishly, smilingly, the woman looking more like some guilty child, who was being brought to task by an over-indulgent parent. For a brief second, that seemed interminably long to Mrs. Challoner waiting for them to speak, they stood thus; and it was not until they called her name that she recognised them.
"Mrs. Challoner—we thought—" they stammered in chorus.
"Why, it's Stevens," Mrs. Challoner broke in, at last, "and you too, Foster!" and the colour instantly went flying from her lips to her cheeks.
"Yes, ma'am," again came in chorus from Stevens and Foster, late butler and lady's maid to Mrs. Challoner, and still hand in hand.
"Oh, Mrs. Challoner," then spoke up Foster, "what do you think? We've gone and got married!"
"Married? Foster! Stevens! Why, yes, of course, you do look like bride and groom," said Mrs. Challoner, her heart for the moment sinking at all this happiness; and then: "Come in, and do tell me all about it."
"Mrs. Challoner," quickly put in Stevens, as they came into the room, "she pestered me 'till I had to marry her—there was no getting rid of her."
A faint smile crossed Miriam's face, and soon she found herself entering into the happiness of this couple, just as she would have done in the old days; and so well did they succeed in making her forget her present position, that she was actually trying to determine what would be a most appropriate and, at the same time, a most pleasing gift to them. Absorbed, therefore, in her laudable perplexities, it was quite a long time before she fully realised that there were but two chairs, a fact which had not escaped the eyes of these well-trained servants, who still remained standing in the centre of the room; and when, at last, the truth dawned upon her, it was with the greatest difficulty that she kept back the tears, as half-coaxingly, half-authoritatively she prevailed upon the terribly embarrassed pair to occupy them, while she seated herself on the edge of the bed.
"Yes, ma'am," resumed Foster, determined to tell all there was to tell, "there were about six men that I could have married as well as not—not like Stevens, but big, fine-looking men, every one of them. But Stevens here got in such a way about it, that I felt sorry for him, and I gave them all the go-by for him. But there's one thing certain," she concluded with a sigh, "I didn't marry for good looks, nor for money either, for that matter."
"You married for love, Foster, and that is so much better," commented Mrs. Challoner, revelling in their joy.
"I dare say," conceded Foster, "that I'll come to love him in time."
"Yes, ma'am," put in Stevens, eager to get in a word, "she bothered me until I finally succumbed, though my tastes were—well, ma'am, I must admit that I like 'em a little plumper."
To Miriam Challoner, it was indeed a treat to hear their good-natured banter. Presently she asked with interest:—
"What are you doing now, Stevens?"
"He's ashofer, ma'am," spoke up Foster quickly with pride.
"A what?" inquired Mrs. Challoner.
"A showfure, ma'am," corrected Stevens with dignity. "She'll learn in time.... I'm working for Bernhardt, the brewer—a hundred dollars a month, ma'am."
"Indeed! So you're a chauffeur, and earning one hundred dollars a month!" exclaimed Miriam Challoner. "Why that's fine!" And a hundred dollars never seemed larger to any one's eyes.
Stevens shrugged his shoulders as he answered in an offhand manner:—
"What's a hundred——"
"A hundred dollars a month!" again sighed Mrs. Challoner; and fell to planning what that sum would do for her.
Suddenly, Stevens broke in upon her thoughts, with:—
"What a cosy little place you have, ma'am!" And turning to Foster: "I hope we can have just such a little place as this some day. It's great!"
"I'd know in a minute, ma'am, that you had arranged things," said Foster, falling in readily with her husband's enthusiasm.
For an instant Mrs. Challoner shaded her eyes with her hand. The room, she knew only too well, was the very last expression of poverty, yet these two had shown a delicacy and kindness that she had supposed to be far beyond them.
"But where's your manners, Foster?" suddenly demanded Stevens. "Surely you might put your hands to fixing up that supper on the stove! Do now, like a good girl ..."
"Indeed, she must not—and in that lovely gown, too—besides, there is really nothing to do," Miriam Challoner quickly returned, for she could not bear to have Foster see what was cooking there.
"Oh, I'll be very careful, besides, it will seem natural to be doing things for you," persisted her former maid.
"Yes, take a look at the roast baking there in the oven, anyway," said Stevens; and no sooner had his wife turned her steps toward the kitchen, than he quickly leaned over to Mrs. Challoner, and thrusting something in her hand, he said in an undertone:—
"She's treasurer, ma'am, and I have to account for every penny; but this she knows nothing about. It's for you—please take it."
In an instant Mrs. Challoner was on her feet, and putting the money back in his hand, she exclaimed:—
"Why, Stevens, I can't take this! Really, I have money ..."
For a moment Stevens's eyes wandered about the poorly furnished room, betraying his thoughts to the contrary. This was not lost on Mrs. Challoner, who immediately went on to explain:—
"Yes, Stevens, and I earn it, too." And she pointed to the typewriter with a certain pride.
"I beg your pardon, ma'am," said her former butler contritely, returning the money quickly to his pocket. "Only, don't let her know ..."
When Foster came back into the room, they were standing over the typewriter, Mrs. Challoner explaining its mechanism.
"Oh, what a fine thing it is to have an education!" exclaimed the young wife, looking sharply at her husband; but her penetrating glance was too much for Stevens, and turning quickly on his heel, he proceeded to rearrange the chairs.
"Hey, there!" suddenly called out Foster. "Why aren't you more of a gentleman—where's your manners? Run along there, like a good fellow, and put some water in the tea-kettle!" Stevens lost no time in obeying; then drawing close to Mrs. Challoner, Foster whispered:—
"This is for you, ma'am, but don't let Stevens know, for he's as tight as a drum-head."
"But," protested Mrs. Challoner, looking at the other in astonishment.
"Please, I saved it just for you," insisted Foster, with a look of disappointment on her face.
"Really, Foster, I don't need it," declared Mrs. Challoner stoutly but kindly. "I can't take it. Some day, perhaps, I may need money, and then I'll send for you." And then quietly changing the subject: "How fresh you look, Foster! And what a man you've married! There is no need to ask if you are happy, for——"
"Well," said Stevens, approaching them, "we must be going now, for Bernhardt will be waiting for us."
"It was good of you to see us, ma'am," said Foster, putting out her hand, just as she had seen the ladies do in the old days at the big Challoner house on the Avenue.
"So you married for love," said Miriam Challoner, as they started to go.
"Well,hedid," conceded Foster.
"Shedid, ma'am," corrected Stevens; and presently they were sailing down the street like a pair of lovers "walking out" on a Sunday afternoon.
"One hundred dollars a month!" sighed Miriam, reseating herself at the typewriter. "And they were going to give me twenty-five dollars—the faithful dears!"
Once more engrossed in her work, she did not hear the door-bell, which had been ringing persistently. At the end of a page she paused and bent her head low over her work.
"... for love," she mused, half-aloud.
Meanwhile, her caller, determined to be admitted, had stolen softly into the room, though it was not until she stood beside her that she attracted Miriam's attention. For a moment Miriam glared hard at her; she could not believe her own eyes; then, suddenly rising to her feet, she cried half-joyfully, half-regretfully:—
"Why, it's Shirley Bloodgood! Oh, why did you come! You must not stay, you must not see ..."
"Why did you hide from me?" quickly returned Shirley. "I have searched for you for months, and it was only yesterday that I learned from Stevens where you were, who, by the way, had orders not to reveal your whereabouts. You might as well have moved a thousand miles away, as everybody thinks you have."
Miriam sighed weakly.
"It takes money to move a thousand miles away," she protested feebly.
"You are like a needle in a hay stack over here," continued Shirley.
"But why did you come?" Miriam kept on protesting. "Why, Shirley ..."
Shirley stretched forth her arms, saying:—
"And you didn't want to see me!"
"Yes, yes," cried Miriam, suddenly catching Shirley and clinging to her affectionately. "Yes, I have wanted you to come so much, but I hoped you never would see this!" And she spread out her arms as though to exhibit the room.
"What a poor opinion you have of me! Why, Miriam, if I wanted to see handsome apartments, I need not have taken all this trouble to find you. No, indeed, I value your friendship too highly to desert you on account of this."
And now the two women fell to talking about things past and present. After a while, it was Shirley who delicately broached the subject of Laurie.
"And Laurie—how is he?" she asked.
Miriam's eyes kindled for an instant, but its fire soon died out.
"Poor boy," she answered, "he's under such a strain. It's a wonder he doesn't break down. He's so good and kind through it all, too. He's a fine fellow, now," she went on with great enthusiasm.
"Let me see," said Shirley, reminiscently, "his conviction was reversed on appeal, wasn't it?"
"Why, no; don't you remember that it was affirmed—affirmed ..."
"I do remember now. And it was that day or the next one that you ran away from me, you bad girl, and I've never seen you since. Affirmed—affirmed," she mused; and then suddenly leaned forward and inquired eagerly:—
"Then how did he get off?"
Miriam shrugged her shoulders.
"I don't know," she said, "nobody knows; not even Laurie knows that. One day after the affirmance, the jail doors were opened, and he was free—that's all—and he came back to me."
"Surely Murgatroyd knows," said Shirley.
"Oh, yes, of course he knows; but we have never asked any questions. Why should we? I shall never forget Murgatroyd though—I remember him in my prayers. He was honest; he kept his word——"
Shirley smiled a grim smile.
"Murgatroyd, the man with aprice! Well, I suppose it's just as well that there are people in this world who can be bought now and then."
"I have never forgiven myself," sighed Miriam.
Shirley looked up at her questioningly.
"You? What for, pray?"
"For blurting out in the court-room what I did when the jury found Laurie guilty. Why, it was abominable! it was treachery! I had promised, don't you see?"
"That was clever in Murgatroyd," admitted Shirley. "He would have been a fool to acquit Laurie on that trial. Oh, yes," she added, with a sneer, "he's clever, all right!"
Mrs. Challoner straightened up.
"Fortunately my outbreak did no great harm; nobody believed me."
"Except myself," observed Shirley, "and Murgatroyd!"
"Even Laurie didn't believe me," went on Miriam, "until—well, I don't know whether he's quite sure about it to-day. We never discuss the subject, anyway. It's barely possible," she said, flushing, "that he thinks we spent the money long ago."
There was a pause that was a trifle embarrassing to both women. Miriam was the first to speak.
"Murgatroyd is making a name for himself, isn't he?"
Shirley threw up her hands in indignation.
"Who wouldn't, with that stolen money to back him!" she exclaimed fiercely.
Miriam shook her head.
"He's doing good work with it. He's breaking up the organisation—the inside ring. I'm sure that the effect of his work is felt even over here." And then she added vehemently: "But his best work will be over when he has succeeded in breaking Cradlebaugh's. When he does that——"
"After he downs Cradlebaugh's," interrupted Shirley, "if he ever does, I hope he'll down himself. That's my wish for Billy Murgatroyd!"
"Murgatroyd is honest," protested Miriam.
Shirley smiled a hard smile.
"You mistake his motive, Miriam. He's ambitious—frightfully ambitious. Why even now he's planning to go to the Senate," declared Shirley; but she did not add that it was she who had put the idea into his head. "Think of Billy Murgatroyd's being Senator! He'll ask a billion the next time he's bought, instead of a million!" she wound up, scornfully.
"You forget," quietly but forcibly reminded Miriam, "that I stand up for Murgatroyd."
"Poor Miriam," sighed Shirley to herself, "she always was easily fooled." A moment later, she exclaimed: "A typewriter!"
"I don't wonder at your surprise," said Miriam. "But it is easy work and I like it immensely. I work for different people in the neighbourhood," she went on to explain. "A real estate dealer, one or two lawyers, it's——"
She broke off abruptly, for they were interrupted by a faint whistle.
"It's the speaking tube," said Miriam, tremblingly; but the next instant she was in a little dark alcove calling down the tube.
Meanwhile, Shirley allowed her gaze to wander about the apartment; nothing had escaped her notice, not even the cooking that was going on in the kitchen.
"Somebody whistled up the tube," said Miriam, returning, "but I couldn't get an answer. I can't imagine who it is."
Then suddenly for the third time that afternoon, the outer door opened; but this time it was thrust open with great violence, and James Lawrence Challoner came into the room with the stamp of the gutter upon him.
Shirley was dumbfounded. Quickly her mind went back to that afternoon, long ago it seemed, when he had come home after the tragedy. Then, it is true, he was unkempt, soiled, but now ... and she asked herself whether it were possible that Miriam could not see the man as he really was. The answer was immediately forthcoming, for Miriam went over and caught him in her embrace.
"Poor Laurie, tired, aren't you, dear?" she said fondly; and then turning toward the girl: "Here's an old friend of ours—Shirley Bloodgood!"
"So I see," he growled; and without more ado he turned to Miriam and demanded gruffly:—
"Well, where's your money? I've got to have some money right away."
Miriam fumbled for an instant at her waist. She did this more for appearance' sake than anything else, for she well knew that she had none to give him. Every day she had given him about everything she made.
"Yes, Laurie," she faltered, "yes, of course." And turning to Shirley, added by way of apology for him: "Such an ordeal as Laurie has been through—such a strain."
Shirley was in a panic. What she had seen was enough to make her heart-sick.
"Oh," she suddenly exclaimed, "I have forgotten all about father! I left him alone—I simply must go now. You don't know how glad ..." And turning to Challoner, she held out her hand to him. But ignoring her completely, he again said to his wife:—
"Miriam, where is that money?"
"Laurie is such a business man now, Shirley," said Miriam, smiling bravely at the girl.
But the contempt which Shirley felt for the man before her was too great for words; and she merely repeated:—
"Yes, I must be going now!"
Half way across the room she halted, hesitated for a moment, and then finally opening her purse, took from it a fifty dollar bill.
"There, Miriam," she said with a note of relief, "I have been meaning for a long time to pay back that fifty dollars I borrowed from you a few years ago—when I was so hard up for money. I'm ashamed not to have returned it before; and it's just like you not to remind me. There, dear, I've put it on the chiffonier; and now, good-bye!" And she was gone before Miriam could even protest against her action.
For Miriam knew quite as well as did Shirley that there never had been such a loan between them; and rushing out into the hall, she called to the other to come back; but Shirley by this time was well out of hearing.
"She's gone!" Miriam declared forlornly, panting from her fruitless chase.
Shirley's flight did not worry Challoner. He took advantage of Miriam's temporary absence to steal to the chiffonier and to seize the fifty dollar bill. Miriam entered the room in time to see him thrusting it into his pocket, and cried out angrily:—
"Laurie, I wish you to put that back! We are not thieves; it does not belong to us; and I'm going to send it back to Shirley."
Challoner grinned.
"What do you think I am?" he finally asked. "A fool?"
He tried to pass her; she blocked his way, and repeated:—
"I want you to put that back!"
"I have got to have some money," he maintained sulkily, stowing it still further in his trousers pocket.
"Give me that fifty dollar bill, I say!" went on Miriam, clutching at him.
"No, I will not!" returned her husband, stubbornly, and sought to escape; but she caught him by the arm and pulled him back. He tried to wrench himself away; but for once her strength was superior to his. She was beside herself with sudden anger, with shame, with ignominy, with agony.
"You give that bill to me!" she said through her closed teeth.
"You let me go!" he growled, almost jerking himself out of her grasp. Then followed a struggle that was short, sharp but decisive, inasmuch as he finally succeeded in wrenching himself free from her. And now, turning quickly, he smote her with his clenched hand full in the face.
Miriam staggered back; her eyes opened wide in humiliated astonishment.
"Oh! Laurie!" she cried, not with physical pain, although there upon her face, now red, now white, was a broad, blotched mark—the bruise that the brute had left there.
He made a movement to go; but again she was in time to prevent him; for quick as a flash she had darted to the chiffonier, opened the top drawer and drawn forth a weapon.