Some honeymoon!

CHAPTER XVI

THE DUTY AGAIN DEVOLVES

Ryder feed a waiter to bring him some breakfast into the café and did something he had never done before in his life—drank a "life saver" before the morning meal.

"If this goes on," muttered John Ryder, "I shall become a sot. I have drunk more between-meal drinks within the last twenty-four hours than I ever did before in my life. They say getting married sobers most men; it seems as though it may utterly wreck me—morally!"

When he wandered back into the office George had returned and beckoned him to the desk.

"I've had a couple of hours' sleep, Mr. Ryder, and that's all," the clerk said. "And it's all I guess I'll get. Mr. Manger hasn't come back and isn't likely to; and although Jim Howe is willing, he's only good for detail work. He's got to come to me to ask about every little thing. And now, by Jove! I've got to come to you, sir."

"Come to me?" growled Ryder. "What for? I'm through. You can't expect me to shoulder the responsibilities of running this hotel."

"I just want your advice, Mr. Ryder," said George, the foxy. "Look around at these other men. They are all useless to me now. Aside from Al—who has his own work—you are the only man with a head on him."

"I'm not sure whether I have a head or not," grumbled Ryder. "But fire up! What's happened?"

"Why, I filed a telegram to Mr. Giddings last night, and here's what I get in reply," the clerk hastened to say, handing the crumpled sheet to Ryder. It read:

"Giddings out of town. Return Monday. Should advise keeping house open at any cost.—BLACKMAN."

"Now, I don't know who the dickens Blackman is, unless he's Mr. Giddings' chief clerk," the worried George said. "But this wire doesn't give me proper authority to go ahead and contract bills, promise to pay help, and all that. I don't know how to reach any of the Barnaby heirs. They may read something about our trouble in the papers this afternoon, for our local correspondent is on the job.

"But the heirs will expect Giddings to attend to it. The help are troublesome—those that have remained. Al has his hands full, believe me! And the guests are kicking like steers about the heating. We've got to have coal."

"Can't you buy a little in the town?"

"It would be mighty little. These dealers here—and there are only two of them—buy from hand to mouth, as you might say. And then, Mr. Ryder, I'm a poor man. My salary isn't big. This looks like a diamond in my tie," and George grinned; "but it is pure glass. I wear it because it seems a man can't be a sure-enough hotel clerk without wearing what looks like a 'chunk of ice.'

"You know," the clerk added more seriously, "Bangs bought his coal from the railroad company."

"Can't you get some from them?"

"Well, I tried to bluff them on it," said George. "I managed to get them on the telephone at the Junction—Divisional Supervisions office. There is still something wrong with the long distance service. They can get us a car by next Tuesday; not a minute before."

"These folks'll freeze to death here," said Ryder. "It's already colder this morning. And there's nothing being done to that bridge, I suppose?"

"You couldn't get the farmers to work on Saturday if you offered them double wages," declared the clerk. "The reputation of the Pinewood Inn will be ruined. And I'd hate to see the doors closed and all these people put out."

"And nowhere to go," Ryder said thoughtfully.

"You've said a mouthful," groaned George, but watching the other sharply.

"By thunder!" exclaimed Ryder, suddenly smiting the counter with a clenched fist. He scented the battle like a warhorse and forgot his personal troubles for the moment. This emergency appealed to him. "I can't see you beat this way, boy," he declared.

"But what'll I do?"

"Wait till I take a look around the village. Sit tight and say nothing."

"If the steam isn't knocking in those pipes pretty soon I am going to have a mob at this desk ready to tar and feather me, Mr. Ryder."

"If they do it, you tell me," chuckled the business man with an answering grin, and, having his hat and coat with him, he started for the door without further loss of time.

It looked to Ryder as though it was up to him to take hold of the wheel of affairs again and give it a whirl. Ruth had expressed a desire to remain at the hotel; and certainly she could not stay without heat and light.

Besides, Ryder had an additional reason for remaining. If Mrs. Judson circulated her rumors and lies among the guests, certainly John Ryder and the woman to whom he had given his name and to whom he had entrusted his honor, could not afford, even seemingly, to run away.

In his present mood he would have made an offer to buy the hotel and run it as he saw fit, providing he could get the owners of the Pinewood Inn to agree on a price. Under no consideration or circumstances could he allow the guests to believe there was anything queer about Ruth. They must remain.

And "that impudent and half-baked house detective," which was the way he thought of Miss Solomons, was likely to make as much trouble for them as Mrs. Judson. He did not mind what people said of him; but he grew furious when he thought of what might be said about Ruth.

Therefore, he took hold of this coal situation with zest. As he passed the local coal dealers on the way to the shack that served Pinewood as a station, he saw that George had been correct. The two dealers together did not have enough coal to furnish the hotel with a proper supply for more than a day or two. The hotel needed a carload at least. And there should be two or three carloads in the cellar to protect the guests if the house was to remain open any length of time.

When he reached the station he saw upon a spur track four gondolas heaped high with fuel. A man in cap and jumper, wheeling an empty truck, he rightly identified as the station master and general factotum of the company at this rather unimportant station.

He halted the man. "I want to buy some of that coal," he said.

"Huh?"

Ryder repeated his observation, and the man began to grin. "Think I'm dealing in coal? You've struck the wrong man, boss."

"I represent the hotel," said Ryder. "I understand the railroad furnishes Pinewood Inn with fuel."

"But not that coal," said the station master. "That was shunted off here yesterday because the old scrapheap they called an engine hitched to Number Three couldn't pull her load over the rise to Blandins. That coal is billed to a factory up there. I couldn't touch that coal if I wanted to."

"Then put me in communication with the supervisor of this division and I'll tell him the hotel must have coal. We're all out. The manager has lit out over night and left the bins empty and the guests will freeze if we don't get coal. I'll pay for it right here, and you'll find that my check is good."

"Oh, I ain't doubting that," said the agent. "I guess you're Mr. Ryder. I've heard tell of you. You near bought out Cal Crabtree's store last night, they say. But if you was the Angel Gabriel I couldn't sell you a hodful of that coal—nossir! Neither could the Super. It's not the road's coal, I tell you."

"The road, then, is merely acting as carrier?"

"That's right, Mister. The Lossing Soap Factory is going to get that coal."

"I want that coal," said John Ryder persuasively.

"Can't help it. If I should sell you a pound of it, I'd be li'ble to arrest for larceny, or burglary, or somethin'. Yes, sir!"

"If you can't sell it, I shall have to take it."

The station agent laughed. He laughed loudly. In fact he was still holding his sides and hee-hawing when Ryder walked away. The latter went directly to Crabtree's store.

"Old man," he said to the storekeeper, and accepting without a qualm one of Crabtree's "two-fors" and lighting it, "what do teamsters ask here for carting a load of coal?"

"They git fifty cents a ton."

"I want you to get me every man who owns a horse and wagon, and will work, to cart coal from the spur track yonder to the hotel. Let 'em weigh out and in on your scales. I'll give a dollar a ton providing they get to work quickly and stick to it."

"My soul and body! Where'll you git the coal?" gasped the storekeeper.

"I haven't got it. But I am going to take it. It's there on the spur, and the hotel needs it. Can't let the women and children suffer. Do you notice that the thermometer is going down?"

"But what'll the railroad folks do?"

"You find me enough men and they won't do anything. We'll have what coal we need before they can send a gang up here from the Junction—even if they wish to. This is a case of necessity and Necessity, as our school-books used to tell us, knows no law!"

"By jinks!" exclaimed Crabtree. "They'll call on the constable."

"Where is he? Who is he?"

"Why, he—he kinder thought to go fishin' today. The sun didn't jes' rise to suit him. But he can git out now if he steps right smart, before anybody can tell him he's likely to be called on."

"My soul, man! Are you the constable?" gasped John Ryder.

"Sh! I'm storekeeper to you. Don't speak loud enough for the constable in me to hear," chuckled the old fellow.

He went to the door and blew a horn. "That'll call my son, Sam. He'll 'tend to things—and weigh the coal. I sha'n't be back 'fore supper time. Sam'll gather the clans, Mr. Ryder, and see that they work right. You ought to put a tidy lot of coal into them hotel bins before the constable gits back," and the storekeeper promptly disappeared.

CHAPTER XVII

THE PRIVATE BUCCANEER

The offer of double pay brought even some of the neighboring farmers to life. Within an hour a string of carts of all descriptions wound its way along the village street to the spur railroad track. Ryder was there, chewing on a cigar, watching the first loads taken from the cars. The station master came running, mad as a hatter.

"You can't do that, you derned fool!" he shouted, shaking his fist in John Ryder's face.

"You watch and see if I can't."

"But you'll get into trouble. You'll be arrested. These fellers will be arrested. Why, hang it! it's high-handed piracy, that's what it is."

"If anybody is arrested I stand ready to pay the bill," Ryder coolly told him. "I tell you this is a case of necessity."

Naturally the agent did not see it that way, and he rushed to wire his headquarters. Of course he got orders to stop the robbery and came back and bawled commands that nobody paid any attention to.

"You'll get neck deep into trouble over this," the agent sputtered to Ryder. "There is a sheriff on the way here to arrest you."

"All right. He'll find me at the hotel," and having seen the first car cleaned out he strolled back to Pinewood Inn. He knew there would be enough coal in the bins to last over Sunday at least. Two carloads was enough anyway, and he ordered the work to cease when the second gondola was clean. He left two cars for the Lossing Soap Factory.

Sam Crabtree furnished the cash needed and he paid his teamsters; and when John Ryder entered the hotel office again it was past eleven o'clock. Steam was already knocking in the pipes, and the hotel guests were beginning to smile once more.

Few had tried to leave. A couple of unattached men had gone on the eight o'clock combination that jounced down to the Junction over the worst ballasted road in seven states. One man had cranked up his automobile and tried to get away by the back roads; but had come limping in again, having been drawn out of the mire by a farmer with a team of horses.

The hotel motorbus was still across the inlet; and it was broken down anyway. It would take several days to repair it. A few of the guests, with light baggage only, had arranged to be punted across the inlet and would walk to Barr, the station on the main line.

The most of them, however, had made no plans to get away. Heat being supplied again, the promise of lights as usual, and a reorganization of the working force of the house, satisfied most of them that matters would soon take their usual course.

John Ryder hoped that this was to be the fact. He had done all—and more—than he desired to do for the welfare and comfort of the company. And he certainly would not have assumed this last responsibility regarding the coal supply had not Ruth expressed a desire to remain here for the rest of their honeymoon.

Jim Howe, the clerk's assistant, was at the desk, and he spoke to Ryder as soon as the latter came near.

"I say, sir, you're Mr. Ryder, aren't you? Well, there are two ladies been after you this morning, they want to see you."

"Two ladies?"

"Yes," and Howe had hard work to suppress a grin. "One's our house detective, Miss Solomons. You had a run-in with her last night?"

"Something like that," returned Ryder.

"The lady with the craze for five-cent detective fiction. She's carrying one of those novels around now—'The Great Limburger Cheese Mystery, or Dick Squawker on a Strong Scent'; you know the kind. I used to read 'em when I was a kid. But she is after you."

"Humph!" observed Ryder not at all pleased.

"And the lady in Suite Three," added Jim Howe, now flashing the guest a sharp look. "She's asking for you. Al sent up her breakfast and then she telephoned down here to ask if her—ahem!—her husband was about."

"Well?"

"I did not know just who she meant at first," acknowledged Howe, still eying Ryder curiously. "She—she did not get your name right."

The business man felt himself flushing. But he braved it out. "Asked for her husband, didn't she?"

"Er—yes."

"Well, that's me," and he moved away from the desk.

But he was suddenly impressed by the fact that Ruth must have said or done something to stir up suspicion at the hotel desk. With Mrs. Judson peddling her misinformation through the house, he and his bride were likely to be misunderstood. What could it be? Did Ruth mispronounce his name?

The puzzle of it enfolded him in a blanket of doubt. He went upstairs muttering to himself and with clouded brow.

As he approached Parlor A he saw a familiar figure standing at the door. It was White—the man who had been so suddenly and strangely taken ill in the office during the night. The man was speaking to one of the boys, and Ryder saw him give the messenger a card and a coin.

"Yes; Suite Three. Give it to the lady and tell her I am waiting for her here."

White went quickly into the parlor and the boy darted away. Ryder was dumbfounded. He was fixed to his place in the corridor for some moments before he could move.

White, the man of mystery, had sent his card to his, Ryder's, wife! He expected Ruth to come to the parlor at his summons!

There could be no mistake about it. Ryder was sure enough now that Suite Three was the one he had taken for himself and his bride.

White's questions the night before, Ruth's fear of the man when he had come to the door, her attempt at supper time to have private conversation with White (Mrs. Judson's interference Ryder now saw had broken up that) and various other suspicious circumstances rose in Ryder's mind in horrid procession.

He staggered forward a step until he was where he could see into the parlor. He was aware that Miss Solomon's sharp face suddenly came within range of his vision; but he did not give the steely eyed house detective a second glance. His eyes were fixed on White.

Besides that individual, there seemed but two other guests of the hotel in Parlor A. Cudger and James had disappeared. Two women stood talking beside one of the other doors. They were the vivacious Mrs. Judson and Mrs. Dent, the hard-featured member of the advance committee of the S.B.C.D.G.

Ryder hung back. John B. White was pacing a length of rug nervously. Suddenly Ruth appeared at the door beside which the widow and her companion stood.

Ryder's heart leaped at the sight of his bride. She looked as fresh and sweet as a rose. She wore a delightfully pretty house dress. She carried what was evidently White's card in her hand, and she cast a puzzled glance about the parlor. She first saw Mrs. Judson.

"Good morning, Mrs. Judson," she said brightly. "I hope you are better?"

Up went the widow's lorgnette. She stared Mrs. Ryder up and down without replying. Then she deliberately turned her back without speaking, much to Ruth's pain and surprise.

Ryder's gorge rose. He was about to step forward to protect Ruth when the latter saw White and uttered a little cry. The man wheeled and came toward her. Did Ruth shrink from him and did she cry out in fear?

"Madam, I must speak to you," White said, as Mrs. Judson and her companion left the room. "At least you owe me some reparation—some explanation. I demand that of you!"

CHAPTER XVIII

IT IS NO LONGER FARCE

Ruth halted. Her husband, from the other end of the room, saw fear in her face—right down terror!—as she confronted the man who addressed her.

Nor was this surprising. White's eyes glowed unnaturally, his long black hair was disheveled and his appearance altogether wild and uncanny. Ruth fell back from him, and Ryder heard her breath come gaspingly. Yet for the moment Ryder was spellbound and unable to go to her protection.

"What—what do you want of me?" she asked faintly.

"I sent for you. I must talk with you," White returned.

"Sent for me?" she said in a dully puzzled tone. "Oh, no! My husband sent for me." She glanced at the card in her hand. "He—he sent me this card—— So strange——"

She flashed White a suddenly indignant glance. "You have tricked me!" she cried with more force. "You have obtained one of my husband's cards——"

"That is my card, Ruth Mont!" White exclaimed harshly. "It is the card of the man whom you should call 'husband'—who is your husband by right. And I am that man!"

A porter suddenly entered the door at John Ryder's back.

"Are you Mr. Ryder, sir?" he said. "I was sent after you. Your trunks have been brought across the inlet and we have them at the door of your suite. Shall we take them inside and carry the empty boxes downstairs, sir?"

How did he do it? How does a man's brain sometimes continue to work and his limbs to move when he is sleep-walking? The subconscious self of John Ryder moved out of the parlor where two human beings were in the throes of a gripping tragedy—a tragedy that might scar his whole future life—and led the porter back to Suite Three.

He opened the door with the key he had obtained at the desk and saw the porters bring in the trunks. He made them understand that they were to let the empty boxes belonging to Ruth remain. Then he tipped them and was left alone.

He sat down in the very chair he had sat in before and held Ruth in his arms, and awaited his wife's return. His wife! God in heaven! Was she his wife? White had claimed her as rightfully belonging to him, and all those suspicious circumstances that had heretofore rankled in John Ryder's mind swam to the surface and offered proof that White's statement was true.

What was this awful riddle that seared John Ryder's soul as though with a branding iron?

He was convinced now that White was not a madman. Wild he might appear; but that he was insane, that his strange speeches were the vaporings of an unbalanced mind, Ryder did not now believe.

Why was he so sure that White was sane? Because Ruth had shown by her manner and by the expression of her countenance that something in White's statement impressed her. Ryder had seen her display this fear twice. He was convinced that White actually was closely associated with her, or had been so in the past.

Yet Ruth was bound to him—Ryder. She was his wife. He had been wedded to her less than twenty-four hours before. Twenty-four hours! It seemed a lifetime of storm and stress.

Ryder had promised to love, to cherish, to support and defend from all harm, to——

"My God!" he exclaimed, leaping up. "Am I a pusillanimous coward—a dastard? I have left her to face that man—whatever or whoever he is—alone."

He started for the door, madly intending to go back to the parlor and face them both. The door of the suite opened and closed swiftly. Ruth came in—the vision of a panting, wild-eyed, pallid-faced woman. She clung to the door knob for a moment, striving to regain her breath, and staring strangely into John Ryder's face. When she spoke, what she said shocked him as nothing else could have done.

"Who are you?" she demanded. "What—what manner of man are you? What did you do this to me for? Why did you do it?"

"Do what?" asked Ryder.

"Why did you marry me? Oh!" she cried in despair, wringing her hands, "why did you do this awful thing?"

"Why did I marry you?" repeated the man, dumbfounded. "Because I loved you. I told you I loved you when we were aboard ship, Ruth——"

"Aboard ship! Aboard what ship?"

"The Minnequago. Surely you have not forgotten our long talks? You have not forgotten——"

"Am I mad?" cried the woman, throwing her arms wildly above her head. "Oh! I must be mad!" Then she gained sudden control over herself. She thrust her face forward, her eyes blazing into his. "If you are my husband," she whispered, "what is your name?"

"I am your husband," Ryder said sternly. "You were legally married to me yesterday. Here is the certificate which the minister gave you, and which you placed in my hands for safe keeping."

He had dragged out his wallet and handed her the folded document. Her shaking fingers clutched at it and finally got the stiff paper unfolded. She read the names aloud in crescendo:

"'Ruth A. Mont': 'John Ryder'. "The paper slipped from her fingers and fluttered to the floor. "'John Ryder'?" she repeated staring at him. "I never heard of you before!"

She burst into tears, a passion of weeping that shook her whole body. For a moment she stood before him, so near that he might have touched her, her face in her trembling hands. The man stood still, dumb and helpless.

Then turning swiftly she ran into the inner room. Ryder, at last awakened, started up. He was frightened by her vehemence, as well as amazed by her words.

He started to follow her. She had shut the door sharply, but the key was not turned in the lock. He put his hand upon the door and hesitated. And so surely is the man lost who hesitates, John Ryder was lost then! There were two courses open to him, and he chose the wrong one.

His hand left the knob, and with the sound of the woman's wild sobbing in his ears he went slowly down the room and out into the corridor. As he came in sight of the parlor door he saw White wildly break from the room and run for the stairway. John Ryder's senses were so dulled that he scarcely saw the man. But behind the departing White appeared in the parlor doorway the figure of Miss Solomons. The expression upon the house detective's face might have alarmed Ryder at another time. She fairly glared at him as he moved past her.

"No, you ain't no crook, Mr. Ryder," he heard the strange girl mutter. "You're just a particular blamed fool! That's what you are."

He managed to get out of the hotel in some way and stumbled along the sandy road to the shore of the inlet where he might be alone. He tramped the edge of the inlet for miles.

His mind was back in the room at the hotel where he had left Ruth. The incident was as clearly etched on his brain as it had been when he stood and heard her amazing declaration.

What she meant he did not know. What he should have done he did not know. That he had done the wrong thing he was not sure. But he had.

Wrong? Indeed, his act had been the deadliest wrong possible to the woman. He was stunned, he did not understand; but there was one thing of which in his sane moments he was already convinced: Ruth loved him.

Nothing should have superseded that in his mind. Whatever the riddle was, whatever the skein of mystery in which they two were entangled, he should have remembered that. Instead he had allowed jealousy to step in and becloud the issue. John Ryder had turned his back upon a woman who had shown she loved him deeply. He had deserted her at a time when she needed him as she never had before and probably never would again.

All the pain and passion which followed this event John Ryder could lay to his own act. He brought all that followed upon himself by his own unwisdom. He was thinking only of himself. He was like a hurt animal, desiring to seek some lair wherein to lick its wounds.

He walked on and on. The in-running tide lapped along the strand at his feet, the burden of its murmur being:

"I never heard of you before!"

What had Ruth meant by that statement? Was it possible that she was insane? What had that fellow, White, said to her that had thrown her mind into such confusion?

White! At the remembrance of the man of mystery Ryder suddenly spat out an oath. He could explain this thing; and Ryder suddenly registered a vow that White should explain, or he would have his life!

He was a man now enraged to the point of desperation. He started for the hotel with this single idea milling in his brain. More than an hour had elapsed since he had left the Pinewood Inn, but he had taken little note of the lapse of time.

He betrayed his disturbed state of mind when he reached the desk where George presided.

"For mercy's sake, Mr. Ryder! what's happened to you?" demanded the clerk.

"I—I am looking for a man," stammered Ryder. "You know—the fellow who threw a fit here last night. White—John B. White."

"What about him?"

"I want to see him."

"But he's gone, sir."

"Gone? Left the hotel?"

"Yes, sir. He had no heavy baggage, and he got somebody to row him across the inlet. There are several fellows down there taking folks back and forth because of the broken bridge. I guess he intended catching the two o'clock train on the main line. Had your lunch, sir?"

Ryder was not thinking of eating. He walked away from the desk without replying. White was gone. Then who would explain to him——?

Ruth! He started up the stairway. Instinctively he sought Suite Three. Yet when he arrived there he hesitated. Should he go in? Could he face Ruth? What was he to say to her?

At last he turned the knob. The door was unlocked. He stepped into the room. Its condition instantly shocked his mind into activity.

The wardrobe was wide open and was empty. All Ruth's pretty dresses had disappeared and there was evidence of hasty packing. He hurried down the room to her trunks. They were repacked, strapped, and ready for shipment. He stooped to peer at the tags.

The trunks had come to the hotel, of course, marked with Ruth's maiden name and Pinewood. The man's eyes bulged—he uttered a hoarse cry. These lines were crossed out and in their stead and in a woman's upright handwriting he saw: "Mrs. John B. White, New York." Ruth had repacked the boxes ready for their return by the express company.

Ryder turned swiftly to the bed chamber, his heart thumping so that he well nigh choked. The door of the inner room was open. He crept to it and looked in. It was empty.

"She's gone! She's run away!" muttered the horrified man. "What—why——" His words ceased and he dashed for the corridor. He understood at last. She had gone away with White! This was his firm belief.

Right here it would have been well if John Ryder had recalled the observation of Miss Solomons: "You're just a particular blamed fool!"

He did not stop to question the reasonableness of this idea that had shot across his brain and seared it. Ruth had gone. Her trunks were tagged with that man's name—with her own name. He saw it all now in a flash. She had married him while yet she was another man's wife. That man was John B. White, and he had followed them to Pinewood Inn and demanded that she return to him.

As Ryder rushed out into the corridor he came upon the chambermaid he had tipped so liberally that morning. His trembling lips formed the instant words:

"Have you seen my wife?"

"Why, Mr. Ryder! I saw her some time ago—going out."

"You mean she was leaving the hotel?"

"She was dressed for traveling—yes, sir. Just as she was dressed when she came last evening. Yes, sir."

Ryder brushed by and started for the stairs. Ruth was attempting to get away with White on that two o'clock train. There might still be time for him to catch it. If ever hell was brewed in a man's heart it was in the heart of John Ryder at this moment.

Somebody spoke his name behind him. A swift glance showed him the motherly face of Mrs. Brack. She seemed desirous of speaking to him, but Ryder could stop for nothing now. He hurried on without a word of reply.

He reached the head of the flight and started down. There were several men at the desk, but Ryder brushed through them and leaned forward to speak confidentially to George.

"Does that train leave Barr, on the main line, at just two o'clock?" he asked the clerk.

"Two-thirteen, Mr. Ryder," answered George.

"Thanks!" Ryder turned to make his way to the door. He was confronted by a stranger who put an authoritative hand upon his breast and pushed him back.

"This is the gentleman, is it?" the stranger said to the clerk. "This is John Ryder?"

"That's my name—yes," snapped Ryder. "I'm in a hurry. I can't talk to you now."

"I'm afraid you'll have to wait till your hurry's over, Mr. Ryder," said the man. "I'm the sheriff's deputy. I understand you are the man who stole two cars of coal from the Lossing Soap Company. I've got to detain you, sir."

CHAPTER XIX

AN OUTLAW IN FACT

Now at this particular moment John Ryder wished to be detained less than ever before in his life. He had but half an hour in the clear to reach the Barr railroad station in any case. White and Ruth had already got a good start of him. As far as he knew there might not be another train to New York over the main line until night; and surely not on the branch from Pinewood until nine o'clock.

Sheriff or no sheriff, he made a break for the door of the hotel. The officer ran with him and there was a squabble right in the foyer.

"You can't do this, Mr. Ryder!" exclaimed the deputy sheriff. "You're arrested!"

"I'll show you what I can do!" declared John Ryder with emphasis, and swung for the officer's jaw. The blow landed and it did him good. Not the sheriff, but Ryder himself.

This quarrel took his mind for the moment off the thoughts that had nearly crazed him. He burst through the door, banged it in the sheriff's face, and ran for the inlet.

Before he reached the waterside he heard the hue and cry behind him. But there was at least one boatman alert.

"Dodging a board bill, Mister?" exclaimed this individual. "Well! I wouldn't wonder if they'll all be doing that. They tell me they shut off the heat and lights on you all last night. Gimme two dollars and I'll put you across."

Here was a fellow just as crooked as John Ryder needed at that moment, and the latter leaped into the boat which was thrust out into the tide. Down to the shore plowed the deputy sheriff bawling for them to come back.

"I'm deafer than an adder," said the boatman, grinning up into John Ryder's face. "What does he say?"

"He seems anxious about the weather," said John Ryder grimly. "He's got another boat. Two men in it. They'll beat you."

"Huh! Tom Crane and Andy Meyers. That old punt of theirs is like punk. If we should run into it, Mister, my prow would cut her right down to the water-line."

"An extra five dollars for you if you do it," the passenger snapped, his jaw set and ugly. "But don't pick 'em up. The tide isn't dangerous here, is it?"

"They kin near wade ashore," agreed the boatman and began to hold back that the pursuing boat would be sure to overtake them.

"Sit tight and keep your mouth shut," said the boatman. "The less said the better, as the old woman remarked when she married the deaf and dumb husban'."

The deputy sheriff, holding a handkerchief to his jaw, was shouting commands that Ryder's boatman did not in the least heed. But the latter let the other boat come right up on them.

"I'll get ye!" shouted the angry officer. "I'll jail you for this! Hi! look out, you numbskull!"

Ryder's man swerved his heavy boat around suddenly. It was aimed directly for the leaky punt. Crash! The collision half drove the officer's craft under water and she began to settle at once.

"Hi! You'll drown us!" yelled one of the other boatmen.

"Sho, you ain't nowheres near to the channel," said Ryder's man. "It ain't neck deep to shore—from where you came. You fellers kin both swim, and if the sheriff can't, let him sink. I ain't got no use for him, anyway."

Later he explained that this officer had come the week before and searched his house for liquor.

"Thought I kept a blind pig, he said," chuckled the boatman. "But I don't. Jest the same, if he'd looked down our well—— Well! if you ever come back here and want a good drink of licker, look me up. I always have enough for my friends."

Ryder took the extra pair of oars at this point and aided in rowing the boat to the other side of the inlet. He paid his helper and started for the station in a rattling old car. There was no other vehicle to be obtained. Just before they sighted the railroad he heard the train whistle.

Although he knew he could not make the train, he went on down into the town and to the station.

The two-thirteen had pulled out some time before he stepped upon the platform. John Ryder went directly to the ticket window and asked the clerk:

"You sold tickets for this last train to New York?"

"Yes, sir."

Coolly and carefully Ryder described White's appearance and that of his own wife. "I want to catch up with these people," he explained, "and I do not know whether they went on this train, or on one in the other direction."

In secret his heart was lacerated by the very words he used in describing Ruth. Yet he must learn if she had actually gone with White.

The clerk seemed to remember White clearly. The man had paced the platform constantly until the train arrived.

"Watching to see if I was following them," thought Ryder. Then aloud: "And the woman?"

"She wore a veil—one o' those auto veils. I didn't see her face. But she was the only woman who left by that train."

"Not with the man?"

"They did not appear to be together."

Ryder nodded. He had gained complete control of himself now. He wrote a long telegram to the supervisor of this division of the railroad, and the answer came so quickly that those about the railroad office were startled. A special train was ordered started from the Junction for Mr. John Ryder and would arrive about three o'clock. It would have right of way going north.

Ryder paced the platform and chewed his cigar. John B. White had paced this platform, too. Whatever White's thoughts had been, John Ryder's were as black and as terrible as ever man had meditated upon.

He knew what he would do to White if he caught him. No matter what the guilt of his wife—or the woman who had posed as his wife for a few hours—Ryder was very sure that White was the more guilty. He was as ruthless an outlaw at this moment as ever a twentieth century business man could be.

The special backed in. It stopped about ten seconds, for Ryder was the only person to board it. Then on toward the city for which the two guilty creatures he was following had bought tickets. They might have bought them for New York as a blind; but Ruth's trunks were plainly marked for that city.

A baggage car and smoker and some official's private car made up the special train. John Ryder's name was a power with the officials of this road if he cared to use it. And it was of his name that he thought, sitting shrugged down in the leather covered lounge and watching the autumn landscape fly past.

He remembered what he had tried to make his name stand for during the years he had been working up to his present business pinnacle. He came of unblemished stock. His father had been an honest man. His mother, the memory of whom had ever been an inspiration to him, had been a beautiful woman both in person and character.

He had given her ring—her wedding ring, hallowed by being worn on the finger of a pure and gentle wife—into the keeping of one who, he now believed, did not value the sacred character of the emblem.

His wife—— Well! she was his wife! He had married her legally! He tried to push any other thought down.

Yet, suppose she had no right to marry him? That was the awful thought that rankled like a barbed arrow in his heart.

"Mrs. John B. White," written under the erased "Ruth Mont" on the trunk tags seemed to clinch Ryder's suspicions first aroused by White's actions and words.

Was Ruth a bigamist without having intended the crime? Had she been married in England and, for some reason, supposed her husband dead? Was there something shameful connected with this White and her association with him that had spurred her to try to hide her former marriage from Ryder.

What manner of woman was she? Was her sweetness and innocence all assumed? She had seemed to John Ryder until this terrible thing had arisen, to be good and pure—in every way a desirable character.

Of course, she might be vain. Her consideration of the offer of Sam Marks to put her on the stage might prove that frailty. An actress! Was there an explanation in that thought? Had she been acting all along? Had the story she told him on shipboard been a tissue of falsehoods? Was her apparent fondness for him born of her ability to simulate emotions and feelings that she did not really possess?

Good heavens! was it all a part of a plot, perhaps, to link his name—the name of John Ryder—with the stage career of a vaudeville actress? Was this the explanation of it all?

And what of John B. White? What of Ruth's apparent fear of him? Could any woman so assume the attitude and look of terror? On the other hand, could her appearance of loving Ryder be likewise assumed?

Suddenly there flashed into his mind the memory of how Ruth looked—what she had said, indeed—when she thought he had been taken ill in the hotel office late the previous night. He saw her again as she came madly down the hotel corridor and flung herself into his arms.

"She thought it was I who had been taken sick. That I know. My God! What mystery is here? The girl loves me—deeply, sincerely, truly. I cannot doubt it. Whether she has a right to do so or not, she does love me.

"Then, why has she gone away with that man? What dreadful hold does he have upon her? Is she beside herself? Her words suggest an aberrant mind. I should be with her now. That White is a villain. And whatever his right, even if it is backed by law, shall I give up the woman I love and who loves me to any other man on earth?"

And as though in answer to this question a repetition of Miss Solomons' last observation to him flashed into John Ryder's mind:

"You're just a particular blamed fool. That's what you are!"

CHAPTER XX

THE NAME ON THE BILLBOARD

Ryder arrived in New York after dark. He did not go to his rooms, for he feared if he did so his presence would become known to some of his friends and he would be obliged to make explanations.

When the taxicab deposited him, baggageless, at the hotel he selected, he noted the variegated lights of a drugstore across the street. He went into it before entering the hotel and shoved a well-wrinkled prescription across the counter to the clerk. The latter raised his brows.

"I've got to sleep tonight," John Ryder said quietly. "You will see Dr. Harmstick's name clearly written on that prescription. He is my family physician. Here is my card."

He got the drug, and, as soon as a room was assigned to him, took the medicine and went to bed. He could not have slept without the dose, and that took effect in a short time. But, superinduced by drugs as it was, his sleep was not refreshing. However, his mind was clear and his body alert and vigorous when he arose on Sunday morning.

He sent a boy to skirmish for clean linen and a fresh tie, and made himself presentable before going down for a bit of breakfast. He had eaten practically nothing the day before, and while he ate now he tried to plan his future course of action.

Future! Why, the word held nothing for him but the promise of continued pain and shame. John Ryder of spotless name had given that name into the keeping of a woman who was unworthy of it—whether she had intentionally flouted him or not, this fact seemed to be established. The newspapers must soon learn the story of his marriage fiasco. It would be blazoned forth for the whole world to read.

He would be a marked man. John Ryder, the man who had married a woman offhand, without knowing anything about her! At least, he had known her but seven days. And she had run away from him with another man!

It would be a nice bit for the scandal mongers. It would be something he could never live down. Every man with whom he did business hereafter would be saying to himself while in Ryder's presence:

"There must be something the matter with this fellow. They say his wife ran away from him the day after they were married."

Yet, even these thoughts were not the bitterest in his soul. Higher than the shame of having his trouble publicly known and discussed, rose the fact that he had lost the treasure to which his heart clung.

Ruth was the one woman in the world whom he had ever, or could ever, love. He felt it—he knew it!

Short as their acquaintance had been, Ryder knew that he loved Ruth as he should never be able to love another woman. He had thought he loved her when he had first seen her on the deck of the Minnequago; but since their marriage—since the old clergyman had pronounced them man and wife—a deeper and more tender feeling for his girlish bride had grown in his mind and heart.

On shipboard, coming over, she had merely been a beautiful creature—a woman of heart and mind and of fine physique—who attracted his admiration and fired his passion.

Once bound, as he supposed legally and holily to Ruth Mont, his love for her had taken on a deeper meaning. He was not a man who philosophized much, or who catechised his own motives or thoughts; but he knew that a subtle change had taken place in his feelings toward the woman even before the minister had joined their hands.

It had been half pique and half determination to obtain his own desire that had made him write that peremptory note to Miss Mont before the Minnequago docked. It grated upon him to think of a man like Marks bearing off such a prize, even in a sordid business transaction.

But the instant he had seen Ruth waiting for him when he landed—the moment she had put her hands into his—the instant she had whispered: "I will marry you," a greater love had leaped into full and glowing life in John Ryder's bosom.

It was no longer a matter of mutual attraction, or the charm of her beautiful face and figure, or her mental attributes that held him captive. From that moment of their meeting on the dock his heart knew her heart; they had become one.

And this knowledge, which he could not scorn or overlook despite all that had happened since, made the darker part of the puzzle. Had he not been sure of his love and of her love, he could have understood in part how she had come to leave him and go with this other man.

For he could not accept the suggestion that all her sweetness and sheer happiness as a bride was merely a pose. That, as an actress, she had simulated a part. No, the woman did not live, he believed, who could so befool him.

He gazed out of the restaurant window at the church parade on the broad Fifth Avenue walk, and with eyes that saw more than the passing throng. Two or three couples went by whom he knew—men and their wives going home after service.

They suggested domesticity, companionship, the best there is for human beings in this old world of ours. He realized what he had lost—aye, what he had merely grasped at only to have the treasure snatched from him by this cruel turn of fate.

Later he went out and wandered about somewhat aimlessly. Not that he expected to find either of the two people he was looking for. They would not be in the Sunday street crowd. And yet he could not help looking into the faces of those he met with keen scrutiny.

He could not easily set on foot any serious search for Ruth and White on Sunday. Nor was he sure he wished to. The thought of bringing the police or even private detectives into the case horrified him. Yet, was he to lose Ruth without lifting a hand to win her back?

All day long John Ryder weltered in the waters of indecision. Should he seek Ruth through the regular police channels? Should he let matters run their own course? This was a new state of mind for the determined, decisive business man.

Somewhere over on the West Side, about seven o'clock he dropped in at a restaurant to dine. Afterward he wandered slowly down the broad and busy avenue that lends itself the airs of Broadway after dark, jostled by the crowds, without a person to speak to and desirous indeed of no companionship.

He came to a theater before which was a huge billboard that advertised mockingly "Sacred Concert," following which was a long list of vaudeville turns. Many of the crowd turned in here. There were speculators at the door hawking tickets, and a little eddy of people held up John Ryder. His eye caught, altogether by accident it would seem, in flaring red type, the following announcement:

SPECIAL ATTRACTION

First Appearance
of
ENGLAND'S MOST FAMOUS ENTERTAINER

MISS MONT

Imitator and Comédienne

Under the sole management of Mr. Sam Marks

Seeing that he was attracting attention, Ryder moved away. People were looking into his face curiously. He felt his heart pounding as though it would burst through the shell of his chest. Rage blinded him. Despair shook him through every fibre of his being.

The half darkness of a narrower thoroughfare offered him shelter. The horror and shame of his position well nigh leveled John Ryder's pride with the ground.

He saw what it all meant now. There could be, he thought, no further doubt or mistake. She had intended to do this from the first. Marks had doubtless put her up to it. The scandal of her having married Ryder and left him after twenty-four hours—on some trumped up charge of course—would give her an amount of free advertising such as no vaudeville actress could resist!

The story was already in the papers. John Ryder could not doubt it. His friends were laughing at his predicament. And how coolly, and with what utter heartlessness, had the game been played upon him.

Doubtless the woman had been under contract with Marks when the ship left the other side. Ryder had foolishly showed her that he was in love with her. Between them, Marks and the girl had hatched this plot.

And who was White? The answer was easy.

He was some poor actor whom Marks had hired to impersonate a wronged lover or husband, whichever might best fit the needs of the case. His following them to the Pinewood Inn had been for the purpose of creating a scene that would separate the newly wedded couple.

Mrs. Judson's illness had precluded the necessity for that scene. Fate had played into the hands of the heartless jade; and when the game had gone far enough for her purpose, she had run away and returned to New York to fill this, her initial engagement before an American public.

He even understood now about those pretty frocks she had worn. Of course they were a part of a stage wardrobe Miss Mont already possessed.

These thoughts all but turned John Ryder's brain. He found himself after a time back at the entrance to the theater. But he could not have told how he got there. One of the ticket speculators assailed him.

"Best seat in the house, boss. Right down front on the side. Two bucks. See the whole show."

"When does Miss—Miss Mont come on?"

"Nine-thirty."

"Is she——"

"She's a corker! She had her try-out before the manager and a crowd of newspaper sharps this morning, and she's a scream. They'll put out the S.R.O. signs on her for the rest of the week—you take it from me."

Ryder bought the seat and passed in at the orchestra entrance of the theater.

CHAPTER XXI

IN THE PART OF THE INJURED HUSBAND

The blaze of lights, the music, the rustle of the audience, all affected Ryder but slightly. He walked to his seat as one might walk in a dream. There seemed little tangible to him in his surroundings, or in the people he brushed past.

When he had seated himself the usher leaned over and whispered to him to remove his hat. He sat in his overcoat, staring straight before him with glassy, unwinking eyes.

A painted curtain was dropped, and between it and the footlights two men appeared who went through some sort of act. Ryder never knew what it was; nor did he appreciate the several turns that followed this act.

Ryder found a program in his hand, and he began to look through it for his wife's name. Then he remembered that it could not be there, for Marks must have arranged for her appearance here on Saturday. She could not be a feature of the regular Sunday bill.

Ryder suddenly felt a great thankfulness for this fact. Undoubtedly the only places where Miss Mont's name appeared were on the billboard and in the newspaper advertisements.

It came into his troubled mind that he was in a position to put an effectual stop to his wife's being advertised further as a public entertainer. His brain began to work clearly along this line.

She was either legally his wife, or a bigamist. In either case, if he kept his head, he would have the whip-hand.

If she acknowledged the legality of their marriage, then the law would give him control over her movements—to an extent at least. Until she instituted proceedings for a separation she must obey him.

If the marriage had been a farce because of a former marriage on her part, then his hold upon her would be stronger still. If she refused to retire from the stage and live in seclusion, he would prosecute her and put her in jail.

This thought gave him untold satisfaction for the moment; then it horrified him. His wife—Ruth—the woman he loved—in jail!

What an awful experience it would be for her. Her tender body to recline on a hard cot and be subjected to the strict rules of a prison, and to exist on jail fare!

Then he hardened his heart. She was no wife of his—only in name in any case. She had cajoled him and fooled him and ruined him. She should be made to suffer as he was suffering now.

He suddenly awoke to a stir in the audience. The orchestra burst forth into a new melody and the crowd began to applaud. Who were they welcoming?

Ryder raised his eyes from the program which was merely a blur of names to him and looked straight into the face of the woman who had come from the wings and was now bowing an acknowledgment to her welcome. It was "Miss Mont, England's most famous entertainer."

For an instant he believed she was looking straight at him—that she must see and give him some sign of greeting. He forgot the glare of the footlights in the actor's eyes which makes the entire auditorium a magnified blur of faces and forms, and seldom allows the person on the stage to descry clearly a particular face in the audience.

His eyes devoured her as though he had never seen her before. She was neither the woman she had seemed aboard the Minnequago, nor as she had seemed in their suite at the Pinewood Inn.

Plainly dressed aboard ship, the beauty of her face and figure had been suggested rather than displayed. It was her brightness of mind that had most deeply impressed John Ryder during the voyage.

Afterward, during their short wedded intercourse, her sweetness of disposition and lovely personality had charmed and held him in her toils. How sweet she had looked in the dressing sack which revealed her neck and arms, bustling about the room unpacking her trunks.

And now this was still another woman—a third personality. The beauty of face and form was enhanced by her costume; but it was a cold and formal beauty; not the living, breathing, loving creature whom he had folded in his arms. Nor did she seem the same woman he had talked and walked with on the steamship's deck.

This was Miss Mont in her public character—Miss Mont, the actress—a woman living for the show and applause of the stage.

She swept to the center of the stage in a trailing robe which was cut to display the line of her figure to perfection and which likewise left bare her neck and shoulders and her graceful arms.

She wore no ornament. She needed none. Ryder noted, even, that she no longer wore the fine gold chain and the locket which had so stirred his doubts and jealousy two days before.

She made another graceful courtesy and began her act. That she was troubled with diffidence—with actual stage fright—there could be little doubt. But some entertainers never get over that feeling on first appearance, so it did not disprove Ryder's belief that she was well trained in her art.

Her methods were natural and did not smell of the stage; nevertheless Ryder was unconvinced. No woman who had not had long training could have acted the part Miss Mont had played at the Pinewood Inn. Why, this was an utterly different woman!

"Ladies and gentlemen," she said, and her voice thrilled John Ryder where he sat with his burning gaze fixed on her face, "I am to imitate certain well-known actors and actresses whose peculiarities and oddities are more or less familiar to you, as they are to me.

"As this is my first visit to America, I cannot imitate your own local celebrities—only such of the profession as may have come to England and whom I have seen in London. For instance, I will try to imitate"—here she named a musical comedy celebrity who had made a hit on both sides of the Atlantic—"as she sings her most popular song in 'The Bridal Bell.'"

Instantly the transformation that took place in Miss Mont's attitude and facial expression carried the house by storm. Before she opened her lips to sing a line of the ditty that had been so popular in "The Bridal Bell," she looked the woman she imitated to the life.

Ryder was actually startled. He remembered that once, in a spirit of fun, while aboard ship, Miss Mont had roguishly imitated the peculiarities of a fellow-passenger for his private amusement. He had not encouraged her, because he thought it savored too much of the very thing he desired to shield her from—the stage. Ah, why had not his eyes been opened then to what manner of woman she was?

Yet during the few hours she had been with him at the Pinewood Inn she had attempted nothing of this kind. Nothing in her speech or actions then had suggested the theater. What a consummate actress this wretched woman was!

The applause of the crowd encouraged her. She did not undertake anything very difficult; but she filled her seventeen minutes acceptably; and with her beauty and personal charm there was little doubt that her act would be a hit.

Her popularity with this audience did anything but please Ryder. The more the crowd applauded the more bitter were his feelings, and the deeper was the pain he suffered.

How could he ever drag this woman off the stage after such a reception? Both she and her manager would fight to thwart his attempt to close her career. Yet he had money—much money. Marks could be bought out, he felt sure; but other managers would realize that in Miss Mont there was a fortune.

It was while these bitter feelings rankled in his mind that she came back to bow her acknowledgment for the applause that followed her encore. Her gaze swept the side of the house where Ryder sat as she went off again and once out of direct range of the footlights, she saw his face.

He saw her start, pale, and then flush underneath the grease-paint that stained her cheeks. She knew him.

Ryder rose from his seat and walked uncertainly up the aisle. Several people departed after her act, and his doing so was not conspicuous. At the door he stopped a man and asked him where the stage exit of the theater was located. The man grinned at him and said:

"Round on the other street." Then to his friend he added quite loud enough for Ryder to hear: "A hard-hit Johnny I should say. The Mont has certainly made good with him."

Ryder flushed. He could have turned and struck the man down. It was his wife who the fellow had intimated would be an attraction for "stage-door Jonnies."

He found the stage entrance and the usual Cerberus on guard. His entrance was at first denied. For a moment the maddened man was tempted to rush in past the doorkeeper and demand to see his wife of the first person he met. Better judgment prevailed. It was dark enough in the entry for the doorkeeper to miss his passion-distorted face.

"Ain't nobody allowed inside, Mister," the man said.

"I've a friend, Miss Mont——"

"Let's have your card and I'll get it back to her," said the man whose hand itched for a quarter.