Her voice had steadily risen until it was charged with passionate anger. It was his turn to express astonishment. Fire; she was full of it. Pearls in the dawn light, flashing and burning!
"You don't like your island?"
"I hate it!… But, there!"—weariness edging in. "I am sorry. I shouldn't talk like that. I'm a poor nurse."
"You are the most wonderful human being I ever saw!" And he meant it.
She trembled; but she did not know why. "You mustn't talk any more; the excitement isn't good for you."
Drama. To get behind that impenetrable curtain, to learn why she hated her island. Never had he been so intrigued. Why, there was drama in the very dress she wore! There was drama in the unusual beauty of her, hidden away all these years on a forgotten isle!
"You've been lonely, too."
"You mustn't talk."
He ignored the command. "To be lonely! What is physical torture, if someone who loves you is nigh? But to be alone … as I am!… yes, and as you are! Oh, you haven't told me, but I can see with half an eye. With nobody who cares … the both of us!"
He was real in this moment. She was given a glimpse of his soul. She wanted to take him in her arms and hush him, but she sat perfectly still. Then came the shock of the knowledge that soon he would be going upon his way, that there would be no one to depend upon her; and all the old loneliness came smothering down upon her again. She could not analyse what was stirring in her: the thought of losing the doll, the dog, and the cat. There was the world besides, looming darker and larger.
"What would you like most in this world?" he asked. Once more he was the searcher.
"Red apples and snow!" she sent back at him, her face suddenly transfixed by some inner glory.
"Red apples and snow!" he repeated. He returned figuratively to his bed—the bed he had made for himself and in which he must for ever lie. Red apples and snow! How often had these two things entered his thoughts since his wanderings began? Red apples and snow!—and never again to behold them!
"I am going out for a little while," she said. She wanted to be alone. "Otherwise you will not get your morning's sleep."
He did not reply. His curiosity, his literary instincts, had been submerged by the recurring thought of the fool he had made of himself. He heard the door close; and in a little while he fell into a doze; and there came a dream filled with broken pictures, each one of which the girl dominated. He saw her, dripping with rosy pearls, rise out of the lagoon in the dawn light: he saw her flashing to and fro among the coco palms in the moonshine: he saw her breasting the hurricane, her body as full of grace and beauty as the Winged Victory of the Louvre. The queer phase of the dream was this, she was at no time a woman; she was symbolical of something, and he followed to learn what this something was. There was a lapse of time, an interval of blackness; then he found his hand in hers and she was leading him at a run up the side of the mountain.
His heart beat wildly and he was afraid lest the strain be too much; but the girl shook her head and smiled and pointed to the top of the mountain. All at once they came to the top, the faded blue sky overhead, and whichever way he looked, the horizon, the great rocking circle which hemmed them in. She pointed hither and yon, smiled and shook her head. Then he understood. Nowhere could he see that reaching, menacing Hand. So long as she stood beside him, he was safe. That was what she was trying to make him understand.
He awoke, strangely content. As it happens sometimes, the idea stepped down from the dream into the reality; and he saw it more clearly now than he had seen it in the dream. It filled his thoughts for the rest of the day, and became an obsession. How to hold her, how to keep her at his side; this was the problem with which he struggled.
When she came in after dinner that night, Ruth was no longer an interesting phenomenon, something figuratively to tear apart and investigate: she was talismanic. So long as she stood beside him, the Hand would not prevail.
CHAPTER XVI
Ah cum began to worry. Each morning his inquiry was properly answered: the patient was steadily improving, but none could say when he would be strong enough to proceed upon his journey. The tourist season would soon be at ebb, and it would be late in September before the tide returned. So, then, fifty gold was considerable; it would carry Ah Cum across four comparatively idle months. And because of this hanging gold Ah Cum left many doors open to doubt.
Perhaps the doctor, the manager and the girl were in collusion: perhaps they had heard indirectly of the visit paid by Mr. O'Higgins, the American detective, and were waiting against the hour when they could assist the young man in a sudden dash for liberty. Why not? Were not his own sentiments inclined in favour of the patient? But fifty gold was fifty gold.
One morning, as he took his stand on the Hong-Kong packet dock to ambush the possible tourist, he witnessed the arrival of a tubby schooner, dirty gray and blotched as though she had run through fire. Her two sticks were bare and brown, her snugged canvas drab, her brasses dull, her anchor mottled with rust. There was only one clean spot in the picture—the ship's wash (all white) that fluttered on a line stretched between the two masts. The half-nude brown bodies of the crew informed Ah Cum that the schooner had come up from the South Seas. The boiling under her stern, however, told him nothing. He was not a sailor. It would not have interested him in the least to learn that the tub ran on two powers—wind and oil.
Sampans with fish and fruit and vegetables swarmed about, while overhead gulls wheeled and swooped and circled. One of the sampans was hailed, and a rope-ladder was lowered. Shortly a man descended laboriously. He was dressed immaculately in a suit of heavy Shantung silk. His face was half hidden under a freshly pipeclayed sola topee—sun-helmet. He turned and shouted some orders to the Kanaka crew, then nodded to the sampan's coolies, who bore upon the sweeps and headed for the Sha-mien.
Ah Cum turned to his own affairs, blissfully ignorant that this tub was, within forty-eight hours, to cost him fifty gold. What had shifted his casual interest was the visible prospect of a party of three who were coming down the packet gang-plank. The trio exhibited that indecisive air with which Ah Cum was tolerably familiar. They were looking for a guide. Forthwith he presented his card.
The Reverend Henry Dolby had come to see China; for that purpose he had, with his wife and daughter, traversed land and sea to the extent of ten thousand miles. Actually, he had come all this distance simply to fulfil a certain clause in his contract with Fate, to be in Canton on this particular day.
Meantime, as the doctor was splitting his breakfast orange, he heard a commotion in his office, two rooms removed: volleys of pidgin English, one voice in protest, the other dominant. This was followed by heavy footsteps, and in another moment the dining-room door was flung open.
The doctor jumped to his feet. "Mac, you old son-of-a-gun!"
"Got a man's breakfast?" McClintock demanded to know.
"Tom! Hey, Tom!" The Chinese cook thrust his head into the dining room. "Those chops, fried potatoes, and buttered toast."
"Aw light!"
The two old friends held each other off at arms' length for inspection; this proving satisfactory, they began to prod and pummel one another affectionately. No hair to fall awry, no powder to displace, no ruffles to crush; men are lucky. Women never throw themselves into each other's arms; they calculate the distance and the damage perfectly.
They sat down, McClintock reaching for a lump of sugar which he began munching.
"Come up by the packet?"
"No; came up with The Tigress."
"The Tigress!" The doctor laughed. "You'd have hit it off better if you'd called her The Sow. I'll bet you haven't given her a bucket of paint in three years. Oh, I know. You give her a daub here and there where the rust shows. A man as rich as you are ought to have a thousand-ton yacht."
"Good enough for me. She's plenty clean below."
"I'll bet she still smells to heaven with sour coconut. Bring your liveralong?"
"I sometimes wonder if I have any—if it isn't the hole where it was that aches."
"You look pretty fit."
"Oh, a shave and a clean suit will do a lot. It's a pity you wouldn't give me the prescription instead of the medicine, so I could have it filled nearer home."
"I'd never set eyes on you again. You'd be coming up to Hong-Kong, but you'd be cutting out Canton. I'll bet you've been in Hong-Kong these two weeks already, and never a line to me."
"Didn't want any lectures spoiling a good time."
"How long will you be here?"
"To-morrow night. It's sixteen days down, with The Tigress. The South China will be dropping to a dead calm, and I want to use canvas as much as I can. You simply can't get good oil down there, so I must husband the few drams I carry."
"What a life!"
"No worse than yours."
"But I'm a poor man. I'm always shy the price of the ticket home. You're rich. You could return to civilization and have a good time all the rest of your days."
"Two weeks in Hong-Kong," replied McClintock, "is more than enough."
"But, Lord, man!—don't you ever get lonesome?"
"Don't you?"
"I'm too busy."
"So am I. I am carrying back a hundred new books and forty new records for the piano-player. Whenever I feel particularly gregarious, I take the launch and run over to Copeley's and play poker for a couple of days. Lonesomeness isn't my worry. I can't keep a good man beyond three pay-days. They want some fun, and there isn't any. No other white people within twenty miles. I've combed Hong-Kong. They all balk because there aren't any petticoats. I won't have a beachcomber on the island. The job is easy. The big pay strikes them; but when they find there's no place to spend it, good-bye!"
Tom the cook came in with the chops and the potatoes—the doctor's dinner—and McClintock fell to with a gusto which suggested that there was still some liver under his ribs. The doctor smoked his pipe thoughtfully.
"Mac, did you ever run across a missioner by the name of Enschede?"
"Enschede?" McClintock stared at the ceiling. "Sounds as if I had heard it, but I can't place it this minute. Certainly I never met him. Why?"
"I was just wondering. You say you need a man. Just how particular are you? Will he have to bring recommendations?"
"He will not. His face will be all I need. Have you got someone in mind for me?"
"Finish your breakfast and I'll tell you the story." Ten minutes later, the doctor, having marshalled all his facts chronologically, began his tale. He made it brief. "Of course, I haven't the least evidence that the boy has done anything wrong; it's what I'd call a hunch; piecing this and that together."
"Are you friendly toward him?" asked McClintock, passing a fine cigar across the table.
"Yes. The boy doesn't know it, but I dug into his trunk for something to identify him and stumbled upon some manuscripts. Pretty good stuff, some of it. The subject matter was generally worthless, but the handling was well done. You're always complaining that you can't keep anybody more than three months. If my conjectures are right, this boy would stay there indefinitely."
"I don't know," said McClintock.
"But you said you weren't particular. Moreover, he's a Yale
University man, and he'd be good company."
"What's he know about copra and native talk?"
"Nothing, probably; but I'll wager he'll pick it all up fast enough."
"A fugitive."
"But that's the point—I don't know. But supposing he is? Supposing he made but one misstep? Your island would be a haven of security. I know something about men."
"I agree to that. But it strikes me there's a nigger in the woodpile somewhere, as you Yankees say. Why are you so anxious?"
"Oh, if you can't see your way…."
"I'll have a look-see before I make any decision. It's your eagerness that bothers me. You seem to want this chap out of Canton."
The doctor hesitated, puffing his tobacco hastily. "There's a young woman."
"I remember now!" interrupted McClintock. "This Enschede—the missioner. One of his converted Kanakas dropped in one day. He called Enschede the Bellower. Seems Enschede's daughter ran away and left him, and he's combing the islands in search of her. He's a hundred miles sou'-east of me."
"Well, this young lady I was about to describe," said the doctor, "is Enschede's daughter."
McClintock whistled. "Oho!" he said. "So she got away as far as this, eh? But where does she come in?"
The doctor recounted that side of the tale. "And so I want the boy out of the way," he concluded. "She in intensely impressionable and romantic, and probably she is giving the chap qualities he doesn't possess. All the talk in the world would not describe Ruth. You have to see her to understand."
"And what are you going to do with her, supposing I'm fool enough to take this boy with me?"
"Send her to my people, in case she cannot find her aunt."
"I see. Afraid there'll be a love-affair. Well, I'll have a look-see at this young De Maupassant. I know faces. Down in my part of the world it's all a man has to go by. But if he's in bed, how the devil is he going with me, supposing I decide to hire him? The mudhook comes up to-morrow night."
"I can get him aboard all right. A sea voyage under sail will be the making of him."
"Let's toddle over to the Victoria at once. I'll do anything in reason for you, old top; but no pig in a poke. Enschede's daughter. Things happen out this way. That's a queer yarn."
"It's a queer girl."
"With a face as square and flat as a bottle of gin. I know the
Dutch." He sent the doctor a sly glance.
"She's the most beautiful creature you ever set eyes on," said the doctor, warmly. "That's the whole difficulty. I want her to get forward, to set her among people who'll understand what to do with her."
"Ship her back to her father"—sagely.
"No. I tell you, that girl would jump into the sea, rather. Something happened down there, and probably I'll never know what. Every time you mention the father, she turns into marble. No; she'd never go back. Mac, she's the honestest human being I ever saw or heard of; and at the same time she is velvet over steel. And yet, she would be easy prey in her present state of mind to any plausible, attractive scoundrel. That's why I'm so anxious to get her to a haven."
"Come along, then. You've got me interested and curious. If you were ten years younger, you'd have me wondering."
The doctor did not reply to this rather ambiguous statement, but pushed back his chair and signed to McClintock to follow. They found Ruth reading to Spurlock, whose shoulders and head were propped by pillows.
McClintock did not exaggerate his ability to read faces. It was his particular hobby, and the leisure he had to apply to it had given him a remarkable appraising eye. Within ten minutes he had read much more than had greeted his eye. A wave of pity went over him—pity for the patient, the girl, and his friend. The poor old imbecile! Why, this child was a firebrand, a wrecker, if ever he had seen one; and the worst kind because she was unconscious of her gifts.
As for the patient, his decision was immediate. Here was no crooked soul; a little weak perhaps, impulsive beyond common, but fundamentally honest. Given time and the right environment, and he would outgrow these defects. Confidence in himself would strengthen him. If the boy had done anything wrong back there in the States, his would be the brand of conscience to pay him out in full. With a little more meat on him, he would be handsome.
"My friend here," said McClintock, "tells me you are looking for a job."
"Yes."
"Well, I've a job open; but I don't want you to get the wrong idea of it. In the first place, it will be damnably dull. You won't often see white folks. There will be long stretches of idleness, heat, and enervation; and always the odour of drying coconut. A good deal of the food will be in tins. You'll live to hate chicken; and the man in you will rise up and demand strong drink. But nobody drinks on my island unless I offer it, which is seldom. If there is any drinking, I'll do it."
Spurlock smiled at the doctor.
"He'll not trouble you on the liquor side, Mac."
[Illustration: Distinctive Pictures Corporation. The Ragged Edge.
A SCENE FROM THE PHOTOPLAY.]
"So much the better. You will have a bungalow to yourself," continued McClintock, "and your morning meal will be your own affair. But luncheon and dinners you will sit at my table. I'm a stickler about clothes and clean chins. How you dress when you're loafing will be no concern of mine; but fresh twill or Shantung, when you dine with me, collar and tie. If you like books and music, we'll get along."
"Then you are taking me on?" Spurlock's eyes grew soft like those of a dog that, expecting the whip, saw only the kindly hand.
"I am going to give you a try."
"When will you want me?"—with pitiful eagerness. "How shall I get to you?"
"My yacht is in the river. The doctor here says he can get you aboard to-morrow night. But understand me thoroughly: I am offering you this job because my friend wants to help you. I don't know anything about you. I am gambling on his intuition." McClintock preferred to put it thus.
"To-morrow night!" said Spurlock, in a wondering whisper. Out of the beaten track, far from the trails of men! He relaxed.
The doctor reached over and laid his hand upon Spurlock's heart.
"Thumping; but that's only excitement. You'll do."
Then he looked at Ruth. Her face expressed nothing. That was one of the mysterious qualities of this child of the lagoon: she had always at instant service that Oriental mask of impenetrable calm that no Occidental trick could dislodge. He could not tell by the look of her whether she was glad or sorry that presently she would be free.
"I have good news for you. If you do not find your aunt, my people will take you under wing until you can stand on your own."
"That is very kind of you," she acknowledged. The lips of the mask twisted upward into a smile.
The doctor missed the expression of terror and dismay that flitted across Spurlock's face.
Once they were below, McClintock turned upon the doctor. "I can readily see," he said, "why you'll always be as poor as a church mouse."
"What?" said the doctor, whose thoughts were in something of a turmoil. "What's that?"
"The old human cry of something for nothing; but with you it is in reverse. You are always doing something for nothing, and that is why I love you. If I offered you half of my possessions, you'd doubtless wallop me on the jaw. To be with you is the best moral tonic I know. You tonic my liver and you tonic my soul. It is good sometimes to walk with a man who can look God squarely in the face, as you can."
"But wasn't I right? That pair?"
"I'll take the boy; he'll be a novelty. Amiable and good-looking. That's the kind, my friend, that always fall soft. No matter what they do, always someone to bolster them up, to lend them money, and to coddle them."
"But, man, this chap hasn't fallen soft."
"Ay, but he will. And here's the proof. You and the girl have made it soft for him, and I'm going to make it soft for him. But what I do is based upon the fact that he is one of those individuals who are conscience-driven. Conscience drove him to this side of the world, to this bed. It drives him to my island, where I can study him to my heart's content. He believes that he is leaving this conscience behind; and I want to watch his disillusion on this particular point. Oh, don't worry. I shall always be kind to him; I sha'n't bait him. Only, he'll be an interesting specimen for me to observe. But ship that girl east as soon as you can."
"Why?"
McClintock put a hand on the doctor's shoulder. "Because she's a fire-opal, and to the world at large they bring bad luck."
"Rot! Mac, what do you suppose the natives used to call her? The
Dawn Pearl!"
McClintock wagged his Scotch head negatively. He knew what he knew.
* * * * *
Spurlock possessed that extraordinary condition of the mind which is called New England conscience. Buried under various ancestral sixteenths, smothered under modern thought, liberty of action and bewildering variety of flesh-pots, it was still alive to the extent that it needed only his present state to resuscitate it in all its peculiar force. The Protestant Flagellant, who whipped his soul rather than his body, who made self-denial the rack and the boot, who believed that on Sunday it was sacrilegious to smile, blasphemous to laugh! Spurlock had gone back spiritually three hundred years. In the matter of his conscience he was primitive; and for an educated man to become primitive is to become something of a child.
From midnight until morning he was now left alone. He had sufficient strength to wait upon himself. During the previous night he had been restless; and in the lonely dragging hours his thoughts had raced in an endless circle—action without progress. He was reaching wearily for some kind of buffer to his harrying conscience. He thought rationally; that is to say, he thought clearly, as a child thinks clearly. The primitive superstition of his Puritan forbears was his; and before this the buckler of his education disintegrated. The idea of Ruth as a talisman against misfortune—which he now recognized as a sick man's idea—faded as his appreciation of the absurd reasserted itself. But in its stead—toward morning—there appeared another idea which appealed to him as sublime, appealed to the primitive conscience, to his artistic sense of the drama, to the poet and the novelist in him. He was and always would be dramatizing his emotions; perpetually he would be confounding his actual with his imaginary self.
To surrender himself to the law, to face trial and imprisonment, was out of the question. Let the law put its hand on his shoulder—if it could! But at present he was at liberty, and he purposed to remain in that state. His conscience never told him to go back and take his punishment; it tortured him only in regard to the deed itself. He had tossed an honoured name into the mire; he required no prison bars to accentuate this misery.
Something, then, to appease the wrath of God; something to blunt this persistent agony. It was not necessary to appease the wrath of human society; it was necessary only to appease that of God for the broken Commandment. To divide the agony into two spheres so that one would mitigate the other. In fine, to marry Ruth (if she would consent) as a punishment for what he had done! To whip his soul so long as he lived, but to let his body go free! To provide for her, to work and dream for her, to be tender and thoughtful and loyal, to shelter and guard her, to become accountable to God for her future.
It was the sing-song girl idea, magnified many diameters. In this hour its colossal selfishness never occurred to him.
So, then, when McClintock offered the coveted haven, Spurlock became afire to dramatize the idea.
"Ruth!"
She had gone to the door, aimlessly, without purpose. All the sombre visions she had been pressing back, fighting out of her thoughts, swarmed over the barrier and crushed her. She did not want to go to the doctor's people; however kindly that might be, they would be only curious strangers. She would never return to her father; that resolution was final. What she actually wanted was the present state of affairs to continue indefinitely.
That is what terrified her: the consciousness that nothing in her life would be continuous, that she would no sooner form friendships (like the present) than relentless fate would thrust her into a new circle. All the initial confidence in herself was gone; her courage was merely a shell to hide the lack. To have the present lengthen into years! But in a few hours she would be upon her way, far lonelier than she had ever been. As Spurlock called her name, she paused and turned.
"Dawn Pearl!… come here!"
She moved to the side of the bed. "What is it?"
"Can't you see? Together, down there; you and I!… As my wife!
Both of us, never to be lonely again!… Will you marry me, Ruth?"
As many a wiser woman had done, Ruth mistook thrilling eagerness for love. Love and companionship. A fire enveloped her, a fire which was strangely healing, filling her heart with warmth, blotting out the menace of the world. She forgot her vital hatred of the South Seas; she forgot that McClintock's would not differ a jot from the old island she had for ever left behind her; she forgot all the doctor's lessons and warnings.
She would marry him. Because of the thought of love and companionship? No. Because here was the haven for which she had been blindly groping: the positive abolition of all her father's rights in her—the right to drag her back. The annihilation of the Terror which fascinated her and troubled her dreams o' nights.
"You want me, then?" she said.
"Oh, yes!—for always!"
He took her hands and pressed them upon his thrumming heart; and in this attitude they remained for some time.
Something forbade him to draw her toward him and seal the compact with a kiss. Down under the incalculable selfishness of the penitent child there was the man's uneasy recollection of Judas. He could not kiss Ruth.
CHAPTER XVII
After the Ten Commandments have been spoken, conscience becomes less something inherent than something acquired. It is now a point of view, differing widely, as the ignorant man differs from the educated. You and I will agree upon the Ten Commandments; but perhaps we will refuse to accept the other's interpretation of the ramifications. I step on my neighbour's feet, return and apologize because my acquired conscience orders me to do so; whereas you might pass on without caring if your neighbour hopped about on one foot. The inherent conscience keeps most of us away from jail, from court, from the gallows; the acquired conscience helps us to preserve the little amenities of daily life. So then, the acquired is the livelier phase, being driven into action daily; whereas the inherent may lie dormant for months, even years.
To Spurlock, in this hour, his conscience stood over against the Ten Commandments, one of which he had broken. He became primitive, literal in his conception; the ramifications were, for the nonce, fairly relegated to limbo. He could not kiss Ruth because the acquired conscience—struggling on its way to limbo—made the idea repellant. Analysis would come later, when the primitive conscience, satisfied, would cease to dominate his thought and action.
Since morning he had become fanatical; the atoms of common sense no longer functioned in the accustomed groove. And yet he knew clearly and definitely what he purposed to do, what the future would be. This species of madness cannot properly be attributed to his illness, though its accent might be. For a time he would be the grim Protestant Flagellant, pursuing the idea of self-castigation. That he was immolating Ruth on the altar of his conscience never broke in upon his thought for consideration. The fanatic has no such word in his vocabulary.
Ruth had not expected to be kissed; so the omission passed unnoted. For her it was sufficient to know that somebody wanted her, that never again would she be alone, that always this boy with the dreams would be depending upon her.
A strange betrothal!—the primal idea of which was escape! The girl, intent upon abrogating for ever all legal rights of the father in the daughter, of rendering innocuous the thing she had now named the Terror: the boy, seeking self-crucifixion in expiation of his transgression, changing a peccadillo into damnation!
It was easy for Ruth to surrender to the idea, for she believed she was loved; and in gratitude it was already her determination to give this boy her heart's blood, drop by drop, if he wanted it. To her, marriage would be a buckler against the two evils which pursued her.
There was nothing on the Tablets of Moses that forebade Spurlock marrying Ruth; there were no previous contracts. And yet, Spurlock was afraid of the doctor; so was Ruth. They agreed that they must marry at once, this morning, before the doctor could suspect what was toward. The doctor would naturally offer a hundred objections; he might seriously interfere; so he must be forestalled.
What marriage really meant (aside from the idea of escape), Ruth had not the least conception, no more than a child. If she had any idea at all, it was something she dimly recalled from her books: something celestially beautiful, with a happy ending. But the clearly definite thing was the ultimate escape. Wherein she differed but little from her young sisters.
That is what marriage is to most young women: the ultimate escape from the family, from the unwritten laws that govern children. Whether they are loved or unloved has no bearing upon this desire to test their wings, to try this new adventure, to take this leap into the dark.
Spurlock possessed a vigorous intellect, critical, disquisitional, creative; and yet he saw nothing remarkable in the girl's readiness to marry him! An obsession is a blind spot.
"We must marry at once! The doctor may put me on the boat and force you to remain behind, otherwise."
"And you want me to find a minister?" she asked, with ready comprehension.
"That's it!"—eagerly. "Bring him back with you. Some of the hotel guests can act as witnesses. Make haste!"
Ruth hurried off to her own room. Before she put on her sun-helmet, she paused before the mirror. Her wedding gown! She wondered if the spirit of the unknown mother looked down upon her.
"All I want is to be happy!" she said aloud, as if she were asking for something of such ordinary value that God would readily accord it to her because there was so little demand for the commodity.
Thrilling, she began to dance, swirled, glided, and dipped. Whenever ecstasy—any kind of ecstasy—filled her heart to bursting, these physical expressions eased the pressure.
Fate has two methods of procedure—the sudden and the long-drawn-out. In some instances she tantalizes the victim for years and mocks him in the end. In others, she acts with the speed and surety of the loosed arrow. In the present instance she did not want any interference; she did not want the doctor's wisdom to edge in between these two young fools and spoil the drama. So she brought upon the stage the Reverend Henry Dolby, a preacher of means, worldly-wise and kindly, cheery and rotund, who, with his wife and daughter, had arrived at the Victoria that morning. Ruth met him in the hall as he was following his family into the dining room. She recognized the cloth at once, waylaid him, and with that directness of speech particularly hers she explained what she wanted.
"To be sure I will, my child. I will be up with my wife and daughter after lunch."
"We'll be waiting for you. You are very kind." Ruth turned back toward the stairs.
Later, when the Reverend Henry Dolby entered the Spurlock room, his wife and daughter trailing amusedly behind him, and beheld the strained eagerness on the two young faces, he smiled inwardly and indulgently. Here were the passionate lovers! What their past had been he neither cared nor craved to know. Their future would be glorious; he saw it in their eyes; he saw it in the beauty of their young heads. Of course, at home there would have been questions. Were the parents agreeable? Were they of age? Had the license been procured? But here, in a far country, only the velvet manacles of wedlock were necessary.
So, forthwith, without any preliminaries beyond introductions, he began the ceremony; and shortly Ruth Enschede became Ruth Spurlock, for better or for worse. Spurlock gave his full name and tremblingly inscribed it upon the certificate of marriage.
The customary gold band was missing; but a soft gold Chinese ring Spurlock had picked up in Singapore—the characters representing good luck and prosperity—was slipped over Ruth's third finger.
"There is no fee," said Dolby. "I am very happy to be of service to you. And I wish you all the happiness in the world."
Mrs. Dolby was portly and handsome. There were lines in her face that age had not put there. Guiding this man of hers over the troubled sea of life had engraved these lines. He was the true optimist; and that he should proceed, serenely unconscious of reefs and storms, she accepted the double buffets.
This double buffetting had sharpened her shrewdness and insight. Where her husband saw only two youngsters in the mating mood, she felt that tragedy in some phase lurked in this room—if only in the loneliness of these two, without kith or kin apparently, thousands of miles from home. Not once during the ceremony did the two look at each other, but riveted their gaze upon the lips of the man who was forging the bands: gazed intensively, as if they feared the world might vanish before the last word of the ceremony was spoken.
Spurlock relaxed, suddenly, and sank deeply into his pillows. Ruth felt his hand grow cold as it slipped from hers. She bent down.
"You are all right?"—anxiously.
"Yes … but dreadfully tired."
Mrs. Dolby smiled. It was the moment for smiles. She approached Ruth with open arms; and something in the way the child came into that kindly embrace hurt the older woman to the point of tears.
These passers-by who touch us but lightly and are gone, leaving the eternal imprint! So long as she lived, Ruth would always remember that embrace. It was warm, shielding, comforting, and what was more, full of understanding. It was in fact the first embrace of motherhood she had ever known. Even after this woman had gone, it seemed to Ruth that the room was kindlier than it had ever been.
Inexplicably there flashed into vision the Chinese wedding procession in the narrow, twisted streets of the city, that first day: the gorgeous palanquin, the tom-toms, the weird music, the ribald, jeering mob that trailed along behind. It was surely odd that her thought should pick up that picture and recast it so vividly.
At half after five that afternoon the doctor and his friend
McClintock entered the office of the Victoria.
"It's a great world," was the manager's greeting.
"So it is," the doctor agreed. "But what, may I ask, arouses the thought?"
The doctor was in high good humour. Within forty-eight hours the girl would be on her way east and the boy see-sawing the South China Sea, for ever moving at absolute angles.
"Then you haven't heard?"
"Of what?"
"Well, well!" cried the manager, delighted at the idea of surprising the doctor. "Miss Enschede and Mr. Spurlock—for that's his real name—were married at high noon."
Emptiness; that was the doctor's initial sensation: his vitals had been whisked out of him and the earth from under his feet. All his interest in Ruth, all his care and solicitude, could now be translated into a single word—love. Wanted her out of the way because he had been afraid of her, afraid of himself! He, at fifty-four! Then into this void poured a flaming anger, a blind and unreasoning anger. He took the first step toward the stairs, and met the restraining hand of McClintock.
"Steady, old top! What are you going to do?"
"The damned scoundrel!"
"I told you that child was opal."
"She? My God, the pity of it! She knows nothing of life. She no more realizes what she has done than a child of eight. Marriage! … without the least conception of the physical and moral responsibilities! It's a crime, Mac!"
"But what can you do?" McClintock turned to the manager. "'It was all perfectly legal?
"My word for it. The Reverend Henry Dolby performed the cermony, and his wife and daughter were witnesses."
"When you heard what was going on, why didn't you send for me?"
"I didn't know it was going on. I heard only after it was all over."
"If he could stand on two feet, I'd break every bone in his worthless body!"
McClintock said soothingly: "But that wouldn't nullify the marriage, old boy. I know. Thing's upset you a bit. Go easy."
"But, Mac . . . !"
"I understand," interrupted McClintock. Then, in a whisper: "But there's no reason why the whole hotel should."
The doctor relaxed. "I've got to see him; but I'll be reasonable. I've got to know why. And what will they do, and where will they go?"
"With me—the both of them. So far as I'm concerned, nothing could please me more. A married man!—the kind I've never been able to lure down there! But keep your temper in check. Don't lay it all to the boy. The girl is in it as deeply as he is. I'll wait for you down here."
When the doctor entered the bedroom and looked into the faces of the culprits, he laughed brokenly. Two children, who had been caught in the jam-closet: ingratiating smiles, back of which lay doubt and fear.
Ruth came to him directly. "You are angry?"
"Very. You don't realize what you have done."
"My courage gave out. The thought of going back!—the thought of the unknown out there!—" with a tragic gesture toward the east. "I couldn't go on!"
"You'll need something more than courage now. But no more of that. What is done cannot be undone. I want to talk to Mr. Spurlock. Will you leave us for a few minutes?"
"You are not going to be harsh?"
"I wish to talk about the future."
"Very well."
She departed reluctantly. The doctor walked over to the bed, folded his arms across his chest and stared down into the unabashed eyes of his patient.
"Do you realize that you are several kinds of a damned scoundrel?" he began. This did not affect Spurlock. "Your name is Spurlock?"
"It is."
"Why did you use the name of Taber?"
"To keep my real name out of the mess I expected to make of myself over here."
"That's frank enough," the doctor admitted astonishedly. So far the boy's mind was clear. "But to drag this innocent child into the muck! With her head full of book nonsense—love stories and fairy stories! Have you any idea of the tragedy she is bound to stumble upon some day? I don't care about you. The world is known to you. I can see that you were somebody, in another day. But this child! … It's a damnable business!"
"I shall defend her and protect her with every drop of blood in my body!" replied the Flagellant.
The intensity of the eyes and the defiant tone bewildered the doctor, who found his well-constructed jeremiad without a platform. So he was forced to shift and proceed at another angle, forgetting his promise to McClintock to be temperate.
"When I went through your trunk that first night, I discovered an envelope filled with manuscripts. Later, at the bottom of that envelope I found a letter."
"To be opened in case of my death," added Spurlock. From under his pillow he dragged forth the key to the trunk. "Here, take this and get the letter and open and read it. Would you tell her … now?" his eyes flaming with mockery.
CHAPTER XVIII
The doctor reached for the key and studied it sombrely. The act was mechanical, a bit of sparring for time: his anger was searching about for a new vent. He was a just man, and he did not care to start any thunder which was not based upon fairness. He had no wish to go foraging in Spurlock's trunk. He had already shown the covering envelope and its instructions to Ruth, and she had ignored or misunderstood the warning. The boy was right. Ruth could not be told now. There would be ultimate misery, but it would be needless cruelty to give her a push toward it. But all these hours, trying to teach the child wariness toward life, and the moment his back was turned, this!
He was, perhaps, still dazed by the inner revelation—his own interest in Ruth. The haste to send her upon her way now had but one interpretation—the recognition of his own immediate danger, the fear that if this tender association continued, he would end in offering her a calamity quite as impossible as that which had happened—the love of a man who was in all probability older than her father! The hurt was no less intensive because it was so ridiculous.
He would talk to Spurlock, but from the bench; as a judge, not as a chagrined lover. He dropped the key on the counterpane.
"If I could only make you realize what you have done," he said, lamely.
"I know exactly what I have done," replied Spurlock. "She is my lawful wife."
"I should have opened that letter in the beginning," said the doctor. "But I happen to be an honest man myself. Had you died, I should have fully obeyed the instructions on that envelope. You will make her suffer."
"For every hurt she has, I shall have two. I did not lay any traps for her. I asked her to marry me, and she consented."
"Ah, yes; that's all very well. But when she learns that you are a fugitive from justice…."
"What proof have you that I am?"—was the return bolt.
"A knowledge of the ways of men. I don't know what you have done; I don't want to know now. But God will punish you for what you have done this day."
"As for that, I don't say. But I shall take care of Ruth, work for her and fight for her." A prophecy which was to be fulfilled in a singular way. "Given a chance, I can make bread and butter. I'm no mollycoddle. I have only one question to ask you."
"And what might that be?"
"Will McClintock take us both?"
"You took that chance. There has never been a white woman at
McClintock's."
He paused, and not without malice. He was human. The pause lengthened, and he had the satisfaction of seeing despair melt the set mockery of Spurlock's mouth.
"You begin to have doubts, eh? A handful of money between you, and nothing else. There are only a few jobs over here for a man of your type; and even these are more or less hopeless if you haven't trained mechanical ability." Then he became merciful. "But McClintock agrees to take you both—because he's as big a fool as I am. But I give you this warning, and let it sink in. You will be under the eye of the best friend I have; and if you do not treat that child for what she is—an innocent angel—I promise to hunt you across the wide world and kill you with bare hands."
Spurlock's glance shot up, flaming again. "And on my part, I shall not lift a hand to defend myself."
"I wish I could have foreseen."
"That is to say, you wish you had let me die?"
"That was the thought."
This frankness rather subdued Spurlock. His shoulders relaxed and his gaze wavered. "Perhaps that would have been best."
"But what, in God's name, possessed you? You have already wrecked your own life and now you've wrecked hers. She doesn't love you; she hasn't the least idea what it means beyond what she has read in novels. The world isn't real yet; she hasn't comparisons by which to govern her acts. I am a physician first, which gives the man in me a secondary part. You have just passed through rather a severe physical struggle; just as previously to your collapse you had gone through some terrific mental strain. Your mind is still subtly sick. The man in me would like to break every bone in your body, but the physician understands that you don't actually realize what you have done. But in a little while you will awake; and if there is a spark of manhood in you, you will be horrified at this day's work."
Spurlock closed his eyes. Expiation. He felt the first sting of the whip. But there was no feeling of remorse; there was only the sensation of exaltation.
"If you two loved each other," went on the doctor, "there would be something to stand on—a reason why for this madness. I can fairly understand Ruth; but you…!"
"Have you ever been so lonely that the soul of you cried in anguish? Twenty-four hours a day to think in, alone?… Perhaps I did not want to go mad from loneliness. I will tell you this much, because you have been kind. It is true that I do not love Ruth; but I swear to you, before the God of my fathers, that she shall never know it!"
"I'll be getting along." The doctor ran his fingers through his hair, despairingly. "A hell of a muddle! But all the talk in the world can't undo it. I'll put you aboard The Tigress to-morrow after sundown. But remember my warning, and play the game!"
Spurlock closed his eyes again. The doctor turned quickly and made for the door, which he opened and shut gently because he was assured that Ruth was listening across the hall for any sign of violence. He had nothing more to say either to her or to Spurlock. All the king's horses and all the king's men could not undo what was done; nor kill the strange exquisite flower that had grown up in his own lonely heart.
Opals. He wondered if, after all, McClintock wasn't nearest the truth, that Ruth was one of those unfortunate yet innocent women who make havoc with the hearts of men.
Marriage!—and no woman by to tell the child what it was! The shocks and disillusions she would have to meet unsuspectingly—and bitterly. Unless there was some real metal in the young fool, some hidden strength with which to breast the current, Ruth would become a millstone around his neck and soon he would become to her an object of pity and contempt.
There was once a philanthropist who dressed with shameful shabbiness and carried pearls in his pocket. The picture might easily apply to The Tigress: outwardly disreputable, but richly and comfortably appointed below. The flush deck was without wells. The wheel and the navigating instruments were sternward, under a spread of heavy canvas, a protection against rain and sun. Amidship there was also canvas, and like that over the wheel, drab and dirty.
The dining saloon was done in mahogany and sandalwood, with eight cabins, four to port and four to starboard. The bed-and table-linen were of the finest texture. From the centre of the ceiling hung a replica of the temple lamp in the Taj Mahal. The odour of coconut prevailed, delicately but abidingly; for, save for the occasioned pleasure junket, The Tigress was a copra carrier, shell and fibre.
McClintock's was a plantation of ten thousand palms, yielding him annually about half a million nuts. Natives brought him an equal amount from the neighbouring islands. As the palm bears nuts perennially, there were always coconut-laden proas making the beach. Thus, McClintock carried to Copeley's press about half a million pounds of copra. There was a very substantial profit in the transaction, for he paid the natives in commodities—coloured cotton cloths, pipes and tobacco, guns and ammunition, household utensils, cutlery and glass gewgaws. It was perfectly legitimate. Money was not necessary; indeed, it would have embarrassed all concerned.. A native sold his supply of nuts in exchange for cloth, tobacco and so forth. In the South Seas, money is the eliminated middleman.
Where the islands are grouped, men discard the use of geographical names and simply refer to "McClintock's" or "Copeley's," to the logical dictator of this or that island.
* * * * *
At sundown Spurlock was brought aboard and put into cabin 2, while Ruth was assigned to cabin 4, adjoining. From the Sha-mien to the yacht, Spurlock had uttered no word; though, even in the semi-darkness, no gesture or word of Ruth's escaped him.
Now that she was his, to make or mar, she presented an extraordinary fascination. She had suddenly become as the jewels of the Madonna, as the idol's eye, infinitely beyond his reach, sacred. He could not pull her soul apart now to satisfy that queer absorbing, delving thing which was his literary curiosity; he had put her outside that circle. His lawful wife; but nothing more; beyond that she was only an idea, a trust.
An incredible road he had elected to travel; he granted that it was incredible; and along this road somewhere would be Desire. There were menacing possibilities; the thought of them set him a-tremble. What would happen when confronted by the actual? He was young; she was also young and physically beautiful—his lawful wife. He had put himself before the threshold of damnation; for Ruth was now a vestal in the temple. Such was the condition of his mind that the danger exhilarated rather than depressed him. Here would be the true test of his strength. Upon this island whither he was bound there would be no diversions, breathing spells; the battle would be constant.
All at once it came to him what a fool he was to worry over this phase which was wholly suppositional. He did not love Ruth. They would be partners only in loneliness. He would provide the necessities of life and protect her. He would teach her all he knew of life so that if the Hand should ever reach his shoulder, she would be able to defend herself. He was always anticipating, stepping into the future, torturing himself with non-existent troubles. These cogitations were interrupted by the entrance of the doctor.
"Good-bye, young man; and good luck."
"You are offering your hand to me?"
"Without reservations." The doctor gave Spurlock's hand a friendly pressure. "Buck up! While there's life there's hope. Play fair with her. You don't know what you have got; I do. Let her have her own way in all things, for she will always be just."
Spurlock turned aside his head as he replied: "Words are sometimes useless things. I might utter a million, and still I doubt if I could make you understand."
"Probably not. The thing is done. The main idea now is of the future. You will have lots of time on your hands. Get out your pad and pencil. Go to it. Ruth will be a gold mine for a man of your peculiar bent."
"You read those yarns?" Spurlock's head came about, and there was eagerness in his eyes. "Rot, weren't they?"
"No. You have the gift of words, but you haven't started to create yet. Go to it; and the best of luck!"
He went out. This farewell had been particularly distasteful to him. There was still in his heart that fierce anger which demands physical expression; but he had to consider Ruth in all phases. He proceeded to the deck, where Ruth and McClintock were waiting for him by the ladder. He handed Ruth a letter.
"What is this?" she wanted to know.
"A hundred dollars which was left from your husband's money."
"Would you be angry if I offered it to you?"
"Very. Don't worry about me."
"You are the kindest man I have ever known," said Ruth, unashamed of her tears. "I have hurt you because I would not trust you. It is useless to talk. I could never make you understand."
Almost the identical words of the boy. "Will you write," asked the doctor, "and tell me how you are getting along?"
"Oh, yes!"
"The last advice I can give you is this: excite his imagination; get him started with his writing. Remember, some day you and I are going to have that book." He patted her hand. "Good-bye, Mac. Don't forget to cut out all effervescent water. If you will have your peg, take it with plain water. You'll be along next spring?"
"If the old tub will float. I'll watch over these infants, if that's your worry. Good-bye."
The doctor went down the side to the waiting sampan, which at once set out for the Sha-mien. Through a blur of tears Ruth followed the rocking light until it vanished. One more passer-by; and always would she remember his patience and tenderness and disinterestedness. She was quite assured that she would never see him again.
"Yon's a dear man," said McClintock. His natal burr was always in evidence when he was sentimentally affected. He knocked his pipe on the teak rail. "Took a great fancy to you. Wants me to look out for you a bit. I take it, down where we're going will be nothing new to you. But I've stacks of books and a grand piano-player."
"Piano-player? Do you mean someone who plays for you?"
"No, no; one of those mechanical things you play with your feet. Plays Beethoven, Rubenstein and all those chaps. I'm a bit daffy about music."
"That sounds funny … to play it with your feet!"
McClintock laughed. "It's a pump, like an organ."
"Oh, I see. What a wonderful world it is!" Music. She shuddered.
"Ay. Well, I'll be getting this tub under way."
Ruth walked to the companion. It was one of those old sliding trap affairs, narrow and steep of descent. She went down, feeling rather than seeing the way. The door of cabin 2 was open. Someone had thoughtfully wrapped a bit of tissue paper round the electric bulb.
She did not enter the cabin at once, but paused on the threshold and stared at the silent, recumbent figure in the bunk. In the subdued light she could not tell whether he was asleep or awake. Never again to be alone! To fit herself into this man's life as a hand into a glove; to use all her skill to force him into the position of depending upon her utterly; to be the spark to the divine fire! He should have his book, even if it had to be written with her heart's blood.
What she did not know, and what she was never to know, was that the divine fire was hers.
"Ruth?" he called.
She entered and approached the bunk. "I thought you were asleep. Is there anything you want?" She laid her hand on his forehead, and found it without fever. She had worried in fear that the excitement would be too much for him.
"Call me Hoddy. That is what my mother used to call me."
"Hoddy," she repeated. "I shall like to call you that. But now you must be quiet; there's been too much excitement. Knock on the partition if you want anything during the might. I awaken easily. Good night!" She pressed his hand and went out.
For a long time he stared at the empty doorway. He heard the panting of the donkey-engine, then the slithering of the anchor chains. Presently he felt motion. He chuckled. The vast ironic humour of it: he was starting on his honeymoon!
CHAPTER XIX
Meanwhile the doctor, upon returning to his office, found Ah Cum in the waiting room. "Why, hello, Ah Cum! What's the trouble?"
Ah Cum took his hands from his sleeves. "I should like to know where Mr. Spurlock has gone."
"Did he owe you money?"
"Oh, no!"
"Then why do you wish to know?"
Ah Cum pondered. "I have a client who is very much interested in Mr. Spurlock. He was here shortly after the young man was taken ill."
"Ah. What was this man?"
"A detective from the States."
"Why didn't he arrest Mr. Spurlock then?"
"I imagine that Mr. O'Higgins is rather a kindly man. He couldn't have taken Mr. Spurlock back to Hong-Kong with him, so he considered it would be needless to give an additional shock. He asked me to watch Mr. Spurlock's movements and report progress. He admitted that it would bore him to dally here in Canton, with the pleasures of Hong-Kong so close."
The doctor caught the irony, and he warmed a little. "I'm afraid I must decline to tell you. Do you know what Spurlock has done?"
"Mr. O'Higgins did not confide in me. But he told me this much, that no matter how far Mr. Spurlock went, it would not be far enough."
A detective. The doctor paced the room half a dozen times. How easily an evil thought could penetrate a normally decent mind! All he had to do was to disclose Spurlock's destination, and in a few months Ruth would be free. For it was but logical that she would seek a divorce on the ground that she had unknowingly married a fugitive from justice. McClintock would be on hand to tell her how and where to obtain this freedom. He stopped abruptly before the apparently incurious Chinaman.
"Your detective has been remiss in his duty; let him suffer for it."
"Personally, I am neutral," said Ah Cum. "I wish merely to come out of this bargain honourably. It would make the young wife unhappy."
"Very."
"There was a yacht in the river?"
"I have nothing to say."
"By the name of The Tigress?"
The doctor smiled, but shook his head. He sent a speculative glance at the immobile yellow face. Was Ah Cum offering him an opportunity to warn Spurlock? But should he warn the boy? Why not let him imagine himself secure? The thunderbolt would be launched soon enough.
"I haven't a word to say, Ah Cum, not a word."
"Then I wish you good night."
Ah Cum went directly to the telegraph office, and his message was devoted particularly to a description of The Tigress. Spurlock had been taken aboard that yacht with the Kanaka crew, because The Tigress was the only ship marked for departure that night. Ah Cum was not a sailor, but he knew his water-front. One of his chair coolies had witnessed the transportation of Spurlock by stretcher to the sampan in the canal. There were three other ships at anchor; but as two would be making Shanghai and one rounding to Singapore two days hence, it was logically certain that no fugitive would seek haven in one of these.
But whither The Tigress was bound or who the owner was lay beyond the reach of Ah Cum's deductions. He did not particularly care. It was enough that Spurlock had been taken aboard The Tigress.
He wisely refrained from questioning the manager of the Victoria.
He feared to antagonize that distinguished person. The Victoria was
Ah Cum's bread and butter.
The telegram dispatched, his obligation cancelled, Ah Cum proceeded homeward, chuckling occasionally. The Yale spirit!
James Boyle O'Higgins was, as the saying goes, somewhat out of luck. Ah Cum's wire reached the Hong-Kong Hotel promptly enough; but O'Higgins was on board a United States cruiser, witnessing a bout between a British sailor and a sergeant in the U.S. Marines. It was a capital diversion; and as usual the Leatherneck bested the Britisher, in seven rounds. O'Higgins returned to town and made a night of it, nothing very wild, nothing very desperate. A modest drinking bout which had its windup in a fan-tan house over in Kowloon, where O'Higgins tussled with varying fortune until five in the morning.
When he was given the telegram he flew to the Praya, engaged the fast motor-boat he had previously bespoken against the need, and started for the Macao Passage, with the vague hope of speaking The Tigress. He hung round those broad waters from noon until three and realized that he had embarked upon a wild-goose chase. Still, his conscience was partly satisfied. He made Hong-Kong at dusk: wet, hungry, and a bit groggy for the want of sleep; but he was in no wise discouraged. The girl was in the game now, and that narrowed the circle.
The following morning found him in the doctor's waiting room, a black cigar turning unlighted in his teeth. When the doctor came in—he had just finished his breakfast—O'Higgins rose and presented his card. Upon reading the name, the doctor's eyebrows went up.
"I rather fancy, as you Britishers say, that you know the nature of my visit?"
"I'm an American."
"Fine!" said O'Higgins, jovially. "We won't have any trouble understanding each other; same language. There's nothing on the card to indicate it, but I'm a detective."
O'Higgins threw out his chest, gave it a pat, and smiled. This smile warned the doctor not to underestimate the man. O'Higgins was all that the doctor had imagined a detective to be: a bulky policeman in civilian clothes. The blue jowl, the fat-lidded eyes—now merry, now alert, now tungsten hard—the bullet head, the pudgy fingers and the square-toed shoes were all in conformation with the doctor's olden mental picture.
"Yes; I know I look it," said O'Higgins, amiably.
The doctor laughed. But he sobered instantly as he recollected that O'Higgins had found Spurlock once. Journeying blindly half way across the world, this man had found his quarry.
"I never wear false whiskers," went on O'Higgins. "The only disguise I ever put on is a dress-suit, and I look as natural as a pig at a Mahomedan dinner." O'Higgins was disarming the doctor. "Won't you sit down?"
"I beg your pardon! Come into the consultation office"; and the doctor led the way. "What is it you want of me?"
"All you know about this young fellow Spurlock."
"What has he done?"
"He has just naturally peeved his Uncle Sam. Now, you know where he is bound."
"Did Ah Cum advise you?"
"He did pretty well for a Chinaman. But that's his American education. Now, it won't do a bit of good to warn Spurlock. He carries with him something that will mark him anywhere—the girl. Say, that girl fooled me at first glance. You see, we guys bump up against so much of the seamy side that we look upon everybody as guilty until proved innocent, which is hind-side-to. The second look told me I was wrong."
"I'm going to put one question," interrupted the doctor. "Was there any other woman back there in the States?"
"Nary a female. Oh, they are married fast. What are you going to tell me?"
"Nothing." But the doctor softened the refusal by smiling.
"For the sake of the girl. Well, I don't blame you on that ground.
If the boy was legging it alone…."
"I'm a doctor. I took him out of the hands of death. Unless he has killed someone. I sha'n't utter a word."
"Killed someone?" O'Higgins laughed. "He wouldn't hurt a rabbit."
"You won't tell me what he has done?"
"If you'll tell me where he's heading."
"You can give me a little of his history, can't you? Something about his people?"
"Oh, his folks were all right. His father and mother are gone now. Rich folks, once. The boy had all kinds of opportunity; but it's the old story of father making it too easy. It's always hard work for a rich man's son to stand alone. Then you won't tell me where he's going?"
"I will tell you six months from now."
"Prolonging the misery. Unless he deserts the girl, he won't be so hard to find as formerly. You see, it's like this. The boss says to me: 'Higg, here's a guy we want back. He's down in Patagonia somewhere.' So I go to Patagonia. I know South America and Canada like the lines in my hand. This is my first venture over here. The point is, I know all the tricks in finding a man. Sure, I lose one occasionally—if he stays in New York. But if he starts a long jog, his name is Dennis. You may not know it, but it's easier to find a guy that's gone far than it is when he lays dogo in little old New York."
"You had Spurlock once."
O'Higgins grinned. "Women are always balling up and muddling clean cases. If this girl hadn't busted into the game, Spurlock would still be at the hotel."