Chapter 9

“I don't know and don't care. I'll explain in a minute. Sit down somewhere and don't stare, Dickey--for the Lord's sake, don't stare like a scared baby.” He completed the feverishly written note, sealed the envelope, and thrust it into Turk's hands. “Now, get that note to her, or don't come back to me. Be quick about it, too.”

Turk was off, full of fresh wonder and the importance of his mission. Quentin took a few turns up and down the room before he remembered that he owed some sort of an explanation to his companion.

“She wouldn't see me,” he said, briefly.

“What's the matter? Sick?”

“No explanation. Just wouldn't see me, that's all.”

“Which means it's all off, eh? The prince got there first and spiked your guns. Well? What have you written to her?”

“That I am going to see her to-night if I have to break into the house.”

“Bravely done! Good! And you'll awake in a dungeon cell to-morrow morning, clubbed to a pulp by the police. You may break into the house, but it will be just your luck to be unable to break out of jail in time for the wedding on the 16th. What you need is a guardian.”

“I'm in no humor for joking, Dickey.”

“It won't be a joke, my boy. Now, tell me just what you wrote to her. Gad, I never knew what trouble meant until I struck Brussels. The hot water here is scalding me to a creamy consistency.”

“I simply said that she had no right to treat me as she did to-day and that she shall listen to me. I ended the note by saying I would come to her to-night, and that I would not be driven away until I had seen her.”

“You can't see her if she refuses to receive you.”

“But she will see me. She's fair enough to give me a chance.”

“Do you want me to accompany you?”

“I intend to go alone.”

“You will find Ugo there, you know. It is bound to be rather trying, Phil. Besides, you are not sure that Turk can deliver the note.”

“I'd like to have Ravorelli hear everything I have to say to her, and if he's there he'll hear a few things he will not relish.”

“And he'll laugh at you, too.”

An hour later Turk returned. He was grinning broadly as he entered the room.

“Did you succeed?” demanded Quentin, leaping to his feet. For answer the little man daintily, gingerly dropped a small envelope into his hand.

“She says to give th' note to you an' to nobody else,” he said, triumphantly. Quentin hesitated an instant before tearing open the envelope, the contents of which meant so much to him. As he read, the gloom lifted from his face and his figure straightened to its full height. The old light came back to his eyes.

“She says I may come, Dickey. I knew she would,” he exclaimed, joyously.

“When?”

“At nine to-night.”

“Is that all she says?”

“Well--er--no. She says she will see me for the last time.”

“Not very comforting, I should say.”

“I'll risk it's being the last time. I tell you, Savage, I'm desperate. This damnable game has gone far enough. She'll know the truth about the man she's going to marry. If she wants to marry him after what I tell her, I'll--I'll--well, I'll give it up, that's all.”

“If she believes what you tell her, she won't care to marry him.”

“She knows I'm not a liar, Dickey, confound you.”

“Possibly; but she is hardly fool enough to break with the prince unless you produce something more substantial than your own accusation. Where is your proof?”

This led to an argument that lasted until the time came for him to go to her home When he left the hotel in a cab he was thoroughly unstrung, but more determined than ever. As if by magic, there came to life the forces of the prince. While Ugo sat calmly in his apartment, his patient agents were dogging the man he feared, dogging him with the persistence and glee of blood-hounds. Courant and his hirelings, two of them, garbed as city watchmen, were on the Avenue Louise almost as soon as the man they were watching. By virtue of fate and the obstinacy of one Dickey Savage, two of Quentin's supporters, in direct disobedience of his commands, were whirling toward the spot on which so many minds were centered. From a distance Savage and Turk saw him rush from the carriage and up the broad stone steps that led to the darkened veranda. From other points of view, Jules Courant and his men saw the same and the former knew that Turk's visit in the afternoon had resulted in the granting of an interview. No sooner had Quentin entered the house than a man was despatched swiftly to inform Prince Ugo that he had not been denied.

Mrs. Garrison met him in the hall alone. There was defiance in her manner, but he had not come thus far to be repulsed by such a trifle as her opposition. With rare cordiality he advanced and extended his hand.

“Good evening, Mrs. Garrison. I hardly expected to find you and Dorothy quite alone at this time of night.” She gave him her hand involuntarily. He had a way about him and she forgot her resolve under its influence. There was no smile on her cold face, however.

“We are usually engaged at this hour, Mr. Quentin, but to-night we are at home to no one but you,” she said, meaningly.

“It's very good of you. Perhaps I would better begin by ending your suspense. Dorothy refused to see me to-day and I suspect the cause. I am here for an explanation from her because I think it is due me. I came also to tell you that I love her and to ask her if she loves me. If she does not, I have but to retire, first apologizing for what you may call reprehensibility on my part in presuming to address her on such a matter when I know she is the promised wife of another. If she loves me, I shall have the honor to ask you for her hand, and to ask her to terminate an engagement with a man she does not love. I trust my mission here to-night is fully understood.”

“It is very plain to me, Mr. Quentin, and I may be equally frank with you. It is useless.”

“You will of course permit me to hear that from the one who has the right to decide,” he said.

“My daughter consented to receive you only because I advised her to do so. I will not speak now of your unusual and unwarranted behavior during the past month, nor will I undertake to say how much annoyance and displeasure you have caused. She is the affianced wife of Prince Ravorelli and she marries him because she loves him. I have given you her decision.” For a moment their eyes met like the clashing of swords.

“Has she commissioned you to say this to me?” he asked, his eyes penetrating like a knife.

“I am her mother, not her agent.”

“Then I shall respectfully insist that she speak for herself.” If a look could kill a man, hers would have been guilty of murder.

“She is coming now, Mr. Quentin. You have but a moment of doubt left. She despises you.” For the first time his composure wavered, and his lips parted, as if to exclaim against such an assumption. But Dorothy was already at the foot of the stairs, pale, cold and unfriendly. She was the personification of a tragedy queen as she paused at the foot of the stairs, her nand on the newell post, the lights from above shining directly into a face so disdainful that he could hardly believe it was hers. There was no warmth in her voice when she spoke to him, who stood immovable, speechless, before her.

“What have you to say to me, Phil?”

“I have first to ask if you despise me,” he found voice to say.

“I decline to answer that question.''

“Your mother has said so.”

“She should not have done so.”

“Then she has misrepresented you?” he cried, taking several steps toward her.

“I did not say that she had.”

“Dorothy, what do you mean by this? What right have you to--” he began, fiercely.

“Mr. Quentin!” exclaimed Mrs. Garrison, haughtily.

“Well,” cried he, at bay and doggedly, “I must know the truth. Will you come to the veranda with me, Dorothy?”

“No,” she replied, without a quaver.

“I must talk with you alone. What I have to say is of the gravest importance. It is for your welfare, and I shall leave my own feelings out of it, if you like. But I must and will say what I came here to say.”

“There is nothing that I care to hear from you.”

“By all that's holy, you shall hear it, and alone, too,” he exclaimed so commandingly that both women started. He caught a quick flutter in Dorothy's eyes and saw the impulse that moved her lips almost to the point of parting. “I demand--yes, demand--to be heard! Come! Dorothy, for God's sake, come!”

He was at her side and, before she could prevent it, had grasped her hand in his own. All resistance was swept away like chaff before the whirlwind. The elder woman so far forgot her cold reserve as to blink her austere eyes, while Dorothy caught her breath, looked startled and suffered herself to be led to the door without a word of protest. There he paused and turned to Mrs. Garrison, whose thunderstruck countenance was afterward the subject of more or less amusement to him, and, if the truth were known, to her daughter.

“When I have said all that I have to say to her, Mrs. Garrison, I'll bring her back to you.”

Neither he nor Dorothy uttered a word until they stood before each other in the dark palm-surrounded nook where, on one memorable night, he had felt the first savage blow of the enemy.

“Dorothy, there can no longer be any dissembling. I love you. You have doubtless known it for weeks and weeks. It will avail you nothing to deny that you love me. I have seen--” he was charging, hastily, feverishly.

“I do deny it. How dare you make such an assertion?” she cried, hotly.

“I said it would avail you nothing to deny it, but I expected the denial. You have not forgotten those dear days when we were boy and girl. We both thought they had gone from us forever, but we were mistaken. To-day I love you as a man loves, only as a man can love who has but one woman in his world. Sit here beside me, Dorothy.”

“I will not!” she exclaimed, trembling in every fiber, but he gently, firmly took her arm and drew her to the wicker bench. “I hate you, Philip Quentin!” she half sobbed, the powerlessness to resist infuriating her beyond expression.

“Forget that I was rough or harsh, dear. Sit still,” he cried, as at the word of endearment she attempted to rise.

“You forget yourself! You forget--” was all she could say.

“Why did you refuse to see me this afternoon?” he asked, heedlessly.

“Because I believed you to be what I now know you are,” she said, turning on him quickly, a look of scorn in her eyes.

“Your adorer?” he half-whispered.

“A coward!” she said, slowly, distinctly.

“Coward?” he gasped, unwilling to believe his ears. “What--I know I may deserve the word now, but--but this afternoon? What do you mean?”

“Your memory is very short.”

“Don't speak in riddles, Dorothy,” he cried.

“You know how I loathe a coward, and I thought you were a brave man. When I heard--when I was told--O, it does not seem possible that you could be so craven.”

“Tell me what you have heard,” he said, calmly, divining the truth.

“Why did you let Dickey Savage fight for you last night? Where was your manhood? Why did you slink away from Prince Ravorelli this morning?” she said, intensely.

“Who has told you all this?” he demanded.

“No matter who has told me. You did play the part of a coward. What else can you call it?”

“I did not have the chance to fight last night; your informant's plans went wrong Dickey was my unintentional substitute. As for Ravorelli's challenge this morning, I did not refuse to meet him.”

“That is untrue!”

“I declined to fight the duel with him, but I said I would fight as we do at home, with my hands. Would you have me meet him with deadly weapons?”

“I only know that you refused to do so, and that Brussels calls you a coward.”

“You would have had me accept his challenge? Answer!”

“You lost every vestige of my respect by refusing to do so.”

“Then you wanted me to meet and to kill him,” he said, accusingly.

“I--I--Oh, it would not have meant that,” she gasped.

“Did you want him to kill me?” he went on, relentlessly.

“They would have prevented the duel! It could not have gone so far as that,” she said, trembling and terrified.

“You know better than that, Dorothy. I would have killed him had we met. Do you understand? I would have killed the man you expect to marry. Have you thought of that?” She sank back in the seat and looked at him dumbly, horror in her face. “That is one reason why I laughed at his ridiculous challenge. How could I hope to claim the love of the woman whose affianced husband I had slain? I can win you with him alive, but I would have built an insurmountable barrier between us had he died by my hand. Could you have gone to the altar with him if he had killed me?”

“O, Phil,” she whispered.

“Another reason why I refused to accept his challenge was that I could not fight a cur.”

“Phil Quentin!” she cried, indignantly,

“I came here to tell you the truth about the man you have promised to marry. You shall hear me to the end, too. He is as black a coward, as mean a scoundrel as ever came into the world.”

Despite her protests, despite her angry denials, he told her the story of Ugo's plotting, from the hour when he received the mysterious warning to the moment when he entered her home that evening. As he proceeded hotly to paint the prince in colors ugly and revolting she grew calmer, colder. At the end she met his flaming gaze steadily.

“Do you expect me to believe this?” she asked.

“I mean that you shall,” he said, imperatively. “It is the truth.”

“If you have finished this vile story you may go. I cannot forgive myself for listening to you. How contemptible you are,” she said, arising and facing him with blazing eyes. He came to his feet and met the look of scorn with one which sent conviction to her soul.

“I have told you the truth, Dorothy,” he said simply. The light in her eyes changed perceptibly. “You know I am not a liar, and you know I am not a coward. Every drop of blood in my veins sings out its love for you. Rather than see you marry this man I would kill him, as you advise, even though it cost me my happiness. You have heard me out, and you know in your heart that I have told the truth.”

“I cannot, I will not believe it! He is the noblest of men, and he loves me. You do not know how he loves me. I will not believe you,” she murmured, and he knew his story had found a home. She sank to the seat again and put her hand to her throat, as if choking. Her eyes were upon the strong face above her, and her heart raced back to the hour not far gone when it whispered to itself that she loved the sweetheart of other days.

“Dorothy, do you love me?” he whispered, dropping to her side, taking her hand in his. “Have you not loved me all these days and nights?”

“You must not ask--you must not ask,” she whispered.

“But I do ask. You love me?”

“No!” she cried, recovering herself with a mighty effort. “Listen! I did love you--yes, I loved you--until to-day. You filled me with your old self, you conquered and I was grieving myself to madness over it all. But, I do not love you now! You must go! I do not believe what you have said of him and I despise you! Go!”

“Dorothy!” he cried, as she sped past him. “Think what you are saying!”

“Good-by! Go! I hate you!” she cried, and was gone. For a moment he stood as if turned to stone. Then there came a rush of glad life to his heart and he could have shouted in his jubilance.

“God, she loves me! I was not too late! She shall be mine!” He dashed into the house, but the closing of a door upstairs told him she was beyond his reach. The hall was empty; Mrs. Garrison was nowhere to be seen. Filled with the new fire, the new courage, he clutched his hat from the chair on which he had thrown it and rushed forth into the night.

At the top of the steps he met Prince Ugo. The two men stopped stockstill, within a yard of each other, and neither spoke for the longest of minutes.

“You call rather late, prince,” said Phil, a double meaning in his words.

“Dog!” hissed the prince.

“Permit me to inform you that Miss Garrison has retired. It will save you the trouble of ringing. Good-night.”

He bowed, laughed sarcastically, and was off down the steps. Ravorelli's hand stole to an inside pocket and a moment later the light from the window flashed on a shining thing in his fingers. He did not shoot, but Quentin never knew how near he was to death at the hand of the silent statue that stood there and watched him until he was lost in the shadows. Then the prince put his hand suddenly to his eyes, moaned as if in pain, and slowly descended the steps.

XVII. A FEW MEN AND A WOMAN

A stealthy figure joined his highness at the foot of the steps, coming from the darkness below the veranda. It was Courant. What he said to the prince when they were safely away from the house caused the Italian's face to pale and his hands to twitch with rage. The French detective had heard and understood the conversation of the man and woman on the porch, and he had formed conclusions that drove all doubt from the mind of the noble lover.

Quentin looked up and down the street for his cab. It was not in sight, but he remembered telling the man to drive to the corner below. The rainstorm that had been threatening dry and dusty Brussels all day was beginning to show itself in marked form. There were distant rumbles of thunder and faint flashes of lightning, and now and then the wind, its velocity increasing every minute, dashed a splattering raindrop in one's face. The storm for which the city had been crying was hurling itself along from the sea, and its full fury was almost ready to break. The few pedestrians were scurrying homeward, the tram cars were loaded and many cabs whirled by in the effort to land their fares at home before the rain fell in torrents. Phil drank in the cool, refreshing breeze and cared not if it rained until the streets were flooded. At the corner stood a cab, the driver softly swearing to himself. He swung down and savagely jerked open the door.

“Back to the Bellevue,” said the fare airily, as he climbed into the vehicle. The cab had started off into a cross-street, when Phil imagined he heard a shout in the distance. He looked forth but could see no one in the rushing darkness, The rattle of the cab, the growing roar of the night and toe swish of the rain, which was now falling quite heavily, drowned all other sounds and he leaned back contentedly.

Suddenly the cab came to a stop, loud voices were heard outside and he was about to throw open the door when a heavy body was flung against the side of the vehicle. The next instant the half-lowered glass in the door was shattered and a voice from the rainy night cried:

“Don't resist or you will be shot to pieces.”

“What the dev--” gasped Quentin, barely able to distinguish the form of a man at the door. Some strange influence told him that the point of a revolver was almost touching his breast and the word died in his mouth.

“No outcry, Monsieur. Your valuables without a struggle. Be quick! There are many of us. You have no chance,” came the hard voice, in good English.

“But I have no valuables--”

“Your diamond ring and your watch, at least, monsieur. The ring is in your vest pocket.”

“Search me, you scoundrel! I have no ring, and my watch is in my room. I'm mighty slim picking for such noted gentlemen as you. I presume I have the honor of meeting the diamond collectors the town is talking so much about.” He was now aware of the presence of another man in the opposite window, and there was the same uncanny feeling that a second revolver was levelled at his person.

“Step outside, Monsieur. It is cruel to force you into the rain, but we assure you it is very refreshing. It will make you grow. Whatever you choose to call us we are wet to the skin. This must not, therefore, be a fruitless job. Step forth, quickly, and do not resist.”

Quentin hesitated for an instant, and then seeing resistance was useless, boldly set foot upon the curbing. A flash of lightning revealed four or five men in the group. One of them had the driver covered with a pistol, and two of them were ready to seize the passenger. He observed, with amazement, that one of the men was a policeman in full uniform.

“Officer!” he exclaimed. “Don't you see what they are doing?”

“O, Monsieur,” said the spokesman, pleasantly, “you may tell the police of Brussels that they cannot hunt us down until they hunt themselves down. What's that? A carriage? Quick! Your watch, your ring!”

Far down the street could be seen the lamps of an approaching cab, and Quentin's heart took a bound. He had not feared injury, for he was willing to submit to the searching without resistance, but now he thrilled with the excitement of possible conflict. A second flash in the sky revealed altered conditions in the setting of the tragic scene. The driver was on his box and the policeman was climbing up beside him. A short man, masked to the chin, had pushed aside the man with the revolver and a harsh voice cried as the darkness shut out the vivid picture:

“Short work of him! The knife!” “The club, Carl! Hell! Into the cab with him!” shouted another voice, and Phil began to strike out with his fists. But the attack was too sharp, the odds too great. Something crashed down upon his head, he felt himself lunge backward into the open cab door, and then a heavy body hurled itself upon his half-prostrate form. Another stinging blow caught him over the ear, and, as he lost consciousness, a tremendous force seemed to be crushing the breath from his body.

A revolver cracked, but he did not hear it, nor did he know that friends were at hand. Before the miscreants could hurl his body into the cab a vehicle whirled up, the feeble glare from its lanterns throwing light upon the scene. The man who had fired from the door of the second cab leaped to the ground, followed by a companion, and in a moment they were among the scuffling robbers. Whatever might have been the original intentions of Quentin's assailants, they were not prepared to offer battle. Their aim was to escape, not to fight. A couple of shots were fired, a rush of feet ensued and the earth seemed to swallow all but the two newcomers and the limp figure that lay half inside the cab.

In an instant Quentin was drawn from the cab by the taller of the two, the smaller having made a short dash in pursuit of the bandits. Blood rushed from the head of the unconscious man and he was a dead weight in the arms of his rescuer.

“Good God, Phil! Have they killed you? Here, Turk! Never mind those fellows! Come here, quick; we must get him to a surgeon. I'm afraid they've fixed him. Into our cab with him! Gad, he's like a rag!” It was Dickey Savage, and he was filled with dread. Turk, exploding with impotent rage, and shivering with fear that his master was dead, came to his assistance and they were soon racing for the Bellevue. A pair of wondering, patient, driverless horses watched the departure, but they did not move from the spot where they had been checked by the first attack. Across the doubletree behind them hung the limp form of their driver, a great, gaping wound in his head. He had driven them for the last time, and they seemed to know that his cold lips could never again command them to “go on.” Driven almost to the hilt, in the floor of the cab, was an ugly knife. Its point had been intended for Quentin's throat, but the hand that struck the blow was not as true as the will of its owner.