CHAPTER XII.

A DESPERATE CHANCE.

For a few hours that day Marion remained quietly in her room. She was not expected on duty, and it was fortunate for her that they could spare her.

She had returned the picture of Reginald Brookes without a word to Miss Williams, but the revelation it had brought to her distressed her beyond expression.

“It must be a mistake,” she whispered over and over. “The thing is impossible! It is too utterly horrible!”

Then the dying girl’s words came back to her distinctly. On her deathbed it was not probable that Kittie would have told a falsehood.

Marion was glad when the batch of letters was handed to her. They would serve to take her mind from this dreadful subject. The first letter was from Dollie, telling of her success as a typewriter.

“I am getting on famously,” she wrote, “and as my employer is old and bald, Ralph has not yet become jealous. Miss Allyn and I love our little flat better every day, and the only thing we miss that would make us perfectly happy is the daily companionship of my darling sister.”

Marion smiled very happily as she folded the letter.

“Dear Dollie! She is perfectly happy, and, oh! I am so glad for her. Not for worlds would I darken her life with so much as a glimpse of the misery I am witnessing!”

The next letter was from her mother, and Marion opened it eagerly. She was almost sure to hear some news of Sallie. As she read the first page her brow grew dark, and at the end she crumpled the letter angrily in her hand.

“Silas Johnson is a brute! Oh, how I despise him!” she cried. “To think that he received my letter and paid no attention to it! He did not care enough about his wife to even go and get her. Poor Sallie! I wonder if she died in Bellevue, after all. Oh, I almost wish I had followed the ambulance, and I would have done it if I hadn’t promised to take the _Thomas Brennan_.”

She paced the floor for awhile in great perplexity. If Sallie was living she felt that she must know it.

After a time she opened another letter. It was from Mr. Ray, and her cheeks crimsoned as she read it.

“After all, there is at least one good man in the world yet,” she said, bitterly: “and they are leaving England to-day, he and his sister, and how happy I shall be to renew their acquaintance.”

As Marion went to pick up the last letter she shrank back in alarm. The handwriting was not familiar, but nevertheless she could guess who was the writer.

“I won’t read it! I won’t even touch it,” she thought, indignantly. “How could he write to me, the cowardly fellow!”

Then a feeling of shame passed over Marion’s soul. She was condemning this man unheard, which was not like her just nature.

“There must be some mistake,” she whispered slowly. “Kittie may have found that picture, or perhaps she was still delirious when she told me. After all, why should I believe so absolutely in a dying girl’s word? Is not the brain sadly clouded and perhaps entirely irresponsible at such a moment? No, I will not convict him until I have heard his story! It is only just, and I shall read his letter.”

It was such a pleasant, jolly letter, yet Marion almost shivered as she perused it carefully.

It was not until she was putting the letter back in the envelope that she discovered an extra scrap of paper.

The doctor had thought of another word to say, apparently, and there was not room to add it to his already overfilled letter. Marion read the slip of paper with dilated eyes. The news it gave her was, to say the least, extraordinary.

“By the way, Miss Marlowe,” the postscript read, “a little maid servant of mother’s ran away a couple of weeks or so ago, and both mother and myself have worried considerably about her. The cause of our worry is simply that the child had been betrayed and we had hoped to help her in her hour of trouble. I mention this, knowing that such cases land frequently in ‘Charity,’ so please keep your eyes open for such a young lady. Her name is Kittie, and she is about sixteen, and very pretty.”

Marion passed her hand thoughtfully across her brow. She was, if anything, more mystified and astounded than ever.

“If he is guilty, then no words can describe him,” she said, finally, “for he must be a fiend incarnate if he could wrong the girl and then sit down calmly and write such a letter.”

Marion was glad when the hour for duty came. She hurried back to her ward as to a haven of refuge.

That night, after sunset, Marion went out for a walk about the Island. She went alone from preference, as she wished to do some hard thinking.

Young Dr. Brookes had said that he would see her the next day, as he had found an excellent excuse for running over to the Island.

“What shall I say to him?” Marion asked herself as she stood on the sea-wall and gazed out over the water.

A squad of convicts passed near her as she stood there. They were marching with the prison “lockstep,” which was now becoming familiar to Marion.

The young girl did not turn her eyes, for she dreaded to see them. A look at their rough faces always made her heart ache sadly.

As she stood in her simple frock, with her big white apron, she made a picture of beauty such as had never been seen on the Island.

Pretty faces and sweet faces had been seen there from time to time, but this willowy girl, with her mass of chestnut hair and her splendid head set on such graceful shoulders, would have attracted attention from any man in the land, then how much more the attention of these imprisoned unfortunates.

Not one convict alone, but a dozen of them glanced at her.

There was a sharp command from the guard, followed by a sullen answer. The next second, before Marion realized what was happening, there came a splash in the water. One of the convicts in desperation had leaped into the river.

“Forward! March!” cried a guard, in almost furious tones.

The squad moved on toward the penitentiary without so much as turning their heads, while one of the guards, rifle in hand, stepped quickly to the wall beside Marion.

“Come back, or I’ll fire!” he called out, sternly, as a smooth shaven head appeared slowly above the surface.

Marion reached up instinctively and grasped the guard’s arm.

“Don’t! don’t!” she gasped, “He will come back: I am sure of it!”

The man’s gaze never wavered from the bend above the water.

“If I had a boat I could save him,” he said, very coolly, “but I haven’t, and I must get him. That’s all there is about it!”

“You mean he must not escape?” said Marion, in agony.

“I lose my job if he does,” was the sullen answer. Then he raised the rifle, with one finger on the trigger.

“Once more, come back or I’ll fire!” he bawled, distinctly.

There was a little splash in the water as the swimmer turned around.

“You can fire and be d—d!” he shouted, hoarsely.

Marion covered her eyes, so that she could not see what happened.

There was a report of a rifle that echoed across the water.

“Hell Gate” or its vicinity had received another victim.