Chapter 25

At nine-thirty Edwin came in and passed up the creaking stairs. Ten minutes later Cass limped by the door, stopping a moment in the pantry to get a bite to eat. Quin sat motionless in the dark sitting-room and made no sign. He was waiting for Rose, with a dumb dependence the strongest man feels for the understanding feminine in times of crisis.

When he heard her cheerful voice calling good night to Fan Loomis, the clock was just striking ten.

"Quin! What is it?" she cried in alarm the moment she saw his face. "Is anybody dead?"

"Worse! She's run away to get married!"

"Not Myrna?"

"No. Miss Nell. She left to-night for Chicago to marry Phipps!"

"But she can't!" cried Rose wildly. "It's got to be stopped. He's not fit to marry anybody! We've got to stop her!"

"I tell you, it's too late! She left on the eight-o'clock train."

"Who said so? Are you sure? Do the Bartletts know?"

"Nobody knows but you and me; nobody must know--yet. Maybe she'll change her mind."

"But the Bartletts will miss her. Have they called up?"

"I 'phoned Miss Isobel that she was all right and she'd telephone in the morning. All right! Good God, Rose, can't we do something?"

"If I could get Harold Phipps's address I'd send him a telegram that would scare the wits out of him."

Quin brushed the suggestion aside. "It's no use wasting time on him; we've got to reach her."

"But how can we? Let me think. Do you suppose I could send her a telegram to be delivered on the train? _Anything_ that would make her wait until somebody could get to her."

"I'll get to her," Quin cried. "I'll search every hotel in Chicago. You send the telegram and I'll start on the next train."

A hurried consultation of time-tables showed that a Pennsylvania train left in ten minutes, and was due in Chicago the next morning at seven-thirty.

"You can't make that," said Rose, but even as she spoke Quin was rushing for the door.

"Have you got enough money?" she called after him.

His meteor flight was checked. Ramming his hands in his pockets, he pulled out a handful of silver.

"Wait!" cried Rose, speeding up to her room and returning with a small roll of bills. "It's what's left of Nell's check. Good-by--I'll send the telegram."

Ten minutes later, as the night express for Chicago pulled out of the station, the bystanders were amused by the sight of a bare-headed young man dashing madly through the gate and across the railroad tracks. The train had not yet got under way, but its speed was increasing and the runner's chances lessened every moment.

"He'll never catch it," said the gate-keeper. "He'd lost his wind before he got here."

"He ain't lost his nerve," said a negro porter, craning his neck in lively interest. "He's lettin' hisself go lak a Derby-winner on de home stretch!"

"Has he give up?" asked the gate-keeper, turning aside to stamp a ticket.

"Not him. He's bound to ketch dat train ef it busts a hamstring. He's done got holt de rear platform! He's pullin' hisself up! There! I tole you so! I knowed he was the kind of fellow that gits what he goes after."

Quin caught the train, but he paid for his run. A brakeman found him collapsed on the platform, in such a paroxysm of coughing that the train had covered many miles before he was sufficiently recovered to go inside and take a seat. But, even as he leaned back limp and exhausted, he was conscious of a dull satisfaction that he was traveling toward Eleanor. He refused to think of the absurdity of his wild quest, of her probable anger at his interference. He fought back his despair, his jealousy, his inordinate fear. The one thing necessary now was to get to her--to be on hand in case she needed him.

Through the interminable hours of the night almost every breath came with an effort, but he scarcely heeded the fact. With characteristic persistence he forced himself to follow her steps in imagination from the time she left home until she reached her destination. The eight-o'clock sleeper that she had taken was due in Chicago at five-thirty. She would probably not leave it before seven at the earliest, and by that time Rose's telegram ought to have reached her. He tried to picture its effect on her. Much would depend upon the time that intervened between its reception and her seeing Mr. Phipps. If he met her, as he probably would, he would sweep aside all her doubts. If, on the other hand, Eleanor had time to think the matter over, her innate common sense might make her wait at least until she heard what Rose had to tell her. On the bare chance of his not meeting her, what would she do? Take the next train home? Go to his apartment? Go to a hotel alone?

Plan after plan rushed through Quin's mind, only to be impatiently discarded. He sat tense and still, with his clenched hands rammed in his pockets and his eyes fixed on the black square of the window. Sometimes dim objects flew past, and now and then sharp, vivid lights stabbed the darkness. Once the smelting-pots of a huge iron foundry belched forth a circle of swirling flames, and for a moment wrenched his mind off his problems. Then the regular pounding of the wheels on the rails recalled him.

"She's gone to be married. Gone--to be married. Gone--to be married."

He realized that they had been saying it in monotonous rhythm ever since he started--that they would go on saying it through eternity.

Suddenly the train jarred to a standstill. Figures with lanterns emerged through a cloud of steam and stood under his window.

"Guess we got a hot-box," said a sleepy passenger across the aisle. "That means I'll miss my connection."

Quin got up and went out on the platform. He was filled with rage at the lazy deliberation with which the men set about their task. He longed to wrench the tools out of their hands and do the job himself.

"How much will this put us behind?" he demanded of the conductor.

"Oh, not more than twenty minutes. We'll make some of it up before morning."

Once more under way, Quin dropped into a troubled sleep. He dreamed that he was pursuing a Hun over miles of barbed-wire entanglements; but when he overtook him and forced him to the ground, the face under the steel helmet was the smiling, supercilious face of Harold Phipps. He woke up with a start and stretched his cold limbs. The black square of the window had turned to gray; arrows of rain shot diagonally across it. He realized for the first time that he had neither hat nor overcoat, but he did not care. In ten minutes more he would be in Chicago, in the same city with Eleanor.

Notwithstanding the fact that it was pouring rain when the train pulled into the station, Quin stood on the lowest step of the platform, ready to alight.

"Say, young fellow, you forgot your hat," said a man behind him.

"Didn't have any," answered Quin.

"I got an extra cap if you want it," offered the man obligingly.

Quin, already on the platform, caught it as the man tossed it out to him. Dashing through the depot, he hurled himself into a taxi.

"Monon Station!" he shouted, "and drive like the devil."

Just what kind of chauffeur the devil is has never been demonstrated, but if that taxi-driver, urged on by Quin, was his counterpart, it is safe to infer that there are no traffic laws in Hades. In spite of the fact that the streets were like glass from the driving rain, and the wind-shield a gray blur, in spite of the fact that a tire went flat on a rear wheel, that decrepit old taxi rose to the occasion and made the transit in record time.

Arrived at the station, Quin thrust a bill into the driver's hand and dashed down the steps to the lower level. In answer to his frenzied inquiry he was told that the Express had come in two hours before and that the passengers had probably all left the sleeper by this time.

Nothing daunted, he rushed out to the tracks and accosted a porter who was sweeping out the rear coach.

"Yas, sir, this is it," answered the negro. "Young lady? Yas, sir; there was five or six of 'em on board last night. Pretty? Yas, sir, they was all pretty--all but one, and she wasn't so bad looking."

"Did one of them get a telegram in the night or this morning?"

The porter's face brightened. "Yas, sir. Boy come through soon as we got in. Had a wire for young lady in lower six."

"Do you know what time she left the car?"

"About half hour ago, I should say. Party she was expecting to meet her didn't turn up, and I had to git her a red-cap to carry her suit-case. Thanky, sir."

Quin tore back to the station and dashed through the waiting-room, the dining-room, the baggage-room. He was on the point of going out to the taxi-stand and interrogating each driver in turn, when his eyes were caught by a smart suit-case that lay unattended on one of the seats. It bore the inscription "E.M.B.--Ky."

In his sudden relief he could have snatched it up and embraced it. But where was Eleanor? For five interminable minutes he stood guard over her property, watching every exit and entrance, and pacing the floor in his impatience. Suddenly an idea occurred to him, and, cursing himself for his stupidity, he strode over to the telephone-booths.

Eleanor was in the corner one, the receiver at her ear, evidently waiting for her call. As Quin flung upon the door she turned and faced him in defiant surprise.

"What are you doing here?" she demanded indignantly. "Did grandmother send you?"

"No; she doesn't know I'm here."

Eleanor turned nervously to the telephone.

"Hello! I can't understand you. Put--what? Oh! I forgot. Wait a minute----"

Letting the receiver swing, she fumbled in her purse; then, finding no small change, looked appealingly at Quin.

He produced the necessary coin and handed it to her.

"I don't think I'd put it in just yet," he said quietly.

For a moment she paused irresolute; then she dropped the coin in the slot.

"Is this the Hotel Kington?" she asked. "Will you please try again to get Mr. Phipps--Harold Phipps? P-h-i-p-p-s."

Quin watched her fingers drumming on the shelf, and he knew he ought to go out of the booth and close the door; but instead he stayed in and closed it.

"He doesn't answer?" Eleanor was repeating over the telephone. "Will you please page the dining-room, and if he is not at breakfast send a bell-boy up to waken him? It's _very_ important."

Again there was a long wait, during which Eleanor did not so much as turn her head in Quin's direction. It was only when her answer came that she looked at him blankly.

"They say he isn't there. The chambermaid was cleaning the room, and said his bed had not been disturbed."

Then, seeing a humorously unsympathetic look flit across Quin's face, she burst out angrily:

"What right had you to follow me over here?"

They were standing very close in the narrow glass enclosure, and as he looked down at the small, trembling figure with her back against the wall and her eyes full of frightened defiance, he felt uncomfortably like a hunter who has run down some young wild thing and holds it at bay.

"Please, Miss Nell," he implored, "don't think I'm going to peach on you! Whatever you do, I'll stand by you. Only I thought, perhaps, you might need a friend."

"I _have_ a friend!" she retorted furiously. "If Harold Phipps had received my telegram last night, nothing in the world could have stopped him from meeting me--nothing!"

Then the defiance dropped from her eyes, leaving her small sensitive face quivering with hurt pride and an overwhelming doubt. She bit her lips and turned away to hide her tears.

Quin put a firm hand on her arm and piloted her back to her suit-case.

"What we both need is breakfast," he said. "Come to think of it, I haven't had a mouthful since yesterday noon."

"Neither have I; but I couldn't swallow a bite. Besides, I've got to find Harold."

"Well, you can't do anything till he gets back to the hotel. If you'll come in with me while I get a cup of coffee, we can talk things over."

She followed him reluctantly into the dining-room, but refused to order anything. For some time she sat with her chin on her clasped hands, watching the door; then she turned toward him accusingly.

"Did you see Rose's telegram?"

"No."

He watched her open her purse and take out a yellow slip, which she handed to him.

"Don't take the step planned. Imperative reasons forbid. Rose."

he read slowly; then he looked up. "Well?" he said.

"What does she mean?" burst forth Eleanor. "How dared she send me a message like that unless she knew something----"

She broke off abruptly and her eyes searched Quin's face. But he was apparently counting the grains of sugar that were going into his coffee, and refused to look up.

"If it had been grandmother or Aunt Isobel I shouldn't have been in the least surprised; they are just a bunch of prejudices and believe every idle story they hear. But Rose is different. She's known about Harold and me for months. She forwarded his letters to me when I was in Baltimore. And now for her to turn against me like this----"

"Why don't you wait till you hear her side of it?" suggested Quin, still concerned with the sugar-bowl.

"How can I?" cried Eleanor, flinging out her hands. "I've no place to go, and I've no money. If I had had money enough I'd have gone straight to Papa Claude last night."

Quin's heart gained a beat. He made a hurried calculation of his financial resources in the vain hope that that might yet be the solution of the difficulty. Whatever was to be done must be done at once, for Harold Phipps might arrive at any moment, and Quin felt instinctively that his advent would decide the matter.

"I wish I had enough to send you," he said, "but all I've got is my return ticket and enough to buy another one for you."

At the mere suggestion Eleanor's anger flared.

"I'll never go back to grandmother's! I'll jump in the lake first!"

"What's the matter with Valley Mead?"

"What good would that do? Grandmother would make Uncle Ranny send me straight home. No; I've thought of all those things--it's no use."

"You could go to the Martels'."

"Yes, and put another burden on Cass. I tell you, I'm not going home. I am going to see Harold, and--and talk things over, and perhaps go straight on to New York to-night."

"You can't see him if he is out of town."

"Why do you think he is out of town?"

"Well, he isn't here," Quin observed dryly.

The next moment he was sorry he had said it, for the light died out of her face and she looked so absurdly young and helpless that it was all he could do to refrain from gathering her up in his arms and carrying her home by force.

"See here, Miss Nell," he said earnestly, leaning across the table. "Would you be willing to go back to the Martels' if you knew that this time next month you'd be in New York with money enough to carry you through the winter?"

"No. That is--whose money?"

"Your own. I'll go to Queen Vic and put the whole thing up to her so she can't get around it."

Eleanor brushed the suggestion aside impatiently.

"Don't you suppose I've exhausted every possible argument? And now, when she finds out what I've done----"

"But you haven't done anything--yet."

"She wouldn't believe me if I told her that I hadn't seen Harold. She never believes me."

"She'd believe _me_," said Quin, "and what's more she'd listen to me."

Eleanor did not answer; she sat doggedly watching the swinging doors, through which a draggled throng came and went.

"He'll be here soon," she said half-heartedly--"unless he's gone off for a week-end somewhere. If he doesn't come soon we can go up to the hotel and find out whether he left any address. Perhaps you could get me a room there until to-morrow."

Quin's courage was at its lowest ebb. It was like trying to save a drowning person who fights desperately against being saved. He heard a stentorian voice through a megaphone announcing that the eight-thirty train for the southwest would leave in five minutes on track three, and he decided to stake his all on a last chance.

"That's my train," he said, rising briskly. "Are you coming with me, or are you going to stay here?"

"I am going to stay. But you can't leave me like this! It's pouring rain and I haven't any umbrella, and if I get to the hotel and he isn't there, what shall I do? Why don't you help me, Quin? Why don't you stay with me till he comes?"

"Sorry," said Quin, steeling his heart against those appealing eyes and praying for strength to be firm, "but I've got to be ready to go back to work to-morrow morning. Is it good-by?"

He held out his hand, but she did not take it. Instead she clutched his sleeve.

"What would _you_ do, Quin?" she asked. "Tell me honestly, not what you want me to do, or think I ought to do, but what would you do in my place?"

In spite of his pretended haste, he stopped to consider the matter.

"Well," he admitted frankly, "it would depend entirely on how much I trusted the fellow I'd promised to marry."

"I _do_ trust him, and I'm going to marry him; but, you see, Rose's telegram, and his not being here, and all, have made me so unhappy! I know he can explain everything when I see him, only I don't know what to do now. Do you think I ought to go back?"

"That's for you to decide."

"But I tell you I can't decide. Somebody's always made up my mind for me, and now to have to decide this big thing all in a minute----"

"All aboard for the Southwestern Limited!" came the voice through the megaphone.

Eleanor glanced instinctively at her suit-case, then up at Quin.

"Shall I take it?" he asked, with his heart in his throat; and then, when she did not say no, he seized it in one hand and her in the other.

"We'd better run for it!" he said.

"But, Quin--wait a minute--I won't go to grandmother's! You've got to protect me----"

"You leave it to me!" he said, as he thrust her almost roughly through the crowd and rushed her toward the gate.