"Who has been doing that?" There were dangerous lights in the dark eyes, lights that showed the brutality of the coward and the evildoer.
"Oh, a man!" said Starr provokingly; "but if you look like that I shan"t tell you anything more about it, I don"t like you now. You look as if you could eat me. You make me think there must be something in it all."
Quick to take the warning the young man brought his face under control and broke into a hoa.r.s.e artificial laugh. A sudden vision of understanding had come to him and a fear was in his heart. There was nothing like being bold and taking the bull by the horns.
"I"ll wager I can explain the riddle for you," he said airily. "I lost my way the other evening coming home late. You see there had been some mistake and my car didn"t come to the club for me. I started on foot, leaving word for it to overtake me--" He lied as he went along. He had had a short lifetime of practice and did it quite naturally and easily, "and I was thinking about you and how soon I dared ask you a certain question, when all at once I noticed that things seemed sort of unfamiliar. I turned to go back but couldn"t for the life of me tell which way I had turned at the last corner--you see what a dangerous influence you have over me--and I wandered on and on, getting deeper and deeper into things. It wasn"t exactly a savory neighborhood and I wanted to get out as soon as possible for I suspected that it wasn"t even very safe down there alone at that hour of the night. I was hesitating under a street light close to a dark alley, trying to decide which would be the quickest way out, and meditating what I should do to find a policeman, when suddenly there loomed up beside me in the dark out of the depths of the alley a great tall brute of a fellow with the strangest looking yellow hair and a body that looked as if he could play football with the universe if he liked, and charged me with having come down there to visit his girl.
"Well, of course the situation wasn"t very pleasant. I tried to explain that I was lost; that I had never been down in that quarter of the city before and didn"t even know his girl. But he would listen to nothing. He began to threaten me. Then I took out my card and handed it to him, most unwisely of course, but then I am wholly unused to such situations, and I explained to him just who I was and that of course I wouldn"t want to come to see _his_ girl, even if I would be so mean, and all that. But do you believe me, that fellow wouldn"t take a word of it. He threw the card on the sidewalk, ground his heel into it, and used all sorts of evil language that I can"t repeat, and finally after I thought he was going to put me in the ditch and pummel me he let me go, shouting after me that if I ever came near his girl again he would publish it in the newspapers. Then of course I understood what a foolish thing I had done in giving him my card. But it was too late. I told him as politely as I knew how that if he would show me the way to get home I would never trouble him again, and he finally let me go."
Starr"s eyes were all this time quizzically searching his face. "Was the man intoxicated?" she asked.
"Oh, I presume so, more or less. They all are down there, though he was not of the slums himself I should say. He was rather well dressed, and probably angry that I had discovered him in such haunts."
"When did this happen?"
"About a week ago."
"Why didn"t you tell me about it before?"
"Oh I didn"t want to distress you, and besides, I"ve had my mind too full of other things. Starr, darling, you must have seen all these weeks how much I love you, and how I have only been waiting the proper opportunity to ask you to be my wife--"
Starr was in a measure prepared for this proposal. Her mother had instructed her that the alliance was one wholly within the pale of wisdom; and her own fancy was quite taken up with this handsome new admirer who flattered her hourly and showered attentions upon her until she felt quite content with herself the world and him. There was a spice of daring about Starr that liked what she thought was the wildness and gaiety of young Carter, and she had quite made up her mind to accept him.
One week later the society papers announced the engagement, and the world of gaiety was all in a flutter, over the many functions that were immediately set agoing in their honor.
Michael, at his desk in the busy office, read, and bowed his head in anguish. Starr, his bright beautiful Starr, to be sacrificed to a beast like that! Would that he might once more save her to life and happiness!
For the next few days Michael went about in a state that almost bordered on the frantic. His white face looked drawn, and his great eyes burned in their clear setting like live coals. People turned to look after him on the street and exclaimed: "Why, look at that man!" and yet he seemed more like an avenging angel dropped down for some terrible errand than like a plain ordinary man.
Mr. Holt noticed it and spoke to him about it.
"You ought to drop work and take a good vacation, Endicott," he said kindly. "You"re in bad shape. You"ll break down and be ill. If I were in your place I"d cancel the rent of that office and not try to start out for yourself until fall. It"ll pay you in the end. You"re taking things too seriously."
But Michael smiled and shook his head. He was to open his own office the following week. It was all ready, with its simple furnishings, in marked contrast to the rooms that would have been his if he had acceded to his benefactor"s request. But Michael had lost interest in office and work alike, and the room seemed now to him only a refuge from the eyes of men where he might hide with his great sorrow and try to study out some way to save Starr. Surely, surely, her father would do something when he received his letter! It was long past, time for an answer to have come. But then there was the hope that he was already doing something, though he was unwilling to afford Michael the satisfaction of knowing it.
He gave much thought to a possible cablegram, that he might send, that would tell the story to the father while telling nothing to the world, but abandoned the idea again and again.
Sam came up from the farm and saw Michael"s face and was worried.
"Say, pard, wot yer bin doin" t"yersef? Better come down t" th" farm an"
git a bit o" fresh air."
The only two people who did not notice the change in Michael"s appearance were Hester and Will. They were too much engrossed in each other by this time to notice even Michael.
They had fallen into the habit of leaving the rooms in the alley earlier than Michael and going home by themselves.
They left him thus one night about three weeks after Starr"s engagement had been announced. Michael stayed in the room for an hour after all the others had gone. He was expecting Sam to return. Sam had been up from the farm several times lately and this time without any apparent reason he had lingered in the city. He had not been to the room that night save for ten minutes early in the evening when he had mumbled something about a little business, and said he would be back before Michael left.
Michael sat for a long time, his elbow on the table, his head in his hands, trying to think. A way had occurred to him which might or might not do something to prevent Starr from throwing away her happiness. The morning paper had hinted that plans for a speedy wedding were on foot. It was rumored that Miss Endicott was to be married as soon as her father reached home. Michael was desperate. He feared that now the father would arrive too late for him to get speech with him. He had begun to know that it was hard to convince people of the evil of those they had chosen as friends. It would take time.
There was a way. He might have the whole story published in the papers. A public scandal would doubtless delay if not altogether put a stop to this alliance; but a public scandal that touched Mr. Carter would now also touch and bring into publicity the girl whose life was almost linked with his.
Not until the very last resort would Michael bring about that publicity.
That such a move on his part would beget him the eternal enmity of the entire Endicott family he did not doubt, but that factor figured not at all in Michael"s calculations. He was not working for himself in this affair.
Nothing that ever happened could make things right for him, he felt, and what was his life, or good name even, beside Starr"s happiness?
Wearily, at last, his problem unsolved, he got up and turned out the lights. As he was locking the door his attention was arrested by two figures standing between himself and the street light at the end of the alley. It was a man and a woman, and the woman seemed to be clinging to the man and pleading with him.
Such sights were not uncommon in the alley; some poor woman often thus appealed to all that used to be good in the man she married, to make him stay away from the saloon, or to give her a little of his money to buy food for the children.
More than once in such instances Michael had been able successfully to add his influence to the wife"s and get the man to go quietly home.
He put the key hastily in his pocket and hurried toward the two.
"You shan"t! You shan"t! You shan"t never go back to her!" he heard the woman cry fiercely. "You promised me--"
"Shut up, will you? I don"t care what I promised--" said the man in a guarded voice that Michael felt sure he had heard before.
"I shan"t shut up! I"ll holler ef you go, so the police"ll come. You"ve got a right to stay with me. You shan"t do me no wrong ner you shan"t go back to that stuck-up piece. You"re mine, I say, and you promised--!"
With a curse the man struck her a cruel blow across the mouth, and tried to tear her clinging hands away from his coat, but they only clung the more fiercely.
Michael sprang to the woman"s side like a panther.
"Look out!" he said in clear tones. "You can"t strike a woman!" His voice was low and calm, and sounded as it used to sound on the ball field when he was giving directions to his team at some crisis in the game.
"Who says I can"t?" snarled the man, and now Michael was sure he knew the voice. Then the wretch struck the woman between her eyes and she fell heavily to the ground.
Like a flash Michael"s great arm went out and felled the man, and in the same breath, from the shadows behind there sprang out the slender, wiry figure of Sam and flung itself upon the man on the ground who with angry imprecations was trying to struggle to his feet. His hand had gone to an inner pocket, as he fell and in a moment more there was a flash of light and Michael felt a bullet whiz by his ear. Nothing but the swerving of the straggling figures had saved it from going through his brain. It occurred to Michael in that instant that that was what had been intended. The conviction that the man had also recognized him gave strength to his arm as he wrenched the revolver from the hand of the would-be a.s.sa.s.sin. n.o.body knew better than Michael how easy it would be to plead "self-defense" if the fellow got into any trouble. A man in young Carter"s position with wealth and friends galore need not fear to wipe an unknown fellow out of existence; a fellow whose friends with few exceptions were toughs and jail birds and ex-criminals of all sorts.
It was just as he gave Carter"s wrist the twist that sent the revolver clattering to the ground beside the unconscious woman that Michael heard the hurried footsteps of the officer of the law accompanied by a curious motley crowd who had heard the pistol shot and come to see what new excitement life offered for their delectation. He suddenly realized how bad matters would look for Sam if he should be found in the embrace of one of Society"s pets who would all too surely have a tale to tell that would clear himself regardless of others. Michael had no care for himself. The police all about that quarter knew him well, and were acquainted with his work. They looked upon him with almost more respect than they gave the priests and deaconesses who went about their errands of mercy; for Michael"s spirit-look of being more than man, and the stories that were attached to his name in the alley filled them with a worshipful awe. There was little likelihood of trouble for Michael with any of the officers he knew. But Sam was another proposition. His life had not all been strictly virtuous in the past, and of late he had been away in New Jersey so much that he was little known, and would be at once suspected of having been the cause of the trouble. Besides, the woman lay unconscious at their feet!
With a mighty effort Michael now reached forth and plucked Sam, struggling fiercely, from the arms of his antagonist and put him behind him in the doorway, standing firmly in front. Carter thus released, sprawled for an instant in the road, then taking advantage of the momentary release struggled to his feet and fled in the opposite direction from that in which the officers were approaching.
"Let me go! I must get him!" muttered Sam pushing fiercely to get by Michael.
"No, Sam, stay where you are and keep quiet. You"ll gain nothing by running after him. You"ll only get into trouble yourself."
"I don"t care!" said Sam frantically, "I don"t care what happens to me.
I"ll kill him. He stole my girl!"
But Michael stood before him like a wail of adamant in the strength that was his for the extremity.
"Yes, Sam, my poor fellow. I know," said Michael gently, sadly. "I know, Sam. He stole mine too!"
Sam subsided as if he had been struck, a low awful curse upon his lips, his face pale and baleful.
"You, too?" The yearning tenderness went to Michael"s heart like sweet salve, even in the stress of the moment. They were brothers in sorrow, and their brotherhood saved Sam from committing a crime.
Then the police and crowd swept up breathless.