""I will hunt till I find her."
""And when you find her--you will not kill her, surely!"
""I will try to get her to come back to me."
"He took pa.s.sage in the steerage, and I do not know what happened to him after that."
Each of us hid his emotions in his beer-mug. Then Max ordered fresh mugs, and said that Breffny"s story recalled a somewhat similar thing that he had witnessed in Denver.
"When I was a reporter out there, I was standing one evening in front of a hotel. A crowd collected to see the body of a guest brought out and placed upon an ambulance.
""Where are you taking him, and what is it?" I asked the driver.
""To the lazaretto. Smallpox.""
For a moment, while he was being lifted into the ambulance, the victim"s face was visible. A loud cry was heard in the crowd. It came from a ragged, wild-looking man, whose unkempt beard made him look much older than I afterward found him to be. As the ambulance hurried off, he ran after it, shouting:
""I must see that man! Stop! I must ask him something!"
"But he tripped upon a horse-car track, and when he had staggered to his feet, the ambulance was out of sight.
"I ran into the hotel and asked the clerk about the lazaretto patient.
He was a young European--an Englishman--they thought, who had arrived from the East two days ago, and whose condition had just been discovered.
"Coming out, I went to the tramp who had cried out at the sight of the ill man. I found him seated on the curbstone, weeping like a child.
I asked him why he wished to see the smallpox victim, and said that I could get him admission to the lazaretto, if he would tell me what he knew, and wouldn"t let any other reporter have the story.
"He jumped up eagerly.
""It"s this," he said. "That man ran away with my wife, and I"ve hunted them over sea and land. This is the first sight I"ve had of him."
""Then," I said, "if you mean to harm him, I"m afraid I can"t bring you to him."
""Him!" said the ragged man, disdainfully. "I don"t want to hurt him.
I only want to find out where she is. I swear I wouldn"t harm either of them."
"I accompanied him to the city physician, with whom he had a long talk.
That official finally promised to take him to the lazaretto. The doctor led the man to the side of the iron bed where the smallpox patient lay.
The latter started like a frightened child at sight of his pursuer.
""Remember," said the doctor to the sick man, "you have scarcely a chance for life. You would do well to tell the truth."
""Only tell me where she is," pleaded the husband, "and I"ll forgive you all."
"The sick man gasped:
""I left her in Philadelphia--at the station. She had smallpox. It was from her I got it. I was a coward--a cur. I left her to save myself. The money I had brought from home was nearly all gone. Ask her to forgive me."
"He was dead that evening. The husband was then upon an east-bound freight-train. The newspaper telegraphed to Philadelphia, but nothing could be found out about the woman. I"ve often wondered what became of the man."
The loud hubbub of conversation,--nearly all in German,--the shouts of the waiters, the noise of their footfalls upon the stone floor, the sound of mugs being placed upon tables and of Max draining his "stein"
of beer, bridged the hiatus between the ending of Max"s narrative and the beginning of my own:
"Your story reminds me of one to which the city editor a.s.signed me on one of my "late nights." I took a cab and went to the station-house. The case had been reported by a policeman at Ninth and Locust Streets, who had called for a patrol-wagon. From him I got the story. He had seen the thing happen.
"He was walking down Locust at half-past twelve that night, and was opposite the Midnight Mission, when his attention was attracted to the only two persons who were at that moment on the other side of the street. One was a man of the appearance of a vagabond, coming from Ninth Street. The other was a woman, who had come from Tenth Street, and who seemed to walk with great difficulty, as if ready to sink at every step from weakness.
"The woman dropped her head as she neared the man. The man peered into her face, in the manner of one who had acquired the habit of examining the countenances of pa.s.sers-by.
"The two met under the gas-lamp that is so conspicuous a night feature of the north side of Locust Street, between Ninth and Tenth.
"The woman gave no attention to the man. So exhausted was she that she leaned helplessly against the fence. The man ran forward, shrieking like a lunatic.
""Jeannie!"
"The woman lifted her eyes in a dull kind of amazement and whispered:
""Donald!"
"She fell back, but he caught her in his arms and kissed her lips a dozen times, with a half-savage gladness, crying and laughing hysterically, as women do.
"When the policeman had reached the pair, the woman had seen the last of this world.
"Afterward we found that she had been discharged from the munic.i.p.al hospital, where she had been in the smallpox ward two weeks before; and we surmised that she had virtually had nothing to eat since then.
"At the station-house the man explained that the woman was his runaway wife. He had started in search of her two years before, with no other clue as to her whereabouts than the knowledge that she had sailed for America with a man named Ferriss--"
"What?" cried Max. "Was the name Archibald Ferriss? That was the name of the man who died in the Denver lazaretto--"
But Max was stopped by Breffny, who almost shouted in excitement:
"And the name of the son of McKeown & Ferriss, of Glasgow, in whose shipyard was employed as timekeeper the Donald Wilson--"
"Donald Wilson was the name of the man who met his wife that night in front of the Midnight Mission," said I, in further confirmation.
It was remarkable. One of the three chapters of this tragic story had entered into the experience of each of us three who sat there emptying stone mugs. Now, for the first time, was the story complete to each of us.
"But what became of the man?" asked Breffny.
"When the police lieutenant spoke of having her body interred in Potter"s Field, the husband spoke up indignantly. He brought forth two gold pieces, saying:
""I have the money for her grave. I saved this through all my wanderings, because I thought that when I should find her she might be homeless and hungry and in need."
"So he had her buried respectably in the suburbs somewhere, and I was too busy at that time to follow up his subsequent movements. It is enough for the story that he found his wife."
XXIV. -- NEWGAG THE COMEDIAN