Elisabeth Sanxay Holding

“ Ross asserted.
“Suit yourself,” said Eddy.
He set a chair against the locked door, pulled up another chair to put his feet on, and made himself as comfortable as he could. But Ross made no such effort. His family had never cared about being comfortable. No; there he sat, too intent upon his thoughts to sleep.
The realization of his own utter loneliness in this world had set him to thinking about the man under the sofa. There might be some one waiting, in tears, in terrible anxiety for that man. Probably there was. There were very, very few human beings who had nobody to care. ”

“ The telephone bell rang. “Answer that, my dear. It’s dangerous to touch a telephone with damp hands—Oh! A gentleman to see Miss Barron? What a strange time to call—ten o’clock in the morning! Ask his name, my dear. He was on the Farragut with us? But how very strange! Why doesn’t he give his name? But ask him to come up.”
She dried her hands and arose, majestic even in her frivolous negligee.
“Very strange!” she murmured.
There was a knock at the door.
“Come in!” she said.
The door opened—and it was Mr. Ross! She took a step forward, with a welcoming smile; then she stopped short. ”

“ He was not impatient, now, as that James Ross had been who had landed in New York three days ago. Indeed, he seemed almost inhumanly patient, as if he were willing to sit there forever. And that was how he felt. He had done his utmost; now he could only wait.
The sleet was rattling against the windows, and a great wind blew. It must be a wild night, out in the fields, where a lonely little pond lay. A bad night to be in that little cottage. A bad night, anywhere in the world, for a child who had nobody.
From his pocket he brought out a snapshot, and looked at it for a long time ”

“ It occurred to him that if Phyllis Barron were in any sort of trouble, she would never turn to James Ross for help. He had shown her too plainly that he was not disposed to trouble himself about other people and their affairs.
His family never did. They minded their own business, they let other people alone, and other people soon learned to let them alone. Very satisfactory! Lucky for this Amy Ross Solway that she didn’t know what sort of fellow had got that note of hers. ”

“ Again Ross had a distinct warning of danger, and again he defied it, standing there stubbornly resistant to all the ill winds that might blow.
“This kid,” Eddy pointed out—“she hasn’t got anybody in the world.”
As if by common consent, they both turned to look at the child. She was holding the rabbit aloft, and trying to touch it with one little bare foot; she was quite happy; with superb unconcern she left her fate in the hands of these two young men. ”

“ He sprang up the stairs to be with her.
“Amy!” he cried.
Her dark brows met in a somber frown; she shook her head, waving her forefinger in front of her face; an odd, foreign little gesture.
“No!” she said. “Keep quiet! Don’t speak to me. Let me think.”
“Think!” said Ross to himself. “I don’t believe you’re capable of it, my girl. But certainly you’re even less capable of listening to any one. Very well; go ahead with your thinking, then; and I’ll wait for the next development.”
He lit a cigarette, and leaned against the wall, smoking, not sorry for an interval of peace. ”

“ This sedate, respectable, gray-haired woman, this housekeeper who looked as if she would not overlook the smallest trace of dust in a corner, certainly, surely would not leave a dead man under her sofa.
She was stroking the cat, and the animal had assumed an expression of idiotic delight, pink tongue protruding a little, eyes half open. Would even a cat be so monstrously indifferent if—if what he thought he had seen under the sofa were really there?
“Would you like me to telephone for a taxi to take you to the station?” asked Mrs. Jones, very civilly.
“Ha!” thought Ross. ”

“ Solway would never find him, until, as the train came in, a taxi was seized by an alert woman, and Ross got his car into that vacant place.
Mr. Solway was not in the vanguard of the commuters; he came leisurely and with dignity, talking with another man. Ross stood beside the open door of the car; with a nod Mr. Solway got in, and the other man, too. They paid no attention whatever to Ross; they settled themselves, and went on talking, as if he were a ghost. ”

“ Ross went up to the room over the garage, and sat down there. He was hungry and tired, and in no pleasant humor.
“It’s entirely too damned much!” he said to himself. “I’m—comparatively speaking—a rich man. There’s money waiting for me. There’s a nice, comfortable room in a hotel waiting for me; and decent clothes. I could have gone to a play tonight. There was one I wanted to see. And here I am—in a garage—dressed up like a monkey. No, it’s too much! I’m going back to the city tomorrow. I’m going to see Teagle, and settle my affairs. If Amy wants me to help her, I suppose I shall. ”

“ A clever criminal, escaping from justice, could not have been much more successful in leaving no traces.
When he got out at Stamford, the rain had ceased, but the sky was menacing and overcast. He stood for a moment on the platform, again reluctant to ask questions, but there was no help for it this time.
He stopped a grocer’s boy, and asked him where Wygatt Road was. The boy told him. “But it’s a long way,” he added.
Ross didn’t care how long it was. This was the first suburban town he had seen, and it charmed him. Such a prosperous, orderly, lively town! ”

“ There were, in this city, thousands of men to whom Manila and Mayaguez would seem names of almost incredible romance; men to whom New York meant little but an apartment, the subway, the office, and the anxious and monotonous routine of earning a living. But to Ross, New York had all the allurement of the exotic, and those other ports had meant only exile and discontent. ”

“ Thick and fast the flakes went spinning by, tapping lightly against the glass, and, out beyond, he saw that all the world was white. White and unimaginably still. He had seen plenty of pictures of snow-covered landscapes, but he had never known the feel of a snowstorm, the odd tingle in the air, the sense of hushed expectancy. ”

“ A turn in the driveway brought him in sight of a long façade of lighted windows, and a large, substantial, matter-of-fact house—which made him feel more of a fool than ever. Yet, still he went on, mounted the steps of a brick terrace, and rang the doorbell.
The door was opened promptly by a pale and disagreeable young housemaid.
“I want to see Mrs. Jones, the housekeeper,” said Ross.
“You ought to go to the back door!” she remarked sharply. “You ought to know that much!” ”

“ Ross could not understand why that notion came as a shock to him. Naturally, the man under the sofa had a name; every one had. Yet, directly he thought of that figure as “Martin Ives,” instead of “the man,” the whole affair grew ten times more tragic and horrible—and ten times more dangerous.
“A man” might disappear, but not Martin Ives. Martin Ives was real, he had friends; he must have lived somewhere. He would be sought for—and found.
“This Donnelly—” thought Ross. “He’s got this far already. And he’ll keep on.” ”

“ Ross saw, then, that Eddy was trying to put the child’s socks on, and getting no intelligent coöperation from her.
“What are you doing that for?” he asked.
Eddy sprang to his feet like a cat. He looked at Ross, and Ross looked at him, and the little girl lay back on the bed and began jouncing up and down.
“Well,” Eddy replied, slowly, “if you really want to know, it was me brought her here, and now I’m goin’ to take her away again; that’s all.”
Once more Ross was conscious of a disarming pity for the boy. He thought he had never seen a human creature who looked so unhappy. ”

“ You’re the type of young— Ha, Gayle! Step in! Step in. Start her up, Moss!”
Ross did so. He had never been more unhappy in his life than he was now, with his lie successfully accomplished.
“This finishes it!” he thought, as he drove back from the station. “I’m going to see Amy, and have it out with her. I’ll tell her about this Donnelly. I’ll warn her—”
And then go off and leave her to face the consequences alone?
“But, hang it all, she’s not alone!” he cried to himself. “She’s got Solway, and she’s got her Gayle. Why doesn’t she go to him? He’s the natural one to share her troubles.” ”

“ The first had been spent imprisoned in the garage, at the point of a revolver, but it had been a thousand times better than this. He had been warm and comfortable—and he had been innocent, a victim. Now he was taking an active part in a thoroughly discreditable affair.
He was committed to wait for a thin dark man with a mustache, and to prevent his entering the house. And how was he to do this? Walk up to him and begin to expostulate? Try to bribe him?
The thought of bribery aroused in the young man an anger which almost made him warm. No Ross would ever pay blackmail. ”

“ Out there, in the cold and dark of his unhappy vigil, he thought of Phyllis, and longed for her smile.
“She’d never in her life get a fellow into a mess like this!” he thought. “But Amy—”
His distrust for his Cousin Amy was without limits. There was nothing, he thought, that she might not do. She was perfectly capable of forgetting all about him, and then, in the morning, if he were found frozen to death at his post, she would pretend to wonder what on earth the new chauffeur had been doing out there.
“After eleven,” he thought. “And Eddy hasn’t come yet. Very likely she knew he wouldn’t come. ”

“ Barron worked, he opened the note.
“Dear Cousin James—” it began.
But, as far as he knew, he hadn’t a cousin in the world. With a puzzled frown, he picked up the envelope; it was plainly addressed, in a clear, small hand, to “Mr. James Ross. On board the S. S. Farragut.”
“Must be a mistake, though,” he muttered. “I’ll just see.” And he went on reading:
You have never seen me, and I know you have heard all sorts of cruel and false things about me. ”

“ Donnelly had said. And he had come, with all his hope and his fear and his pain, to “Day’s End,” and—
“But if—if that was Ives I saw in Mrs. Jones’s room,” thought Ross, “then who was it Amy wanted me to watch for last night?”
This idea gave him immeasurable relief. That man had not been Ives. Ives hadn’t come yet. The whole tragedy was an invention of his own.
“No reason to take it for granted that that letter was meant for Amy,” he thought. “Plenty of other women in Stamford. No; I’ve simply been making a fool of myself, imagining.” ”

“ Ross was silent, too. He remembered how Eddy had closed the door of the housekeeper’s room. He remembered how very anxious Eddy had been to keep him shut up in the garage all night. And he remembered that Eddy carried a revolver.
Why should he imagine that Amy Solway would do for herself any unpleasing task, when apparently she found it so easy to make others do things for her? This boy admitted he had done things for her which he wished “to Gawd” he hadn’t.
“You better start,” said Eddy, and Ross got into the sedan and drove up to the house. He was undeniably nervous. ”

“ Jones!”
XII
The funny little doll lay asleep, very neat and straight, just in the center of the bed, the covers drawn up like a shawl, one cheek pressed against the pillow, its fair mane streaming out behind, as if it were advancing doggedly against a high wind. There was no creature in the world more helpless, yet it was not alert, not timid, as defenseless little animals are; it slept in utter confidence and security.
And that confidence seemed to Ross almost terrible. The tiny creature, breathing so tranquilly, took for granted all possible kindness and protection from him. ”

“ Somehow he must sidetrack Donnelly; get him off upon a false scent, while he himself hastened to Eddy. Such a simple and easy thing to do, wasn’t it?
“Well!” said Donnelly. “Do we go back, and have a look at that license of yours—or do we go and pay a little visit to that cottage, eh?”
“I’m going back,” said Ross, curtly.
“Of course,” Donnelly went on, in a mild and reasonable tone, “I know, and you know, that you’re not going to show me any license. What you want is a little time to make up your mind. You’re saying to yourself: ‘I don’t know this fellow. I don’t know what he’s up to. ”

“ And if you see him coming—stop him! A thin, dark man, with a mustache. Oh, hurry, Jimmy! All evening long I’ve been waiting and waiting—in torment—for the sound of the bell. Go, Jimmy dear!”
“How long do you expect me to wait for him?”
“Oh, not so awfully long, dear. Just—” She paused. “Just till Eddy comes home. I’m sure he won’t be late. Now hurry!”
“I don’t want to do this,” said Ross. “I can’t stop—”
“Oh, shut up!” she cried; and then tried to atone by patting his cheek. “Jimmy, I’m desperate! Just help me this once! Tomorrow I’ll explain it all, and you’ll see. Only go now!” ”

“ Yet, something seemed to keep him warm—something kept him steadfast and untroubled as he walked, head down, against the storm of wind and sleet, along the lonely roads to the town. He found the barber shop to which Eddy had directed him, and when he entered, the lively little Italian barber did not think his face forbidding.
“I’ve come for the little girl,” said Ross.
“Oh, she’s all right!” cried the barber. “She’s O. K. She eata soom nica dinner—verrie O. K. She sooma kid.” ”

“ You are hardy and valiant, life said; your shoulders are fitted to bear burdens, and bear them you shall. Here before you is a cruel burden, and you cannot turn aside. All the strong ones shall be chosen to suffer for the weak. ”

“ Teagle,” said Gracie. “Them small men is always heavy eaters.”
“Teagle? Who’s he?” asked Eddy.
“Haven’t you heard?” cried Gracie, almost unable to believe that she was to have the bliss of imparting this amazing news. “Why, there was a body found in a lake somewheres.” ”

“ He’s coming tonight, to tell—this thing—and Gayle will go away!”
“Look here!” said Ross. “Let him tell. If this Gayle of yours cares for you, he’ll stand by you. If he doesn’t, you’re well rid of him. No; just wait a minute! Don’t you see? You can’t lie to a man you’re—fond of. You—”
“I’m not going to lie. I’ll just say nothing. The thing is over, Jimmy; over and done with. Mustn’t I even have a chance? Jimmy, I’m young! I’m sorry—God knows I’m sorry for what I did—but it’s done. Nothing can undo it. ”