Part 55 (1/2)

She did not struggle. The warm, rich lips were yielding to his; he could feel the throb, the life in the young, lithe form against his own. She was his--his! The years, the past, all were swept away--and she was his at last--his for always. And there came a mighty sense of kings.h.i.+p upon him, as though all the world were at his feet, and virility, and a great, glad strength above all other men's, and a song was in his soul, a song triumphant--for she was his!

”You!” he cried out--and strained her to him. ”You!” he cried again--and kissed her lips and her eyelids and her lips again.

And then her head was buried on his shoulder, and she was crying softly; but after a moment she raised her hands and laid them upon his face, and held them there, and because it was dark, dared to raise her head as well, and her eyes to look into his.

Then for a long time they stood there so, and for a long time neither spoke--and then with a little startled, broken cry, as though the peril and the menace hanging over them, forgotten for the moment, were thrust like a knife stab suddenly upon her, she drew herself away, and ran from him, and went and got a lamp, and lighted it, and set it upon the table.

And Jimmie Dale, still standing there, watched her. How gloriously her eyes shone, dimmed and misty with the tears that filled them though they were! And there was nothing incongruous in the rags that clothed her, in the squalour and poverty of the bare room, in the white furrows that the tears had plowed through the grime and make-up on her cheeks.

”You wonderful, wonderful woman!” Jimmie Dale whispered.

She shook her head as though almost in self-reproach.

”I am not wonderful, Jimmie,” she said, in a low voice. ”I”--and then she caught his arm, and her voice broke a little--”I've brought you into this--probably to your death. Jimmie, tell me what happened last night, and since then. I--I've thought at times to-day I should go mad. Oh, Jimmie, there is so much to say to-night, so much to do if--if we are ever to be together for--for always. Last night, Jimmie--the telephone--I knew there was danger--that all had gone wrong--what was it?”

His arms were around her shoulders, drawing her close to him again.

”I found the wires tapped,” he said slowly.

”Yes, and--and the man you met--the chauffeur?”

”He is dead,” Jimmie Dale answered gently.

He felt her hand close with a quick, spasmodic clutch upon his arm; her face grew white--and for a moment she turned away her head.

”And--and the package?” she asked presently.

”I do not know,” replied Jimmie Dale. ”He did not have it with him; he--”

”Wait!” she interrupted quickly. ”We are only wasting time like this!

Tell me everything, everything just as it happened, everything from the moment you received my letter.”

And, holding her there in his arms, softening as best he could the more brutal details, he told her. And, at the end, for a little while she was silent; then in a strained, impulsive way she asked again:

”The chauffeur--you are sure--you are positive that he is dead?”

”Yes,” said Jimmie Dale grimly; ”I am sure.” And then the pent-up flood of questions burst from his lips. Who was the chauffeur? The package, the box numbered 428, and John Johansson? And the Crime Club? And the issue at stake? The danger, the peril that surrounded her? And she--above all--more than anything else--about herself--her strange life, its mystery?

She checked him with a strangely wistful touch of her finger upon his lips, with a queer, pathetic shake of her head.

”No, Jimmie; not that way. You would never understand. I cannot--”

”But I am to know--now! Surely I am to know NOW!” he cried, a sudden sense of dismay upon him. Three years! Three years--and always the ”next” time! ”I must know now, if I am to help you!”

She smiled a little wanly at him, as she drew herself away, and, dropping into a chair, placed her elbows on the rickety table, cupping her chin in her hands.

”Yes; you are to know now,” she said, almost as though she were talking to herself; then, with a swift intake of her breath, impulsively: ”Jimmie! Jimmie! I had thought that it would be all so different when--when you came. That--that I would have nothing to fear--for you--for me--because--it would be all over. And now you are here, Jimmie--and, oh, thank G.o.d for you!--but I feel to-night almost--almost as though it were hopeless, that--that we were beaten.”

”Beaten!” He stepped quickly to the table, and sat down, and took one of her hands away from her face to hold it in both his own. ”Beaten!”