The Pace That Kills Part 11

Then from within came the melody of her voice: "Who is it?"

"It is I," he answered, and straightened himself. It seemed odd to him she did not open the door at once. "I want a word with you," he added, after a pause. But still the door was locked.

"Justine," he called again, "do you not hear me? I want to speak to you."

Then through the slender woodwork at his side a whisper filtered, the dumb voice of one whom madness may have in charge.

"It is not to speak you come, it is to kill."

"Justine!" he cried. All the agony of his life he distilled into her name, "Justine!"

"You killed your child before, you shall not kill another now."

VI.

"City Hall!"

The brakemen were shouting the station through the emptiness of the "Elevated."

In the car in which Mistrial sat a drunken sailor lolled, and a pretty girl of the Sixth Avenue type was eating a confection. Above her, on a panel opposite, the advertis.e.m.e.nt of a cough remedy shone in blue; beyond was a particolored notice of tennis blazers: and, between them, a text from Mark, in black letters, jumped out from a background of white:

"What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?"

During the journey from his home Mistrial had contemplated that text.

Not continuously, however. For a little s.p.a.ce his eyes had grazed the retreating throngs over which the train was hurrying, and had rested on the insufferable ugliness of the Bowery. Once, too, he had found himself staring at the girl who sat opposite, and once he had detected within him some envy of the sailor sprawling at her side. But, all the while, that text was with him, and to the jar of the car he repeated for refrain a paraphrase of his own: "How shall it damage a man if he lose his own soul and gain the whole world?"

How indeed? Surely he had tried. For three years the effort had been constant. It was because of it he had married, it was for this he had sought to throttle his child. What his failure had been, Dunellen's posthumous felony and Justine's ultimate reproach indistinctly yet clearly conveyed. No, the world was not gained; he had played his best and he had lost: he could never recover it now.

And as the brakeman bawled in his face, the paraphrase of the text was with him. He rose and pa.s.sed from the car. Beneath he could discern a gra.s.s-plot of the City Park. In spite of the night it was visibly green.

The sky was leaden as a military uniform that has been dragged through the mud. From a window of the Tribune Building came a vomit of vapor.

And above in a steeple a clock marked twelve.

The stairway led him down to the street. For a moment he hesitated; the locality was unfamiliar. But a toll-gate attracted him; he approached it, paid a penny, and moved onto the bridge. There, he discovered that on either side of him were iron fences and iron rails; he was on the middle of the bridge, not at the side. A train shot by. He turned again and reissued from the gate.

On the corner was another entrance, and through it he saw a carriage pa.s.s. It was that way, he knew; and he would have followed the carriage, but a policeman touched him on the arm.

"Got a permit?"

Mistrial shook his head. Why should he have a permit? And, moved perhaps by the mute surprise his face expressed, the policeman explained that the ordinary pedestrian was allowed to cross only through the safeguards of the middle path.

"I will get a cab," he reflected, and for his convenience he discerned one loitering across the way. This he entered, gave an order to the driver, and presently, after paying another toll, rolled off the stonework on to wood.

He craned his neck. Just beyond, a column of stone rose inordinately to the lowering sky; he could see the water-front of the city; opposite was Brooklyn, and in front the lights of Staten Island glowed distantly and dim. The cab was moving slowly. He took some coin from his pocket, placed it on the seat, opened the door, and, stepping from the moving vehicle, looked at the driver. The latter, however, had not noticed him and was continuing his way leisurely over the bridge and on and into the night. Mistrial let him go undetained. He had work now to do, and it was necessary for him to do it quickly; at any moment another carriage might pa.s.s or some one happen that way.

Beneath, far down, a barge was moving. He could see the lights; they approached the bridge and vanished within it. The railing, now, he saw was too high to vault, and moreover there was a bar above it that might interfere. He tossed his hat aside and clambered on the iron rail.

"You'll get six months for that," some one was crying.

But to the threat Mistrial paid no heed. He had crossed the rail, his hands relaxed, and just as he dropped straight down to the river below, he could see a policeman, his club uplifted, hanging over the fence, promising him the pleasures of imprisonment. Such was his last glimpse of earth. A mult.i.tude of lights danced before his eyes; every nerve in his body tingled; his ears were filled with sudden sounds; he felt himself incased in ice; then something snapped, and all was blank.

The next day a rumor of the suicide was bruited through the clubs.

"What do you think of it, Jones?" Yarde asked.

The novelist plucked at his beard. There were times when he himself did not know what he thought. In this instance, however, he had already learned of the disaster that had overtaken the Dunellen estate, and weaving two and two sagaciously together, he answered with a shrug.

"What do I think of it? I think he died like a man who knew how to live"--an epitaph which pleased him so much that he got his card-case out and wrote it down.

THE END.

By the same Author.

A TRANSACTION IN HEARTS.

EDEN.

THE TRUTH ABOUT TRISTREM VARICK.

MR. INCOUL'S MISADVENTURE.

A TRANSIENT GUEST.

THE ANATOMY OF NEGATION.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF DISENCHANTMENT.

Belford, Clarke & Co's New Books

The Truth about Tristem Varick. By EDGAR SALTUS.

"Our admiration for the perfection of its style, the brilliancy of its expressions, and the exquisite art with which the story has been handled, is unbounded."--_Lippincott's Magazine._

"The plot is admirable, style exquisite; as a piece of art the style demands unstinted commendation."--_St. John's (N. B.) Progress._

"A very surprising but fascinating love-story."--_Amsterdam Democrat._

Eden. By EDGAR SALTUS.

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