The Argosy for May — page 64: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE CRIMSON will have a carriage sent for to take her away.” The abbess bowed, and was about to quit the room when I interposed: “One moment. May I ask that you do not let her know it is I who arranged her release? ”’ 6é But “Let her think it is the police, or any one you will,” I insisted. ‘“ But I do not wish my name to appear. ‘The car- riage, if I can find one at this hour, will be awaiting her in the courtyard in ten minutes. Will you see that she is ready by that time?” Coming upon the little boy, on the steps, I handed him a gold coin and bade him hurry off to the nearest mews for two fiacres, and have them sent to the convent with all speed. Then I joined Bemis at the gate. To the old trapper I told the story. At its end he muttered confusedly: ‘This ain’t a joke, is it?” “T don’t know,” said I. “ My only fear is that I may wake up before we get to Mlle. de Peérier’s home.” “But what are the fwo carriages for?” he queried, as the cabs rumbled up to the gate. ‘“T want her love,’ I replied; “ not her gratitude. If she knows I have saved her from this place she may think she owes me something. You and I will get into this second cab. The abbess will put her in the first. I will give direc- tions beforehand to both drivers. One to go straight to our hotel with her; the other—the one you and I take—to fol- low close to guard her. ‘She need never know. I don’t care to pose as a rescuer, especially after such a tame rescue as this; nor to have her feel indebted to me. She must care for me for mysclf. Not for what I’ve done for her.” ? Which proved to be the most insane plan of my life, and one that was to lead us all far closer to death than most men are brought before their last hour. CHAPTER VII. DISMAY, It was late next morning when I awoke. And long I lay drowsily won- * ‘their gruesome meaning: HARVEST. 201 dering why I felt so at peace with the world. ‘Then I remembered. Elise was safe! | True to my plan, Bemis and I had not made known our presence. Elise had entered the cab in the convent courtyard, and had been driven straight to the hotel, we following in the second vehicle. I had seen her alight and hurry into the hotel, and had noted in that brief glimpse the stricken, harassed look on her sweet face. Small wonder, after all she had been through. I had not broken in upon her meeting with her father. She would be weary. It was no time to intrude. So I waited. And now at dawn I awoke. Across the room Shadrach was snoring mightily. In the street outside I heard the rolling of carts. A shrill newsboy’s voice cut the air with words whose frequency of utterance. had well-nigh robbed them of “List of the Condemned! List of the Condemned!” For thus it was that the news-sheets of the time made known to the public the results of each previous day’s trials, _And people read with bated breath. None could say how soon his or her own name might be emblazoned there, nor when the cockaded guard of the Committee of Public Safety might halt at the door with the dread summons: ‘In the name of the Republic of France! ” That morning I .called on Laurier, the Chevreuse advocate. He had re- turned from ‘Touraine the preceding afternoon. But I got slight benefit from the visit. Old Laurier declared himself utterly at a loss. ~“ For months I have been at work on the case,” he said in doleful perplex- ity. “It seemed moderately simple at first. Indeed, I cannot say why it has not remained so. But at every turn some new and unforeseen obstacle blocks my way. Some legal quibble due to the changed conditions, or else a setback of a Clerical sort. It seems as if some wily foe were working in the dark against us.” ‘You spoke in your letter,” I sug- gested, “of another claimant, who had vowed to fight my claim to the last ditch. Can you tell me who he is, and where I may find him? I may as well MICLOOOKS (C@ (C@