The Secret Mark

  CHAPTER XII THE TRIAL BY FIRE

  The moment Lucile heard the lock click behind her she knew that she wastrapped. But her fighting blood was up. Even had the door been wide openshe would not have retreated.

  "You release that child," she said through cold, set lips.

  "Yes, you tell me 'release the child,'" said the woman, with an attemptat sarcasm; "you who are so brave, who have a companion who is like anox, who likes to beat up poor women on the street. You say, 'release thechild.' You say that. And the child, she is my own stepdaughter."

  "I--I don't believe it," said Lucile stoutly.

  "It is true."

  "If it is true, you have no right to abuse her--you are not fit to be anychild's mother."

  "Not fit," the woman's face became purple with rage. "I am no good, shesays; not fit!" She advanced threateningly toward Lucile.

  "Now, now," she stormed, "we have you where we want you. Now we shallshow you whether or not we can do as we please with the child that was sovery kindly given to us." She made a move toward the stove, from whichthe handle to the heavy poker protruded. By this time the end must be redhot.

  "It's no use to threaten me," said Lucile calmly. "I wouldn't leave theroom if I might. If I did it would be to bring an officer. I mean to seethat the child is treated as a human being and not as a dog."

  The woman's face once more became purple. She seemed petrified, quiteunable to move, from sheer rage.

  But the man, a sallow-complexioned person with a perpetual leer in onecorner of his mouth, started for the stove.

  With a quick spring Lucile reached the handle of the poker first. Seizingit, she drew it, white hot, from the fire. The man sprang back in fear.The woman gripped the rounds of a heavy chair and made as if to lift itfor a blow.

  Scarcely realizing that she was imitating her hero of fiction, shebrought the glowing iron close to the white and tender flesh of herforearm.

  "You think you can frighten me," she smiled. "You think you can dosomething to me which will cause me to cease to attempt to protect thatchild. Perhaps you would torture me. I will prove to you that you cannotfrighten me. What I have been doing is right. The world was made forpeople to live in who do right. If one may not always do right, then lifeis not worth living."

  The fiery weapon came closer to her arm. The woman stared at her as iffascinated. The child, who had been silently struggling at her bands,paused in open-mouthed astonishment. For once the leer on the man's lipsvanished.

  Then, of a sudden, as she appeared to catch the meaning of it all, thechild gave forth a piercing scream.

  The next instant there came a loud pounding at the door as a gruff voicethundered:

  "Here, you in there! Open up!"

  The woman dropped upon the ill-kept bed in a real or pretended swoon.Lucile allowed the poker to drop to her side. With trembling fingers theman unloosed the door and the next instant they were looking into thefaces of a police sergeant and two other officers of the law.

  "What's going on here?" demanded the sergeant.

  Suddenly recovering from her swoon, the woman sprang to her feet.

  "That young lady," she pointed an accusing finger at Lucile, "isattempting to break up our home."

  The officer looked them over one by one.

  "What's the girl tied up for?" he demanded.

  "It's the only way we can keep her home," said the woman. "That younglady's been enticing her away; her and an old wretch of a man."

  "Your daughter?"

  "My adopted daughter."

  "What about it, little one?" the officer stepped over, and cutting thegirl's bands, placed a hand on the child's head. "Is what she says true?"

  "I--I don't know," she faltered. Her knees trembled so she could scarcelystand. "I never saw the young lady until now but I--I think she iswonderful."

  "Is this woman your stepmother."

  The girl hung her head.

  "Do you wish to stay with her?"

  "Oh! Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu! No! No! No! Oh, Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu!"

  The child in her agony of fright and grief threw herself face down uponthe bed.

  The officer, seating himself beside her, smoothed her hair with his hugeright hand until she was quiet, then bit by bit got from her the story ofher experiences in this great American city. Lucile listened eagerly asthe little girl talked falteringly.

  A Belgian refugee, she had been brought to the United States during thewar, and because this unprincipled pair spoke French, which she toounderstood, the good-hearted but misguided people who had her in chargehad given her over to them without fully looking up their record.

  Because she was small and had an appealing face, and because she was arefugee, they had set her to begging on the street and had more than onceasked her to steal.

  Having been brought up by conscientious parents, all this was repulsiveto her. So one day she had run away. She had wandered the streets of thegreat, unfriendly city until, almost at the point of starvation, she hadbeen taken home by a very old man, a Frenchman.

  "French," she said, "but not like these," she pointed a finger of scornat the man and woman. "A French gentleman. A very, very wonderful man."

  She had lived with him and had helped him all she could. Then, one night,as she was on an errand for him, the woman, her stepmother, had foundher. She had been seized and dragged along the street. But by somestrange chance she did not at all understand, she had been rescued.

  That night she had been carrying a book. The book belonged to her agedbenefactor and was much prized by him. Thinking that her foster motherhad the book, she had dared return to ask for it.

  She proceeded to relate what had happened in that room and ended with aplea that she might be allowed to return to the cottage on Tyler street.

  "Are you interested in this child?" the officer asked Lucile.

  "I surely am."

  "Want to see that she gets safely home?"

  "I--I will."

  "And see here," the officer turned a stern face on the others, "if youinterfere with this child in the future, we've got enough on you to putyou away. You ain't fit to be no child's parents. Far as I can tell, thishere old man is. This case, for the present, is settled out of court.See!"

  He motioned to his subordinates. They stood at attention until Lucile andthe child passed out, then followed.

  The sergeant saw the girl and the child safely on the elevated platform,then, tipping his hat, mumbled:

  "Good luck and thank y' miss. I've got two of 'em myself. An' if anythingever happened to me, I'd like nothin' better'n to have you take aninterest in 'em."

  Something rose up in Lucile's throat and choked her. She could only nodher thanks. The next instant they went rattling away, bound for themystery cottage on Tyler street.

  For once Lucile felt richly repaid for all the doubt, perplexity andsleepless hours she had gone through.

  "It's all very strange and mysterious," she told herself, "but somehow,sometime, it will all come out right."

  As she sat there absorbed in her own thoughts, she suddenly becameconscious of the fact that the child at her side was silently weeping.

  "Why!" she exclaimed, "what are you crying for? You are going back toyour cottage and to your kind old man."

  "The book," whispered the child; "it is gone. I can never return it."

  A sudden impulse seized Lucile, an impulse she could scarcely resist. Shewanted to take the child in her arms and say:

  "Dear little girl, I have the book in my room. I will bring it to youto-morrow."

  She did not say it. She could not. As far as she knew, the old man had noright to the book; it belonged to Frank Morrow.

  What she did say was, "I shouldn't worry any more about it if I were you.I am sure it will come out all right in the end."

  Then, before they knew it, they were off the elevated train and walkingtoward Tyler street and Lucile was saying to herself, "I wonder whatne
xt." Hand-in-hand the two made their way to the door of the dingy oldcottage.