A little tinkling bell broke the spell that was upon him—the old-fashioned doorbell in the Chapparelle kitchen just above the door that led to the front of the house. He started and lifted his head. He could see the vibration of the old bell on its rusty spring just as he had watched it in wonder the first time he had seen it as a child. Mrs. Chapparelle was hastening with her quick step toopen the door. He caught the flutter of her apron as she passed into the hall. And what would she meet at the door? Were they bringing Bessie’s body home, so soon—! Or was it merely someone sent to break the news? Oh, he ought to have prepared her for it. He ought to be in there now lying at her feet and begging her forgiveness, helping her to bear the awful sorrow that he had brought upon her. She had been kind to him, and he ought to be brave enough to face things and do anything there was to do—but instead he was flying down the alley on feet that trembled so much they could scarcely bear his weight, feet that were leaden and would not respond to the desperate need that was upon him, feet that seemed to clatter on the smooth cement as if they were made of steel. Someone would hear him. They would be after him. No one else would dash that way from a house of sorrow save a murderer! Coward! He was a coward! A sneak and a coward!
And he loved Bessie! Yes, he knew now that was why he was so glad when he saw her standing on the corner after all those years—glad she finally yielded to his request and rode with him, because she had suddenly seemed to him the desire of his heart, the conclusion of all the scattered loves and longings of his young life. How pretty she had been! And now she was dead!
His heart cried out to be with her, to cry into her little dead ear that he was sorry, to make her know before she was utterly gone, before her visible form was gone out of this earth, how he wished he was back in the childhood days with her to play with always. He drew a breath like a sob as he hurried along, and apasserby turned and looked after him. With a kind of sixth sense he understood that he had laid himself open to suspicion, and cut sharply down another turn into a labyrinth of streets, making hairbreadth escapes, dashing between taxis, scuttling down dark alleys, and across vacant lots, once diving through a garage in mad haste with the hope of finding a car he could hire, and then afraid to ask anyone about it. And all the time something in his soul was lashing him with scorn. Coward! Coward! it called him. Bearing a lofty name, wearing the insignia of wealth and culture, yet too low to go back and face his mistakes and follies, too low to face the woman he had robbed of her child and tell her how troubled his own heart was and confess his sin.
Murray Van Rensselaer had been used to boasting that he was not afraid of anything. But he was afraid now! He was fleeing from the retribution that he was sure was close upon his footsteps. Something in his heart wanted to go back and do the manly thing but could not! His very feet were afraid and would not obey. He had no power in him to do anything but flee!
Chapter 4
Sometime in the night he found himself walking along a country road. How he got there or what hour it was he did not know. He was wearier than he had ever been in his life before. The expensive shoes he was wearing were not built for the kind of jaunt he had been taking. He had been dressed for an afternoon of frivolity when he started out from home. There had been the possibility of stopping almost anywhere before dinnertime, and he had not intended a hike when he dressed. His shoes pierced him with stabs of pain every step he took. They were soaked with water from a stream he had forded somewhere. It was very hazy in his mind whether the stream had been in the gutter of the city where the outflow from a fire engine had been flooding down the street or whether he had sometime crossed a brook since he left the outskirts of town. Either of these things seemed possible. The part of him that did the thinking seemed to have been asleep and was just coming awake painfully.
He was wet to the skin with perspiration and was exhausted in every nerve and sinew. He wanted nothing in life so much as a hot shower and a bed for twenty-four hours. He was hungry and thirsty. Oh! Thirsty! He would give his life for a drink! Yet he dared not try to find one. And now he knew it had been a brook he had waded, for he remembered stooping down and lapping water from his hand. But it had not satisfied. He wanted something stronger. His nerves under the terrible strain of the last few hours were crying out for stimulant. He had not even a cigarette left—and he dared not go near enough to human habitation to purchase any. Oh yes, he had money, a whole roll of it. He felt in his pocket to make sure. He had taken it out of his bank that morning, cashed the whole of his allowance check, to pay several bills that had been hounding him, things he did not want Dad to know about. Of course there were those things he had bought for Bessie and had sent to her. He was glad he had done that much for her before he killed her. Yet what good would it ever do her now? She was dead. And her mother would never know where they came from. Indeed Bessie would not know either. He had told her they were for a friend and he wanted her help in selecting them. Perhaps Bessie would not have liked his gift after all. He had not thought of that before. Girls of her class—but she was not any class—no type that he knew—just one of her kind, so how could he judge? But somehow it dawned upon him that Bessie would not have taken expensive gifts evenfrom him, an old friend. That entered his consciousness with a dull thud of disappointment. But then, Bessie would never know now that he had sent them. Or did they know after death? Was there a hereafter? He knew Mrs. Chapparelle believed in one. She used to talk about heaven as if it were another room, a best room, where she would one day go and dress up all the time in white. At least that was what his childish imagination had gleaned from the stories she used to read to him and Bessie. But then, if Bessie knew about the gifts, she would also know his heart—Wait! Would he want her to know his heart—all his life?
He groaned aloud and then held his breath lest the night had heard him. Oh, he was crazy! He must find a spot to lie down, or else he might as well go and give himself up to justice. He was not fit to protect himself. He was foolish with sleep.
He crept into a wood at last, on a hillside above the road, and threw himself down exhausted among some bushes quite hidden from the road in the darkness.
He was not conscious of anything as he drifted away into exhausted sleep. It was as if he with all his overwhelming burden of disgrace and horror and fear was being dragged down through the ooze of the earth out of sight forever, being obliterated, and glad that it was so.
He woke in the late morning with a sense of bewilderment and sickness upon him. The light was shining broad across his face and seemed focused upon his heavy, smarting eyes. He lay for an instant trying to think what it was all about, chilled to the boneand sore in every fiber. A ringing sound was in his ears, and when he tried to rise, the earth swam about him. His whole pampered being was crying out for food. Never in his life before had he missed a meal and gone so far and felt so much. What was it all about?
And then his memory reminded him sharply of the facts. He was a murderer, an outcast from his father’s house upon the face of the earth, and it was necessary that he should go without food and go far, but where, and to what end? There would be no place that he could go but that he would have to move farther. Why not end it all here and be done with it? Perhaps that would be a good way to make amends to Bessie. He had killed her; he would kill himself, and if there was a place hereafter he would find her and tell her it was the only decent thing he could do, having sent her, to come himself and see that she was cared for. Yet when he toyed with the thought somewhat sentimentally in his misery, he knew he had not the courage to do it even for gallantry. And it seemed a useless kind of thing to do. Nothing was of any use anyway! Why had he ever gotten into such a mess? Only yesterday morning at this time he was starting off for the country club and an afternoon’s golf. He took out his watch and looked at it. It had stopped! The hands were pointing to ten minutes after one. Probably he had forgotten to wind it. It must be later than that.
A sudden roar came down the road below him, growing in volume as it
approached. He struggled to a sitting posture and looked out from his hiding place. It was a truck going downthe road, and behind it came two other cars at a little distance apart. One carried a man in uniform. He could see the glitter of brass buttons and a touch of brightness on his cap. He drew back suddenly and crouched, his fear upon him once more. Perhaps that was an officer out to hunt for him. If it was late in the day, by this time the newspapers had gotten word of it! He could see the headlines: SON OF CHARLES Van RENSSELAER A MURDERER! DRIVES GIRL TO HER DEATH. TAKES BODY TO HOSPITAL AND ESCAPES.
He shuddered, and a ghastly pallor settled upon him. Incredible that such a fate could have overtaken him in a few short hours, and he should have been reduced to hiding in the bushes for safety! He must get out of here, and at once! Now while there were no more cars in sight. The road appeared to be comparatively free from travelers. Perhaps he could keep under cover and get to some small town where he might venture to purchase some food. He certainly could not keep on walking without eating. He struggled to his feet in a panic and found every joint and muscle stiff and sore and his feet stinging with pain as soon as he stood upon them. He glanced down and saw that his handsome overcoat was torn in a jagged line from shoulder to hem, and a bit of fur was sticking out through the opening. That must have been done when he climbed that barbed-wire fence in the dark!
He passed his hand over his usually clean-shaven face and found it rough and bristly. He tried to smooth his hair and pull his hat down over his eyes, but even this movement was an effort. How was he to go on? Yet he must. He was haunted by a prison cell and the electric chair, preceded by a long, drawn-out trial, in which his entire life would be spread to public gaze. His beautiful mother and haughty, sarcastic father would be dragged in the dust with their proud name and fame, and Mother Chapparelle in her black garments would sit and watch him with sad, forgiving eyes. Strange that he knew even now in his shame that her eyes would be forgiving through their sorrow.
Yet paramount to all this was the piercing, insistent fact that he was hungry. He had never quite known hunger before. He felt in his pockets in vain hope of finding a stray cigarette, but only old letters and programs, souvenirs of his carefree life, came to his hand. Then it came to him that he must destroy these, here where he was in shelter and the ground was wet. He could make a hasty fire and destroy everything that would identify him if he should be caught.
He felt for his little gold matchbox and, stooping painfully, lighted a small pile of letters and papers and bits of trinkets. He burned his tie and a couple of handkerchiefs with his initials. There were his watch and cufflinks, and the gold cigarette case, all bearing initials. He could throw those in the bushes if there was danger. Perhaps he had better get rid of them at once, however, while there was a chance. What if he should bury them? He looked about for something with which to dig. Digging had never been a pastime with him. He awkwardly turned up a few chunks of mud with his hands then took out his knife, a gold one attachedto his watch chain, and burrowed a little farther, not getting much below the surface. He put the trinkets into his glove and laid them into the earth with a strange feeling that he was attending the burial of something precious. Then after he had walked a few steps he deliberately returned and unearthed the things, restoring them to his pocket. He had had a sudden realization that he was parting with what he might need badly. There was not enough money in his pocket to carry him far, nor keep him long, and these trinkets would help out. They were no more an identification than all the rest of him. Why throw them away? He looked regretfully at the ashes of his two fine handkerchiefs, the last he would ever have with that initial. And he would need them. He turned and looked back over the road he had traveled in the night and seemed to see all the things he was leaving, his home, his friends, his club, his comfortable living! What a fool he had been. If he had not angered his father and annoyed his mother, and “got in bad” with all his relations everywhere, they would have stood by him now and helped him out of this scrape somehow, just as they had always done before.
Then in the middle of the distance where the panorama of his life had been passing, there arose a face, smiling and sweet, with a rose flush on the cheeks, a light in the eyes, sunshine in the hair, and he remembered! As he looked the face grew white, and the lids fell over the blue eyes, and she was gone!
Sick with the memory, he turned and fled; on feet that were sore, with limbs that were aching, with eyes that were blinded withunaccustomed tears, he stumbled on across rough fields, through woods and meadows and more woods, always woods when he could strike them.
And coming out toward evening with a gnawing faintness at the pit of his stomach, where he could see across a valley, he noted a little trolley car like a toy in the distance sliding along the road, and a small village of neat little houses about a mile away. Eagerly he watched the car as it slid on across the land, almost as small as a fly it seemed, and soon it was a mere speck on the way to the village. Where there was one trolley there were more. Could he dare try for the next one and go to that village for something to eat? He could not go on much longer without food. Or else he would fall by the wayside, and the publicity which his mother so hated—that kind of publicity which was not pretty—would be sure to find him out. He must not drag down his mother’s and his father’s name. He must hold out to save them so much at least.
His mind had grown clearer through the day, as he had tramped painfully hour after hour and thought it out. He knew that the only thing to do was to get far away, to someplace where law could not find him out and fetch him back for punishment. To do that successfully he must disguise himself somehow. He must get rid of his clothes little by little and get other clothes. He must grow a beard and change his haircut and act a part. He had been good at acting a part for fun in the old days. He was always in demand for theatricals. Could he do it now when Fear was his master?
He stumbled across the meadows one by one, painfully overthe fences, and at last stood in the ditch by the side of the shining rails with the long, low sunset rays gilding them into bright gold. He waited with trembling knees and watched eagerly for the coming of the car, and when at last a faint hum and a distant whistle announced that it was not far off, he began to fairly shake in his anxiety. Would there be many people on board? Would he dare take the risk? Still, he must take it sometime, for he could not hold out much longer.
There were only three women on board, and they did not notice the haggard young fellow who stumbled into the backseat and pulled his hat down over his eyes. They were talking in clear intimate voices that carried a sense of their feeling at home in the car. They told about Mary’s engagement, and how her future mother-in-law was giving a dinner for her, and how proud John was of her and was getting her a little Ford coupe to run around in. They talked of the weather and little pleasant everyday things that belonged to a world in which the man in the backseat had no part of. They whispered in lower tones of how it was rumored that Bob Sleighton was making money in bootlegging, and he got a glimpse for the first time in his life of how the quiet, respectable, nondrinking world think of people who break the law in that way. And then they told in detail how they scalloped oysters and made angel cake, and just the degree of brownness that a chicken should be when it was roasted right, until Murray Van Rensselaer, sitting so hungry in his backseat, could fairly smell them all as they came out of the oven, and felt as if he must cry like a child.
Chapter 5
It was dusk when he slid stealthily out of the car, having waited with his head turned toward the darkening window till each of the three women had gotten off at her particular corner. He had spotted a bakery window, and there he made his way, ordering everything they had on their meager menu. But then when he had gotten it, he could only eat a few bites, for somehow Bessie’s white face as he carried her into the hospital kept coming between him and the food and sickened him. Somehow he could not get interested in eating any more, and he paid his bill and left a tip that the girl be
hind the counter did not in the least understand. She ran out to find him and give it back, but he had gone into a little haberdashery shop, and so she missed him.
He bought a cheap cap of plain tweed and a black necktie. Somehow it did not seem decent going around without any necktie. He walked three blocks and threw his old hat far into avacant lot, then boarded the next trolley, and so went on, where he did not know. He had not known the name of the little town where he had eaten. He began to wonder where he was. He seemed a long way from home, but when a few minutes later the motor-man called a name, he recognized a town only about thirty miles from his home city. Was it possible he had walked all that time and only gotten thirty miles away? He must have been going in a circle! And the newspapers would have full descriptions of him by this time posted everywhere! He was not safe anywhere! What should he do? Where go? Why go anywhere?
He lifted his eyes in despair to the advertisements overhead, for it seemed to him that every man in the car was looking at him suspiciously. He tried to appear unconcerned. He felt his chin to see if his beard had grown any, but his face was unsuitably smooth. He tried to make himself read the advertisements, Chiclets and chewing gum, and baked beans. Toothpaste, and wallpaper, and cigarettes.
Then suddenly his attention was riveted on the sign just across from where he sat. The letters stood out so clearly in red and black on the white background as if they were fairly beckoning to get his attention, as if somebody had just written them to attract his eye; as if it were a burning message for his need: YE MUST BE BORN AGAIN!