The Girl and the Bill

  CHAPTER XIV

  PRISONERS IN THE DARK

  Orme's hand still held her skirt.

  "Girl!" he whispered.

  "Yes. Are you hurt?"

  Her voice came to him softly with all its solicitude and sympathy. Sheknelt, to help him if need be, and her warm, supple hand rested gently onhis forehead. He could have remained for a long time as he was, contentwith her touch, but his good sense told him that their safety demandedaction.

  "Not hurt at all," he said, and as she withdrew her hand, he arose."Alcatrante caught me off guard," he explained.

  "Yes, I saw him. There wasn't time to warn you."

  "He has been dogging me for an hour," Orme continued. "I felt as thoughhe were sitting on my shoulders, like an Old Man of the Sea."

  "I know him of old," she replied. "He is never to be trusted."

  "But you--how did you happen to be here, in the Rookery?"

  "In the hope of finding you."

  "Finding me?"

  "I called up the Pere Marquette about five minutes ago, and the clerksaid that you had just been talking to him on the wire, but that hedidn't know where you were. Then I remembered that you knew theWallinghams, and I came to Tom's office to see if he had any idea whereyou were. I was on my way when I passed you in the elevator."

  "Tom and Bessie are at Glenview," explained Orme.

  "Yes, the girl at the inquiry-desk told me. She went to get her hat toleave for the night, and I slipped into this chamber to wait for you."

  "And here we are," Orme laughed--"papers and all. But I wish it weren'tso dark."

  Orme hunted his pockets for a match. He found just one.

  "I don't suppose, Girl, that you happen to have such a thing as a match."

  She laughed lightly. "I'm sorry--no."

  "I have only one," he said. "I'm going to strike it, so that we can getour bearings."

  He scratched the match on his sole. The first precious moment of light hepermitted himself to look at her, fixing her face in his mind as thoughhe were never to see it again. It rejoiced him to find that in thatinstant her eyes also turned to his.

  The interchange of looks was hard for him to break. Only half the matchwas gone before he turned from her, but in that time he had asked andanswered so many unspoken questions--questions which at the moment werestill little more than hopes and yearnings. His heart was beatingrapidly. If she had doubted him, she did not doubt him now. If she hadnot understood his feeling for her, she must understand it now. And thelook in her own eyes--could he question that it was more than friendly?But the necessity of making the most of the light forced him to forgetfor the moment the tender presence of the girl who filled his heart. Hetherefore employed himself with a quick study of their surroundings.

  The chamber was about ten feet square, and lined smoothly with whitetiling. It was designed to show the sanitary construction of theWallingham refrigerator. Orme remembered how Tom had explained it all tohim on a previous visit to Chicago.

  This was merely a storage chamber. There was no connection with anice-chamber, and there were none of the hooks and shelves which wouldmake it complete for its purpose. The only appliance was the thermometer,the coils of which were fitted in flush with the tiling, near the door,and protected by a close metal grating. As for the door itself, itsoutline was a fine seam. There was a handle.

  As the match burned close to his fingers, Orme pulled out his watch. Itwas twenty-nine minutes past five.

  Darkness again.

  Orme groped his way to the door and tugged at the handle. The door wouldnot open; built with air-tight nicety, it did not budge in the least.

  This was as Orme had expected. He knew that Alcatrante would have shotthe bolt. He knew, too, that Alcatrante would be waiting in the corridor,to assure himself that the last clerk left the office without freeing theprisoner--that all the lights were out and the office locked for thenight. Then he would depart, exulting that the papers could not bedelivered; and in the morning Orme would be released.

  But had Alcatrante realized that the chamber was air-tight? Surely he hadnot known that the girl was already there. The air that might barelysuffice to keep one alive until relief came would not suffice for two.

  There was not the least opening to admit of ventilation. Even the placeswhere, in a practical refrigerator, connection would be made with theice-chamber, were blocked up; for that matter, they were on that side ofthe chamber which was built close into the corner of the office.

  Orme drove his heel against the wall. The tiles did not break. Then hestepped back toward the middle of the chamber.

  "Where are you, Girl?" he asked.

  "Here," she answered, very near him.

  He reached out and found her hand, and she did not withdraw it from hisclasp.

  "The rascal has locked us in," he said. "I'm afraid we shall have a longwait."

  "Will it do any good to shout?"

  "No one could hear us through these walls. No, there's nothing to do butremain quiet. But you needn't stand, Girl."

  He led her to the wall. Removing his coat, he folded it and placed it onthe floor for a cushion, and she seated herself upon it. He remainedstanding near by.

  "The papers," he said, "are in that coat you are sitting on."

  He laughed, with a consciousness of the grim and terrible humor of theirsituation--which he hoped she had not yet realized. Here they were, thehard-sought papers in their possession, yet they were helpless even tosave their own lives.

  "I wish you _would_ shout," she said.

  "Very well," he said, and going over to the door, he called out severaltimes with the full power of his lungs. The sound, pent in that narrowroom, fairly crashed in their ears, but there was no answer from without.

  "Don't do it again," she said at last. Then she sighed. "Oh, the irony ofit!" she exclaimed.

  "I know." He laughed. "But don't give up, Girl. We'll deliver thosepapers yet."

  "I will not give up," she said, gravely. "But tell me, how did you getthe papers?"

  Orme began the story of the afternoon's adventures.

  "Why don't you sit down?" she asked.

  "Why"--he stammered--"I----"

  He had been so conscious of his feeling toward her, so conscious of thefact that the one woman in all the world was locked in here alone withhim, that since he arranged her seat he had not trusted himself to benear her. And she did not seem to understand.

  She wished him to sit beside her, not knowing that he felt the almostoverpowering impulse to take her in his arms and crush her close to him.That desire would have been more easily controlled, had he not begun tobelieve that she in some degree returned his feeling for her. If theyescaped from this black prison, he would rest happy in the faith that heraffection for him, now, as he supposed so largely friendly, would ripeninto a glorious and compelling love. But it would not be right for him topresume--to take advantage of a moment in which she might think that shecared for him more than she actually did. Then, too, he already foresawvaguely the possible necessity for an act which would make it best thatshe should not hold him too dear. So long he stood silent that she spokeagain.

  "Do sit down," she said. "I will give you part of your coat."

  There was a tremulous note in her laugh, but as he seated himself, shespoke with great seriousness. "When two persons understand each other aswell as you and I," she said, "and are as near death as you and I, theyneed not be embarrassed by conventions."

  "We never have been very conventional with each other," he replied,shakily. Her shoulder was against his. He could hear her breathing.

  "Now tell me the rest of the story."

  "First I must change your notion that we are near death."

  He could feel that she was looking at him in the blackness. "Don't youthink I know?" she whispered. "They will not find us until to-morrow.There isn't enough air to last. I have known it from the first."

  "Someone will open the door," he replied. "We may have to stay here
quitea while, but----"

  "No, my friend. There is no likelihood that it will be opened. The clerksare leaving for the night."

  He was silent.

  "So finish the story," she went on.

  "Finish the story!" That was all that he could do.

  "Finish the story!" His story and hers--only just begun, and now to endthere in the dark.

  But with a calmness as great as her own, he proceeded to tell all thathad happened to him since he boarded the electric-car at Evanston and sawMaku sitting within. She pressed his hand gently when he described thetrick by which the Japanese had brought the pursuit to an end. Shelaughed when he came to his meeting with the detective in his apartment.The episode with Madame Alia he passed over lightly, for part of itrankled now. Not that he blamed himself foolishly but he wished that ithad not happened.

  "That woman did a fine thing," said the girl.

  He went on to describe his efforts to get free from Alcatrante.

  "And you were under the table in Arima's room," she exclaimed, when hehad finished.

  "I was there; but I couldn't see you, Girl. And you seemed to doubt me."

  "To doubt you?"

  "Don't you remember? You said that no American had the papers; but youadded, unless----"

  "Unless Walsh, the burglar, had played a trick on Poritol and held thetrue papers back. I went straight from Arima's to the jail and hadanother talk with Walsh. He convinced me that he knew nothing at allabout the papers. He seemed to think that they were letters which Poritolwanted for his own purposes."

  "Then, you did not doubt me." Glad relief was in his voice.

  "I have never doubted you," she said, simply.

  There was silence. Only their breathing and the ticking of Orme's watchbroke the stillness.

  "I don't believe that Alcatrante knew that this place was unventilated,"she remarked at last.

  "No; and he didn't know that you were here."

  "He thinks that you will be released in the morning, and that you willthink it wiser to make no charges. What do you suppose his consciencewill say when he learns----"

  "Girl, I simply can't believe that there is no hope for us."

  "What possible chance is there?" Her voice was steady. "The clerks mustall have gone by this time. We can't make ourselves heard."

  "Still, I feel as though I should be fighting with the door."

  "You can't open it."

  "But some one of the clerks going out may have seen that it was bolted.Wouldn't he have pushed the bolt back? I'm going to see."

  He groped to the door and tugged at the handle. The door, for all theeffect his effort had on it, might have been a section of solid wall.

  "Come back," she called.

  He felt his way until his foot touched the coat. As he let himself downbeside her, his hand brushed over her hair, and unconsciously she leanedtoward him. He felt the pressure of her shoulder against his side, andthe touch sent a thrill through him. He leaned back against the wall andstared into the blackness with eyes that saw only visions of thehappiness that might have been.

  "We mustn't make any effort to break out," she said. "It is useless. Andevery time we move about and tug at the door, it makes us breathe thatmuch faster."

  "Yes," he sighed, "I suppose we can only sit here and wait."

  "Do you know," she said softly, "I am wondering why our situation doesnot seem more terrible to me. It should, shouldn't it?"

  "I hardly think so," he replied.

  "The relative importance of our worldly affairs," she went on dreamily,"appears to change when one sees that they are all to stop at once. Theyrecede into the background of the mind. What counts then is, oh, I don'twant to think of it! My father--he----" Her shoulders shook for a momentunder the stress of sudden grief, but she quickly regained her control."There, now," she whispered, "I won't do that."

  For a time they sat in silence. His own whirling thoughts were of a sortthat he could not fathom; they possessed him completely, they destroyed,seemingly, all power of analysis, they made him dumb; and they weretangled inextricably in the blended impressions of possession and loss.

  "But you," she said at last, "is your father living?"

  "No," he replied.

  "And your mother?" she faltered.

  "She has been dead many years. And I have no brothers or sisters."

  "My mother died when I was a little child," she mused. "Death seemed tome much more awful then than it does now."

  "It is always more awful to those who are left than to those who go," hesaid. "But don't think of that yet."

  "We _must_ think of it," she insisted.

  He did not answer.

  "You don't wish to die, do you?" she demanded.

  "No; and I don't wish you to die. Try to take a different view, Girl. Wereally have a chance of getting out."

  "How?"

  "Someone may come."

  "Not at all likely," she sighed.

  "But a chance is a chance, Girl, dear."

  "Oh!" she cried, suddenly. "To think that I have brought you to this!That what you thought would be a little favor to me has brought you todeath."

  She began to sob convulsively.

  It was as though for the first time she realized her responsibility forhis life; as though her confidence in her complete understanding of himhad disappeared and he was again a stranger to her--a stranger whom shehad coolly led to the edge of life with her.

  "Don't, Girl--don't!" he commanded.

  Her self-blame was terrible to him. But she could not check her grief,and finally, hardly knowing what he did, he put his arm around her anddrew her closer to him. Her tear-wet cheek touched his. She had removedher hat, and her hair brushed his forehead.

  "Girl, Girl!" he whispered, "don't you know?--Don't you understand? Ifchance had not kept us together, I would have followed you until I wonyou. From the moment I saw you, I have had no thought that was not boundup with you."

  "But think what I have done to you!" she sobbed. "I never realized thatthere was this danger. And you--you have your own friends, yourinterests. Oh, I----"

  "My interests are all here--with you," he answered. "It is I who am toblame. I should have known what Alcatrante would do."

  "You couldn't know. There was no way----"

  "I sent you up here to wait for me. Then, when he and I came in, I turnedmy back on him, like a blind fool."

  "No, no," she protested.

  "After all," he said, "it was, perhaps, something that neither you nor Icould foresee. No one is to blame. Isn't that the best view to take ofit?"

  Her cheek moved against his as she inclined her head.

  "It may be selfish in me," he went on, "but I can't feel unhappy--now."

  Her sobs had ceased, and she buried her face in his shoulder.

  "I love you, Girl," he said, brokenly. "I don't expect you to care somuch for me--yet. But I must tell you what I feel. There isn't--thereisn't anything I wouldn't do for you, Girl--and be happy doing it."

  She did not speak, and for a long time they sat in silence. Many emotionswere racing through him. His happiness was almost a pain, for it came tohim in this extremity when there was no hope ahead. She had not yieldedherself, but she had not resisted his embrace; even now her head was onhis shoulder. Indeed, he had given her no chance to confess what shemight feel for him.

  Nor would he give her that chance. No, it was better that her love forhim--he knew now that in her heart she must love him--it was better thatit should not be crystallized by definite expression. For he had thoughtof a way by which she, at least, might be saved. With the faintpossibility of rescue for them both, he hesitated to take the step. Andyet every moment he was using that much more of the air that might keepher alive through the night.

  It would be only right to wait until he was reasonably sure that all theclerks in the office had gone. That time could not be long now. Butalready the air was beginning to seem close; it was not so easy tobreathe as it had been.

&
nbsp; Gently putting her from him, he said: "The air will last longer if we liedown. The heart does not need so much blood, then."

  She did not answer, but moved from her seat on his folded coat, and hetook it and arranged it as a pillow and, finding her hand, showed herwhere it was. He heard the rustle of her clothing as she adjusted herselfon the floor. She clung to his hand, while he still sat beside her.

  "Now," he said, cheerfully, "I am going to find out what time it is, bybreaking the crystal of my watch. I've seen blind men tell the time byfeeling the dial."

  His watch was an old hunting-case which had belonged to his father. Heopened it and cracked the crystal with his pocket-knife. As nearly as hecould determine by the sense of touch, it was seven o'clock. BessieWallingham would be wondering by this time why he had broken anengagement with her for the second time that day.

  "There is one thing more to do," he said. "It is seven o'clock; I don'tknow how much longer we shall be able to breathe easily, and I am goingto write a note which will explain matters to the persons who find us--ifwe should not happen to be able to tell them."

  Laboriously he penciled on the back of an old envelope the explanation oftheir presence there, making a complete and careful charge againstAlcatrante. He laid the message on the floor.

  On second thought, he picked it up again and put it in his pocket, for ifby any chance they should be rescued, he might forget it. In that eventits discovery would possibly bring an exposure of facts which the girland her father would not care to have disclosed.

  A faint whisper from the girl.

  "What is it?" he asked, bending tenderly for her answer.

  "You must lie down, too."

  He began to move away, as if to obey her.

  "No," she whispered--"here. I want you near me."

  Slowly he reclined and laid his head on the coat. Her warm breath was onhis face. He felt for her hand, and found it, and it held tightly to his.

  His own mind was still torn with doubts as to the best course. Should heput himself out of the way that she might live? The sacrifice might proveunnecessary. Rescue might come when it was too late for him, yet not toolate, if he did not hurry his own end. And if she truly loved him andknew that she loved him, such an act on his part would leave her aterrible grief which time would hardly cure.

  He tried to analyze their situation more clearly, to throw new light onhis duty. The clerks must all have gone by now. There would be a visit ortwo from a night watchman, perhaps, but there was scarcely one chance ina hundred that he would unbolt the door.

  The air was vitiating rapidly; they could not both live through thenight. But--if she loved him as he loved her, she would be happier to diewith him than to live at the cost of his life.

  He pictured for himself again that last look of her face: its beauty, itsstrength, its sweet sympathy. He seemed to see the stray wisp of hairthat had found its way down upon her cheek. Her perfect lips--how well heremembered!--were the unopened buds of pure womanly passion.

  After all, whether she loved him or not, there would still be much inlife for her.

  Time would cure her sorrow. There would be many claims upon her, and shewould sooner or later resume her normal activities.

  Slowly he disengaged his hand from her clinging fingers. In his otherhand he still held his pocket-knife. To open a vein in his wrist wouldtake but a moment. His life would well away, there on the tiles.

  She would think he was asleep; and then she herself would drift away intounconsciousness which would be broken only after the door was opened inthe morning.

  Bah! His mind cleared in a flash. What a fool he was! Need he doubt herfor an instant? Need he question what she would do when she found that hewas dead? And she would know it quickly. This living pulsing girl besidehim loved him! She had told him in every way except in words. In life andin death they belonged to each other.

  They were one forever. They still lived, and while they lived they musthope. And if hope failed, there still would be love.

  His pent-up emotions broke restraint. With unthinking swiftness, he threwhis arm over her and drew her tight to him. His lips found hers in a longkiss--clung in ecstasy for another, and another.

  Her arms went about his neck. He felt as though her soul had passed fromher lips to his own.

  "My lover!" she whispered. "I think I have always cared."

  "O, Girl, Girl!" He could utter no more.

  With a faint sigh she said: "I am glad it is to be together." She sat up,still holding his hand. "If it need be at all," she added, a new firmnessin her voice.

  "If it need be at all!" Orme searched his mind again for some promise ofescape from this prison which had been so suddenly glorified for them.The smooth, unbreakable walls; the thin seam of the door; thethermometer. Why had he not thought of it before? The thermometer!

  With an exclamation, he leaped to his feet.

  "What is it?" she cried.

  "A chance! A small chance--but still a chance!"

  He found his way to the handle of the door, which his first attempt atescape had taught him was not connected with the outer knob. Then helocated the covering which protected the coils of the thermometer.

  Striking with his heel, he tried to break the metal grating. It would notyield. Again and again he threw his weight into the blows, but withouteffect.

  At last he remembered his pocket-knife. Thrusting one end of it throughthe grating, he prodded at the glass coils within. There was a tinklingsound. He had succeeded.

  He groped his way back to the girl and seated himself beside her. Withthe confession of their love, a new hope had sprung up in them. Theymight still be freed, and, though the air was becoming stifling, neitherof them believed that a joy as great as theirs could be born to live buta few hours.

  For the hundredth time he was saying: "I can't believe that we have knowneach other only one day."

  "And even now," she mused, "you don't know my name. Do you want me totell you?"

  "Not until you are ready."

  "Then wait. It will all come in due form. Someone will say, 'Mr. Orme,Miss----.'"

  "The name doesn't matter," said Orme. "To me you will always bejust--Girl."

  The joyous moments rushed by. She had crept close to him again, and withher head on his shoulder, was saying: "There is so much for us to telleach other."

  "There seems to be only one thing to say now." He kissed her tenderly.

  "Oh, but there is much more."

  "Where shall we begin?" asked Orme.

  "Well, to be matter-of-fact, do you live in Chicago?"

  "No, dear. I live in New York."

  "I didn't even know that," she whispered, "And about me. Our family homehas been in one of the suburbs here since I was a small girl. For severalyears I was sent East to school, and after that I went abroad with somefriends. And since then----"

  "It can't be so very long," he whispered, "though you speak as though itwere decades."

  "It is six years. Since then my father and I have spent our winters inthe East, coming back home for the summers. Just think how much you arelearning about me!"

  Orme lifted her hand to his lips.

  Suddenly the room filled with a light which to their expanded pupilsseemed bright as the sun. The door had been opened and an electric lightin the reception-hall shone in. Framed in the doorway was the outline ofa man.

  Orme shouted joyfully and jumped to his feet.

  "Why--what----?" the man began.

  Orme helped the girl up, and together they went to the outer light. For amoment they could do nothing but breathe, so good the fresh air of thereception-room seemed to them. Then, looking at the man again, Orme sawthat it was the clerk to whom Alcatrante had made his accusation twohours before.

  "How did you come to be in there?" the clerk demanded.

  Orme hesitated; then he decided to make no charges. "I got rid of thatcrazy fellow who was following me around," he said, "and I came back, andthis young lady and I went in to e
xamine your refrigerator. The door wasajar, and someone pushed it shut and locked it. We should have smotheredif you had not come."

  "It was the merest chance," said the clerk. "My work kept me late. As Iwas leaving, I happened to glance at the thermometer dial here. Itregistered below freezing. I couldn't understand that, for there is noice in the refrigerator, so I opened the door to see."

  "I broke the coil," explained Orme, "in the hope that the night watchmanmight be interested in the dial."

  "Well," said the clerk, drawing a long breath, "you had a close shave.There isn't any night watchman--at least not in this office. If I hadbalanced my books on time to-day, you two would have stayed where youwere until to-morrow morning."

  "I will come in to-morrow to see Mr. Wallingham and explain everything. Iwill pay for a new thermometer, too, if he will let me."

  "I don't think he will let you do that," said the clerk. "He will begrateful that nothing worse happened."

  "Yes, I believe he will," replied Orme.

  He glanced at the clock. It was a quarter after seven. Going back intothe chamber which, had been the scene of both their danger and theirhappiness, he got his coat and the girl's hat. The parchment paperscrackled in his pocket as he put the coat on. The girl, meantime,adjusted her hat.

  "Say," said the clerk, holding the outer door open for them to passthrough, "was that fellow's story about your holding notes of ours--wasthere anything in it?"

  "Absolutely untrue," replied Orme.

  "He must have had you confused with somebody else."

  "He must have." Orme held out his hand. "Many thanks to you for savingour lives."

  Then Orme and the girl made their way to the elevator.