The Girl Who Had No God/Part 3

Ward had risen. He towered far above Elinor. Because of his heavy shoulders, he never looked his full height. Boroday, in the corridor, stole a moment from his anxieties to find the young clergyman every inch of a man, and to throw him the grudging admiration of defeated middle-age for youth and vibrant life.

"Then I shall not send for the rector?"

"Please, no."

"Is there anything at all that I can do?"

"Do the—the police know about this?"

"Surely. I suppose you have been told what happened."

"They will tell ms nothing."

There was a car coming up the hill. That would be it. Boroday eased his aching arm. He did not dare a sling, but the hand was thrust in the pocket of his coat. If only the hemorrhage did not start again! He braced himself and watched.

"It was a rubbery, you know that?" said Ward, in the library. He picked his words carefully. "As I got the story, a taxicab on its way to the bank was held up near the Record office. Your father had stepped to the curb to hail the taxi, and—it happened then, a—a stray bullet from one of the bandits' guns."

Boroday, eyes on the car, heard the statement, and, with the chief coming up the steps from the road to the garden, took the time to repudiate it.

"Pardon!" he said, "it was not a weapon in the hands of the bandits. It was the revolver of the bank messenger."

Ward turned in surprise. Boroday's eyes were fixed on Elinor's, with reassurance in their depths. The assistant rector was not subtle, but he had a curious feeling of something behind all this. He was uncomfortable.

"I trust," he said earnestly, "that these various outrages will be at an end now. Surely the police—"

"Possibly." The anarchist's gaze wandered to the garden, where even then the chief was making his way toward the house. "Of course, the bandits are trained men of unusual intelligence. If the police were of intelligence to cope with them—"

"Yes?"

"They would not be on the force, at meager salaries and petty graft. They would be"—he shrugged his shoulders—"bandits themselves, very possibly."

Ward left after that—left with an uncomfortable feeling of having got nowhere. He was convinced of one thing, death, which for him was an open gateway, was for this girl a closed and fastened door. And he knew something else. No other woman had ever so profoundly impressed him as this girl who without hope in her grief met it with a high head and courageous eyes.

He felt a certain comfort in one thing. Elinor had made a concession, and Hilary Kingston, lavish giver to the parish poor, was to be buried from Saint Jude's.

The chief met Mr Ward on the terrace and took off his hat. Boroday, in the dim hall, felt a certain sense of content. Nothing could have been more auspicious, could have set his stage better for his little drama, than the presence of the young clergyman. The whole scene gained tone, decorum.

The chiefs visit was short. They had followed the bandit's car and lost it, and finding himself in the neighborhood—

"Be assured," he said to Elinor, in his best manner, "that we'll not rest until this thing is cleared up. The community"—he cleared his throat—"the community will not lose one of its best citizens without a violent protest"

With the coroner he went up the stairs and into old Hilary's room. The chief glanced about while the hasty examination was being made.

"Nice room," he said. "But a jolly lot of good it does the old gentleman now! Nice little girl downstairs, too. I've seen that chap in the hall somewhere."

The coroner drew the sheet over old Hilary's peaceful face.

"The preacher? They all look alike. It's the vest and the collar."

"The other man, with the accent. German, I take it, or—Russian."

Boroday was waiting for them at the foot of the staircase. in the library was a tray, with drinks and sandwiches. The shades had been lowered.

The chief ate and drank. And as often as he raised his glass he looked at the Russian over it. At last:

"Haven't we met somewhere, Mr."

"Boroday. I rather think not."

"You remind me of someone—I'll place you, or the person you resemble, pretty soon. I have a slow mind. It's like an Airedale dog; it's a long time getting started, but when it begins it hangs on like the devil."

The drinks were cold, and the house cool. The prospect of starting out in the heat and dust did not allure the two men. Sitting there at his ease, the chief ran over the points of the outrage.

"In several ways," he observed comfortably, "the affair resembles one that happened in St. Louis several years ago. There's the same quality of audacity—and there are other things."

Quite suddenly a light came into his eyes.

"Ah!" he said, bending forward toward Boroday. "I told you I'd get it. It was in St. Louis I saw you!"

Their glances clashed, the chief's intent, the Russian's cool, amused.

"The dog," said Boroday, "holds on well, but—to the wrong throat."

"You have never been in St. Louis?"

"Never."

Elinor lived alone after the funeral. Henrietta, who had now a chance to practice her favorite vice of thrift, was for sending away the other servants.

"I can manage," she said. "For all you eat"

But Elinor protested.

"I shall want to keep up the Saturday dinners. Let things stay as they are for a time."

It had been old Hilary's custom to have such members of the band as were available dine with him of a Saturday.

Henriette raised her hands.

"Things ore changed," she cried. "You are alone here now. To have those four men—"

"That is better than having one man, Henrietta."

So Elinor had her way. The Saturday dinners were resumed early in September, Boroday coming with infinite caution from his cheap boarding house in the South side, Talbot and Lethbridge from the bachelor apartment they rented together. Walter Huff was late.

"I had to be careful," he told Boroday, aside. "They've got wind of something. I don't know what. My room was searched today."

Boroday swore through his beard.

"Then why did you come here?" he demanded. Young Huff laughed, glanced at Elinor, and back impudently at the Russian.

"You know why I came," he said, in high good humor. "But I was careful. It's all right."

Old Hilary's chair had been placed by Elinor's order. She had borne up well the last month, was rather more slender, certainly more appealing. The quality of wistfulness was more apparent than ever around her mouth. Huff, sitting across, hardly took his eyes from her. He was young, and women had had no place until now in his active, unscrupulous life. But Elinor held him in the palm of her small hand.

They missed old Hilary, his saturnine humor, his beetling gray brows. And inaction was telling on them. They were growing restive. Boroday, advising caution in view of what he knew, felt the disaffection among the younger men.

It was Lethbridge, who, waiting until the servants had withdrawn, rose and glanced around the table. "It seems to me," he began, "that we have a lot to decide tonight. I've been thinking about it ever since—for some time. The first thing, of course, is whether we are going to hang together or not."

Talbot had rather a weird sense of humor. He suggested that the word "hang" be changed to "remain."

"We've been doing well. We'll do all right again, too, as soon as this thing blows over. it was unlucky, but we've been pretty fortunate. Now we can do one of two things. For Elinor's sake, I suggest the first."

"And that is—" Elinor's voice was unsteady.

"Send Boroday to Paris to dispose of your jewels. Then get a conservative lawyer to invest the money."

"And after that?"

"Forget you ever knew any of us."

Huff, across the table from her, went white, but said nothing.

"You said there was an alternative?"

Elinor was white, too. The room was profoundly still.

"To keep on as we are at present, with you, Elinor, acting in your father's stead, receiving and transmitting messages, and—keeping the vault in charge."

Boroday was on his feet in a moment, protesting. He would take the jewels and send them abroad. it was risky, but it could be done. But this outrageous arrangement that had been suggested—

"What we are, we are by choice," he finished. "You have never had a choice, and now it is given to you. For God's sake, child, go away now, while you may."

Elinor's reply, when it came, was unanswerable.

"Where could I go? I know in all the world only you four, and old Henriette, and a governess of mine who has gone into a convent in France, I shall stay here with you all."

So it was settled.

That was an eventful evening, with Elinor, misty-eyed, moving into her father's chair at the table, and the band swearing the simple oath of allegiance which held them together. And when they had moved from the dining room, Walter Huff, following Elinor out onto the terrace, told her he loved her.

The starlight above, and those nearer stars that outlined the streets below, threw a soft radiance over her. She was dressed in white; old Hilary had disliked mourning garments. Elinor was looking down into the village. The great spire of Saint Jude's towered above the town. Huff, young and ardent, thrilled to the girl's presence close beside him.

“You are very aloof tonight," he said. She smiled up at him.

“Not that surely. I was only thinking."

"Of what?"

“Oh, of different things—of the people down there in their houses—their lives, the things they believe; we think they are narrow, but I wonder, after all. If you and I, who believe none of those things, are not the narrow ones.”

Huff was not subtle. Possibly he would not have understood, had not the Saint Jude's chimes rung just then.

"Symbols like that seem to mean so much to them," said Elinor, and fell silent.

In the warm silence, Huff felt for and found her hand

"All this time, when I couldn't see you," he said unsteadily, "I've been thinking of you here alone, and in trouble. Sometimes I thought I couldn't stand it. that I'd have to come out and see you, if only for five minutes."

"I have always been more or less lonely. Sometimes I think if I had been sent away to school, had known other girls. it would have been better. I have never had any friends—except you, and the others."

Huff released her hand and faced her.

"I don't want to be your friend, Elinor. I want to be much more."

She was rather shocked at first. She stood, looking up ut him, her lips slightly parted.

"I? You—you—want—"

"I love you. I want you to marry me, dear."

There was no doubt of the hoy's sincerity. it rang true. He stood with his arms out, and after a moment she went into them. Except for the father who was gone, this was the first love that had come into her life. She took it hungrily. in the starlight she held up her lips like a child for his kiss....