Lo Michael! (23 page)

CHAPTER XXII

It was Lizzie, with her baby in her arms; the girl he had defended in the alley, and whose face he had last seen lying white and unconscious in the moonlight, looking ghastly enough with the dark hair flung back against the harsh pillow of stone.

The face was white now, but softened with the beauty of motherhood. The bold, handsome features had somehow taken on a touch of gentleness, though there glowed and burned in her dark eyes a fever of passion and unrest.

She stood still for a moment looking at Michael after she had closed the door, and was holding the baby close as if fearing there might be some one there who was minded to take it from her.

As Michael watched her, fascinated, cut to the heart by the dumb suffering in her eyes, he was reminded of one of the exquisite Madonnas he had seen in an exhibition not long ago. The draperies had been dainty and cloud-like, and the face refined and wonderful in its beauty, but there had been the same sorrowful mother-anguish in the eyes. It passed through his mind that this girl and he were kin because of a mutual torture. His face softened, and he felt a great pity for her swelling in his heart.

His eyes wandered to the little upturned face of the baby wrapped close in the shabby shawl against its mother's breast. It was a very beautiful little sleeping face, with a look still of the spirit world from which it had but recently come. There was something almost unearthly in its loveliness, appealing even in its sleep, with its innocent baby curves and outlines. A little stranger soul, whose untried feet had wandered into unwelcome quarters where sorrows and temptations were so thickly strewn that it could not hope to escape them.

What had the baby come for? To make one more of the swarming mass of sinful wretches who crowded the alley? Would those cherub lips half-parted now in a seraphic smile live to pour forth blasphemous curses as he had heard even very small children in the alley? Would that tiny sea-shell hand, resting so trustingly against the coarse cloth of its mother's raiment, looking like a rosebud gone astray, live to break open safes and take their contents? Would the lovely little soft round body whose tender curves showed pitifully beneath the thin old shawl, grow up to lie in the gutter some day? The problem of the people had never come to Michael so forcibly, so terribly as in that moment before Lizzie spoke.

“Be you a real lawyer?” she asked. “Kin you tell what the law is 'bout folks and thin's?”

Michael smiled and rose to give her a chair as courteously as though she had been a lady born.

“Sit down,” he said. “Yes, I am a lawyer. What can I do for you?”

“I s'pose you charge a lot,” said the girl with a meaning glance around the room. “You've got thin's fixed fine as silk here. But I'll pay anythin' you ast ef it takes me a lifetime to do it, ef you'll jest tell me how I kin git my rights.”

“Your rights?” questioned Michael sadly. Poor child!
Had
she any rights in the universe that he could help her to get? The only rights he knew for such as she were room in a quiet graveyard and a chance to be forgotten.

“Say, ain't it against the law fer a man to marry a woman when he's already got one wife?”

“It is,” said Michael, “unless he gets a divorce.”

“Well, I ain't goin' to give him no divorce, you bet!” said the girl fiercely. “I worked hard enough to get a real marriage an' I ain't goin' to give up to no fash'nable swell. I'm's good's she is, an' I've got my rights an I'll hev 'em. An' besides, there's baby—!” Her face softened and took on a love light; and immediately Michael was reminded of the madonna picture again. “I've got to think o' him!” Michael marvelled to see that the girl was revelling in her possession of the little helpless burden who had been the cause of her sorrow.

“Tell me about it.” His voice was very gentle. He recalled suddenly that this was Sam's girl. Poor Sam, too! The world was a terribly tangled mess of trouble.

“Well, there ain't much to tell that counts, only he kep' comp'ny with me, an' I wouldn't hev ennythin' else but a real marriage, an' so he giv in, an' we hed a couple o' rooms in a real respectable house an' hed it fine till he had to go away on business, he said. I never 'b'leeved that. Why he was downright rich. He's a real swell, you know. What kind o' business cud he have?” Lizzie straightened herself proudly and held her head high.

“About whom are you talking?” asked Michael.

“Why, my husband, 'course, Mr. Sty-ve-zant Carter. You ken see his name in the paper real often. He didn't want me to know his real name. He hed me call him Dan Hunt fer two months, but I caught on, an' he was real mad fer a while. He said his ma didn't like the match, an' he didn't want folks to know he'd got married, it might hurt him with some of his swell friends—”

“You don't mean to tell me that Mr. Stuyvesant Carter ever really married you!” said Michael incredulously.

“Sure!” said Lizzie proudly, “married me jest like enny swell; got me a dimon ring an' a silk-lined suit an' a willer plume an' everythin'.” Lizzie held up a grimy hand on which Michael saw a showy glitter of jewelry.

“Have you anything to show for it?” asked Michael, expecting her of course to say no. “Have you any certificate or paper to prove that you were married according to law?”

“Sure!” said Lizzie triumphantly, drawing forth a crumpled roll from the folds of her dress and smoothing it out before his astonished eyes.

There it was, a printed wedding certificate, done in blue and gold with a colored picture of two clasped hands under a white dove with a gold ring in its beak. Beneath was an idealized boat with silken sails bearing two people down a rose-lined river of life; and the whole was bordered with orange blossoms. It was one of those old-fashioned affairs that country ministers used to give their parishioners in the years gone by, and are still to be had in some dusty corners of a forgotten drawer in country book stores. But Michael recognized at once that it was a real certificate. He read it carefully. The blanks were all filled in, the date she gave of the marriage was there, and the name of the bridegroom though evidently written in a disguised hand could be deciphered: “Sty. Carter.” Michael did not recognize the names of either the witnesses or the officiating minister.

“How do you happen to have Mr. Carter's real name here when you say he married you under an assumed name?” he asked moving his finger thoughtfully over the blurred name that had evidently been scratched out and written over again.

“I made him put it in after I found out who he was,” said Lizzie. “He couldn't come it over me thet-a-way. He was awful gone on me then, an' I cud do most ennythin' with him. It was 'fore she cum home from Europe! She jes' went fer him an' turned his head. Ef I'd a-knowed in time I'd gone an' tole her, but land sakes! I don't 'spose 'twould a done much good. I would a-ben to her before, only I was fool 'nough to promise him I wouldn't say nothin' to her ef he'd keep away from her. You see I needed money awful bad fer baby. He don't take to livin' awful good. He cries a lot an' I hed to hev thin's fer 'im, so I threatened him ef he didn't do sompin' I'd go tell her; an' he up an' forked over, but not till I promised. But now they say the papers is tellin' he's to marry her to-night, an' I gotta stop it somehow. I got my rights an' baby's to look after, promise er no promise. Ken I get him arrested?”

“I am not sure what you can do until I look into the matter,” Michael said gravely. Would the paper he held help or would it not, in his mission to Starr's father? And would it be too late? His heavy heart could not answer.

“Do you know these witnesses?”

“Sure.” said Lizzie confidently. “They're all swells. They come down with him when he come to be married. I never seen 'em again, but they was real jolly an' nice. They give me a bokay of real roses an' a bracelet made like a snake with green glass eyes.”

“And the minister? Which is his church?”

“I'm sure I donno,” said Lizzie. “I never ast. He come along an' was ez jolly ez enny of 'em. He drank more'n all of 'em put together. He was awful game fer a preacher.”

Michael's heart began to sink. Was this a genuine marriage after all? Could anything be proved? He questioned the girl carefully, and after a few minutes sent her on her way promising to do all in his power to help her and arranging to let her know as soon as possible if there was anything she could do.

That was a busy afternoon for Michael. The arrival of the steamer was forgotten. His telephone rang vainly on his desk to a silent room. He was out tramping over the city in search of the witnesses and the minister who had signed Lizzie's marriage certificate.

Meantime the afternoon papers came out with a glowing account of the wedding that was to be, headed by the pictures of Starr and Mr. Carter, for the wedding was a great event in society circles.

Lizzie on her hopeful way back to the alley, confident that Michael, the angel of the alley, would do something for her, heard the boys crying the afternoon edition of the paper, and was seized with a desire to see if her husband's picture would be in again. She could ill spare the penny from her scanty store that she spent for it, but then, what was money in a case like this? Michael would do something for her and she would have more money. Besides, if worst came to worst she would go to the fine lady and threaten to make it all public, and she would give her money.

Lizzie had had more advantages than most of her class in the alley. She had worked in a seashore restaurant several summers and could read a little. From the newspaper account she gathered enough to rouse her half-soothed frenzy. Her eyes flashed fire as she went about her dark little tenement room making baby comfortable. His feeble wail and his sweet eyes looking into hers only fanned the fury of her flame. She determined not to wait for Michael, but to go on her own account at once to that girl that was stealing away her husband, her baby's father, and tell her what she was doing.

With the cunning of her kind Lizzie dressed herself in her best; a soiled pink silk shirtwaist with elbow sleeves, a spotted and torn black skirt that showed a tattered orange silk petticoat beneath its ungainly length, a wide white hat with soiled and draggled willow plume of Alice blue, and high-heeled pumps run over on their uppers. If she had but known it she looked ten times better in the old Madonna shawl she had worn to Michael's office, but she took great satisfaction in being able to dress appropriately when she went to the swells.

The poor baby she wrapped in his soiled little best, and pinned a large untidy pink satin bow on the back of his dirty little blanket. Then she started on her mission.

Now Starr had just heard that her father's vessel would be at the dock in a trifle over an hour and her heart was light and happy. Somehow all her misgivings seemed to flee away, now that he was coming. She flew from one room to another like a wild bird, trilling snatches of song, and looking prettier than ever.

“Aw, the wee sweet bairnie!” murmured the old Scotch nurse. “If only her man will be gude to her!”

There was some special bit of Starr's attire for the evening that had not arrived. She was in a twitter of expectancy about it, to be sure it pleased her, and when she heard the bell she rushed to the head of the stairs and was half-way down to see if it had come, when the servant opened the door to Lizzie and her baby.

One second more and the door would have closed hopelessly on poor Lizzie, for no servant in that house would have thought of admitting such a creature to the presence of their lady a few hours before her wedding; but Starr, poised half-way on the landing, called, “What is it, Graves, some one to see me?”

“But she's not the sort of person—Miss Starr!” protested Graves with the door only open a crack now.

“Never mind, Graves, I'll see her for a minute. I can't deny anyone on my wedding day you know, and father almost safely here. Show her into the little reception room.” She smiled a ravishing smile on the devoted Graves, so with many qualms of conscience and misgivings as to what the mistress would say if she found out, Graves ushered Lizzie and her baby to the room indicated and Starr fluttered down to see her. So it was Starr's own doings that Lizzie came into her presence on that eventful afternoon.

“Oh, what a sweet baby!” exclaimed Starr eagerly, “is he yours?” Lizzie's fierce eyes softened.

“Sit down and tell me who you are. Wait, I'll have some tea brought for you. You look tired. And won't you let me give that sweet baby a little white shawl of mine. I'm to be married to-night and I'd like to give him a wedding present,” she laughed gaily, and Morton was sent for the shawl and another servant for the tea, while Starr amused herself by making the baby crow at her.

Lizzie sat in wonder. Almost for the moment she forgot her errand watching this sweet girl in her lovely attire making much of her baby. But when the tea had been brought and the soft white wool shawl wrapped around the smiling baby Starr said again:

“Now please tell me who you are and what you have come for. I can't give you but a minute or two more. This is a busy day, you know.”

Lizzie's brow darkened.

“I'm Mrs. Carter!” she said drawing herself up with conscious pride.

“Carter?” said Starr politely.

“Yes, I'm the wife of the man you're goin' to marry to-night, an' this is his child, I thought I'd come an' tell you 'fore 'twas too late. I thought ef you had enny goodness in you you'd put a stop to this an' give me my rights, an' you seem to hev some heart. Can't you call it off? You wouldn't want to take my husband away from me, would you? You can get plenty others an' I'm jest a plain workin' girl, an' he's mine anyhow, an' this is his kid.”

Starr had started to her feet, her eyes wide, her hand fluttering to her heart.

“Stop!” she cried. “You must be crazy to say such things. My poor girl, you have made a great mistake. Your husband is some other Mr. Carter I suppose. My Mr. Carter is not that kind of a man. He has never been married—”

“Yes, he has!” interposed Lizzie fiercely, “He's married all right, an' I got the c'tif'ct all right too, only I couldn't bring it this time cause I lef' it with my lawyer; but you can see it ef you want to, with his name all straight, “Sty-Vee-Zant Carter,” all writ out. I see to it that he writ it himself. I kin read meself, pretty good, so I knowed.”

“I am very sorry for you,” said Starr sweetly, though her heart was heating violently in spite of her efforts to be calm and to tell herself that she must get rid of this wretched impostor without making a scene for the servants to witness: “I am very sorry, but you have made some great mistake. There isn't anything I can do for you now, but later when I come back to New York if you care to look me up I will try to do something for baby.”

Lizzie stood erect in the middle of the little room, her face slowly changing to a stony stare, her eyes fairly blazing with anger.

“De'yer mean ter tell me yer a goin' t'go on an' marry my husban' jes' ez ef nothin' had happened? Ain't yer goin' ter ast him ef it's true ner nothin'? Ain't yer goin' t' find out what's true 'bout him? 'R d'ye want 'im so bad ye don't care who yer hurt, or wot he is, so long's he makes a big splurge before folks? Ain't you a-goin' ter ast him 'bout it?”

“Oh, why certainly, of course,” said Starr as if she were pacifying a frantic child, “I can ask him. I will ask him of course, but I
know
that you are mistaken. Now really, I shall have to say good afternoon. I haven't another minute to spare. You must go!”

“I shan't stir a step till you promise me thet you'll ast him right straight away. Ain't you all got no telyphone? Well, you kin call him up an' ast him. Jest ast him why he didn't never speak to you of his wife Lizzie, and where he was the evenin' of Augus' four. That's the date on the c'tif'ct! Tell him you seen me an' then see wot he says. Tell him my lawyer is a goin' to fix him ef he goes on. It'll be in all the papers to-morrer mornin' ef he goes on. An' you c'n say I shan't never consent to no
di
-vorce, they ain't respectable, an' I got to think o' that on baby's account.”

“If you will go quietly away now and say nothing more about this to anyone I will tell Mr. Carter all about you,” said Starr, her voice trembling with the effort at self-control.

“D'ye promus you will?”

“Certainly,” said Starr with dignity.

“Will ye do it right off straight?”

“Yes, if you will go at once.”

“Cross yer heart?”

“What?”

“Cross yer heart ye will? Thet's a sort o' oath t' make yer keep yer promus,” explained Lizzie.

“A lady needs no such thing to make her keep her promise. Don't you know that ladies always keep their promises?”

“I wasn't so sure!” said Lizzie, “You can't most allus tell, 't's bes' to be on the safe side. Will yer promus me yer won't marry him ef ye find out he's my husband?”

“Most certainly I will not marry him if he is already married. Now go, please, at once. I haven't a minute to spare. If you don't go at once I cannot have time to call him up.”

“You sure I kin trust you?”

Starr turned on the girl such a gaze of mingled dignity and indignation that her eye quailed before it.

“Well, I s'pose I gotta,” she said, dropping her eyes before Starr's righteous wrath. “But 'no weddin' bells' fer you to-night ef yeh keep yer promus. So long!”

Starr shuddered as the girl passed her. The whiff of unwashed garments, stale cooking, and undefinable tenement odor that reached her nostrils sickened her. Was it possible that she must let this creature have a hold even momentarily upon her last few hours? Yet she knew she must. She knew she would not rest until she had been reassured by Carter's voice and the explanation that he would surely give her. She rushed upstairs to her own private 'phone, locking the door on even her old nurse, and called up the 'phone in Carter's private apartments.

Without owning it to herself she had been a little troubled all the afternoon because she had not heard from Carter. Her flowers had come,—magnificent in their costliness and arrangement, and everything he was to attend to was done, she knew, but no word had come from himself. It was unlike him.

She knew that he had given a dinner the evening before to his old friends who were to be his ushers, and that the festivities would have lasted late. He had not probably arisen very early, of course, but it was drawing on toward the hour of the wedding now. She intended to begin to dress at once after she had 'phoned him. It was strange she had not heard from him.

After much delay an unknown voice answered the 'phone, and told her Mr. Carter could not come now. She asked who it was but got no response, except that Mr. Carter couldn't come now. The voice had a muffled, thick sound. “Tell him to call me then as soon as possible,” she said, and the voice answered, “Awright!”

Reluctantly she hung up the receiver and called Morton to help her dress. She would have liked to get the matter out of the way before she went about the pretty ceremony, and submitted herself to her nurse's hands with an ill grace and troubled thoughts. The coarse beauty of Lizzie's face haunted her. It reminded her of an actress that Carter had once openly admired, and she had secretly disliked. She found herself shuddering inwardly every time she recalled Lizzie's harsh voice, and uncouth sentences.

She paid little heed to the dressing process after all and let Morton have her way in everything, starting nervously when the 'phone bell rang, or anyone tapped at her door.

A message came from her father finally. He hoped to be with her in less than an hour now, and as yet no word had come from Carter! Why did he not know she would be anxious? What could have kept him from his usual greeting of her, and on their wedding day!

Suddenly, in the midst of Morton's careful draping of the wedding veil which she was trying in various ways to see just how it should be put on at the last minute, Starr started up from her chair.

“I cannot stand this, Mortie. That will do for now. I must telephone Mr. Carter. I can't understand why he doesn't call me.”

“Oh, but the poor man is that busy!” murmured Morton excusingly as she hurried obediently out of the room. “Now, mind you don't muss that beautiful veil.”

But after a half hour of futile attempt to get into communication with Carter, Starr suddenly appeared in her door calling for her faithful nurse again.

“Mortie!” she called excitedly. “Come here quick! I've ordered the electric. It's at the door now. Put on your big cloak and come with me! I've got to see Mr. Carter at once and I can't get him on the 'phone.”

“But Miss Starr!” protested Morton. “You've no time to go anywhere now, and look at your pretty veil!”

“Never mind the veil, Mortie, I'm going. Hurry. I can't stop to explain. I'll tell you on the way. We'll be back before anyone has missed us.”

“But your mamma, Miss Starr! She will be very angry with me!”

“Mamma must not know. And anyway I must go. Come, if you won't come with me I'm going alone.”

Starr with these words grasped a great cloak of dark green velvet, soft and pliable as a skin of fur, threw it over her white bridal robes, and hurried down the stairs.

“Oh, Miss Starr, darlin',” moaned Morton looking hurriedly around for a cloak with which to follow. “You'll spoil yer veil sure! Wait till I take it off'n ye.”

But Starr had opened the front door and was already getting into the great luxurious car that stood outside.

CHAPTER XXIII

Michael, as he went about on his search kept crying over and over again in his heart: “Oh, God! Do something to save her! Do something to save my little Starr!”

Over and over the prayer prayed itself without seeming thought or volition on his part, as he went from place to place, faithfully, keenly, step by step, searching out what he needed to know. At last toward six o'clock, his chain of evidence led him to the door of Stuyvesant Carter's apartments.

After some delay the door was opened reluctantly a little way by a servant with an immobile mask of a face who stared at him stupidly, but finally admitted that the three men whose names he mentioned were inside. He also said that Mr. Carter was in, but could not be seen.

He closed the door on the visitor and went inside again to see if any of the others would come out. There ensued an altercation in loud and somewhat unsteady tones, and at last the door opened again and a fast-looking young man who admitted himself to be Theodore Brooks slid out and closed it carefully behind him. The air that came with him was thick with tobacco smoke and heavy with liquor, and the one glimpse Michael got of the room showed a strange radiance of some peculiar light that glowed into the dusky hall weirdly.

The heavy-eyed youth who stood braced against the wall uncertainly looked into Michael's face with an impudent laugh.

“Well, parson, what's the grouch? Are you the devil or an angel sent to bring retribution?” He ended with a silly laugh that told the experienced ear of the young lawyer that the young man had been drinking heavily. And this was the man whose name was signed as Rev. Theodore Brooks, D.D., on the tawdry little marriage certificate that Michael held in his hand. His heart sank at the futility of the task before him.

“Are you a minister?” asked Michael briefly.

“Am I a minister?” drawled young Brooks. “M-my-m-m-mnster! Well now that get's my goat! Say, boys, he wants t' kno' 'f I'm a m-min'ster! Min-ster of what? Min-ster plen-p'ten'sherry?”

“Did you ever perform a marriage?” asked Michael sharply to stop the loud guffaw that was re-echoing through the polished corridors of the apartment.

“P'form a m'riage, d'ye say? No, but I'm goin' perform 't a marriage to-night 'f the dead wakes up in time. Goin' t' be bes' man. Say, boys! Got 'im 'wake yet? Gettin' late!”

Michael in despair took hold of the other's arm and tried to explain what he wanted to know. Finally he succeeded in bringing the matter into the fellow's comprehension.

“Wedding, oh, yes, I 'member, peach of a girl! Stuyvy awfully fond of her. No harm meant. Good joke! Yes,—I borr'wed Grand'F'ther Brooks's old gown'n ban's. Awf'lly good disguise! No harm meant—on'y good joke—girl awf'lly set on getting married. Stuyvy wanted t' please 'er—awfully good, joke—!”

“A ghastly joke, I should say, sir!” said Michael sternly and then the door was flung open by hands from inside, loud angry voices protesting while another hand sought unavailingly to close the door again, but Michael came and planted himself in the open door and stood like an avenging angel come to call to judgment. The scene that was revealed to him was too horrifying for words.

A long banquet table stood in the midst of the handsome room whose furnishings were of the costliest. Amid the scattered remains of the feast, napkins lying under the table, upset glasses still dripping their ruby contents down the damask of the tablecloth, broken china, scattered plates and silver, stood a handsome silver-bound coffin, within which, pallid and deathlike, lay the handsome form of the bridegroom of the evening. All about the casket in high sconces burned tall tapers casting their spectral light over the scene.

Distributed about the room lounging in chairs, fast asleep on the couches, lying under the table, fighting by the doorway, one standing on a velvet chair raising an unsteady glass of wine and making a flabby attempt at a drinking song, were ten young men, the flower of society, the expected ushers of the evening's wedding.

Michael with his white face, his golden hair aflame in the flickering candle light, his eyes full of shocked indignation, stood for a moment surveying the scene, and all at once he knew that his prayer was answered. There would be no wedding that night.

“Is this another of your ghastly jokes?” he turned to Brooks who stood by as master of ceremonies, not in the least disturbed by the presence of the stranger.

“That's just what it is,” stuttered Brooks, “a j-j-joke, a p-p-p-pract'cal joke. No harm meant, only Stuyvy's hard to wake up. Never did like gettin' up in the mornin'. Wake 'im up boys! Wake 'im up! Time to get dressed for the wedding!”

“Has anyone sent word to Miss Endicott?”

“Sent word to Mish Endicott? No, I'd 'no's they have. Think she'd care to come? Say, boys, that's a good joke. This old fellow—don't know who he is—devil'n all his angels p'raps—he s'gests we send word to Mish Endicott t' come' th' fun'ral—”

“I said nothing of the kind,” said Michael fiercely. “Have you no sense of decency? Go and wash your face and try to realize what you have been doing. Have some one telephone for a doctor. I will go and tell the family,” and Michael strode out of the room to perform the hardest task that had ever yet fallen to his lot.

He did not wait for the elevator but ran down the flights of stairs trying to steady his thoughts and realize the horror through which he had just passed.

As he started down the last flight he heard the elevator door clang below, and as it shot past him he caught a glimpse of white garments and a face with eyes that he knew. He stopped short and looked upward. Was it—could it be? But no, of course not. He was foolish. He turned and compelled his feet to hurry down the rest of the stairs, but at the door his worst fears were confirmed, for there stood the great electric car, and the familiar face of the Endicott chauffeur assured him that some one of the family had just gone to the ghastly spectacle upstairs.

In sudden panic he turned and fled up the stairs. He could not wait for elevators now. He fain would have had wings, the wings of a protecting angel, that he might reach her ere she saw that sight of horror.

Yet even as he started he knew that he must be too late.

Starr stopped startled in the open doorway, with Morton, protesting, apprehensive, just behind her. The soft cloak slid away from her down the satin of her gown, and left her revealed in all her wedding whiteness, her eyes like stars, her beautiful face flushed excitedly. Then the eyes rested on the coffin and its death-like occupant and her face went white as her dress, while a great horror grew in her eyes.

Brooks, more nearly sober than the rest, saw her first, and hastened to do the honors.

“Say, boys, she's come,” he shouted. “Bride's come. Git up, Bobby Trascom. Don't yer know ye mustn't lie down, when there's a lady present—Van—get out from under that table. Help me pick up these things. Place all in a mess. Glad to see you, Mish Endicott—” He bowed low and staggered as he recovered himself.

Starr turned her white face toward him:

“Mr. Brooks,” she said in a tone that sobered him somewhat, “what does it mean? Is he dead?”

“Not at all, not at all, Mish Endicott,” he tried to say gravely. “Have him all right in plenty time. Just a little joke, Mish Endicott. He's merely shlightly intoxicated—”

But Starr heard no more. With a little stifled cry and a groping motion of her white-clad arms, she crumpled into a white heap at the feet of her horrified nurse. It was just as she fell that Michael appeared at the door, like the rescuing angel that he was, and with one withering glance at the huddled group of men he gathered her in his arms and sped down the stairs, faithful Morton puffing after him. Neither of them noticed a man who got out of the elevator just before Starr fell and walking rapidly toward the open door saw the whole action. In a moment more Mr. Endicott stood in the door surveying the scene before him with stern, wrathful countenance.

Like a dash of cold water his appearance brought several of the participants in the disgraceful scene to their senses. A few questions and he was possessed of the whole shameful story; the stag dinner growing into a midnight orgy; the foolish dare, and the reckless acceptance of it by the already intoxicated bridegroom; the drugged drinks; and the practical joke carried out by brains long under the influence of liquor. Carter's man who had protested had been bound and gagged in the back room. The jokers had found no trouble in securing the necessary tools to carry out their joke. Money will buy anything, even an undertaker for a living man. The promise of secrecy and generous fees brought all they needed. Then when the ghastly work was completed and the unconscious bridegroom lying in state in his coffin amid the debris of the table, they drowned the horror of their deed in deeper drinking.

Mr. Endicott turned from the scene, his soul filled with loathing and horror.

He had reached home to find the house in a tumult and Starr gone. Morton, as she went out the door after her young mistress, had whispered to the butler their destination, and that they would return at once. She had an innate suspicion that it would be best for some one to know.

Mr. Endicott at once ordered the runabout and hastened after them, arriving but a moment or two later. Michael had just vanished up the Apartment stairs as he entered the lower hallway. The vague indefinite trouble that had filled his mind concerning his daughter's marriage to a man he little knew except by reputation, crystallized into trouble, clear and distinct, as he hurried after his daughter. Something terrible must have come to Starr or she would never have hurried away practically alone at a time like this.

The electric car was gone by the time Mr. Endicott reached the lower hall again, and he was forced to go back alone as he came, without further explanation of the affair than what he could see; but he had time in the rapid trip to become profoundly thankful that the disgraceful scene he had just left had occurred before and not after his daughter's marriage. Whatever alleviating circumstances there were to excuse the reckless victim of his comrades' joke, the fact remained that a man who could fall victim to a joke like that was not the companion for his daughter's life; she who had been shielded and guarded at every possible point, and loved as the very apple of his eye. His feelings toward the perpetrators of this gruesome sport were such that he dared not think about them yet. No punishment seemed too great for such. And she, his little Starr, had looked upon that shameful scene; had seen the man she was expecting to marry lying as one dead—! It was too awful! And what had it done to her? Had it killed her? Had the shock unsettled her mind? The journey to his home seemed longer than his whole ocean voyage. Oh, why had he not left business to go to the winds and come back long ago to shield his little girl!

Meantime, Michael, his precious burden in his arms, had stepped into the waiting car, motioning Morton to follow and sit in the opposite seat. The delicate Paris frock trailed unnoticed underfoot, and the rare lace of the veil fell back from the white face, but neither Michael nor the nurse thought of satin and lace now, as they bent anxiously above the girl to see if she still breathed.

All the way to her home Michael held the lovely little bride in his arms, feeling her weight no more than a feather; fervently thankful that he might bear her thus for the moment, away from the danger that had threatened her life. He wished with all his heart he might carry her so to the ends of the earth and never stop until he had her safe from all harm that earth could bring. His heart thrilled wildly with the touch of her frail sweetness, even while his anxious face bent over her to watch for signs of returning consciousness.

But she did not become conscious before she reached the house. His strong arms held her as gently as though she had been a baby as he stepped carefully out and carried her to her own room; laying her upon the white bed, where but two hours before the delicate wedding garments had been spread ready for her to put on. Then he stood back, reverently looked upon her dear face, and turned away. It was in the hall that he met her mother, and her face was fairly disfigured with her sudden recognition of him.

“What! Is it you that have dared come into this house? The impertinence! I shall report all your doings to my husband. He will be very angry. I believe that you are at the bottom of this whole business! You shall certainly be dealt with as you deserve!”

She hissed the words after him as Michael descended the stairs with bowed head and closed lips. It mattered not now what she said or thought of him. Starr was saved!

He was about to pass out into the world again, away from her, away even from knowledge of how she came out of her swoon. He had no further right there now. His duty was done. He had been allowed to save her in her extremity!

But just as he reached it the door opened and Mr. Endicott hurried in.

He paused for an instant.

“Son!” said he, “it was you who brought her home!” It was as if that conviction had but just been revealed to his perturbed mind. “Son, I'm obliged. Sit here till I come. I want to speak with you.”

The doctor came with a nurse, and Michael sat and listened to the distant voices in her room. He gathered from the sounds by and by that Starr was conscious, was better.

Until then no one had thought of the wedding or of the waiting guests that would be gathering. Something must be done. And so it came about that as the great organ sounded forth the first notes of the wedding march—for by some blunder the bride's signal had been given to the organist when the Endicott car drew up at the church—that Michael, bare-headed, with his hat in his hand, walked gravely up the aisle, unconscious of the battery of eyes, and astonished whispers of “Who is he? Isn't he magnificent? What does it mean? I thought the ushers were to come first?” until he stood calmly in the chancel and faced the wondering audience.

If an angel had come straight down from heaven and interfered with their wedding they could not have been more astonished. For, as he stood beneath the many soft lights in front of the wall of living green and blossoms, with his white face and grave sweet dignity, they forgot for once to study the fashion of his coat, and sat awed before his beautiful face; for Michael wore to-night the look of transport with chin uplifted, glowing eyes, and countenance that showed the spirit shining through.