 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Paul Hansen. Thurley Ruckston by Philip Viral Migueles. Chapter 38. The One Week Link. The day for Thurley was one long monotony of fear, disgust and helplessness. The windows had been finely uncurtained late in the morning, but the day was gray and dreary, while the atmosphere within was murky and foul with odors from below and the reek of the stove that kept the room slightly warmer than freezing. Sigorski remained at her captive side almost constantly. She seldom spoke and Thurley would never have addressed her voluntarily since questions and pleading would have been of no avail and conversation was impossible. As often as she encountered the ice-blue stare of the woman's eyes, she shuddered anew with repugnance and the certainty of a gross malevolent mind behind their baleful glistening. She had found herself wrapped in an exceptionally long gray cloak, patched and dirty, but at least of wool and therefore slightly comforting in this leaky old hovel long before abandoned as a human habitation. She spent her time lying or sitting on the bed or walking the few feet rendered possible by the meager length of chain. She did not sleep again. From time to time she heard a murmur of voices where the men below were repeatedly protesting against the delays of Madame Sigorski. Now and then the woman descended on the trio to soothe or to domineer as occasion might demand. Never for more than five minutes at a time did she thus leave Thurley to herself and the girl was aware of the utter futility of attempted escape in such interim or in the glare of day. Twice she had dared snatch up her chain and try with her fingers to loosen the wires where the twisted ends were nipped and bent over on the link. She had no intention of doing more than barely prepare the stubborn splice for possible tampering later on, but even this seemed quite impractical to fingers fashioned delicately and unprovided with a tool. On the last occasion, nevertheless, she found an edge on the iron bed where the twist of wire being once engaged was readily bent backward on the link. It did not break being tough and malleable, and she barely had time to bend it once more to its former position when Sigorski again returned. There were no more opportunities to labor with the wire, and at most it was merely possible for Thurley to sit there planning how, if her chance should come, she could bend and bend that metal prong till its point should finally snap. She planned all day at a thousand things impossible and even extravagant. No thought had entered her mind again of attempting a struggle with the woman. She knew her strength could avail her nothing in a combat so entirely unequal, and the noise would disturb the men. Her hope attached itself with childlike confidence to the man Pelavan hour after hour. Her only fear concerning him was that of his ability, surrounded as he was by other men, to render the necessary hope at the vital moment. She had doubts again of the arrival of the note addressed to the Duke and Robly. It seemed to her she was very far from all the world of Gotham. The note might be lost, intercepted. The day being Sunday it might easily fail of delivery, if no one should come that night at nine. A fever of anxiety, hope succeeding doubt, eager planning for herself, and increasing dread and illness in this fetid room was flaming her cheeks and eyes. The day was so frightfully long. The unknown fate impending and the mystery as to why she had been thus entrapped were so baffling and frightening as the hours wore slowly on. She could not have known that Pelavan, clever actor that he was, had tricked and deceived her with shameless duplicity, playing on her feelings and credulity to procure her note to the Duke, but she finally doubted even him. It was merely the accumulated despair to which she was victim, making its pessimistic inroads to her courage. She doubted everything at times and was hopelessly haunted by instinctive alarms as if the violence hovering in the air and lurid with murderous desire that the boy communicated to her more receptive self, which could not interpret their meaning. Yet back to her hope in Pelavan she fled as, if aware it was all she had, no matter how tenuous its substance, he had promised not to drug her coffee. If he should lie, she might be wiser to refuse the draft and take no chances. The action, on the other hand, might readily excite the woman's suspicions, even against Pelavan. Her fever rose with the waning of the day, and when at five the sun went down in a red street sky, suggesting blood and fire that some way were not warm, she felt the landscape's desolation creeping coldly to her heart. She had risen from the bed so many times in the spirit of restlessness, increasing steadily that she feared the woman must note her condition and pounce upon its actuating cause. With all the power of her mind's volition, she remained at peace, attempting to convey an impression of sleepiness again and dullness for lack of air. May we have the window open for a moment, she finally asked. The air will be better for freshening. It suits me well enough as it is, said Zurgorsky. Once I heard of a man on the gallows who was giving a glass of beer from which he blew the froth. Someone questioned why he blew it away. He said it was not healthy. And then he was hanged. Ha, ha, ha, ha! She laughed up roriously, shaking with mirth at the grimness of her joke. A sickening conviction of doubt settled at Thurley's heart. Ominous night and ominous threat seemed brooding together in the shadows that fell upon the snowbound world and house. house. There was nothing to do but wait, and wait for God alone knew what. Evidence of more uneasiness increased below the stairs. Something seemed to miss. Zygorski was up and down repeatedly between the hours of five and six. There appeared to be no preparations for dinner, or even a thought of eating. It was all concerned with Pellevin, yet returned from sending Thurley's note with his own to the young Grand Duke Carl Wilhelm. It was half past seven when he came at last, and the news he brought was satisfactory. Dinner was served to Thurley and the woman a little after eight. It was precisely the sort of meal supplied the previous evening. In fact, part of the stew still remaining unconsumed. Coffee was provided as before, the man Pellevin snatching at a momentary opportunity to nod at Thurley reassuringly while the cups were being placed on the table. The man had no more than retreated through the door than Zygorski was on her feet. Pellevin, she called Anne, following actively, half closed the door behind her as she gave him some manner of instructions delivered in Russians and barely above a whisper. Instantly, for no absolute reason she might at the time have explained, Thurley conceived an extraordinary plan, to exchange her cup for the woman's. She did so before she could halt the action or reflect as to why it was done. Her heart, however, swung like a windswayed bell in its tower. Her hands shook as if with aegyu. She knew it was not with some sudden distrust of Pellevin she had acted. She had merely obeyed some blind intuition and prompting to be doubly safe should treachery lurk in the drink. Zygorski returned almost immediately. The trifling sound that Thurley had made transferring the heavy earthenware receptacles had alarmed her frightfully. She was certain the movement had been heard and the ruse would be detected. Partly to hide her confusion, partly to complete her action and force her own cup upon Zygorski, she drank the portion now allotted to herself without even waiting for sugar. She was drinking indeed when the woman came and resumed her seat at the table. Zygorski glanced at her only once, a grim expression of satisfaction betrayed for a second in her eyes. She had feared Thurley might refuse the coffee altogether. In the wildest flutter of excitement and fear, Thurley watched for the woman to drink. Her heart continued its tumult, which she was certain Zygorski must hear. She rose from her seat and proceeded to the bed, watching from the corner of her eyes. Below the man left silently to proceed to an old abandoned grist mill, a mile to the east of North Winnick. Zygorski drank, draining the cup to the dregs. Horrible water unfit for cooking, she said, as the drug taste left some impalpable tang on her palate. And she rose and went over to the stove, renewing the oil in its tank. And she stood above its heavy gush of heat, while Thurley, watching with blazing eyes, presently remembered that she must seem to droop and sink into sleep as before. She began the symptoms against which the previous evening she had struggled helplessly. Zygorski, attributing her sense of comfort to the warmth of the stove and dinner, crossed the door, bolted it fast and returned to the ruby glare so impotent to dissipate the cold. She was watching her captive narrowly, a thing that Thurley felt. Rising, Thurley shook herself, rubbed at her eyes and briskly chafed her hands. She staggered a little where she stood, winking her eyes in the heavy manner compelled by the drug before. Back to the bed she sank, maintaining all her show of drowsiness. And at length was prostrate on the pillow, her whole tingling being startlingly awake and trembling with suppressed excitement. The drug worked slowly on Zygorski. Sleep always came to her reluctantly and remained overlong, the morning hours invariably increasing her torpor. Nevertheless, her feeling of placid contentment now rose and engulfed her lurid brain. She sat at in a chair beside the stove, somewhat exalting in the thought of a good night's rest ahead. She nodded there, her sense of peace possessing all her body. Dimly she thought of nine o'clock and of work to be done by Jan and the others when the trap should close its jaws. What need to bother herself? When that was done, the rest could follow quickly, and then, if a flight by darkness seemed advisable, a bit of sleep to start on would be well. She rose by making an effort and moved across to her bed. An hour at the most she might nap serenely, and then she dropped herself down, or rather drooped, possessed of a sudden with a wild suspicion that something might be wrong. A flash of vivid glaring light was seared across a portion of her brain like a lightning stroke that fails to reach the earth. The zigzag halted in the dullness, shutting out her intellect and faded on her night. She tried to rise to cry to the men who were gone, as she fully remembered. She could neither lift the leaden mass of her shoulders, and waited skull nor utter forth more than a gurgle. The sound she made was terrible to thoroughly, lying there, quivering with her life. It was such an animal-savage sound as of some wild beast that struggled with suffocating death, expecting almost that the creature would come staggering possibly, but horribly vital and stubbornly active in her sinister intent. Thoroughly dared not move and dared not remain and held her breath in fearful alarm as she listened to hear the lightest tread. It did not come. Zagorski was down, her brain like a blackened frame, where fireworks having expended their flair, die suddenly, with here and there a streak or a star of unattached and meaningless red glowing vividly a moment on the velvet gloom that its previous brilliance has intensified. She was still awake in a manner, sinking as one who drowns but is not yet wholly unconscious. Then Oblivion claimed her for its own. It was not until nearly half an hour later, when the woman was breathing with the stentorious gasps and irregular percussions of a gasoline engine that thoroughly dared to move. She rose, then cautiously glancing at once toward the inert mass the woman had become, the house was still the silence. Save for Zagorski's breathing was intense. Thoroughly went to the lamp and turned it low, then crept to the window and tried to peer through the snow-lighted darkness of the night. There was nothing to be seen. She had no means of determining the time, but felt it must be fully nine o'clock when perhaps deliverance should come. Once more at that the clear bright light of her reason was cast, illumining upon the facts. Pellevin was approved liar. The coffee he had promised should be harmless had been obviously drugged. Undoubtedly all his sympathy and loyalty had been a sham. New forms of suspicion and dread rose before her vision as she thought of the uses to which her note, too robbly, might be put. She was terrified anew by the murky conception of some hideous network of duplicity and crime with its meshes about her vouchsafe to her vividly working mind. She must save herself she realized, or the blackest of fates would doubtless be her portion. Alone with the silence and the sodden woman laboring in her sleep, she stood undecided, overwhelmed for a moment with a half-clear glimpse into things appallingly obscure. Doubts as to where she really was assailed her, together with consuming fear of the creatures heard at times below. But to leave this house without the slightest unnecessary delay was the first demand of action. Quietly, furtively, she glided toward the bed, catching up the iron chain that bound her like a slave. Her hand ran past the wire link in her trembling anxiety for haste. Then she found it and, moving it to the metal edge, employed in the afternoon, bent the twisted strands upon it and began to force them down and up by the feeble glow of the lamp. It seemed as if they would never snap, so tough was their substance, so soft her hands and so great was her fear of creating a noise that would rouse Zagorsky from her sleep. In feverish desperation, she strained at the wire and was torn through the skin of her finger. Her hand was presently reddened from the wound, but she worked more hotly than before. The wire gave way. Excitedly assailing the bright tipped strand, she pushed it and drove it back through the link that it coupled to a mate, finding it harsh and resisting to her efforts. Her hands were stabbed and cut anew, but the loosened ends were forced to yield till presently. The chain was parted and an end fell down and struck the floor sharply. Thoroughly could have moaned, Zagorsky started in her slumber. Some of her stubborn instincts of suspicion and watchfulness responding automatically to the noise the chain had made. End of chapter 38. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Paul Hansen. Thoroughly Ruxton by Philip Viral-Migels. Chapter 39. A Desperate Flight. Scarcely daring to breathe, facing the room with the dilated eyes and expecting an almost immediate demand for admission to the room by some of the men, Thoroughly stood holding one end of the chain like a goddess released from bondage. She was almost prepared for a fight for her life had the moment demanded of fierce and desperate stand, but nothing happened. Her color having fled crept back once more as her fever and hope burned anew. She was free in part. She must take advantage of her moment. The window was her only concern. To attempt escape by the stairs and door was a thought far too frightening for a moment's entertainment. She was certain that some, if not all of the men were below in their usual quarters. The room afforded nothing in the nature of a rope. She knew from her former examination that the window was far too high from the frozen ground and snow for a leap, or even a drop. She had heard of captives tearing the sheets of a bed to form an escaping strand. Wrapping half of the chain about her waist and securing the end with the wire, she tumbled the bed close over wildly to find there were no sheets. She remembered the fact for a moment forgotten in excitement. But two of the blankets were old. She dragged them out and attempted to part them with her hands. The hems at the ends resisted stubbornly. She bit and tore them with her teeth. Once they were severed she made headway faster, using jaws and hands together. The blankets were torn into three strips each. Then she knotted their ends together. Zagorsky stirred and partially rose, goaded by some latent force that frequently possessed her in her sleep, rousing her even to walking. Baleen, she said, apparently staring at Thurley. In sickening fright the girl let fall her strips of cloth as the woman sank back in her bed. Cold moisture broke on Thurley's brow. Her heart throb like an engine in her breast. It seemed as if the horrid inefficiency of a nightmare numbed and paralyzed her actions, yet she soon resumed her task. Fear had electrified her ingenuity as courage had steeled her nerves. She tied her rope to the table leg that was nearest the window. At last and slightly raised the sash to drop the end. The window came down again immediately, its loose old skeleton rattling in the frame. Once more its noise awoke the peel of alarms in Thurley's bosom. A gush of the wintery air sweeping in had struck like a zone of chill across her heated body. She glanced about where she should need protection from the night and its wind and snow. The grey old cloak was on the bed. She caught it up and put it on. When a crack and a thump on the stairs below made her gasp and start with dread, she stood there trembling suppressing her breath and pressing both hands above her heart as if to stifle its clamor. Again all was still. She thought of the lamp and blew it out as a measure of precaution. Groping her way to the window again she thrust aside the curtains, raised the sash and put out her foot to crawl out backward. Her one hand closed in frantic grip upon her strand of wool. A horrible voice abruptly woke the silence. Zagorsky talking in her unsurrendered restlessness of spirit, you giant she'll strike's a blow. A fearful gurgle sputtered in her throat. She rose from the bed as Thurley could hear and floundered about the room. Unable to endure the frightening thoughts that suddenly swooped upon her, Thurley supported the stash with her shoulder. Dropped backward from the sill and was suddenly out in the clean smelling cold, swaying twenty feet up from the ground. The window had closed behind her, falling with its rattle to the cushion of wool where the blanket lay across the frame. Down, down slipped Thurley nearly thrust from her hold when a knot in the strand was encountered. Her hands were all but scorched by the rope as the last few feet slid through her tender palms and she landed on and fell to the earth. Up in an instant unhurt and remarkably revived in strength and nerve by the tonic of the air she paused for a moment to glance about and listen before she moved. The entire side of the building was dark, not a gleam of light was revealed from a single window. There was not a sound in all the world, it seemed, nor a sign of other houses. A few stars gleamed in wells of vast profundity between huge masses of cloud. The great brazen dipper blazed heatlessly as it swung about the polar star immovably studded in the north. It seemed Thurley like a guidance divine as she recognized this mighty constellation. It told her the way to go. The village of North Winig, she thought, must merely be a mile to the west. She did not know the abandoned mill was not this structure. She was quitting, but was miles away in the opposite direction. Raising the cloak which would have dragged and caught upon her feet she faced the wind that had blown all day across the wintery continent and was presently plunging through dry drifts of snow and over barren earth too hard to receive her tracks. The wind sent scud where the drifts were piled and this filled in the imprints of her shoes and so concealed her trail. She glanced behind as she hastened on, but neither a shout nor a ray of light did the somber old hovel surrender. Nevertheless she felt pursued, a haunting sense of her insecurity, peopling every shadow with a sinister form about to leap out and retake her. She presently ran as increasing distance from the house made the echo of footsteps far too faint to travel back and betrayed the fact that she was gone. She came to a fence and clambered through, tearing the cloak which she held as close as possible about her chest where the winds sought the thinness of her garments. For the very first time since the moment of entering Edith's room she missed her furs, her muff and scarf, which the Gorsky must have taken. They did not matter, nothing mattered now but escape, to escape the village and beg for protection and shelter from the first warm house she should find. Running and walking feverishly pushing forward, she took no heed of distance or the roughness of the field where she was traveling. She felt a glow of warmth and life responding to her rapid locomotion and at last she came upon a road. It led apparently westward, doubtless she thought to the village she was seeking. Perhaps North Winig was now no more than half a mile away and still no sign of pursuers in the rear. It was a strange, still world of gray and black with skeleton trees against the restless sky and huge abysses of shadow in the far off woods and lakes of dull snow in the meadows. It was frozen to lifelessness, stilled to the silence of death. Thoroughly went on. It seemed endless this road and its course was altered at a curve here and there till directions were all confused. Dark clouds had blotted out the stars and from time to time a flurry of snow was driven fiercely earthward on the wind. Thoroughly was certain she had come a mile at the end of a half an hour of ceaseless hurry. She had gone more nearly too and by then was six from the nearest town and leaving it further behind. She had nothing by the way of plan save to go and go till she came to North Winig. She had slowed to a steady active gate but doubts were beginning in her mind. An hour out she halted glancing about her and bewilderment wondering whether she had come. Long before this as she felt convinced the village should have been encountered, a realizing sense that she must have chosen the wrong direction came discouragingly upon her. She dared not return and so approached the house from which she had escaped. She felt a little weariness and a dread of being lost. The chill of the breeze would not permit long halting in the road. She must go and keep on going, she knew. But where? I shall come to something finally, she told herself in bravery and onward she trudged as before. At midnight she was all but exhausted. The chain about her waist was cold and heavy. A new despair was at her heart. To go on all night was hardly possible. To sink by the road in such a bitter atmosphere would mean to perish long before dawn. She felt the road must terminate at last at a farm, if nothing more. Anything now as a shelter from the wind would be as a haven of rest. The snow was deeper in the road and her feet were heavy with its weight and constant retarding. She went on and on. It seemed to her a time that was never to end. It was nearly one o'clock in the morning with the wind assuming a colder brisk or search of all the land, when out of the darkness loomed the low, squat form of a shed or outbuilding standing by the road. A note of gladness escaped the girl as she prodded her lagging limbs to vigorous effort. She was certain of a house which should be near at hand, and her theory was right. There had been a dwelling once at the place, and its ruins were there when she came to the site. The mute gaunt bones of a structure consumed in the autumn by fire. Thoroughly could have wept from weariness and disappointment. She stumbled back to the shed-like building once a black smith's shop. Affected an entrance where a board was torn away and sinking down where a few old shavings had escaped the pencils of snow, flung in at gaping cracks, she sheltered herself as best she might in a broken box beneath a workman's bench, and was thankful to God for rest. CHAPTER 40 A NIGHT OF TOIL Alice van Kirk on Sunday afternoon felt as if the suspense and strain of uncertainty would completely break her down. The morning had been sufficiently insupportable. She had barely slept all night and with Stiverndt reporting no progress after ten o'clock, her cup of anguish had seemed full to overflowing. But the afternoon as mockingly barren of news or hope as any hours already endured brought calls and callers innumerable with inquiries as to Thoroughly's health, invitations for the weak forthcoming, and astonishment and curiosity on the part of those who discovered by personal attendance at the mansion that Thoroughly was away. Alice had not revealed the truth to anyone save Robbly and the Baron. She feared and dreaded the rumors and gossip the exaggerated tales and the inescapable suspicions that knowledge of the Prince's disappearance would immediately engender. Nevertheless, to maintain a smiling composure and to parry insidious queries was taxing the utmost of her ingenuity and all but driving her distracted. Major Phipps, who had been away recuperating from his literary labors for several weeks, was one of the callers. He came with Kelsey Woods and was annoyingly insistent in his probing as to Thoroughly her whereabouts and prospects. Willie Stetson, with twenty different bunches of flowers for Thoroughly to accept or reject, but to exercise her wholly untrammeled choice upon, was early on the scene. Algy Dearborn brought a brand new limerick. Captain Fowler and Beau Bremmer of the diplomatic service arrived almost together. Lady Honour Calfrop and Count Faishi came together as they had on a number of occasions. Gailard came later with floral contributions and by great good fortune did not collide with the Count. Faishi was sufficiently persistent in his reiterated desire to be made acquaintant at once with Thoroughly's whereabouts. He cornered Alice by herself at the moment when the others were engaged in a mild debate on women's suffrage and repeated his wishes anew. "'It is not that I shall be considered as one of the limpid others,' he explained. The nature is one of fire and action, so impatient to move, to surround. Miss Thoroughly herself understands, she would wish it for me to be informed where she is, what she does away from her home, where I shall send my eager thoughts to remind her of the pleasant times whenever we have met. I quite understand, said Alice, distraught by her haunting fears. If I were to tell you, Count Faishi, that she is far away and in peril, what would your fire and action do?' he grinned. "'I should be aware, dear lady, that you are a humorous people, you Americans. I shall wait. She must presently return. My longing shall bring her back.' "'Perhaps,' said Alice, but I would pray God to send her, a humorous American man, with a good strong arm and fearless heart. A no-hot house, absent treatment. She rose and joined the others restlessly, her feeling one of negative guilt, that she talked and smiled with guests like these and did nothing at all for Thoroughly. She was glad when they went, particularly glad to be rid of the glib Faishi, shamelessly boasting of the heat of his heart, that she knew to be colder than brass. But if the Count was insistent, Gailard was fairly intolerable. The man was at the brink of ruin, his nerves were as brittle as glass. He was pale, irritable, strung, taut as a rope between two twisting screws. Faishi had crowded him fairly to the edge, and he felt already that the slightest push must hurl him downward to the pit. Some way in his desperate plight he felt the necessity for Thoroughly Ruxton, a summon of the other days to whom to open the gates of his soul and relieve the pressure within. She had not replied to his letter, that note amounting to a curt demand that she permit him to announce their engagement. Irrationally he told himself that if she had only sent him word, definite word, even a negative reply, the entire fabric of his luck must have undergone a transformation. He was not prepared to accept her no for his answer. Today, however, it was anything to find her and perhaps compel her to consent to be his wife. He felt it would conquer Faishi, to discover that she was absent from the scene, and to receive no adequate explanation of what her absence meant increased his annoyance and impatience. See here, he said to Alice in his domineering way, for the moment he could snatch her away from the others. We both understand that my position with Thoroughly is unlike that of anyone else. I've a right to know where she's gone. Alice was netdled. I wish it were such a right as might keep you better informed, more vitally in touch with events, and then perhaps you might assist instead of goading me. What do you mean, he demanded. You're not declaring your ignorance as to where she is. And if I were, what then? He narrowed his gaze upon her, countless suspicions flashing briefly in his brain. You're sure she hasn't gone to New Haven, he said. It isn't some attempt to erase all final traces of the past. Alice could almost have slapped him. Her past with you, she queried as she had on previous occasions. I am sure there is no occasion, Mr. Gaylord, if, as you say, you occupy a peculiar position with regard to Thoroughly, what would you think your duty should anything arise to menace her happiness, her freedom, her life? She had masked her intensity of feeling, or, if she had not, Gaylord failed to penetrate her thin veneer of calm. He smiled again in his mirthless, sardonic manner, the manner of one desperate, no matter where he turns. Is this some trap for me, he inquired? Does it snap upon my answer? It does, to some extent. Though my question was not intended as a trap, a precisely. May I exercise the privilege of avoiding the trap? You may think the trap avoided. He ceased to smile. I suppose you mean I am trapped no matter how I answer. Alice shrugged her shoulders. Your fate is of your own making, not of mine. Suppose Thoroughly needed help. You claim you occupy a special position in her destiny. How far would you be willing to go? What would you sacrifice to find her and give her assistance? Gaylord wondered if perchance the game was over and Thoroughly sent away, whether Alice Van Kirk had begun to fear detection of their game, and had brought it to a sudden termination. His attitude was altered by the thought, so lightly did his weather vane respond to a zephyr of change. If she's out of town, he replied, I'd do what I could, do anything in reason except, of course, to leave the city just at present. God knows my whole career may depend on my being here now every minute. Exactly, said Alice, and that was her final word with the man, but not her final disgust. She sounded nearly every man who had hung on Thoroughly's words and moves, while flowers and speeches were the price. There was none in them all, she felt convinced, with the manhood, the courage, and the self-denial, to risk his comfort, far less risk his life should the princes require such sacrifice to defend her, perhaps from death. In the final analysis not a few regarded Thoroughly as already the prize, and therefore the charge of the young Grand Duke Carl Wilhelm. They would gladly flirt with his affianced bride, but her dangers were all for him. It was late when Stiverand phoned at last that a faint star of hope had risen. His message was brief and excited, the mere statement that a hint had arrived at the Baron's headquarters, and that anything further that might develop would be phoned in later on. He was going, Robly added, to a place far out from Manhattan, to investigate a vague report that might prove utterly groundless. It was something, at least, on which to act, and midnight would tell the tale. To all of Alice's eager questions he returned, the vaguest of answers, presently hanging up the phone. If disappointment lurked beyond, he preferred to accept its brunt himself and not raise beaming expectations to dash them later in the night. It was late when he started his car with his man in the driver's seat. He had ascertained that no railroad trains ran nearer than fifteen miles or more to the west of North Winig. He was dressed in furs, which differed but slightly from those of his mecanition. Wolfskin robes were heaped in the Tanau's hold, should occasion arise for their use. Their lamps were lighted on the ferry boat, half an hour later with nearly four clear hours ahead of them, in which to cover a distance calculated something under seventy miles, the car was going like a huge projectile over roads hard as flint. The darkness descended swiftly. The night was moonless, but the film of snow that lay on all the lifeless world reflected the dim refulgence of the heavens, clearly defining the pike. For more than a quarter of the distance, the big dark device of modern power and velocity shot through villages, past fields, and over bridges like a thing made glad by its own sheer might and perfection. Then it blew out a tire, and a long heart-wracking siege of disasters had been ushered in as if at the beckoning of fate. A cylinder began to miss, almost upon the resumption of the journey. For fully an hour both Stivern and his men sought vainly to locate the trouble. When they came upon it finally they found it somewhat serious, a valve rod sticking every other minute, and then for a time running normally. Filing and oiling aided materially, but the lost minutes were totaling fast. When once he could drive ahead again the chauffeur urged such terrific speed that wreckage was constantly threatened. One violent maneuver resulting from this recklessness stripped out the gears of the intermediate speed. A battery connection shaken loose brought on the recurrence of the missing, for which the valve rod was for long mistakenly attacked. One crushing delaying complication after another arose. The great machine now racing, now barely toiling in the highway, performed every known depravity of steel and spark and gasoline. Another tire went the way of ruin, impatiently, wildly. Stivern strove to redeem lost time but in vain. It was one in terminal series of delays, repairs and exhausting efforts to keep the machine on its legs. Eight o'clock found them far from anywhere with forty miles to go. Calamity overtook them almost while they reckoned that with luck they would still be late no more than half an hour. At nine they were down and out again. Stivern groaning in vain. He had looked at his watch a hundred times and now with more than thirty miles to travel was sweating in the frozen wind to think of what might be happening were thoroughly waited, peering through the night for the help that could not arrive. How they limped along toward North Winig, Robly could never have told. It seemed a veritable nightmare of helplessness wherein he struggled furiously to get ahead only to be baffled hindered stalled by things intangible that may not be engaged or overcome. It was midnight and past when they came at last to the village. They had gone astray from the road among their other accidents and expended an hour getting back. The little settlement in which they found themselves at last seemed part of the frozen world. Not a light was shown from any house where all appeared like spectral things merely mockeries of men's abodes with glassy eyes lifelessly staring. Leaving his man in charge of the car, Stivern hastened off at once to find the abandoned mill. He came there at last discovering an empty old ruin through which the wind was howling dismally. Armed as he was he nevertheless approached it with caution only to ascertain that a burial place would exhibit more cheer and life. He knew that a thoroughly had been here at all she had long since gone away. Bitterness and self-accusation and impotent bickering at fates and accidents consumed him there in the wind. It seemed so utterly purile to have come this far and be obliged to turn about and return the way he had traveled crowned with defeat and disappointment. There was nothing about the structure to give him the slightest guidance or hint as to what he should do. He could only turn disgustedly away. Reviling himself for failure and thoroughly's hour of need and face the cold and desolation between himself and his car. Harassed, even tortured by worry and apprehension as to what his delinquency might have involved, he could only wonder vaguely how possible to serve the Princess now. He could think of one thing only. Remain for the night at North Winig and by search and inquiry early in the morning redeem a little of his effort. He came to the village street some distance from his car. Up the road he went as rapidly as possible wondering soon if his man had curled himself down on the furs to keep himself warm as he waited. He had rather expected the man to be walking about on the road warming himself by motion. Banks, he called as he came in, speaking distance but no reply was returned. He came to the car, glanced in at the tunnel, discovered it empty of anything save the furs and was passing along the front of the hood when he all but fell over his man. He was lying loosely crumpled in the road, his hat a little thrown aside, his face marble white on the snow. Banks cried stiver and kneeling down, but the man unconscious left there for dead by Pelevin and Max returning from their long cold wait at the mill, neither heard nor felt nor moved. End of Chapter 40. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. This is a LibriVox recording by Paul Hansen. Thoroughly Ruxton by Philip Viral Miguels. Chapter 41. The Gold of Morning. It was not till an hour afterward with the village astir in the neighborhood of Gog that stiver and pause for a moment to wonder why his chauffeur had been attacked. He thought that banks and the night's dim starlight resembled the grand duke Carl somewhat strikingly. The task of dragging and carrying banks to a house, arousing the inmates and inducing the frightened men and hysterical women of the immediate vicinity to help him save his mechanitions life had occupied all his strength and thought. Playing all of this was a dull but throbbing consciousness that thoroughly was somewhere near or far, disappointed if alive and doubtless in the hands of assassins allied with those must have beaten banks. It was never possible for even the part of a second to forget that the princes had called him, sent him her brief appeal, expected him here or somewhere at the fateful hour of nine. He felt that now when the hours left to the long disastrous night, he should be in his car driving hither and yon, moving, moving, doing something definite, something to find her and help her. He groaned at the necessity of serving banks while neglecting thoroughly, though the loyal impulse of his nature urged him readily to give all he could to his man. Banks had sustained a frightful blow on the skull that the arch of bone had not been more severely fractured or even crumpled inward was a miracle due perhaps to the thickness of his hair. He had not revived till nearly three in the morning and then for a moment only. A local physician summoned tardily had exhausted himself and his resources early, while the ministrations of the women served to better purpose. It was daylight and Stiverant was still tirelessly assisting and directing operations when his man at length gave assurance of assuming his normal functioning, so suddenly interrupted and so near its termination. The man, however, would be too ill and weak to be moved for several days. The name of a skillful woman, nurse, was supplied and answered to Stiverant's demands. She lived in a larger village twenty miles away whither no one could go in a hurry. There was no alternative, as Robly knew. He must go in his car and drive the machine himself. He drank three steaming cups of coffee thoughtfully provided by the one calm woman of the house and started on his way. The sun arose and clouds and blew together its first frost, brightened rays appearing to press upon the earth, a colder wave of air, far off on a lonesome snow- strewn road. Thoroughly had meantime roused from an inactivity which could scarcely be described as sleep. She had shivered and chattered all night in her box, drawing shavings and her tattered cloak about her chilling limbs and shoulders, and had risen at times to beat her hands, tramp up and down the shop and otherwise struggle with the numbing coal that crept to the marrow of her bones. The first faint streaks of dawn had readily addressed her senses, alert for signs that the night was past, since its darkness and drag had seemed to be centuries long. She had slipped from the shed-like structure only to find the half-dim world a scene of chill and desolation. The wind had sought her instantly as if in greed for a victim long denied. To face the road thus early was utterly disheartening. She was not even sure of the way she had come. Back to the darkness of the partly sheltered shop she hastened to hunt in vain for a match whereby a fire might be lighted in the forge. When at last the sun put a finger through a crack, a tender, golden finger, cold but comforting, smoldering hope took flame again in the heart of the weary girl. Her courage was endless. She felt that if only she could find a house with any sort of welcome in a space of twenty miles she would walk and make no complaint. No sinner had she issued forth, however, and ascertained her right direction by sight of the fire-ruined house, than all the old fears of the previous night plus a hundred more returned to reignite her fever. The darkness, after all, had been her friend. By the morning's light those terrible men and the frightful woman at the house she had quitted would soon be infesting every road. They could not long remain an ignorance of her escape if they had not indeed discovered her absence early in the night. It seemed almost as if perhaps her greater safety lay in remaining at the shop. Yet there they might also presently search, and there she could starve or perish with cold, before she might perchance be enabled to hail some passing vehicle and beg for aid and protection. And how should she know from whom to implore assistance? Since of all the men she had heard at the house she had seen but one, Pelevin. She knew she must simply hasten on as fast as stiffened aching limbs could carry her down the road. If only the chain about her waist could be dropped she should feel such tremendous relief. She was powerless, however, to remove it and breathlessly expect in that any moment she might be startled by a shout as pursuing men aspired and bore down upon her she faced the bleakness of the lifeless road and trudged bravely onward as before. She had certainly gone far less than a mile and was coming to a wooden bridge that spanned a black little stream when out of the crispness of the morning air came a series of sharp percussions. She knew them at once, the rapid fire discharges of a motor car with the muffler cut out open. Her heart leaped like a doe discovered by a hunter. The car was somewhere down ahead but was not in sight where the road curved in the woods. Instinctively certain that pursuit alone could arouse men at sunrise she darted swiftly to the bridge leaped down a frozen bank of gravel and was presently crouching in the shadows by the stream holding her breath to still her heart which he felt must betray her with its beating. She had not long to wait. The car thus early disturbing the silence sped with a snarl of power to the bridge and over its planks rattling down dust and dust of snow on the girl as graze or cloak. It was gone as quickly its two eager occupants, Max and Jan, wildly searching the road, copes and field as they rounded the circle back to the house from which their intended victim had escaped. They had made their discovery shortly after two in the morning returning from their wait at the mill and their murderous assault made upon banks who had been discovered too late to be another person than the young Grand Duke. They had striven in vain to arouse a Gorski till the door had been forced and the truth abruptly discovered. At daylight the search on foot had begun then the car brought into requisition. They had taken a road where some tracks in the snow had been left undisturbed by the wind. The tracks were not thoroughly's. Now their circle brought them back again, calculations convincing both the man that their captive could scarcely have gone so far even by walking all night. When they came to the old time blacksmith shop they halted and broke in the door. Thoroughly mean time not having dared attempt to look when the car was passing remained in her place of concealment till the faintest sound had died away in the distance. When she emerged to clamour once more to the frozen road and hasten on more favourishly than before she was suddenly afflicted by a second thought which made her sick with disappointment. It might have been robbly in his car from whom she had hidden at the bridge. He might have received her note at last and have come as soon as possible arriving only at dawn. It was highly improbable after all that creatures such as she had seen at the house of her imprisonment would employ an automobile. She could almost have cried. She could almost have turned and run where the car had disappeared. But the thought of proceeding in that direction was instantly frightening. She could only plow ahead. How far she had trudged when once again she heard the lively puncturing of the air by a motor's exhaust, thoroughly neither new nor cared. She was once more possessed by alarms and excitements, the instincts of precaution, the hope of deliverance and friends. The car she heard was behind her. It was not yet to be seen so winding was the road. She had halted opposite of more than usually desolate area where trees had been cut, earth hauled away and stumps left strewn and dismal neglect. She darted to the cover that the nearest one afforded and concealed herself behind its blackened bulk. The car was coming rapidly, still hidden by the earthy bank where excavations had ceased. It slowed to take a furrowed bit of road as muffler purring quietly, then rolled into view with the sunlight gleaming from its brass. Robbly cried thoroughly, leaping to her feet and stumbling and pitching grotesquely to catch her balance where frozen clawed had caught her foot. She saw the startled white-and-face of Stiverant turned upon her and felt as if her very soul must leap from her bosom in joy. He had halted his car as if it had struck a wall. He leaped from his seat and as he had that day when he fell and ran to catch her in his arms as she lunged once more to fall from weakness and the stiffness of her body. Thoroughly, he said, thoroughly in God's name how, oh, get me away, don't stop, she interrupted wildly, clinging to him helplessly. I've walked so far and they may be coming any minute, oh, you've come, you've come. I don't see how you could have ever found me, but please don't wait, don't talk, let's go just as fast as ever we can. But thoroughly who? Let me help you in, he said to her, leading her promptly round the car where she climbed to the seat beside his own. There's no one on the road, you're cold, good heavens, what you must have been through. You must take these robes, perhaps you'd better ride in the back, which way do you wish me to go? So many words, explanations and questions were on his mind that he abandoned coherence and despair and thoroughly weakened by sudden relief and reliance on his strength could only sink in the cushioned seat, muffled with furs and reply in broken senses. I'd rather ride here, oh, to see you, anyone after it all, the horrible dream. But they'll come, they'll come just straight ahead anywhere but back the other way, somewhere to get a train or reach a house and demand protection. They'd stop at nothing now, just please make it go. The car started slowly down the road. You're safe, he assured her, gaining in calm as her weakness increased upon her and the need for his strength arose. You're excited thoroughly, naturally, God to think. What's that? She interrupted wildly her eyes, tremendously dilated and blazing in his own. What's what? It's another car. Oh, if it should be. She had turned to look backwards on the highway. Suddenly round the turn shot a big red limousine, two men on the seat in front. One of the men half rose by the wheel and now let out a yell like a fiend. Stiverin's car had already responded to his urging of spark and throttle. He felt thoroughly slump and sickening fear and understood the situation as no spoken word could have told him. He crowded on his utmost power. The monster beneath him lurched forward like a liberated locomotive and a furious race began. End of chapter 41. This is a Librebox recording. All Librebox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librebox.org. Recording by Paul Hansen. Thoroughly Ruxton by Philip Viral Miguel's. Chapter 42. The Race. There was certainly less than 300 yards between the cars when Jan and Max, who had turned 5 miles back on suspicion to pursue the Stiverin machine, were obliged to slow for the briefest period where the ruts would have wrecked their motor. Stiverin glancing back at them quickly was confident of winning should his car behave its best, but his face was grim. These men have no right. Wouldn't dare, he started to cry, but he realized they would halt at nothing as a vivid conviction was flashed on his brain that doubtless they had struck the blow that had all but killed his man. Were gaining, cried thoroughly, her strength and courage reasserting themselves with wonderful resilience. Can you give her any more? For his answer, Stiverin jammed the muffler cut out with his heel. A terrific series of detonations instantly followed. The car plunged forward with newer zest and trees shot past in a blur. In the moments advantage caused by the ruts that held the pursuing monster at the rear, they nearly doubled their lead. Then on came the giant limousine like the fragment of a meteor ripping up the road. It was Jan driving, his rage prodigious, his lust for murder now a mania broken from its bounds. The car was one of enormous power, a racing model equipped with the limousine for winter use, but little hindered by this bulky superstructure. Its six big cylinders were pouring might and gatling fuselage upon the road. It roared like an engine of doom and destruction, hurtling and rocketing to overtake the fleeing machine ahead. Stiverin's car was low to the ground like a greyhound eager for work. For some inexplicable reason the motor that had balked in the night was running like a dream. Its mighty pistons hurtling a cataract of power upon the shaft and wheels. Despite the superior dynamic of the car behind, it continued to creep away. Snow, frozen dust and a stifling cloud of fumes seemed scorched from Stiverin's path when he leaned a little forward and gave more oil to the swiftly heating motor. Din, crazy speed and appalling velocity marked the course where the huge devices raced. A knife edge wind seemed hurtling down upon thoroughly as they split the frozen air. The road became a torrent rushing incredibly under their wheels. Its grey and snow white blended in the froth. They swung about an angle in the highway out upon a wider pike which led straightway to a village small in size. For one brief second Stiverin dreamed that to halt in the town and demand protection might be advisable but he almost as quickly abandoned the thought as an invitation to death. Not only was the settlement insignificant and the hour too early for its officers to be a stir in the street, but the fiery projectile behind belching red flame and scorching the very snow from its path was heating to new efficiency and making perceptible gains. There was nothing on earth that Robly could do by way of giving more power to his car or heaving out freight to make it lighter. He could only attempt to hold his lead by absolutely reckless driving, hoping that some deserved catastrophe might overtake the minotaur of evil there behind. They shot through the village like a fury of battle hurled by a monstrous hurricane frightful echoes of their gatling fire thundering back from the houses. A sharp staccato like a pistol shot in the uproar of red-hot exhausts, pierced through the roaring of the car behind and told of a miss in one of her six great cylinders. Two men and a dog had spun dizzily past the soul-signs of life in the village. Again that barking explosion came in Stiver's heart and his stampeding car leapt like animals together. He knew his pursuers were in trouble. By yards and rods the limousine was falling to the rear, lame by the one bulking cylinder now running now dead for a second or less. He had a languished speed like a marathon runner facing a hill on the final lap of his race. A gap of nearly a mile extent was swiftly open between the two as Stiver and held to his speed, exaltation burning in his pulses, flaring in his motor and roaring in his wake made hot his frame despite the biting wind and brightening of his eyes He shot to the cover of a stretch of woods where the road wound westward like a river. A crack like a rifle's incisive note rang out on the air and his car swerved wildly from the road. A tire had gone from the right four-wheel and a spring was snapped as he wrenched her back and saved them from destruction. It was madness to drive at speed after that and he groaned her to reason. He had to keep on despite his flattened casing and his wrist all but failed as he clung to the wheel holding the cripple from plunging away on a tangent of death for them both. Almost simultaneously with the accident the air-startling roar of the huge six-cylinder came vibrantly and clearly on the wind. It was back in tune with no more missing to cut her down. They'll catch us thoroughly, he called to the girl. We've done for now on speed. She knew precisely what had happened. She knew how utterly mad it would be to race with a flattened front tire. On this rutted road it was not to be attempted for a moment. It would be fairly suicidal. She could think of nothing to say and Stivernd shouted, what shall we do? We're racing but slowly now her speed perhaps sufficient to elude the pursuers for five or six minutes or more. We couldn't hide, cried thoroughly, and Stivernd glanced at the woods. There's just one chance, he called above the din, releasing the muffler cut out for the purpose. Give me your cloak. You take my cap and furs. I'll get out and run so the devils can see me and you drive on. They'll think it is I still driving and you are running to hide. Slip off your cloak and be quick, he halted the car as he spoke. But oh, if anything thoroughly started when he interrupted quickly, no time to talk or argue. It's the only chance, your cloak. He had dropped off his great fur coat and clapped his cap upon her head. She rose and he stripped her of the old gray garment. Helping her swiftly into his furs and urging her into his seat. If they catch you probably, she started as before. I mustn't let I love you, he said in the stress and white heat of the moment. I'd give my life to serve you, quick, there isn't a moment to lose. Open her up as wide as you dare to drive and don't stop for anything on earth. He leaped from the car and started for the woods, covered from heels to crown by the long gray cloak that thoroughly had trailed in the night. Goodbye, he called. Don't wait, don't wait, they're nearly in sight up the road. Goodbye, she replied the tears swiftly springing in her softened eyes and starting the car with her firm young skill reinforced by the courage demanded by the moment. She was going again at dizzying speed when the huge limousine belching and roaring with malevolence and bloodlust shot into view around the bend and Stivernt ran to a bit of brush and crouched as if to hide. One yell of satisfaction barely audible to Robly ascended from the pursuing car and informed him he had been seen. Almost at once the detonations of the limousine ceased. The car was halted for the roadway bent a trifle and the way to the woods was shorter from here than from where the fugitive had started. Both men leaped from the heated monster and started across the snow and broken ground rapidly approaching the spot where Stivernt was hiding. He leaped to his feet and through dry weeds ran as if staggering with terror. One man fell but rose again cursing the root that had thrown him down and drawing his knife as he once more darted forward. It was Jan and he quickly overtook his less fiendish comrade with the quarry now nearly in his grasp. Stivernt felt for his pistol and nearly collapsed with the sudden memory he had left it in the car. For a moment he nearly went wild with disappointment then adopted a desperate plan nothing but quickness and the great advantage of surprise could avail to save him now and this he knew. He seemed to struggle on when out of the corner of his eye he could see his pursuers shadow and in his ear caught the puff and snorted the fellow's breathing. He suddenly halted turned like a flash and struck the man with all his might fairly in the pit of his stomach. Down he went like a stricken bullock doubled with agony to ride on the earth in pain and loss of breath leaping fairly across his helpless form. Stivernt met the German Max with an equally unexpected and unparried blow on the point of the chin and saw him quiver where he fell. It was all accomplished in the briefest span a matter made comparatively easy by the wholly unlooked for method of attack. Panting in white with rage and his effort, robbly regarded the first of the two with his eyes that gleamed like steel. The creature was helpless rolling his eyes in an anguish that did not subside. You currs, said Stivernt, taking up the knife that Jan had let fall from his hand and starting at once to make further pursuit impossible, he ran and walked to their waiting car numbered to the seat. For the first time then, as he made an attempt to grip the wheel with his hand, he realized that his wrist was gone from the blows he had just delivered. In its mending condition it had been too weak to sustain the force of the shot. It was useless, though not again broken. He had hoped to take the limousine and continue after thoroughly. Such a course was out of the question, but there was well within his power. He made ready to leap, slipped in the clutch, speeded up as much as he dared, then pushing the spark and the throttle forward jumped out at the side and permitted the erstwhile roaring monster to rush unguided down the road. For a moment had clung to the straight bit of road like a thing endowed with life, then gathering speed and lunging forward like a maddened bull. It suddenly veered at the highway's curve and plunged with violence incredible down through a glade of the snow and ice ramming a tree with an impact tremendous to behold. There was a crash of shattered glass, fierce grinding of sounds, the crunching of iron and turmoil of twisting steel and its wreckage and ruin were complete. Stiverin started down the road and clearly had gone on foot. There was nothing else to do, no other place to go. He merely wondered how far she might have sped, how far he must walk to come to a village and get a train at last, perhaps with the princess and perhaps alone. He glanced back repeatedly until at length he came to a turn of the highway beyond which was an opening through the woods affording a view of all the violence. Until the place was hidden from his view he saw no sign that either man had risen from the earth. He was going rapidly, merely intent upon making all possible progress and inclined to believe that Thurley might attempt to secure assistance beyond and return again to the scene when he was thoroughly astounded to discover his car standing unattended in the road some distance ahead. A bit of bluish mist between the wheels revealing the fact that the motor was in motion. He hastened his pace, alarmed and knew as he saw no sign of Thurley. Then he came to the side of the trembling machine and glanced thoroughly about. Thurley had disappeared. For a moment possessed with the wildest beliefs that some new calamity met in this direction had accomplished her destruction after all he ran ahead, came back, called out her name and searched all the wooded cobs with a quickly roving gaze. Not a ruffling nor attracted the snow in that direction afford. On the road's other side the wind had cleared the frozen earth making footprints out of the question. But he hastened there and beheld in the field quite a distance away something furry that lay in the snow. It was Thurley. Then she drove away and left the scene where Stiverndt running and hiding was inviting perhaps even death to overtake him. She had almost immediately suffered a sense of selfishness in attempting to escape while abandoning the man she knew she dearly loved. She had merely obeyed instructions hurriedly supplied. Then the limping card bumping stiffly over frozen ruts had presently added an element unforeseen. The seat cushion next to the one she occupied was jolted from its place in a shallow receptacle where it had been placed lay Stiverndt's revolver. The car had arrived at the turn of the road affording a second view of the field where Stiverndt was running. As Thurley looked she beheld a man go down in a sudden encounter. She was certain it was robbly viciously attacked by creatures at her heels. She had halted the car, snatched up the revolver and run with all her might toward the place half seen beyond. Then her foot struck a route. She plunged head foremost on the earth. The pistol was discharged and she lay there motionless and white. End of Chapter 42 This is a Librebox recording. All Librebox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit Librebox.org Recording by Paul Hansen Thurley Ruckston by Philip Viral Miguel's Chapter 43 A Joy Resisted Stiverndt came running to the place the gravest fears overwhelming his sense of reflection. One impression only was his mind prepared to accept. A second foe had accomplished what the others had earlier failed to perform. The pistol gleaming in her hand sent a newer shock to his heart. He bent down at once and raising Thurley's head made a quick examination which revealed no sign of a wound. The bullet had done no harm. Thurley had struck on a frozen clot and the blow had stunned her senses. Stiverndt could not determine however the nature extent of her injuries and feared they were the worst. His mind was possessed by the thought of menace in all that wintry scene. He felt the most urgent necessity for getting her back to the car and far away without another moment's loss of time. He attempted to lift her prostrate form but his wrist was far too weak. He merely succeeded in rolling her over and raising her head to his knee but that was sufficient. Thurley returned to consciousness with astonishing celerity. Once more her position was altered. She opened her eyes and looked at Stiverndt wistfully as if some fear that she had only dreamed of this deliverance were coloring all her thoughts. You're hurt! He said gravely. What happened? She could not immediately answer but she presently said I fell. I was running to you with something, with your pistol. That was it. She raised herself abruptly staring about her with blazing eyes. Where are they? She cried a little weakly. But how have you I thought I saw you fall. Oh let's not wait another minute. Her nightmare of fears and horrors had rushed upon her relentlessly with consciousness fully returned. She struggled swiftly to her feet. Her aspect one of alarm and apprehensions. We're safe at least from pursuit he said. Glancing far across the field of snow to the place where the nihilists had fallen but we'll go at once and try to catch a train. With the pistol recovered and placed in his pocket he threw off the work that had served them both and supporting her arm with the left hand uninjured conducted her back to the car. I shall have to ask you to drive, he said, a grim little smile for a second curving his lips. My hand is down and out again from my hurry to get it back into use. Thoroughly was glad to take the wheel and start the car in motion. What happened she said still breathlessly excited. How did you manage to escape? Oh, when I saw them after you I felt the most awful sensations in the world. He told her a little of the happenings and how he had wrecked the car. He placed the furs about them both to protect her from the wind and at last he smiled again. For the third fateful time you drive the car in my place as I feared you might but as neither could have expected. She looked at him once more in her wistful way, a way that went straight to his heart. But you do think this is the last of these frights that the charms is satisfied, she asked. There will be no more like this with accident or horror in it all. No more he answered solemnly and yet each time has drawn us nearer together. The color burned up in her pallid cheeks superbly a flash of the thoroughly known and must love though time and space and the greater abyss of hopeless separation attempted to dim its flame. Her eyes met his for a wonderful second and both souls knew the deeps of love wherein they floated alone. The words he had spoken when he rode that swift declaration of his loyalty love and devotion echoed anew in her welcoming heart and filled all her pulses with joy. She thrilled to the words he uttered now his grave recognition that the fates had drawn there too unwitting selves together knitting a bond between their deepest spirits with a strength they could not resist. Yet even here after all she had recently endured she could not forget her word to Alice Van Kirk nor fully accept this wonderful happiness vouchsafed in the wintry desolation. We have had some extraordinary experiences together she answered smiling faintly. It makes it seem as if we have known each other always. Stivered had swiftly taken flame. Love bounded and surged in his veins. He felt that more than any one living he had rights and thoroughly's life and happiness rights that no other could assume. We have known each other always he said as two souls must when life enchants yes nature and God have wrought to fulfill such meetings such comradeship as ours he placed his hands on hers that grasped the wheel thoroughly I told you back in the road oh please she begged him suddenly her eyes swiftly brimming with exquisite joy and the need to curb his declaration would you please not tell me anything now I mean just tell me how you came he felt that he understood and yet he felt she loved him divine conviction of their oneness and their sublimated passions swept like a storm upon his nature beating against the barrier he had felt and dreaded between them constraint uncertainty even pain and hurt were swiftly combined with the truths and necessities that he feared must still hold them apart yet if he somewhat sounded the happiness and heart hunger for his love that throbbed and thoroughly bosom he also felt convinced of her genuine wish to avoid the tender topic and there as in all else where her wishes lay he was helpless to act in his own behalf no matter what the penalty his disappointment burned in his eyes along with the glow of his love he could not take advantage of the situation that threw her thus helplessly upon his chivalry and his heart protesting was dumb I came because I could not hesitate he told her simply and briefly he recounted all that had happened to himself Alice and the Baron since the moment the abduction was complete thoroughly broke out from time of surprise sympathy of indignation when she learned of Pelevin's entire duplicity her worry and compassion had their expression when he told her of the long hard ride with his man and the unseen attack that had laid his chauffeur on the earth you must send a nurse at once she declared when she learned the object of his early morning excursion perhaps you could put me on a train for New York go back with a nurse in an hour I shall take you home he answered you have told me nothing of all this atrocious business how it happened how you got away she related everything glad to share the horrors of her days and nights with one who would understand she shuddered anew over all she had endured in those final hours of escape and flight and struggle with the cold her hand went out involuntarily a second to grasp the sleeve of his coat so vivid were the moments lived again in her imagination a sacred joy leaped exultantly in his heart at the little sign of her confidence then her hand returned to the wheel again and the duty of guiding the car it was still fairly early in the morning with the sun warmly blazing from a cloudless sky at last when they came to a city on the railroad and learned that a New York limited was due in twenty minutes they phoned to Alice devoured a breakfast of rolls and coffee placed the car in charge of a local garage and summoned a nurse to go at once to banks in North Winig then they were speeded home missing the carriage Alice had sent to the ferry where Robly had taken a taxi cab at a moment of arriving a white and fluttering fairy godmother the victim of sudden reactions and relaxings of nervous strain at last clasped thoroughly somewhat hysterically to her bosom and cried for the joy she had felt was gone past all recalling Robly was sent to his physician for needed attention to his wrist and the princess was finally sent to bed and she sank into slumber like a child the chapter of violence occurrences was destined to achieve a fitting close all North Winig tremendously shaken by the crime committed at their very doors had aroused like a congress of sheriffs at noon in the old abandoned house where thoroughly had been prisoned they came upon a dreadful sight where Jan and Zagorsky still clutching knives lay slain by one another Pelavan and Max had fled what dual of words recriminations and passions had preceded the deadly combat waged with steel no witness was ever to reveal mute testimony of the fierce and savage conflict between the man and woman was supplied by everything about the room where they had fought and the hatred of man and distrust of their kind which alone must actuate the fanatical nihilist was frozen indelibly upon their features as they lay their stark and cold End of chapter 43 Chapter 44 Unexpected Aid It was fully two days before Thurley and Alice were sufficiently recovered to resume their ways of life that Thurley was not completely prostrated, was solely to the credit of her will that Thurley and Alice were not completely prostrated was solely to the credit of her will her courage and her magnificently perfect health the news had gone rapidly about the circle that the princess had returned and for once the daily papers were unaware of the vital facts in the story no one save Stiver and Alice and the Baron had been authentically informed of what had taken place as if all eagerness to regain lost ground and gratified desires and appetites merely whetted by Thurley's absence from the scene her numerous admiring swains redoubled their former efforts for her favor whole shops full of flowers trooped frequently in at the mansion's doors rivaled only by white winged invitations to opera parties, coutillions dinners, receptions with which all swelled them inundated Alice and her protégé Baron von Hochhaus duly informed as to Thurley's safe return desired to call at the earliest moment rendered possible by grave complications of his business Count Faish he was fired with pent-up order which could scarcely wait to be a conventional or restrained for another hour his insistence indeed roused Thurley to a sense of resentment most diverting from her recent terrifying adventures but her one great happiness now was Alice they too had been nitted to a sweet relationship that was second only to that of mother and daughter Alice had clung to her just a little wildly accusing herself of having made the girls dread experience possible and declaring her frights, her despair and her love repeatedly she had hung upon every word in moment of the narrative breathless and white with each succeeding anguish that Thurley had endured and she had since become childishly loath to see her princess depart from her sight for so much as a moment this was the partially restored condition of affairs at the great fifth avenue palace when Captain Gaylor driven to final desperation telephoned to Thurley on Wednesday afternoon for a private interview I have something important to say to request he told her his voice harsh and hoarse on the wire it is nothing for myself but something concerning a certain man who has thrust his attentions upon you a certain count I beg you to let me come Thurley had told him to come he arrived at four a haggard, nervous being as remotely related to the Gaylor she had known as a dried and frozen real is related to the boisterous and arrogant brook of the spring she was shocked at his appearance unaware either that Faishi had driven him finally to the blackest rim of ruin or that matters of money could so undermine and sap a strong man's strength I haven't much to tell you after all he said with a sickly sort of smile when the mere conventions of their meeting had been satisfied but I felt I must beg this chance of warning you that Count Faishi is an utterly unscrupulous cur with whom to associate is a degradation I have known him a year I have no wish to gamble of his shameless liaisons his abominable affairs on the continent his glaring duplicities or a score of transactions barely less than crimes but I couldn't rest till I let you know a little of what he is I've really come for that and also to implore you in the name of everything decent and American to expel this charlatan this leech and dog from your circle thoroughly already sufficiently informed as to the Count Faishi's detestable characteristics was nevertheless a little curious to know what Gaylord meant and what he might also know your indictment is very positive she said you must be prepared to prove a case against him I could prove a hundred with a little time answered Gaylord emphatically I have made no preparations for any such exposure it was neither my way nor my duty he has been my business partner he has used my confidence for my ruin he has beaten me working on my business word in honor all in his effort to thrust me aside from his path to you it is not for that I am here however smirching the man behind his back my beating the wreckage everything if only I can be assured that through it he shall not triumph here and understand I have realized at last my own mistakes of the past and the place where I put myself but I almost feel I could murder this well he's also blinded you his emotions were tremendous they shook him as if they were masters in his pale livid face only his two eyes seemed alive burning with the concentrated intensity of his angered being thoroughly gazed at him astonished she had no thought of Faishi now as an element of menace in her life she thought of him only as a monster in whose tentacles the man before her appeared to be strangely helpless she felt Gaylord's helplessness his surrender in some mighty struggle doubtless waged with all his stubborn strength against some unseen treachery he was powerless to meet her resentment against Faishi already vigorously and impatient was like a metal fulminate requiring only a spark to flash out a shattering explosion do you think she said with simulated calm she was far from feeling disdelt unfairly with you for the purpose for any reason at all concerned with me to put me out of the running Gaylord answered hotly that's the part I couldn't stand when a man is my partner and does a thing like that I do almost anything to snatch away the prize he thinks he has won thoroughly his eyes blazed and steadied as she looked upon Gaylord's face am I telling me a little of how he is beaten you and business Gaylord failed to understand he expected that thoroughly at the end would attempt a defense of the count perhaps for that reason he made more clear more naked and complete the revelations hotly poured from his lips he told of his first discoveries that Faishi supposed to be his friend as well as business associate and partner to undermine his credit he added item after item of the count's intrigue and hidden maneuvers to compass his absolute ruin I fought all last week when I thought I was done he added in conclusion rising to pace the floor and halting to mark his point and I made another loan it was all I could get I thought it would tide me over now he has engineered the final coup of mine of course through a friend and insisting on payments that cannot be made and so I rise to take the gaffe his smile was ghastly mirthless attempt such as one would expect on the lips of a warrior who about to die salutes great Caesar on his throne he added I suppose he who takes up the street must perish by the street but his partner should be square thoroughly was stirred to the depths of her womanly nature Gailard she knew had confessed his failure in the fight he had waged with a species of relief as to one who had once been something more than just a social acquaintance she felt indeed that she was the only one to whom it could have been told and therein she was right she controlled her one great impulse splendid effort of will but her course was as clear as the wind when must it end she inquired when must you meet your obligations or go under tomorrow afternoon and how much money would it need to pay I mean to win to win he smiled again and shook his head nearly twenty five thousand dollars her excitement grew intense upward in her cheeks superbly then thirty thousand would make it absolutely certain absolutely however I might as well wish for thirty millions but why I wish to let you have it she interrupted feverishly her eyes ablaze with the prospect of Faishi's defeat please don't ask me why today but say that you'll take it and win you wish me to beat Faishi more than anything and all the you'll take it you'll let me help but if I should lose after all be a year or more repaying you mustn't lose you shant you're too American will you take the money and come out on top in the end I will by heaven he answered a surge of color for the first time to his face thoroughly please nothing but your consent she interrupted although at once and get the check and presently Gaylord left the house the bit of paper in his pocket and wonder and fire in his soul it was strange that even in his humbled mood he could not understand he was certain a spark of her former love had ignited thoroughly's heart thoroughly on her part as thoroughly convinced that her action would be instantly comprehended went to Alice radiantly excited he's gone she said I don't suppose you saw him as pale as a pan of dough and frightfully nervous I have lent him thirty thousand dollars Alice suppressed a gas but looked at her stunned with amazement she merely said Acton Gaylord thoroughly realized abruptly that the shot to Alice was staggering though the reason escaped her intuitions why yes I do you very much mind she asked anxiously I guess I did it before I realized that the money the money was yours to dispose of as you please Alice interrupted smiling peculiarly do you feel like a drive to miss Mrs. Ashley Dwayne's Lady Calthrup has something important to communicate and hope we come this afternoon why yes said thoroughly a little afraid she had overstepped the mark at last and sacrificed the confidence that Alice had heretofore reposed in all her words and actions have I done something very wrong or foolish certainly not said Alice almost reassuringly but may I asked if Acton requested such alone oh not in the leaf said thoroughly sturdily it surprised him as much as as it seemed to astonish you Alice kissed her to dispel a line of worry on her brow then perhaps he's as fortunate as I dear child so go and be dressed in a hurry thoroughly went off to her own Boudoir much puzzled in her mind End of chapter 44