"I must go out a little while," he declared in desperation.
"Not in this storm," said his mother pleadingly.
"Yes. I'll be back by—ten," looking at the clock. "It is too bad to leave you alone," with sudden regret, kissing her tenderly.
"I shall not mind for a while. But this wretched storm"—
He laughed, a little strained and forced; then he put on his great-coat, almost wishing that every man in the country was without, and had to buy one to-morrow. He tramped up the street, drawing long respirations, every one of which was nearly a sigh. Was this the way Mr. Lawrence felt when times went bad? Was some such trouble the cause of that fatal disaster? He bowed his head in a sort of touching and profound respect to the dead man. He experienced an earnest sympathy for all struggling capitalists. What did unreasoning labor know of such nights as these when every thing, even good name, was at stake! He wondered if his mop of curly hair would turn gray, and then, in a ridiculously trivial mood, remembered he must go and have it cropped. As well now as any time; but when he reached the barber's, the place looked so uninviting, with the smoky kerosene-lamps turned low. He did not stop: he used to wonder afterward how it would have been if he had, until he came to have a sincere and reverent belief in God as the disposer of human events, the Hand back of the curtain, that guided every step, and kept sacred watch even over two sparrows.
He walked down past Maverick's; but half a dozen people were in there, so he went on and on to the very end of the street, when by the dim light he saw a figure in advance of him, a woman, tall and stately, muffled in a waterproof and hood. There was something in the bearing different from most of the Yerbury women who ran out of an evening for a neighborly gossip, or some provender for their next morning's breakfast. There were no stores in this direction; it was quite lonely; perhaps she was going home. It would annoy her to be followed, doubtless; and on such a night as this no roughs would be abroad in this vicinity.
Jack Darcy was in that nervous state when the brain seems rarefied and empowered to wrest secrets from the very elements in his path. He pursued several chains of thought at once, with lightning rapidity, and, with curious mental inconsistency, dropped them, and lapsed into others. Now a sudden interest sprang up in this wandering traveller. He listened with the wariness of an Indian to her step. It had in it the essential principle of flight, but a baffled, fruitless longing for escape, rather than a nearing to some distant haven or goal. He had not used to be so keen in this subtile discrimination, until Maverick crossed his path, and helped him out of his psychological bondage. And ordinarily his senses had not the electric keenness of to-night.
The figure paused. The face seemed to turn to the drear, blank sky—was it in appealing, or a desperate daring? an impotent resistance, or a wild, agonizing prayer? The hands were thrown up: he had come gradually nearer, and could see them, ghostly white in the long feeble ray of the distant lamp. What was she deciding or asking? A shiver ran over him as the thought of suicide entered his brain. At all events, he must not let her go to destruction.
Her hands dropped. She took a few slow, irresolute steps, then turned and came so quickly, that before he could stir or think, she confronted him. A wild face with staring eyes, a wilder shriek ringing out on the night air, making muffled echoes around, a desperate plunge, and a fall. He sprang and essayed to raise her from the half-frozen hail-bed of the sidewalk; the hood fell back, and he was more than astonished at beholding the face of Irene Lawrence.
He appeared suddenly to comprehend the whole fact, though he came to know afterward that he misjudged her. Only a desire to put an end to life and suffering, real or fancied, could have brought her out this night, in the lonely neighborhood, still, not so far from her own home. He must take her back, and then go for Maverick, who had become quite a favorite with Mrs. Lawrence, and prescribed harmless remedies for her, since she insisted she must have them.