"They 're waiting," he chuckled. "Twenty of 'em with sharpened pencils and,—Holy Smoke,—the story! The story!"
"Forget it, Saul. Forget it—"
But Saul only pushed him into the cab and hurried back to his joyous mission.
Donaldson ordered the driver to the Waldorf. He must get a clean shave, change his clothes and get back to the Arsdale house before the first editions were out heralding his arrest. If Jacques had been arrested at the house it was possible that the excitement might have prevented them from learning anything at all of his part in the mess.
He found a letter from Mrs. Wentworth waiting for him. He tore it open. She wrote:
"Oh, Peter Donaldson, I wish I had the gift to make you understand how grateful I am for all you 've done. But I can't until you come up and visit us. We reached here safely and found everything all right. The deed was given to me and the money you put in the bank for me. The house now is all clean and the children are playing out doors. My heart is overflowing, Peter Donaldson. It is better than anything I ever dreamed of here. My prayers are with you all the time and I know they will be heard."
So she ran on and told him all about the place and what she had already accomplished. Happiness breathed like a flower's fragrance from every line of it, until it left him with a lump in his throat.
"That is something," he said to himself as he finished it. "It has n't been all waste."
He went to the barber in better spirits and came back to his room to read the letter again. It was like a tonic to him. He looked from his window a moment, to breathe the fresh morning air.
The street below him was alive once more with its eager life. Men and women passed to the right and left, the blind beggar still waited at the corner, the world, expressed now through this one human being, had abated not one tittle of its activity. The Others were still about him. The pigeons still cut gray circles through the sunshine and the girl still waited. As he stood there he heard the raucous cries of the newsboys shouting "Extra," and knew that he must go on and face this final crisis. He could not delay another minute.