He helped the frail little elderly woman down the steps, and she reached up her face to kiss him. He bent and took the caress, the first time that a woman’s lips had touched his face since he was a little child.
“Mother, I will not let anything harm her,” he whispered, and she said:
“My boy, I can trust you!”
Then he put her into the care of her strong young son, swung upon the train as the wheels began to move, and hurried back to the bride. On the platform, walking beside the train, he still saw the man. Going to the weeping girl, Gordon stooped over her gently, touched her on the shoulder, and drew the window shade down. The last face he saw outside was the face of the baffled man, who was turning back, but what for? Was he going to report to others, and would there perhaps be another stop before they left the city, where officers or detectives might board the train? He ought to be ready to get off and run for his life if there was. There seemed no way but to fee the porter to look after his companion, and leave her, despicable as it seemed! Yet his soul of honor told him he could never do that, no matter what was at stake.
Then, without warning a new situation was thrust upon him. The bride, who had been standing with bowed head and with her handkerchief up to her eyes, just as her brother had left her, tottered and fell into his arms, limp and white. Instantly all his senses were called into action, and he forgot the man on the platform, forgot the possible next stop in the city, and the explanation he had been about to make to the girl; forgot even the importance of his mission, and the fact that the train he was on was headed toward Chicago, instead of Washington; forgot everything but the fact that the loveliest girl he had ever seen, with the saddest look a human face might wear, was lying apparently lifeless in his arms.
Outside the window the man had turned back and was now running excitedly along with the train trying to see into the window; and down the platform, not ten yards behind, came a frantic man with English-looking clothes, a heavy mustache and goatee, shaggy eyebrows, and a sensual face, striding angrily along as fast as his heavy body would carry him.
But Gordon saw none of them.
CHAPTER VI
Five hours before, the man who was hurling himself furiously after the rapidly retreating train had driven calmly through the city, from the pier of the White Star Line to the apartment of a man whom he had met abroad, and who had offered him the use of it during his absence. The rooms were in the fourth story of a fine apartment house. The returning exile noted with satisfaction the irreproachable neighborhood, as he slowly descended from the carriage, paid his fee, and entered the door, to present his letter of introduction to the janitor in charge.
His first act was to open the steamer trunk which he had brought with him in the cab, and take therefrom his wedding garments. These he carefully arranged on folding hangers and hung in the closet, which was otherwise empty save for a few boxes piled on the high shelf.