He seemed as little convinced of the truth of his statement as though he had announced that he was the Czar of Russia. It was as though a stage-manager had drilled him in the lines.
But upon Winnie, as her husband saw to his dismay, the words produced an instant and appalling effect. She fairly radiated excitement and delight. How her husband had succeeded in capturing the social prize of Scarboro she could not imagine, but, for doing so, she flashed toward him a glance of deep and grateful devotion.
Then she beamed upon the stranger. “Won't Mr. Van Warden stay to dinner?” she asked.
Her husband emitted a howl. “He will NOT!” he cried. “He's not that kind of a Van Warden. He's a plumber. He's the man that fixes the telephone!”
He seized the visitor by the sleeve of the long motor-coat and dragged him down the steps. Reluctantly, almost resistingly, the visitor stumbled after him, casting backward amazed glances at the beautiful lady. Fred thrust him into the seat beside the chauffeur. Pointing at the golf-cap and automobile goggles which the stranger was stupidly twisting in his hands, Fred whispered fiercely:
“Put those on! Cover your face! Don't speak! The man knows what to do.”
With eager eyes and parted lips James the chauffeur was waiting for the signal. Fred nodded sharply, and the chauffeur stooped to throw in the clutch. But the car did not start. From the hedge beside the driveway, directly in front of the wheels, something on all fours threw itself upon the gravel; something in a suit of purple-gray; something torn and bleeding, smeared with sweat and dirt; something that cringed and crawled, that tried to rise and sank back upon its knees, lifting to the glare of the head-lights the white face and white hair of a very old, old man. The kneeling figure sobbed; the sobs rising from far down in the pit of the stomach, wrenching the body like waves of nausea. The man stretched his arms toward them. From long disuse his voice cracked and broke.
“I'm done!” he sobbed. “I can't go no farther! I give myself up!”
Above the awful silence that held the four young people, the prison siren shrieked in one long, mocking howl of triumph.
It was the stranger who was the first to act. Pushing past Fred, and slipping from his own shoulders the long motor-coat, he flung it over the suit of purple-gray. The goggles he clapped upon the old man's frightened eyes, the golf-cap he pulled down over the white hair. With one arm he lifted the convict, and with the other dragged and pushed him into the seat beside the chauffeur. Into the hands of the chauffeur he thrust the roll of bills.