Routledge rides alone

by Will Levington Comfort

Jerry Cardinegh had come down for a moment early in the evening for a word of parting. For days none had seen him below; and only a few of his older friends were admitted to the big, dim room, overlooking the park of the Government buildings—where a woman lived and moved, lost to light and darkness, and struggled every inch with the swift encroachments of the inevitable. Noreen’s father relied upon her, as upon air and a place to lie. God knows what vitality he drew from the strong fountains of her life to sustain his last days.

Incessantly active, Noreen Cardinegh was worn to a brighter lustre, as if fatigue brought out the fineness of her human texture—a superlative woman who held her place and her dreams. Finacune had loved her for years. He was closer to her own romance than any of her father’s friends; and the little man perceived with an agony of which few would have thought him capable, that his own chance was not worth the embarrassment of telling her. Indeed, Finacune told no one. This was his best room, and locked. Noreen Cardinegh was the image there, beyond words, almost an abstraction. This Word man was rather a choice spirit, if not a great one. He was thinking of Noreen now, as he knocked the balls around. She had appeared with her father earlier in the night, and had stood behind him under the old Moorish arch at the entrance to the billiard-room—darkness behind her, and a low table-chandelier in front....

Finacune was thinking, too, of the old man whom she had helped down-stairs to say good-by to the boys. Cardinegh had been his boyish ideal. He would not be seen again—and what a ghastly travesty was his last appearance!... Jerry had entered walking rigidly, his limbs like wood, a suggestion of chaos in the shaking, aimless hands; the shaven face all fallen about the mouth; all the stirring history of an earth-wise man, censored and blotted from the flame-rimmed eyes; the temples blotched with crimson and the mind struggling with its débris like Gilliat against sea and sand and sky. And the words the dean had uttered—nothings that meant death.

Feeney had just carefully and neatly made a three-cushion carom, with the remark that he could do it again on horseback, when there was a light, swift tread upon the stairway, a rushing in the hall, light as a blown paper, and Noreen Cardinegh burst upon them—half a torrent, half a spirit, indescribable altogether. The souls of the two men divined her message before she spoke, but their brains were slower. And their eyes were startled. To Finacune, it became an ineffable portrait—the frightened face, white as pearl and set in gold; the dark silk waist, unfastened at the throat; the red-gold hair dressed and wound seemingly in Mother Nature’s winds; the face refined in the whitest fires of earth; her eyes like twin suns behind smoked glass; and the lips of Noreen—lips like the mother of a prophet.

“Oh, come quickly!” she said, and was gone.

Finacune dashed up the stairway three at a stride, but he never overtook her—a fact for profound speculation afterward. She was bending over the edge of the bed, sustaining her father, when he entered. Cardinegh stared at him wildly for a second; then hearkened to Feeney’s footsteps in the hall. When the latter entered, the dean turned imploringly to his daughter.

“Where’s Routledge?” he gasped. “He said he’d come back.”

A single jet of gas was burning in the big room. With a nod of her head, Noreen signified for the men to answer.

“I haven’t heard from him, Jerry,” Feeney faltered.

“Eh, Gawd!—he’d better come quickly—or he won’t see old Jerry. I’m going out—not with you, boys—but afield. I want to see Routledge. He said he’d come back and bring his book—done under the pressure of British hate. I told you, didn’t I—he took the hate from me?... I told Noreen.... Feeney! Finacune!... It was I who gave the Russian spies the Shubar Khan papers!... Don’t leave me, Noreen. Pour me a last drink, Feeney.... Gawd! but I’ve travelled in the shadow of death for two years—afraid—afraid to tell—afraid of his coming back! I can see now—he wouldn’t come back!... I’m not afraid now—but I’ve had my hell two years.... You would have found it in my papers, Noreen. Show them to the men—cable the truth to London——”