Chapter I (1)

A Negro porter passed through the car making his announcement in stentorian tones, tempered, however, by his expectant civility and servility, for his train was the three-thirty p.m. express from Wall Street to the shore.

"Ravenswood," he cried, "all out for Ravenswood by the Sea!"

His car was the Vashti, and in seat 9 of that car there sat a man who for an hour had been staring absent-mindedly, perhaps dejectedly, at the swiftly moving scenery. He was young, this man, and tall and lithe, and well looking. But a strange pallor was upon his face; his countenance was marked with lines of fatigue. He suffered, evidently from jaded nerves.

As the porter reached him, this young man came suddenly to himself, sprang to his feet, with one hand reached for his finely woven Panama in the rack above, and with the other grabbed the porter.

"Ravenswood," he cried, "this is my stop, porter?" It was indeed a question and not a statement of a fact. Immediately the porter shook his head.

"Not _youah_ stop, sir, Elsmere--next station--is youah stop."

The young man sank back into his seat listlessly. He drew his hand wearily across his face.

"Almost forgot where I'm bound for," he explained to the next passenger, in a confused, embarrassed way. He toyed nervously with his Panama, as though uncertain whether to replace it once more in the rack, or to hold it, preparatory to alighting at Elsmere. All this time the long train had been coming to a stop. Now it was stationary before a small, artistic station, practically deserted save for a rickety stage, and a huge, throbbing, steel-blue motor car. The young man in seat 9 glanced at the small depot, at the rickety stage, at the car--

Then his heart leaped into his mouth. For suddenly his glance had lighted upon the girl in the car. He leaped forward on the instant, gripping his chair with both hands and staring at her as though completely fascinated, drinking in the glory of her face.

"It is she," he said softly to himself. He waited for an imperceptible space of time and suddenly the girl looked at him--looked him full in the face.

"She--and no mistake," he murmured. He jammed his hat well down upon his head, seized his heavy Gladstone bag, and tore down the aisle toward the only open door.

"All aboard," sang out the porter at the end, and the train began to move.

"Hold on there," cried the passenger, "don't shut that door. This is my station, after all. I've got to get out."

By the time he reached the platform, the train had picked up considerable speed, and the porter tried to detain him, but without success. He jerked himself away, swung free, and dashed down the steps.

"Lawdy, boss," yelled the porter, "look out--they's another train a-comin'--another train."

But the passenger never heard. Once on terra firma, he forgot that trains existed. He sought and found the face--the girl he was looking for, and as a mariner steers by a fixed star, so did the lithe young man follow his straight course across three sets of railroad tracks, toward the steel-blue car. In his ears, it is true, he heard the porter's warning:

"-- th' other train, boss, on th' up track. Lawsy. Look out."

But he heard it only with his ears. The warning did not sink in. He did not realize that upon one of the three tracks which he was crossing, an express, bound cityward, was pounding its way at the rate of sixty miles an hour, coming nearer to him every instant, threatening him with instant destruction. He did not see it, did not hear it. The porter's warning droned away in the distance. And the passenger kept on--kept on, gladly realizing that his intuition had been correct, that the girl was lovelier every step he took. He had hoped, somehow to hold her gaze. But she had turned her head and was glancing intently at something to his left. He followed her glance, and his eye lighted upon three well dressed men, also crossing the tracks--men who seemed to have dropped from the clouds. These three men were bearing down upon him, following the porter's tactics, waving their arms and shouting violently.

"Express--express," they yelled.

The foremost of these three well dressed men made a sudden dash toward the tall young passenger, as one who would rescue him at the risk of his own life, but the young passenger merely held to his course, his glance returning to the girl.

She was looking at him now, and upon her face there was a look of horror. She saw, then, what he had refused to see, the imminent danger in which he was, and acting on the impulse of the moment, she rose in her car and beckoned to him to come, to come at once. His face lighted up, and he quickened his pace, and swung clear of the last steel rail.

Then with a roar like thunder, the meteor swept past him, almost, sucking him into its mighty swirl. By some strange circumstance he had escaped where escape had seemed impossible. On the other side of the express three men fell back and, by common consent, they mopped their respective brows.

"Thunder," exclaimed one, the man who had dashed upon him--"I figured that we'd both be ground to mincemeat. Closest squeak I ever had, I tell you."

But the object of their solicitude gave no sign of their nervousness. Gladstone in hand, he swarmed up the terraced bank, and strode softly to the side of the car. He removed his hat and bowed to the girl.

"You beckoned to me--and I came," he stammered, in confusion. The girl was hiding her face in her hands and quivering hysterically.

She turned her scared face toward him. "You were in--such terrible danger," she cried, "I had to--do something."

For the first time he looked at the express as it dashed into the distance, and for the first time he realized the situation. Instinctively he held out his hand--an act in which both he and she recognized as wholly without the conventions, but she, quite as impulsively, held out hers and permitted him to take it for an instant. There was silence--deep silence for a moment.

"You saved my life," he told her.

She shook her head. "I think you saved your own, by your coolness in keeping right on," she answered, "don't make a heroine of me. Besides, down there is a hero--he risked his life in trying to save you. I saw it all."

The young passenger started down the bank and met the three men as they came up. Gratefully he murmured his thanks to them, rebuking himself to them, for his stupidity and his blundering in getting into danger. The hero that the girl had pointed out, merely shrugged his shoulders and stated, unconcernedly, in a rather rough and ready tone that belied the Wall Street clothes he wore, that it was all in a lifetime and there was nothing to pay. Whereupon he of the Panama hat went back to the girl.

"Would you mind telling me," he asked, "where those chaps came from?"

She was cooler now--and colder, too. Civilly enough, she evinced a purpose to end the conversation but she answered him categorically.

"They jumped off your train," she told him. "It seemed to me, somehow, that they jumped because you got off."

"Do they belong here?" he queried. She shook her head, and turned to her chauffeur.

"You can go on, Henri," she exclaimed. "He's missed his train. He won't be down now until the five o'clock."

The chauffeur cranked his machine, and prepared to start. But the young man still detained him.

"One thing more," he asked of her, "can you direct me to the best hotel in Ravenswood?"

She nodded graciously enough, but kept her eyes upon the distances, as one who would discourage a conversation involuntarily begun.

"There is only one hotel," she answered, "the Ravenswood Inn. The stage will take you there."

Henri, the chauffeur, threw in the clutch, and she bowled away. The passenger strode to the stage, clambered in. The three unknowns were already ahead of him, clustered up in front near the driver, smoking black cigars and telling witty stories. The minute he had swung aboard, the driver lashed his horses, and the dilapidated conveyance, like some weather-beaten craft tossed on turbulent seas, lurched and staggered toward its destination.

The man with the Gladstone looked at the three men, but mused upon the girl.

"I wonder who she is," he asked himself, "and who is coming down upon the five o'clock."

As they teetered on, scraps of conversation from the three ahead, forced their way into his inner consciousness, and he found himself sizing up his three companions with considerable interest. At first blush, he had taken them for Wall Street men. But as he looked and listened, he realized his mistake. He knew Wall Street well, and he knew men well, and he knew, instinctively, that these men were not Wall Street men, and further, realized that they were masquerading--that they were not what they seemed. Besides, there was something familiar in their appearance--where had he seen them before? And then like a flash, it came to him.

"They were the three I brushed against in front of the Tombs to-day," he told himself.

But his speculations went no farther, for the seaside Jehu had brought his vehicle to a full stop under a ponderous _porte cochère_, and the tall young passenger found himself clambering awkwardly out.

"Ravenswood Inn, gents," said the driver, "an'--twenty cents apiece."

A uniformed attendant seized the Gladstone and deposited it within a discreet distance of the desk, giving the clerk some idea of the amount of luggage carried by the guest.

The clerk bowed to the young man, and nodded to the three who came behind.

"Together or separate?" he asked.

"I'm separate," smiled he of the Gladstone. He took the pen that the clerk handed him, leaned over the register and for the first time, hesitated before he wrote his name. His glance strayed toward his bag, and riveted itself upon two black letters that appeared upon its side: "O.P."

Then he turned back to the register and scribbled a signature: "Oscar Pearson, New York City," was what he wrote.

"Most of my baggage," he explained, "went on to Elsmere--booked for the Hotel Sandringham. Will you send and get it, please?"

The clerk nodded. "Glad to benefit by your change of mind, Mr.--er--Pearson," he exclaimed. The new guest, Mr. Pearson, did not answer at once. Through the broad doors that led to the Ocean Drive he saw something that attracted his attention--something that sent the color into his pale face. Then he looked once more at the clerk.

"Yes--so am I," he said.

The formalities over, he strolled out upon the broad, low-roofed veranda.

"I thought so," he whispered to himself. He smiled gently at the something that had attracted his attention. That something was nothing more nor less than a steel-blue motor car, with Henri lounging in the chauffeur's seat.

But the girl had disappeared.

II

He had been quite right about the three pseudo Wall Street men who had registered with him at the Inn.

For at half past ten o'clock that very morning this young man of the Gladstone bag--he who had registered as Pearson--had slowly descended the outer steps of the Tombs in Centre Street, New York. Three men had unquestionably been waiting for him to come out, for they had skulked about the street, dodged about corners, stood in doorways, walked up and down singly and together, for half an hour or more. And when he had come out, running, singularly enough, plump into them, they had been more or less startled by his appearance. His face was unnaturally pale--and a new, anxious, worried, harried look was fixed upon it.

Prom the Tombs he had stepped into a taxicab, and given a brief direction:

"783 West 73rd."

The three in their taxicab had trailed him, and had seen his cab pull up at 783 West 73rd, and had seen him get out. They knew an instant later, that he was consulting McIntyre, M.D., the only real nerve specialist in the world--and in their way, they were professionally glad that he was seeking medical attention.

"Needs it bad enough," the three said among themselves, "looks like a shadow, so he does."

Inside No. 783 their quarry sat facing McIntyre, a little bearded man with glasses.

"But I can't go away," he was protesting at the suggestion of the specialist.

The latter only smiled. "But you are going away, whether you can or can't. If you don't, you'll be dead inside of three months. I've kept track of you in the newspapers, and I know what you've been through. Well, you've got to quit, and rest--and when I say rest, I mean it. Don't go to Newport or Narragansett Pier."

"Thank Heaven for that," murmured the younger man, "where shall I go?"

The specialist ransacked a little drawer for a memo, that he needed. Finally he found it. "This is the place," he said at last, "Jersey Shore, Elsmere--the Sandringham Hotel. Quiet. Family place. No excitement. High class. Good food and lots of salt water bathing. That's the place for you." He leaned over and touched his patient on the knee. "Don't let anybody know where you are," he said, "give them the slip. That's my advice. Forget that you are who you are, and don't let anybody know it. That's the trick. Do as I say, or--"

His young patient, with his characteristic gesture, had drawn a hand across his face.

"Just left the Tombs half an hour ago," he began. But the physician waved his hand.

"Never mind about the Tombs," he said, "I don't care anything about the Tombs, or about anything else, and you don't either. You forget the Tombs--forget the newspapers, and the bank, and everybody. Just take care of yourself. Why don't you get married? Your wife would take care of you. Haven't you ever thought of getting married? Eh?"

His patient had flushed. "Yes," he stammered in reply, "I have--But--"

"But what?" persisted the specialist.

"She has never turned up," explained the other, "I've been looking for her for months and months and months--"

"For--whom? Have you seen her--lost her?"

His patient shook his head. "I've never found her yet," he went on, "all that I know is, that I'll know her when I see her."

"And--what then?" laughed the elder man.

"Then," said his patient earnestly, "then I'll marry her."

"Oho, you will, will you? How do you know you will? How do you know she'll like you? How do you know she won't be spoken for--married maybe?"

The other man shook his head. "I never thought of that," he said.

The physician rose and slapped him on the back. "Boy," he exclaimed, "you're just as sound as a dollar--strong as an ox, if it wasn't for fag. All you need is rest, and you've got to promise that you'll follow my directions and begin right now. You'll go away to-day?"

"All right," assented the other, "I suppose I've got to, haven't I?"

He pressed McIntyre's hand, passed out, re-entered his taxi, and rode away--with three men trailing behind him.

He had literally obeyed the specialist--up to the moment that he had seen the girl from the window of the parlor car. Then he had deviated into a path of his own choosing. And here he was on the veranda of the Ravenswood Inn, staring interestedly at the steel-blue motor car.

"I wonder," he thought to himself, "if she is already spoken for--married, for instance. That would be awkward."

He fell to musing about this probable misfortune, and the lines settled back into his face. There kept throbbing through his overtaxed nerves a new and vital cause for worriment.

"It can't be," he told himself, "for, didn't she beckon to me--the fates must have arranged that part, at least."

A bell boy touched him on the arm.

"Mr. Pearson," he exclaimed.

The guest started. "Who?" he demanded. "Who is Mr. Pearson and what does he want?"

"Beg pardon, sir, thought you were Mr. Pearson."

"So I am, so I am," answered the guest hastily, "what do you want?"

"Gemmen to see you, sir--in the office, sir. Shall I send him out?"

"No, I'll go in," returned the guest named Pearson.

In the office, waiting for him, there stood an individual with a pointed black Van Dyke beard--a man whom he had never seen before. This individual held out a cordial hand.

"You're the man I'm looking for," he said, "I was afraid at first, you weren't. I'm Dr. Crocheron from across the way. I've been requested to take a look at you, if you don't mind." Oscar Pearson was perplexed. "Who asked you to take a look at me?" he queried.

Dr. Crocheron smiled mysteriously. "You called on Dr. McIntyre in little old New York to-day, didn't you, Mr.--er--Pearson?"

Pearson was relieved. "Ah, to be sure--so he's keeping his eye on me--to see that I'm following directions." Then he stopped. "But I didn't follow his directions," he exclaimed suddenly. "I was to go to Elsmere, whereas I came to Ravenswood, instead. How did you know?"

The local practitioner shrugged his shoulder. "I treat everybody in both places," he returned, "news travels fast."

Pearson moved toward the elevator. "Come up to my room and have a smoke," he said. The physician complied, and the two men sat down in an upper window for the space of a quarter of an hour and listened to the beating of the surf along the shore.

They chatted in a desultory fashion. "The only thing I wanted to warn you against, Mr.--er--Pearson," said the doctor finally, "is the drinking water down here. It's rotten bad."

"Will it make me sick?"

"Quick as a wink."

Pearson laughed. "Then why do you warn me?" he queried. "If you hadn't warned me, it would have made me sick, and that would have added to your fees."

The physician tossed over a card. "Crocheron Spring Water is what you want to drink," he remarked.

"Crocheron," mused Pearson, "why, that's your name."

The local man nodded. "I get it two ways," he admitted, "if they drink my water they have to pay for it--and if they don't drink it, they have to pay for it. Not a bad idea."

He started from the room. "Take good care of yourself, Mr. Pearson," he commented, "I've got to leave you. I've got a patient on this floor--other end of the hall. A Mrs. Ingraham--asthma. See you later. Good day."

The guest, Oscar Pearson, descended once more to the low-roofed veranda. When he reached there, the steel-blue motor car was nowhere in sight. But even while he smoked, pacing up and down, it hove into view along the Ocean Drive, and finally drew up at the _porte cochère_ of the Inn. The girl alighted, for she was in the car. And so did her companion--a big, broad-shouldered, ruddy faced individual with prosperity stamped all over him.

"Old enough to be her father, confound him," mused Pearson.

Without looking to the right or left, the girl swept on into the big hall, and her big companion followed suit.

Pearson, strolling past, saw out of the tail of his eye, that the two had waylaid Dr. Crocheron, as that eminent gentleman was coming down the stairs.

"Better, much better," was the doctor's comment.

As he came out on the veranda Pearson buttonholed him.

"Doctor," he asked, "who is that big chap, anyway?"

Crocheron smiled. "He's Ingraham, the Cleveland banker. You ought to meet him."

"I certainly ought," went on Pearson, "and--who's the girl?"

Crocheron laughed. "That's the way the wind sets, is it," he exclaimed, "the girl is his daughter--she's too good for Cleveland, let me tell you that, and too good for Ravenswood. Her places are Manhattan Borough and the Pier. But the old man comes here because it's quiet, and because it gives his wife--she's my patient--a rest from keeping house. And the girl--" the doctor drew a long sigh.

"You know her?" queried Pearson.

"Yes, I know her," responded the physician, "that is, I have been introduced to her, but she is as cool as a cucumber." His eyes narrowed. "Funny thing, Mr. Pearson, I've known that girl for two seasons, and I've known other men who know her, but she's just the same to all of us, and I've figured out that they're waiting--she and the old man and the old lady--just holding back and waiting for the right man to come along. And I'll bet you dollars to doughnuts that when he does come along, he'll be the man that the old man wants and the old lady, too. My notion of the girl is that she'll stand for anybody that her family pick out."

Pearson flushed and smiled. "Do you know," he said, "I've formed quite a different opinion of Miss Ingraham."

"Do you know her?" asked the doctor hastily.

"No," stammered Pearson, "I've only seen her, but my view is that the old man and the old lady can go to thunder, so far as she is concerned, when she makes up her mind."

The doctor crooked his finger. "I'll let you in on something, Mr. Pearson," he confidently went on, "the girl does what her father says, and the old man does what his wife says, and the old lady is stuck on anybody that's got a good new remedy for her malady."

"What's her malady?" asked Pearson.

"Never you mind," retorted the doctor, "I'm the man that's going to cure her."

"I should like to know the girl," said Pearson, quite casually.

Dr. Crocheron nodded. "There's a hop here to-morrow night, Mr. Pearson," he said, "I always take them in. I'll be here and I'll introduce you. Maybe you'll help fill in the time until the right man shows up."

"Until to-morrow night," said Pearson.

"To-morrow night," echoed the doctor, striding away.

When he had reached the far corner of the hotel, he waved his hand before he turned it.

"I wonder who the deuce that fellow Pearson is," he thought, "somehow they're mighty particular about him."

And as for that fellow Pearson, he stood staring into the vistas, with an unlighted cigar in his hand.

"I shouldn't wonder," he said to himself, "if the right man had come along."

Now, in justice to this man Pearson, be it said, that not for one instant had he expected the girl to renew the enforced acquaintance so strangely begun at the railway station, without the observance of the usual conventions, nor for one instant had he contemplated an attempt to force himself upon her. He saw, therefore, in the sprightly young Dr. Crocheron, the thin edge of the wedge. But it was not the doctor, after all, who introduced him to the girl. That office was performed by an individual of much greater importance, for Pearson was still pacing the veranda when Ingraham, the Cleveland banker, once more entered the arena of events.

He waddled to a settee, tossed upon it all the New York evening papers, leaned back with a sigh of satisfaction, and also viewed the vista that Pearson had been contemplating.

Pearson trembled. It's a delicate matter to strike up an acquaintance, at any time, with a gentleman of prosperous appearance, and if Pearson ever had been master of the art, his art now forsook him. He went at it much in the same way that he had approached the girl.

He paced back and forth in front of the banker and finally faced him.

"Down on the five o'clock, sir?" he inquired.

The banker swept the young man with his glance, and then turned away.

"Um," he murmured, and picked up one of his afternoon editions and buried his face in it.

This brought Pearson to his senses. He knew he had made a mistake in making the slightest advances to the old gentleman, for the old gentleman ignored his presence as completely as though he were ten miles away. But experience had taught him that there was a way to remedy this mistake. He therefore seated himself upon the other end of the settee and smoked silently and in meditation for many minutes.

Suddenly the Cleveland banker threw up his head and snorted. "Confound these New York banks," he cried, "They're countrymen."

He looked at Pearson and waited for an answer.

"I say they're countrymen," repeated the old gentleman.

Pearson gave no sign.

This brought the old gentleman up all standing. For the first time he looked Pearson over to determine what manner of young upstart this might be, who declined to respond to a civil question from a Cleveland banker.

He started slightly, for he had recognized the fact that Pearson, stranger as he was, at least bore earmarks of a gentleman, so he tried it on again.

"They don't know enough to go in when it rains," he added. Pearson gave no sign.

This indifference made a deep impression upon the older man. He had supposed when Pearson first addressed him, that Pearson, by reason of that fact, must be his inferior. Pearson's present complacent ignoring of him now, produced quite the opposite impression. He was convinced that the stranger must be somebody quite superior, for he could not recall, in all his prosperous middle west career, that anybody had ever withstood his own advances.

But there was one thing that he had not noticed, that at the mention of the New York banks, the face of the young stranger slightly flushed. But the old man kept on with persistence.

"What do you think of it, sir?" he bellowed.

The younger man turned to him with a startled glance. "I beg your pardon, sir," he returned, "were you addressing me?"

The old man's tones were those of one who crawled. "I was just reading the account of this Tri-State robbery," he ventured. "The Tri-State Trust Company must have been crazy to let a thing like that happen under its nose."

This time the young stranger nodded complacently, but his face now turned exceedingly pale.

"You're delving into rather ancient history, Mr.--

"Ingraham, of Cleveland, sir," exclaimed the other, "that's my name, Ingraham."

Pearson smiled. "Has the news of the Tri-State robbery just filtered through to Cleveland?" he inquired.

"No," snorted the banker, "I read about it--and you read about it--and everybody read about it, six weeks ago, but I see by the _Post_ they have just let their paying teller out on bail."

"What was the bail?" asked Pearson.

"Fifty thousand," said the banker.

"Pretty stiff," said Pearson, "no wonder it took him six weeks to get it."

"It's not enough," returned the other. "That chap stole a couple of hundred thousand if he stole a cent, and I want to tell you if I was a depositor or stockholder in the Tri-State Trust, I'd rip up the management from the president down to the runners, for letting a fellow get away with that much coin."

The young stranger shrugged his shoulders. "They say the Tri-State Trust is as solid as a rock," he ventured.

"Well, then, they ought to change their management," said he, of Cleveland. "Here's this young paying teller--they hadn't had him for more than five years--takes all that stuff out of the bank, walks out, by George, in broad daylight, packs the stuff in somebody else's suit case, steals the suit case from an officer of the bank, and then like a fool runs away with some woman, and they caught him. No wonder they caught him--blamed idiot, with that suit case and the initials on it and his giving the name of Oliver Partridge to suit the initials on the case, why a ten year old could have caught him."

At the other end of the settee the man Pearson was turning paler still.

"You must confess, sir," he replied, "that the teller was pretty slick, at any rate."

"Well," admitted the old man grumblingly, "he was slick in everything but running away with that woman that he did. She gave him up and made money by it too. I want to tell you," he went on, "that things happen in New York that would never happen in my town of Cleveland, nor in my bank."

The young man rose sniffing the salt air. Once or twice he passed his hand over his face with that weary gesture that seemed part and parcel of him. He drew out his cigar case and passed it over to his new found friend, but on opening it discovered it was empty.

"I beg your pardon," he went on, "but I have some Duodecimos up in my room, if you wouldn't mind stepping up there, sir."

The old man responded genially. "I'd walk a mile to get a Duodecimo," he said.

Together they strolled up to the young stranger's room. No sooner had they entered it than the young man's eyes lighted upon his Gladstone bag, with the initials O.P. painted in glaring black letters. He stooped hastily, swung the bag about and turned the initials to the wall. Then he rang for the waiter, and the banker of Cleveland and the mysterious young stranger from New York sat down for a half hour's talk.

Suddenly Pearson pricked up his ears. For sometime a peculiar rasping noise had penetrated into the room from some adjoining apartment.

"They must have a rhinoceros--or an elephant--or an ostrich--or a whole menagerie, in that room," he exclaimed, after a long silence.

But the Cleveland banker, warmed by the genial contents of a decanter and soothed by the Duodecimos, merely shook his head.

"That is neither an elephant, nor a menagerie, nor an ostrich," he informed his host.

"What is it, then?" demanded Pearson.

"That," said the banker, "is Mrs. Ingraham, my wife."

Pearson apologized profusely. "I certainly meant nothing disrespectful, sir," he exclaimed. "But may I ask you, is she ill?"

The banker waved his hand. "It's chronic, sir," he returned. "A case of asthma, she suffers like the dickens."

The eyes of his young host brightened. "You don't say so," he replied, "and can't the doctor help her?"

"She's got one now," returned the banker, "that she swears by. Local man, Crocheron. He's been treating her for three summers here--that's why she comes here. She thinks he'll cure her in the end."

"And you?" asked Pearson.

"Not a bit of it," returned the banker. "I've got no faith in any of them. By the way," he added, "sometime I'd like to have you meet the missus and Miss Ingraham."

"Miss Ingraham?" queried Pearson politely.

"My daughter," said the banker, "I want you to know them. By the way, where are you from?"

"I'm a New Yorker," responded Pearson.

"And your business?' asked the other.

"Um," said Pearson, slowly, "Well, to tell the truth, I've always been connected with a bank."

"By George," exclaimed the old man, "then you can tell me what I want to know. My bank is looking for a new line of New York credit. Maybe you can help me. Who can tell?"

"I should be very glad to, sir," said Pearson.

He strolled to the window and looked out. Across the way on the board walk three men were lounging. They were natty, well dressed, up to date. From time to time they glanced toward the Inn.

They were the three men, be it said, who had leapt from the moving train behind the New York stranger that very afternoon.

III

Mr. Cutty Wortman, of the Borough of Manhattan, expanded his chest with pride. He glanced with considerable complacency at his shining shirt front.

"It was little Cutty pulled these glad rags out o' the wreck, Red," he remarked, "you was against it. When we made the get-away, it was you who lost your nut, it was me who held me nerve. It was me knowed then just as I'm tellin' you now, that there ain't no place that's closed to a couple of guys that is rigged in a clawhammer swallow tail full dress evenin' clothes, specially at a swell summer joint like this." Mr. Cutty Wortman paused as though for a reply. There was none save for the incessant pounding of the incoming sea and the distant strains of the string orchestra at the Inn, for though Mr. Wortman was of the Borough of Manhattan, he was not in it. He was, in fact, at least sixty miles away from that old-fashioned town, lounging genteelly upon half of a board walk bench. The other half was occupied by his bosom friend, Mr. Red Cullen, also of New York. His bosom, also, was in glittering expansive evidence. In front of them stretched a narrow strip of white sand, and then the sea in its majestic mystery. Behind them was the glitter of lights that railway time-tables designated as Ravenswood, N.J. Past Mr. Cullen and his friend surged the summer crowd, in pairs--always in pairs. The moon cast a shimmering radiance over all and its rays were caught and cast back from two glossy shirts as from a mirror.

"Say," persisted Mr. Wortman, nudging his friend, "Where would we've been, if it hadn't been for me."

Mr. Cullen merely grunted. "Go on," he cried at length, "we'd have been dippin' for supers on Broadway, and makin' money at it. See." By which remark, Mr. Red Cullen meant to intimate that the art of relieving metropolitan citizens of their gold time-pieces, was still in its prime. "We'd 'a' made a barrel of money by this time," he complained.

"Huh," said Mr. Wortman, "we'd look swell on Broadway--every cop on every corner with his eyes peeled for us after that last get-away, and Lord knows how many plain clothes pounders after us an'--"

"Plain clothes," retorted his companion, "that's what we need, plain clothes an' nothin' else. Look at this crowd on this here board walk--white flannels an' such. There ain't a glad rag in the bunch. An' as for dicers--say," he cried, as he eyed Mr. Wortman's headgear in disgust, "there ain't a brown derby in the bunch."

Mr. Cutty Wortman caught his companion's burly arm in a mighty grip. "No," he returned, "you're pickin' now. And what I say is don't you pick. I'm doing this. Of course," he commented, "you don't see glad rags on the walk, but you wait till nine o'clock till the hop begins up there. Then we'll go up and we'll find a whole bunch o' full dress suits and brown derbys there, see if we don't. And besides you know why we're here and who we've got to do."

Red Cullen slewed about in his seat and glanced longingly at the Ravenswood Inn. It was a massive structure, was the Inn, with small balconies in abundance on every floor. Red Cullen sighed. "Gee," he complained, "I wish we had Nice Kelly with us. What a bloomin' busy place for a second story man. Nice Kelly would certainly fit in--"

Cutty Wortman was seized with a fit of silent laughter. "He would be a six story man when he finished up," laughed he. Suddenly with a new and more insistent grip, his brawny hand tightened upon Red Cullen's wrist.

"By George, Kiddo," he whispered, "Here comes our meat. Watch out."

Red Cullen sniffed in momentary excitement. "Show him to me," he exclaimed. He followed the gaze of Mr. Cutty Wortman and noted that it rested upon two figures that had stepped suddenly from the darkness into the full glare of an electric light. They were coming from the Ravenswood Inn. They were headed for the board walk.

"The swell," whispered Cutty Wortman, "now who was right about glad rags? Watch out."

They watched out. The man they watched was a tall, cleanly built, clean cut chap, who swung along with a certain lithe grace, due partly to his shoulders and his slenderness, and partly to the careful cut of his dinner coat, for he too, affected a shirt front. Beside him swung along a girl--a girl who somehow seemed a fit mate for him.

It is due, however, to the business fidelity of Messrs. Wortman and Cullen to say here and now that though their eyes devoured the man, they totally ignored the girl.

Red Cullen grunted in the ear of his companion. "Are you sure?" he queried. "Sure," replied Wortman _sotto voce_. "I tell you he carried the biggest roll I ever see anywheres, and he's always got it with him. Maybe you never heard of a walkin' treasury. Well, you're looking at one now."

After that, the moon, the crowds, the sea, the sand, everything faded from the view of the two men on the bench. They became oblivious to everything save this--a dark-clad figure stalking by the side of a slender white one.

And as for the dark clad figure the night was playing tricks with him, for it seemed to him as though he could see nothing save the eyes of the girl beside him, hear nothing save her voice, feel nothing save the unconscious pressure of her shoulder against his. But, unfortunately, his conversation did not match his state of mind.

"Do you think that Crocheron--doctor fellow, is doing your mother any good?" he queried.

"Oh," answered the girl, "if anybody can do her any good, he can, I am sure. He is a terribly clever specialist, I think."

"You don't say," returned the young man, coldly, "and yet he's been three summers at it, hasn't he?"

"Yes," she answered, "but mother has been at it for thirty summers, and he's done her more good than anybody else."

"Well," grumbled her companion, "I'm no specialist, but I want to tell you that my Aunt Charlotte--"

"I beg your pardon," said the girl, "your Aunt who?"

"Aunt Charlotte," replied he. "Stunning name, isn't it?"

The girl shivered. "It's a trifle more graceful than your own," she answered gaily.

"Great Scott," he answered, "don't you like my name? Don't you like the name of Oscar?"

The girl glanced daringly at him. "Do you want me to tell you something," she began frankly. There was some strange quiver in her voice that riveted his attention immediately.

"Yes," he said eagerly.

"Not now," she returned, "go on, tell me about your Aunt Charlotte."

"My Aunt Charlotte," he laughed, "is the dearest, most strait-laced proposition in the family, but she was possessed of a few devils. That little old maid had nothing but hay fever, colds in the head, asthma, and very likely membranous croup, but asthma was her pet. The point is that she doesn't have it any more."

"What cured her?" asked the girl.

"That's telling," responded Pearson, "and besides it's a secret--Aunt Charlotte's secret and mine. All I can say is it was a cure Aunt Charlotte didn't want to take. She had to break one of her most stringent commandments and was compelled to adopt a method that placed her, in her mind, in the ranks of a third rate actress. I wonder how the old--your mother, Mrs. Ingraham, would feel about it."

Impulsively the girl laid a hand upon his arm. "I think mother would go through anything to be cured," she said.

"Maybe I can help her," went on Pearson. "If she is willing to take just what Aunt Charlotte did and bear the brunt. To this day Aunt Charlotte claims that her hopes of reaching Heaven have been seriously disturbed--" He broke off suddenly. "I interrupted you," he said. "Tell me what you were going to tell me when Aunt Charlotte butted in upon our conversation."

They had reached the end of the board walk and the girl was about to turn back when he held out his hand.

"Do you mind walking on the sand," he asked, "on down there, toward Old Beach?"

The girl glanced back toward the Inn. "We're a long way from home," she faltered, for she felt that her disapproving mother was rocking impatiently and with gasps, to and fro, in one of the big front rooms, and she had told her mother that she would be gone for a half hour and she was now upon her second hour with the young stranger who had jumped from the moving train and nearly lost his life the day before.

"I know," he answered, to her protest, "but it's summer, there's a moon, and the beach is as firm as asphalt. Come."

They descended the steps and strolled along the beach.

"Now, what were you going to tell me?" he persisted.

Again the girl darted toward him a daring glance. "I was going to tell you," she half whispered, "that the only thing I don't like about you is your name."

"What part of my name," he queried, "is it that you don't like, the first part or the last part?"

"Oscar," she exclaimed.

"Well," he answered lightly, "let's take another name. How is Oliver?"

"Never," said the girl.

"Ordway, then," he ventured.

She smiled and nodded. "Ordway is not bad," she admitted. "Ordway will do."

"For the present," he went on, "you can call me Ordway."

"For the present," she said, "I shall call you Mr. Pearson."

"Now," he asked, "is that all you had to say?"

"I can't think of any more," she answered.

"Then," he went on, "let me tell you something, let me tell you the history of my jumping off that train. It's a short history, but it's true. This was not my station. I merely looked up and out of the window of my car and saw you, and then I jumped off. Do you believe me?" he asked suddenly.

The girl tried to force a laugh. "I don't know that it signifies," she answered.

"Yes, it signifies," he went on breathlessly, "and this is a question that you must answer, for there was just one instant yesterday when you looked at me as I crossed the tracks that gave me the right to say the things I do. Do you believe in love at first sight?" he asked abruptly.

The girl drew herself up unconsciously. "You are getting to be very ridiculous, Mr. Pearson," she returned.

"In nine hundred and ninety-nine cases out of one thousand," he went on, "I should be. This happens to be the thousandth case. It's the one case that's not ridiculous, Say, look here," he blurted out, "I don't believe your eyes were telling fibs yesterday afternoon when the 3:30 pulled in, and I don't believe you're going to pick out some fellow, whose name is not Oscar, just because the old--I mean, just because your father and your mother tell you to."

The girl drew back. "Why, where did you get this fund of information, Mr. Pearson?" she inquired.

"Never mind," he went on desperately. "I want to tell you something about myself. Ever since I was knee high to a grasshopper, I have been pushed--and pushed--and pushed. I've worked like a slave all my life up to now, and the older I got the harder I worked. I've thought of girls--lots of girls--girls by the dozens, but I've never had time to think of _the_ girl." He drew his hand across his face again. With all his apparent confusion and enthusiasm, there still was upon him some terrible weariness that told. "I'm fagged out," he went on, "it's nerves. I didn't know I had any until the last two months."

"That's why you've been so white," the girl said suddenly.

"Yes," he answered, "and you've noticed that."

She nodded. "The sun did wonders with you to-day."

He went on. "They told me I had to go away," he said, "and I went on the first vacation, the first real one, that I've ever had. I little knew that I was going to look out of a car window and see you and know--"

The girl shivered. She well knew she had no right to listen to all this, which from any other man would have seemed to her like twaddle. She felt, too, that a portly figure, gasping in a rocking chair, back at the Inn, was forcing itself upon her consciousness. Yet there was something about this man, this Oscar Pearson, that drew her out of herself. She could not seem to hold him entirely at arm's length.

"Go on," she faltered, but he didn't answer. There was a reason for it. He could not answer, for at that instant two burly figures hurled themselves through the air, dropping as from the heavens, upon this Oscar Pearson, and bore him to the ground.

"A-r-r-hh," he gurgled, for they had him by the throat, these two.

"Breast pocket, you dub," muttered Mr. Cutty Wortman of New York, for it was indeed he--Mr. Cutty Wortman and his friend Mr. Cullen--strong arm men par excellence.

The girl stood as though petrified--but for one instant only. Then she uttered a piercing shriek that might have reached the heavens.

"I'll take care of her," said Red, "you do the rest." And it is due to Mr. Cutty Wortman and to Red to state that on his part Mr. Wortman tried to "do the rest" and Mr. Red Cullen tried to "take care of the girl." But as a matter of fact he did not take care of her and as a matter of fact Mr. Cutty Wortman did not do the rest, for at the girl's shriek a strange thing happened.

Three men--three other men sprang immediately into view, and even as the strong arm men had dropped from the heavens, these three seemed to leap from the earth, and as well working parts of one machine, they closed in upon Cutty Wortman and his friend and bore them to the earth, and then the battle raged--a noble warfare.

At its end, two very much crumpled shirt fronts and four very black eyes were tied together and marched along the beach. One man drove them in front of him at the muzzle of a gun, the other two stepped to the side of Oscar Pearson.

"Much hurt, sir," they inquired.

"Not a bit of it," answered he, "and much obliged."

"Come on, sir," they exclaimed, "we'll see you safely home."

But Pearson was staring wildly about him. "Where--where is she?" he inquired, dazed.

"Beg pardon, sir?" said one of the men.

"She," cried Pearson, in alarm, "I had a lady with me. Wait, here she is."

He was quite right. She had slumped into a little white heap on the sand--had fainted dead away.

"We were not thinking of the lady, sir," said one, "beg your pardon, sir."

She regained consciousness in an instant, and regained it only to find herself lying somehow in his arms.

"H-H-Helen," he was stammering, very clumsily, but very earnestly, and so softly that only she might hear, "you won't forget that it was first sight for both of us."

The girl released herself and stood very straight. "What a terrible thing to happen," she cried, referring to the hold-up rather than to Mr. Pearson's floundering declaration. "Come, we must go home at once."

They did. Pearson and the girl swinging on in front and two of their rescuers bringing up the rear.

One of the latter nudged his friend. "Blamed if I didn't forget all about the girl," he said.

The other shrugged his shoulders. "Can't take care of everybody in the whole place, can we, eh?"

"I should say not," replied the first, "we ought to have six men to take care of him alone. Blamed if I think three is enough for a lively chap like him."

Miss Helen Ingraham and Mr. Oscar Pearson ascended the Inn steps side by side. Miss Ingraham was hysterical. "I don't know what to tell my mother," she exclaimed.

"Tell her the truth," said Pearson glibly, "tell her I proposed to you and you accepted me."

"That is not the truth," replied Miss Ingraham, "and anyway I mean about the accident--and where it happened--and why."

She told her, spent half the night telling her, in fact, conscious of the terrible disapproval in her mother's eyes, but told her only about the moonlight stroll and the attack.

"You had no right to leave the Inn," her mother said, "you know nothing of this man, Pearson."

"Father does," replied the girl.

"Your father," went on her mother, "knows nothing about him, nobody knows anything about him. I've asked everybody, sick as I've been--" Suddenly she stopped. "Who were those three men who rescued you?" she asked.

IV

That was the mystery that troubled Ravenswood from that time on. Through all the subsequent excitement--for the hold-up made big talk--that one feature over-shadowed all the others. It was a pleasant diversion for Ravenswood to stop talking and to hold its breath next morning as the tall and interesting Mr. Oscar Pearson entered the dining-room and nodded to Miss Ingraham. Pleasanter still, perhaps, for all Ravenswood to stand in line at the lock-up and look upon the countenances of Mr. Cutty Wortman and Mr. Red Cullen of New York. Pleasant to discuss the impending romance. But--_who were the three men?_ In the day time they were but little in evidence, they kept somehow out of sight; but at night denizens of Ravenswood, grown accustomed to traveling in pairs, were startled now and then by three skulking shadows--here, there, everywhere. And these shadows meant one thing and only one; that somewhere near, pacing the board walk or on the sand, gazing out to sea, there might be found Mr. Oscar Pearson and Miss Ingraham.

"Swim to-morrow?" inquired he of her on the morning after. "The tide will be about right for us at half past ten."

"Just as you say," she answered, "only my mother's case is getting desperate. Even Dr. Crocheron admits his failure, and I've got to spend most of my time with her."

Pearson smiled insinuatingly, "And if you didn't spend most of your time with her," he asked, "who would you spend it with? I think," he went on hastily, "that I'll have to bring down my Aunt Charlotte's remedy from New York. Of course, I sympathize with your mother, but it's mighty serious that most of your time is taken up with her. That's the thing that Aunt Charlotte's cure has got to fix. Then we'll see who takes up most of your time."

"Of course," she answered, "there's Dr. Crocheron. I don't mind saying that I'm very fond of him--"

"You'll surely swim to-morrow?" he said.

"I promised you," she answered.

"All right," he said, "I'll bring my tires along." For by this time, be it said, Pearson's luggage and his long, low racer had been brought from Elsmere, his intended destination.

Next day they swam. Those were glorious days, as side by side, when they tired of the long arm strokes, Pearson and the girl reclined on the surface of the sea, each ensconced safely within the buoyant circle of a Mastodon tire that rose and fell upon the waves like some magic cockleshell.

"Rocked in the cradle of the deep," sang Pearson, in a baritone that startled the crowd scattered in groups upon the beach. Side by side, buoyed by the air inflated circles, they swam out--out--out, forgetting everything save themselves and the magic of the sea.

Suddenly from the shore they heard hoarse shouts. It was then that the girl lost her head. She glanced up to see the crowds waving, and realizing for the first time that they were far out beyond the hardiest swimmer--beyond the hardiest swimmer's distance. Someone on shore had realized this and the shout invaded the girl with a sudden sense of danger. All that she need do, in truth, was to lie still and paddle back to shore as she had paddled out, but in her sudden fright she slipped somehow out of her supporting tire and Pearson caught her just as she disappeared beneath the waves.

"What's the matter," he cried sternly, "you're perfectly safe--you can't sink--nothing can happen." But the girl was beside herself with fright. She had lost confidence and her nerve had gone.

For answer she merely stretched forth two shapely arms and clung tightly to the man's neck, sobbing hysterically.

Pearson, badly handicapped, could only thrust one arm through both the tires and hang on. He could not swim, for her grip upon him was too tight. All he could do was to support her and trust to luck that she might regain her equilibrium. A forlorn hope, probably, and the situation was one of real danger, for they were drifting out to sea.

The crowd on the shore were quite as helpless, all but three men. Like parts of some machine, these three rose, dashed coats and shoes to the ground, and swiftly ran out a canoe, head on across the breakers. In less than ten minutes they had reached the pair and checked their outward progress.

"Now," said one of the three, "climb in, while I hold her steady, sir."

He was referring to the canoe, not to the girl. His two companions each had a hand on Pearson, clutching him anxiously.

"Climb in, sir," they exclaimed.

"Climb in nothing," replied Pearson. "What about the girl."

"We'll take care of her, sir," they answered carelessly, "you climb in."

Pearson laughed. "You're a great bunch," he said, glancing at them quizzically, "who are you anyway?"