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Burglar and the Blizzard

<h2>III</h2> Geoffrey was born with a love of adventure, and his dislike to his present expedition arose not from fear, but from a consciousness that if he did run into a den of thieves he would think himself such an ass to have come. Indeed, there seemed a fair chance that he might think this even if nothing worse happened than that the hut proved empty, for he would have had a long walk for nothing better than to provide McVay with an opportunity to escape. He did not see exactly how McVay could get out, but he was aware that few people would think it wise to leave a burglar locked in a closet in an empty house with some hours of leisure at his disposal. The first glimmering of dawn was visible as he stepped off the piazza; the wind was blowing fiercely and the snow still falling. He had not gone a hundred yards before he knew that the expedition was to be more difficult than he had imagined. To make headway against the wind was a constant struggle, and he seemed to slip back in the snow at every step. Still the natural obstinacy of his nature was aroused, and as his attention was more and more engaged with the endeavor to make his way, he had less time to think of the probable futility of his proceeding. Long before he sighted the hut, he was wet to the waist, not only because he had been in half a dozen drifts, but because the snow had penetrated every crevice of his clothing. The hut was a forlorn little spot upon the landscape, a patch of grey on the stretch of forest and snow. A shutter blowing in the wind gave an impression of desertion, for how could any one, however wretched, sit idle under that recurrent bang? Drawing his revolver, Geoffrey approached the door. He had no intention of giving a possible enemy an opportunity to prepare himself, and so did not knock, but, putting his shoulder against the door, shoved mightily. The hinges broke from the rotten wood at once, and he stumbled in. The pale light of the early winter morning showed a depressing interior, for the window was not the only opening. There was a great gap in the roof where, earlier in the night, the chimney had fallen, and now its bricks littered the floor, already well covered with snow. Some attempt must have been made, as McVay had boasted, of "fixing it up"; there were books in the shelves on the walls, and a black iron stove on which the snow now lay fearlessly. As Geoffrey took in the situation, something in a huge chair, which he had taken for a heap of rugs, stirred and moved, and finally rose, betraying itself to be a woman. Geoffrey had been prepared to find a den of thieves, or nothing at all, or even a girl, as McVay had said. He told himself he would be surprised at nothing, yet found himself astounded, overwhelmed at the sight of a beautiful face. The girl must have been beautiful so to triumph over her surroundings, for all sorts of strange garments were huddled about her, and over all a silk coverlet originally tied like a shawl under her chin, had slipped sideways, and fell like a Hussar's jacket from one shoulder. Her hair stood like a dark halo about her little face, making it seem smaller and younger, almost too small for the magnificent eyes that lit it. Geoffrey, tolerably well versed in feminine attractions, said to himself that he had never seen such blue eyes. And suddenly while he looked at her and her desperate plight, pity became in him a sort of fury of protection, the awakening of the masculine instinct toward beauty in distress. It was a feeling that the other women he had admired—well-fed, well-clothed, well-cared-for young creatures—had always signally failed to arouse. He had seen it in other men, had seen their hearts wrung because an able-bodied girl must take a trolley car instead of her father's carriage, but he had thought himself hard, perhaps, unchivalrous; but now he knew better. Now he knew what it was to feel personally outraged at a woman's discomfort. "Good God!" he cried, "what a night you have had. How wicked, how abominable, how criminal—" <ANTIMG src="./images/image3_th.png" alt="'Good god,' he cried 'what a night you have had'" /> "Good god," he cried "what a night you have had" "It has been a dreadful night," said the girl, "but it is nobody's fault." "Of course it is somebody's fault," answered Geoffrey. "It must be. Do you mean to tell me no one is to blame when I have been sitting all night with my feet on the fender, and you—" "Certainly," said she with an extraordinarily wide, sweet smile, "I could wish we might have changed places." "I wish to Heaven we might," returned Geoffrey, and meant it. Never before had he yearned to bear the sufferings of another. He had often seen that it was advisable, suitable just that he should, but burningly to want to was a new experience. "Thank you," said the girl, "but I'm afraid there is nothing to be done." "Nothing to be done!" He dropped on his knees before the black monster of a stove, "Do you suppose I'm here to do nothing?" "You are here, I think, for shelter from the storm." It had not occurred to him before that she looked upon him as a chance wanderer. "That shows your ignorance of the situation. I am here to rescue you. I left my fireside for no other reason. As I came along I said at every blast, 'that poor, poor girl.' I set out to bring you to safety. I begin to think I was born for no other reason." She smiled rather wearily, "Your coming at all is so strange that I could almost believe you." "You may thoroughly believe me, more easily perhaps when I tell you I did not particularly want to come. I started out at dawn very cross and cold because I did not know what I was going to find...." "But I thought you said you did know that you were going to rescue a girl?" "A girl, yes. But what's a mere girl? How many thousand girls have I seen in my life? Is that a thought to turn a man's head? What I did not know was that I was going to find you." "The fire will never burn with the chimney strewn on the floor," she said mildly. "Well, I've said it, you see," he answered, "and you won't forget it, even if you do change the subject." He turned his attention to the fire. Where is the man, worthy of the name to whom the business of fire building is not serious? Presently seeing he needed help she dropped to her knees beside him and tried to shove a piece of wood into place. In the process her numbed fingers touched his, and he instantly dropped everything to catch her hand in both of his. "Your hands are as cold as ice," he said, holding them tightly, and thanking Fate that this bounty had fallen to his lot. She withdrew them. "You are too conscientious," she said. "That is not part of the duty of a rescue party." "It is, it is," said Geoffrey violently. "It is the merest humanity." "Humanity?" "To me, of course, if you will pin me down." "Oh, there is no reason for the rescued to be humane." "They ought to be grateful." "They are." "Gratefuller then. Is it nothing that I have taken all the trouble to be born and grow up and live just to come here for you?" "Perhaps I could be gratefuller if there were any prospect of a fire." "Oh, curse the fire," said Geoffrey rising from his knees. "Who minds about it?" "I mind very much." "Well, you mustn't. You must not mind about anything, because it sets up too strong a reaction in me. There's no telling what I might not do under the stress. Come away from this dreadful place. The fires will burn in my house, and that is where we are going." "I can't do that," she said, looking very grave. "You can't do anything else." "I must wait for my brother. He's out somewhere in this storm, and if he comes back and finds me gone—" "Oh, your brother," said Geoffrey, "I forgot all about him. He's at my house already. He sent me for you." "Oh," said she, sighing with relief, and then added maliciously: "then my plight was not revealed to you in a vision?" "The vision is with me now." She had to perfection, the art of allowing her mind to drift away when she thought it advisable. "And so you took poor Billy in?" she said. Geoffrey coughed. "Well, in a sense," he answered. She rose. "We'll go at once," she said. "Is it far?" "Not very, but it is going to be hard work." He felt more practical. His delight had slipped from him at the realisation of her relationship to McVay. For a moment he felt depressed, then as he saw her struggling to undo the knot that held the comforter about her, he forgot everything but the pleasure of doing her a service. And in the midst of this joy, the coverlet slid to the ground and revealed her clad from head to foot in his sister's sables. There was a pause. "What are you looking at?" she asked. "That is a nice warm coat you have on." "Isn't it?" She rubbed her cheek against the high collar with a tenderness trying to any masculine onlooker. "It saved my life." It was on the tip of Geoffrey's tongue to ask if he was not entitled to a similar claim on her consideration, but he suppressed it. Was it possible that she did not know that the garments she wore were stolen? Could any sane woman really believe that sable coats fell naturally to the lot of night watchmen? Her manner was candour itself, but how should it not be? What more inevitable than that she should make an effort to deceive a casual stranger? She had the most evident motives for behaving exactly as she did. Just so, however, he had reasoned about McVay, and yet McVay had been sincere. There had been a girl in distress exactly as he had said. It was contrary to all reason, but it was true. Might not the girl be true too? Was it not possible, he asked himself, and answered that it was more than possible, it was the truth. He chose to believe in her, and turned his anger against McVay, who could drag her through such a mire. He felt the tragedy of a high-minded woman tricked out in stolen finery, and remembered with a pang that he himself was hurrying on the moment of disillusion. "I wonder," she said, "if I could take some things with me. Is it impossible for me to carry a bag?" "Yes, but not for me." "It would be only this." She held up a small Russia leather affair legibly marked with Mrs. Inness' initials. "I will take it," said Geoffrey. His faith was sorely tried. She moved about collecting things and packing, and presently remarked: "But if Billy is all right, why didn't he come for me himself?" "Oh, because—" Geoffrey hesitated an instant, and her fears interpreted the pause. "He's hurt. You are keeping it from me. You are deceiving me." "I would scorn to deceive you," said Geoffrey with passion, and looked at her to find some answer to the reverse question which he did not put into words. She did not appear to understand. "Then why didn't he come?" she asked. "He had been out in the storm already. I thought it was my turn." "I think you must be stronger than Billy." She cast a reflective glance at his shoulders, and he was ashamed to find himself inordinately flattered. "He is really safe at your house?" "I hope so, I did my best," he returned grimly. She looked at him gravely. "You have been very kind to a stranger," she said. And at this point Geoffrey made the fatal mistake of his dealing with her. It did not occur to him that he was going to shield McVay, but he thought a more advantageous time could be found for telling her the truth, in case of course she did not know it already. He felt that he himself would be better able to deal a cold blow when she was warm and sheltered. No man, he said to himself, could be disagreeable to a girl who had no one to depend on but himself. So he said: "He was not exactly a stranger to me. We were at school together." "Oh, another of Billy's friends. I never knew such a person for discovering friends at the most opportune times. He never wants anything but what a friend turns up. Did you find him wandering about, or did he come and demand admittance?" "Why, neither exactly. I was not in the house at the time. He felt he knew me well enough to walk in." "He never told me he had a friend in the neighbourhood." "We have not met since we were at school." "He had not seen you since he was at school, and yet he felt he knew you well enough to walk in on you!" "Yes, he just walked in, and then I would not let him go." "Men are so queer!" she exclaimed with a little laugh that had a spice of admiration in it, under which Geoffrey writhed. He was sailing under such false colours as her brother's benefactor. "We ought to be starting," he said. She looked round the room. "I hate to leave all these nice things," she said. "Billy is so fond of them. There is some wine that some one gave him that he says is really priceless." "Leave it," said Geoffrey shortly. "One would think you were a teetotaller from that tone. I wonder if I could not take one bottle as a surprise to Billy. He would like to contribute something to your hospitality, I am sure. Besides, if I leave it, it may be stolen." "Yes, it may be stolen." He looked down into her face. "Then—" "I ask you as a favour to leave it behind." Nothing could have been more charming than her manner of yielding, sweet and quick like a caress. It made him feel how pitiful sordid it all was. They started immediately, started with a certain gaiety. Geoffrey chose to remember only that they were together through a hard adventure, and that it was his part to smooth her way. The bond of difficulties to overcome united them. They felt the intimacy of a single absorbing interest. They had nothing to think of but accomplishing their task,—of that and of each other. As far as they could see were snow and black trunks of trees. They scarcely remembered that any one but themselves existed. Now justly he could admire something besides her beauty. Her courage warmed his heart. Yet with all her spirit she made no attempt to assert her independence. She turned to him at every point. He guided her past the scenes of his own disasters and saved her from the mistakes he had already made. But only for a little while did they move forward in this delightful exhilaration. Before they had gone far she grew silent, and when she did answer him spoke less spontaneously. She asked for neither help nor encouragement, but plunged along as steadily as she was able. Her skirts, however, wet and heavy, hampered her desperately, and the exertion of walking through the thick snow began to tell. Geoffrey made her stop every now and then for a breathing spell, but at length she stopped of herself. "Have we done half yet?" she asked. "Just about," he answered, stretching truth in order to encourage her. But he saw at once that he had failed,—that she had had a hope that they were nearer their destination—that she began to doubt her own powers. Presently she moved forward again in silence. He began to be alarmed lest they should never reach his house, yet took comfort in the thought, as he looked at her, that whatever strength she had, she would use to the end. No hysterical despair would exhaust her beforehand. She would not fail through lack of determination. Whether or not she were the confederate of a thief she was a brave woman, yes, and a beautiful one, he thought, looking down upon her in the glare of the snow. Presently he held out his hand in silence, and she as silently took it. This was to Geoffrey the explanation of his whole life. This was what men were made for. Once as they stood resting the wind, which fortunately had been at their backs the entire trip, hurled her against him, where she remained an instant, too weak to move. It was he who set her gently on her feet again. The latter part of the journey she made almost wholly by his help, and when they stood before the piazza, she could not have managed the little step had he not virtually lifted her up. He took her directly to the library and laid her on the sofa. The fire, owing to the absence of McVay, had gone out. It took Geoffrey some time with his benumbed hands to build a blaze. When he turned toward her again she was sleeping like a child. The sight was too much for his own weariness, and reflecting that McVay was either gone or still safe, he stretched himself on the hearth-rug and was soon asleep also. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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