"That is what I am asking you," he said, a trifle brusquely.

"But how can I tell you?" she cried.

"I am only striving vainly to pierce the fog which seems to envelop us.

Let me begin again. I, a mere stranger in New York, just three hours landed from the _Lusitania_, witnessed a murderous attack on a young man who was alighting from a cab in front of my hotel, the Central, in West 27th Street. I saw him stabbed so seriously that he died within a couple of minutes, and his a.s.sailants made off in an automobile, the very vehicle, in fact, in which he arrived. I managed to note its number, and I gathered, from instructions the victim himself had given, that the chauffeur's Christian name was Anatole. The two men who actually committed the murder--though the chauffeur was in league with them--seemed to me to be Czechs or Hungarians----"

"Ah, I thought so," broke in the girl.

"And now may I ask why you did think so?"

"I may tell you later, perhaps. Please forgive me. I am quite unnerved, and oh, so unhappy. Why have you come here?"

"That is due to one of those fantastic chances which occur occasionally. In the effort to save Monsieur de Courtois, or rather to seize his slayers, because I was too far away to interfere when the blow was struck, I dropped the overcoat I was carrying. A crowd gathered, and someone gave me a coat which I took as my own. It was not until I had quitted the police and doctor, who arrived almost immediately, and I had gone into Broadway to avoid the clamor in the hotel, that I discovered I was wearing the dead man's overcoat, and in one of the pockets I found a marriage license. Here it is. By that means I learnt your address, and I came here quickly, hoping to save you some of the agony which the appearance of a policeman or detective would have caused. Unfortunately, I have proved but a sorry subst.i.tute for an official messenger."

"Oh, no, no, Mr. Curtis. You have been most kind, most considerate.

If anyone is to blame, it is I."

"Will you pardon me, then, if I remind you that time is pressing? Even a half-hour gained to-night by the authorities may be invaluable. If you are able to supply any clew, the least hint of motive, the most shadowy of guesses at a personality behind this beastly crime, you will be rendering a great service."

"Please, please, give me time to think. I am not heartless--indeed I am not. . . . If I could do anything to save Monsieur de Courtois'

life I would make the sacrifice--you will believe that, won't you? . . . But he is dead, you say, and I might blurt out something in my distress which would cause endless mischief. Perhaps I have thought too much of my own troubles. Now I must begin to endure for the sake of others. That is the woman's lot in life, I fear. . . . Have you a wife or a sister, Mr. Curtis, or is there some woman whom you love?

For her sake, have pity on me, and do not drag me into the horrible arena of courts and newspapers."

Her pleading, her att.i.tude, her pathetic gestures, gave extraordinary force to an appeal which, by contrast with her extreme agitation, was almost grotesquely inconsequent. Curtis was at his wits' end to find the line of reasoning calculated to convince this beautiful creature that she might, indeed, begin enduring "for the sake of others" by expressing her determination to give the police all possible a.s.sistance.

"There is no urgency for a few minutes," was the best reply he could frame on the spur of the moment. "Shall I leave you alone for a little while? Perhaps you would like to consult your maid? Indeed, her services might meet all the requirements of the case. The police would be the first to recognize that a woman who had lost her affianced husband under such terrible----"

"Ah, but that is the wretched difficulty I am in. Poor Monsieur de Courtois was nothing to me."

"Nothing to you!"

Probably Curtis's brain did not reel, but it a.s.suredly felt like reeling, and it is quite certain that his eyes blazed down on the half-hysterical girl with an intensity that magnetized her into a broken excuse.

"It is--quite--true," she stammered, with the diffidence of a child explaining some lapse which, it was hoped, might not be regarded as a real fault. "I never dreamed of marriage--in the sense--that people mean--when they intend to live happily together. . . . Monsieur de Courtois was to be my husband--only in name. I--I paid him for that. . . . I--I gave him a thousand dollars--and--and---- Don't look at me in that way or I shall scream! . . . I have done nothing wrong. . . . I was trying to protect myself. . . . Oh, if you are a man you will want to help me, rather than push me into the living tomb which threatens to engulf me before to-morrow morning!"

Even in their agitation, they both heard the jar of a bell. The girl sprang upright. There was something splendid in her courage, in the way she threw back her proud head and clenched her tiny hands.

"Ah me!" she sighed. "Perhaps it is already too late!"

CHAPTER III

EIGHT-THIRTY

They stood in silence, listening to the footsteps of Marcelle on the parquet floor of the pa.s.sage. The outer door was opened, and a murmur of voices reached them indistinctly.

"I have had the honor of knowing you not much longer than ten minutes, Miss Grandison," said Curtis, and the strong, vibrant note in his voice might well have won any woman's confidence, "but if you feel that you can trust me, and my help is of value, please command me, that is, if your enemies are men."

She rewarded him with one swift look of grat.i.tude.

"If it is my father, both you and I are powerless," she whispered.

"And the other would not dare come without him."

A discreet tap on the door heralded Marcelle. That sprightly young person, despite her Parisian name, was unquestionably American in every inch of her self-possessed neatness; she smiled at Curtis while giving him a message.

"The driver of your taxi has sent up the hall-porter to ask if you wish him to wait any longer," she said.

Not often, even in comedy, has the mountain heaved and brought forth such a ridiculous mouse. Curtis did actually laugh; even his distraught companion t.i.ttered in sheer nervous reaction.

"Please tell him to wait, and not to worry about the fare," said Curtis. "I suppose," he added, turning to Miss Grandison, "the man put me down as a newcomer, and, taught by previous experience, thought it best to warn me how the register mounts."

The effort to restore their rather strained relations to a sedate level was well meant, but the girl's downcast eyes and tremulous lips revealed a state of piteous uncertainty and confusion that was more distressing to Curtis than anything which had gone before.

Nevertheless, reminding himself that precious time was being wasted, he determined to seek a full explanation of circ.u.mstances which at present savored of Bedlam.

"Now that the fears of the taxi-driver have been stilled," he said cheerfully, "suppose you and I sit down and discuss matters like sensible people. I am an American, Miss Grandison, and, although long an exile from my own country, I appreciate the national characteristic of plain speech. Let me explain that I am not married, that I have no ties which prevent free action on my part, and that nothing on earth will stop me from helping a woman who pins her faith to me. With that preamble, as the lawyers say, I purpose taking off this heavy overcoat, and listening in comfort to anything you may wish to tell. Or, if you are afraid of being disturbed, what do you say if we go to some restaurant, where, perhaps, we may eat, and, at any rate, talk without fear of interference?"

"I think we had better remain here," said the girl sadly, though it was plain that Curtis's offer of protection during the alarm created by the hall-porter's errand had advanced him a long way in her esteem. "There are only two persons living who dare pretend to exercise control over my actions, and if they have arrived in New York this evening I have good reason to believe that I cannot escape them."

"Are they coming here from Europe?" asked Curtis quickly, for his active mind was already groping toward certain dimly defined conclusions.

"Yes."

"Could they have been fellow-pa.s.sengers of mine on the _Lusitania_?"

"No, they are on board the _Switzerland_."

He smiled, and discarded that fateful overcoat.

"Then set your mind at rest," he said, with the nonchalance of a man who has shelved a major difficulty. "The _Switzerland_ has broken down. We pa.s.sed her early to-day. She is staggering into port with engines partly disabled and she cannot possibly reach New York before to-morrow morning."

"Are you quite sure?" came the eager demand.

"Well, there is nothing so uncertain as the sea but a young friend of mine said that those facts were signaled by wireless, and, to some extent, they governed his own movements. I myself can a.s.sure you that the _Switzerland_ was limping along like a lame duck at 8 A.M. to-day."

"Ah, thank Heaven for that small mercy!" murmured the girl. For a few seconds she busied herself with gloves, veil, and hat-pins, and Curtis happened to glance at the overcoat, which he had placed over the back of a chair. To his dismay, he noticed that one of the sleeves, the left, was bespattered with blood, but he contrived to refold the garment so as to conceal this grewsome record of a tragedy before his hostess had divested herself of hat and gloves.

Then they seemed to survey each other with a new interest, for Curtis was a good figure of a man in evening dress, and Hermione Grandison became, if possible, more attractive to the male eye because of the wealth of brown hair which crowned her smooth forehead, almost hid her tiny ears, and cl.u.s.tered low at the back of her slender, well-shaped neck. Where the rays of light caught the coiled tresses they had the sheen of burnished gold. In the shadow they commingled those voluptuous tints by which the magic of Rubens has immortalized one fair woman, Isabella Brant, in every gallery of note throughout the world.

Hermione it was, now, who first broke the silence which had reigned in the room for a minute or more. Seating herself on the opposite side of a square table, and resting her elbows thereon, she propped her pretty chin on her small, clenched fists, and gazed fearlessly at Curtis.

"You must think me a very extraordinary person," she began.

"Let that pa.s.s," said he, with a smile, wise in the knowledge that the present was no hour for compliments.

"But I am, and I know it, not because I differ so greatly from other girls of my own age, but owing to the misery which has been my portion.

The one man in the world who should wish to secure my happiness has become my persecutor. I am here to-night because I have run away from my father, and I have used every lawful means to get married--under conditions framed by myself, of course--in order to escape from a hateful marriage which he has planned."