Liberation

Chapter I Mary Decides

F ROM the top of the wooded hill the drawing-room windows of Green Lodge looked down upon the broad sweep of the Hudson glistening in the late afternoon sun, which was nearing the rim of the majestic mountains just beyond. The girl stood gazing out through the windows, but she was not contemplating the river. Her clouded, slightly troubled eyes were fixed, al¬ beit absently, on a gloomy pile of brick buildings which, with its semi-circular entrance court and the wide recrea¬ tion ground to the right surrounded by high, grimly significant walls, reared itself halfway down the steep hill¬ side above the railroad tracks.

Ever since the time when, in response to her persistent questioning as a little girl, she had been told that the men in gray whom she saw sometimes in the broad open space behind the walls had broken the law and were being pun¬ ished for it, Mary Greenough had felt no aversion to them but rather a warm sympathy and pity. They were wrongdoers, criminals, but to be shut away, to be de¬ prived of freedom for months and years, perhaps for all of life, seemed too terrible for her tender spirit to con¬ ceive.

i really, and as for father and mother, when they know you as I do they'll see how unjust they've been! It all happened so quickly—why, we’ve only known each other two months!”

“It isn’t any use, dear!” He shook his head. “They’ve shown me that I’m unwelcome even as a friend; I don’t mean that they are discourteous, but no one could help seeing their aversion. There’s only one way, one thing to be done, and it must be done now. You must come away and marry me to-night!”

He had turned to her again, but she shrank back a step or two and both hands crept unconsciously to her breast.

“To-night! Oh, Wesley, I couldn’t!”

“Why not? You love me, you trust me, you have promised to marry me some time-”

His voice was pleading, but her eyes had darkened.

“But not—not that way! Not an elopement! It’s so ungrateful to them, so underhanded and deceitful-!”

“Is it any more deceitful than the way we’ve had to take to see each other?” King asked. “I know how un¬ pleasant the evasions and lies are to you. As for me I can’t endure them! No man could, with the woman he really loves! We can’t go on any longer this way, and there’s no reason why we should! You know as well as I do that they’ll never consent, Mary, but once you are my wife they love you too much not to forgive you. You’re of age, you know your own mind and heart and you’ve given those to me! You’ve promised!”

“But not to run away!” Mary’s voice shook with dis¬ tress and she repeated: “I couldn’t, Wesley! We could never be happy starting out like that!”

“Then you don’t care for me after all?” He spoke

MARY DECIDES slowly, with a note of pain in his voice. '‘You didn’t mean to marry me, you were just amusing yourself!”

“You know that isn’t true!” she cried. “You know there’s never been any one else, that I’ve never flirted like other girls! I feel—why, since I’ve known you it’s been all like a dream! If we wait a little, just a few months . . .”

“ ‘Months ?’ ” King caught up the word. “Do you think that I could wait months for you, dear ? In the end this question would face us still. If you love me enough to marry me, if you meant to keep your promise you’ll come with me to-night; if you don’t I shall go away— alone!”

“Go away!” The tears came into her eyes and her lips trembled. “You mean—you won’t come back?”

“Never! To hang about waiting, hoping for a glimpse of you, a chance to slip a note to you, a stolen half-hour? It’s got to end to-night! I love you, Mary, I want you!”

His arms were about her once more and the girl sud¬ denly buried her face on his shoulder.

“If I only knew what to do!” she sobbed. “It isn’t right, I feel that, and yet when you’re near me somehow I-!”

“Listen, dearest!” he interrupted softly. “It will be quite simple! You needn’t speak to any of your people over the telephone; just leave a message with your uncle’s butler that you won’t be there for dinner; say you have a headache—anything—and you’re going to retire early. Then pack a small bag with just a few things you’ll need and I’ll come for you again with the car at nine. I know a minister, a fine old chap, only about fifteen miles from here, in a small, out-of-the-way parish that no one will think about until we let your people know. We can be down in New York by midnight and in the morning on a liner for anywhere you say—Bermuda, Newfoundland, Europe-”

Mary lifted her head.

“It seems so strange!” she whispered. “It’s more like a dream than ever! I can’t realize that you’re saying this to me! To be married—to-night!”

“I wouldn’t hurry you, dear, if there were any other hope of a future for us, but there isn’t. When we come back your people will receive you with open arms, and oh, Mary, I’ll be so good to you! I’ll make you so happy!” His voice thrilled. “You’ll never have a moment’s regret that you’ve kept your promise and given yourself to me! You will? You will marry me to¬ night?”

For a moment she gazed searchingly into his eyes. Then her own dropped and the swift color came and went in her face. . . . She nodded and whispered, so low that he could scarcely catch her words:

“Yes, Wesley! I’ll—I’ll marry you to-night!”

“My dear!” His lips found hers as his arms tightened about her. “My wife, in just a few hours! I’ve longed so for this! From the first moment I saw you there at the country club, I knew it! I knew why I’d waited, why there never could be any other woman in the world for me! And then our first dance together—Mary, I meant to marry you, I swore it that night, if I had to carry you off, and now that’s just what I’m going to do! You’ll never know an hour’s sorrow or grief that I can keep from you! All my life I shall think only of your happi¬ ness !”

He led her to the davenport, still with his arm about her, and drew her tenderly down beside him.

MARY DECIDES

“I know! I’m sure of that, Wesley!” she murmured. “If only we didn’t have to deceive them! I want to talk to my mother on the ’phone just once more, just to hear her voice, but I know you’re right. If I did, I simply couldn’t go away like this, even with you! I’ll leave a little note in her room telling her where I’ve gone and why-”

“You mustn’t! Think if they came home unexpectedly early, if they ’phoned the minister and stopped the marriage! I’ll never give you up, dear, never, if I have to fight for you now, and you wouldn’t want that! But your father has great influence here in this country and what if we had to drive on and on through the night to find another minister and missed our ship in the morning ? Our honeymoon would be spoiled before we started, you would be unhappy, frightened! You mustn’t think of it, Mary, but I’ll tell you what we’ll do.—When will the servants return? Not before nine, surely?”

The eager anxiety of a lover rang in his tone and the girl responded:

“Oh, no, not until the ten o’clock train. Then there’s always bridge at Uncle Henry’s after dinner, and mother and father never think of leaving before midnight. . . . It seems dreadful, doesn’t it, to be planning like this, and then when they reach home and find me gone. . .

Her lips trembled anew, but King bent his head and kissed them.

“They won’t worry long. When we reach New York I’ll send a wire to a friend of mine in Boston and he’ll relay it here, after the necessary time it would take us to get there in my car; then, when we’re safely at sea, you can send a radio and explain everything. You see, dear, I’ve thought it all out, I’ve planned it from the first, when

I realized your people felt prejudiced in some way against me. I even hunted up the old minister and he expects us this evening! It wasn't that I felt so sure you would marry me out of hand, but I was sure of your love and the promise you gave me!”

“The minister expects us?” Mary passed her hand across her forehead in a dazed fashion. “And you will come for me at nine, Wesley?”

The sun had set and the pink afterglow over the moun¬ tains across the river seemed to emphasize the creeping shadows in the room, but neither of them had realized it until King glanced about him.

“Yes. By Jove, it's later than I thought! I'll have to step on the gas if I’m going to the Inn and pack and then get back here in time!” He rose and drew her up once more into his arms. “You really mean it? You’re not going to change your mind, Mary? When I come I’ll find you waiting?”

“I’ve given you my word.” She smiled tremulously. “You’ll find me waiting, Wesley, when you come.”

“And you love me?” His dark, handsome face was very near her own. “Say it, dear; I want to hear you say it! You’re sure you love me ?”

“I’m—sure!” Her whisper was very low once more. “I—I do love you, Wesley!”

King kissed her rapturously and turned to the door. She heard the outer one close and in another moment his car roared off down the drive, but the girl stood motion¬ less where he had left her, the color gradually ebbing from her face as the light died out of her soft eyes. The roar of the motor diminished to a droning hum that finally dwindled into silence and, as the shadows crept closer, Mary suddenly covered her face with her hands.

Chapter II

T WILIGHT had deepened into dusk and about the high gray walls of the prison grayer shadows had fallen, softening the grim outlines of the huge building with its rows of windows, so closely set that they seemed like one solid expanse of glass.

Dim lights were springing up here and there within it, serving only to accentuate its vast, foreboding gloom, and the silence of that home of living dead men, after the hum of the workshops had ceased, overhung it like a pall.

The winding road that passed before the entrance court was deserted and, though lights gleamed among the trees from the cottages that dotted the steep hillside and the larger estates that crowned it, no one was for the moment visible, when all at once something appeared on the top of the prison wall, flattened for an instant and then dropped to the far side where it lay as motionless as a dead thing.

As gray as the wall itself, gray as the deeper shadows into which it had fallen, it looked for that moment like a long, gaunt lizard and when, after a brief space, it darted with almost incredible swiftness across the road on its belly to lie again as still as before, the resemblance was intensified. And now a motor came laboring up the sharp incline of the road and as it passed its lights, un¬ noted by its occupants, touched for a mere flash the thing flattened in the ditch.

IO

It was a man whose body, clad in gray, seemed in¬ credibly long because of its emaciation; his head was cropped so close as to appear bald and his face was hidden, for he had buried it deep in the dust at the first hint of alarm. Only the spasmodic movement of his back muscles as he breathed convulsively betrayed that life was still in him and for long minutes after the danger was past he lay there; then, worming his way swiftly and noiselessly out of the ditch on its farther side, he gained the shelter of some low growing shrubs and again halted.

The cottages at this point were neither fenced nor hedged, their small gardens being separated only by mounting clusters of trees with dense undergrowth be¬ neath ; and toward the nearest of these after a period of breathless waiting the man crawled, stopping at every few paces to become rigidly still.

The dusk was rapidly settling to darkness and when the man paused at last, well in the center of a patch of woodland, lights were' gleaming from every cottage, winking at him like accusing eyes through the dense foliage of the trees. The shades had not been drawn in the one on his left and, although he was not near enough to see distinctly, the man could yet distinguish a woman’s figure in a bright, bungalow apron, moving about a kitchen, and in the next room toward the front a man in his shirt sleeves was seated at a round table with three little heads gathered about him.

The fugitive brushed his sleeve across his eyes and turned hastily toward the right as though the homely scene was more than he could endure. The little white house which next met his gaze was much closer and un¬ curtained, and he beheld a living-room, crude in its mis-

II sion furniture and red hangings. A young man was seated in awkward self-consciousness on a sofa and as the unseen watcher gazed hungrily a girl in a white dress crossed the room and sat down before a mechanical piano. The next moment the metallic, slightly wheezy notes of a hackneyed song came grindingly forth into the gathering darkness.

The Rosary! For a space the man outside listened with straining ears, then began once more his creeping journey upward. At a narrow lane he halted, darted across and halted again as he had at the roadway below, but only for a minute; the first great danger was past but time was of the utmost importance now, for soon he would be missed and then the countryside would resound with the hideous warning which would turn every hand against him, make of every respectable householder a hunter in the grimmest chase in the world!

The cottages were fewer now, larger and farther apart, and in many of them curtains of lace or silk obscured the interiors, but now and then the fugitive caught an in¬ timate scene; an elderly couple seated on either side of a reading lamp, the grizzled man half hidden behind a newspaper, the woman’s gray head bent over her knitting. In another a small boy wound his legs in an agony of concentration around his chair as he pored over a col¬ lection of schoolbooks, and in an upper window of the third house a young, fair-haired woman rocked monoto¬ nously back and forth with a soft white bundle in her arms.

The thin body of the man lying in the underbrush quivered in every nerve and for a moment his head drooped to the rank grasses, but in the next he had started again on his toilsome way.

He had proceeded so for a hundred yards or more when a clothesline, hung with fluttering garments, met his eye and he wriggled to the edge of the trees, then darted desperately forward. He might encounter a watchdog, a hencoop, filled with startled inmates, a gardener, mak¬ ing his final rounds; any of the three would perhaps be fatal but he must take his chance!

He reached the clothesline without discovery, however, and drawing himself cautiously to his feet he glided along it, clawing at the garments swinging from it with his gnarled, hot hands. Children’s tiny garments, women’s dresses and petticoats and aprons—God! if he could only come upon a pair of overalls, a shirt, a butcher’s apron, anything to conceal that betraying gray uniform of shame!

He made his way to the end and started back along the second and last line, but there was no hope! He must go on as he was and trust to blind luck!

Had there been eyes to see in the darkness they would have observed that a certain hardness had come into his blue-gray eyes, turning them to a glittering steel that boded violence, as he dropped prone and writhed toward the clump of trees he had left. Absorbed perhaps by the wild thought that had come to him, he seemingly failed to note the irregular mound which rose in his path till he had crawled into it and a tin can rattled down upon the level ground.

Instinctively he lay motionless on the refuse pile until the clatter ceased and unbroken silence reigned again, but his nervously clutching fingers had closed about a hard, narrow cylinder that was chill to his touch and he warily drew its short length out from beneath the loose bundle of rags under which it had lain half buried. It was a piece of piping, left, presumably, from some recent plumbers’ job, and as he felt it and recognized it for what it was the hard light in his eyes became intensified and the deep lines stood out as his lean jaw tensed. Here was a weapon, at least, if the worse came to the worst! Clothing he must have in exchange for his present accursed garb; he would stop at nothing, rather than be taken back to that living hell!

He proceeded more quickly now with fewer halts, for the houses were still more scattered and infrequent, and, avoiding the estates at the top of the hill, he skirted about it midway toward the south. In the almost forgotten days when he was a free man upon the earth he had motored up around the vicinity and he remembered dimly that somewhere about here there should be a narrow road, rough and little traveled then, but leading southward to the outskirts of Scarborough. If he could reach it before the dread clamor awoke the echoes among the hills there might be a chance!

It was scarcely believable that he had not yet been missed, for it seemed hours since he had seized his sudden, unexpected opportunity and, secreting himself from the rest, had timed his drop over the wall, but there was still no hint of alarm, no sign of pursuit. The stars had not yet appeared, however, nor the first pale glimmer of the crescent moon; it must be early, early enough for some lone pedestrian or motorist to take that road if only he could find it!

He began to encounter fences and low stone walls now, hedging in fields and meadows where cattle lay in clus¬ tered heaps and the stretches of woodland were larger but wider apart. Thankful for the darkness, he stooped low and ran from one patch to the next, keeping to the shelter of the fence-lines and stopping only when a little, tinkling brook crossed his path.

Here he drank deeply and dashed the cold water over his face and neck, then, refreshed in body, he plunged on¬ ward, but hope was dying within him. His memory had failed him or he had somehow lost his sense of direction; he might be traveling with every step farther and farther from that short cut between the villages and at any moment now the alarm would sound 1 Still, he must go on and on as he had begun; there could be no retracing the way.

Then, with despair tugging at his pounding heart, he emerged from a thick patch of thorny briars that fringed a row of tall trees to find himself upon the very road for which he had been seeking! There could be no mistaking it, for though it wound deviously it led north and south, and there were the hills on one side and the rolling coun¬ try on the other, which he had vaguely recalled. Setting his face to the south, he took a few steps forward, when a sound came to his ears that brought him up standing and then made him turn quickly and dive back into the under¬ growth. It was the droning hum of a high-powered motor, coming toward the north!

Whoever was in that car was in a terrific hurry, for he could tell by the approaching roar that the machine was traveling at a rate that defied all speed laws. How was he to halt it ? If only he could bar the road! He cast his eyes desperately about as the roaring of the motor in¬ creased and saw, breasting the ditch at the roadside, the long, tubular bulk of a great log. Its branches had long since been lopped away and the convict seized the nearer end, rolling it out and straight across the road with the strength of utter determination.

Fortunately the wood was dry and pithy, the log light and smooth, and it had scarcely stopped in place and the fugitive taken cover once more when the glimmer of strong headlights appeared around a bend in the road, followed by the body of a touring car with the glitter of much nickel about it and a lone figure crouched behind the wheel.

The latter emitted a low ejaculation of surprise and annoyance, put on his brakes and stopped with a jolt within a few feet of the barrier. Then a voice, low and tense, but with an unmistakable menace in it, spoke from the dense shadows beside the road.

“Hands up!”

“By God, a stick-up!” the driver exploded, but he lifted his hands nevertheless. “Take what I’ve got, damn you, and let me go on! Fm in a hurry!”

“Get out and come over here!” was the terse command. “That’s right, but make it lively and no nonsense, for I’ve got you covered.—Keep your hands up, I say!”

The driver obeyed with a muttered string of oaths, but as his captor advanced for an instant into the aura of the lamps’ glow he exclaimed:

“A convict! Escaped, eh? You won’t go far, my man! I’ll have you hounded through every foot of the country for this!”

“I’ve discounted that,” the fugitive retorted coolly, as he ran his left hand in expert fashion over the other’s clothing in search of a weapon, his own meanwhile still held threateningly aloft. He had led him deep into the briar patch close beneath a towering oak and now he added: “Strip!”

“What-t?” demanded his amazed victim. Then he gave a short, ugly laugh. “Oh, I see! You want me to i6 change clothes with you, do you? That won’t help you for long, for I’ll go straight to the warden in yours-”

“No you won’t. I’ve another use for mine.” The lead pipe moved significantly. “Shall I take yours from a living man or a dead one? Personally, I don’t much care!”

To this the driver of the car made no rejoinder but removed his clothing with discreet haste and when it lay in a heap before him the fugitive ordered:

“Pick it up and hand it to me, even the shoes! That’s right, now stand still.” Slowly he backed away from his captive, the pipe still ready for a swinging blow, till he had reached the car. There in the road he dropped the clothing and with his hands thus freed switched off the lights and felt in the tool box on the running-board. When the man who stood shivering beneath the tree saw that he had dragged out the tow-rope he cried hoarsely :

“My God, you’re not going to tie me up and leave me here! You haven’t seen my bill-fold yet, but there’s four thousand dollars in it, and I’ll write you a check that I swear’ll be honored!”

“I’m not after your money!” the fugitive announced. “Back up against that tree and put your arms around it, behind you. Would you rather be left at the foot of it with a crushed skull? Now then, put your feet together *—together, I said! This tow-rope is good and long and you’ll look rather like a cocoon when I get through with you.”

“Damn you!” the other cursed again through set teeth. “I’ll get you for this if it takes me the rest of my life! You’re going off with my car-”

“Not I!” the convict interrupted with supreme con¬ tempt. “I’d rather take my chances on foot than in that flashy circus chariot of yours that could be spotted a mile off! When you’re free you can go on in it to start your search for me.—On second thoughts, though, I will take a little of your money, borrow it, I mean. I suppose your name is on the tailor’s tab inside your coat; I’ll find you and return it to you, together with the price of your outfit. You won’t believe me, of course, but that isn’t of any importance.—There you are!”

While he talked he had shifted the pipe to his left hand and with the right skillfully made a running noose through which he slipped the other’s hands, then bring¬ ing the rope around the tree he had wound it about it’s wide girth and his captive together, till the latter was triced from head to foot. When he had made it fast he dropped his weapon, dashed out into the road for the clothing and, returning with it, made a lightninglike change in his attire. Completing it, he drew the bill-fold from its pocket, abstracted two bank notes and then thrust it behind its owner’s head where it pressed against the tree trunk.

The sleeves and trouser-legs were absurdly short for him, but slight as was the former wearer of the garments, they fell about his emaciated frame in folds, although he was obliged to rip the sweatband from the cap before he could stretch it down upon his head. The narrow shoes, however, appeared to fit him and he looked a different man as he strode back once more to the car and searched again in the tool box, bringing out a length of fine but strong and flexible wire. With this and the waterproof lap-cover, which had been fastened with snappers to the dash, he made a neat, compact bundle of every vestige of his prison garments and approached the bound figure once more.

"I’m off now,” he said. “The prison bell will ring in a few minutes and there’ll be scores of guards and law-abiding citizens searching every yard of these hills. You’re sure to be released within the hour and if we ever meet again you will have your revenge.”

The captive struggled vigorously but futilely and made no reply but a torrent of muttered oaths. He was still cursing when he realized that he was alone! In the soft glow of the twinkling stars, twinkling fitfully because of the clouds that scudded before them, he saw that the space upon which the convict had stood was vacant!

How noiselessly the wretch had gone! Why hadn’t he watched, so that he might tell the prison guards when they came to hear his story? The rascal hadn’t taken all the money, only two bills from the inner side of the packet and they were merely centuries; he’d used good English, too, when he felt like it, and his voice, in spite of its huskiness, had shown evidences of breeding, almost— confound it!—almost like that of a gentleman.—Why didn’t that accursed prison bell ring? Were they asleep down there, the fellows who got tax-payers’ money to keep crooks locked up safely and prevent just such out¬ rages as this ?

If he could only worm himself out of this damnable rope and get to the suitcase on the deck of his car! He’d drive down to the—no, not to the prison. He didn’t want even to see what the hole looked like, but he’d go straight to the nearest house that had a telephone. . . .

Who could that convict have been and what was he in for? Some white-collar guy, of course, caught in embezzlement-

Clang! . . . Clang! . . . Clang! There it was at last! The prison bell with its brassy resonance which could be heard for miles upon miles! Clang! . . . Clang! . . . How loud it was, with its almost human note of alarm, and menace, and doom! The guards were out now, it was arousing men from their beds, the hunt was on!

Clang! . „ . Clang! But the man who awaited rescue had begun to shudder as though it had gotten upon his already shaken nerves, and his head drooped forward upon his breast as the alarm went forth into the night.

Chapter III Freedom Or Bondage?

HEN Mary, left alone in that room with the creeping shadows, had lifted her face from her

" * hands it was still with that dazed sense of un¬ reality of which she had spoken to Wesley King. It couldn’t be possible that she, Mary Greenough, was going to run away, that in a few hours she would be a wife! Had she been mad to agree to such a proposal ? To leave her people, her home, everything which had been dear and familiar since her earliest remembrance and go away with Wesley King, to spend the rest of her life with him?