Her Forbidden Knight (17 page)

At first Lila did not understand; then her eyes filled with light and she raised herself on tiptoe, placing her arms around his neck, and kissed him.

“I love you,” she said.

“Will you marry me?”

Her head was on his shoulder. She nodded.

“My darling Lila! I—really, I can’t believe it.”

“Pooh!” said she scornfully. “You have known it all the time.”

“No. I have hoped—and feared. But, ah, I could never have lived without you!”

“And yet”—Lila looked up at him quickly—”you were going away.”

Whereupon Knowlton protested that she was unkind, and she admitted it and begged his forgiveness with a kiss. There was a long silence. Finally Knowlton gave a deep sigh and spoke of the future.

He began by saying that he would go away somewhere—anywhere—and make a place and a home for Lila. She interrupted him at once:

“No, no! I will go with you. Why should you go alone? Will we not be stronger together? You think I will be in the way? You do not know me, then.”

He tried to argue with her, but she would not listen. He pleaded; there were hardships to be endured which he could not ask her to share; it would cost him his newly regained self-respect. He was crushed, he must have time to get on his feet, he was practically penniless.

Lila replied:

“I have saved a little—enough to last until—until you get—”

“Good Heaven!” he cried in utter humiliation. “And you think that I—no, you do not know me. Can’t you understand? Call it pride, if you will, and if you think I have a right to any. There are some things I must do myself. Do you think the confession I have just made has not been painful to me? If you only knew!”

Lila murmured:

“I do not want to hurt you, but I want to be happy, and if you leave me I shall not be.”

“Dearest, do I not know?” Knowlton forced himself to be more calm. “And without you every minute will seem a year to me. That is why I shall work all the harder and send for you as soon as I can. And then—”

“And then—” Lila repeated.

“And then I will be the happiest man in the world—happier far than I deserve. And as soon as I can get—”

At that moment a bell in the next room rang violently.

Lila glanced round, startled, and Knowlton turned with an expression of alarm, which speedily gave way to one of relief.

He reassured Lila:

“It is nothing. I ordered a cab to take me to the station.”

He ran to the front and looked out on the street below.

“Yes,” he said, returning, “it is the cab. It is in front. And that’s lucky, for it is dinnertime. Shall we go—”

He was interrupted by a loud knocking on the hall door a few feet away.

He thought it was the cabdriver, and wondered how he had gotten in the outer door below.

He called sharply:

“Who is it?”

There was no answer, but after an interval the knocking was repeated.

“Who is it?” he repeated angrily.

Another short pause, during which Knowlton fancied he heard whispering in the hall outside; then came the reply in a peremptory tone:

“Open in the name of the law!”

L
ILA GAVE A GASP OF TERROR AND SEIZED
Knowlton’s arm convulsively, while the young man stood speechless with surprise and alarm.

What did he see in that one flash of horror and regret? He saw Lila accused, arrested, dishonored—and all for him. The thought petrified him; he was unable to move.

No care for himself or concern for his own danger could have moved him to anything save reckless courage or stoical acceptance; but it stunned his every sense to think that Lila would be caught in the net he had spread for himself.

But Lila, seeing his helplessness, acted for herself. For a second only she stood rooted to the spot with terror; then she glanced with a flashing eye round the room, while her brain worked with the rapidity of lightning.

She saw, a few feet to the right, a curtained alcove; then, as she turned, her eye fell on the package of counterfeit money lying on the trunk. With silent swiftness she crossed the room and picked up the package, and as swiftly sped back to the side of Knowlton.

She held her mouth close, very close against his ear, that no sound might reach the other side of the door, and whispered:

“Get them into the other room—all of them—as far away as possible.”

She saw that he did not comprehend her meaning, but there was no time to explain further. She must trust to his sagacity as soon as he recovered his wits.

With one last glance about the room to make sure that there was nothing in it to reveal her presence, she pressed his hand swiftly and disappeared behind the curtain of the alcove. All this had taken but three or four seconds.

The knocking on the door and the command to open were repeated. Knowlton turned the knob of the catch-lock and the door flew open.

Three men burst into the room, the foremost exclaiming, “Here he is!” as he ran to Knowlton, who had fallen back several steps from the door.

And then Knowlton understood Lila’s plan, simple and admirable. In an instant his brain cleared, and, realizing that Lila had taken the package of counterfeit money—the evidence—with her into the alcove, he decided on his own plan of action.

Turning suddenly, just as the man nearest him was about to grasp him by the shoulder, he sprang aside with the swiftness and agility of a panther and disappeared into the room beyond, toward the rear. As he had foreseen, the three men, all of them, rushed after him and found him standing by a window looking out on the rear court, laughing gaily.

“Why all the excitement?” he queried pleasantly. “Did you think I was trying to run away?”

The leader of the detectives, a heavy, red-faced man with carroty hair, grunted.

“Get him!” he said to his companions.

Then Knowlton had need of all his composure. But he was not thinking of himself. As the two detectives grasped him roughly and handcuffed his wrists and led him back into the room in front, he was saying to himself. “She had plenty of time. But was that what she meant? It must have been. But where did she go?”

He dared not glance at the alcove; he felt that his eyes would have burned a hole through the curtain.

Then the detectives began a search of the rooms.

“I’m sure the stuff is here,” said the red-faced man, “and we’ve got to find it. You might save us the trouble,” he added, turning to Knowlton. “What’s the use? The game’s up. Where is it?”

Knowlton did not answer. He was leaning forward in an agony of anxiety, watching one of the detectives, who had just approached the alcove and grasped the curtain.

He pulled the curtain aside, letting the gaslight stream into the alcove, and Knowlton barely suppressed a cry of joy. It was empty.

Then he replied to the man who had spoken to him:

“If you’ll tell me what you want I may be of some assistance. Everything I own is in that trunk and suitcase,” pointing to them.

“Huh!” the red-faced man grunted. “Going to beat it, eh? Open ’em up, boys, while I look him over. Got a key for the trunk?”

Knowlton drew a bunch of keys from his pocket and tossed it to one of the men, then submitted himself to be searched. The detective took several miscellaneous articles from the young man’s pockets, then a pocketbook. This he opened expectantly; but as he examined its contents there appeared on his face an expression of keen disappointment.

“What the deuce!” he exclaimed. “Where do you keep it?”

“I have said,” Knowlton replied, “that I have no idea what you are looking for. If you will tell me—”

“Cut it!” said the other roughly. “I guess you’re a wise one, all right, but what’s the use? I tell you we’ve got enough on you already to send you up. You might as well talk straight.”

Knowlton was silent. The red-faced man glared at him for a moment, then walked over to aid the others in their search of the trunk and suitcase.

They pulled out clothing and toilet articles and books, and heaped them indiscriminately on the floor, while Knowlton looked on with a grim smile. Now and then oaths of disappointment came from the lips of the searchers.

Suddenly one of them uttered a cry of triumph and drew forth a neatly wrapped brown paper parcel. The leader took a knife from his pocket, cut the string of the parcel, and tore away the wrapper with eager fingers, disclosing to view—a stack of real-estate contracts.

“The deuce!” he ejaculated. “You’re a boob, Evans.”

Again they set to work.

Soon they finished with the trunk and suitcase and began on the rooms themselves. Nothing escaped them. They took the covers and mattress from the bed and shook each separately.

The couch was turned upside down and examined with probes. The drawers in the bureaus and tables and wardrobes were removed, and the interiors of the articles subjected to a close scrutiny. They raked out the dust and rubbish from the fireplace, and lifted the bricks.

The search lasted nearly an hour. They found nothing.

The red-faced man, muttering an oath, turned to Knowlton:

“Well, we’ve got you, anyway, my boy. I guess you’ll find out you can’t play with Uncle Sam.”

Then he turned to his men:

“Come on, Evans, we’ll take him down. You stay here, Corliss, and look the place over again and keep an eye out. Try the fire escape—we didn’t look out there—and the dumbwaiter. The stuff ought to be here somewhere. If you find anything let me know; if not, report at the office in the morning as usual. Come along, Knowlton.”

“But where?” Knowlton stood up. “And on what authority? And for what?”

“To the Ritz, for dinner,” said the red-faced man sarcastically, while the others grinned delightedly at the keen wit of their superior. “Where d’ye suppose? To the Tombs. I suppose next you’ll want to see the paper. Here it is.”

He drew a stamped, official-looking document from his pocket and waved it about in front of Knowlton’s face.

The young man said nothing further, but allowed himself to be led out of the rooms into the hall.

“Is it necessary—must I wear these on the street?” he stammered, holding up his shackled hands.

The red-faced man eyed him grimly.

“I guess two of us can take care of you,” he said finally. “Take off the irons, Evans.”

The other removed the handcuffs from Knowlton’s wrists, and they descended the stairs and passed out to the street, one on either side of the prisoner.

Half an hour later Knowlton was pacing the floor of a narrow cell in the Tombs prison, with a heart full of remorse and bitterness and despair.

Yet he had no thought of his own danger, but was possessed of a fearful anxiety for Lila. Where had she gone? What had she done? Alone on the street at night, and with such a burden—the burden of his own crime! He felt that the thought would drive him mad, and he bit his lips to keep himself from crying out.

He thought of her magnificent courage in the awful scene at his rooms, and his eyes filled with tears. How brave and daring she had been! And how it must have hurt her innocence and proud womanhood to have been driven to such extremities for him—a criminal!

He told himself that she would despise him.

“She loves you,” said his heart; “do not insult her by doubting it.” Yes, but women sometimes despise the man they love. What a weak, blind fool he had been!

He groaned aloud in unutterable anguish. Piercing, overpowering emotion caused him to tremble and shake as a man with the palsy. He threw himself on the floor of the cell by the prison cot and buried his face in his hands.

He remained thus for an hour. Then he rose and seated himself on the edge of the cot.

“After all,” he thought, “this, too, is weakness, and I must fight it. She has said that she loves me. Very well. I shall get out of this, and I have a lifetime to prove myself worthy of her. It is useless to waste time on vain regrets. Oh! She has given me strength. Every minute of my life belongs to her. And I said I didn’t want to lose my self-respect! If I ever regain it, it will be through her.”

Finally, after many hours of alternate despair and anxiety and resolution, he threw himself face downward on the cot, utterly exhausted, and slept.

We shall leave him there and return to Lila.

Her plan, swiftly conceived and perfectly executed, had worked admirably.

Her hiding place behind the curtain in the alcove exactly suited her purpose, for the curtain was flimsy and transparent, and, placed as it was between herself and the light, she was able to observe what took place in the room without any danger of being seen herself.

She had trusted to Knowlton’s wit, and he had not failed her. As soon as the detectives had rushed to the rear of the apartment in pursuit of him she had quietly stepped forth from her hiding place and gained the outer hall, closing the door softly behind her.

There she hesitated. Her first impulse was to descend at once to the street. But what if some one had been left on guard below? Was it not likely that she would be stopped and questioned; and the telltale parcel examined?

She stood for a few seconds trying to decide what to do; then, at the sound of returning footsteps in the room she had just left, fled in a sudden panic up the stairs to the landing above.

She realized the thousand dangers of her position. What if a detective had been sent up to guard the roof and should return and find her? What if some tenant of the house, entering or leaving, should question her? What if one of the detectives below should happen to ascend the stairs?

And yet, what could she do? Nothing. She must remain where she was and wait. To go either up or down might be fatal.

She tried to think of some way to get rid of the parcel, which weighed on her arm with all the heaviness of fear. She hated it as though it were a human being. Fantastic schemes raced into her brain.

Should she ring the bell of one of the apartments and hand in the parcel as though it were a delivery from some tradesman? Should she place it on the floor of the hall and set it afire?

Suddenly the street door opened two flights below, and she heard footsteps entering and ascending the stairs. She quivered with terror, and felt a wild impulse to rush madly down and hurl the parcel into the street.