CHAPTER XXIII.

THE BEAST GLOATS.


"Fer Gawd's sake, let's have a light here, somebody!" panted the
dishevelled policeman. Outside, the ringing of a gong became audible.
Then came a clattering of hoofs, as the police-patrol, nicely-timed by
the conspirators, and summoned by a confederate, drew up at the box on
the corner.

Somebody struck another match, and a raw gas-light flared. From the
hallway, two or three others crowded into the wrecked room. Disjointed
exclamations, oaths and curses intermingled with harsh laughter.

The woman--Lillian Rafter, probably the finest actress and stool-pigeon
in the whole detective world of graft and crookedness--lighted a
cigarette at the gas-burner, and laughed with triumph.

"Some make-up, eh kid?" she demanded of the taller detective, who was
now nursing a bad "shiner," as a black eye is known in the under-world,
and whose face was battered to a bleeding pulp. "Believe me, as a job,
this is some job! From start to finish, a pippin. He was bound to fall
for it though. No help for him. Even if he hadn't butted into the
'plant' we fixed for him in the alley, there, I could have braced him in
the street with my tale of woe. He was just bound to be 'it,' this time.
We had him going, all ways for Sunday!"

Scornfully the woman Gabriel had befriended in her seeming misery, spat
at him as he lay there stunned and scarcely breathing on the dirty
floor.

"And just pipe this, will you, too?" she exulted, holding up the
five-dollar bill he had given her. "And this?" She exhibited his name
and address, written on a card. "In his own writing, boys. As evidence
to hold him on a white slave charge, is this some evidence or isn't it?"

"Oh, we'll hold him, all right!" growled the other detective, whose
right arm dangled limp, where the chair had struck him. "The ---- ----
of a ----! He'll go up for a finif, a five-spot, or I'm a liar! And once
we get him behind bars, good-night!"

He deliberately drew back his heavy boot and kicked Gabriel full in the
face.

"You ---- ----!" he cursed. "Try to bean _me_, will you? Damn you!
You've made _your_ last soap-box spiel!"

"Come on, now, boys, out with him, an' no more rag-chewin'!" the
policeman exclaimed. "Git him in the wagon, an' away, before a gang
piles in here! You, Caffery, take his feet. I'll manage his head. Jesus,
but he's some big guy, though, the ---- ---- of a ----!"

Together, the battered policeman and the detective who still had some
strength left in him, raised Gabriel's limp body and carried it from the
room. The woman, meanwhile, stood there inhaling cigarette-smoke and
laughing viciously to herself.

"You easy mutt!" she exclaimed. "Dead baby, room-rent due, wanted to get
home to sister--and you fell for that old gag with whiskers on it!
You're some wise guy all right, all right, I don't think. Well, as a
stall it was a beaut. And I must say I never screamed better in all my
life. And that wallop I handed out, was a peach. If I don't pull down
five hundred for this night's work--"

"Shut up, you ----!" snarled Caffery, as he turned into the stairway.
"Keep that lip o' yours quiet, will you, or--"

The woman stared at him a moment, then laughed insolently and snapped
her smoke-yellowed fingers at him in defiance.

"Mind you show up in court, in the mornin'!" panted the officer,
staggering downstairs under the weight of Gabriel's huge shoulders.

"Better arrest her now," suggested Caffery, "an' hold her."

"You will, like Hell!" retorted the woman.

"Shhh! In one door an' out the other," the second detective whispered in
her ear, as she stood there in the doorway. "I'll see to it you get
fifty extra for _that_!"

"Oh, if that's the game, fine business!" she smiled. "Go to it--I'm your
huckleberry!"

Thus it befell that, while a large and growing crowd observed, under the
arc-light on the corner--a crowd where no fewer than six reporters, all
duly tipped off in advance, were taking notes--Gabriel Armstrong, the
Socialist speaker and leader, was bundled, unconscious, into a patrol
wagon of the City of Rochester; and with him, a drunken-acting harlot,
babbling charges of white-slave extortion and violence against him; and
with them both, several witnesses, who would have sworn that Heaven was
Hell, for five dollars cash in hand.

Thus was the stage set, for the next session of the honorable court.
Thus were the wires pulled. Thus, the prison doors were swung wide open,
and, above all, the honor and the reputation of a man swept to the
garbage-heaps of life.

True, at the morrow's great mass-meeting, there were destined to be
protests and calls for investigation. The Socialist press was destined
to take it up, defend him and demand the truth. But, swamped by a
perfectly overwhelming capitalist press, not only naturally hostile but
in this case already heavily subsidized; shattered by the close-knit,
circumstantial evidence; hamstrung and hampered in every way by the
power of unlimited money and Tammany pull, the Socialists might as well
have tried to sweep back the sea with a broom as save this man from
legal crucifixion. Worse still, they themselves, and the beaten strikers
with whom they had been fraternizing, got a black eye in the affair; and
many an editorial column, many a pulpit, unctuously discoursed thereon.
Many an anti-Socialist thug and grafter, loud-mouthed and blatant,
bellowed revamped platitudes of "immorality" and "breaking up the home,"
and the "nation of fatherless children," pointing at Gabriel Armstrong
as a shining example of Socialist hypocrisy and filth.

Press, law, church, capitalism itself nailed this man and the movement
he stood for, to the cross. And the pimps and parasites of the private
detective agency chuckled in their well-paid glee. The woman, Gabriel's
betrayer, counted her "thirty pieces of silver" and laughed in the foul
dark. The police cut a fine melon secretly handed them by Flint; and so,
too, did the local papers and more than one local pulpit.

So, in Gabriel's grief and woe and desolation, as he sat in his grim
cell with aching head, bruised face and bleeding heart, with all his
plans now broken, with the very soul within him dead--in this grief and
anguish, I say, the foul harpy-brood of Capitalism revelled and rioted
like maggots in carrion.

None more viciously than old Flint, himself. None with more brutal joy,
more savage satisfaction. One of the culminant moments of his life, he
felt, was on the evening after the dastardly plot had been carried to
its putrid conclusion.

Opening the Rochester "News-Intelligencer" which Slade had sent him, his
glittering eyes seemed to sparkle joy as a blue-penciled column met his
gaze.

Eagerly he read it all, every word, and weighed it, and re-read it, as
men do when news is dear to their souls. Already, through the New York
papers he had got the essentials of the affair. Already, by long
distance 'phone he had received the outlines of the news from Slade, as
well as a code telegram of more than 500 words, giving him additional
details. But this paper especially pleased him. The other Rochester
sheets, which Slade would send as fast as they appeared, he already was
looking forward to, with keenest pleasure.

"Ah! _This_ is what I call efficiency!" he exclaimed, settling himself
in his big chair, adjusting the pince-nez on his hawk-bill and preparing
to read the column for the third time. "The way this thing was planned
and carried out, and the manner in which Slade has managed to get it
played up in the papers, proves to me he's a general in his line, a true
Napoleon. I may safely intrust any affair of this sort to him and his
agency. No fee of his shall ever be questioned; and as for
bonuses--well, he shall have no reason to complain. An admirable man, in
every way--a wonderful organization! With men and agencies like _these_
at work in our interests, what have we, really, to be uneasy about?"

Smacking his mental lips, if I may be pardoned the phrase, he once more
slowly read the delightful, gratifying news:

_SOCIALIST WHITE-SLAVER!_

_Rotten Affair Unearthed by Police!_

_Gabriel Armstrong, Socialist Leader, Caught With the Goods!!!_

Rochester, July 4.

"In one of the most sensational raids ever made in this city, by
the vice squad, under the auspices of the Purity League, what is
believed to be a well-organized white-slave business was unearthed
last night. The leader and brains of the association, Gabriel
Armstrong, a Socialist speaker and worker of national prominence,
was arrested, and is now lodged in Police Headquarters, with
serious charges pending.

"The arrest was made as a result of the keen work of Officer
Michael P. Duffey, sergeant of the vice squad. Hearing screams in
the assignation house at 42A Belding street, he made his way up
stairs, accompanied by two or three citizens. The screams were
coming from a room on the second floor. Duffey promptly battered
the door down only to be met by a furious assault from Armstrong,
who was intoxicated and extremely violent.

"A savage hand-to-hand struggle took place, in which furniture was
broken, the policeman badly injured and two of the volunteers
knocked out. Armstrong was finally subdued, however, by the
jiu-jitsu method, in which Duffey is an expert, and was lodged in
the Central Station, together with the woman.

"According to her statement, the man, Armstrong, had not only been
guilty of grossly immoral practices with her, but had also been
trying to force her to share with him the proceeds of her life of
shame, thus making out against him a clear case under the Mann
White-Slave Traffic law. She has material evidence of this
fact--money which he had given her, to finance her till she could
begin bringing in revenue to him, and also his name and address,
written by his own hand. A significant fact is that the address
given by this white slaver is Socialist headquarters, in Chicago.
The police are now working on the theory that the entire Socialist
organization is honeycombed with this traffic, and that the
Socialist movement is only a blind to cover a wholesale
distribution of women for immoral purposes. Drastic Federal action
against the Socialist Party is now being considered.

"Still further and more sensational facts are expected to develop
at the preliminary hearing, which will take place tomorrow morning.
In case Armstrong is bound over to the Grand Jury, and convicted,
he may get a heavy fine and as much as five years in a Federal
penitentiary. He is described as being a surly, low type, reticent
and vindictive, of vicious characteristics and mentally defective.
The local Socialists have already taken up arms in his defense, as
was to be expected.

"Interest is added to the case by the fact that Armstrong is known
to be the man who, at the time of the recent automobile accident to
Miss Catherine Flint--daughter of Isaac Flint, of Englewood,
N. J.--gave the alarm. A theory is now being formed that he
was, in some way, involved in a plot with Miss Flint's chauffeur to
wreck the machine and share a big reward for rescuing the girl. The
plot, however, evidently miscarried, for the chauffeur was killed,
and Armstrong, after giving the alarm, feared to divulge his
identity but fled in disguise.

"Public interest is greatly aroused in this matter. And if, as now
seems positively certain, this arrest and forthcoming conviction
break up the vicious white-slave gang for some time operating in
Rochester and Ontario Beach, the public will have a still greater
debt of gratitude toward the Purity League, the Vice Squad and the
untiring efforts and bravery of Sergeant Duffey."

"That, ah that," remarked old Flint, as he finished his last reading,
"is what I call literature! It may not be Scott or Shelley or Dickens,
but it's got far more than _they_ ever had--tremendous value to--er--to
the rightful masters of society. I dare say that this article and also
others like it that are bound to be printed during the trial and after,
will do more to secure our position in society than a whole army with
machine guns. Socialism, eh? After this campaign gets through, by God,
we'll sweep up the leavings in a dustpan and throw them out the window!"

Again he surveyed the article, smiling thinly.

"Literature, yes," he repeated. "The writer of those lines, and the
master-minds who engineered the whole affair, must and shall be
liberally rewarded. Editors, preachers, writers, they're all on our
side. All safe and sane--that is, nearly all--enough, at any event, to
assure our safety. I rejoice that I have lived to see this day!"

He turned the sheets of the paper, to see if any other notice of the
affair was printed; and as he looked, he pondered.

"Imagine the effect of this, on Kate!" thought he. "It will be just as I
planned it. Nothing will be left in her mind now, but loathing, hate and
rage against this man. In two days, she and Waldron will have patched up
their little difference, and all will be well. A master-stroke on my
part, eh? Yes, yes indeed, a master-stroke!"

His eye caught another blue-pencilling.

"Editorial, eh?" said he, adjusting his glasses. "Better and better!
This affair will sweep those troublemakers off the map, or I'm a
beggar!"

Then, with the keenest of satisfaction, he focussed his attention on the
sapient editorial:

_SOCIALISM UNVEILED_.

The arrest and impending conviction of Gabriel Armstrong, the noted
Socialist leader, on a white-slave traffic charge, will do much to
set all sane thinkers right in regard to this whole matter of
Socialist ethics. Socialists, as we have all heard, contend that
their system of thought teaches a high and pure form of morality.
How will they square this assertion with the hard, cold facts, as
brought to light in this most revolting case?

Much more seems to lie beneath the surface than at first sight
appears. Though we desire to suspend judgment until all the data
are known, it appears conclusively proved that Armstrong is but one
of a band of white-slavers operating through the organization of,
and with the consent of the Socialist party, or at least of its
responsible officials.

If this prove to be the case, it will substantiate the suspicion
long felt in many quarters that this whole movement, ostensibly
political, is really a menace to the moral and social welfare of
the nation. A foreign importation, openly standing against the
home, the family and religion, may well be expected to foster such
crimes and to be a "culture-medium" for the growth of such vile
microbes as this man Armstrong, and others of his kind.

Turn on the light! Bring the social antiseptics! Let all the facts
be established; and when known, if--as we anticipate--they prove
this nasty conspiracy, let us make an end, now and forever, to this
un-American, immoral and filthy thing, Socialism! To this object
this paper now and henceforth pledges its policy; and all decent
publications, all citizens who love their country, their God, their
homes, their flag, will join with it in a nation-wide crusade to
choke this slimy monster of Anarchy and Free-love, and fling it
back into the Pit where it belongs.

Long live religion, purity and the flag! Down with Socialism!

Flint regarded this masterpiece with an approving eye. Then, chuckling
to himself, he arose and with slow steps advanced toward the dining-room
where already Catherine was awaiting him.

"Now," he murmured to himself, and smiled thinly, "now for a little
scene with Kate!"




CHAPTER XXIV.

CATHERINE'S SUPREME DECISION.


The meal was almost at an end--silently, like all their hours spent
together, now--before the old man sprang his _coup_. It was
characteristic of him to wait thus, to hold his fire till what he
conceived to be the opportune moment; never to act prematurely, under
any circumstances whatever.

"By the way, Kate," he remarked, casually, when coffee had been served
and he had motioned the butlers out of the room, "by the way, I've been
rather badly disappointed, today. Did you know that?"

"No, father," she answered. She never called him "daddy," now. "No, I'm
sorry to hear it. What's gone wrong?"

He looked at her a moment before replying, as though to gauge her mind
and the effect his announcement might have. Very charming she looked,
that evening, in a crepe de Chine gown with three-quarter lace sleeves
and an Oriental girdle--a wonderful Nile-green creation, very simple
(she had told herself) yet of staggering cost. A single white rose
graced her hair. The low-cut neck of the gown revealed a full, strong
bosom. Around her throat she wore a fine gold chain, with a French
20-franc piece and her Vassar Phi Beta Kappa key attached--the only
pendants she cared for. The gold coin spoke to her of the land of her
far ancestry, a land oft visited by her and greatly loved; the gold key
reminded her of college, and high rank taken in studies there.

Old Flint noted some of these details as he sat looking at her across
the white and gleaming table, where silver and gold plate, cut glass and
flowers and fine Sevres china all combined to make a picture of splendor
such as the average workingman or his wife has never even dreamed of or
imagined; a picture the merest commonplace, however, to Flint and
Catherine.

"A devilish fine-looking girl!" thought he, eyeing his daughter with
approval. "She'd grace any board in the world, whether billionaire's or
prince's! Waldron, old man, you'll never be able to thank me
sufficiently for what I'm going to do for you tonight--never, that is,
unless you help me make the Air Trust the staggering success I think you
can, and give me the boost I need to land the whole damned world as my
own private property!"

He chuckled dryly to himself, then drew the paper from his pocket.

"Well, father, what's gone wrong?" asked Kale, again. "Your
disappointment--what was it?"

She spoke without animation, tonelessly, in a flat, even voice. Since
that night when her father had tried to force Waldron upon her, and had
taunted her with loving the vagabond (as he said) who had rescued her,
something seemed to have been broken, in her manner; some spring of
action had snapped; some force was lacking now.

"What's wrong with me?" asked Flint, trying to veil the secret malice
and keen satisfaction that underlay his speech. "Oh, just this. You
remember about a week ago, when we--ah--had that little talk in the
music room--?"

"Don't, father, please!" she begged, raising one strong, brown hand.
"Don't bring that up again. It's all over and done with, that matter is.
I beg you, don't re-open it!"

"I--you misunderstand me, my dear child," said Flint, trying to smile,
but only flashing his gold tooth. "At that time I told you I was looking
for, and would reward, if found, the--er--man who had been so brave and
quick-witted as to rescue you. You remember?"

"Really, father, I beg you not to--"

"Why not, pray?" requested Flint, gazing at her through his pince-nez.
"My intentions, I assure you, were most honest and philanthropic. If I
had found him--_then_--I'd have given him--"

"Oh, but he wouldn't have taken anything, you see!" the girl
interrupted, with some spirit. "I told you that, at the time. It's just
as true, now. So please, father, let's drop the question altogether."

"I'm sorry not to be able to grant your request, my dear," said the old
man, with hidden malice. "But really, this time, you must hear me. My
disappointment arises from the fact that I've just discovered the young
man's identity, and--"

"You--you have?" Kate exclaimed, grasping the edge of the table with a
nervous hand. Her father smiled again, bitterly.

"Yes, I have," said he, with slow emphasis, "and I regret to say, my
dear child, that my diagnosis of his character is precisely what I first
thought. Any interest you may feel in that quarter is being applied to a
very unworthy object. The man is one of my discharged employees, a
thorough rascal and hard ticket in every way--one of the lowest-bred and
most villainous persons yet unhung, I grieve to state. The fact that he
carried you in his arms, and that I owe your preservation to him, is one
of the bitterest facts in my life. Had it been any other man, no matter
of what humble birth--"

"Father!" she cried, bending forward and gazing at him with strange
eyes. "Father! By what right and on what authority do you make these
accusations? That man, I know, was all that innate gentleness and
upright manhood could make any man. His nobility was not of wealth or
title, but of--"

"Nonsense!" Flint interrupted. "Nobility, eh? Read _that_, will you?"

Leering, despite himself, he handed the paper across the table to his
daughter.

"Those marked passages," said he. "And remember, this is only the
beginning. Wait till all the facts are known, the whole conspiracy laid
bare and everything exposed to public view! _Then_ tell me, if you can,
that he is poor but noble! Bah! Sunday-school dope, that! Noble, yes!"

Catherine sat there staring at the paper, a minute, as though quite
unable to decipher a word. Through a kind of wavering mist that seemed
to swim before her eyes, she vaguely saw the words: "Socialist White
Slaver!" but that these bore any relation to the man she remembered,
back there at the sugar-house, had not yet occurred to her mind. She
simply could not grasp the significance of the glaring headlines. And,
turning a blank gaze on her father's face, she stammered:

"Why--why do you give me this? What has this got to do with--_me_? With
_him_?"

"Everything!" snarled the Billionaire, violently irritated by his
daughter's seeming obtuseness. "Everything, I tell you! That man, that
strong and noble hero of yours, is this man! This white slaver! This
wild beast--this Socialist--this Anarchist! Do you understand now, or
don't you? Do you grasp the truth at last, or is your mind incapable of
apprehending it?"

He had risen, and now was standing there at his side of the table,
shaking with violent emotion, his glasses awry, face wrinkled and drawn,
hands twitching. His daughter, making no answer to his taunts, sat with
the paper spread before her on the table. A wine glass, overset, had
spilled a red stain--for all the world like the workers' blood, spilled
in war and industry for the greater wealth and glory of the masters--out
across the costly damask, but neither she nor Flint paid any heed.

For he was staring only at her; and she, now having mastered herself a
little, though her full breast still rose and fell too quickly, was
struggling to read the slanderous lies and foul libels of the
blue-penciled article.

Silently she read, paling a little but otherwise giving no sign to show
her father how the tide of her thought was setting. Twice over she read
the article; then, pushing the paper back, looked at old Flint with eyes
that seemed to question his very soul--eyes that saw the living truth,
below.

"It is a lie!" said she, at last, in a grave, quiet voice.

"What?" blurted the old man. "A--a lie?"

She nodded.

"Yes," said she. "A lie."

Furious, he ripped open the paper, and once more shoved it at her.

"Fool!" cried he. "Read _that_!" And his shaking, big-knuckled finger
tapped the editorial on "Socialism Unveiled."

"No," she answered, "I need read no more. I know; I understand!"

"You--you know _what_?" choked Flint. "This is an editorial, I tell you!
It represents the best thought and the most careful opinion of the
paper. And it condemns this man, absolutely, as a criminal and a menace
to society. It denounces him and his whole gang of Socialists or
Anarchists or White-slavers--they're all the same thing--as a plague to
the world. That's the editor's opinion; and remember, he's on the
ground, there. He has all the facts. You--_you_ are at a distance, and
have none! Yet you set up your futile, childish opinion--"

"No more, father! No more!" cried Catherine, also standing up. She faced
him calmly, coldly, magnificently. "You can't talk to me this way, any
more. Cannot, and must not! As I see this thing--and my woman's
intuition tells me more in a minute than you can explain away in an
hour--this fabrication here has all, or nearly all, been invented and
carried out by you. For what reason? This--to discredit this man! To
make me hate and loathe him! To force me back to Waldron. To--"

"Stop!" shouted the old man, in a well-assumed passion. "No daughter of
mine shall talk to me this way! Silence! It is monstrous and
unthinkable. It--it is horrible beyond belief! Silence, I tell
you--and--"

"No, father, not silence," she replied, with perfect poise. "Not
silence now, but speech. Either this thing is true or it is false. In
either case, I must know the facts. The papers? No truth in _those_! The
finding of the courts? today, they are a by-word and a mockery! All I
can trust is the evidence of my own senses; what I hear, and feel, and
see. So then--"

"Then?" gulped the Billionaire, holding the back of his chair in a
trembling grasp.

"Just this, father. I'm going to Rochester, myself, to investigate this
thing, to see this man, to hear his side of the story, to know--"

"Do that," cried Flint in a terrible voice, "and you never enter these
doors again! From the minute you leave Idle Hour on that fool's errand,
my daughter is dead to me, forever!"

Swept clean off his feet by rage, as well as by the deadly fear of what
might happen if his daughter really were to learn the truth, he had lost
his head completely.

With quiet attention, the girl regarded him, then smiled inscrutably.

"So it be," she replied. "Even though you disinherit me or turn me off
with a penny, my mind is made up, and my duty's clear.

"While things like these are going on in the world, outside, I have no
right to linger and to idle here. I am no child, now; I have been
thinking of late, reading, learning. Though I can't see it all clearly,
yet, I know that every bite we eat, means deprivation to some other
people, somewhere. This light and luxury mean poverty and darkness
elsewhere. This fruit, this wine, this very bread is ours because some
obscure and unknown men have toiled and sweat and given them to us. Even
this cut glass on our table--see! What tragedies it could reveal, could
it but speak! What tales of coughing, consumptive glass-cutters, bending
over wheels, their lungs cut to pieces by the myriad spicules of sharp
glass, so that we, we of our class, may enjoy beauty of design and
coloring! And the silken gown I wear--that too has cost--"

"No more! No more of this!" gurgled old Flint, now nearly in apoplexy.
"I deny you! I repudiate you, Anarchist that you are! Go! Never come
back--never, never--!"

Stumbling blindly, he turned and staggered out of the room. She watched
him go, nor tried to steady his uncertain steps. In the hallway,
outside, she heard him ring for Slawson, heard the valet come, and both
of them ascend the stairs.

"Father," she whispered to herself, a look of great and pure spiritual
beauty on her noble face, "father, this had to come. Sooner or later, it
was inevitable. Whatever you have done, I forgive you, for you _are_ my
father, and have surely acted for what you think my interest.

"But none the less, the end is here and now. Between you and me, a great
gulf is fixed. And from tonight I face the world, to battle with it,
learn from it, and know the truth in every way. Enough of this false,
easy, unnatural life. I cannot live it any longer; it would crush and
stifle me! Enough! I must be free, I shall be free, to know, and dare,
and do!"

That night, having had no further speech with old Flint, Kate left Idle
Hour, taking just a few necessities in a suit-case, and a few dollars
for her immediate needs.

Giving no explanation to maid, valet or anyone, she let herself out,
walked through the great estate and down Englewood Avenue, to the
station, where she caught a train for Jersey City.

The midnight special for Chicago bore her swiftly westward. No sleeping
car she took, but passed the night in a seat of an ordinary coach. Her
ticket read "Rochester."

The old page of her Book of Life was closed forever. A new and better
page was open wide.




CHAPTER XXV.

THROUGH STEEL BARS.


True to her plan, Catherine ended her journey at Rochester. She engaged
a room at a second-rate hotel--marvelling greatly at the meanness of the
accommodations, the like of which she had never seen--and, at ten
o'clock of the morning, appeared at the Central Police Station. The
bundle of papers in her hand indicated that she had read the latest lies
and venom poured out on Gabriel's defenseless head.

The haughty, full-fed sergeant in charge of the station made some
objections, at first, to letting her see Gabriel; but the tone of her
voice and the level look of her gray eye presently convinced him he was
playing with fire, and he gave in. Summoning an officer, he bade the man
conduct her. Iron doors opened and closed for her. She was conscious of
long, ill-smelling, concrete-floored corridors, with little steel cages
at either side--cages where hopeless, sodden wrecks of men were
standing, or sitting in attitudes of brutal despair, or lying on foul
bunks, motionless and inert as logs.

For a moment her heart failed her.

"Good Lord! Can such things be?" she whispered to herself. "So
this--this is a police station? And real jails and penitentiaries are
worse? Oh, horrible! I never dreamed of anything like this, or any men
like these!"

The officer, stopping at a cell-door and banging thereon with some
keys, startled her.

"Here, youse," he addressed the man within, "lady to see youse!"

Catherine was conscious that her heart was pounding hard and her breath
coming fast, as she peered in through those cold, harsh metal bars. For
a minute she could find no thought, no word. Within, her eyes--still
unaccustomed to the gloom--vaguely perceived a man's figure, big and
powerful, and different in its bearing from those other cringing
wretches she had glimpsed.

Then the man came toward her, stopped, peered and for a second drew
back. And then--then she heard his voice, in a kind of startled joy:

"Oh--is it--is it _you_?"

"Yes," she answered. "I must see you! I must talk with you, again, and
know the truth!"

The officer edged nearer.

"Youse can talk all y' want to," he dictated, hoarsely, "but don't you
pass nothin' in. No dope, nor nothin', see? I'll stick around an' watch,
anyhow; but don't try to slip him no dream powders or no 'snow.' 'Cause
if you do--"

"What--what _on_ earth are you talking about?" the girl demanded,
turning on the officer with absolute astonishment. But he, only winking
wisely, repeated:

"You heard me, didn't you? No dope. I'm wise to this whole game."

At a loss for his meaning, yet without any real desire to fathom it,
Kate turned back toward Gabriel.

A moment they two looked at each other, each noting any change that
might have taken place since that wonderful hour in the sugar-house,
each hungering and thirsting for a sight of the other's face. In her
heart, already Kate knew as well as she knew she was alive, that this
man was totally innocent of the foul charges heaped upon him. And so she
looked at him with eyes wherein lay no reproach, no doubt and no
suspicion. And, as she looked, tears started, and her heart swelled
hotly in her breast; for he was bruised and battered and a helpless
captive.

"He, caged like a trapped animal!" her thought was. "He, so strong, and
free, and brave! Oh, horrible, horrible!"