“I—­I couldn’t help it,” she faltered; “I couldn’t leave Clarence in a city of five m-million strangers—­all alone—­terrified out of his senses—­ could I?  I had rather—­rather be thought—­anything than be c-cruel to a helpless animal.”

Brown dared not trust himself to answer.  She was too beautiful and his emotion was too deep.  So he bent over and attempted to dust his garments with the flat of his hand.

“I am so sorry,” she said in a low voice.  “Are your clothes quite ruined?”

“Oh, I don’t mind,” he protested happily, “I really don’t mind a bit.  If you’ll only let me help you corner that infern—­that unfortunate cat I shall be perfectly happy.”

She said, with heightened color:  “It is exceedingly nice of you to say so....  I—­I don’t quite know—­what do you think we had better do?”

“Suppose,” he said, “you go into the basement, unlock the cellar door and call.  He can’t bolt this way.”

She nodded and entered the house.  A few moments later he heard her calling, so persuasively that it was all he could do not to run to her, and why on earth that cat didn’t he never could understand.

[Illustration]

XI

BETTY

In Which the Remorseless and Inexorable Results of Psychical Research Are Revealed to the Very Young

At intervals for the next ten minutes her fresh, sweet, fascinating voice came to him where he stood in the yard; then he heard it growing fainter, more distant, receding; then silence.

Listening, he suddenly heard a far, rushing sound from subterranean depths—­like a load of coal being put in—­then a frightened cry.

He sprang into the basement, ran through laundry and kitchen.  The cellar door swung wide open above the stairs which ran down into darkness; and as he halted to listen Clarence dashed up out of the depths, scuttled around the stairs and fled upward into the silent regions above.

“Betty!” he cried, forgetting in his alarm the lesser conventions, “where are you?”

“Oh, dear—­oh, dear!” she wailed.  “I am in such a dreadful plight.  Could you help me, please?”

“Are you hurt?” he asked.  Fright made his voice almost inaudible.  He struck a match with shaking fingers and ran down the cellar stairs.

“Betty!  Where are you?”

“Oh, I am here—­in the coal.”

“What?”

“I—­I can’t seem to get out; I stepped into the coal pit in the dark and it all—­all slid with me and over me and I’m in it up to the shoulders.”

Another match flamed; he saw a stump of a candle, seized it, lighted it, and, holding it aloft, gazed down upon the most heart rending spectacle he had ever witnessed.

The next instant he grasped a shovel and leaped to the rescue.  She was quite calm about it; the situation was too awful, the future too hopeless for mere tears.  What had happened contained all the dignified elements of a catastrophe.  They both realized it, and when, madly shoveling, he at last succeeded in releasing her she leaned her full weight on his own, breathing rapidly, and suffered him to support and guide her through the flame-shot darkness to the culinary regions above.