Fate, who had been at the steer-wheel of his life-car
during the last five years, carry him safely through
what looked a dozen sure deaths? Without slacking
speed a jot we swung around the corner of Fortieth
into Fifth Avenue. The road was clear to Forty-second;
there a dense jam of cars, teams, and carriages blocked
the crossing. Bob must have seen the solid wall
for I heard his low muttered curse. Nothing else
to indicate that we were blocked with his goal in sight.
He never touched the speed controller, but took the
two blocks as though shot from a catapult. The
two? No, one, and three-quarters of the next,
for when within a score of yards of the black wall
he jammed down the brakes, and the iron mass ground
and shook as though it would rend itself to atoms,
but it stopped with its dasher and front wheels wedged
in between a car and a dray. It had not stopped
when Bob was off and up the avenue like a hound on
the end-in-sight trail. I was after him while
the astonished bystanders stared in wonder. As
we neared Bob’s house I could see people on
the stoop. I heard Bob’s secretary shout,
“Thank God, Mr. Brownley, you have come.
She is in the office. I found her there, quiet
and recovered. She did not ask a question.
She said, ’Tell Mr. Brownley when he comes that
I should like to see him.’ Then she ordered
me to get the afternoon paper. I handed it to
her an hour ago. I think she believes herself
in her old office. I shut off the floor as you
instructed. I did not dare go to her for fear
she would ask questions. I have”—but
Bob was up the stairs two and three steps at a time.
My breath was almost gone and it took me minutes to
get to the second floor. My feet touched the
top stair, when, O God! that sound! For five
long years I had been trying to get it out of my ears,
but now more guttural, more agonised than before,
it broke upon my tortured senses. I did not need
to seek its direction. With a bound I was at the
threshold of Beulah Sands-Brownley’s office.
In that brief time the groans had stilled. For
one instant I closed my eyes, for the very atmosphere
of that hall moaned and groaned death. I opened
them. Yes, I knew it. There at the desk
was the beautiful gray-clad figure of five years ago.
There the two arms resting on the desk. There
the two beautiful hands holding the open paper, but
the eyes, those marvellous gray-blue doors to an immortal
soul—they were closed forever. The
exquisitely beautiful face was cold and white and
peaceful. Beulah Sands was dead. The hell-hounds
of the “System” had overtaken its maimed
and hunted victim; it had added her beautiful heart
to the bags and barrels and hogsheads stored away in
its big “business-is-business” safe-deposit
vaults. My eyes in sick pity sought the form
of my old schoolmate, my college chum, my partner,
my friend, the man I loved. He was on his knees.
His agonised face was turned to his wife. His
clasped hands had been raised in an awful, heart-crushing