IV
Jimmie followed behind. He heard sounds of a scuffle on the lawn,
and screams from inside. At first the little farm-hand could not
make up his mind what to do, but finally he ran to the house; and
there in the front room he saw the beautiful lady, with her wet hair
streaming down her back, and the tears streaming down her face, sunk
on her knees, before the man who had hailed Jimmie from the
automobile. She had caught his coat with her two hands, and clung to
it with such desperation that when he tried to draw away he dragged
her along the floor. "Paul!" she was screaming. "What are you going
to do?"
"Be quiet! Be quiet!" commanded the man. He was young, tall and
superhumanly handsome; his face had the white light of a passionate
resolve, his lips were set like those of a man who is marching to
his death in battle. "Answer me!" cried the woman again and again;
until finally he said: "I shan't kill him; but I mean to teach him
his lesson."
"Paul, Paul, have mercy!" sobbed the woman; she went on pleading
hysterically, in the most dreadful distress that Jimmie had ever
seen or heard. "It wasn't his fault, Paul, it was mine! I did it
all! Oh, for Christ's sake! You are driving me mad!" She moaned, she
implored, she sobbed till she choked herself; and when the man tried
to tear her hands loose she fought with him, he could not get free
of her.
"You're not going to move me, Helen," he declared. "You might as
well get that clear."
"But I tell you it was my fault, Paul! I ran away with him!"
"All right," answered the man, grimly. "I'll fix him so no other
man's wife will ever run away with him."
Her clamour continued more wildly than ever, until two other men
came into the room. "Joe," said Paul, to one of them, "take her down
to the car and keep her there. Don't let her call for help--if
anybody comes along, keep her quiet, keep your hand tight over her
mouth."
"Paul, you're a fiend!" shrieked the woman. "I'll kill you for
this!"
"You're welcome to," answered the man. "I shouldn't care--but I'm
going to do this job before I die." And he tore the woman's hands
away from him, and by his stern anger he gave the other two men the
necessary resolution. They carried her, half-fainting, out of the
room.
All this time Jimmie Higgins had been standing like one turned to
stone; and Lizzie had shrunk into a far corner of the room, all but
paralysed with terror. Now the man turned to them. "My good people,"
he said, "we want to borrow your room for a half-hour or so. We'll
pay you well for it--enough to buy the whole house if you want to."
"W--w--what are you goin' to do?" stammered Jimmie.
"We're going to teach a little fundamental morality to a young man
whose education has been neglected," replied the other. That somehow
did not tell Jimmie very much, but he forebore to speak again, for
never in all his life had he seen a man who conveyed to him the
impression of such resistless force as this man. He was truly a
superhuman creature, terrifying, panoplied in lightnings of wrath.
The door of the house opened again, and Lacey Granitch came in, with
a man on each side holding him by the arms and a pair of handcuffs
on his wrists. Of all the dreadful spectacles that Jimmie had seen
that dreadful night, the worst was the face of the young master of
the Empire Machine Shops. It was green--absolutely and literally
green. His knees trembled so that he seemed about to sink to the
floor, and his dark eyes were those of an animal in a trap.
There came another man behind him carrying two black cases in his
hands. He opened one, and took out some instrument with wires
attached, and hung part of it to a hook on the wall; he pressed a
switch, and a soft white radiance flooded the room. The man who was
in command, the one whom the lady had called "Paul", now turned to
Jimmie and his wife. "You may take your lamp," he said. "Go into the
other room and stay there till we call you, please."
"W--w--what are you goin' to do?" Jimmie found courage to stammer
again. But the other merely bade him to go into the other room and
stay, and it would be all right, and he would be well paid for his
time and trouble. There was no use trying to interfere; no use
trying to get away, for the house would be watched.
