Zane Grey - The Day of the Beast

Outside in the middle of the street he found her other slipper. She had not even stockings on now; he could tell by the impressions of her feet in the snow. He remembered quite mournfully how small Margaret's feet were, how perfectly shaped. He hurried into the park, but was careful to obliterate every vestige of her trail by walking in the soft snow directly over her footprints. A hope that she might have fainted before she could carry out her determination arose in him and gave him strength. He kept on. Her trail led straight across the park, in the short cut she had learned and run over hundreds of times when a little girl. It was hastening her now to her death.

At first her footsteps were clear-cut, distinct and wide apart. Soon they began to show evidences of weariness; the stride shortened; the imprints dragged. Here a great crushing in a snow drift showed where she had fallen.

Mr. Maynard's hope revived; he redoubled his efforts. She could not be far. How she dragged along! Then with a leap of his heart, and a sob of thankfulness he found her, with disheveled hair, and face white as the snow where it rested, sad and still in the moonlight.

CHAPTER XIX.

Middleville was noted for its severe winters, but this year the zero weather held off until late in January. Lane was peculiarly susceptible to the cold and he found himself facing a discomfort he knew he could not long endure. Every day he felt more and more that he should go to a warm and dry climate; and yet he could not determine to leave Middleville. Something held him.

The warmth of bright hotel lobbies and theatres and restaurants uptown was no longer available for Lane. His money had dwindled beyond the possibility of luxury, and besides he shrank now from meeting any one who knew him. His life was empty, dreary and comfortless.

One wintry afternoon Lane did not wander round as long as usual, for the reason that his endurance was lessening. He returned early to his new quarters, and in the dim hallway he passed a slight pale girl who looked at him. She seemed familiar, but Lane could not place her. Evidently she had a room in the building. Lane hated the big barn-like house, and especially the bare cold room where he had to seek rest. Of late he had not eaten any dinner. He usually remained in bed as long as he could, and made a midday meal answer all requirements. Appetite, like many other things, was failing him. This day he sat upon his bed, in the abstraction of the lonely and unhappy, until the cold forced him to get under the covers.

His weary eyelids had just closed when he was awakened. The confused sense of being torn from slumber gave way to a perception of a voice in the room next to his. It was a man's voice, rough with the huskiness Lane recognized as peculiar to drunkards. And the reply to it seemed to be a low-toned appeal from a woman.

“Playin' off sick, eh? You don't want to work. But you'll get me some money, girl, d'ye hear?”

A door slammed, rattling the thin partition between the two rooms, and heavy footsteps dragged in the hall and on the stairway.

Sleep refused to come back to Lane. As he lay there he was surprised at the many sounds he heard. The ramshackle old structure, which he had supposed almost vacant, was busy with life. Stealthy footfalls in the hallways passed and repassed; a piano drummed somewhere; a man's loud voice rang out, and a woman's laugh faint, hollow and far away, like the ghost of laughter, returned in echo. The musical clinking of glasses, the ring of a cash register, the rattling click of pool balls, came up from below.

Presently Lane remembered the nature of the place. It was a house of night. In daylight it was silent; its inmates were asleep. But as the darkness unfolded a cloak over it, all the hidden springs of its obscure humanity began to flow. Lying there with the woman's appeal haunting him and all those sounds in his ears he thought of their meaning. The drunkard with his lust for money; his moaning victim; the discordant piano; the man with the vacant laugh; the lost hope and youth in the woman's that echoed it; the stealing, slipping feet of those who must tread softly—all conveyed to Lane that he had awakened in another world, a world which shunned sunlight.

Toward morning he dozed off into a fitful sleep which lasted until ten o'clock when he arose and dressed. As he was about to go out a knock on the door of the room next to his recalled the incident of the night. He listened. Another knock followed, somewhat louder, but no response came from within.

“Say, you in there,” cried a voice Lane recognized as the landlady's. She rattled the door-knob.

A girl's voice answered weakly: “Come in.”

Lane heard the door open.

“I wants my room rent. I can't get a dollar out of your drunken father. Will you pay? It's four weeks overdue.”

“I have no money.”

“Then get out an' leave me the room.” The landlady spoke angrily.

“I'm ill. I can't get up.” The answer was faint.

Lane opened his door quickly, and confronted the broad person of the landlady.

“How much does the woman owe?” he asked, quietly.

“Ah-huh!” the exclamation was trenchant with meaning. “Twenty dollars, if it's anything to you.”

“I'll pay it. I think I heard the woman say she was ill.”

“She says she is.”

“May I be of any assistance?”

“Ask her.”

Lane glanced into the little room, a counterpart of his. But it was so dark he could see nothing distinctly.

“May I come in? Let me raise the blind. There, the sun is fine this morning. Now, may I not—-”

He looked down at a curly head and a sweet pretty face that he knew.

“I know you,” he said, groping among past associations.

“I am Rose Clymer,” she whispered, and a momentary color came into her wan cheeks.

“Rose Clymer! Bessy Bell's friend!”

“Yes, Mr. Lane. I'm not so surprised as you. I recognized you last night.”

“Then it was you who passed me in the hall?”

“Yes.”

“Well! And you're ill? What is the matter? Ah! Last night—it was your—your father—I heard?”

“Yes,” she answered. “I've not been well since—for a long time, and I gave out last night.”

“Here I am talking when I might be of some use,” said Lane, and he hurried out of the room. The landlady had discreetly retired to the other end of the hall. He thrust some money into her hands.

“She seems pretty sick. Do all you can for her, be kind to her. I'll pay. I'm going for a doctor.”

He telephoned for Doctor Bronson.

An hour later Lane, coming upstairs from his meal, met the physician at Rose's door. He looked strangely at Lane and shook his head.

“Daren, how is it I find you here in this place?”

“Beggars can't be choosers,” answered Lane, with his old frank smile.

“Humph!” exclaimed the doctor, gruffly.

“How about the girl?” asked Lane.

“She's in bad shape,” replied Bronson.... “Lane, are you aware of her condition?”

“Why, she's ill—that's all I know,” replied Lane, slowly. “Rose didn't tell me what ailed her. I just found out she was here.”

Doctor Bronson looked at Lane. “Too bad you didn't find out sooner. I'll call again to-day and see her.... And say, Daren, you look all in yourself.”

“Never mind me, Doctor. It's mighty good of you to look after Rose. I know you've more patients than you can take care of. Rose has nothing and her father's a poor devil. But I'll pay you.”

“Never mind about money,” rejoined Bronson, turning to go.

Lane could learn little from Rose. Questions seemed to make her shrink, so Lane refrained from them and tried to cheer her. The landlady had taken a sudden liking to Lane which evinced itself in her change of attitude toward Rose, and she was communicative. She informed Lane that the girl had been there about two months; that her father had made her work till she dropped. Old Clymer had often brought men to the hotel to drink and gamble, and to the girl's credit she had avoided them.