Read Ebook: The Girl of the Golden Gate by Meloney William Brown Boehm H Richard Illustrator

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Ebook has 1243 lines and 64718 words, and 25 pages

"You know a lot about life, Suki," he answered and turned and went into the hotel office.

At Whitridge's appearance the boyish-looking clerk behind the desk flushed guiltily and hid something under a book. Whitridge handed him an odd silver cigarette case which the young fellow had often admired.

"Just a token for your kindness, my boy," he said.

"Gee, I--I'm sorry you're going away, Captain--Whitr--Whitridge," stammered the clerk and faltering peculiarly at the name. "I'll always keep this. What you've said has braced me up and--as soon as I get a little more money together I'm going home. Good-by and--and the best of luck to you."

"Good-by and good luck to you," said the departing guest, shaking the young fellow's hand heartily. "You'll come through all right."

The clerk's gaze followed Whitridge and Chang through the door and until they were clear of the grounds. Then he pulled out an old newspaper. It was what he had hidden at Whitridge's unexpected appearance. Chang had dropped it in packing Whitridge's things. For several minutes he studied the face which looked up at him from a mass of black headlines. It was a portrait of Whitridge beyond a doubt.

"He's Lavelle all right--but nobody'll ever get it out of me. He's square," he muttered to himself, and as he did so he tore the paper into small bits.

Just then Miss Granville and her maid went by, but Whitridge did not catch her glance of recognition.

When he reached the deck he looked back, intending to give Chang a farewell hand wave, but the Chinaman had disappeared. He searched the pier from end to end, but there was a dimness in his eyes and they made no discovery. He turned to go forward and collided with two men, one in the uniform of a United States naval lieutenant and the other in civilian garb.

"I beg your pardon," he said quickly and then his gaze met the officer's.

A challenging tenseness straightened Whitridge. The man in uniform started back a step as if he had been struck. Then, his good-looking, but weak face went pale, his lips parted loosely, and his features became as expressionless as so much putty, under the glance which Whitridge shot at him. It was a glance of but a second. It began in hostility and ended with a lash of contempt as he swung on forward.

The naval officer watched Whitridge until he disappeared through the saloon gangway.

"You look as you might--if you had seen a ghost, Campbell," said the civilian.

"No! Impossible!"

"It's he. I couldn't be mistaken. He was in the class at Annapolis with me."

"He's a rotter, if there ever was one," interrupted Evans bitterly. The other nodded dumbly. "Good thing he didn't land in the navy."

"Until he was shown up I was blamed for--for his being 'bilged,' you know. But really I wasn't to blame. Some of the fellows planted some beer and booze in our room; he stood mute, but I had to testify. They expelled him."

The officer spoke as if conscience-smitten, but his companion did not seem to be listening to him. He interrupted him.

"It's a mighty unpleasant thing to think of being in the same ship with a man like that," he said very solemnly. As he spoke a shudder passed over him.

The banging of a gong and a cry of "All ashore, who're going ashore!" cut short the conversation and hurried the officer over the side.

It was with his soul swept by the pain of all the bitterness of his life that Whitridge had turned away from the two men on deck. His memory of bitterness began with Porter Campbell. He had feared from the day, a week before, when the American cruiser squadron had put in to Yokohama that somebody would recognize him. Now at the last moment his apprehension had been fulfilled. He knew the nature of Campbell too well to dare to hope that he would conceal his identity from the civilian to whom he had been speaking.

Just as he reached the window of the purser's office Whitridge recognized Emily Granville's maid standing there. The thought seized him that when this ship's company came to put him on the wheel of scorn that she, too, must be there to aid in the torture. He turned quickly as if to retreat. It was not too late; he could escape the agony and the humiliation that he was certain was in store for him.

Even as he turned he paused with a new sadness. The call in his mother's letter which yesterday's mail had brought to him, came to his mind. The words were burned in his brain:

"Just to hold you in these withered old arms again and press you to my breast as I used to do when you were a bonny baby boy--that is all I ask. I would go through The Gate happy--and with a smile."

A slight woman in black, dark of skin and with her raven hair groomed slickly after the fashion of Oriental women, looked up at him with a surprised but happy gleam of recognition. Whitridge did not see her, although he appeared to be looking straight at her. She paused, where she followed a Chinese steward aft, and looked over her shoulder at him as he went forward.

"Who is that, Moore--the one in black?" asked Evans stepping up to the window. "Something familiar about her."

"Elsie of Shanghai," said the purser in an undertone. "Sold out and going home."

"Ah," murmured Evans with a lifting of his brows. "Knew her from her pictures. They're in every conceivable place."

"She has played 'the game' for all there was in it," answered the purser.

"Wrong, sir. Can't be. Why--that fellow's dead, Mr. Evans. Died out East here somewhere. Saw it in the home papers only a little while ago."

"He's not dead by a long shot. He's aboard here."

"There's no Lavelle on the passenger list."

"That means nothing," and Evans described Whitridge.

"Why, that man's name's Whitridge--an Englishman."

"Well, he's Lavelle."

The purser stopped suddenly, a startled look came into his eyes; his face flushed.

Evans, following his gaze in wonderment, turned and stepped quickly aside. Emily Granville was standing there, her maid beside her carrying a jewel case.

"I wish to deposit this with you, purser," she said.

There was a tremor in her voice. Every bit of color was gone from her face. It might have been a piece of Wedgwood. She paused only long enough to indicate that the maid would take the purser's receipt.

"Lord, but that woman's a dream," whispered Evans after the maid had passed out of hearing. The purser looked up at him strangely. "But say, old man, what's the matter with you?"

"I wonder if she heard you say that--that Lavelle is aboard here?"

"Why? What if she did?"

"My God!" exclaimed Evans, and he looked at the purser blankly.

Emily Granville could not have helped hearing what was said at the purser's window. The shock of the revelation stunned her. It seemed impossible that fate could have placed her in the same ship with the man whose fiendishness had gloomed her whole life.

With her nerves overwrought and her senses reeling, she sought her berth. There she argued with herself that the man who had spoken to the purser must be mistaken. It was not true, she persisted in thinking. The man whom the steamship agency manager had told her was Captain Whitridge--the man who had given up his room to her--could not be Lavelle. His was not a face that could mask such a fiend. It was too fine and yet the sadness of it--the pain she had seen in his eyes--returned to startle her.

"I can't! I won't believe it!" she said to herself over and over again, fighting the sense of foreboding that grew in her heart.

With white face and scared, staring eyes Emily Granville left her place. Somehow she got to her room. A little while later her maid found her senseless in her berth and revived her only to hear her cry and moan that furies--black furies--were tearing at her pillow. And she breathed heavily as one spent from swimming.

Paul Lavelle did not enter the dining saloon after that first night. It became known that he took his meals in his room and left it only after darkness fell. Watch officers saw him from the bridge now and then--a shadow in the night.

"Wandering around like a pariah dog," one of them told a passenger. Often they saw "The Shadow" as late as dawn.

After a long, steady, hard walk "The Shadow" sought out his favorite vigil post against the pipe rail under the weather wing of the bridge. It was to port to-night, although it was hard to tell the weather side from the lee. He gleaned some comfort from the thought that the liner was rapidly slipping down to "the corner"--the intersection of the 180th meridian and the 30th parallel--through which ships great circle between Yokohama and the Hawaiian Islands. She was due to turn it the following afternoon and that meant half his passage in her done. He had determined to quit the ship at Honolulu.

Just after the lights went out in the saloon at one bell--a half-hour after midnight--and the silence of the dark hours had settled upon the ship, he sensed somebody stealing along the side of the deck house. He fixed a shape finally, but no sooner had he done so than it disappeared. He could not tell whether it was the form of a man or woman. Then, he heard a heavy breath at his feet and jumped back defensively. A hand touched him and he grabbed it.

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