The Girl and The Bill Part 36

He tried to a.n.a.lyze their situation more clearly, to throw new light on his duty. The clerks must all have gone by now. There would be a visit or two from a night watchman, perhaps, but there was scarcely one chance in a hundred that he would unbolt the door.

The air was vitiating rapidly; they could not both live through the night. But--if she loved him as he loved her, she would be happier to die with him than to live at the cost of his life.

He pictured for himself again that last look of her face: its beauty, its strength, its sweet sympathy. He seemed to see the stray wisp of hair that had found its way down upon her cheek. Her perfect lips--how well he remembered!--were the unopened buds of pure womanly pa.s.sion.

After all, whether she loved him or not, there would still be much in life for her.

Time would cure her sorrow. There would be many claims upon her, and she would sooner or later resume her normal activities.

Slowly he disengaged his hand from her clinging fingers. In his other hand he still held his pocket-knife. To open a vein in his wrist would take but a moment. His life would well away, there on the tiles.

She would think he was asleep; and then she herself would drift away into unconsciousness which would be broken only after the door was opened in the morning.

Bah! His mind cleared in a flash. What a fool he was! Need he doubt her for an instant? Need he question what she would do when she found that he was dead? And she would know it quickly. This living pulsing girl beside him loved him! She had told him in every way except in words. In life and in death they belonged to each other.

They were one forever. They still lived, and while they lived they must hope. And if hope failed, there still would be love.

His pent-up emotions broke restraint. With unthinking swiftness, he threw his arm over her and drew her tight to him. His lips found hers in a long kiss--clung in ecstasy for another, and another.

Her arms went about his neck. He felt as though her soul had pa.s.sed from her lips to his own.

"My lover!" she whispered. "I think I have always cared."

"O, Girl, Girl!" He could utter no more.

With a faint sigh she said: "I am glad it is to be together." She sat up, still holding his hand. "If it need be at all," she added, a new firmness in her voice.

"If it need be at all!" Orme searched his mind again for some promise of escape from this prison which had been so suddenly glorified for them.

The smooth, unbreakable walls; the thin seam of the door; the thermometer. Why had he not thought of it before? The thermometer!

With an exclamation, he leaped to his feet.

"What is it?" she cried.

"A chance! A small chance--but still a chance!"

He found his way to the handle of the door, which his first attempt at escape had taught him was not connected with the outer k.n.o.b. Then he located the covering which protected the coils of the thermometer.

Striking with his heel, he tried to break the metal grating. It would not yield. Again and again he threw his weight into the blows, but without effect.

At last he remembered his pocket-knife. Thrusting one end of it through the grating, he prodded at the gla.s.s coils within. There was a tinkling sound. He had succeeded.

He groped his way back to the girl and seated himself beside her. With the confession of their love, a new hope had sprung up in them. They might still be freed, and, though the air was becoming stifling, neither of them believed that a joy as great as theirs could be born to live but a few hours.

For the hundredth time he was saying: "I can't believe that we have known each other only one day."

"And even now," she mused, "you don't know my name. Do you want me to tell you?"

"Not until you are ready."

"Then wait. It will all come in due form. Someone will say, 'Mr. Orme, Miss----.'"

"The name doesn't matter," said Orme. "To me you will always be just--Girl."

The joyous moments rushed by. She had crept close to him again, and with her head on his shoulder, was saying: "There is so much for us to tell each other."

"There seems to be only one thing to say now." He kissed her tenderly.

"Oh, but there is much more."

"Where shall we begin?" asked Orme.

"Well, to be matter-of-fact, do you live in Chicago?"

"No, dear. I live in New York."

"I didn't even know that," she whispered, "And about me. Our family home has been in one of the suburbs here since I was a small girl. For several years I was sent East to school, and after that I went abroad with some friends. And since then----"

"It can't be so very long," he whispered, "though you speak as though it were decades."

"It is six years. Since then my father and I have spent our winters in the East, coming back home for the summers. Just think how much you are learning about me!"

Orme lifted her hand to his lips.

Suddenly the room filled with a light which to their expanded pupils seemed bright as the sun. The door had been opened and an electric light in the reception-hall shone in. Framed in the doorway was the outline of a man.

Orme shouted joyfully and jumped to his feet.

"Why--what----?" the man began.

Orme helped the girl up, and together they went to the outer light. For a moment they could do nothing but breathe, so good the fresh air of the reception-room seemed to them. Then, looking at the man again, Orme saw that it was the clerk to whom Alcatrante had made his accusation two hours before.

"How did you come to be in there?" the clerk demanded.

Orme hesitated; then he decided to make no charges. "I got rid of that crazy fellow who was following me around," he said, "and I came back, and this young lady and I went in to examine your refrigerator. The door was ajar, and someone pushed it shut and locked it. We should have smothered if you had not come."

"It was the merest chance," said the clerk. "My work kept me late. As I was leaving, I happened to glance at the thermometer dial here. It registered below freezing. I couldn't understand that, for there is no ice in the refrigerator, so I opened the door to see."

"I broke the coil," explained Orme, "in the hope that the night watchman might be interested in the dial."

"Well," said the clerk, drawing a long breath, "you had a close shave.

There isn't any night watchman--at least not in this office. If I had balanced my books on time to-day, you two would have stayed where you were until to-morrow morning."

"I will come in to-morrow to see Mr. Wallingham and explain everything. I will pay for a new thermometer, too, if he will let me."

"I don't think he will let you do that," said the clerk. "He will be grateful that nothing worse happened."

"Yes, I believe he will," replied Orme.