A Private Chivalry by Francis Lynde

COMPARING it with the fortnight of yesterdays, Brant reckoned the day of his meeting with Dorothy as one worthy of anniversaries. In good truth, his confession had stopped something short of its climax, and of the coveted personal absolution; but it was comforting to remember that he had spoken plainly, and that she had bidden him go forward hopefully. Notwithstanding the untimely interruption, there could be no reasonable doubt of the major fact: that she fully understood his parable and its application -- understood and was glad, and would have let him go on but for the interruption.

So much for the good; and as for the ill, the rebuff at the church gate went for little. Being so well assured of the daughter's -- he was about to say "love," but he changed it to "sympathy" -- being so well assured of the daughter's sympathy, he could afford to wait for reinstatement in the good graces of the mother. Women, even such women as the Mrs. Langfords, are not implacable, he reasoned; and when he should have shown how sincere he was, her resentment -- her natural resentment, he was willing to call it -- would be allayed, and she would see the injustice of her sentence of ostracism. Wherein he showed forth an unknowledge of womankind common to very young men, and to some older ones whose walk in life has led them much apart from women worth the knowing.

In the exuberance of his self-congratulation Brant lost sight of the one redeeming thread in the thought-woven fabric of the day, which thread was a brotherly concern for Antrim, and a half-formed resolve to turn bearwarden to the foolish one. By evening the half-formed resolve took permanent shape; and since a physician must first know something of the disease and the cause of it, he began by trying to breach Antrim's reticence at the supper table. For reasons good and sufficient, the effort was bootless; and Brant, driven from ear to eye evidence, and having, moreover, considerable skill in diagnosing the symptoms of bottle sickness, saw with concern that Antrim was tottering on the verge of the abyss.

From that to keeping a solicitous eye on him was but a step; and when Antrim went upstairs, Brant, whose room was just across the corridor from the chief clerk's, went too, mounting guard with a light, a book, and with his door ajar. For a long time there was no stir in the opposite room; but just as he was beginning to hope that Antrim had gone to bed, the door opened and the chief clerk hurried out.

Brant's first impulse was to follow and bring him back without ceremony. Then he reflected that it is an ill thing to meddle, even with the best of motives, and so cast about for a plausible excuse. Luckily, he found one ready to his hand. The papers containing the evidence against Harding were in the drawer of his writing table, and in view of the late stirrings in that pool it would be well to put them under lock and key. There was a safe in Antrim's office, and the errand would give him a chance to probe Antrim's wound, and so haply he might find the bullet or the arrowhead, or whatever it might be that was rankling therein.

So he put the papers in his pocket and went out; and taking it for granted that Antrim would make straight for the nearest barroom, lost a half hour or more in a fruitless search among the drinking places. When he had widened the search circle to the farthest limits of the _quasi_-respectable district, outside of which Antrim would not be likely to venture, he stumbled upon Jarvis and stopped to inquire of him.

"Say, Jarvis, have you seen anything of Harry Antrim this evening?"

The reporter nodded. "Um-hm; saw him heading for his office half an hour ago, plugging along with his head down and his hands in his pockets. What's struck him lately?"

"I don't know," replied the bearwarden truthfully enough; "much obliged. " But when he would have gone on, Jarvis turned and went with him.

"Going to hunt him up? I'll mog along with you. The old man says the president of the C. E. & W. is coming in on a special, and I'd like to get the facts for an item."

"Can't you telephone? " asked Brant, remembering the nature of his errand.

"I suppose I could, but I don't mind the walk. Say, it's queer about Harry, isn't it? Never saw a man let go all holds at once like he has."

"He will get over it; it's nothing worse than a fit of the blues," said Brant, taxing his ingenuity meanwhile for an expedient which would rid him of the reporter.

"Blues nothing! Fit of the ‘jimmies,' if he doesn't pull up pretty short. He isn't built right to carry bug juice in bulk, and that is just about what he is trying to do."

"What was it you said to me about preaching last night? " asked Brant, as they climbed the stair to the railway offices.

"Never mind about that; you were preaching at me, and I didn't need it. Now, with a fellow like Harry it's different -- -- "

They were at the door of the train despatcher's room, and Brant paused. "Better ask Disbrow about the special," he said, with a glance at the darkened transom of the superintendent's office. "Harry doesn't seem to be here."

The reporter acted upon the suggestion; and when he was alone in the corridor Brant went quickly to the door of the darkened office. It was ajar, and when he pushed it open the light from the hall fell full upon the figure of the chief clerk lying inert and helpless across the open desk.

Brant took in the situation at a glance, closed the door softly, and walked back toward the despatcher's room. Jarvis was a good fellow, but he already knew too much about Antrim's affair, and he must be got rid of at all hazards. He met the reporter as the latter was coming out of Disbrow's door.

"Get what you wanted? " he inquired.