He rose impulsively from his chair, and, walking down the length of the richly furnished room, his tread soundless on the thick, heavy rug, drew the portières aside, and stood looking out of the rear window; It was dark outside, but presently the shadows formed into concrete shapes, and, across the black space of driveway and yard, the wall of the garage assumed a solid background against the night. He passed his hand over his forehead heavily, and a wanness came into his face and eyes. Once before he had stood here at this window of his den, the room that ran the entire depth of his magnificent Riverside Drive residence, and old Jason had stood at the front window—and they had watched, Jason and he—watched the shadows, that were not shadows of walls and buildings, close in around the house. That was the night before he had escaped from the trap set by the Crime Club; the night before the old Sanctuary had burned down, and police and underworld alike had believed the Gray Seal buried beneath the charred and fallen walls; the night before she, the Tocsin, had come for a little while into her own, and for a little while—into his arms.
His lips twisted in pain. A little while! Days of glad and glorious wonder! They were gone now; and in their place was emptiness and loneliness—and a great, overmastering fear and terror that would clutch at times, as it clutched now, cold at his heart.
It was not so very long ago that night, only a few months ago, but it seemed as though the years had come and rolled away since then. She was gone again, driven by a peril that menaced her life into hiding again—a peril that she would not let him share—because she loved him.
The pain that showed on his twisted lips was voiced in a low, involuntary cry. Because she loved him! His hands clenched hard. Where was she? Who was it that dogged and haunted her, that was wrecking and ruining her life? God knew! And God knew, employing every resource he possessed, he had done everything he could to reach her. And all that he had accomplished had been the creation of a new character in the underworld! That was all—and yet, strangely enough, in that way there had come to him the one single gleam of relief that he had known, for out of the creation of that character had sprung again the activities of the Gray Seal, and with the resumption of those activities, since, as in the old days, those “calls to arms” of hers had come again he knew that, at least, she was so far alive and safe.
Jimmie Dale swung from the window, and began to pace rapidly up and down the room. Safe—yes! But for how long? She had outwitted those against her up to now, but for how long would—
He had halted abruptly beside the table. Some one was knocking at the door.
“Come!” he called.
And old Jason entered—and it seemed to Jimmie Dale that he must laugh out like one suddenly over-wrought and in hysteria. In the old butler’s hand was a silver card tray, and on the tray was—but there was no need to look on the tray, old Jason’s face, curiously mingling excitement and disquiet, the imperturbability of the butler gone for the nonce, was alone quite eloquent enough. But Jimmie Dale, master of many things, was most of all master of himself.
“Well, Jason?” His voice was quiet and contained as he spoke. He reached out and took from the tray a white, unaddressed envelope. It was from her, of course—even Jason knew that it was another of those mysterious epistles, one of the many that had passed through the old butler’s hands, that had in the last few years so completely revolutionised, as it were, his, Jimmie Dale’s, mode of life. “Well, Jason?” He was toying with the envelope in his hand. “How did it come this time?”
“It was in another envelope, Master Jim, sir—addressed to me, sir,” explained the old butler nervously. “A messenger boy brought it, sir. I opened the outside envelope, Master Jim, and—and I knew at once, sir, that—that it was one of those letters.”
“I see.” Jimmie Dale smiled a little mirthlessly. What, after all, did the “how” of it matter? It was a foregone conclusion that, as it had been a hundred times before, it would avail him nothing so far as furnishing a clue to her whereabouts was concerned! “Very well, Jason.” His tones were a dismissal.
But Jason did not go; and there was something more in the act than that of a well-trained servant as the old man stooped, picked up the newspaper from the floor, and folded it neatly. He laid the paper hesitantly on the table, and began to fumble awkwardly with the silver tray.
“What is it, Jason?” prompted Jimmie Dale.
“Well, Master Jim, sir,” said Jason, and the old face grew suddenly strained, “there is something that, begging your pardon for the liberty, sir, I would like to say. I don’t know what all these strange letters are about, and it’s not for me, sir, it’s not my place, to ask. But once, Master Jim, you honoured me with your confidence to the extent of saying they meant life and death; and once, sir, the night this house was watched, I could see for myself that you were in some great danger. I—Master Jim, sir—I—I am an old man now, sir, but I dandled you on my knee when you were only a wee tot, sir, and—and you’ll forgive me, sir, if I presume beyond my station, only—only—” His voice broke suddenly; his eyes were full of tears.
Jimmie Dale’s hand went out, both of them, and were laid affectionately on the old man’s shoulders.
“I put my life in your hands that night, Jason,” he said simply. “Go on. What is it?”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, Master Jim, sir.” Jason swallowed hard; his voice choked a little. “It isn’t much, sir, I—I don’t know that it’s anything at all; but nights, sir, when I’m sitting up for you, Master Jim, and you don’t come home, I—”
“But I’ve told you again and again that you are not to sit up for me, Jason,” Jimmie Dale remonstrated kindly.
“Yes, I know, sir.” Jason shook his head. “But I couldn’t sleep, sir, anyway—thinking about it, Master Jim, sir. I—well, sir—sometimes I get terribly anxious and afraid, Master Jim, that something will happen to you, and it seems as though you were all alone in this, and I thought, sir, that perhaps if—if some one—some one you could trust, Master Jim, could do something—anything, sir, it might make it all right. I—I’m an old man, Master Jim, it—it wouldn’t matter about me, and—”
Jimmie Dale turned abruptly to the table. His own eyes were wet. These were not idle words that Jason used, or words spoken without a full realisation of their meaning. Jason was offering, and calling it presumption to do so, his life in place of his, Jimmie Dale’s, if by so doing he could shield the master whom he loved.
“Thank you, Jason.” Jimmie Dale turned again from the table. “There is nothing you can do now, but if the time ever comes—” He looked for a long minute into Jason’s face; then his hands were laid again on the other’s shoulders, and he swung the old man gently around. “There’s the door, Jason—and God bless you!”
Jason went slowly from the room. The door closed. For the first time that he had ever held a letter of hers in his hand Jimmie Dale was for a moment heedless of it. If the time ever came! He smiled strangely. The love and affection that had come with the years of Jason’s service were not all on one side. Not for anything in the world would he put a hair of that gray head in jeopardy! It was not lack of faith or trust that held him back from taking Jason into his full confidence—it was the possibility, always present, that some day the house of cards might totter, the Gray Seal be discovered to be Jimmie Dale, and in the ruin, the disaster, the debacle that must follow, the less old Jason knew, for old Jason’s own sake,