in the middle of the distance where the panorama of his life had been passing, there arose a face, smiling and sweet, with a rose flush on the cheeks, a light in the eyes, sunshine in the hair, and he remembered! As he looked the face grew white, and the lids fell over the blue eyes, and she was gone!
Sick with the memory, he turned and fled; on feet that were sore, with limbs that were aching, with eyes that were blinded with unaccustomed tears, he stumbled on across rough fields, through woods and meadows and more woods, always woods when he could strike them.
And coming out toward evening with a gnawing faintness at the pit of his stomach, where he could see across a valley, he noted a little trolley car like a toy in the distance sliding along the road, and a small village of neat little houses about a mile away. Eagerly he watched the car as it slid on across the land, almost as small as a fly it seemed, and soon it was a mere speck on the way to the village. Where there was one trolley there were more. Could he dare try for the next one and go to that village for something to eat? He could not go on much longer without food. Or else he would fall by the wayside, and the publicity which his mother so hatedthat kind of publicity which was not prettywould be sure to find him out. He must not drag down his mother’s and his father’s name. He must hold out to save them so much at least.
His mind had grown clearer through the day, as he had tramped painfully hour after hour and thought it out. He knew that the only thing to do was to get far away, to someplace where law could not find him out and fetch him back for punishment. To do that successfully he must disguise himself somehow. He must get rid of his clothes little by little and get other clothes. He must grow a beard and change his haircut and act a part. He had been good at acting a part for fun in the old days. He was always in demand for theatricals. Could he do it now when Fear was his master?
He stumbled across the meadows one by one, painfully over the fences, and at last stood in the ditch by the side of the shining rails with the long, low sunset rays gilding them into bright gold. He waited with trembling knees and watched eagerly for the coming of the car, and when at last a faint hum and a distant whistle announced that it was not far off, he began to fairly shake in his anxiety. Would there be many people on board? Would he dare take the risk? Still, he must take it sometime, for he could not hold out much longer.
There were only three women on board, and they did not notice the haggard young fellow who stumbled into the backseat and pulled his hat down over his eyes. They were talking in clear intimate voices that carried a sense of their feeling at home in the car. They told about Mary’s engagement, and how her future mother-in-law was giving a dinner for her, and how proud John was of her and was getting her a little Ford coupe to run around in. They talked of the weather and little pleasant everyday things that belonged to a world in which the man in the backseat had no part of. They whispered in lower tones of how it was rumored that Bob Sleighton was making money in bootlegging, and he got a glimpse for the first time in his life of how the quiet, respectable, non drinking world think of people who break the law in that way. And then they told in detail how they scalloped oysters and made angel cake, and just the degree of brownness that a chicken should be when it was roasted right, until Murray Van Rensselaer, sitting so hungry in his backseat, could fairly smell them all as they came out of the oven, and felt as if he must cry like a child.
CHAPTER V
It was dusk when he slid stealthily out of the car, having waited with his head turned toward the darkening window till each of the three women had gotten off at her particular corner. He had spotted a bakery window, and there he made his way, ordering everything they had on their meager menu. But then when he had gotten it, he could only eat a few bites, for somehow Bessie’s white face as he carried her into the hospital kept coming between him and the food and sickened him. Somehow he could not get interested in eating any more, and he paid his bill and left a tip that the girl behind the counter did not in the least understand. She ran out to find him and give it back, but he had gone into a little haberdashery shop, and so she missed him.
He bought a cheap cap of plain tweed and a black necktie. Somehow it did not seem decent going around without any necktie. He walked three blocks and threw his old hat far into avacant lot, then boarded the next trolley, and so went on, where he did not know. He had not known the name of the little town where he had eaten. He began to wonder where he was. He seemed a long way from home, but when a few minutes later the motor-man called a name, he recognized a town only about thirty miles from his home city. Was it possible he had walked all that time and only gotten thirty miles away? He must have been going in a circle! And the newspapers would have full descriptions of him by this time posted everywhere! He was not safe anywhere! What should he do? Where go? Why go anywhere?
He lifted his eyes in despair to the advertisements overhead, for it seemed to him that every man in the car was looking at him suspiciously. He tried to appear unconcerned. He felt his chin to see if his beard had grown any, but his face was unsuitably smooth. He tried to make himself read the advertisements, Chiclets and chewing gum, and baked beans. Toothpaste, and wallpaper, and cigarettes.
Then suddenly his attention was riveted on the sign just across from where he sat. The letters stood out so clearly in red and black on the white background as if they were fairly beckoning to get his attention, as if somebody had just written them to attract his eye; as if it were a burning message for his need: Ye must be born again!
A strange thing to be in a trolley car. He never stopped to wonder how it came there, or what it meant to the general public. He took it just for himself. It suggested a solution to his problem. He must be born again. Sure! That was it, exactly what he needed! He could not live in the circle where he had been first born. He had ostracized himself. He had been disloyal to the code and cast a slur on the honorable name with which he had been born, and it was no more use for him to try to live as Murray Van Rensselaer any longer. He would just have to be born all over again into someone else. Born again! How did one do it? Well, he would have to be somebody else, make himself over, get new clothes first, of course, so he would look like a new man, and the clothes that he could find for what money he had would largely determine the kind of man he was to be made into. This cap was the start. It was a plain, cheap working man’s cap. It was not the kind of cap that played much golf or polo, or was entitled to enter the best clubs, or drove an expensive car. It was a working man’s cap, and a working man he must evidently be in the new life. It was a part of being born that you didn’t choose where you should see the light of day, or who should be your parents. A strange pang shot through him at the thought of the parents whom he might not call his own anymore. The name he had borne he would no longer dare to mention. It was the name of a murderer now. He had dishonored it. He would have to have a new name before it would be safe for him to go among men.
A policeman boarded the car in a few minutes and eyed him sharply as he passed to the other end of the car. Murray found his whole body in a tremble. He slid to the back platform and dropped off the next time the car slowed down, and walked a painful distance till a kindly voice from a dilapidated old Ford offered him a ride. Because he felt ready to drop and saw no shelter nearby where he might sleep awhile, he accepted. It was too dark for the man to see his face clearly anyway. He seemed to be an old man and not particularly canny. A worldly wise man would scarcely have asked a stranger to ride at that time of night. So Murray climbed in beside him and sank into the seat, too weary almost to sigh.
But the old farmer was of a social nature and began to quiz him. How did he come to be walking? Was he going far? The young man easily settled that.
“Car broke down!” That was true enough. His car would never run again.
But the old man wanted to know where.
Not being
