The Promise Part 7

As the clutch tightened the man redoubled his efforts. His body writhed and he lashed out furiously with hands and feet. Blows rained upon the young man's head but he burrowed close, shielding his face--and always his grip tightened--the finger ends drawing closer and closer together.

He was only half-conscious now and the blows ceased to hurt. He experienced a sense of falling from a great height. His subconscious mind concentrated upon one idea--to maintain his hold. He must grip tighter and ever tighter.

The other ceased to struggle and lay limp beneath his body, but of this he knew nothing. The muscles of his arms were rigid, the clamped fingers, nearly together now, were locked, and all the world was a blank.

CHAPTER VIII

NEW FRIENDS

William Carmody opened his eyes to a sense of drowsy contentment and well-being. That the elegantly appointed room over which his glance traveled was not his room, disturbed him not at all.

He realized that his head was heavily bandaged and that the white-capped, linen-clad young woman at the window was a nurse. He watched her fingers move swiftly and surely in the fashioning of a small round of needlework.

Her face was turned from him but somehow he knew that she was young and, in a dreamy sort of way, hoped she was pretty. He thought of attracting her attention but decided to prolong the suspense--the chances were against it--so many girls are not.

He closed his eyes and tried to think. The fact that he was in a strange room with his head swathed in bandages, and that a young and possibly pretty nurse sat at the window, evidently for the purpose of ministering to him, suggested a hospital.

Young Carmody had never been in a hospital, but the atmosphere of this room did not in any way conform to his rather vague notion of what a hospital should be. There was no long row of white beds all just alike, nor white walls, nor tiled floors over which people tip-toed to and fro and talked in hurried, low-voiced tones; nor was the air laden with the smell of drugs which he had always a.s.sociated in his mind with such places. He must ask the nurse.

He was so drowsily comfortable that it was with an effort he opened his eyes. A rebellious lock of hair strayed from under her cap as she leaned over her work. The sunlight caught it and through the rich threads of its length shot tiny glints of gold.

"Ethel!" The name sprang involuntarily from his lips and even as he spoke he smiled at the thought. The girl laid aside her work and crossed to the bed.

"You called?" she asked, and the man realized vaguely that her voice was low and very pleasant.

"Yes--that is, no--I mean, you _are_ pretty, aren't you?" He smiled frankly up at her, and somehow the smile was contagious--she even blushed slightly.

"You must excuse me this time," he continued, "I must have been thinking out loud."

"You seem to be a--well, a rather abrupt young man," she smiled. "But you must not try to think--yet. And my name is not Ethel."

"Oh, that's all right. You can't help that, you know--I mean, I think your name is very pretty--whatever it is," he floundered. "The truth is, I don't seem to be able to say what I do mean. But really I am not a fool, although I don't suppose you will ever believe it."

"There, you have talked quite enough. The doctor said you must rest and not get excited." She smoothed the covers with little pats of her soft hands.

"But what I want to know," he persisted, with a frown of perplexity, "is, where am I?"

"You are all right," she soothed. "You are here."

"But why am I here?"

"Because. Now go to sleep like a good boy. The doctor will be here before long and he will hold me responsible for your condition."

Oddly enough her answers seemed eminently sufficient and satisfactory, and he closed his eyes and slept contentedly.

Hours later he was awakened by the opening of a door.

A tall, dark man, with a brown beard neatly trimmed to a point, entered closely followed by an elderly man who carried his arm in a sling, and whom young Carmody recognized as his fellow-pa.s.senger of the smoker.

At once the whole train of recent events flashed through his brain: the wild escapade on Broadway, the scene with his father, his parting with Ethel Manton, the wreck, and his fight in the dark--each in its proper sequence.

He was very wide awake now and watched the brown-bearded man eagerly as he picked up a chart from the table and scrutinized it minutely.

"How is the head?" the man asked, with his fingers on the pulse.

"Fine, doctor. Wouldn't know I had one if it were not for these bandages. And your arm, sir?" he added, with a smile of recognition toward the elderly man.

"Doing fairly, thank you. It is broken, but our friend here thinks it will come along all right."

The doctor, with a nod of approval returned the watch to his pocket and was preparing to leave when his patient detained him with a question.

"I have not been able to locate myself. This is not a hospital, is it?"

"Hardly," smiled the other, "although it answers the purpose admirably.

This is the Brownstone Hotel."

"With rooms at twenty per!" gasped the invalid. "Doctor, some one has blundered. After buying my railroad ticket I had just four dollars left, and no chance in the world of getting hold of any more until I connect with a job."

The men laughed.

"I must be going," said the doctor. "You two can chat for a while.

Don't tire yourself out, young man, and in a day or two you will be fit as a fiddle. Wish I had your physique! That system of yours is a natural shock absorber. We run across them once in a long while--half-killed one day and back the next hunting for more on the rebound."

At the door he paused: "Take care of yourself, eat anything that looks good to you, smoke if you want to, talk, read, sleep, and in the morning we will let you get up and stretch your legs. Good by!"

"Some doctor, that," laughed the patient. "Does a man good just to hear him talk. Most of them go away leaving the patient guessing whether the next visit will be from them or the undertaker--and rather hoping for the latter. But with this fellow the professional man is swallowed up in the human being--he fairly radiates life."

The other smiled as he settled himself into the chair near the bedside, vacated by the physician.

"Yes, he is a great doctor. Stands well toward the head of his profession. We have no finer in the Northwest." Young Carmody's face clouded.

"But how am I to pay for all this? It is all well enough for you to laugh, but to me it is a serious matter. I----"

"Young man, you are my guest. I don't know who you are, nor where you came from, but, by gad, I know a man when I see one! From the time you sat in that game to save that poor young fool from being fleeced until you dove into that black hole and throttled that skunk----"

"They caught him, did they?"

"Caught him! They had to pry him loose! You have got the grip of the devil himself. The police surgeon told me they would have to put a whole new set of plumbing in his throat. Said he wouldn't have believed that any living thing, short of a gorilla, could have clamped down that hard with one hand.

"And there I had to lie pinned down and watch him go through a dead man's pockets--it was our friend the reporter. And then he turned around and calmly went through mine. Gad! If I'd had a gun! All the time he kept up a run of talk, joking about the wreck and the easy pickings it gave him.

"He was disappointed when he failed to find you--said he owed you something for gumming his game. Well, he found you all right--and when he gets out of the hospital he is slated for twenty years in Joliet."

The man paused and glanced at his watch.