The thought terrified him. He put it resolutely away and went to work. Wherever he stumbled upon anything of value he eagerly seized it.
The labor, he found, kept him from the subconscious dread of what might happen to Beatrice or to himself if either should meet with any mishap. The consequences of either one dying, he knew, must be horrible beyond all thinking for the survivor.
Up Broadway he found much to keep--things which he garnered in the up-caught hem of his bearskin, things of all kinds and uses. He found a clay pipe--all the wooden ones had vanished from the shop--and a glass jar of tobacco.
These he took as priceless treasures. More jars of edibles he discovered, also a stock of rare wines. Coffee and salt he came upon. In the ruins of the little French brass-ware shop, opposite the Flatiron, he made a rich haul of cups and plates and a still serviceable lamp.
Strangely enough, it still had oil in it. The fluid hermetically sealed in, had not been able to evaporate.
At last, when the lengthening shadows in Madison Forest warned him that day was ending, he betook himself, heavy laden, once more back past the spring, and so through the path which already was beginning to be visible back to the shelter of the Metropolitan.
"Now for a great surprise for the girl!" thought he, laboriously toiling up the stair with his burden: "What will she say, I wonder, when she sees all these housekeeping treasures?" Eagerly he hastened.
But before he had reached the third story he heard a cry from above. Then a spatter of revolver-shots punctured the air.
He stopped, listening in alarm.
"Beatrice! Oh, Beatrice!" he hailed, his voice falling flat and stifled in those ruinous passages.
Another shot.
"Answer!" panted Stern. "What's the matter now?"
Hastily he put down his burden, and, spurred by a great terror, bounded up the broken stairs.
Into their little shelter, their home, he ran, calling her name.
No reply came!
Stern stopped short, his face a livid gray.
"Merciful Heaven!" stammered he.
The girl was gone!