Jane Cable

The figure of a man could be seen standing like a statue on the very spot where he had seen her disappear. While he stood there, his heart scarcely beating, the solitary figure was joined by two others. Cable shrank back into the dense shadows. Like a flash it occurred to him that they were searching for the body. A shriek of agony arose to his lips; but he checked it.

Far off on one of the crosstown streets a newsboy was calling an extra--hoarse, unintelligible shouts that froze his blood. He bent his ear to catch the far-away words of the boy: "All about de Nor' Side murder!" He cringed and shook under the raucous shout. He knew what it meant.

A policeman suddenly turned the corner and came toward him. The first impulse was to fly; the next was to stand and deliver himself. The resolution came with shocking unexpectedness. He would give himself up! He would admit that he had killed his wife! The words of anguish were on his lips when the policeman spoke.

"Is it you, Mr. Cable? How is she, sir?"

Cable did not hear the man, for, as he opened his lips to cry out his own guilt, a thought formed in his brain that almost staggered him with its cunning savagery. Why not let the penalty fall on James Bansemer? She had gone out to meet him! If she had not destroyed the note, it would hang James Bansemer, and James Bansemer was worse than a murderer. But even as this remarkable thought rushed into his brain, the last words of the officer began to drive it out.

"Is she going to pull through, sir?" was the next question--and he caught it vaguely.

"Pull through?" he mumbled inarticulately. He leaned against a great stone rail suddenly. Everything was leaping before his eyes.

"Good Lord, Mr. Cable--I--I forgot. Don't you know about it?" gasped the officer.

"Know what?" asked Cable, completely dazed.

"Go home at once, sir. I didn't mean to--oh, hurry, sir. Don't be worried. They say she'll be all right. Sure! She's been hurt a little, sir."

"My daughter?" demanded Cable, as keen as a razor in an instant. His heart was trying to jump from his body.

"Your wife, sir. Nothin' serious, sir. She was held up along here somewhere and robbed. They're sure to get the villain. She---"

But Cable was off like a deer for his home, racing as though on air.

Nothing else mattered now. She was alive! He could have her with him again to love as he never had loved her before.