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Page 7
"Do not let him kill me!"
Sharp laid a rough hand on her shoulder, and put a knife at her throat.
Simultaneously, Arch sprang upon him like a tiger.
"Release that girl!" he hissed. "Dare to touch her with but the tips of
your fingers, and by Heaven I will murder you!"
Sharp sprang back with an oath, and at the same moment a pistol-shot rang
through the house, and Sharp, bathed in blood, fell to the floor. Old Mr.
Trevlyn, travel-stained and wet, strode into the room.
"I've killed him!" he said, in a cracked voice of intense satisfaction.
"He didn't catch old Trevlyn napping. I knew well enough they'd be after
my diamonds, and I gave up the journey. Margie, child, are the jewels
safe?"
She had fallen back on the pillows, pale as death, her white night-dress
spattered with the blood of the dead robber.
Arch lifted a tiny glove from the carpet, thrust it into his bosom, and,
before old Trevlyn could raise a hand to stop him, he had got clear of
the premises.
Such a relief as he felt when the cool, fresh air struck his face. He had
been saved from overt criminality. God had not permitted him to thus
debase himself. Now that his excitement was gone, he saw the heinousness
of the sin he had been about to commit in all its deformity.
Let old Trevlyn go! Let him gloat over his diamonds while yet he had
opportunity. He would not despoil him of his treasures, but he could not
give up his scheme of vengeance. It should be brought about some other
way.
A large reward was offered by Mr. Trevlyn for the apprehension of Sharp's
accomplice, but, as no description of his person could be given by any
one except Margie, who could not or would not be explicit on that point,
he was not secured.
Trevlyn recognized and appreciated her noble generosity in suffering him
to go free, for in the one look she had given him on that disgraceful
occasion, he had felt that she recognized him. But she pitied him enough
to let him go free.
Well, he would show her that her confidence was not misplaced. He would
deserve her forbearance. He was resolved upon a new life.
He left the saloon, and after many rebuffs succeeded in getting
employment as errand-boy in a large importing house. The salary was a
mere pittance, but it kept him in clothes and coarse food, until one day,
about a year after his apprenticeship there, he chanced to save the life
of Mr. Belgrade, the senior partner. A gas-pipe in the private office of
the firm exploded, and the place took fire, and Mr. Belgrade, smothered
and helpless, would have perished in the flames, had not Arch, with a
bravery few would have expected in a bashful, retiring boy, plunged
through the smoke and flame, and borne him to a place of safety.
Mr. Belgrade was a man with a conscience, and, grateful for his life, he
rewarded his preserver by a clerkship of importance. The duties of this
office he discharged faithfully for three years, when the death of the
head clerk left a vacancy, and when Arch was nineteen he received the
situation.
Through these three years he had been a close student. Far into the night
he pored over his books, and, too proud to go to school, he hired a
teacher and was taught privately. At twenty he was quite as well educated
as nine-tenths of the young men now turned out by our fashionable
colleges.
Rumors of Margie Harrison's triumphs reached him constantly, for Margie
was a belle and a beauty now. Her parents were dead, and she had been
left to the guardianship of Mr. Trevlyn, at whose house she made her
home, and where she reigned a very queen. Old Trevlyn's heart at last
found something beside his diamonds to worship, and Margie had it all her
own way.
She came into the store of Belgrade and Co. one day, and asked to look
at some laces. Trevlyn was the only clerk disengaged, and with a very
changeable face he came forward to attend to her. He felt that she would
recognize him at once--that she would remember where she had seen him the
last time--a house-breaker! She held his reputation in her keeping.
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