Let's Kiss and Part

14

Mrs. Frensh, throwing back her heavy veil for air, gasped with surprise and wonder.

She could not have dreamed of seeing Frank at the funeral services at the Van Dorn vault when it was the hour for his wedding at old Trinity.

Yet there he stood in their midst, his handsome head bowed reverently, his face pale, his eyes heavy with grief—he who should be so happy in this his bridal hour!

Catching her startled glance, he moved to her side, whispering sadly:

"I could not stay away, but I shall be in time to meet Cassidy at Trinity. Ah, how my heart aches with this cruel blow! Let me love you as a son for her dear sake!"—he paused, with a long-drawn sigh, for the venerable bishop was beginning the last sad rites: "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust."

Soon they had to come away and leave her there alone, sweet Angeline, among her dead kindred, she whose brief life had been so sad and lonely, ending with so cruel a tragedy.

Frank, accompanied by his best man, Ernest Noel, returned to their coupé, and outside the cemetery, limits ordered the coachman to proceed as fast as possible to old Trinity to meet the bridal party.

Noel thought that this attendance on a funeral in the very hour of his marriage was a very strange freak on the part of his friend, and he was puzzled yet more by the gravity and sadness of his face as they drove swiftly along toward the church.

But having no clue to the enigma, he tried to dismiss it from his mind, glancing at his watch and saying:

"We are due at Trinity now, and it would be shocking to get there late—a slight the bride would not easily forgive!"

He was astonished that he made no reply, sitting pale and grave and seemingly indifferent in his seat as if he had not heard.

Noel shrugged his shoulders, and called to the coachman:

"Drive as fast as you dare. We are already late!"

Thereupon the horse was urged to a higher rate of speed, and presently there was a commotion outside, and the coupé stopped.

"What is the matter?" inquired Noel, putting his head outside, and thus encountering a burly policeman.

"You are under arrest for fast driving," grunted the guardian of the law.

"But, good heavens, man, you must not detain us. It is necessary for us to drive fast in order to reach old Trinity for a wedding ceremony," expostulated Noel.

"Wedding or no wedding, all three of you must come to the station house with me," answered the policeman, who was both surly and dull-witted.

Frank suddenly aroused himself to the situation and united his expostulations to Noel's, but all to no avail.

The policeman would not hear to let them go. He said to himself he would "teach them young blood a lesson." He did not credit at all the story of the wedding party waiting at the church.

Frank, suddenly realizing the situation and thinking of Cassidy's anger and mortification at having to wait for him so long, grew frantic.

He whispered to Noel:

"Would it be any use to offer him a bribe to let us go?"

"No, he is so malicious he would get us indicted for trying to bribe him in the discharge of duty."

Frank turned to the stubborn policeman, asking politely:

"Could you not take our names and let us report to the police court tomorrow?"

"They may do that at the station house, but I am obliged to arrest you and take you there. Come, the longer you parley the more time you are losing! I'll just jump up with your driver so we can lose no time."

Noel whispered excitedly:

"Suppose we cut and run while he is getting on the box? We could easily get a cab."

"Done!" And they slipped out unperceived on either side, to the vast amusement of a good-natured crowd that had collected on the corner.

Unfortunately, the policeman caught the snickering at his expense, just as the coupé drove off, and turned his redhead curiously back, at once catching sight of the fugitives.

"Stop!" he shouted angrily, springing down to follow.

A hot chase ensued, but as the sympathies of the spectators were all with the handsome young men, the poor policeman got no assistance, and presently he was outdistanced by the agile sprinters, and gave up the pursuit just a minute too soon, for, in turning a corner at breakneck speed, Frank Laurier collided with a bicycle and went down like a rock.

"Good heavens!" cried Ernest Noel, stopping short in horror above the wreck, the shattered wheel, and the two prostrate men.

They had both sustained injuries, but the rider directly got up on his feet and declared himself all right save for a few bruises.

Not so with Frank, who lay like one dead before them, with his fair, handsome face upturned to the light, his eyes closed, and a dark bruise on the side of his temple, showing where he had struck it in falling against the curbstone. All efforts to revive him failed and a physician who was called declared it was a case of concussion of the brain and that the patient must be removed at once to Bellevue Hospital.

"No, no—he is"—began Ernest Noel quickly, but at that moment the red-headed policeman trotted on the scene with a bewildered air, awakening such instant fierce resentment in his chest that he sprang at him, exclaiming hotly:

"You red-headed villain, you are the cause of all this trouble! I should like to throttle you!"

Whereupon the indignant officer raised his club and brought it down on the cranium of the hot-headed young man with such telling effect that he was quite stunned, and fell an easy victim to arrest, being removed in an ambulance to the station house, while his poor friend, whose identity was equally unknown, was taken to Bellevue Hospital.

What an ending to a day that had been anticipated for months with the ardor of a true lover. Instead of wedding bells the slow procession to the grave, and now—far from the festal scene, alone among strangers who did not suspect his identity with the young millionaire Frank Adler, terribly injured, perhaps unto death, how strange and sad a fate!