CHAPTER XX

THE NAME ON THE BILLBOARD

Ryder arrived in New York after dark. He did not go to his rooms, for he feared if he did so his presence would become known to some of his friends and he would be obliged to make explanations.

When the taxicab deposited him, baggageless, at the hotel he selected, he noted the variegated lights of a drugstore across the street. He went into it before entering the hotel and shoved a well-wrinkled prescription across the counter to the clerk. The latter raised his brows.

"I've got to sleep tonight," John Ryder said quietly. "You will see Dr. Harmstick's name clearly written on that prescription. He is my family physician. Here is my card."

He got the drug, and, as soon as a room was assigned to him, took the medicine and went to bed. He could not have slept without the dose, and that took effect in a short time. But, superinduced by drugs as it was, his sleep was not refreshing. However, his mind was clear and his body alert and vigorous when he arose on Sunday morning.

He sent a boy to skirmish for clean linen and a fresh tie, and made himself presentable before going down for a bit of breakfast. He had eaten practically nothing the day before, and while he ate now he tried to plan his future course of action.

Future! Why, the word held nothing for him but the promise of continued pain and shame. John Ryder of spotless name had given that name into the keeping of a woman who was unworthy of it--whether she had intentionally flouted him or not, this fact seemed to be established. The newspapers must soon learn the story of his marriage fiasco. It would be blazoned forth for the whole world to read.

He would be a marked man. John Ryder, the man who had married a woman offhand, without knowing anything about her! At least, he had known her but seven days. And she had run away from him with another man!

It would be a nice bit for the scandal mongers. It would be something he could never live down. Every man with whom he did business hereafter would be saying to himself while in Ryder's presence:

"There must be something the matter with this fellow. They say his wife ran away from him the day after they were married."

Yet, even these thoughts were not the bitterest in his soul. Higher than the shame of having his trouble publicly known and discussed, rose the fact that he had lost the treasure to which his heart clung.

Ruth was the one woman in the world whom he had ever, or could ever, love. He felt it--he knew it!

Short as their acquaintance had been, Ryder knew that he loved Ruth as he should never be able to love another woman. He had thought he loved her when he had first seen her on the deck of the _Minnequago_; but since their marriage--since the old clergyman had pronounced them man and wife--a deeper and more tender feeling for his girlish bride had grown in his mind and heart.

On shipboard, coming over, she had merely been a beautiful creature--a woman of heart and mind and of fine physique--who attracted his admiration and fired his passion.

Once bound, as he supposed legally and holily to Ruth Mont, his love for her had taken on a deeper meaning. He was not a man who philosophized much, or who catechised his own motives or thoughts; but he knew that a subtle change had taken place in his feelings toward the woman even before the minister had joined their hands.

It had been half pique and half determination to obtain his own desire that had made him write that peremptory note to Miss Mont before the _Minnequago_ docked. It grated upon him to think of a man like Marks bearing off such a prize, even in a sordid business transaction.

But the instant he had seen Ruth waiting for him when he landed--the moment she had put her hands into his--the instant she had whispered: "I will marry you," a greater love had leaped into full and glowing life in John Ryder's bosom.

It was no longer a matter of mutual attraction, or the charm of her beautiful face and figure, or her mental attributes that held him captive. From that moment of their meeting on the dock his heart knew her heart; they had become one.

And this knowledge, which he could not scorn or overlook despite all that had happened since, made the darker part of the puzzle. Had he not been sure of his love and of her love, he could have understood in part how she had come to leave him and go with this other man.

For he could not accept the suggestion that all her sweetness and sheer happiness as a bride was merely a pose. That, as an actress, she had simulated a part. No, the woman did not live, he believed, who could so befool him.

He gazed out of the restaurant window at the church parade on the broad Fifth Avenue walk, and with eyes that saw more than the passing throng. Two or three couples went by whom he knew--men and their wives going home after service.

They suggested domesticity, companionship, the best there is for human beings in this old world of ours. He realized what he had lost--aye, what he had merely grasped at only to have the treasure snatched from him by this cruel turn of fate.

Later he went out and wandered about somewhat aimlessly. Not that he expected to find either of the two people he was looking for. They would not be in the Sunday street crowd. And yet he could not help looking into the faces of those he met with keen scrutiny.

He could not easily set on foot any serious search for Ruth and White on Sunday. Nor was he sure he wished to. The thought of bringing the police or even private detectives into the case horrified him. Yet, was he to lose Ruth without lifting a hand to win her back?

All day long John Ryder weltered in the waters of indecision. Should he seek Ruth through the regular police channels? Should he let matters run their own course? This was a new state of mind for the determined, decisive business man.

Somewhere over on the West Side, about seven o'clock he dropped in at a restaurant to dine. Afterward he wandered slowly down the broad and busy avenue that lends itself the airs of Broadway after dark, jostled by the crowds, without a person to speak to and desirous indeed of no companionship.

He came to a theater before which was a huge billboard that advertised mockingly "Sacred Concert," following which was a long list of vaudeville turns. Many of the crowd turned in here. There were speculators at the door hawking tickets, and a little eddy of people held up John Ryder. His eye caught, altogether by accident it would seem, in flaring red type, the following announcement:

SPECIAL ATTRACTION

First Appearance of ENGLAND'S MOST FAMOUS ENTERTAINER

MISS MONT

Imitator and Comédienne

Under the sole management of Mr. Sam Marks

Seeing that he was attracting attention, Ryder moved away. People were looking into his face curiously. He felt his heart pounding as though it would burst through the shell of his chest. Rage blinded him. Despair shook him through every fibre of his being.

The half darkness of a narrower thoroughfare offered him shelter. The horror and shame of his position well nigh leveled John Ryder's pride with the ground.

He saw what it all meant now. There could be, he thought, no further doubt or mistake. She had intended to do this from the first. Marks had doubtless put her up to it. The scandal of her having married Ryder and left him after twenty-four hours--on some trumped up charge of course--would give her an amount of free advertising such as no vaudeville actress could resist!

The story was already in the papers. John Ryder could not doubt it. His friends were laughing at his predicament. And how coolly, and with what utter heartlessness, had the game been played upon him.

Doubtless the woman had been under contract with Marks when the ship left the other side. Ryder had foolishly showed her that he was in love with her. Between them, Marks and the girl had hatched this plot.

And who was White? The answer was easy.

He was some poor actor whom Marks had hired to impersonate a wronged lover or husband, whichever might best fit the needs of the case. His following them to the Pinewood Inn had been for the purpose of creating a scene that would separate the newly wedded couple.

Mrs. Judson's illness had precluded the necessity for that scene. Fate had played into the hands of the heartless jade; and when the game had gone far enough for her purpose, she had run away and returned to New York to fill this, her initial engagement before an American public.

He even understood now about those pretty frocks she had worn. Of course they were a part of a stage wardrobe Miss Mont already possessed.

These thoughts all but turned John Ryder's brain. He found himself after a time back at the entrance to the theater. But he could not have told how he got there. One of the ticket speculators assailed him.

"Best seat in the house, boss. Right down front on the side. Two bucks. See the whole show."

"When does Miss--Miss Mont come on?"

"Nine-thirty."

"Is she----"

"She's a corker! She had her try-out before the manager and a crowd of newspaper sharps this morning, and she's a scream. They'll put out the S.R.O. signs on her for the rest of the week--you take it from me."

Ryder bought the seat and passed in at the orchestra entrance of the theater.