The Trey o' Hearts/Chapter 27
CHAPTER XXVII
The Ring
THEIRS was the last vehicle to swing between the gates of the Twenty-third Street ferry before these last were closed.
And this was well, for Alan, glancing through the rear window, started involuntarily when he descried a powerful touring-car tearing toward the ferry-house, its one passenger half rising from the front seat, beside the driver, and exhibiting a countenance purple with congested chagrin as he saw his car barred out of the carriage entrance.
The girl caught nervously at Alan's hand.
"What is it, dear?"
He made a gesture of exasperation.
"Marrophat," he snapped.
She uttered a hushed cry of dismay. But at that instant the taxicab rolled aboard the ferry-boat, the deck gates were closed, a hoarse whistle rent the roaring silence of the city, winches rattled and chains clanked, and the boat wore ponderously out of its slip.
"So much for Mr. Marrophat!" Alan crowed, sitting down. "Foiled again! But what I want to know is how the deuce did he get such an accurate line on my plans? How did he know that I was coming here, to the Erie Ferry? It passes me. However, he can't stop us now."
"This isn't the only ferry. There's the Pennsylvania and the Lackawanna—and by hard driving he might even manage to catch the boat that connects with this from the Christopher Street ferry of the Erie!"
"Impossible! I don't believe it! I won't!"
But the incident had served appreciably to chill their spirits. They accomplished the remainder of that voyage in a silence that was ho less depressed because they sat hand in hand throughout.
Nor was their taxicab three minutes out of the ferry-house on the Jersey shore when the girl's fears were amply justified; a shout from behind drew Alan's head out of the window. Marrophat's touring-car was within fifty yards, and Marrophat, standing on the running-board, was shouting inarticulately and flourishing an imperative hand; while the distance between them was momentarily growing less noticeable—since the taxi-motor was not to be expected to develop sufficient power to maintain its lead on a six-cylinder car of the latest and most powerful model.
As Marrophat's car drew abreast Alan said quietly: "Don't be alarmed, I can attend to this gentleman single-handed."
And this he proceeded to demonstrate with admirable ease, even though called upon to do so far sooner than he had thought to be—thanks to Marrophat's harebrained precipitancy. For Trine's first lieutenant now took his life in his hands and in one bound bridged the distance between the flying cars and landed on the taxi's running-board.
"Stop!" he screamed madly. "Stop, I say! You don't know what you're doing! Let me tell you"
He got that far but no farther. In the same breath Alan had flung wide the door and was at the fellow's throat. There was a struggle of negligible duration. Marrophat was in no way his antagonist's match; within three seconds he threw out both hands, clutched hopelessly at the framework of the cab, and fell heavily to the street.
Simultaneously the touring-car dropped back and stopped.
The taxi sped on and Alan looked back in time to catch a glimpse of a number of loafers lifting Marrophat to his feet.
"Not seriously injured, I fancy," he told the girl. "Worse luck!" he added gloomily.
But it seemed that he was to have greater cause than this to complain of his luck before that ride was ended. Three blocks farther on a tire blew out and the taxi slowed down and limped dejectedly to the curb.
Alan and the chauffeur piled out in the same instant, the one standing guard—with an eye out as well for another cab—while the other assessed damages.
"Nothing for it but a new tire, sir," the chauffeur reported sympathetically.
"Go to it," Alan advised him tersely, "and if you make a quick job of it I'll make it worth your while. Here's my card."
The man took the card, and, after a glance at the name, touched his hat with more noticeable respect.
"All right, Mr. Law," he agreed, "anything you say." And forthwith got to work.
The rapidity with which he completed the change of tires proved him an excellent chauffeur, an adept at his craft; but the delay was one disastrous for all that. The touring-car came in sight just as they were off again, but for the time being contented itself with trailing about fifty feet in the rear, while the taxi fled the Hoboken waterfront and found its way into the broader streets of a suburban quarter.
When they were well into this last, the touring-car drew in swiftly and Marrophat, rising in his seat, levelled a revolver over the windshield and fired. The crack of his weapon was coincident with a metallic thud beneath the rear seat of the taxicab. 
ALAN'S GUN DISAPPEARS WHILE HE SLEEPS.
Surmising that the gasoline tank had been punctured by the bullet, he was inclined to believe that Marrophat hoped to stop the taxicab by depriving it, in course of time, of its fuel. With this in mind he was presently surprised to see Marrophat's car stop and Marrophat himself get down. The brow of a hill intervened, shutting off sight of the blackguard as he knelt and lit a match. It was the girl who gave the alarm, suddenly withdrawing her head from the window.
"He's fired the gasoline! It's flaming along the street, following the line of the leak—and catching up with us."
Without pausing to put his hand to the latch, Alan kicked the door open.
"Jump!" he cried. "For your life—jump! As soon as that flame catches up with the tank"
Simultaneously the chauffeur, overhearing, shut off the power. The three gained the sidewalk barely in time. In the flutter of an eyelash the explosion followed. There was a roar—and then a heap of smoking ruins.
Without waiting to admire the spectacle, Alan caught the arm of the girl and hurried her up the street. Chance brought them to the next corner as another cab, fareless, hove into view. Promising its driver anything he might ask, Alan gave him the address, and helped the girl in. The second car made better time than the first, and soon swept up to a corner house of modest and homely aspect. Two minutes more, and Alan was exchanging salutations with Digby's good friend, the Reverend Mr. Wright.
Embarrassment worked confusion with the young man's perceptive faculties. He was dimly aware of a decently furnished minister's study; of two witnesses, womenfolk of the minister's household; of the Reverend Mr. Wright himself as a benevolent voice rolling sonorously forth from a black-clad presence; of the woman of his heart standing opposite him; of questions asked and responses made; of a ring that was magically conjured from some store apparently maintained against precisely similar emergencies; of a hand that took the hand that was to be his wife's and placed it in his; of his clumsy and witless bungling with the task of fitting that ring to the finger of his sweetheart's hand. …
And then a door banged violently in the hallway; a man's voice made some indistinguishable demand; Rose's hand was suddenly whipped away before he could fit on the ring; the study door was flung open, and Marrophat precipitated himself into the room.
"You fool! Drop that ring! Stop this farce! Don't you know who you're marrying? That woman is Judith Trine—not Rose!"
Blankly Alan turned to the girl. The manner and look of Rose had dropped from her like a cast garment, confessing the truth of Marrophat's assertion. And as if this were not enough, Judith confessed it doubly with a sudden outbreak of characteristic rage.
"You devil!" she cried to Marrophat. "Keep out of my way forever after this, or take the consequences! God knows," she panted, "why I don't kill you as you stand!"
The front door slammed behind the girl.
When Alan, the first to recover, gained the sidewalk, she was already in the taxicab. Whatever reward she had promised the man, he whipped his machine away as if from the fear of sudden death. Darting from the house, Marrophat leaped into his own car and tore off in pursuit.