Part 2 - Chapter 5

The Darkest Hour

If anything had been needed to give an impetus to Jack McMurdo's
popularity among his fellows it would have been his arrest and
acquittal. That a man on the very night of joining the lodge
should have done something which brought him before the
magistrate was a new record in the annals of the society.
Already he had earned the reputation of a good boon companion, a
cheery reveller, and withal a man of high temper, who would not
take an insult even from the all-powerful Boss himself. But in
addition to this he impressed his comrades with the idea that
among them all there was not one whose brain was so ready to
devise a bloodthirsty scheme, or whose hand would be more capable
of carrying it out. "He'll be the boy for the clean job," said
the oldsters to one another, and waited their time until they
could set him to his work.

McGinty had instruments enough already; but he recognized that
this was a supremely able one. He felt like a man holding a
fierce bloodhound in leash. There were curs to do the smaller
work; but some day he would slip this creature upon its prey. A
few members of the lodge, Ted Baldwin among them, resented the
rapid rise of the stranger and hated him for it; but they kept
clear of him, for he was as ready to fight as to laugh.

But if he gained favour with his fellows, there was another
quarter, one which had become even more vital to him, in which he
lost it. Ettie Shafter's father would have nothing more to do
with him, nor would he allow him to enter the house. Ettie
herself was too deeply in love to give him up altogether, and yet
her own good sense warned her of what would come from a marriage
with a man who was regarded as a criminal.

One morning after a sleepless night she determined to see him,
possibly for the last time, and make one strong endeavour to draw
him from those evil influences which were sucking him down. She
went to his house, as he had often begged her to do, and made her
way into the room which he used as his sitting-room. He was
seated at a table, with his back turned and a letter in front of
him. A sudden spirit of girlish mischief came over her--she was
still only nineteen. He had not heard her when she pushed open
the door. Now she tiptoed forward and laid her hand lightly upon
his bended shoulders.

If she had expected to startle him, she certainly succeeded; but
only in turn to be startled herself. With a tiger spring he
turned on her, and his right hand was feeling for her throat. At
the same instant with the other hand he crumpled up the paper
that lay before him. For an instant he stood glaring. Then
astonishment and joy took the place of the ferocity which had
convulsed his features--a