n a printer's
direction on the margin; losing himself in the major interest.

The "special investigator" of the "Clarion" was committing the
unpardonable sin of journalism. He was throwing his paper down.

CHAPTER XV

JUGGERNAUT

Misfortunes never come singly--to the reckless. The first mischance
breeds the second, apparently by ill luck, but in reality through the
influence of irritant nerves. Thus descended Nemesis upon Miss Kathleen
Pierce. Not that Miss Pierce was of a misgiving temperament: she had too
calm and superb a conviction of her own incontrovertible privilege in
every department of life for that. But Esme Elliot had given her a hint
of her narrow escape from the "Clarion," and she was angry. To the
Pierce type of disposition, anger is a spur. Kathleen's large green car
increased its accustomed twenty-miles-an-hour pace, from which the
police of the business section thoughtfully averted their faces, to
something nearer twenty-five. Three days after the wreck of the apple
cart, she got results.

Harrington Surtaine was crossing diagonally to the "Clarion" office when
the moan of a siren warned him for his life, and he jumped back from the
Pierce juggernaut. As it swept by he saw Kathleen at the wheel. Beside
her sat her twelve-year-old brother. A miscellaneous array of small
luggage was heaped behind them.

"Never mind the speed laws," murmured Hal softly. "_Sauve qui peut_.
There, by Heavens, she's done it!"

The car had swerved at the corner, but not quite quickly enough. There
was a snort of the horn, a scream that gritted on the ear like the
clamor of tortured metals, and a huddle of black and white was flung
almost at Hal's feet. Equally quick with him, a middle-aged man,
evidently of the prosperous working-classes, helped him to pick the
woman up. She was a trained nurse. The white band on her uniform was
splotched with blood. She groaned once and lapsed, inert, in their arms.

"Help me get her to the automobile," said Hal. "This is a hospital
case."

"What automobile?" said the other.

Hal glanced up the street. He saw the green car turning a corner, a full
block away.

"She didn't even stop," he muttered, in a paralysis of surprise.

"Stop?" said the other. "Her? That's E.M. Pierce's she-whelp. True to
the breed. She don't care no more for a workin'-woman's life than her
father does for a workin'-man's."

A policeman hurried up, glanced at the woman and sent in an ambulance