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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/33475-8.txt b/33475-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..830a56f --- /dev/null +++ b/33475-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9666 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Broken Gate, by Emerson Hough + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Broken Gate + A Novel + +Author: Emerson Hough + +Illustrator: M. Leone Bracker + +Release Date: August 20, 2010 [EBook #33475] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BROKEN GATE *** + + + + +Produced by David Edwards, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + + + + + + The BROKEN GATE + + _A NOVEL_ + + BY EMERSON HOUGH + +AUTHOR OF "THE MAN NEXT DOOR," "THE MAGNIFICENT ADVENTURE," "54° 40' OR +FIGHT," "THE MISSISSIPPI BUBBLE," ETC. + + +ILLUSTRATED BY +M. LEONE BRACKER + +D. APPLETON and COMPANY +NEW YORK LONDON +1917 + +COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY EMERSON HOUGH + +COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY THE PICTORIAL REVIEW COMPANY + +Printed in the United States of America + + + TO + ARTHUR T. VANCE +FAITHFUL AND KINDLY COUNSELOR + + +[Illustration: He felt her hands resting on his head as though in +shelter.] + + + + +CONTENTS + + +I. THE HOMECOMING OF DIEUDONNÉ LANE + +II. AURORA LANE + +III. TWO MOTHERS + +IV. IN OPEN COURT + +V. CLOSED DOORS + +VI. THE DIVIDING LINE + +VII. AT MIDNIGHT + +VIII. THE EXTRAORDINARY HORACE BROOKS + +IX. THE OTHER WOMAN CONCERNED + +X. THE MURDER + +XI. IN THE NAME OF THE LAW + +XII. ANNE OGLESBY + +XIII. "AS YOU BELIEVE IN GOD!" + +XIV. AURORA AND ANNE + +XV. THE ANGELS AND MISS JULIA + +XVI. HORACE BROOKS, ATTORNEY AT LAW + +XVII. AT CHURCH + +XVIII. AT THE COUNTY JAIL + +XIX. THE MOB + +XX. THE IDIOT + +XXI. A TRUE BILL + +XXII. MISS JULIA + +XXIII. THE STATE _VS._ DIEUDONNÉ LANE + +XXIV. THE SACKCLOTH OF SPRING VALLEY + +XXV. BECAUSE SHE WAS A WOMAN + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + +He felt her hands resting on his head as though in Shelter. + +"Your Honor," said he, "I presume I am the defendant in this case." + +"I was kissing you and saying good-by ... when Miss Julia came in----" + +"Anne! What made you come?" + + + + +The BROKEN GATE + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE HOMECOMING OF DIEUDONNÉ LANE + + +"Eejit! My son John! Whip ary man in Jackson County! Whoop! Come along! +Who'll fight old Eph Adamson?" + +The populace of Spring Valley, largely assembled in the shade of the +awnings which served as shelter against an ardent June sun, remained +cold to the foregoing challenge. It had been repeated more than once by +a stout, middle-aged man in shirt sleeves and a bent straw hat, who +still turned a truculent gaze this side and that, taking in the +straggling buildings which lined the public square--a quadrangle which +had for its center the brick courthouse, surrounded by a plat of +scorched and faded greensward. At his side walked a taller though +younger man, grinning amiably. + +The audience remained indifferent, although the challenger now shifted +his position to the next path leading out to a street entrance; and +repeated this until he had quite traversed the square. Only, at the +farther corner back of him, a woman paused as she entered the courthouse +inclosure--paused and turned back as she caught sight of the challenger +and heard his raucous summons, although evidently she had been hurrying +upon some errand. + +Ephraim Adamson walked hither and thither, his muscular arms now bared +to the elbows; and at his side stalked his stalwart son, who now and +then beat his fists together, and cracked his knuckles with a vehemence +like that of pistol shots. But none paid great attention to either of +the Adamsons. Indeed, the eyes of most now were following the comely +figure of this woman, as usually was the case when she appeared. + +"Take her now, right how she is," said one of the sidewalk philosophers, +"and you got to admit yonder's the handsomest woman in this town, and +has been for twenty years." He nodded to where she stood, hesitating. + +That she was a tallish woman, of less than middle age and of good +figure, was perceptible even at some distance as she finally advanced. +She was well clad enough, and with a certain grace and trimness in her +appointings--indeed seemed smart in a quiet and unobtrusive way--very +neat as to hands and feet, and trim as to the small turban which served +now as her only defense against the heat of the summer sun. + +"'Rory Lane," said one languid citizen to another, as they sat on +comfortable boxes in front of the leading grocery store. "Wonder where +_she's_ goin', this time of day? Anyhow, she runs into Old Man Adamson +on his regular weekly spree. He wants to fight, as usual, him and his +half-wit boy. It's a shame." + +"But they kin do it," responded the other ruminatingly. "It's got so +lately, every Saturday afternoon regular, him and his half-wit yonder +stands off the whole town. No man wants to fight a eejit--it ain't +proper." + +"Some has," remarked the first citizen thoughtfully. + +"Well, anyways, old Joel Tarbush, the town marshal, had ought to look +after such things. There he sets now, over yonder under the awnings in +front of the Golden Eagle, and he sees them two plain enough." + +His crony only chuckled. "Reckon Old Man Tarbush knows when he's well +off," was his sententious reply. + +The first speaker again pointed a thumb toward the courthouse grounds, +where the woman now was crossing toward the street. She was walking +rapidly, apparently anxious to escape the notice of the two men in the +yard, and intent on her purpose, as though she feared being late at some +appointment. The younger and taller was hastening toward her, but +shrinking from him she hurried on across through the turnstile, and out +into the street. She advanced with a nod here and there to those whom +she met along the street front, but she showed no effusiveness, and did +not pause to talk with anyone, although all seemed to know her. Some +women smiled at her faintly. Some men smiled at her also--after she had +passed. All talked of her, sometimes nodding, head to head. + +The woman so frankly discussed presently disappeared around the corner +of the street which led down to the railway station, a half-mile +distant. And now could be heard the rumble of the town "bus," bringing +in its tribute from the train to the solitary hotel. + +"Huh!" said one of these twain, "'Rory was too late, like enough, if she +was plannin' to meet Number Four, fer any reason. Here comes the bus +a'ready." + +Aurora Lane had indeed been too late to meet the train, but not too late +to attain the purpose of her hurried walk. A moment later the two +watchers on the sidewalk, and all the other Saturday loafers, saw her +emerge again from the street that led up from the railway station. + +She was not alone now. A young man had spied her from his place in the +hotel bus, and, whether in answer to a signal from her, or wholly of his +own notion--regarding which there was later discussion by the two +gossips above mentioned--had sprung out to join her on the street. + +He walked by her side now, holding her by the arm, patting her shoulder, +talking to her volubly, excitedly, all the time--a tall young man in +modern garb; a young man with good shoulders and a strong and easy +stride. His face seemed flushed with eagerness and happiness. His hat, +pushed back on his brow, showed the short curling auburn hair, strong +and dense above the brown cheeks. Those who were close might have seen +the kindly, frank and direct gaze of his open blue eyes. + +A certain aloof distinction seemed to cling about the young man also as +he advanced now, laughing and bubbling over with very joy of life and +eagerness at greeting this woman at his side--this woman whose face +suddenly was glorified with a light none ever had seen it bear before. +Why not? It was his mother--Aurora Lane, the best known woman of Spring +Valley, and the woman with least reputation. + +The two passed directly into the center of the town's affairs, and yet +they seemed apart in some strange way. They met greetings, but the +greetings were vague, curious. No one knew this young man. + +"Huh!" exclaimed one of the two town critics once more. "There they go. +Pretty sight, ain't it! Who's he?" + +Old Silas Kneebone leaned to his friend, Aaron Craybill, on the adjacent +store box. "Taller'n she is, and got red hair, too, like hers. I +wonder--but law!--No, good law! No! It kain't be. She ain't nobody's +wife, and never was." + +"But there they go, walking through the streets in broad daylight, as +bold as you please," commented his crony. + +"I dunno as I'd call her bold, neither," rejoined Silas. "'Rory Lane, +she's kept up her head all these years, and I must say she's minded her +own business. Everybody knows, these twenty years, she had a baby, and +that the baby died; but that's about all anybody ever did know. The +baby's dad, if it had one, has hid damned well--the man nor the woman +neither don't live in this town that can even guess who he was. But +who's this young feller? Some relative o' hern from somewheres, like +enough--reckon she must 'a' been goin' down to the train to meet him. +Never told nobody, and just like her not to. She sure is close-mouthed. +They're going on over towards her place, seems like," he continued. +"Say, don't she look proud? Seems like she's glad over something. But +why--that's what I want to know--why?" + +The two persons thus in the public eye of Spring Valley by this time had +come again to the corner of the courthouse inclosure, and apparently +purposed to pass diagonally through the courthouse yard. Now and again +the young man turned in friendly fashion to the onlookers, none of whom +he knew, but whom he fancied to be acquaintances of his companion. He +himself was altogether a stranger in the town. He felt a chill at the +curious stares, the silent half smiles he encountered, but attributed +that to bucolic reticence, so shrugged his shoulders and turned to +Aurora Lane. Had any at that time heard his speech, they surely must +have felt yet more surprise. + +"Mom!" said he. "Mother! I've got a mother, after all--and such a +splendid one! I can't believe it at all--it must all be a dream. To be +an orphan all my life--and then to get word that I'm not--that I've a +mother, after all--and you! Why, I'd have known you anyhow, I'm sure, if +I'd never seen you, even from the picture I had. It was when you were a +girl. But you've not changed--you couldn't. And it's you who've been my +mother all the time. It's fine to be home with you at last. So this is +the town where you have lived--that I've never seen. And here are all +your friends?" + +"Yes, Don," said she, "all I have, pretty much." Aurora Lane's speaking +voice was of extraordinary sweetness. + +"Well, you have lived here all your life." + +"Yes," she smiled. + +"And they all know you." + +"Oh, yes," noncommittally. "It was too bad you had to be away from me, +Don, boy. You seem like a stranger to me--I can't realize you are here, +that you are my own boy, Dieudonné! I'm afraid of you--I don't know +you--and I'm so proud and frightened, so surprised, so _glad_--why, I +don't know what to do. But I'd have known you anywhere--I _did_ know +you. You're just as I've always dreamed of you--and I'm glad--I'm so +very glad!" + +"Mom! I loved your little picture, but I never knew how much I loved +_you_ till now--why--you're my _mother_! My mother! And I've never seen +you--I've never known you--till right now. You're a ripper, that's what +you are! + +"And is that where you live, over yonder?" he added quickly, to conceal +the catch in his throat, the quick moisture in his eyes. His mother! And +never in all his life had he seen her face--this sweet, strange, +wistful, wonderful face. His mother! He had not even known she was +alive. And now, so overwhelmed was he, he did not as yet even think of +unraveling the veil of ignorance or deceit--call it what one +might--which had left him in orphanage all his life till now. + +"Yes, over yonder," said Aurora, and pointed across the square. "That +little house under the shade trees, just at the corner. That's home and +workshop for me, Don." + +She spoke softly, her eyes still fixed on him, the color of her cheeks +deepening. + +"Not so much of a house, is it?" laughed the boy, tears on his face, +born of his new emotion, so sudden, so tremendous and so strange. + +"Not so very much," she assented, laughing gayly also, and also in +tears, which gave him sudden grief--"but it has served." + +"Well, never mind. We're going to do better out West, Mom. We're going +to have you with us right away, as soon as I can get started." + +"What--what do you say--with _us_! With _us_?" + +She spoke in swift dismay, halting in her walk. "What do you mean, +Don--_us_?" + +"I didn't tell you the news," said he, "for I've just got it myself. + +"What a week! I heard of you--that you were alive, that you were living +here--though why you never told me I can't dream--and now, today, Anne! +Two such women--and for me. I can call God kind to me. As if I deserved +it!" + +He did not see her face as he went on rapidly: + +"We didn't know it ourselves much more than an hour or so ago--Anne and +I. She came out on the same train with me--we finished school together, +don't you see! Anne lives in Columbus, fifty miles west. She's fine! I +haven't had time to tell you." + +He didn't have time now--did not have time to note even yet the sudden +pallor which came upon his mother's face. "Anne?" she began. + +"Huh!" said Silas Kneebone again from his place under the awning, "there +she goes--'Rory Lane. Wonder who that kin be with her! And I wonder +what old Eph Adamson's goin' to say to them! Watch at them now." + +The young man and his mother by this time were within the courthouse +fence and coming face to face with the two public challengers, who had +so fervently notified all mankind of their wish to engage in personal +combat. + +Those beneath the awnings now saw the tall figure of the half-wit boy, +Johnnie Adamson, advance toward Aurora Lane. They saw her and the tall +young stranger halt suddenly--saw the young man gently push the woman +back of him and stand full front, frowning, questioning, almost directly +against the half-wit. He reached out a hand and thrust him back, +sternly, fearlessly, half contemptuously. + +"Wait, Don! Come back!" called out Aurora Lane. "Don't get into trouble +here--come--come away!" + +She plucked at the sleeve of his coat to draw him back. It was too late. +The half-wit, cracking his knuckles now yet more loudly, and knocking +his fists together, had wholly lost his amiable smile. Something +primordial was going on, deep down in his rudimentary brain. + +As for Eph Adamson, he also stood scowling and silent, a sudden wave of +resentment filling his soul at seeing the happiness of these two. + +"No, you don't--just you leave him be!" called out Eph Adamson, as the +young man pushed the half-wit back from him, his own blue eyes now +beginning to glint. "Leave him alone, unless you want to fight. He can +lick you anyways, whoever you are. Do you want to fight?" + +"No, why should I? I don't know you." + +Don Lane turned toward the stranger, still frowning and somewhat +wondering, but in no terror whatever. + +"I don't know you neither, nor what you're doin' here, but you've got to +fight or 'pologize," said Eph Adamson, arriving at this conclusion +through certain mental processes of his own not apparent. "You got to +have our consent to cross this here courtyard. This is my son John, and +you shan't insult him." + +"Get on away--step back," said Don Lane. "I guess it's all right, but +let my mother and myself alone--we're just going home." + +A sudden wave of rage and wonder, mingled, filled the soul of drunken +Eph Adamson as his venom rose to the boiling point. + +"Mother!" he half screamed, "your _mother_? Who're you? You're a pretty +pair, you two, ain't you? She said her baby died twenty years ago. Did +she have some more? Who're you? _Mother?_--Say, after all, are _you_ the +town's boy--coming pushing past my son with her--your _mother_! What do +you mean? If you're her son, you ain't _got_ no mother, nor no father +neither." + +And now there came a pause, an icy pause--icy it was, out there in the +glare of the hot summer sun. These four who stood in view of all the +village might have been statues for the time, so motionless, so tense +was each. + +Not many actually heard the words of old Eph Adamson--words wrung out of +the bitterness of his own soul perhaps, but words intolerable none the +less. None had heard the words of Aurora Lane and the young man as they +had spoken previous to this. None guessed who the stranger was or might +be--none but drunken Eph Adamson. But all could see what now happened. + +For one instant the young man stood almost like a statue. Then with one +sudden thrust of his fist he smote the old man full in the mouth, so +swift and hard a blow that Adamson dropped prostrate, and for the time +motionless. + +A sudden, instantaneous, electric buzz, a murmur, ran all around the +square. A sound of shuffling feet and falling boxes might have been +heard as men here and there rose eagerly, their necks craned out toward +this swiftly made arena. + +They saw the half-wit boy now advance upon Don Lane with a roar or bawl +of rage, his arms swinging flail-like. All expected to see the newcomer +turn and run. Not so. He simply stood for a half instant, sidestepped, +and again swung in close upon his foe. Old Silas Kneebone described the +affair many a time afterwards, at a time when Spring Valley knew more +about Don Lane. + +"You see, the eejit, he gets up again, hollering, and he goes in again +at Dewdonny, bound for to knock his head off. But Dewdonny, he ducks +down like a regular prize-fighter--I hear tell, at colleges, them +athaletes they have to learn all them sort of things--and he put up a +fight like a regular old hand. But all the time he keeps hollering to +the crowd, 'Take him away! Take him away! Keep him off, I say! I don't +want to hit him!' + +"Well, folks begun to laugh at Dewdonny then--before they knowed who he +was--thinking he was afraid of that eejit; yet it didn't seem like he +was, neither, for he didn't run away. At last he hits the eejit fair a +second time, and he knocks him down flat. Folks then begun to allow he +could hit him whenever he wanted to, and knock him down whenever he +pleased. + +"Now, the eejit, he gets up and begins to beller like a calf. He puts +his hand on his face where Dewdonny Lane had done hit him the last time +or two and he hollers out, 'Pa, he hit me!' + +"But his pa could only set up on the grass and shake his head. I reckon +old Eph was soberer then than he had been five minutes sooner. Say, that +boy had a punch like the kick of a full growed mule! + +"Of course, you all know what happened then. It was then that old Man +Tarbush come in, seeing the boy had both of them two licked. He got up +his own nerve after that. So now he goes over there to the courthouse +ground, through the gate where they all was, and he lays his hand on +Dewdonny Lane and then on the eejit. + +"'I arrest you both for disturbing of the peace,' says he then. 'Come on +now, in the name of the law.' + +"'The law be damned!' says Dewdonny Lane then. 'Go take this man to +jail. Are you crazy--what do you mean by arresting me when I'm just +walking home with my mother? This wasn't my fault. I didn't want to hit +him. + +"'Come on, Mom!' says he, and before Tarbush could help hisself he'd +took 'Rory Lane by the arm again and off they went, and right soon they +was in their house--them two, the milliner and her boy. + +"And Joel Tarbush he heard him call her 'Mom' right there--that's how it +all begun to git out. + +"That's right--this was the town milliner and the boy she sent away, +that never died none at all nohow.--'Rory Lane, and her boy we all +thought was dead. And we'd never knowed it nor dreamed it till he spoke, +right there in the public square! 'My mother!' says he. Can you beat +that? + +"Then 'Rory Lane turns around and fronts the whole lot of them. Says +she: 'Yes, it's true! This is my son, Dewdonny Lane,' says she. She said +it cold. + +"That was before we knowed all about how she had put him through +college, and that this was his first visit home, and the first time he'd +ever seen her--his own mother! I heard as how he'd thought all his life +he was a orphan, and someone on the inside that very week--just when +he'd finished in college--had wrote him that he wasn't no orphan, but +had a mother living right here! So here he comes, hot foot--and didn't +he spill the beans! + +"She'd tried her durnedest to keep it all covered up--and you must say +she'd made one big fight of it, fer it's hard fer a woman to keep her +eyes and her hands off of her own flesh and blood, even if it ain't +legal. But, somehow, it's hard to keep that sort of thing covered up, +for a woman. It all comes out, time'n again--ain't it the truth? How she +done it for twenty years is a miracle. But law! What's twenty years, +come to forgettin' things like what she done?" + + + + +CHAPTER II + +AURORA LANE + + +While the doughty town marshal, endowed now with a courage long foreign +to his nature, was leading away his sobbing prisoner, followed by the +prisoner's dazed yet angered parent, these other two, mother and son, +continued rapidly on their way toward the home of Aurora Lane. The young +man walked in silence, his enthusiasm stilled, although he held his +mother's hand tight and close as it lay upon his arm. His face, frowning +and stern, seemed suddenly grown strangely older. + +They arrived at the corner of the tawny grassplot of the courthouse +yard, crossed the street once more, and turned in at the long shady lane +of maples which made off from that corner of the square. Here, just in +the neutral strip between business and residence property, opposite a +wagon-making and blacksmith shop, and adjoining the humble abode of a +day-laborer, they came to a little gate which swung upon a decrepit +hinge. It made in upon a strip of narrow brick walk, swept scrupulously +clean, lined with well-kept tulips; a walk which in turn arrived at the +foot of a short and narrow stair leading up to the porch of the +green-shuttered house itself. + +It was a small place of some half-dozen rooms, and it served now, as it +had for these twenty years, as home and workshop alike for its tenant. +Aurora Lane had lived here so long that most folk thought she owned the +place. As a matter of fact, she owned only a vast sheaf of receipted +bills for rent paid to Nels Jorgens, the wagon-maker across the street. +In all these twenty years her rent had been paid promptly, as were all +her other bills. + +Aurora Lane was a milliner, who sometimes did dress-making as well--the +only milliner in Spring Valley--and had held that honor for many years. +A tiny sign above the door announced her calling. A certain hat, red of +brim and pronounced of plume, which for unknown years had reposed in the +front window of the place--the sort of hat which proved bread-winning +among farmers' wives and in the families of villagers of moderate +income--likewise announced that here one might find millinery. + +When she first had moved into these quarters so many years ago, scarce +more than a young girl, endeavoring to make a living in the world, the +maples had not been quite so wide, the grass along the sidewalk not +quite so dusty. + +It was here that for twenty years Aurora Lane had made her fight +against the world. It had been the dream, the fierce, flaming ambition +of all her life, that her son, her son beloved, her son born out of holy +wedlock, might after all have some chance in life. + +It was for this that she aided in his disappearance in his infancy, +studiously giving out to all--without doubt even to the unknown father +of the boy--the word that the child had died, still in its infancy, in a +distant state, among relatives of her own. She herself, caught in the +shallows of poverty and unable to travel, had not seen him in all these +years--had not dared to see him--had in all the dulled but not dead +agony of a mother's yearning postponed her sweet dream of a mother's +love, and with unmeasurable bravery held her secret all these awful +years. Schooling here and there, at length the long term in college, had +kept the boy altogether a stranger to his native town, a stranger even +to his own mother. He did not know his own past, nor hers. He did not +dream how life had been made smooth for him, nor at what fearful cost. +Shielded about always by a mother's love, he had not known he had a +mother. + +This was as his mother had wished. As for him, in some way he received +the requisite funds. He wondered only that he knew so little of his own +people, half orphan though he was. He had been told that his father, +long since dead, had left a certain sum for the purpose of his +education, although further of his own history he knew nothing. That he +was not of honorable birth he never once had dreamed. And now he had +heard this charge for the first time--heard it made publicly, openly, +before all the world, on this which was to have been the happiest day in +all his life. + +But if Don Lane knew little about himself, there lacked not knowledge of +his story, actual or potential, here in Spring Valley, once his presence +called up the past to Spring Valley's languid mind. There had not yet +been excitement enough for one day. Everyone, male and female, surging +here and there in swift gossiping, now called up the bitter story so +long hid in Aurora Lane's bosom. + +As for Aurora, she had before this well won her fight of all these +years. She was known as the town milliner, a woman honorable in her +business transactions and prompt with all her bills. Socially she had no +place. She was not invited to any home, any table. The best people of +the town, the banker's wife, the families of the leading merchants, +bought bonnets of her. Ministers--while yet new in their pulpits--had +been known to call upon her sometimes--one had even offered to kneel and +pray with her in her workroom, promising her salvation even yet, and +telling her the story of the thief upon the cross. Once Aurora Lane went +to church and sat far back, unseen, but she did so no longer now, had +not for many years, feeling that she dared not appear in the +church--the church which had not ratified her nuptial night! + +She had her place, definite and yet indefinite, accepted and yet +rejected, here in this village. But gradually, dumbly, doggedly she had +fought on; and she had won. Long since, Spring Valley had ceased openly +to call up her story. If once she had been wearer of the scarlet letter, +the color thereof had faded these years back. She was the town milliner, +a young woman under suspicion always, but no man could bring true word +against her character. She had sinned--once--no more. If she had known +opportunity for other sins than her first one, she held her peace. Human +nature were here as it is elsewhere--women as keen; men as lewd. But the +triumph of Aurora Lane might now have been called complete. She had +"lived it down." + +This long and terrible battle of one woman against so many strangely +enough had not wholly embittered her life, so strong and sweet and true +and normal had it originally been. She still could smile--smile in two +fashions. One was a pleasant, sunny and open smile for those who came in +the surface affairs of life. The other was deeper, a slow, wry smile, +very wise, and yet perhaps charitable, after all. Aurora Lane knew! + +But all these years she had worked on with but one purpose--to bring up +her boy and to keep her boy in ignorance of his birth. He had never +known--not in all these years! It had been her dream, her prayer, that +he might never know. + +And now he knew--he must know. + +They stepped through the little picket gate, up the tiny brick walk and +across the little narrow porch together, into the tiny apartments which +had been the arena for Aurora Lane--in which she had fought for her own +life, her own soul, and for the life of her son, her tribute to the +scheme of life itself. Here lay the _penetralia_ of this domicile, this +weak fortification against the world. + +In this room were odds and ends of furniture, a few pictures not +ill-chosen--pictures not in crude colors, but good blacks and whites. +Woman or girl, Aurora Lane had had her own longings for the great +things, the beautiful things of life, for the wide world which she never +was to see. Her taste for good things was instinctive, perhaps +hereditary. Had she herself not been an orphan, perhaps she had not +dared the attempt to orphan her own son. There were books and magazines +upon the table, mixed in with odds and ends of scraps of work sometimes +brought hither; the margin between her personal and her professional +life being a very vague matter. + +Back of this central room, through the open door, showed the small white +bed in the tiny sleeping room. At the side of this was the yet more tiny +kitchen where Aurora Lane all these years had cooked for herself and +washed for herself and drawn wood and water for herself. She had no +servant, or at least usually had not. Daily she wrought a woman's +miracles in economy. Year by year she had, in some inscrutable fashion, +been able to keep up appearances, and to pay her bills, and to send +money to her son--her son whom she had not seen in twenty years--her son +for whom her eyes and her heart ached every hour of every day. She +sewed. She made hats. What wonder if the scarlet of the hat in the +window had faded somewhat--and what wonder if the scarlet of the letter +on her bosom had faded even more?... Because it had all been for him, +her son, her first-born. And he must never, never know! He must have his +chance in the world. Though the woman should fail, at least the man must +not. + +So it was thus that, heavy-hearted enough now, she brought him to see +the place where his mother had lived these twenty years. And now he knew +about it, must know. It took all her courage--the last drop of her +splendid, unflinching woman-courage. + +"Come in, Don," she said. "Welcome home!" + +He looked about him, still frowning with what was on his mind. + +"Home?" said he. + +"Don!" she said softly. + +"Tough work, wasn't it, waiting for me to get through, dear Mom? For I +know you did wait. I know you meant that some day----" + +He laid a hand on her head, his lips trembling. He knew he was +postponing, evading. She shrank back in some conviction also of +postponing, evading. All her soul was honest. She hated deceit--though +all her life she had been engaged in this glorious deceit which now was +about to end. + +"Tough sometimes, yes," she said, smiling up at him. "But don't you like +it?" + +"If my dad had lived," said Don, "or if he had had very much to give +either of us, you'd never have lived this way at all. Too bad he died, +wasn't it, Mom?" + +He smiled also, or tried to smile, yet restraint was upon them both, +neither dared ask why. + +She caught up his hand suddenly, spying upon it a strand of blood. + +"Don!" she exclaimed, wiping it with her kerchief, "you are hurt!" + +He laughed at this. "Surely you don't know much of boxing or football," +said he. + +"You ought not to fight," she reproved him. "On your first day--and all +the town saw it, Don! You and I--we ought not to fight. What--on the +first day I've seen you in all these years--the first day you're out of +college--the first day I could ever in all my life claim you for my very +own? I believe I _would_ have claimed you--yes, I do! But you +came--when you knew you had a mother, why you came to her, didn't you, +Don? Even me. But you mustn't fight." + +"Why?" He turned upon her quickly, his voice suddenly harsh, his eyes +narrowing under drawn brows. "Why shouldn't I fight?" + +He seemed suddenly grown graver, more mature, strong, masterful, his eye +threatening. She almost smiled as she looked at him, goodly as he was, +her pride that she had borne him overpowering all, her exultation that +she had brought a man into the world, a strong man, one fit to prevail, +scornful of hurt--one who had fought for her! For the first time in her +life a man had fought for her, and not against her. + +But on the soul of Aurora Lane still sat the ancient dread. She saw the +issue coming now. + +"Mother----" said he, throwing his hat upon the table and walking toward +her quickly. + +"Yes, Don." (She had named her son Dieudonné--"God-given." Those who did +not know what this might mean later called him "Dewdonny," and hence +"Don.") + +"I didn't thrash them half enough, those fellows, just now." + +"Don't say that, Don. It was too bad--it was terrible that it had to be +today, right when you were first coming here. I had been waiting for you +so long, and I wanted----" + +"Well, I tell you what I want--I want you just to come away with me. I +want to get you away from this town, right away, at once, as quick as I +can. I'm beginning to see some things and to wonder about others. I am +ashamed I have cost you so much--in spite of what Dad left, you had to +live close--I can see that now--although I never knew a thing about it +until right now. I feel like a big loafer, spending all the money I +have, while you have lived like this. Where did you get it, Mom?" + +She swept a gesture about her with both hands. "I got it here," said she +suddenly. "It _all_ came from--here. You father sent you--nothing! I've +not let you know all the truth--you've known almost nothing of the +truth." + +Then her native instinct forced her to amend. "At least half of it came +from here. It was honest money, Don, you know it was that, don't +you--you believe it was honest?" + +"Money that would have burned my fingers if I had known how it came. But +I didn't. What's up here? Have you fooled me, tricked me--made a loafer +of me? I supposed my father set aside enough for my education--and +enough for you, too. What's been wrong here? What's under all this? Tell +me, now!" + +His mother's eyes were turned away from him. "At least we have done it, +Don," said she, with her shrewd, crooked smile. "We've not to do it +over again. You can't forget what you have learned--you can't get away +from your college education now, can you? You've got it--your diploma, +your degree in engineering. You're a college man, Don, the only one in +Spring Valley. And I'm so proud, and I'm so glad. Oh! Don--Don----" + +She laid a hand on his breast shyly, almost afraid of him now--the first +hand she had ever laid upon the heart of any man these twenty years. It +was her son, a man finished, a gentleman, she hoped.... Could he not be +a gentleman? So many things of that sort happened here in America. Poor +boys had come up and come through--had they not? And even a poor boy +might grow up to be a gentleman--was not that true--oh, might it not +after all be true? + +He laid his own hand over hers now, the hand on which the blood was not +yet dried. + +"Mom," said he, "I ought to go back and thrash the life out of that man +yet. I ought to wring the neck of that doddering old fool marshal. I +ought to whip every drunken loafer on those streets. Whose business was +it? Couldn't we cross the square without all that?" + +He stopped suddenly, the fatal thought ever recurring to his mind. But +he lacked courage. Why should he not? Was this not far worse than facing +death for both of them? Their eyes no longer sought one another. + +"Mom----" said he, with effort now. + +"Yes, my boy." + +"_Where's my dad?_" + +A long silence fell. Could she lie to him now? + +"The truth now!" he said after a time. + +"You have none, Don!" said she gaspingly at last. "He's gone. Isn't that +enough? He's dead--yes--call him dead--for he's gone." + +He pushed back roughly and looked at her straight. + +"Did he really leave any money for my education?" + +She looked at him, her throat fluttering. "I wish I could lie," said +she. "I do wish I could lie to you. I have almost forgot how. I have +been trying so long to live on the square--I don't believe, Don, I know +how to do any different. I've been trying to live so that--so that----" + +"So what, mother?" + +"So I could be worthy of _you_, Don! That's been about all my life." + +"_I have no father?_" + +She could not reply. + +"Then was what--what that man said--was _that the truth_?" + +After what seemed to both of them an age of agony she looked up. + +She nodded mutely. + +Then her hand gripped fiercely at his coat lapel. A great dread filled +her. Must she lose also her boy, for whom she had lived, for whom she +had denied herself all these years--the boy who was more than life +itself to her? Her face was white. She looked up into another face, a +strange face, that of her son; and it was white as her own. + +"I didn't know it," said he simply at length. "Of course, if I had +known, I wouldn't have done what I did. I would have worked." + +"No, no! Now you are just fitted to work. It's over--it's done--we have +put you through." + +"You told me my father was dead. Where is he--who is he?" + +"I will never tell you, Don," said she steadily, "not so long as you +live will I tell you. I have never told anyone on earth, and I never +will." + +"Then how do they know--then why should that man say what he did?" + +"They know--about you--that--that you happened--that's all. They thought +you died as a child, a baby--we sent you away. They don't know who it +was--your father--I couldn't have lived here if anyone had known--that +was my secret--my one secret--and I will keep it all my life. But here +are you, my boy! I will not say I am sorry--I will never say that again! +I am glad--I'm glad for anything that's given me _you_! And you fought +for me--the first time anyone ever did, Don." + +He was turning away from her now slowly, and she followed after him, +agonized. + +"It wasn't _your_ fault, Don!" said she. "Try to remember that always. +Haven't I taken it up with God--there on my knees?" She pointed to the +little room where the corner of the white bed showed. "On my knees!" + +She followed him as he still walked away. "Oh, Don," she cried, "what do +you mean, and what are you going to do?" + +"I'm going to try to forget everything of all my life. God! if I could +undo it--if I could forget how I got my education," said he. "Tell me, +didn't he help at all--did you, all alone, bring me up, far away, never +seeing me, educating me, keeping me--taking care of me--didn't he, my +father, do anything at all--for you?" + +"No, I did it--or at least half of it." + +"And who the other half?" + +"Never mind, Don, never mind." She patted eagerly on the lapel of his +coat, which once more she had caught and was fingering. "Oh, this was to +have been my very happiest day--I have been living and working for this +all these long, long years--for the day when I'd see you. Let me have a +little of it, can't you, Don? If you should forsake me now, I will know +that God has; and then I'll know I never had a chance." + +Quickly he laid a hand upon her shoulder. "No, I'll wait." + +"What do you mean?" she asked. "What is it that you will do?" + +"Find out who he was," said he, his face haggard. + +"You will never do that, Don." + +"Oh, yes. And when I do----" + +"What then?" + +"I'll kill him, probably. At least I'll choke this lie or this truth, +whichever it is, down the throats of this town. God! I'm _filius +nullius_! I'm the son of no man! I'm worse. I'm a loafer. I've been +supported by a woman--my own mother, who had so little, who was left +alone--oh, God! God!" + +"Don," she cried out now. "Don, I'd died if I could have kept it from +you. Oh, my son--my son!" + + + + +CHAPTER III + +TWO MOTHERS + + +The young man stood motionless, facing the white-faced woman who had +pronounced his fate for him. Happily it chanced that there came +interruption, for a moment relieving both of the necessity of speech. + +The click of the little crippled gate as it swung to brought Aurora Lane +to her senses now. She hastened to the door, toward the outer stair. She +met someone at the door. + +"Julia!" she exclaimed. "Come in. Oh, I'm so glad. Come! He's here--he's +come--he's right here now!" + +There entered now the figure of a youngish-looking woman, her hair just +tinged with gray here and there upon the temples; a woman perhaps the +junior of Aurora Lane by a year or so. Of middle stature, she was of +dark hair, and of brown eyes singularly luminous and soft. Not uncomely, +one would have called her at first sight. The second glance would have +shown the limp with which Julia Delafield walked, the bent-top cane +which was her constant companion. She was one of those handicapped in +the race of life, a cripple from her childhood, but a cripple in body +only. One might not look in her face without the feeling that here was a +nature of much charm. + +Miss Julia likewise was owner of two smiles. The one was sad, pathetic, +the smile of the hopeless soul. The other, and that usually seen by +those about her, was wide and winning beyond words--the smile which had +given her her place in the hearts of all Spring Valley. These many years +"Miss Julia," as she was known to all, had held her place as "city +librarian," in which quasi-public capacity she was known of all, and +loved of all as well. + +She came in now smiling, and kissed Aurora Lane before she allowed +herself to see, standing in the inner room, the tall young man, who +seemed to fill up the little apartment. A swift color came into her face +as, with a sort of summoning up of her courage, she went up to him, +holding out her hands. Even she put up her cheek to be kissed by him. It +was her peculiarity when feeling any emotion, any eagerness, to flush +brightly. She did so now. + +"Oh, Miss Julia!" exclaimed Don. "I'm glad to see you. Why, I know you +too--I feel as though I've always known you just as you are! So--you're +my fairy godmother, who's got a real mother for me! All these +years--till I was a man grown--how could you?--but I'd know you +anywhere, because you're just the image of the picture you sent me with +that of her. I mean when you wrote me last week for the first time--that +wonderful letter--and told me I had a mother, and she was here, but that +I mustn't ever come to see her. Of course, I wired at once I _was_ +coming! See now----" + +"You are tall, Don," said Miss Julia softly. "You are very tall. You +are--you are fine! I'm so glad you grew up tall. All the heroes in my +books are tall, you know." She laughed aloud now, a rippling, joyous +little laugh, and hooking her cane across the chair arm, sank back into +Aurora Lane's largest rocker, her tender, wistful face very much +suffused. + +Don fetched his mother also a chair, and seated himself, still regarding +Miss Julia curiously. He saw the two women look at one another, and +could not quite tell what lay in the look. + +As for Miss Julia, she was still in ignorance of the late events in the +public square, because she had come directly across to Aurora Lane's +house after the closing of her own duties at the library this Saturday +afternoon, when most of her own patrons were disposed for the open than +for books. + +"Yes, Don," said she again, "you are fine!" Her eyes were all alight +with genuine pride in him. "I'm so glad after all you came to see us +before you went on West--even when I told you you mustn't! Oh, believe +me, your mother scolded me! But I presume you are in a hurry to get +away? And you've grown up! After all, twenty years is only a little +time. Must you be in a hurry to leave us?" + +"I ought not to be," said he, smiling pleasantly after all. "Surely I +ought to come and see you two good partners first--I could not go away +without that. Oh, mother has told me about you--or at least I'm sure she +was just going to when you came in. Strange--I've got to get acquainted +with my mother--and you. But I know you--you're two good partners, +that's what you are--two good scouts together--isn't it true?" + +Miss Julia flushed brightly. His chance word had gone passing close to +the truth, but he did not know the truth. Don Lane did not know that +here sat almost the only woman friend Aurora Lane could claim in all +Spring Valley. Miss Julia in fact was silent partner in this very +millinery shop--and silent partner in yet other affairs of which Don +Lane was yet to learn. + +This was a great day for Miss Julia as well as for Don's mother. Time +and again these two women had sat in this very room and planned for this +homecoming of the boy--this boy--time and again planned, and then agreed +he must not come--their son. For--yes--they _both_ called him son! If +Don Lane, Dieudonné Lane, was _filius nullius_, at least he might boast +two mothers. + +How came this to pass? One would need to go back into the story of Miss +Julia's life as well as that of Aurora Lane. She had been lame from +birth, hopelessly so, disfiguringly so. Yet callous nature had been kind +to her, had been compassionate. It gave to her a face of wondrous +sweetness, a heart of wondrous softness thereto. Hopeless and resigned, +yet never pathetic and never seeking pity, no living soul had ever heard +an unkind or impatient word from Julia Delafield's lips, not in all her +life, even when she was a child. She had suffered, yes. The story of +that was written on her face--she knew she might not hope--and yet she +hoped. + +She knew all the great romances of the world, and knew likewise more +than the greatest romancer ever wrote of women. For her--even with her +wistful smile, the sudden flashing of her wistful eyes--there could be +no romance, and she knew that well. Not for her was to be ever the love +of man. She was of those cruelly defective in body, who may not hope for +any love worth having. Surrounded daily by her friends, her books, Miss +Julia was an eager reader, and an eager lover. She knew more of life's +philosophy perhaps than any soul in all her town, and yet she might +enjoy less of life's rewards than any other. A woman to the heart, +feminine in every item, flaming with generous instincts, and yet denied +all hope of motherhood; a woman steeped in philosophy and yet trained in +emotion--what must she do--what could she do--she, one of the denied? + +What Miss Julia had done long years ago was to select as her best +friend the girl who of all in that heartless little town most needed a +friend--Aurora Lane. She knew Aurora's secret--in part. In full she +never yet had asked to know, so large was she herself of heart. All +Spring Valley had scorned Aurora Lane, for that she had no father for +her child. And--with what logic or lack of logic, who shall say?--Julia +Delafield had taken Aurora Lane close to her own heart--_because_ she +had the child! + +It is not too much to say that these two hopeless women, the one outcast +of society, the other outcast of God, had brought up that child between +them. Those who say women have no secrets they can keep should have +noted this strange partnership in business, in life, in maternity! This +had gone on for twenty years, and not a soul in Spring Valley could have +told the truth of it. Don Lane did not know of it even now. + +"Why, Aurora," said Miss Julia more than once in those early years to +her friend, "you must not grieve. See what God has given you--a +son!--and such a son! How glad, how proud, how contented you ought to +be. You have a son! Look at me!" + +So Aurora Lane did look at Julia Delafield. They comforted one another. +It was from Miss Julia that year by year, falteringly, she learned to +hope, learned to hold up her head. Thus gradually, by the aid of the +love of another woman--a rare and beautiful thing, a wondrous thing--a +thing so very rare in that world of jealousy in which by fate women so +largely live--she got back some hold on life--she, mother of the son of +no man, at the urge of a woman who could never have a son! + +"Oh, we will plan, Aurora!" said Miss Julia in those piteous earlier +times. "We will plan--we will get on. We'll fight it out together." And +so they had, shoulder to shoulder, unnoted, unpraised and unadvised, +year by year; and because they knew she had at least one friend, those +who sat in judgment on Aurora Lane came little by little to forgive or +to forget her sin, as it once was called of all the pulpits there. + +And now a drunken tongue had recalled sharply, unforgivably, +unescapably, that past which had so long lain buried--a past to which +neither of them ever referred. + +In all these years time had been doing what it could to repair what had +been. Time wreathes the broken tree with vines to bind up its wounds. It +covers the scarred earth with grasses presently. In all these years some +men had died, others had left the village. Certain old women, poisonous +of heart, also had died, and so the better for all concerned. Other +women mayhap had their sacrifices--and their secrets. But as for Aurora +Lane, at least she had won and held one friend. And so they two had had +between them a child, a son, a man. One had gathered of the philosophy +of life, of the world's great minds. The other had brought into the +partnership the great equipment with which Nature forever defies all law +and all philosophy save her own. + +Now, product of their twenty years of friendship, here he stood, tall +and strong--Don Lane, their boy, blood on his hand because of that truth +which he swiftly--too swiftly--had declared to be a lie; and which was +no lie but the very truth. + +But Don Lane still was ignorant of the closeness of truth of his last +remark. He only put such face now on all this as he might. + +"Miss Julia," said he lamely, and giving her instinctively the title +which the town gave her, "I know you have been good to my mother." + +"Why, no, I haven't, Don," said she, "not at all. I've been so busy I +have hardly seen your mother for a month or so. But we have kept track +of you--why, Don, I've got your class records, every one. You don't know +how I got them? Isn't it true, Aurie?" + +"I don't know what I would ever have done without her," said Aurora Lane +slowly. + +Don Lane laughed suddenly. "Why," said he, "it's almost as if I had +_two_ mothers, isn't it?" + +Both women grew red now, and poor Don, knowing little as he did, grew +red as well. + +"But what's the matter with your hand, Don--you've cut yourself! I've +told your mother she ought to fix that gate-latch." + +Don looked once more at his wounded hand, and sought to cover the +blood-stain with his kerchief. He saw that Miss Julia had heard nothing +of the affair of a few moments earlier in the public square. + +"Why, that's nothing," he mumbled. + +This was too much for the straightforward nature of Aurora Lane, and +rapidly as she might she gave some account to Miss Julia of these late +events. She told all--except the basic and essential truth. A sad shame +held her back from talking even before Miss Julia of the fact that her +boy now knew he was the child of shame itself. + +"That's too bad," said Julia Delafield slowly, gravely, as she heard the +half news. "I'm awfully sorry--I'm awfully sorry for your mother, Don. +You fought? My! I wish I had been there to see it." + +Miss Julia's face flushed once more, indicative of the heroic soul which +lay in her own misshapen body. + +"I didn't want to hit that fellow," said Don. "Of course, they had no +chance, either of them, with a man who could box a bit." + +"And you learned that--in college, Don?" + +He only grinned in reply, and thrust the wounded hand into his pocket, +out of sight. + +"I'll warrant you, Don," said Miss Julia, "that if it hadn't been for +you old Tarbush, the town marshal, never would have taken Johnnie +Adamson to jail. Those two were a public nuisance every Saturday +afternoon. I'm glad you have ended it. But tell me, what made them pick +on you?" + +Don Lane struggled for a time, not daring to look at his mother, before +he spoke. "The half-wit wouldn't let us pass, and then his father called +me a name--if that man or any other ever calls me that again, I'm going +to beat him up till his own people won't know him. I can't tell you," he +went on, flushing. + +He did not catch the sudden look which now passed between the two women. +A sudden paleness replaced the flush on Miss Julia's cheek. A horror sat +in her eye. "What does he know?" was the question she asked of Aurora +Lane, eye only speaking the query. + +"At least, Miss Julia," said poor Don, "you somehow certainly must know +about me. I'll get all my debts squared around some time. As soon as I +can get settled down in my new place West--I've got a fine engineering +job out in Wyoming already--I'm going to have my mother come. And if +ever I get on in the world, there are some other things I'm not going to +forget. Any friend of hers----" His big hand, waved toward his mother, +told the rest of what he could not speak. + +They sat on, uncomfortable, for a time, neither of the three knowing +how much the others knew, nor how much each ought to know. Of the three, +Aurora Lane was most prepared. For twenty years she had been learning to +be prepared. For twenty years she had been praying that her boy never +would know what now he did know. + +Don Lane looked at his mother's face, but could not fathom it. Life to +him thus far had been more or less made up of small things--sports, +books, joys, small things, no great ponderings, no problems, no +introspections, no self-communings--and until but very recently no love, +no great emotion, no passion to unsettle him. This shadow which now fell +over him--he could not have suspected that. But his mother all these +years had known that perhaps at any unforeseen time this very hour might +come--had prayed against it, but known always in her heart that it might +come, nay, indeed one day must come. + +"Damn the place, anyhow!" he broke out at length. "You've lived here +long enough, both of you. It's nothing but a little gossiping hell, +that's all. I'll take you away from here, both of you, that's what I'll +do!" He stretched out a hand suddenly to his mother, who took it, +stroking it softly. + +"Don, boy," said she, "I didn't run away. Why should we run away now? If +we did, we'd take ourselves with us wherever we went, wouldn't we? This +is as good a place to live out life as any I could have found. You +can't really evade things, you know." + +"As though I asked to! I'd rather fight things than evade them." + +"I think so," said his mother mournfully. "I suppose that's true." + +"But you've got to be happy, mother," said he, again taking her hand in +his. "I'll _make_ you happy. I'm ready to work for you now--I'll pay you +back." + +"And Miss Julia?" smiled his mother. "It was she who told you the news, +you know, and you didn't obey her--you came against orders." + +"Why, yes, of course. She's been so awfully good to you. I know what +she's been, be sure of that." (As though he did know!) + +"Don't be too bitter, Don," said Miss Julia Delafield, slowly now, +hoping only to salve a wound she felt he might have, yet not sure +herself what the wound might be. "Don't be unrelenting. Why, it seems to +me, as we grow older and begin to read and think, we find out the best +of life is just being--well, being charitable--just forgetting. Nothing +matters so very much, Don. That's doctrine, isn't it?" + +Don Lane never finished what reply he might have made. There came yet +another interruption, yet another footfall on the little walk without, +following the clash of the crippled gate as it swung to. It was a man's +footfall which they heard on the gallery. They all rose now as Aurora +threw open the door. + +It was the solemn visage of Joel Tarbush, the town marshal, which met +Aurora Lane. + +"How do you do, Mr. Tarbush?" asked she. "Won't you come in?" + +The gentleman accosted gave a quick glance up the street and down. + +"I'm a married man," said he, with something of a vile grin on his face +as he looked at her. + +She answered him only with the level gaze of her own eyes, and pushed +open the door. He followed her in, hesitatingly, and then saw the others +in the little room. + +"Ma'am," said he, "I come to summons you to the justice court this +afternoon." + +"Yes," said Aurora Lane. "Why?" + +"It's that Adamson case," said he--"he knows." He turned now to the tall +figure of Dieudonné Lane, instinctively stepping back as he did so. + +"In what way do you want us?" asked Don Lane now. "As witnesses? My +mother----?" + +"I want your--your _ma_ as a witness, yes," said Tarbush, grinning, +"since you've said it. For you, you'll have to come along on charge of +resisting a officer; likewise for assault and battery, charge brought by +Ephraim Adamson; likewise for disturbing the peace. Likewise we're +going to test the case of _habeas chorus_. Old Man Adamson's got money. +He's sober now, and he's got a lawyer--the best lawyer in town. They're +going to get the eejit out of jail, and Old Man Adamson's going to make +trouble for you." + +How much longer Tarbush might have prattled on in his double capacity of +officer and gossip remained uncertain. Miss Julia turned upon him, her +large dark eyes flashing: + +"Why do you bring her into it? She's just told me--they were only +crossing the square--she was only trying to go home--she wasn't +troubling anyone in all the world! Leave her out of it." + +"I ain't got no choice in it," said Tarbush. "I'm serving the papers +now. Miss Lane and the boy both comes. Not that I got any feeling in the +matter." + +"Why should you have?" asked Don Lane, with a cynical smile. "You've +been letting that ruffian run this town every Saturday for years, they +tell me, and you didn't dare call his bluff till you saw he was whipped. +All right, we'll go. I'll see this thing through--but I want to tell +you, you've started something that will be almighty hard to stop. You +needn't think I'm going to let this thing drop here." + +"Oh, now," began the man of authority, "I wish't you wouldn't feel +thataway. I done my duty as I seen it. Didn't I take him to jail?" + +"Yes, you did, after I had turned him over to you. But you took the +wrong man at that." + +"Who should I of took?" + +"I don't know," laughed Don Lane bitterly. "All the town, I think. We'll +see." + +This was too cryptic for Joel Tarbush. Weakly he felt in his pocket for +tobacco. + +"Well," said he at length, "I done summonsed you." + +"We have no choice," said Aurora Lane, after a time. "We'll get ready. +Miss Julia, can't you go with me?" + +"Of course," said Julia Delafield quietly. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +IN OPEN COURT + + +In his narrow little room upstairs in one of the two-story brick +buildings which framed the public square of Spring Valley sat J. B. +Blackman, Justice of the Peace, upholder of the majesty of the law. His +throne was a knock-kneed, broken chair. In front of him stood a large +scarred table, whereon rested the equipment of well-thumbed tomes which +bolstered him in his administration of justice. In the room beyond stood +a few scattered chairs, a long bench or two. On one wall, by way of +ornament, was a steel engraving of Daniel Webster. On the opposite wall +hung certain lithographs of political candidates of like party +persuasion with Blackman himself, for this was a presidential year, and +certain crises of political sort existed, among others the choosing of a +Senator of the United States. Among lesser likenesses on Blackman's +grimy wall loomed large the portrait of his party's candidate, to wit: +the Honorable William Henderson, late County Attorney, late District +Judge, late member of the Legislature, late candidate for Governor, late +Chairman of the State Republican Committee; and by virtue of the death +of the late incumbent in the office of United States senator, himself +now present candidate for that lofty honor. Otherwise than as to these +purposeful decorations the room had small adornment and appeared +judicially austere. + +The hour was mid-afternoon, but so swiftly had the news of recent events +spread abroad in the little village that already the room of Justice of +Peace Blackman was packed. Aurora Lane's baby--why, she had fooled +everybody--her boy never had died at all--here he was--he had been +through college--he'd been somewhere all the time and now he had come to +life all at once, and had fought Eph Adamson and the eejit, and had been +arrested and was going to be tried. Naturally, the stair leading to the +Justice's office was lined, and sundry citizens were grouped about the +bottom or under the adjacent awnings. + +Much speculation existed as to the exact issue of the legal proceedings +which, it seemed, had been instituted by old Eph Adamson. When that +worthy appeared, escorted by the clerk of Judge Henderson's law office, +room respectfully was made for the two, it being taken for granted that +Judge Henderson would appear for Adamson, as he always had in earlier +embroglios. Much greater excitement prevailed when presently there came +none less than Tarbush, city marshal, followed by Don Lane and the two +women. Then indeed all Spring Valley well-nigh choked of its own unsated +curiosity. + +They walked steadily, these three, staring ahead, following close after +the marshal, who now officiously ordered room for himself and his +charges. When they entered Blackman's court that worthy looked up, +coughed solemnly, and resumed his occupation of poring over the legal +authorities spread before him on the table. Don Lane made room for his +mother and Miss Julia, and took his own place at the side of the +marshal. The latter laid his hand upon his arm, as if to show the +assembled multitude that he had no fear of his prisoner. Don shook off +the hand impatiently. + +Outside, unable to restrain themselves sufficiently to be seated within +the room, old Kneebone and his friend Craybill walked up and down in the +narrow hall--lined with signs of attorneys, real estate men, and +insurance agents--from which made off the door of Blackman's office. + +"They'll bind him over," said old Silas to his friend. "They'll do that +shore." + +"Bind who over, Silas," said Craybill. "You mean Old Man Adamson and his +eejit, don't you? The eejit's arrested, anyhow. But what's it all about? +You don't believe it's true this here _is_ 'Rory's son, now do you? How +can that come?" + +"Well, I ain't saying," replied old Silas cryptically, and nodding only +in the general direction of the door, "but you'll see." + +Old Aaron helped himself to a chew of tobacco thoughtfully. "They say +Old Eph has got his dander up now, and's going to make plenty of trouble +all along the line. Reckon he's ashamed of his son being licked thataway +by just a kid like this. Come to think of it, it looks like Eph ain't +got much glory out of it so far, has he?" + +"No, and I'll bet he had to dig up some money--the Judge, he likely +wouldn't think of it for less'n fifteen dollars anyways. That's the +price of a good shoat these days. If the case was appealed, or if it got +into a court of _nisy prisus_, or maybe got over into another county on +a change of _venoo_, you can bet Judge Henderson wouldn't be doing none +of them things for nothing, neither. The law's all right for them that +has plenty of money. Sometimes I think there's other ways." + +"Huh," said his companion, "old Adamson tried the other way, didn't he? +Now look at him! If I was Old Man Adamson, or if I was his eejit son +either, the best thing we could do, seems to me, would be to get out of +town. This here boy's a fighter, if I'm any judge. Wonder if it is her +boy! If it is, whoever was his father, huh? And how was he kep' hid for +more'n twenty year?" + +"He looks sort of changed since a couple of hours ago," said his friend +judicially. "He's quieter now--why, when he come into town he was just +laughing and talking like a kid. Of course, he must have knew--he knows +who his father is all right. Now, come to think of it, if this here boy +had any money he could sue them Adamsons for deefamation of character." + +"How comes it he could? I hear say that all Old Man Adamson said was to +call him nobody's son, and that's true enough, if he's her boy. If you +call the truth to a man, that ain't no deefamation of character. As to +'Rory Lane, everybody knows the truth about her. You can't deefame a +woman nohow, least of all her. We all know she had a baby when she was a +girl, and it was sent away, and it died. Leastways, we _thought_ we +knew. I ain't right shore what we've knew. It looks like that woman had +put up some sort of game on this town. What right had she to do that?" + +"She was right white," said the other, somewhat irrelevantly. "Never +seen no one no whiter than she was when she went in that door right +now." + +"I don't reckon we can get no seats any more--the room's plumb full." + +They both were looking wistfully in at the packed assembly, when they +had occasion to make room for the dignified figure of a man who now +pushed his way through the throng. + +"How do, Judge Henderson," said old Silas Kneebone, who knew everybody. + +The newcomer nodded somewhat coldly. He nodded also, none too warmly, +to another man who stood near the door--a tall man, of loose and bulky +figure, with a fringe of red beard under his chin, a wide and smiling +mouth, blue eyes, and a broad face which showed shrewdness and humor +alike. + +"How are you, Hod?" said Henderson carelessly; thus accosting the only +man at the Spring Valley bar for whom really he had much respect or +fear--Horace Brooks, popularly known in Spring Valley as "old Hod +Brooks," perhaps the most carelessly dressed man physically and the most +exactly appointed man mentally then practising before that bar. A little +sign far down the narrow hall betokened that the office of Horace Brooks +might thereabouts be found by any in search of counsel in the law. + +"Oh, are you retained in this case, Hod?" Judge Hendenson spoke over his +shoulder. + +"Not at all, Judge, not at all," said the other. None the less he +himself followed on into the crowded little room. + +As Judge Henderson entered all eyes were turned upon him. Conscious of +the fact that he honored this assemblage, he comported himself with +dignity proper for a candidate. He was a man well used to success in any +undertaking, and he looked his part now. The full, florid face, the +broad brow, sloping back to a ridge of iron-gray hair, the full blue +eyes, the loose, easy lips, the curved chin, the large, white hands, +the full chest, the soft body, the reddening skin of the face--all of +these offered good index to the character of William Henderson. Lawyer, +judge, politician and leading citizen--he was the type of these things, +the village Cćsar, and knew well enough the tribute due to Cćsar. + +A few eyes turned from the adequate figure of Judge Henderson to the +loose and shambling form of the man who edged in to the front of the +table. Rumor had it that in the early times, twenty years or more ago, +Judge Henderson had come to that city with a single law book under his +arm as his sole capital in his profession. Old Hod Brooks had made his +own advent in precisely similar fashion, belated much in life by reason +of his having to work his way through school. Since then his life had +been one steady combat, mostly arrayed against Henderson himself. +Perhaps it might have been said that they two from the first were rivals +for the leading place at the local bar, little as Henderson himself now +cared for that. He was well intrenched, and all opponents, such as this +shambling giant with the red beard and nondescript carriage, must attack +in the open. + +Judge Blackman coughed ominously once more. "Order in the court!" he +intoned, pounding on the table in front of him. + +There was a general shuffling and scraping of chairs. Those standing +seated themselves so far as was possible. Judge Henderson alone stood +for a time in front of the table of Justice Blackman. The afternoon was +very warm, but he represented the full traditions of his profession, for +he appeared in long black coat, white waistcoat, and folded collar, tied +with a narrow white tie. In some way he had the appearance of always +being freshly laundered. His fresh pink cheeks were smooth and clean, +his hands were immaculate as his linen. One might have said that at one +time in his life he had been a handsome man, a fine young man in his +earlier days, and that he still was "well preserved." + +Not so much might have been said of old Hod Brooks, who had slumped into +a seat close to Tarbush and his prisoner. That worthy wore an alpaca +coat, a pair of trousers which shrieked of the Golden Eagle Clothing +Store, no waistcoat at all, and it must be confessed, no collar at all, +beyond a limp strip of wilted linen decorated by no cravat whatever. + +As he sat now Brooks suddenly cast a keen, curious gaze upon the face of +the young defendant who sat at the left of the city marshal--a gaze +which, passing at length, rested steadily, intently, on the face of +Aurora Lane, who sat, icy pale, staring straight in front of her. Her +left hand lay in that of Miss Julia Delafield. The eyes of the +latter--whose face was flushed, as was usual with her in any time of +mental emotion--remained fixed upon the man who was to prosecute this +boy, whose life was linked so closely with her own. + +The great lawyer seemed not to see these women at all, and at first cast +no glance whatever at the defendant. The whole thing was rather trivial +for him; for although his fee really had been five hundred dollars--in +form of a note from Ephraim Adamson secured by a certain mortgage on +certain live stock--he knew well enough he honored Adamson and this +court by appearing here in a mere Justice trial. + +"Order in the court!" said Blackman once more. "The case coming on for +trial is City of Spring Valley on the complaint of Ephraim Adamson +against Dewdonny Lane." At this bold declaration of what had been a half +credited secret to Spring Valley, all Spring Valley now straightened and +sat up, expectant. A sort of sigh, half a murmur of intense curiosity +went over the audience. It was indeed a great day for Spring Valley. +"Lane--Dewdonny Lane." So he _was_ the son of Aurora Lane--and had no +family name for his own! + +Justice Blackman paused and looked inquiringly at the battered visage of +old Eph Adamson. He coughed hesitatingly. "I understand this case is one +of assault and battery. I believe, Judge Henderson, that you represent +the plaintiff in this case?" + +"Yes, your Honor," said Judge Henderson slowly, turning his full eye +upon the court from its late resting place upon the campaign portrait of +himself as it appeared on the wall. "I have consented to be of such +service as I may in the case. Mr. Ephraim Adamson, our well-known friend +here, is ready for the trial of the cause now, as I understand. I may +say further, your Honor, that there will be a writ of _habeas corpus_ +sued out in due course demanding the body of the son of Ephraim Adamson, +who is wrongfully restrained of his liberty at present in our city jail. + +"As for this defendant----" Judge Henderson turned and cast an +insolently inquiring eye upon the young man at the side of the town +marshal. + +"Who appears for the defendant?" demanded Judge Blackman austerely, +casting a glance upon the prisoner at the bar. + +Don Lane arose, half hesitatingly. "Your Honor," said he, "I presume I +am the defendant in this case, although I hardly know what it's all +about. I haven't any lawyer--I don't know anybody here--I'm just in +town. All this has come on me very suddenly, and I haven't had time to +look around. I don't see how I am guilty of anything----" + +[Illustration: "Your Honor," said he, "I presume I am the defendant in +this case."] + +Just then arose the soft and kindly tones of a large voice which easily +filled all the room. Old Hod Brooks half rose. + +"Your Honor," said he, "it isn't customary for a member of the bar to +offer his services unsolicited. I would say, however, that if the Court +desires to appoint me as counsel for this young man I will do the best I +can for him, since he seems a stranger here and unprepared for a defense +at law. If there were any other younger lawyer here I would not suggest +this course to your Honor--indeed, I have no right to do so now. I +trust, however,"--and he smiled at Judge Henderson at the other end of +the table--"that my learned brother will not accuse me of champerty, +maintenance, or any other offense against my office as a servant of +justice in this community. Of course, I may add, your Honor"--he turned +to Justice Blackman again--"that in such circumstances my own services, +such as they are, would be rendered entirely free of charge." + +People wondered, turning curious looks on the big, gaunt speaker thus +suddenly offering himself as champion in a rôle evidently unpopular. + +Justice Blackman hesitated, and cast again a glance of query at Judge +Henderson, on whom he much relied in all decisions. The latter waved a +hand of impatient assent, and began to whisper with his clerk. + +"The Court will allow this procedure," said Justice Blackman. "Does the +defendant accept Mr. Brooks as counsel?" + +Don Lane, embarrassed and somewhat red of face, half rose again, meeting +full the fascinated, absorbed look on the face of Hod Brooks--a look +which the keen eye of Henderson also saw. He puckered a lip and frowned +estimatingly. Rumor said that Old Hod Brooks was going to come out as +candidate for U. S. Senator on the opposing ticket. Henderson began now +to speculate as to what he could do with Hod Brooks, if ever they should +meet on the hustings. He studied him now as a boxer, none too certain of +himself, studies his antagonist when he strips and goes to his corner +opposite in the ring. + +"Your Honor," said Don, "I don't know this gentleman, but what he says +seems to me most kind. I surely shall be glad to have his assistance +now." He did not look at his mother's face, did not see the quick look +with which Hod Brooks turned from him to her. + +"Does my learned brother require time for preparation of his case?" +inquired Judge Henderson sarcastically. "I will agree to a brief recess +of the Court in such case." + +"Oh, not at all, not at all," said Old Hod Brooks. "I know all about +this case, better than my learned brother does. Not having any special +interest in anything but this case--that is to say, not any alien +interest, political or otherwise--I am ready to go to trial right now to +defend this young man. If Judge Henderson will move his chair so he can +get a better look at his own picture on the wall, I don't see but what +we might as well begin the trial." + +Certain smiles passed over the faces of a few in the audience as they +saw the quick flush spring to the face of Judge Henderson. The chief +delight in life of Old Hod Brooks was to bait his learned brother by +some such jibes as this, whenever the fortunes of the law brought them +together on opposing sides. + +Judge Henderson coughed. "Your Honor," said he hastily, "I am glad that +in the course of justice this young man has secured counsel--even +counsel such as that of my learned brother--who also, I am informed, is +not beyond aspirations of a political nature. I have no time for idle +jests. If the defense is ready I may perhaps state briefly what we +propose to prove." + +"By criminy!" whispered Silas to Aaron at the hall door, peering in. "By +criminy! I believe Old Hod's got him rattled right now!" + +But Judge Henderson pulled himself together. He now assumed his regular +oratorical position, an eye upon his audience. + +"Your Honor," he said, "this case is very plain and simple. The quiet of +our city has been violated by this young man, who has publicly assaulted +one of our best-known citizens." + +"Which one do you mean?" interrupted Hod Brooks, most unethically, and +smiling behind his hand. "Which do you mean, the old drunkard or the +young idiot?" + +"Order in the court!" rapped Blackman, as still further smiles and +shufflings became apparent at the rear of the room. Judge Henderson went +on, flushing yet more. + +"My client, your Honor," he said, "was standing peacefully in the public +square, accompanied by his son. They were beaten up, both of them, by +this young man who has been brought into this court by our properly +constituted officer of the law. Without any provocation whatever, this +defendant inflicted great personal injury upon my client." + +"We will make Eph's face 'Exhibit A,' and let it go into evidence," +smiled Hod Brooks amicably; and the audience smiled and shuffled yet +more. + +"As to the unlawful detention of the son of my client," resumed Judge +Henderson, beet-red now, "we have chosen the remedy of _habeas corpus_ +rather than a simple discharge, because we wish to bring before our +people the full enormity of the offense which has been committed here in +the public view, actually upon the grounds of our temple of justice. We +shall show----" + +"Your Honor," interrupted old Hod Brooks at this point, half rising, "if +this were a political gathering indeed, and not the trial of a cause in +a justice court, I would rise to a point of order. As it is, I rise to a +point of law." + +"State your point," said Justice Blackman. + +"We are trying, as I understand it, the case of this defendant, +Dewdonny Lane, accused by this plaintiff, Ephraim Adamson, of assault +and battery?" + +Justice Blackman nodded gravely. + +"Then why does my learned brother speak of _habeas corpus_ in this case, +and what is the case which he is trying, or thinks he is trying? What is +his evidence going to be? And why does he not get on?" + +"Your Honor," blazed Henderson, "I shall not endure this sort of thing." + +"Oh, yes, you will, my learned brother," said Hod Brooks, still smiling +gently. If Henderson had other resources, he needed them now, for keenly +enough he sensed himself as slipping in this battle of wits before +assembled electors; and it really was politics alone that had brought +him here--he scented a crowd afar off. He now lost his temper utterly. + +"If the Court will excuse us for a brief moment of recess," said he +savagely, "I should like to ask the privilege of a brief personal +consultation with the attorney for the defense. If he will retire with +me for just a moment I'll make him eat his words! After that we can +better shape these proceedings." + +The blue eye that Hod Brooks turned upon his opponent was calmly +inquiring, but wholly fearless. On the other hand, some sudden idea +seemed to strike him now. He resolved to change his tactics. He was +shrewd enough to know that, irritated beyond a certain point, Henderson +would fight his case hard; and Hod Brooks did not want to lose this +case. + +Henderson, with a little wave of the hand, his face livid in anger, +edged away from the table of the Justice of the Peace. Hod Brooks +followed him out into the hall. + +"Order in the court!" intoned the Justice yet again. There was a rush +toward the door. "There now, go back, men," said Hod Brooks, raising a +hand. "There's not going to be any fight. Let us two alone--we want to +talk, that's all." + +Don Lane looked steadily at the face of Justice Blackman. Aurora Lane +stared ahead, still icy pale, her hand clasped in that of Miss Julia's. +She felt, rather than saw, the gazes of all these others boring into her +very soul. Here were her enemies--here in what had been her home. It +seemed an hour to her before at length those standing about the door +shuffled apart to allow the two forensic enemies to reënter, though +really it had not been above ten minutes. Neither man bore any traces of +personal combat. The face of Judge Henderson was a shade +triumphant--strangely enough, since now he was to admit his own defeat. + + * * * * * + +"I tell you, I heard the whole business," said old Silas later on to his +crony, who owned to a certain defect in one ear in hot weather such as +this. "I heard the whole business. There wasn't no fight at all--not +that neither of them seemed a bit a-scared. Hod, he raises a hand, and +that made the Judge slow down. + +"'It's what you might expect, Judge,' says Hod, for appearing in a +measly little justice court case.' He's got a mighty nasty way of +smiling, Hod has. But scared? No. Not none. + +"'I'll fight this case as long as you like,' says the Judge, 'and I'll +win it, too.' + +"'Maybe, maybe, Judge,' says Hod. 'But they's more ways than one of +skinning a cat. Suppose you do win it, what've you won? It's all plumb +wrong anyhow, and it orto be stopped. These people all orto go on home.' + +"'So you want to try the case here, huh?' says the Judge; and says Hod: + +"'That's just what I do. I mean I don't want to try it none at all. I've +got various reasons, beside, why I don't want to try this case, or have +it tried. Are you a good guesser?' I didn't know what he meant by that. + +"'What're you getting at?' says the Judge. 'I know you've got something +hid. There's a sleeper in here somewheres.' + +"'Well, let it stay hid,' says Hod. 'But one thing is sure, you ain't +hiding it none that you're out for Senator?' + +"'Why should I? I'll win it, too,' says the Judge. + +"'Maybe, maybe,' says Hod. 'All I was going to say was, maybe you'd like +to have me help you, say left-handed, thataway? Even left-handed help is +some good.' + +"'What do you mean, Hod?' says he. 'They tell me you're mentioned strong +for the other ticket and are out after the place your own self?' He +takes a kind of look-over at Hod, no collar nor nothing, and that sleazy +coat of his'n. + +"'That's so,' says Hod. 'I've got a chance anyhow. Even every bad-chance +candidate out of your way is so much to the candy for you, Judge, ain't +it so?' says he. + +"'Say now, you don't mean you'd talk of withdrawing?' Judge Henderson he +was all lit up when he says this. 'On what terms?' says he. 'Of course, +there's terms of some sort.' + +"'Easiest terms in the world,' says Hod--though I don't think it was +easy for him to say it, for he's got as good a chance as the Judge, like +enough. But he says, 'Easiest sort of terms,' and laughs. + +"'Talk fast,' says the Judge. + +"'Dismiss this suit--withdraw from this case--and I'll withdraw from all +candidacy on any ticket! That goes!' He said it savage. + +"'Do you mean it?' says the Judge, and Hod he says he does. 'I've got +reasons for not wanting this case to go on,' says he. 'It's politics +brought you here, Judge, and I know that, but it's mighty good politics +you'll be playing not never to try this case at all. Drop it, Judge. +Politics against politics; you win. Lawyer against lawyer, _I_ win. But +I pay the biggest price, and you know it mighty well, even if you're a +poor guesser why I'm doing this. Since you're getting all the best of +the bargain, is it a bargain, then?' + +"Henderson he thinks for a while, and says he at last, 'Anyhow, I never +knew you to break your word,' says he. + +"'No,' says Hod, simple, 'I don't do that,' + +"'I'll go you!' says the Judge, sudden, and he sticks out his hand. 'I +shake politically, Judge,' says Hod. 'No more; but it's enough. We don't +neither of us need explain no more,' And _damn me_! If they didn't quit +right there, where it seemed to me a whole lot of explaining what they +meant 'd a-ben a right good thing for me anyways, for I couldn't gether +what it was all about. + +"But I heard the whole business--and there wasn't no fight, nor nothing, +just only that talk like I said, and I don't know nothing of _why_ they +done it, I only know what they done. _That's_ why there wasn't no fight, +no trial after all--and us setting there that long! I want to say, some +things is beginning to look mighty mysterious to me. But I ain't saying +what I think. You'll see." + + * * * * * + +Hod Brooks was first to address the court. He stood, a tall and hulking +figure, one hand upon the shoulder of Dieudonné Lane--stood in such +fashion as in part to shield Don's mother from the gaze alike of court +and audience. + +"Your Honor," said he, and his face now was very grave; "I assume the +Court has been in recess. After conference with my learned brother I +believe that he has some statement to make to the Court." + +He turned now toward Henderson, who straightened up. + +"May it please the Court," he began, "I find it incumbent upon me to +withdraw as counsel in this case. My learned brother has lived up to the +full traditions of courtesy in our profession, but I will only say that +I have learned certain facts which render it impossible for me to +represent this client properly in this cause. There would seem to have +been certain justifying circumstances, not at first put before me, which +leave me more reluctant to prosecute this defendant. I shall counsel my +client to withdraw his suit." + +Blackman in his surprise scarcely heard the deep voice of Don Lane's +attorney as he spoke in turn. + +"May it please the Court," said he gently, "it is the best function of +an attorney to counsel restraint and moderation; it is most honorable of +any great counsel to decline any case which does not enlist his full +convictions. It is the duty of all of us to uphold the actual peace and +actual dignity of this community. I have never entertained a fuller +respect for my learned brother than I have at this moment. I withdraw +what I said about his portrait yonder--and may say I do not blame any +man for being well content even in the offer of an honor which I cannot +and do not contemplate for myself--the great honor of the candidacy for +the Senate of the United States. It is my own function, none the less, +to state that there is no cause why my client should be longer detained. +He and others, these witnesses, are virtually restrained of their +liberty. I therefore move the dismissal of this case. I think these +people all ought to go home. I further suggest that this court +adjourn--if this latter suggestion be fully within my own province." + +He turned an inquiring gaze upon Tarbush, city marshal, who by this time +had fairly sunken down into the depths of his coat collar. + +"How about the plaintiff?" said Blackman, turning a hesitating glance +upon Judge Henderson, who seemed much relieved by what his opponent in +fact and in _posse_ had said. + +"There is other counsel for him," said Judge Henderson, "but if he will +take my own advice, he will drop the case now and at this point." + +"What does the plaintiff say?" Blackman bent an inquiring gaze on the +battered visage of Ephraim Adamson. The latter lifted up a swollen +eyelid with thumb and finger, and turned a still confused gaze upon +court and counsel. His reply, crestfallen though it was, brought a +titter from the audience. + +"I guess I'm satisfied," said he. + +Blackman looked from one to the other, and then back to the faces of the +disappointed audience of the citizens of Spring Valley. + +"Order in the court!" exclaimed Blackman, J. P., fiercely. "This court +is adjourned!" He spoke with a certain disgust, as of one aware of +participation in a fiasco. + +With a rush and a surge the room began to empty. Judge Henderson +departed, well in advance, looking straight ahead, and acknowledging +none of the greetings which met him. He evidently was above such work, +even disgusted with the whole affair. Hod Brooks remained, his curious +glance still riveted on Don Lane. + +Don stood hesitating before the table of justice. He had not known +before that his burly counsel had any acquaintance with his mother, but +he saw plainly the glance of recognition which passed between them. + +Aurora Lane and Miss Julia waited until the stair was clear, but as Don +would have followed them, Hod Brooks beckoned to him, in his blue eyes a +sort of puzzled wonderment, a surprise that seemed half conviction. + +"I thank you, Mr. Brooks," said Don Lane, turning to his counsel. He +wondered curiously why the big man should seem so red of face and so +perturbed. "What can I do for you--I have not much----" + +The great face of Hod Brooks flushed yet more. "Don't talk to me about +pay, my boy," said he--"don't talk to me about anything. Wait till +things straighten out a little. The prosecution's dropped. That's +all--or that's enough. Now, listen. I knew you when I saw you come in +here! They told me you were dead, but I knew you when first my eyes fell +on you. You're like your mother. I've known your mother for years--I +think a lot of her and her friend Miss Julia, don't you see? It's +strange news to me you are alive, but you are, and that's enough. I must +be going now. I'll see you and your mother both. But before I do, just +come with me, for I've a little more counsel to give you--it won't cost +you anything, and I think it will do some good." + +He beckoned Don to join him once more in the hall, and what he said +required but a moment. An instant later, and old Brooks had hurried down +the stair. A part of his words to Don had been overheard by old Silas, +but the latter could only wonder what it all might mean. + +"Aaron," said he, "I ain't no detecative, and don't claim to be, but +now, some day if anything should happen--well, I ain't sayin', but I +know what I know, and some day, some day, Aaron, I may have to tell." + +Brooks joined Aurora Lane and Miss Julia and walked with them along the +shady street. They walked in silence, Aurora Lane still staring straight +ahead, icy cold. It was not until they three halted at her little gate +that she could find voice. + +"How can we thank you?" said she. "How can we pay?" + +The deep color came into the big man's moody face once more. He waved a +hand. "You mustn't talk of that," said he. "I reckon I owe you that much +and more--a lot more. I'm not done yet. I've done what I thought was +right. But as for the case, I didn't fight it, and I didn't win it--the +Judge and I, we just didn't make any fight at all, that's all. We +settled it out of court, on terms that suited him, anyhow. I'm sorry for +Blackman,--he was just honing to soak that boy the limit! _Your_ boy, +Aurora--that ought to have stayed dead, I'm afraid, but didn't. + +"But peace and dignity," he added--"listen to me--we'll make a Sabbath +school out of this town yet! I can't talk very much more now." + +With a great uproarious laugh, somewhat nervous, very much perturbed, he +raised his hat clumsily, turned upon his heel clumsily, and would have +walked off clumsily. An exclamation from Miss Julia stopped him. + +"Where's Don?" asked she. "And what's that over yonder--what does the +crowd mean?" She pointed down to the corner of the courthouse square, +where indeed a closely packed group was thrusting this way and that, +apparently about some center of interest. + +"Oh, that?" said Hod Brooks, carelessly, turning his gaze thither; +"that's nothing. Pray don't be excited--it's only my--my client, +carrying out the last of my legal instructions to him." + +"But what does it mean?" demanded Aurora Lane in sudden terror--"what's +going on there? Is there more trouble?" + +Hod Brooks broke off a spear of grass from its place between the +sidewalk and the fence, and meditatively began to chew it. + +"Oh, no, I think not," said he gently. "I don't think the boy will have +much trouble. He's doing what I counseled him to do." + +"What have you told him--what is he doing--what does it all mean?" +demanded Aurora Lane. + +"Nothing," said the big man, still gazing ruminatingly at the scene +beyond. "As a member of the bar I was bound to give him such counsel as +should be of most practical benefit to him--I swore that in my oath of +admission to the bar. So I told him that as soon as court was adjourned +he ought to take old Eph Adamson and thrash him this time good and +proper. I told him nothing would come of it if he did. I told him it was +his plain duty to do it, and if he didn't do it I'd do it myself, +because the dogs have got to be put to sleep again now in this town.... +I must say," he added, "I am inclined to believe that my client is +following his instructions to the letter!" After which Hod Brooks +strolled on away. + +The crowd at the farther corner of the square broke apart before long. + +"By jinks! Silas," said old Aaron to his friend, "who'd a thought it? +I've seen some fights, but that was the shortest I ever did see. And he +made old Eph Adamson holler 'enough!' By criminy! he done that very +thing. Looks to me, safest thing right is not to talk too much about +'Rory Lane!" + +Don Lane emerged from the thick of the crowd, his coat over his arm, his +face pale in anger, his eye seeking any other champion who might oppose +him. + +"Listen to me now, you people!" he said. "If there's another one of you +that ever does what that man there has done, or says what he said, he'll +get the same he did, or worse. You hear me, now--I'll thrash the life +out of any man that raises his voice against anyone of my family. You +hear me, now?" + +He cast a straight and steady gaze upon Old Man Tarbush, who stood +irresolute. + +"No, you'll not arrest me again," said he. "You know you won't. You'll +leave me alone. If you don't, you'll be the next. I don't love you any +too well the way it is. + +"Get out now, all of you--you most of all," he added, and gave Marshal +Tarbush a contemptuous shove as he elbowed his own way on out of the +crowd. + +Old Hod Brooks passed on down the street and took the opposite side of +the public square, paying no attention to all this. He ambled on until +he found his own office at length. A half hour later he might have been +seen in his customary attitude, slouched deep down into his chair, his +head sunk between his shoulders, his feet propped up on the table, and +his eyes bent on the pages of a volume of the law. + +He had in his lap now no less an authority than "Chitty on Pleadings." +He had sat there for some moments--and he had not seen a word on all the +page. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +CLOSED DOORS + + +By the time Don Lane had reached his mother's house he partially had +pulled himself together, but his face was still pale and sullen, not yet +recovered from the late encounter. + +He cast himself down in a chair, his chin in his hand, looking +everywhere but at his mother. His wounds, poor lad, were of the soul, +slow to heal. The white-faced woman who sat looking at him had also her +wounds, scarred though they were, these years. Her features seemed +sharpened, her eyes larger for the dark shadows now about them. But she +was first to speak. + +"Wasn't it enough, Don," said she--"didn't I have enough without all +this? And on the very day I have looked forward to so long--so long! You +don't know how I have worked and waited for this very day. Why, it's the +first time I've ever seen you, since you were a baby. You're a stranger +to me--I don't know you yet. And then all this comes--now, on my one +happy day." + +"Well, how about it, then?" he demanded brusquely. "You know what +they've been saying--I couldn't let it go. I _had_ to fight!" + +"Yes, yes, you have--and in a few hours you've undone twenty years of +work for me. The sleeping dogs were lying. Why waken them this late?" + +"_Who was my father?_" demanded the young man, now, sternly. "Come, it's +time for me to know. I couldn't help loving you--no one could. But--him! +Tell me--was it that man who defended me? Is my name Don Brooks?" + +She made him no answer, though her throat throbbed and she half started +as though at a blow. + +"Oh, no, oh, no! What am I saying! Of course you understand, mother," he +went on after a long, long silence, "I don't believe anything of this, +not even what you have said to me about my being--well, _filius +nullius_. There was a quick divorce--a hidden decree--you separated, you +two--he was poor--that often happens. Women never like to talk about it. +I can't blame you for calling me 'nobody's son,' for that sort of thing +does happen--secret and suppressed divorces, you know. But as to that +other----" + +For a long time Aurora Lane sat facing a temptation to accept this +loophole of escape which thus crudely her boy offered her--escape from +the bitter truth. He would fight! He--and Hod Brooks--those two might +defy all the town--might cow them all to silence even now. But--once +more her inborn honesty and courage, her years-old resolution +triumphed. + +"I cannot tell you who your father was, Don," said she quietly, at +length, ash pale, trembling. + +"When were you married--when--where?" + +"I was _never_ married, Don! What I told you was true! Oh, you make me +say a thing to you I ought never to have been asked to say, but it is +the truth. You may believe it--you must believe it--it's--it's no good +keeping on evading--for it's true, all of it." She was gasping, choking, +now. "This is a ghastly thing to have to do," she cried at last. "Ah, it +oughtn't ever to have been asked of me." + +The boy's breath also came in a quick sob now. + +"Mother, that's not true--it _can't_ be! Why, where does that leave +you--where does it leave _me_?" + +Her voice rose as she looked at him, so young and strong, so fine, so +manly. + +"But I'm not sorry," she exclaimed, "I'm not--I'm _not_!" + +"So what they told me--what I made them all take back--_it was true_?" +He sank back in his chair. + +"Yes, Don. We can't fight. We are ruined." + +"Born out of wedlock!--But my father only ran away--you told me he was +dead." + +"Regard him so, Don." + +"Where is he--who was he? Why did that man tell me to fight them all?" + +"I will never tell you, Don, never." + +Her dark eyes were turned upon him now, eyes unspeakably sad. + +"But you must! You wouldn't deny me my own chance in the world?" + +"You will have to make your own chance, Don, as I did. We all must. I +have my secret. The door is closed. There is no power ever can open that +door--not even my love for you, my boy. Besides, the knowledge could be +of no use to you." + +"Yes? Is that indeed so? You would debar me from the one great right of +all my life? Tell me, is my guess right? I'll make that man marry you." + +"Ah, you mean revenge?" + +He nodded, savagely, his jaws shut tight. But his brow grew troubled. +"But not if he came out and stood by me and you, even this late. I +suppose----" + +"There is no revenge for a woman, Don. They only dream there is--once I +dreamed there might be for me. I don't want it now. I am content. +There's more pity than revenge about me now. I only want to be fair now, +if I can, and now I'm glad--this is my one glorious day. For you're +mine. You are my boy--and I'll never say that I am sorry. Because I've +got you. They can't help that, can they, Don?" + +"He got us out of worse trouble, didn't he? Why did he do that, Mother? +What made him look at us the way he did? And what made the other lawyer, +Henderson, drop the case? How did they settle it out of court? Lucky +for us--but _why_?" He spoke sharply, abruptly. + +A trifle of color came to Aurora Lane's cheeks. "It was his way," she +said. "He's a good lawyer--advancing right along, more and more every +year, they say. He's always had a hard time getting a start. He's like +me." + +Don Lane sat silent for a time, but what he thought he held. He cast a +discontented glance about him at the meager surroundings of his mother's +home, with which he could claim no familiarity. + +"How did you manage it, Mother?" he asked, at length. "How did you get +me through--big, ignorant loafer that I've been all my life. You say he +never helped any. Was he so poor as all that?" + +"I couldn't have done it alone," said Aurora Lane, slowly. Mechanically +she smoothed down the folds of her gown in her lap as she spoke. + +"I have told you you had two mothers, if no father," said she at last, +suddenly. "That's almost true. You don't know how much you owe to Miss +Julia. She helped me put you through school! It was her little salary +and my little earnings--well, they have proved enough." + +"Go on!" said he, bitterly. "Tell me more! Humiliate me all you can! +Tell me more of what I ought to know. Good God!" He squared his +shoulders as if to throw off some weight which he felt upon them. + +His mother looked at him in silence for some time. "Shall I tell you all +about it, Don?" she said. "All that I may?" + +He nodded, frowning. "Let's have it over and done with." + +"When I came here I was young," said Aurora Lane, slowly, after a long +time. "Julia was young, too, just a girl. We both had to make our way. +Then--then--it happened." + +"You didn't love me, Mother? You hated me?" + +"Oh, yes, I loved you--you don't know what you say--you don't know how I +loved you. But everything was very hard and cruel.... Well, one night I +had made up my mind what I must do.... + +"I washed you all clean that night. I dressed you the best I could--I +didn't have much for you. But you were a sweet baby, and strong. I was +kissing you and saying good-by to you then, when Miss Julia came in, +right at the door." + +[Illustration: "I was kissing you and saying good-bye ... when Miss +Julia came in--"] + +"You were going to put me in a home--in some institution?" + +"No!" She spoke now in short, quick, sobbing breaths.... "Don, do you +know the little stream that runs through the edge of the town? Do you +know the deep pool beneath the bridge where the water turns around? +Well, I had washed you and dressed you.... I was going to put you +_there_.... It was then that Julia came." + +He turned upon her a face which it seemed to her never again could be +happy and free from care. + +"I didn't know all this, Mother," said he, quietly, whitely. "I ask your +pardon. I ask you to forgive me." + +"No, I have told you I wanted to spare you all this--I wanted that door +to remain closed forever. But now it is open--you have opened it. I will +have to tell you what there is behind." + +It seemed many moments before she could summon self-control to go on. + +"...So we two sat here in this little room, Julia and I. You were in my +lap, holding up your hands and kicking up your feet, and we two wept +over you--we prayed over you, too--she, that little crippled girl, +hopeless, who could never have a boy of her own! I told her what I was +going to do with you. She fought me and took you away from me.... And +she saved you ... and she saved me. + +"So now you have it." He heard her voice trailing on somewhere at a +distance which seemed immeasurable. "You owe your life not to one woman, +but to two, after all. Now you know why I called you Dieudonné. God sent +you to me. As I have known how, I have resolved to pay my debt to +God--for you. I want to pity, not hate. I want to be grateful. I want to +be fair, if I can learn how." + +Aurora spoke no more for some moments, nor did her son. + +"We two talked it all over between us," said she after a time. "She +asked me then, once, who was your father--Julia did. I said he was poor. +I told her never to ask me again. She never has. Oh, a good woman, Julia +Delafield--fine, fine as the Lord ever made! + +"But she knew--we both knew--that I did not have the means of bringing +you up. We put our hearts together--to own you. We put our little purses +together--to bring you up. She took you away from me, pretty soon. She +sent you to some of her people, very distant relatives. They were poor, +too, but they took you in and they never knew--they died, both of them, +who took you in. + +"Then for a time we sent you to an institution for orphans. But we told +everybody here that you had died. I told him so--your--your father--and +I forbade him ever to speak to me again. I told you he was dead. I told +him you were dead. He _is_ dead. So are _you_ dead. But all the dead +have come to life. The lost is found. Oh, Don, Don, the lost is found! +I've found so much today--so much, so much. You're my boy, my own boy. A +man!" + +He sat mute. At length she went on. + +"We schemed and saved and contrived, all the little ways that we could +to save our money--we have both done that all our lives for you. We +wanted to educate you, your mothers did. And oh! above all things we +wanted the secret kept. I did the best I knew. They all thought you +died. I didn't want you to come here--it was Miss Julia. I didn't know +you were coming till you wired. I was going to tell you not to come +up--even from the depot. But you got in the bus. I was delayed there in +the square by those men. And then all this happened. And after twenty +years!" + +She sat silent, using all her splendid command of her own soul to still +the stubborn fluttering in her throat. + +Dieudonné Lane looked everywhere but at her. + +"Mother," said he at length, "did you--did you ever--love him?" + +His own face flushed at the cruelty of this question, too late, after +the words were gone. He saw her wince. + +"I don't know, Don," said she, simply. "It happened. It couldn't again. +You don't know about women. Seal your lips now, as mine are sealed. +Never again a question such as that to me." + +The sight of her suffering at his own words stirred the elemental rage +in his heart. + +"Tell me," he demanded again and again. "Who was he? Is that the man? I +begin to see--I'd kill him if I knew for sure." + +She only shook her head. + +"But you must!" said he at last. "You are cruel. You don't know." + +"What is that, Don? What do you mean? Oh, I see--_it is because of her_. +It's Anne! There's someone else you love, more than you do me." + +"Yes!" he confessed, "more than I do life. _That's_ the reason I must +know all about myself. Can't you see I've got to play fair? There's +Anne!" + +"Who is she, Don--you've never told me very much yet." + +"Anne Oglesby--her family lived at Columbus before she was left alone. +You know her--why, she's the ward of Judge Henderson, here in town. I +believe she was left a considerable estate, and he handles it for her. +She's been here. She's told me about this place--she's seen you, +maybe--before I ever did. Yes--it's Anne! I've got to think of her. I +don't dare drag her into trouble--my hands are tied." + +He rose now, and in his excitement walked away from his mother, so that +he did not note her face at the moment. + +"You see, we met from time to time back East in our college town. I +never told her much about myself, because I didn't know much about +myself, really, when it comes to that. I said I was an orphan, +and poor. But--I'd made all the teams--and I've studied, too. I was +valedictorian, in spite of all, Mother. They don't amount to much, +usually--valedictorians--but I was sure I would--when I knew that +Anne---- + +"I didn't know about our caring for one another until we found we had to +part--just now, today, this morning on the train before I got off here. +Then we couldn't part, you know. So just before we passed through this +town, right on the train--today, in less than half an hour before I met +you--this morning, this very day, I--we--well----" + +"Yes, Don," she said, "I know!" Her eyes were very large, her face very +pale. + +He choked. + +"But now we've got to part," said he. "If I am nobody, or worse, I've +got to be fair with her." + +A look of pride came into his mother's face at his words. "I'm glad, +Don," said she. "You've got honor in you. But in no case could I see you +marry that girl." + +He turned upon her in sudden astonishment. "Isn't she as good as we are? +Isn't her family--don't you know the Oglesbys of Columbus--who they are +and what they stand for--where they came from? Can we say as much?" + +"They are better than we can claim to be, Don, yes," said she, ignoring +his brutal frankness. "I know her, yes. I knew her years ago--the ward +of Judge Henderson. Sometimes she has been here and kept his household +for him--some day she'll live with Judge Henderson even if she marries. +He's very fond of her. But as to your marrying Anne Oglesby, you must +not think of it." + +"What on earth!" he began. "What have you against her?" + +"It is enough that I feel as I do about any girl who has been here and +who knows about--about the way--the way I've lived. Will she know who I +am when she knows who _you_ are--and what you are not? Has she +identified us two--have you really been fair with her?" Now the color +began to rise in her paled cheeks. + +"I've not had time yet! I told you it all happened just a moment ago." +Then, still brutally, he went on. "Why, what do you know of love? What +do you know about the way I feel toward Anne?" + +"Be as cruel as you like," said she, flushing now under such words. "I +presume you feel as all men think they feel sometimes. They see that +woman for that moment--they think that they believe what they say--they +think they must do what they do. You are a man, yes, Don, or you could +not have said to me what you have." + +He flung out his arms, impatient. "I am having a fine start, am I not? +I'm a beggar, a pauper, and worse than that. I've got to pay you and +Miss Julia. I've got to go on through life, with that secret on my mind. +I can't confront that man and tell him. You and I--just today +meeting--why, we begin to argue. And now I've got to face Anne Oglesby +with that secret. It can't be a secret from her. I'd never ask her to +join her life to one like mine. And--God! a woman like her.... I can't +tell you.... Death--why, I believe this is worse." + +"Don't tell me, Don, don't try." She turned to him, her voice hoarse and +low. "It's a wrong thing for you to talk to me about things of that +sort. Birds out of the nest begin all over again--this must begin again, +I suppose--but it's too awful--too terrible. I don't want to hear any +more talk about love. But rather than see you live with her, rather than +see you talk that way of her, it seems to me I'd rather die. Because, +she knows all about _me_--or will. What made you come? Why didn't you +stay away? Why couldn't you find some other girl to love, away from +here?" + +"Which shows how much you really care for my happiness! I suppose, like +many women, you are stubborn. Is that it, mother?" + +She winced under this, wringing her hands. "If I could only lie--if I +only could!" + +"And if I only could, also!" he repeated after her. "But she's coming +tomorrow, Mother--I've made her promise she'd come to see you. She said +she'd make some excuse to come down and see her guardian. I'm going to +meet her tomorrow. And when I do, I've got to tell her what I've learned +today--every word of it--all--all! And I'll be helpless. I'll not be +able to fight. I'll have to take it." + +"That's right, Don, that's right. Even if I loved her as you do, even if +it were the best thing in the world for you if you could marry her, I'd +say that you should not. Don, whatever you do, don't ever be crooked +with a woman. She's a woman, too. No matter what it cost, I couldn't see +her suffer by finding out anything after it was too late." + +"It won't take long," said he, simply. "We'll part tomorrow. But oh! Why +did you save me--why did Miss Julia come that night? My place was under +the water--there! Then the door would have been closed indeed. But now +all the doors are closed on ahead, and none behind. I'll never be happy +again. And I'm making her unhappy, too, who's not to blame. It runs far, +doesn't it?--far and long." + +"As you grow older, Don," said she, "you will find it doesn't so much +matter whether or not you are happy." + +He shook his head. "I'm done. It's over. There's nothing ahead for me. I +never had a chance. Mother, you and Miss Julia made a bad mistake." + +It seemed that she scarcely heard him, or as though his words, brutal, +cruel though they were, no longer impinged upon her consciousness. She +spoke faintly, as though almost breathless, yet addressed herself to +him. + +"Why, Don, it was here in this very room ... and you lay in my arms and +looked up at me and laughed. You were so sweet.... But what shall I do? +I love you, and I want you to love me, and you can't. What have I done +to you? Oh, wasn't the world cruel enough to me, Don? Oh, yes, yes, it +runs far--far and long, a woman's sin! You are my sin. And oh! I love +you, and I will not repent! God do so to me--I'll not repent!" + +He looked at her, still frowning, but with tenderness under the pain of +his own brow. At last he flung himself on his knees before her and +dropped his head into her lap. + +He felt her hands resting on his head as though in shelter--hands that +lay side by side, hands long and shapely once, but bruised and worn now +with labor could he but have seen them--Aurora's hands--he could not +have helped but realize her long years of toil. He heard her faint, +steady sobbing now. + +After a time she bent lower above his head as he knelt there, silent and +motionless. Slowly her hand began once more to stroke his hair. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE DIVIDING LINE + + +The commonplace sound of the telephone's ring broke the silence in the +little room. Aurora Lane arose and passed into the adjoining room to +answer it. Her son regarded her with lackluster eyes when she returned. + +"It was Miss Julia," said she, "at the library. She wanted to know if +you were here. She says we must be sure to come out tonight." + +"Come out--to what?" + +"It's her annual jubilee, when she reports progress to the town. She is +very proud of her new books and rugs and pictures. Everybody will be +there. You see, Don, we don't have much in a town like this to entertain +us. Why, if I could see a real theater once--I don't know how happy I +would be. We've had movies, and now and then a lecture--and Miss Julia." + +"I don't want to go, mother." + +"Neither do I, Don; so I'm going." + +"Why should we go? It's nothing to us." + +"It's everything to Miss Julia--and it's everything to us, Don. Stop to +think and you will realize what I mean. We can't run away under fire." + +"There's something in that," he rejoined after a time, slowly. "Besides, +what Miss Julia wishes we both ought to do." + +Hands in pockets, he began once more gloomily to pace up and down the +narrow room. "I can't stand this much longer, mother," said he. "I've +got to get out--I've got to get hold of some money somehow." + +"Yes," said she. "As for me, I have collected the last money due me--it +went for your graduation suit. I don't know how you saved your railway +fare home. I didn't want you to know these things, of course, but as +things have happened, you had to know. A great many things today--well, +they've gotten away from me." + +"It's I who have spoiled everything, too. But how could I help it--I +just couldn't submit." + +"It's hard to submit, Don," said she slowly. "Perhaps a man ought not to +learn it. A woman has to learn it." + +He turned to look at her wonderingly, and at length went over and put a +hand on her shoulder. + +"Dear Mom!" said he gently. "You're wonderful. You are fine--splendid! +I'm just getting acquainted with you, am I not? You're a good woman, +mother; I'm so glad." + +She looked at him now with eyes suddenly wet, her face working +strangely, and turned away. + +"Come, Don," said she after a time. "We must get ready for our little +supper. Spring Valley, you see," she added, gaily, "dines at six and +goes to the movies at seven." + +Presently she left him to his own devices for a time, before calling him +out into the little kitchen which served her also as a dining-room. + +"It's not much," said she, shrugging and spreading out her hands, "but +it's all I'd have had--bread and milk and cereal. I don't use much sugar +or butter." Then, hurriedly, seeing the pain she had caused him, she +went on. + +"You soon get used to such things. Why, I have only two gowns to my +name, and I put on my best one to meet you, when you wired you were +coming, and I saw I'd have to meet you. This hat has been fixed over I +don't know how many times--once more, for you. You will see, I'll not be +at much trouble to dress for the entertainment tonight." + +She opened upon the table cover her little pocket book and showed its +contents--one small, tightly-folded, much-creased bill, which still lay +within its depths. + +"My last!" said she, grimacing. "That's our capital in life, Don! And we +have all the world against us now. We must fight, whether or not we want +to fight." + +"But now," she added, "I can't talk any more. Let us go. It may do us +good. Miss Julia at least will be glad to see us, if no one else is." + +Early as they were, they were not the first arrivals at the library +room where Miss Julia Delafield had devised her entertainment. She had +borrowed certain benches from the public school, certain chairs as well. +Already a goodly portion of Spring Valley's best people filled these. +The seats made back from the little raised platform which usually served +as the librarian's desk place. This now was enlarged by the removal of +all the desks. + +Back of this narrow dais was draped a large flag of our Union, and in +the center of its folds was the campaign portrait of Judge Henderson, +chief speaker of the evening. + +Aurora Lane and her son entered unnoticed for the time, and quietly took +seats in the last row of benches at the rear, near to some awkward +youths who had straggled in and seemed uncomfortable in their +surroundings. Not even Miss Julia noted them, for presently it became +her flushing duty to escort Judge Henderson, and several of her other +speakers, to the edge of the little platform, where they took their +places back of the conventional table and pitcher of water. + +The leader in the town's affairs bent over affably to speak with his +associates--three ministers of the gospel, Reverend Augustus Wilson, of +the U. P. Church, Reverend Henry Fullerton, of the Congregationalist +Church, and Reverend William B. Burnham, of the Methodists. There were +many other ministers of the gospel in Spring Valley, which rejoiced +exceedingly in the multiplicity of its churches; but to these, in the +belief of Miss Julia, had more specially been given the gift of tongues. + +There came presently and seated himself on the bench next to Aurora Lane +yet another minister of the gospel, old Mr. Rawlins, of the Church of +Christ, the least important denomination of the village, so few of +numbers and so scant of means that its house of worship must needs be +located just at the edge of town, where land was very cheap. A kindly +man, Parson Rawlins, and of mysterious life, for none might say whence +came his raven-brought revenue. Questioned, Brother Rawlins admitted +that he was not in the least sure whether or not he had a definite +creed. He held out his hand smilingly to Aurora Lane.... An old man he +was, with white hair and a thin face, his chin shaven smooth and shining +between his bushy white side whiskers. His eyes were very mild. + +"How do you do, Aurora?" said he. "Now, don't say a word to me--I know +this boy." And he shook hands with Don also. "I know him," said he, "and +I know all he has done today--we all know all about it, Aurora, so don't +talk to me. Tut, tut, my son! But had I been in your place very likely I +should have done the same thing--I might have whipped old Eph Adamson. +You know, sometimes even a minister asks, 'Lord, shall we smite with the +sword?'" + +The face of the old man grew grave as he looked from one to the other. +Some presentiment told him that a change had come across Aurora Lane's +manner of life. Could it be possible that she had grown defiant--was she +restive under the weight of the years? Had this sudden and sensational +resurrection of her past brought rebellion to her heart, all these years +so patient, so gentle? + +He waved a hand towards the backs of the assemblage. "I suppose you +recognize some of your own handicraft, don't you, 'Rory?" said he, +laughing. + +Aurora laughed, also. "A good many," said she frankly. "But the mail +order business in ready-trimmed hats has cut into my trade a great deal +of late. Then there are excursions into Columbus. Still, I see some of +my bonnets here and there--even now and then a gown." + +They both laughed yet again, cheerily, both knowing the philosophy of +the poor. Further conversation at the time was cut off by the entrance +of the musicians of the evening, an organization known as the Spring +Valley Cornet Band. These young men, a dozen in number, made their way +solemnly to a place adjacent to the platform, where presently they +busied themselves with certain mild tapping of drums and soft moanings +of alto horns and subdued tootlings of cornets. + +The leader of the band was the chief clerk in the First National Bank, +Mr. Jerome Westbrook by name, himself Spring Valley's glass of fashion +and mold of form, and not unconscious of the public attention attracted +to himself in his present capacity. Now and again he looked out over the +audience to see if he could locate a certain young lady, none less than +Sallie Lester, the daughter of the president of his bank, upon whom he +had bestowed the honor of his affections. He was willing to add thereto +eke the honor of his hand. + +It was as Aurora Lane had said--this annual gathering of Miss Julia's +was the social clearing house of the community. And this typical +attendance, representative of the little city at its best, offered that +strange contrast of the sexes so notable in any American assemblage. The +men were ordinary of look and garb, astonishingly ordinary, if one might +use the term; stalwart enough, but slouchy, shapeless, and ill-clad. Not +so the women, who seemed as though of another and superior social world. +If here and there the face of a man seemed stolid, cloddish, +peasant-like, not so any of the half dozen faces of the women next +adjoining him. Type, class--call what you like that which is owned by +the average American woman, even of middle class--that distinction was +as obvious as is usual in all such gatherings. Scattered here and there +through this audience, as in any audience of even the humblest sort in +America, were a half dozen faces of young women, any of whom must have +been called very beautiful, strikingly beautiful--beautiful as Aurora +Lane must once have been. + +The apparel of the men was nondescript. That of the women, however or +wherever secured, made them creatures apart. The men, too, sat +uncommunicative, silent; whereas their daughters or spouses turned, +chattering, laughing, waving a hand to this or that friend. In short, +the women availed themselves fully, as women will, of this opportunity +of social intercourse. And always, as head turned to head, there was a +look, a whispered word, of woman to woman. Little by little, in the +mysterious way of such assemblages, every woman in the house came to +know that Aurora Lane and her boy--who had only been hid, and not dead, +all these years--were seated on the back seat, next to Old Man Rawlins. +Did anyone ever hear the like of _that_? In reality Spring Valley was +out to hear the rest of the news about Aurora Lane and her unfathered +boy as soon as possible. Gossip covers all the nuances, the shades, the +inner and hidden things of information, especially when information may +be classified as scandal. This is the real news. It never needs wings. +It needed no wings now. + +Naturally, it was incumbent upon Judge Henderson to introduce a minister +of the gospel to open the meeting with prayer--we Americans apologize to +Providence at all public occasions, even our political conventions. +Naturally thereafter Judge Henderson rose once more, took a drink of +water, and signaled to the leader of the Spring Valley Silver Cornet +Band; whereupon Mr. Jerome Westbrook, wiping all previous trace of +German silver from below his mustache, essayed once more the leadership +in concord of sweet sounds. This brought Judge Henderson up to his +introductory remarks, properly so-called. + +He made no ill figure as he stood, immaculately clad as was his custom, +his costume still being the long black coat, his white waistcoat, the +white tie, which he had worn that afternoon in court. It was charged +against him, by certain of his enemies, that Judge Henderson had been +known to change his shirt twice in one day, but this was not commonly +believed. That he changed it at least once every day had, however, come +to be accepted in common credence, although this also was held as his +sheer eccentricity. + +His face was smooth-shaven, for really he was shaved daily, and not +merely on Saturday nights. His wide, easy, good-humored mouth, his large +features, his well-defined brows, his full eye, his commanding figure, +gave him a presence good enough for almost any stage. He stood easily +now, accepting as his right the applause which greeted him, and smiled +as he placed on the table beside him the inevitable glass of water at +which he had sipped. Some said that in his own office Judge Henderson +did not confine himself to water--but any leading citizen must have his +enemies. + +The worthy Judge made precisely what manner of address must be made on +precisely such occasions. To him his audience was made up of fellow +citizens, ladies and gentlemen. He accosted them with the deference and +yet the confidence of some statesman of old. Indeed, he might have been +scarce less a figure than Senator Thomas Hart Benton himself, so +profuse--and so inaccurate--were the classical quotations which he saw +fit to employ. It had grown his custom to do this with care-free mind. +Indeed, there was but one here in this audience tonight who perhaps +might have chided him for his Greek--a young man who sat far back in the +rear, in a place near the door--a young man who none the less, it must +be confessed, paid small attention to the Hendersonian allusions which +had to do with literature, with history, the gentle arts, the culture, +the progress of our proud republic, and of this particular American +community. + +So now it came on to the time of Reverend Henry B. Fullerton, who +likewise spoke of literature and culture, patriotism and the glories of +our republic. The other ministers also in due course, after certain +uneasy consultation of the clock upon the opposite wall, spoke much in +similar fashion. + +After these formidable preliminaries, it was time for Judge Henderson to +give the real address of the evening--this latter now delivered with +frequent consultations of the large watch which he placed beside him on +the table. So presently he came to such portion of his speech as +requires the orator to say, "But, my friends, the hour grows late." +Whereafter presently, figuratively, he dismissed the audience with his +blessing, well satisfied from the applause that his campaign was doing +well. He had but casually and incidentally allowed it to be known that +his own annual check to the city library was for a thousand dollars--no +more than would cover the librarian's salary. + +By this time, it was a half-hour past midnight, and none present might +say that he had not had full worth of all the moneys expended for this +entertainment. It had been a great evening for the candidate. Moreover, +most of the old ladies present had enjoyed themselves in social +conversation regarding the absorbing news of the day. As for the half +dozen young village beauties present, there was not one who did not know +precisely where Don Lane sat--not even Sally Lester, who irritated +Jerome Westbrook beyond measure when he saw her pretending to look at +the clock at the back of the hall to see what time it was. Really, as +Jerome Westbrook knew very well, she was only trying to see Don Lane, +the newest young man in town--wholly impossible socially, but one who +had made sudden history of interest in feminine eyes. + +Moody and intent upon his own thoughts, Don Lane himself by no means +realized the importance of the occasion so far as he himself and his +mother were concerned. He did not know that he was on trial here, that +they two were on inspection. His ears were deaf to the impassioned words +of all and several of the orators of the evening. Before his eyes +appeared only one face. It was that of a young girl with a face +clean-cut and high-browed, with sweet and kindly eyes--the girl he was +to meet tomorrow, to whom he was to say good-by--Anne Oglesby. "Anne! +Anne!" his heart was exclaiming all the time. For now he knew that he in +turn must bruise yet another human heart, because of what had been, and +in his brain was room now for no other thought, no other scene, no other +face. There swept down upon him, if he thought of it at all now and +then, only a feeling of the insufficiency, the narrowness, the +unworthiness, the tawdriness, of all this which lay about him. And yet +it was this to which he must come back--this was his world--this at +least was the world in which his mother had made her own battle--had won +for a time, and now had lost. + +After midnight, when the assembly was dismissed, Spring Valley felt it +had done its duty--it had come out to see Miss Julia's library. Everyone +who passed Miss Julia, as she stood near the door, flushed and pleased, +congratulated her on the progress she had made, on the neatness of her +desks and shelves. Some said a word about the great work she was doing. +Others shook hands with the elevated elbow, smiled sweetly, and +repeated, parrot-like, "So glad!" and "Thanks so much!" In any case, +little by little the room was cleared. There remained only the +unspeakable desolation of any room lately occupied by a crowd--the +litter of paper and odds and ends, the dulled lights, the heavy and +oppressive air. + +In her place, back of the dividing line which fenced off the socially +elect, stood Aurora Lane, pale, weary, and yet composed, her hands +folded low before her. She looked straight ahead, nor asked any of these +people passing out for that recognition which she knew they would not +give her. Don himself, speaking now and then to the kindly old man who +retained his place at their side, found himself now and again in spite +of himself wondering that of all these who passed, and of these many who +turned and gazed their way, none ventured a greeting. His own face grew +hard. All life to him had been a sweet, happy, sunny thing till now. He +never had known any contest but that of sport, and there, even in +defeat, he had met sportsmanship. He had not learned that in human life +as we live it, honor and fair play and generosity and justice are things +not in any great demand, nor sportsmanship in any general practice. + +"Come, we must go," said Aurora at length. + +They were the last to leave the room, although they might have been the +first. In a brief lesson Don Lane's mother had taught him much. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +AT MIDNIGHT + + +Miss Julia, late mistress of ceremonies, passed here and there, turning +out the lights. The bonnets and blouses all had departed, the coughs and +shufflings had subsided. She might give way now to the weariness, the +reaction, attendant upon long hours of eager enterprise. + +Strange, she did not look about to find her friend, Aurora Lane, did not +even hasten to take the hand of Don Lane before he had left the room. + +The little group at the door--Aurora, Don and the old minister, now was +increased in the entry way by the addition of none less than the tall +and awkward figure of Horace Brooks, who came forward, smiling +uncertainly as the other three finally emerged from the door. Aurora, +quickly divining his purpose, made some hesitating excuse, and darted +back into the hall, where now Miss Julia had well accomplished the +purpose of extinguishing the lights. But what Aurora saw caused her to +withdraw softly, and not to speak to Miss Julia at all that evening! + +One by one the switches had cut off the side lights, the desk lights, +those of the ceiling. Two lights remained burning at the back of the +little platform where the speakers had sat, one electrolier on each side +of the portrait over which still hung the draped flag of the Union--the +portrait of the Honorable William Henderson, lawyer, judge, politician +and leading citizen. + +Before this portrait stood Julia Delafield, her smooth-topped stick +resting on the little table against which she supported herself now. She +stood, both her hands clasped at her bosom. She was looking up directly +at the lighted features of this portrait, and on her face was so rapt a +look, her gaze was so much that of one adoring a being of another +world--so much ardor was in her face, pale as it was--that Aurora Lane, +seeing and knowing much, all with a sudden wrench of her own heart, +withdrew silently, thankful that Miss Julia had not known. + +"Miss Julia's tired," said she to her companions, who still stood +waiting at the entry way. "We'll not disturb her tonight, Don, after +all. I know she wants to see you. You can imagine she has a thousand +things to talk about--books, pictures, everything. But tonight we'll +just go on home. We'll come again tomorrow." + +The people of Spring Valley scattered this way and that from the +classical front of the Carnegie Library. They passed away in long +streams in each direction on the street, which, arched across in places +by the wide branches of the soft maples, lay half lighted by the moon, +and yet more by the flickering arc light sputtering at the top of its +mast at the corner of the public square, which made the shadows sheer +black. So close did the trees stand to the street that the summer wind +could not get through them to lighten the pall of the night's +sultriness. + +In Spring Valley the climate in the summer time was at times so +balefully hot that common folk were forced to take the mattress from the +bed and spread it on the floor at the front door in order to get a +partial breath of air. The atmosphere was close and heavy under the +trees tonight, and some commented on the fact as they passed on toward +the public square where yet further separations of the scattered groups +must ensue. + +They passed along a street lined by residence houses, some small, others +large, all hedged about with shrubs or trees, all with little flower +beds; a certain conformity to accepted canons in good taste being +exacted of all who dwelt in the village. Each one of this dispersing +assemblage knew his neighbor, and all the other neighbors of the town. +This was general plebiscite. Moreover, it seemed to have a certain +purpose--an ultimate purpose of justice. + +This was the actual jury of peers--this long stream of halting, +hesitating figures who at midnight strolled on across the patch-work +shadows of the maples. And before it had come on for trial the case of +Aurora Lane and her unfathered boy. + +"Look at them go!" said Old Hod Brooks, chuckling bitterly to himself as +he and his companions turned toward the public square, this same thought +occurring to him. "For instance, there's an even dozen just ahead of us +now, if we cared to poll them." + +Had this jury been polled it might have been found in some part +resembling the original concourse which filled Noah's ark, since for the +most part they walked two and two. Ben McQuaid, traveling salesman--the +deadly rival of Jerome Westbrook in matters of fashion--who traveled out +of Chicago but had his home in Spring Valley, because it was cheaper +living there--walked now arm in arm with Newman, the clothing merchant +of the Golden Eagle. He inquired solicitously as to the condition of +business. Newman said he "gouldn't gomplaim, though gollections mide be +better." But that was not in the least what both were thinking of at +that time. + +"Seems like there was a little rukus on the square today," said McQuaid +casually. "I just heard of it--Number Four come in a little late today." + +"Vell, yes," said Newman, looking around to see that he might not be +heard. "I ain't saying a vord about it--but listen, that kid has the +punch in either hand--the last time you should have seen it--you see, +they got at it twice now already----" + +They drew apart, because they now saw approaching them too closely at +the rear two of the ministers of the gospel. These found themselves none +too happily assorted. + +"I enjoyed your remarks very much indeed, Brother Burnham," said +Reverend Fullerton, with a mendacity for which no doubt the recording +angel dropped a suitable tear. "I agree with you that the tendency +towards looseness of living in modern life----" + +Reverend Fullerton coughed ominously. Anyone very close to him might +have heard half-whispered words of "brazen exhibition" and "necessity of +public measures." + +But these did not speak freely, because close behind them came yet +two--Dr. Arthur Bowling, the homeopathic physician, who somewhat against +his will had fallen into the company of Miss Elvira Sonsteby. Now, Miss +Elvira Sonsteby was the town's professional invalid. She tried regularly +all the doctors in turn as they arrived. It was well known of all that +she had suffered all the diseases ever known to man, as well as many of +which no man ever had known. Just now, with much eagerness, she was +explaining to Dr. Bowling that she feared her neuritis had become +complicated with valvular heart trouble, and that she suspected gall +stones as well. As to her rheumatism, of course she had long since given +up all hope of that--but this trouble in her arm----; and much other +conversation extremely painful to Dr. Bowling at that time, because he +was much possessed of the inclination to step forward a few paces and +walk with Sally Lester, the banker's daughter. But even they hit common +ground of converse when Miss Sonsteby voiced her belief that it was an +outrage for a public personage like a certain milliner she could name if +she cared to say, to appear in public on an occasion such as this, when +only the most refined personages of the town should have been invited. + +"I am sure," said she in tense tones to the young doctor, "that although +alone in the world myself--not so old as some would try to make me out, +either--I would die rather than have anyone voice the slightest +suspicion of blame against me--the slightest blemish on my name. Now, +_that_ woman...." + +Back of these two came yet others. Old Mr. Rawlins had gently said his +farewells to Aurora and her son when they emerged upon the open street, +and as he advanced passed certain of these groups, until presently he +fell in with none less than Miss Hattie Clarkson, soprano and +elocutionist of Spring Valley, who had favored the assemblage that +evening with two selections, but who, it seemed, was not wholly +satisfied. + +"It seemed to me, Mr. Rawlins," said she, throwing about her shoulders +the light scarf of tulle which she always wore when entertaining +professionally--"that the exercises rather dragged tonight. Of course, +we know what to expect when Judge Henderson speaks--he's very +entertaining, to be sure. But it seemed to me that had there been a +selection or two more of elocutionary sort it might have lightened up +the evening----Who is that coming just back of us?" she whispered, +looking back over her shoulder. + +"That's Aurora Lane, my dear," said Mr. Rawlins, quietly. "Her son is +with her." + +"Indeed!" + +"Yes, indeed! There's one of the best women I ever knew, my dear." + +Miss Clarkson drew herself up proudly, and bent upon him an icy glance. +By now they had approached the corner of public square. "I think I must +say good _night_, Mr. Rawlins!" said she, with icy emphasis. + +"Good night, my dear," said the old minister, sighing. + +Not far ahead of Ben McQuaid and merchant Newman walked two other +citizens, J.B. Saunders, leading grocer and prominent Knight Templar, +and Nels Jorgens, village blacksmith--the same whose shop was across the +way from the home of Aurora Lane. It was said of Mr. Saunders that it +would have been difficult to surprise him at any hour of the day or +night when he was not in his uniform of a Knight Templar, or carrying +his sword case and hat. For some reasons best known to himself, and +anticipating all possible surprises, he had taken with him to the +meeting this evening the two latter accessories of his wardrobe, which +now he carried as he walked on in conversation. + +His neighbor wore an alpaca coat and no necktie whatever--a reticent, +gray-whiskered man, whose bank account had a goodliness perhaps not to +be suspected from first look at its owner. The two talked of many +things, but naturally came around to the only topic which was in the +mind of all. + +"What'll he do--old Eph Adamson," asked Saunders. "It looks like he +couldn't stand for what's been handed to him. That young fellow has +pounded him up a couple of times. If I was Adamson I certainly would +have the law on him good and plenty." + +"Well," said Old Man Jorgens, comfortably, "I don't know much about it +anyway, but it looks to me Adamson has got pretty near enough already. +He pays a lawyer to get him clear, and when he gets out of that court +already he gets licked once more again. And he knows the boy can lick +him." + +"You think he'll like enough lick him again?" + +"Yeh, that's like enough, yeh. I heard things have been said of his +mother by Adamson. Oh, yes, the news is out now--she couldn't hide it no +more now--there is the boy she said was dead. But, you know, after all, +my friend, a mother is a mother, and men is men. When they say things of +how we was born, you would fought, I hope? Me, I hope too. No man likes +to hear his mother called of names. And she is his mother. Too bad it +is--a bad business all around." + +"But then--why, Nels, we know----" + +"Yes, we all know," said Jorgens stolidly. "I know and you know, and we +all know. And what I know is this:--For twenty years she lives across +the street from me, as straight and as good a woman as anyone in this +town--each first day of the month right in my hand here she pays the +rent, not a month missed in twenty years. I rather rent a house to her +as to any business man in this town, and I say she is straight as any +woman in this town! No man goes there, not any more now in twenty years. +The man who meets her on the public street he takes his hat off--now. +Her boy--well, he looks citified to me, but at least he can fight. Yeh, +I vote he was in the right. Tomorrow my wife shall take some more eggs +to Aurora Lane in her house; yeh, and coffee." + +There were two other members of the unpolled jury, and they paused now +in the full light which came from the mast at the corner of the public +square. Judge Henderson, wearied by the exertions of the evening, was +disposed to ascend the stair to his own office in search of a manner of +refreshment which he well knew he would find there. Turning in this +laudable enterprise he met face to face the city marshal, Old Man +Tarbush, who halted him for a moment's speech, drawing him apart to the +edge of the sidewalk. + +"I just thought I'd ask you, Judge, since I see you," said Tarbush, +"whether you think I done right or not." + +"What do you mean, Mr. Marshal," inquired the judge, none too happy at +being interrupted. + +"You know how it was. He licked Old Man Adamson again right at the foot +of the stair, before the record of his trial was hardly dry on the +books. It was unlawful, of course. I didn't arrest him no more, because +I seen what had happened in the other trial. You pulled out of that. I +didn't want to make no needless expense for the county. But I been sort +of uneasy in my mind about it, and I just thought I'd ask you." + +"Exactly, exactly," rejoined Judge Henderson. "Well, now, Tarbush, come +to think it over, that matter came up for trial, and we concluded the +best thing to do was to sort of let things take their course--you see, +the young man in all likelihood will leave town very soon. In the +conduct of my own affairs I sometimes have seen that it is well enough +not to stir things up. Leave them alone, and sometimes they will smooth +themselves down." + +"Then you wouldn't run him in if you was me?" + +"No, I think not, I think not. Let it go for the time. Perhaps there may +be further developments, but with such information as I have at hand +now, I would be disposed to approve your conduct. There's nothing like +letting bygones be bygones in this world--isn't that the truth?" + +"But now, about the eejit, Johnnie," resumed the city marshal once more, +reaching out his hand still to detain the other, "I don't know as I done +right about him, neither." + +"What have you done then, Tarbush?" + +"Well, I let him go. You see, I don't know but maybe the _habeas chorus_ +proceedings would be squashed like the rest. Besides, the eejit boy has +been raising all kinds of hell down at the jail, raving and shouting and +threatening me. About a hour ago or less I concluded to let him loose, +so as to get shut of him." + +"You did let him go? And he was not discharged?" + +"Well, now, what's the difference, Judge," said the old man. "We +couldn't really get no sleep down there, he was making so much fuss, so +I just let him out. He lit out upon the street right thataway, towards +home--not so very long ago." + +Judge Henderson gazed moodily in the direction to which Tarbush pointed. + +"Well," said he, "maybe you did right, and in any case this isn't the +time and place to discuss it. My professional hours"--and he turned away +and walked slowly up the stairs to his own office, intent upon the +purpose already prominent in his mind. + +The arc light illumined fully the great town clock in the cupola of the +courthouse. The hands pointed to a quarter of one, after midnight. + +The deliberations of the jury of Spring Valley might have been said to +have concluded at the time when Aurora Lane, her son Don, and old Hod +Brooks--the last group of the slow procession--themselves turned the +corner and emerged upon the public square. The matter of bringing in the +verdict was another affair. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE EXTRAORDINARY HORACE BROOKS + + +Something made Aurora Lane uneasy. She turned now and extended her hand +to the tall man who walked at her side. "Good night, Mr. Brooks," said +she. + +But old Hod Brooks only put his hands deeper in his pockets and slouched +on alongside. "I'll just go on along with you to the gate. It's hot +tonight, isn't it? I don't know when we've had such a spell." + +She could not well dismiss him now, so indeed the three walked yet a +while together. + +Don Lane still was silent, moody. There was little of the Jesuit in his +own frank soul. He knew nothing of dissembling, and had no art of +putting a good face upon a bad matter. All these complications which so +swiftly had come into his life seemed to him only a terrible and +overwhelming thing in the total. The morrow was coming for him--nay, it +already was at hand, and he knew what that must bring of additional +grief. Anne! Anne! He must tell her. He must leave her. Never in all his +care-free life had he been so wretched, so miserable, as he was now. +Moreover, for reasons he could not stifle he did not like the presence +of Brooks here, even though he and his mother must acknowledge the debt +under which he had laid them that day. + +"I'll tell you, Mother," said he after a time, when he had turned off +the square into their own street. "Just excuse me for a few minutes, +won't you? It's so hot and stuffy that I don't feel that I can sleep. +I'll just take a little run down the street, if you don't mind." + +"But why, Don?" she inquired. + +"You see, I've always been used to keeping fit, and I don't like to +break my training--we always had to exercise in college, on the teams. I +don't feel good when I don't. I'm used to doing my half mile or so every +night just before I go to sleep." + +"Huh!" said Old Hod Brooks, looking at the young man appraisingly. "So +that's how you keep in training, eh? Well, it seems to work all right!" +His sudden gusty laughter sounded loud in the night, but it lacked the +note of ease. + +"Go on, go on," he added--"as you get older maybe you'll find it takes +all your gimp to take care of your mind and your money, and you'll let +your body just about take care of itself. But go ahead--I'll just walk +on down with your mother." + +"Don't be long, Don," said Aurora Lane; and she meant it, for she felt +uneasy at thus being accompanied to her own gate, a thing unknown in her +history. She was glad that old Nels Jorgens, on ahead, had just turned +in at his own gate. + +Don Lane trotted off slowly, with long elastic stride, up on his toes, +with his elbows tucked in and his chin high, filling his lungs as best +he might with the hot and lifeless air. The sound of his footfalls +passed down the street, and was lost as he turned at the further corner +of the square. + +"Good night, now," said Aurora Lane once more, as she and her companion +approached her little gate. + +But Hod Brooks did not turn away, although he made no attempt to enter. +Instead he reached out a large hand impulsively and arrested hers as it +would have pulled together the little crippled gate behind her. Still +she did close the gate--until the sudden impact of his own weight +snapped off its last remaining hinge. He picked it up carelessly and set +it within the fence, himself leaning against the post, filling the gap, +his hands back in his pockets. + +"Aurora," said he, with a strange softness in his voice, "this seems to +me almost like Providence." + +"What do you mean?" she said. "I must go----" + +"Please, not yet," said he. "Just think--how else could it have been +possible for me to talk with you?" + +"Without compromising yourself?" She smiled slowly and bitterly, but did +not see the hot blood rise to his face. + +"That's not right!" said he. "Without compromising _you_--that's what I +meant. I only meant that there is no place where we well could meet. And +I wanted to say something to you, at last--what sometime has got to be +said between us." + +"We both know everything now, so why talk?" said she. "It was fine of +you today in the trial. We owe so much--we'll pay when we can." + +The dull red in his face deepened. "You may stop that, if you please," +said he. "It's not right between us. The showdown has come. Why not +settle up, at last?" + +She turned, not knowing what to do, unwilling to leave him standing +there. + +"It's been years, Aurora. Now, listen--I'm going on up in the world +myself, at last. I want to take you with me. I didn't want to say +anything till the right time. It's been a long, hard pull for me, too, +here in this town. It's hard for men like me to talk." + +"You mustn't talk," said she. "You mustn't say a word--you mustn't be +seen here even." + +He looked at her slowly. "I'm here deliberately," said he. "Listen +now--I must tell you some things, Aurora. I've loved you from the first +day I saw you. Can't you credit me at least a little? You're +splendid--you're beautiful--and you're good." + +She choked a bit, raised a hand in swift protest. + +"You're still young, Aurora," said he, not paying attention to what she +said. "Of course I'm older, but there's a lot of time left yet for you +and me--a lot of living. You've had mighty little out of life, here by +yourself. Now I've stood it as long as I can. Since the whole truth +about the boy has broken out today and can't ever be covered up again, +it seemed to me I just had to tell you that you needed me to take care +of you--someone more than just yourself. Things may go harder for you +now. They've been hard enough already. You need help. Who more natural +to help you than myself, feeling as I have, as I do?" + +"Oh, you _mustn't_ talk that way!" Her voice trembled. "You must go on +away. I'm not--good----" + +"You're good enough for me--good as I am, surely--and I want to get into +this game with you now. You need me. That means we've got to be married. +Oh, the boy's fine, yes, but he'll be going away. You need a man--a +husband--someone you can depend on, Aurora. Isn't there anything welcome +in that thought for you? Aurora, I want to marry you--at once, right +away. I say that right now and here." + +Aurora Lane looked this way and that, every way. Her gaze happened to go +down the long vista beneath the maples, to fall upon the face of the +town clock on the courthouse. The hour hand with a short jerk moved +forward and the deep note of the bell boomed out--it was one o'clock of +the night; and all was not well. + +She turned as she felt the tense grasp of his great knotted hands still +upon her own. + +"You say that--to me----" she managed to say at last. "Why, everybody +knows--all the town knows----" Her voice shook. "I suppose I'll have to +leave here now after what's happened. But _you'd_ have to leave if you +took up with such as me--even this late, it would ruin you. Don't you +think of your own prospects? Why, I couldn't marry you, no matter how +much I loved you." + +"You don't love me at all?" + +"How could I?" + +"That's true," said he simply. "How could you?" + +"I don't mean that," she corrected herself hastily. + +"It's just what I said," he rejoined. "This seems providential to me. I +can't allow these people to murder you a dozen times a week the way they +will do now. You can't make this fight alone any more, Aurora--I can't +any longer bear to see you try it. It's all out now. It's going to be +harder for you after this." + +She did not make any answer to him at all, but she heard his big voice +murmuring on. + +"I reckon it's love, after all, Aurora--I don't know. I don't know much +about women. I just feel as though I had to take care of you--I feel as +though you ought to depend on me. Can't you believe that?" + +"I ought not to believe that of any man," she broke out. + +"Like enough, like enough," he nodded, "but you've known only one +man--that's your full horizon. Now, having had so hard a fight in +business, I have put marrying to one side. Let's not say that we're both +young--for we're not. But let's remember what I told you--there's a lot +of life left for you and me yet if you'll only say the word. Don't you +want to make anybody happy?" + +"Oh, you mustn't say that to me!" said Aurora Lane. "But you would want +me to be honest, wouldn't you? You wouldn't want me to lie? Somehow, +I've never learned to lie very much." + +"No," said he simply; "no, I reckon not. You never have." + +"No matter what----" + +"No matter what." + +"Then tell me, how could I say I loved you now? For twenty years--all my +life--I have put that thought away from me. I'm old and cold now. My +heart's ashes, that part, can't you understand? And you're a man." + +"Yes," he nodded, "I'm a man. That's so, Aurora. But now you're just +troubled. You've not had time to think. I've held my secret, too. I've +never spoken out to you before. I tell you, you're too good a woman to +be lost--that isn't right." + +"You pity me!" + +"Maybe. But I want to marry you, Aurora." + +"What could I do--what could be done--where would you have any pay in +that?" + +"Don't trouble about the pay. How much have the past twenty years paid +you?" + +"Little enough," said she bitterly, "little enough. About all they've +given me--about all I've got left--is the boy. But I want to play fair." + +"That's it," said he. "So do I. That's why I tell you you're too good +for me, when it comes to that, after all." + +"Why, it would all have to come out--one way or the other. It all _has_ +come out, as you say. We couldn't evade that now--it's too late. Here's +the proof--Dieudonné--and I can't deny him." + +He nodded gravely. She went on: + +"Everyone knows about the boy now--everybody knows he's--got no father. +_That's_ my boy. Too late now to explain--he's ruined all that by coming +here. And yet you ask me to marry you. If I did, one of two things +surely would be said, and either of them would make you wretched all +your life." + +He turned to her and looked at her steadily. + +"They might say I was the father?" + +She nodded, flushing painfully. "They might guess. And a few might think +that after all these years----" + +"Maybe," said he slowly. "But you see, after all, it's only a +theoretical hurt I'm taking if I stand between you and these damned +harpies here. They're going to torture you, Aurora, going to flay and +burn you alive. I'd like to do about anything I could for you, anything +a man can in such a case as ours. As for sacrifice--why, whatever you +think I think of you, I believe we can both call it sure that I want to +stand between you and the world. I want to have the _right_ to take care +of you. It's what I want to do--must do. I've waited too long. But it's +what I always have intended. You'd never let me. I never seemed to get +around to it before. But now----" + +"Impossible!" she whispered, white, her great eyes somber. "There is no +way. Love of man has gone by for me. It knocked once. It has gone by." + +"Wait now, let us go on with the argument just a little further, my +dear!" said he gently. + +"We have argued too long already," she said faintly. "You must go. +Please go--please don't talk to me. You must not." + +"I wish I could agree with you," said he, disturbed and frowning, +"because I don't want to make you any more unhappy. But listen, it just +seemed to me that this was providential--I had to come to you and tell +you what I have told you tonight. Why, widows remarry--time and again +widows marry." + +"Yes, _widows_!" He could barely hear the sob which she stifled in her +throat. + +"Well, then," said he, "how about you and me? I don't think it's a fair +argument, but I ought to point out to you that perhaps I've got a chance +in the world. They wanted me, for instance, to make the run for the +senatorship--against Judge Henderson. Today I agreed with him not to +accept the candidacy. In return he agreed to drop that case against Don. +Well, you've traded me out of the United States Senate, Aurora. But I +made that trade--for you and the boy." + +She looked up at him in sudden astonishment. She could not evade the +feeling of shelter in his great presence as he stood there, speaking +calmly, absolutely in hand, a grotesque and yet a great soul--yes, a +great soul as it seemed to her, so used to littler souls. After all, she +never really had known this man. Sacrifice? Had he not given freely, as +a sacrifice, the greatest gift a man has--his hope for power and +preferment? And he spoke of it as though it were a little thing. Aurora +Lane was large enough to know a large act, belittled though it were by +the doer of the deed. + +"You see," he began, "we're old enough perhaps to talk plainly, plainer +than young folks can--mostly I presume they don't talk at all--but I may +talk plainly?" + +"Oh, yes," said she, sighing. "I suppose we've made that certain." + +"Now, now, don't say that--nothing of the sort, my dear. Your past is +out of this question altogether. You're a _widow_, that's all. Your +unknown husband is dead--he is unknown, but he is dead. That's the +record, and accepted here. And isn't that our solution--the only one in +all the world possible for us?" + +She did not answer at all. + +"The boy and I--I reckon the two of us could keep most of the people in +this town or in this world attending to their own business, and not +bothering about ours. Don't you believe that, Aurora? We've made a +start--a sort of preliminary demonstration already." + +But still she did not answer, and, agonized now, he went on: + +"I'm a plain man, Aurora, pretty ignorant, I expect. I didn't come from +anywhere--there's no family much back of me--I have had really very +little schooling, and I've had to fight my own way. I can't play +bridge--I don't know one card from another. I don't dance--there's no +human being could ever teach a dance step to me. I've never been in +society, because I don't belong there. But, as I said, I've got some +standards of a man and some feelings of a man. I love you a lot more +than you can tell from what I've said, or what I've done. It'll be a +great deal more to you than you can believe now. I'll do a great deal +more for you than you can realize. I'll give you at last--later than I +ought to have done it--something you've never had--your _life_--your +_chance_ in the world--your chance at real love and real affection and +real loyalty. You've never had that, Aurora. I couldn't offer it, for I +had my own secret to keep, and my own fight to make. But love and +loyalty--they'd be sweet, wouldn't they?" + +She bent her head down upon her hands, which lay folded at the top of +the pickets of the little fence. + +"Sweet--sweet--yes, yes!" he heard her murmur. + +"Well, then, why not end the argument?" he said. "Why, I've seen you +here, all these years. I know every hair of your head. I have come +really to love you, all of you, as a man ought to love his wife. I can't +resist it--it's an awful thing. I don't think I'll forget--it's too late +in life for me to begin over again, it's you or nothing for me. There's +never been any other woman for me--and that ought at least to speak for +me. There's been no other man for you. So why not end it? The world's +been cruel enough for you as it is. I'll not say it hasn't been cruel to +me, too. I've sat tight and eaten my heart. I've had to fight, too. But +don't I understand you, your fight, what it means to buck a game where +all the cards are stacked? Don't I know?" + +"It has been cruel, yes," said she at length, finding herself able to +speak, "but it seems it has not been quite so cruel as it could be +until--until now." + +"Why, what do you mean? Am I cruel? Why?" + +"You said--you said something about my being a widow." + +He nodded. "Yes. I pick you up now--it's as though I find you new--I +know you now at a later stage altogether in your life. You've grown. I +see you as new and fresh as though you were just risen from the sea.... +And all the past is nothing to me." + +"You must not talk," said she, "because it only is to make us both the +more unhappy. You are quixotic enough, or great enough--I don't know +which--I can't tell which it is--to say you'd take the shame on your own +shoulders in order to take it off of mine! You can't mean that! No! no! +One life ruined is enough--you've ruined yours enough now, today, by +what you've done for Don and me." + +He seemed not to hear her. + +"I've watched you all these years, and you've lived like a recluse, like +a widow. I can't reproach you. God! Which of us may first cast a stone?" + +Aurora Lane turned to him now a brave face, the same brave face she had +turned to the world all these years. + +"Oh," said she, "if only I had learned to lie! Maybe some women could +lie to you. And women get so tired--so awfully tired sometimes--I +couldn't blame them. I might marry you, yes--I believe I could. But I +would never lie to you--I won't lie to you now." + +"What are you going to say to me, Aurie?" + +"What I'm going to say to all the world! I've never been +married to anyone and can't be now. It would be more horrible to +me than--that other. It's too late. It--it means too much to +me--marriage--marriage--marriage! Don't--don't--you mustn't say some +things to a woman. Oh, if all this had happened twenty years ago, when I +was young, I might have been weak enough to listen to what you say. I +was weak and frightened then--I didn't know how I'd ever get on--all +life was a terror to me. But that was twenty years ago. I've made my +fight now, and I've learned that after a fashion at least I could get +on--I did--I have. I can go on through alone the rest of the way, and +it's right that I should. That's what I'm going to do!" + +She saw the great hand clutch the more tightly on two picket tops. They +broke under the closing grip of his great hand. + +"That's right hard," said he simply. "We can't be married now? But--tell +me, can't I help you?" + +"Oh, no, no, don't--don't talk of that!" she said. She was weeping now. +"Don't try to help me," she sobbed bitterly. "You can't help me--nobody +can help me--there's no help in the world--not even God can help me! +You've been cruel--all the world has been nothing but cruel to me all my +life. I've nothing to hope--there's nothing that can help me, nothing. +I'm one of the lost, that's all. Until today, I'd hoped. I never will +hope again." + +Now she felt the great hand closing once more on top of hers above the +broken pickets. + +"Listen, Aurora," said he, "if it doesn't seem that you and I can be +married, there's nothing in the world which makes it wrong for me to +help you all I can--you mustn't think I didn't love you. You don't think +that, do you?" + +"I don't know what I think!" said she, rubbing at the ceaseless tears, +so new to her. "All these matters have been out of my life--forever, as +I thought. But sometimes--I've been so lonesome, you know, and so +helpless--I'm tempted. It's hard for a woman to live all alone--it's +almost a thing impossible--she's so lonesome--sometimes I almost think I +could depend on you, even now." + +"That's fine!" said he, choking up; "that's fine. I expect that's about +all I had coming to me after all. So I oughtn't to be sorry--I ought to +be very happy. That's about the finest thing I ever heard in all my +life." + +"And about the sweetest words I ever heard in all my life were what you +said just now--after knowing all you do about me." + +"But you won't tell me that you'll marry me now?" He bent and picked up +her hand in both his great ones. "I know you will not." He kissed her +hand reverently. + +"Good night," said he gently. And presently she was sensible that his +shambling figure was passing away down the street under the checkered +shadows of the maples. + +Aurora Lane stood yet for just a moment, how long she did not know. +There came to her ear the sound of running footsteps. Her boy came down +the street, passing Horace Brooks with a wave of his hand. He reached +her side now as she still stood at the gate. He was panting, perspiring +a trifle. + +"Fine!" said he. "Let's go in. Maybe I can sleep--I'd like to sleep." + +"What kept you so late?" asked Aurora Lane. She hurried in ahead of +him. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE OTHER WOMAN CONCERNED + + +The sultry night at last was broken by a breathless dawn, the sun rising +a red ball over the farm lands beyond the massed maple trees of the +town. Not much refreshed by the attempt at sleep in the stuffy little +rooms, Don and his mother met once more in the little kitchen +dining-room where she had prepared the simple breakfast. + +He did not know, as he picked at the crisp bacon strips, that bacon, or +even eggs, made an unusual breakfast in his mother's household. He +trifled with his cereal and his coffee, happily too considerate to +mention the lack of butter and cream, but grumblingly sensible all the +time that the bread was no longer fresh. He was living in a new world, +the world of the very poor. His time had not yet been sufficient therein +to give him much understanding. + +He looked about him at the scantily furnished rooms, and in spite of +himself there rose before his mind pictures he had known these last few +years--wide green parks, with oaks and elms, stately buildings draped +with ivy, flowers about, and everywhere the air of quiet ease. He +recalled the fellowship of fresh-cheeked roistering youths like himself, +full of the zest of life, youth well-clad, with the stamp of having +known the good things of life; young women well-clad, well-appointed, +also. Books, art, the touch of the wide world of thought, the quiet, the +comfort, the beauty, the physical well-being of everything about +him--these had been a daily experience for him for years. He +unthinkingly had supposed that all life, all the world, must continue +much like this. He had supposed, had he given it any thought at all, +that the last meager bill in his pockets when he started home would in +some magic way always remain unneeded, always unspent. He had +opportunity waiting for him in his profession, and he knew he would get +on. Never before in all his life had he known the widow's cruse. + +So this was life, then--this little room, this tawdry, sullen town, this +hot and lifeless air, this hopelessly banal and uninteresting place that +had been his mother's home all these years--this was his beginning of +actual life! The first lesson he had had yesterday; the next, yet more +bitter, he must have today. The uninviting little kitchen seemed to him +the center of a drab and dismal world, in which could never be aught of +happiness for him or his. + +"It's not much, Don," said his mother, smiling bravely as her eyes noted +his abstraction. "I live so simply--I'm afraid a big man like you won't +get enough to eat with me." + +She did not mention her special preparations for his arrival. He did not +know that the half-dozen new serviettes had been bought for his coming. +He did not know that a new chair also had been purchased, and that he +himself was sitting in it at that very time. In short, he knew nothing +of the many sacrifices needful even for these inexpensive things about +him. He did not know that marvel of the widow's cruse, filled against +dire need by the hand of merciful Providence. + +"It's all right, Mother," said he, toying with his fork; "fine, fine." + +"Coffee strong enough, Don?" She looked at him anxiously. Usually she +made it weak for herself. + +"Oh, they never let us have it at all when we're training, mother," said +he, "and not strong at any time. I know the simple life." He smiled as +best he might. + +"I have lived it here, too, Don," said she slowly, "because I couldn't +well help it. I don't suppose anybody likes it when it's too simple. I +like things nice, so much. I've always longed to travel. You know, Don, +I hear of people going over to Europe, and I'm guilty of the sin of +envy. I live right here in this little place all the time--I've done so +all my life. I've scarcely been out of this town in twenty years. If I +could see pictures--if I could go to see the great actors--if I could +see a real theater--just once, Don--you don't know how happy I'd be. And +I'm sure there must be more beautiful countries than this. Still"--and +here she sighed--"Miss Julia and I have lived quite a life together--in +the books, the magazines--pictures too, sometimes." + +He looked at her dumbly now, trying to understand the steady heroism of +a life such as hers. The real character of his own mother never yet +fully had impressed itself upon him. Don Lane was a college graduate, +but now for the first time in his life he was beginning to think. + +"One thing," she added, "I'd never do. I'd never pretend to be what I +was not--I didn't ever pretend to have what I didn't have. You see me, +Don, and my life, pretty much as we are." + +"And all this has been for me?" + +"Yes," simply. "But although we grew up apart, I don't think I could +endure it if I thought we really were to part--if you would leave me +now. + +"I was half hoping," she went on musingly, "that you could find it in +your heart to stay here in this town." + +He shook his head. "Impossible! That's one thing you really mustn't ask +of me." + +"Yes, I feared you would think of it in that way! But, as for me, this +is my place--I've made my bed here, and I must lie in it. I know the +people of this town--I know what they'll all do to me now. You see, you +don't know these things yet." + +"No," said he, "but you and Miss Julia both will be paid back--the money +part of it--some time. As for me, I'm not going to have any home." + +She sat silent for quite a time, the meager breakfast now being ended +for both. + +"Oh, can't you forget her, Don? Can't you give her up?" she said +finally. + +"I can't forget her, Mother, but I'll have to give her up. It all +happened there on the car--just at once--in public." + +"I'm glad you never kissed her, Don," said she. "You're both so young." + +She shook her head slowly as she went on. "Love has to be loved in any +case. That means--I suppose it means--that for the very young, if it be +not one, it may later be another." + +He only smiled bitterly at this. "It all comes to the same thing in any +case," said he. "I'll have to tell her what I know, and we'll have to +part. It would be the same with any other woman, if there could be any +other. There can't be." + +"I've been frank with you, Don, and I don't know whether to be glad or +sorry for that. I'd love nothing so much in the world as to see you +happily married--but nothing in the world could so much hurt me as to +see you marry Anne Oglesby." + +"No fear of it!" + +"You'll tell her?" + +"Yes. Today." + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE MURDER + + +Once more the strident call of the telephone broke in, and Aurora Lane +stepped aside. + +"It's Miss Julia," said she excitedly, turning upon her son eyes +suddenly grown large. "Why, it's something awful! Don--a terrible thing +has happened--last night." + +"What's wrong--what's happened?" he demanded. + +"Mr. Tarbush--the city marshal--why, you know--he was +killed--murdered--last night--found this morning! It was about one +o'clock, as near as they can tell, Miss Julia says. It's all over town." + +An exclamation left the young man's lips. "What's that? Murdered?" + +"Yes, yes--wait----" She spoke on into the telephone. "Yes, Julia, Don +and I were just at breakfast--no, we've not been on the street yet--one +o'clock, you said? That was when we were just coming home from the +library!" + +"Mother," said Don, "that's right! It must have been just about one +o'clock, wasn't it?" + +She looked at him steadily for a time, as she dropped the receiver, her +own face a trifle pale. "Yes--we hadn't gone to sleep at the time it +happened. He was killed right in front of his own house, Miss Julia +says." + +"And where is that?--you see, I don't know much about the town." + +"Beyond the square, about three blocks from the farther corner--the +little house with the low fence in front, and the deep front yard." + +"We didn't pass that when we came up from the station?" + +"No, we came another street. But, Don----" + +"Yes?" + +"When you were running last night, you must have passed right close to +there! You didn't see anything strange?" + +"Of course not! I'd have looked into it. I don't recall that particular +house. + +"Well," he added, after a moment's silence, "in spite of all that +happened yesterday between him and us, I'm not going to call him +anything but a good man--now." + +She looked at him strangely--studied his face steadily. + +"I'll be going out now, I think--I'm going to run over to see Julia for +a time. Please don't go out on the street, Don. Stay right here. We got +into trouble enough yesterday." + +"You needn't fear," said he. "There's nothing and nobody in this town I +want to see. I'll be glad when I shake the dust of it off my feet--when +I once get squared away in my own business you shall leave this place +and live with me." + +And then, as there came to him again and again the anticipated pain of +parting with the one he himself loved, he came up to his mother and put +his arms once more upon her shoulders. Again her hands found his hair. +She cast a quick glance about her, as though in his defense. + +"Don," said she, "I think I'll never get over thinking of you as just a +boy, a little boy." + +He tried to smile. "Pity you didn't drown me in the pool yonder," said +he. + +It was the most cruel thing he could have found to say, although he +spoke only in his own bitterness, careless, as a man so often is, of a +woman's hurts. But she left him without comment; and soon he had resumed +his own restless walking up and down in the narrow quarters which seemed +to him such a prison. + +Meantime all Spring Valley was afoot and agog over this news. It was the +most sensational thing that had happened, as Aaron Craybill said, since +Ben Wilson's wife went crazy out on the farm, come four years ago, and +killed her four babies, and hid in the haystack until they found her +three days later, and sent her to the asylum. And so forth, and so +forth. + +All the good folk met in groups at home or in the streets, so that +within an hour after breakfast there was not a soul in all Spring Valley +did not know that the town marshal had just been killed by some unknown +person for some unknown reason. The news seemed dulling, stupefying. The +clerks who opened the drug stores around the public square, the only +shops open of the Sunday, were slow in their sweeping out that morning. +Pedestrians on the streets walked slowly. The entire life of the town +seemed slow. The sluggish, arresting solemnity of death sat upon all the +little community. + +Spring Valley had no daily newspaper, and even the weekly _Clarion_, a +production of some six pages, had its trials in making a living there, +so close was the village to larger towns which reached out and covered +most of its commercial needs in this time of telegraph and trolley. The +editor of the _Clarion_ was, naturally, the correspondent of the largest +daily of the near-by metropolis. Twice in all his life he had had +opportunity for a first page story in the great city daily. His first +metropolitan opportunity was when the aforementioned farmer's wife had +killed her children, some four years ago. And now here was something +quite as big. Editor Anderson sat at his own breakfast table for more +than half an hour pondering on the opening sentence which he was going +to write in his dispatch to the morning daily. + +By eleven-thirty he had written his story, and had taken it down to the +station agent for transmission by wire; and that worthy told him that as +soon as Number Five got by he would begin to send the message. "I can't +stop for anything so long as that now," said he. + +It was somewhat longer as written than as printed, but Mr. Anderson +described the murder of the city marshal in the following terms: + + The progressive little city of Spring Valley, Jackson County, + this state, was electrified this morning by the startling news + of the murder of the well-known city marshal, Mr. Joel Tarbush, + a man of sterling qualities, who has held the office for many + years, and who had endeared himself in the hearts of the + community not only for his discharge of his official duties, + but for his kindliness of heart. The funeral will occur + tomorrow afternoon at half-past three. Reverend William D. + Rawlins will give the funeral address. + + The city of Spring Valley is all excitement at this writing. No + trace of the cowardly assassin has yet been found, and the + entire affair remains shrouded in the deepest mystery, which + not even the keenest intellects have been able to penetrate. + There is no one who can ascribe a motive sufficient to inspire + the murder of so respected and harmless a citizen. + + Some have ascribed the fiendish act to some hobo or tramp who + may have taken revenge on the marshal for some real or fancied + injury in the past. But no one can recall any instance in which + the deceased has ever incurred the enmity of any such + characters, so that all remain at a loss how to account for + this act. There seems to have been no eyewitness, and therefore + all is but mere conjecture. + + Your reporter was among the first at the premises early this + morning, and thus gained all the information that can be + secured at this writing. He has interviewed Miss Audrey + Tarbush, daughter of the deceased, who had for many years kept + house for him in their residence on Mulberry Street, about five + blocks from the courthouse, where the deceased had a small + garden and raised vegetables and flowers which he sold in the + best families of our flourishing city. + + Miss Audrey Tarbush, when interviewed by our reporter, said + that she had last night, according to her usual custom, retired + at the hour of half-past nine. She did not attend the exercises + at the city library, where most of the elite of the town were + present last night, because of a headache from which she + suffered. She left the front door unlocked, as was her custom, + for the entry of her father when he had finished the duties of + his day's work. Usually, Marshal Tarbush came home at about ten + o'clock, and himself then retired. On this night, by reason of + certain extraordinary occurrences during the preceding day, he + thought it wise to remain out later than usual. This was in + accordance with his well-known courage and his conscientious + endeavor to protect the residents of the city against any + possible danger. + + It was about a quarter after one o'clock, as near as Miss + Audrey Tarbush can recall, that she was awakened by the sound + of footfalls on the front porch. She called out, "Who's there?" + but got no answer. As she went to the door her father succeeded + in opening it and staggered in. He sank down into a chair near + the center table. She saw then that he was very pale, and had a + wound upon his head from which blood was still flowing. Much + alarmed, she inquired of him what had occurred. The deceased + was unable to answer. He seemed to be approaching a sort of + coma. + + "Who was it? Who did it?" Miss Audrey Tarbush demanded of him. + It was a dramatic situation. + + The deceased was unable to make an intelligent reply. "Someone + hit me," he muttered. That was all he could manage to say, and + that was all she could catch of his last words. Before long his + head sank forward and he breathed his last almost in her arms. + Unassisted she was able to carry the body of her father to the + near-by sofa. + + At that late hour the telephone operator had gone home, so she + was unable to call any of the neighbors by means of the + telephone. She does not recall how long she was alone with the + dead body of her esteemed parent, but after a time her cries + from the front porch were heard. The neighbors came to her + assistance, but nothing could be done. + + Examination of the remains of the deceased revealed a long and + ragged wound over the upper and left-hand part of the head, + breaking the cuticle for a distance of some four or five + inches. The marshal's hat had been on when he was struck. The + skull was broken for a distance of more than two inches, + according to the examination of Dr. Amos N. Beals, who examined + the body, the left parietal bone being crushed in as by some + heavy instrument. + + Your reporter deduces the following theory of the crime. At a + late hour, after City Marshal Tarbush had finished his duties + in the public square, he went towards his home, the public + meeting at the library having by this time been dismissed. At a + distance of perhaps fifty feet west of the front gate of his + own home the deceased was approached by some miscreant, who + with some heavy blunt instrument struck him down from behind, + and who then made his escape, leaving no sign behind him. No + club or weapon of any kind was found. + + After receiving his death blow this estimable citizen seems to + have walked, steadying himself against the top rail of the + fence, until he reached the gate. The bloody finger prints upon + the top of the fence were no doubt made by his own fingers, + which he must have raised up to his head. He was able to enter + his own gate, come up his own walk, and ascend his own front + steps. Up to that time no one can tell the story. What ensued + after that has been told by your reporter in the interview with + Miss Audrey Tarbush, his loving daughter. + + So ended a long and honorable life. The pallbearers will be + chosen from leading citizens of the town, but their names have + not yet been determined. He will be buried by the Knights + Templar, to which order he belonged, probably on Sunday + afternoon, because, although such haste may appear unseemly, + this early funeral will allow a representative attendance of + all the members of the order, including practically all our + leading citizens, with their full music, so that the concluding + exercises may thus show a greater tribute of respect, the + attendance at any later day being sure to be far less general. + + Your reporter has interviewed prominent citizens as to the + cause of this crime which has so shocked our community. When + approached by your reporter, Judge William Henderson, + well-known candidate for the United States senatorship, former + member of the Republic State Central Committee and prominent + citizen in this state, said, "I cannot hazard even a guess at + the perpetrator of this ghastly crime which has so shocked our + community." + +The story written by Mr. Anderson ended at this point. As printed it +ended considerably in advance of this point; but at least, as he later +told his wife, he had done his best to give his paper a good story. By +the time his message was waiting in the hands of the station agent, +telephone wires were busy between Spring Valley and other larger towns. +The early afternoon papers in Columbus were on the streets by +eleven-thirty with big headlines, and a few lines of type about the +murder of "County Sheriff Abel Tarbush of Spring Valley, Jackson County, +for which murder four tramps had been suspected and placed in jail." The +deceased was described as a prominent Mason. By that time the star +reporters of the morning dailies were on the through train, Number Five, +bound east from Columbus to Spring Valley, as many learned by telephone; +so that the arrival of Number Five this day would be a matter of special +importance. + +Of exact details in all these matters, Don Lane knew but little. It was +for reasons of his own, easily obvious, that he went down to the little +station to meet the through train from the West. Anne Oglesby was +coming! + +His mother did not accompany him, of course, and he therefore was quite +alone. Of all those whom he encountered hurrying in the same direction, +all those who packed the little platform and who stood here and there in +groups speaking solemnly one with the other, he could count not a +friend, not an acquaintance. Dully he felt that here and there an eye +was turned upon him, that here and there a word was spoken about him. He +dismissed it as part of the aftermath of his own troubles of the +previous day. He walked nervously up and down, impatiently looking +westward down the line of rails, his own contemptuous hatred for all +these lost in the greater emotion that filled his heart. Anne was +coming--she was almost here! And he must say good-by. + +Meantime, in the courthouse, there was going forward due action on the +part of the officers of the law intrusted with the solution of such +mysteries as this murder. The sheriff, a large and solid man, Dan Cowles +by name, was one of the first to inspect the premises where the crime +had been committed. Shortly after that he went over to the office of +Blackman, Justice of the Peace and coroner, who by ten o'clock that +morning had summoned his jury of six men--Nels Jorgens, the blacksmith; +Mr. Rawlins, the minister of the Church of Christ; Ben McQuaid, the +traveling man; Newman, the clothing merchant; J. B. Saunders, the Knight +Templar; Jerome Westbrook, clerk in the First National Bank. + +It chanced that the county prosecutor, a young man by the name of +Slattery, was out of town at this time, so that the executive side of +the law for a moment hesitated. The sheriff therefore called up Judge +Henderson and asked his presence at the courthouse for a consultation. +The two were closeted for some time in the sheriff's office. At this +time the deliberations of the coroner's jury would have been well +advanced; therefore, Sheriff Cowles took up the telephone and called up +Coroner Blackman at the Tarbush residence, just as the latter was upon +the point of calling for a verdict of the jury in the accustomed words, +"Murder at the hands of party or parties unknown." + +"Wait, Mr. Coroner!" said Sheriff Cowles. "There's going to be some more +witnesses. Keep your jury together." + +A few moments later the long shrieking whistle of Number Five was heard +as she came up out of the Paw Paw Creek bottoms, climbing the hill at +the brick yards, and swung around the curve through South Spring Valley +into the stretch of straight track leading down to the station. As the +grinding brakes brought the heavy train finally to a standstill, three +or four young men swung down from the day coaches--reporters from +outside towns. + +Don Lane elbowed his way to the edge of the platform. His eye was +searching eagerly along the train exits for someone else--someone else +whom he longed and yet dreaded to see. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +IN THE NAME OF THE LAW + + +Don's moody face suddenly lighted up. A young woman was stepping down +from one of the cars at the farther end of the train, the porter +assisting her to the footstool. Now she was coming steadily along the +edge of the platform, carrying in one hand a trim little bag, in the +other a trim little umbrella. Now she was looking about, expectant. It +was she--Anne! + +His heart leaped out to her, his love rose surgingly at sight of her, +sweet and beautiful as she seemed, and all so fit for love of man. + +A tall young girl she was, who walked with head well up and the +suggestion of tennis about her--an indefinable something of chic also +about her, as indicative of physical well-being as that suggested by +some of the young faces on the magazine covers of the day; which would +explain why in her college Anne Oglesby always was known as "the +magazine girl." She had straightforward gray eyes, a fine mouth of much +sweetness. Above her forehead rose a deep and narrow ruff of dense brown +hair, golden brown. Trim, yet well-appointed, she was one of those types +whom unhesitatingly we class as aristocrats. A young woman fit for any +higher class, qualified for any rank, she seemed--and a creature utterly +apart from the crowd that now jostled her on the narrow platform. + +Her eyes, too, lighted up at sight of the young man who now hurried +forward to meet her, but no unseemly agitation marked her own personal +conduct in public. Demure, clean, cool and sweet, all in hand, she did +not hasten nor hold back. + +Dieudonné Lane had told his mother that never yet had he kissed Anne +Oglesby. Now, at sight of her and at the thought that almost at once +they must part forever, a great rebellion rose in his heart. He stepped +forward swiftly, impulsively, irresistibly. + +He caught her quickly in his arms before all the crowd and kissed +her--once. It was his great salutation to love--a salutation of great +longing--a salutation which meant farewell. + +She gasped, flushed rosy red, but walked straight along with him as he +caught the bag from her hands. She looked up at him, astonished, yet not +wholly resentful. It was no place for speech on the part of either. The +dust of the street seemed naught to him or her, and as for this curious +crowd, they did not chill nor offend--Anne Oglesby suddenly wished to +take all the world into her arms and greet it. Anne Oglesby at that +moment loved--the touch of this man's lips on hers had wrought the +irrevocable, immortal, awful change. + +They had not yet spoken a word, these two, at the time he left her to +call some vehicle for her use. He turned and looked directly into the +face of Dan Cowles, sheriff, a man whom he had never seen before, but +who now reached out and laid a hand upon his shoulder. Cowles had that +instant reached the station platform. + +Don would have passed, but the sheriff spoke: + +"I want you. Come with me." + +The tempestuous blood of the young man flamed at this, but now, as he +looked into the solemn face before him, he found something to give him +pause. + +"What's up?" he demanded. "Who are you?" + +"I'm the sheriff of this county," said Cowles. "Come with me." + +"What do you want?" again demanded Don. "I'm with this young lady." + +"That's no difference," said Cowles. + +"It must be about the Tarbush matter," said Dewdonny Lane. "I'll +testify, but I know nothing of that. I'll come on over directly. This +young lady is going to Judge Henderson's." + +The sheriff looked at the young girl curiously. The crowd now had surged +about them. Like so many cattle at the smell of blood, a strange low +sound, animal-like, a sort of moan of curiosity, seemed to rise. +Wide-eyed, the girl turned. + +"What is it, Don?" she exclaimed. "What has happened? The Tarbush +case--what do you mean?" + +"I'm going to take him to the coroner's hearing, miss," said the sheriff +in a low tone of voice. + +"Why, you see, Anne," began Don, "the city marshal of this town was +killed last night. I suppose the coroner is looking into it. It's a +terrible thing--the town's all upset--haven't you heard anything of it?" + +"Why, no. I left home before any of our papers came out. How did it +happen?" + +Don felt the sheriff again touch his arm. "Step into my car," said he, +"both of you--you get on the front seat with me." + +A moment later they were whirling off up the dusty street toward the +central part of the town. The crowd, breaking into little groups, came +hurrying on along the sidewalks, some even falling into a run in the +middle of the street. + +"Well, he got him!" said one citizen to another. "Quick work for the +sher'ff, wasn't it? A little more and that fellow would 'a' got off on +that train, like enough. That's what he was down here for. I seen him +lookin' for the train." + +"Yes, and that young fellow had a dangerous look on him, too," said +another. "He's _bad_, that's what he is! Look how he showed it +yesterday--right after court, too." + +Each had this or that comment to make, but all followed on now toward +the scenes where the further action in the drama of the day must now +ensue. + +Cowles pulled up on the side of the square on which Judge Henderson had +his office. "You may get out here, Miss," said he. "I think you'll find +the Judge in right now." + +"But why--what's the reason----" she began, much perturbed, and looking +at Don. "What's wrong, Don? Aren't you coming?" + +"Yes, Mr. Sheriff," said Don, "let me go up with her. I'll be right on +over." + +The big man looked at the two, a sort of pity in his face. "I'm sorry," +said he, "but you'll have to come with me right away. Tell me, are you +Miss Oglesby, his kin from over Columbus way?" + +"Yes, yes," said she. "I've been here before. But tell me, what does +this mean--this murder? It's an awful thing, isn't it? It seems to me I +remember the marshal's name--maybe I've seen him. Who did it--whom do +they suspect?" + +"That's what we don't know for sure," said the sheriff, "and it's what +we've got to find out." + +"Why, who would ever have thought it of this little town!" + +"Things happen in this little town, I reckon, about the same as they do +anywhere," said the sheriff. + +"Don----" She turned to him once more as she stood on the pavement, he +still remaining on the front seat of the car where the sheriff's hand +restrained him. "Why, Don----" + +But the sheriff's solemn face was turned towards her. He shook his head. +An instant and the car had whirled away from the curb. + +They had parted, almost before they had met! + +To Dieudonné Lane, ignorant as he was of the cause of all this, it +seemed that the final parting of all had come, and, bitterly he +reflected, they had had no chance--no chance whatever--for what was due +them from their love, their life itself. + +Anne Oglesby, the kiss of her lover's lips still sweet and trembling +upon her mouth, her own mind confused, her own heart disturbed, turned +towards the dusty stair, all her senses in a whirl. And within five +minutes Don Lane, very pale and much distressed, was in the front part +of the little home of Joel Tarbush. The officer had brought him before +Justice Blackman, the coroner, and the coroner's jury, six solemn-faced +men who sat now in the front parlor which had no other occupants save +the red-eyed daughter of the dead man, and save the long and shrouded +figure which lay upon the couch near by. + +Don Lane could not misread the hostility of the gaze turned upon him by +most of these whom now he saw. + +Something suddenly caught at his heart--his first feeling of fear, of +uncertainty; but even this was mingled with a rage at fate, which could +be so cruelly unjust to him. And always, in spite of himself, he felt +his eyes turning to look, awed, terrified, upon the long thing which lay +upon the couch. And always the eyes of these six men saw what he did, +saw what he saw. + +"This is Dewdonny Lane," said the Sheriff briefly, and himself sat down +to await the progress of events. + +The formalities were few. "You may be sworn," said the coroner to +him--"it's just as well." Then the oath administered, Blackman began the +regular questions, and Don answered steadily. + +"My name is Dieudonné Lane. I am twenty-two years of age. I have no +residence as yet. I am a graduate in engineering. I'm going to Wyoming +some time this month to take up my work there." + +There was a little silence in the room, and then the coroner began +again: + +"Where were you just now?" he asked. "We sent for you at your home." + +"I was at the station--I went to meet a friend." + +"What friend was it?" + +Don Lane flushed red. "What difference is it? Oh, if I must answer, it +was Miss Anne Oglesby, of Columbus. I went down to the train to meet +her." + +Sheriff Cowles nodded. "That's true," said he. "I took her up to Judge +Henderson's office myself." + +"What relations have you with this young lady?" asked Blackman. + +"That's not the business of anyone," said Don Lane hotly. + +"Do you want counsel to protect you now?" + +"No, why should I? I am perfectly willing to tell all I know about the +case, and that's all I can do. There's no lawyer I'd send for anyhow." + +"Where were you last night at about midnight?" + +"I was at the library meeting with my mother." + +"When did you leave there?" + +"It must have been midnight or later--oh, yes, I remember seeing the +town clock as we passed through the square. That was just before one +o'clock--perhaps ten or fifteen minutes. We were out late--every one +was." + +"Who was with you when you were going home?" + +"My mother, and for a time Mr. Rawlins here--one of you gentlemen of the +jury. He will know. Just as we left the library we were joined by Mr. +Horace Brooks." + +"Where did you go?" + +"We three walked on together. It was at the second corner of the square, +where Mulberry Street turns off, that Mr. Brooks left me." + +Nels Jorgens, one of the jury, now spoke up. "That's true," said he. "I +saw the three of them walking along the front of the square, and saw +them turn in at Mulberry Street. Across from where I live I saw two +people at the gate. It was a man--a tall man--and her--Aurora Lane." + +"You yourself were not at the gate then?" + +"No," said Don, "I had left just at the corner of the square." + +"Why did you leave them?" + +"Well, I wanted to have a little run before I went to bed. I'm used to +taking exercise every night--I always did at college, to keep up my +training." + +"Where did you go when you were running?" + +"I may be mistaken in the directions, but it was across the square, +opposite from Mulberry Street. I turned to the right. I must have run +perhaps four or five blocks, I don't know just how far it was. It was +quite warm." + +"Did you come into this street?" + +"I don't really know." + +"You didn't see anybody?" + +"Not a soul. I didn't hear a sound." + +"What time was that?" + +"I heard the clock strike one before I turned back." + +"Gentlemen of the jury," said the coroner, "it was just about that time +that Joel Tarbush was killed, right here." + +"That's true," said Don Lane. "It's terrible to think of--but why----" + +"You heard Judge Henderson's testimony, gentlemen," went on the coroner. +"He told of seeing these three people pass by on the square in front of +his office stair. Just before that he had said good night to Tarbush +himself. He saw Tarbush start right over this way for his home. Now, +just in time to catch him before he got into his home--if a man was +running fast--a man _did_ run from the square over in this direction!" + +The members of the jury remained silent. Their faces were extremely +grave. + +"And, gentlemen, you have heard the testimony of other witnesses here +before now, stating that this witness was heard to make threats to +Tarbush yesterday afternoon, right after he was dismissed from my own +court upstairs. Mr. Jorgens, I believe you were there. What did this +young man say after he had for the second time assaulted Ephraim +Adamson--twice in one day, and entirely regardless of the rebuke of the +law?" + +"He said, Mr. Coroner," replied Nels Jorgens gravely, even with sadness +in his face, "just when he came out of the crowd where he had left +Adamson laying on the ground already--he said to Tarbush, 'You'll come +next'--or I'll get you next'--something of that kind." + +"Was he angry at that time?" + +"Yes, Mr. Coroner, he was," said Nels Jorgens, against his will. + +Ben McQuaid leaned over to whisper to Jerome Westbrook. "It seems like +this young fellow comes in here with his college education and +undertakes to run this whole town. Pretty coarse work, it looks like to +me." + +Jerome Westbrook nodded slowly. He recalled Sally Lester's look. + +Of all the six faces turned toward him from the scattered little group +of the coroner's jury, not more than two showed the least compassion or +sympathy. Don Lane's hot temper smarted under the renewed sense of the +injustice which had assailed him yet again. + +"What's the game?" he demanded. "Why am I brought here? What's the +matter with you people? Do you mean to charge me with killing this man? +What have I done to any of you? Damn your town, anyhow--the rotten, +lying, hypocritical lot of you all!" + +"The less you say the better," said the coroner; and the sheriff's +steady gaze cautioned Don Lane yet more. + +"Now, gentlemen," went on Blackman, "we have heard a number of witnesses +here, and we have not found any man here that could bring forward any +sight or sound of any suspicious character in this town. There hasn't +been a tramp or outsider seen here, unless we except this young man now +testifying here. The man on whose body we now are a-setting hadn't a +enemy in this town, so far as has been shown here--no, nor so far as +anyone of us knows. There has been no motive proved up here which would +lead us to suspect anyone else of this crime." + +Ben McQuaid once more leaned over to whisper to his seat-mate: "It's a +likely thing a man would be running for his health, a night like last +night, when he didn't have to! Ain't that the truth?" + +The coroner rapped with his pencil on the table top. He was well filled +with the sense of his own importance. In his mind he was +procureur-general for Spring Valley. And in his mind still rankled the +thought of the fiasco in his courtroom but the day before, in which he +had made so small a figure. + +"I want to ask you, Mr. Cowles," he said, turning to the sheriff, "if +you ever have seen this young man before." + +"Only once," said the sheriff, standing up. "Last night or this morning, +just after the clock had struck one--say, two or three minutes or so +after one o'clock--I was going out of my office and going over to the +east side of the square. I met this young man then. As he says, he was +running--that is, he was coming back from this direction, and running +toward the southeast corner of the square, the direction of his own +home." + +"Was he in a hurry--did he seem excited?" + +"He was panting a little bit. He was running. He didn't seem to see me." + +"Oh, yes, I did," said Don. "I remember you perfectly--that is, I +remember perfectly passing some man in the half darkness under the trees +as I came along that side of the square. As I said, it was warm." + +"Now, gentlemen, we have thought it over for a long time," said the +coroner, after a solemn pause. "We must bring in our verdict before +long. It must either be 'party or parties unknown,' or we must hold +someone we do suspect. + +"We have had no one here that we could suspect until now. Take this +young man--he is practically a stranger. He proves himself to be of +violent and ungovernable temper. Allowed to go once from the justice of +the law, he forgets that and goes violent again. He assaults a second +time one of our citizens, Mr. Adamson. He resists arrest once by a +officer of the law, and in the same afternoon he threatens that officer. +He says, 'I'll get you.' + +"This young man is seen just before one o'clock running over in this +direction. Just a little ahead of him the victim of this crime was seen +walking. He was killed, as his daughter testifies, somewhere just about +one o'clock--it was at that time that he staggered into the house here. + +"Just after one o'clock this young man is seen running--one of the +hottest nights we have had this summer--running away from the scene of +the crime, and toward his own home. + +"I don't want to lead your own convictions in any way. I am willing to +say, however, that if we have not found a man to hold for this crime, +then we ain't apt to find him!" + +"But, gentlemen, you don't mean"--poor Don began, his face pale for the +first time, a sudden terror in his soul--"you _can't_ mean that _I_ did +this!" + +But he gazed into the faces of six men, upon whom rested the duty of +vengeance for the wrong done to the society which they represented. Of +these six all but two were openly hostile to him, and those two were +sad. Rawlins, minister of the Church of Christ; Nels Jorgens, the +blacksmith--they two were sad. But they two also were citizens. + +"This witness," went on Coroner Blackman, "has in a way both abused us +and defied us. He said he was not on trial. That is true. We can't try +him. All we can do is to hold any man on whom a reas'nable suspicion of +this crime may be fixed. We could hold several suspects here, if there +was that many. All we do is to pass the whole question on to the grand +jury when it meets here. That's tomorrow morning. Before the grand jury +any man accused can have his own counsel and the case can be taken up +more conclusive. So the question for us now is, Shall we call it 'party +or parties unknown,' or shall we----" + +Don Lane dropped into a seat, his face in his hands, in his heart the +bitter cry that all the world and all the powers of justice governing +the world had now utterly forsaken him. The sheriff rose, and taking him +by the arm, led him into another room. + +In ten minutes a half-dozen reporters, trooping up from the train and +waiting impatiently at the outer door, knew the nature of the verdict: +"We the jury sitting upon the body of Joel Tarbush, deceased by +violence, find that deceased came to his death by a blow from a blunt +instrument held in the hands of Dieudonné Lane." + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +ANNE OGLESBY + + +Judge William Henderson was sitting alone in the front room of his cool +and spacious office, before him his long table with its clean glass top, +so different from the work-bench of the average country lawyer. +Everything about him was modern and perfect in his office equipment, for +the judge had reached the period in his development in which he brought +in most of his own personal ideas from an outer and a wider world--that +same world which now occupied him as a field proper for one of his +ambitions. + +As he sat he was a not unpleasing figure of middle-aged success. His +gray hair was swept back smoothly from his temples; his red cheeks, +fresh reaped, bore the tinge of health. The large white hand before him +on the glass-topped table betokened prosperity and success in every +faint and fat-hid line. + +Judge Henderson now was absorbed in the contemplation of a bit of paper +which lay in his hand. It was a message from the telephone company, and +it came from Slattery, county prosecutor. Something in it was of +disturbing nature. Judge Henderson's brow was furrowed, his face was +troubled. He seemed, thus alone and not stimulated by an audience, years +older than he had been but now. + +He had been looking at this bit of paper for some time so intently that +now he did not hear his hall door open--did not see one who paused there +and then came, lightfooted, swiftly, across the space, to catch him and +blindfold him as he sat. He heard the rustle of her skirts, and knew at +once the deep counterfeit of her voice. + +"Who is it?" she demanded, her hand over his eyes. + +"Anne!" he exclaimed, catching at her hand. "You are here--when did you +come?" + +She went round and kissed him. "Just now," said she, "on the train from +the city. You were not expecting me?" + +"No, not at all." + +"Well, here I am, Nunkie,"--she sometimes called her guardian by this +pet name, although really they were not akin--"I'm finished and turned +out complete--I'm done my college work now and ready for what we +graduates call the Battle of Life. Do you think I'll do?" + +She drew back and made him a pretty curtsey, spreading out her skirts. +Indeed, she was very fair to look upon and he smiled at her admiringly. + +"You are beautiful, Anne," said he. "You are very beautiful--you are +fine." + +"Do I please you in every way?" said she. + +"Perfectly, my dear. You cannot do otherwise." + +She looked at him demurely. "I'm not so sure," said she. "Wait until you +have heard all I have to tell you." + +"What's wrong? Are you in debt?" + +"Worse than that, Nunkie dear--I'm engaged!" + +Now indeed he looked at her with sudden consternation in his face. +"What's that? You haven't told me anything of the sort." + +"I never knew it until just now--at the station." She came now and sat +down upon the arm of his chair. "It just happened yesterday--and today." + +She put up a finger to her lips and rubbed them, fearing that he might +see there the flame of the kiss they but now had borne. + +"Who is the young man--if you are really in earnest about all this? +Where did you meet him? Whoever he is, you've hardly done your duty by +me. I'm your guardian--I stand _in loco parentis_ for you. When did all +this happen?" + +"Yesterday, on the train. I didn't expect it myself. But I promised. +He's promised me. We were going to tell you about it at once." + +She was the very picture of happy and contented young womanhood as she +spoke. Not so happy was the man whom she addressed. + +"I can't guess at all whom you mean," said he. "Is he anybody--is he a +man of station--has he any business--has he any means? How old is +he--who is he?" + +"I can't answer so many questions all at once, Nunkie," said she. "But +I'm going to be very happy, I know that. Perhaps you can answer some of +the questions for yourself--perhaps you know him. Well, it's Dieudonné +Lane!--he's in town right now--a schoolmate of mine for four years. +Surely, I know all about him." + +Judge Henderson swiftly turned and looked at her steadily, cold +consternation on his face. "Anne!" he exclaimed. "That can't be! It's +absurd." + +"Oh, I expected that," said she easily. "That's because he hasn't any +money. I knew that. As for his family--he told me long ago that he was +an orphan, that his father died when he was very young, and left only +enough for his education, and that he would have to make his own way. +Very well, some men have had to do that--you have had to yourself, +Nunkie, isn't it true? And Don was born here in this very town----" + +He put out his hand over hers as it lay upon the table-top. "Anne!" said +he. "My child! You're but a child--an impulsive, foolish child. What +have you done? You have not pledged your word--to _him_?" + +"Oh, yes, I have. I'm promised--my promise is given. More----" + +"It's folly and worse than folly. It can't be--I won't have it--you hear +me?" He broke out savagely now. + +"I heard you--yes, but I'll jolly well not pay too much attention to +you, even when you roar at me that way. As I understand it, I'm of age. +I've been studying for four years to get ready to be able to know my own +mind--and I do! My own heart also. And I know what's due me." + +Her voice was low and very sweet, but the man who heard her winced at +its cutting calm. + +"You would marry a man like that, of no family, of no place, of no +name?" + +"Yes, I've just said that. I know all about it. We'll have to start at +the bottom; and I ask you, didn't you start that way?" + +"That's an entirely different proposition, my dear girl," said her +guardian. "Times were different then. You are an heiress--you are a +woman of family and place--and you don't have to go back to the old +days--you don't need to ruin your own life through such terrible +beginnings. + +"But now, do you know who this young man's people are?" He asked this +last after a considerable pause, during which his ward sat silent, +looking at him steadily. + +"Oh, yes. He told me he is an orphan--his father's dead long ago. And +his mother----" + +"You know his mother?" + +"Yes, a milliner--I believe. But a good woman." + +"Ah!" + +She still looked at him, smiling. "I am 'advanced,' you see, Nunkie! In +college we studied things. I don't care for the social rank--I want to +marry a _man_. I love Don. I love--well, that kind of man. I'm so +happy!" + +She squeezed him tight in a sudden warm embrace. "I love all the world, +I believe, Nunkie--even you, and you are an old bear, as everybody +knows! And I thank you for all those papers in the long envelopes--with +the lines and the crosses on them, and the pencil mark 'Sign +here'--powers of attorney and receipts, and bonds and shares and +mortgages and certificates--all that sort of thing. Am I very rich, +Nunkie?" + +"Not very, as heiresses go these days," said he. "You're worth maybe four +or five hundred thousand dollars, not very much. But that's not the +question. That's not really everything there is at stake in +this--although I'm well enough satisfied that's all this young man cares +for." + +"Thank you!" said she proudly. "I had not known that." + +"A good many things you have not known, my dear. Now listen here. Do you +know what this marriage would mean to me? I want to be United States +Senator from this state--and everything bids fair to see my ambition +gratified. But politics is a ticklish game." + +"Well, what on earth has that to do with me and Don?" + +"It has everything to do! I'm _not_ 'advanced,' I'm old fashioned enough +to know that social rank does count in my business at least. In politics +every little thing counts; so I tell you, for every reason in the world +you must dismiss this young man from your thoughts. You are quixotic, I +know--you are stubborn, like your mother--a good woman, but stubborn." + +He was arguing with her, but Anne could not read his face, although she +sought to do so--there seemed some veil hiding his real thoughts. And +his face was troubled. She thought he had aged very much. + +"In one particular matter," said she slowly, at last. "It seems to me a +woman should be stubborn. She should have her own say about the man she +is to marry." + +"How much time have you had to decide on this?" + +"Plenty. Twenty-four hours, or a little less--no, I'll say twenty +minutes. Plenty. Uncle--he kissed me--before the world. I can't take it +back--we have given--I have promised. Uncle, I have promised--well, all +through me." + +"Stop where you are!" said he. "Have you disgraced us all so soon? Has +it gone so far? However that is, you shall go no further." + +He rose, his fingers on the table-top, rapping in emphasis. + +"My dear," he said, "I am older than you, and I have seen the world more +than you have. I recognize fully enough the dynamic quality of what you +call love--what I call merely sex in younger human beings. It is a thing +of extreme seriousness, that's true. But the surest thing about all that +sort of thing is that it changes, it passes. You will forget all this." + +"You do me much honor!" said Anne Oglesby, coloring. "You speak with +much delicacy. But love me, love my lover." + +The swift resistance of a strong nature seemed suddenly to flash out at +Judge Henderson from her gray eyes. Suddenly he turned and took her arm. +He escorted her to the inner room, which served as his own study and +consultation chambers. + +"Come here," said he. "Well have to talk this thing over quietly. This +is a terrible matter--you don't know how terrible. There's a lot under +this that you don't know at all. Anne, my dear girl, what can I say to +you to alter you in this foolish resolve?" + +"Nothing! I'm going to see his mother this very afternoon. He told me to +come, so I could meet his mother----" + +"You're going to do nothing of the kind!" said Judge Henderson in sudden +anger. "You're going to stay here and listen to reason, that's what +you're going to do! You undertake to go into a situation which reaches +wider than this town, wider than this state, do you? It is your duty, +then, to prevent me from _my_ duty? Are you so selfish, so egotistic as +all that?" + +She smiled at him amusedly, cynically, a wide and frank smile, which +irritated him unspeakably. He frowned. + +"It is time now for you to reflect. First--as you say--this young man +has no father. His mother----" + +He paused suddenly, his pallid face working strangely now. The shrill +summons of the telephone close at his hand as he sat had caused him to +start, but it was with relief. He took down the receiver and placed his +hand for the moment over the mouthpiece. + +"Aurora Lane--you don't know about her?" he began. + +Then she saw a sudden change of expression which passed over his face. +"Yes--yes," he said, into the telephone. "The jury has brought in its +verdict? _What's that?_----" + +The phone dropped clattering from his hand on the desk, so shaking and +uncertain was his grasp. He turned to his ward slowly. + +"You don't know!" said he. "You don't know what that was I have just +heard this moment! Well, I'll tell you. Dieudonné Lane has been held to +the grand jury--while we've been sitting here. They've charged him with +the murder of Tarbush, the city marshal. My God! Anne----" + +It seemed an hour to both before she spoke. Her face, first flushed, +then pale, became set and cold as she looked toward the man who brought +this news. Once she flinched; then pulled together. But yesterday a +girl, this hour a young woman, now she was all at once mature, resolved. + +"You heard me, did you not?" he went on, his voice rising. +"Charged--with murder! No one in the world knew he was alive--no one but +you, and you never told me of him--no one ever dreamed of him till the +last twenty-four hours, when he came blundering in here--out of his +grave, I say! And in twenty-four hours he has made his record here--and +_this_ is his record. Do you know what this means? He may not come +through--I want to say the chances look bad for him, very bad indeed." +Judge Henderson's smooth face showed more agitation than ever it had in +all his life before. + +"Uncle," she said, after a long time, reaching out a hand to him, "now +is your opportunity!" + +"What do you mean? _My_ opportunity? It's--it's a terrible thing--you +don't know." + +"Yes, yes. But you say you have been in the place of a parent to me. +That's true--I owe you much--you have been good--you have been kind. Be +good, be kind now! Oh, don't you see what is your duty? Now you can use +your learning, your wisdom, your oratory. You can save Don--for me. +You're my parent--can't you be his, too? We're both orphans--can't you +be a father for us both? Of _course_ you will defend him. He hasn't +much. He couldn't pay you now. But I have money--you've just told me +that I have. + +"Oh, no, I don't mean that, about the money--but listen," she went on, +since he made no reply. "Do you think _I'd_ desert him now that he's in +trouble? Do you think any woman of my family would do that? We're not so +low, I trust, either of us, either side. You are not so low as that, I +trust, yourself. Why, you'd not desert anyone, surely not an orphan boy, +just starting out--you'd never in the world do that, I know." + +In answer he smoothed out before her on the desk top the crumpled paper +he had held in his hand. + +"This," said he, "was brought to me just before you came in yourself. +Before you told me of this affair, I was retained by the state's +attorney to assist in the prosecution of the perpetrator of this crime, +_whoever he might be_. I must say it is one of the most terrible crimes +ever known in this community. The man who did it must pass from among +his fellow men forever. It is my duty to accept this retainer for the +prosecution, as I have done----" + +"What--as you _have_ done?--You'd help prosecute him--you'd help send +him to the gallows, if you could--as innocent as he is? You--you--and he +has no one to counsel with--only a poor woman, a widow, who's never had +a chance--he an orphan, without a friend! You'd do _that_?" + +His large white hand was raised restrainingly. "We must both be calm," +said he. "I've got to think." + +"Why, where will Don go--where will they put him?" + +"He will go to jail, and be there until the grand jury meets--longer +than that, perhaps--and yet longer, if the trial judge and jury bring a +verdict against him!" + +"But that's taking him away from me--right now--that's not right!--Can't +he get out?" + +"He might perhaps be released on bail if the bail were large enough, but +the crime is the maximum crime, and the suspicion is most severe. I +don't know what means he can command, but he needs counsel now. + +"But one thing, Anne," he added, "I forbid you. You must have nothing to +do with him. Keep away from him. Go home, and don't meddle in this case. +It must take its course." + +"I would follow him to the foot of the gallows, if need be, Judge +Henderson!" broke out Anne Oglesby in a sudden flare of passionate +anger. "Ah, fine!--to give your word, your promise--to give your love, +and then within an hour forget it all--to leave the one you love when +the trouble comes! Is that all one gains--is that all one may +expect--is that all a woman ought to do for the man she loves? Is that +all she ought to expect from a man? Suppose it were I in trouble--would +_he_ forget me? Would _he_ forsake me? Then shall I? You don't know me +if you think that of me! + +"You don't know me at all," she blazed on at him, as he turned away. +"I've tried to reason. Whatever my success at that, the answer's in my +own heart now." (Her heart, now beating so fast under the heaving bosom +on which both her hands were clasped.) + +"And you forget me? I--I'm in trouble now--it's awful--it's a terrible +trouble that I'm in now." Judge Henderson's voice was trembling, his +face was pale. + +"You--in what way am I bound to you? Trouble--what do you mean? Why, +listen!--All your life you have lived with just one aim and purpose and +ambition in your heart--and that was yourself! Your own ambition--your +own pleasure, your own comfort--those were the things that have +controlled you always--don't I know, haven't I heard? You've been a very +leech in this town--you have taken _all_ the success in it--_all_ the +success of everybody, from _all_ its people--and used it for yourself! +It has been so common to you--you are so used to it--that you can't +think of anything else--you can't visualize anything else. You think of +yourself as the source and center of all good--you can't help +that--that's your nature. So I suppose you think you are altogether +within your rights when you tell me that I must wreck and ruin my own +life to save you and your ambition! Why, you are--you're a +_sponge_--that's what you are--you are just soaking in _all_ the +happiness of others--_all_ the success of others, I tell you--taking it +_all_ for yourself. 'Our most prominent citizen!' Great God! But what +has it cost this community to produce you--what are you asking it to +cost me and those I love? Drops in the same bucket? Food for you and +your ambition? Do you think I am going to stand that, when it comes to +me--me and him--the man I have promised--the man I love? You don't know +me! You don't know him! We'll fight!" + +He sat, so astounded at this sudden outburst--the first thing of the +kind he had ever heard from any human being in all his life--that for +the time he could make no reply at all. She went on bitterly now: + +"Men like you, sponges like yourself, have made what they call success +in all the ages of the world--yes, that's true. Great kings, great +cardinals, great politicians, great business men, great thieves have +made that kind of a success, that's true enough--I've read about them, +yes. Men of that sort--Judge Henderson--sometimes they stop at nothing. +They'd betray their very own. I'm not your blood, but if I were, I'd not +trust you! Men like you are so absorbed with their own vanity, their own +selfishness--they're so used to having everything given to them without +exertion, without cost, they grow regardless of what that cost may be to +the ones that do the giving. In time they begin to think themselves +apart from the rest of the world--don't you think that about yourself +now? Oh, are you better than the world? Or are you just a man, like the +rest of them? Didn't you ever know--didn't you ever kiss a woman in all +your life and know what that meant?" + +He had sat, his shocked face turned toward her, too stunned for answer. +But she saw him start as though under the blow of a dagger at her last +words. + +"Don't think this hasn't hurt," said she, more composedly now. "It's the +truth as far as I know it. With your power, your influence, you could +get him free--soon--very soon--perhaps. You could make us both happy. +But, so you say, that would make _you_ unhappy! I know you well enough +to know what the decision will be in a case like that, Judge Henderson! + +"As for me--" she was closer to him now, utterly fearless, as a woman is +who loves and sees the object of her love threatened--"our paths part +here, now! I'm of age and my own mistress. I know my own mind, as I've +told you. I'm going to stay--I'm going to stick--do you hear? I'm going +to love him long as he lives. I'm going to _marry_ him, if it's in a +jail!" + +Judge Henderson only began to wag his head now from side to side. His +face had gone ghastly. + +"Why, Uncle dear"--she came over to him now--"forgive me if I've been +too outspoken--it's only because I'm so strained." + +"Myself also," he groaned. "Strain? Why, yes. You don't know--you don't +know!" + +Suddenly she changed once more, still the woman, still the young girl, +as yet half ignorant of life, her hands still on her heaving bosom now, +the faint flush back in her cheeks. + +"He _kissed_ me, Uncle!" said she. "I don't know much, but it seems to +me if a man kisses a woman--in that way--it's _life_ for her and him! +They can't help it after that. After that, a woman's got to do just all +she can in the game of life--and he's got to do the best he knows. They +can't help it. He _kissed_ me.... And I told you I'll not desert him. It +wouldn't be right. And, right or wrong, I can't--I _can't_!" + +Panting, the tears now almost ready to drop from her moist eyes, she +stood, a beautiful picture of young womanhood, so soft, so fully fitted +for love and love's caresses; and now so wronged out of her love by +sudden fate. But in her there was no sign of weakness or of yielding. +The man who faced her felt the truth of that. His own face now was far +the more irresolute of the two--far the more agitated. + +Suddenly, haggard, frowning, he rose, at a sound which he heard in the +outer room. Someone had entered. + +As he stepped to the door between the two rooms, Judge Henderson turned, +his finger on his lips, and made signs that Anne should remain where she +was, undiscovered. The door hung just a trifle, wedged open by the +corner of a fallen rug. Judge Henderson had not time, or did not think, +to close it wholly. He stood face to face with the newcomer. + +It was Aurora Lane! + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +"AS YOU BELIEVE IN GOD!" + + +Aurora Lane and Judge Henderson both started back as they faced one +another. For the moment neither spoke. + +Aurora was pale, quite beyond her wont, haggard-looking about the eyes. +She had come direct from her home, without alteration of her usual daily +costume. In spite of all, she was very far from uncomely as she stood +now, about her the old indefinable stamp of class which always had clung +to her. Certainly she was quite the equal in appearance of this tall +man, soft from easy living, who faced her now, a trifle pasty of skin, a +trifle soft about the jaws, a trifle indefinite about the waist--a man +with a face as pale and haggard as her own. + +Tense as she was, her long schooling in repression stood her in such +stead as to leave her in the better possession of self-control. + +"My dear--my dear Madam----" began Judge Henderson. + +The hearer in the room beyond must have caught the pause in his voice, +its agitation--and must have heard the even tones of the woman as she +spoke at last, after a long silence. + +"I have come to your office, as you know, for the first time," said +Aurora Lane. She gave him no title, no formal address. "It is the first +time in twenty years." + +"You have lived a somewhat secluded life, yes, my dear Madam." His +voice, his manner, his attitude, all were labored. He at least knew or +suspected that he was talking to two women, and not one; for there was +no way for Anne to escape and no way in which he could be sure she did +not hear. + +"You know about him--about the boy? Of course, everyone in town does. He +didn't die. He's been away--in college. I never wanted him to see this +place. But now he's come back--you know all about it. He's in jail. +We've been thinking perhaps you could do something--that you would help +us." + +Her high, clear, staccato voice, easily audible far, now showed her own +keyed-up condition. + +Judge Henderson raised a large white hand. "My dear Madam," said he, +himself very far from calm, "let us be calm! Let us above all things be +calm and practical." + +Aurora Lane's face froze into a sudden icy mask of wonder, of +astonishment. She gulped a little. "I'm trying to be calm. I'm +desperate, or I'd never have come here. You know that." + +He was mumbling and clucking in his throat, gesturing imploringly, +trying to stop her swift speech, which might be overheard, but she went +on, not understanding. + +"Until just now I was so happy. He was done with his schooling--ready to +go out at his work. The expenses were very heavy for us, but we've +managed. Look!" + +She drew from her worn pocketbook the single bill that she had left in +all the world, a tight-creased, worn thing. "In some way I've managed to +hold on to this," said she. "It's all I've got left in all the world. +That's my twenty-odd years of savings--except what I've spent to bring +up my boy. I've got no more." + +"My dear Madam," said Judge Henderson again, sighing, "life certainly +has its trials at times." A remark sufficiently banal to pass muster +with both his hearers, Aurora Lane here and Anne Oglesby in the room +beyond. But, still ignorant of any other auditor, Aurora went on as +though she had not heard him: + +"I thought I'd come and talk to you--at last. If only Don could get out, +I'd be willing to leave with him. We'd never trouble anybody any more." +Her face was turned to him beseechingly. + +"I know, of course, that you could save him if you liked.... I've had a +pretty hard time of it. Don't you want to do this for him--for us--how +can you _help_ wanting to? You, of all men! My God! Oh, my God!" + +"Hush! Hush! Don't speak so loud! Pray compose yourself, my dear Madam," +exclaimed Judge Henderson, himself so far from composed. His own face +was ghastly in its open apprehension. "He's ruined himself, that's all, +that boy," he concluded lamely. + +She stood before him, stony cold, for a time, growing whiter and whiter. + +"And what about my own ruin? What does it leave to me, if they take my +boy--all I have in the world? I didn't think you could hesitate a +moment--not even you!" Her voice, icy cold, was that of another woman. + +He turned from her, flinging out his hands. "He has disgraced you----" +he began, still weakly; for he at least knew he was doubly on the +defensive now, before these two women, terrible in their love. + +"No, he has not!" flared Aurora Lane at last. "If I've had disgrace it's +not through any fault of his. If he raised a hand in my defense, it was +the first man's hand that has been raised for me in all this town--in +all my life!" + +She held before him again the tight-folded little bill, seeking with +trembling fingers to unfold it so that he might see its pitifully small +denomination. She shook it in his face in sudden rage. "That's my life +savings! If there was such a thing as justice in the world, would I be +helpless as this--so helpless that I could find it possible to come here +to talk to you? Justice? Justice! Ah, my God in heaven!" + +Aurora Lane's voice was slightly rising. She was fronting him in the +last courage of despair. "You'd see that boy perish--you'd let him die? +If I thought that was true, I'd be willing to do everything I could to +ruin this town. I'd pull the roof down on it if I were strong enough. +I'd throw myself away, indeed. I'd curse God--I'd die. Above all, I'd +curse you, with my last breath." + +Anne, in the next room, rooted in the horror of her silence, could not +have heard his reply, but almost she might have pictured him, standing +white, ghastly, trembling, as he was when he heard these words. + +"But you can't do it--you can't deny him--he's a human being like +yourself--he's part of----Ah, you'll get him free, I know!" Aurora's +voice was pleading now. Judge Henderson's own voice was hoarse, +unnatural, when at last he got it. + +"Look at this message," he croaked, in a half whisper; and showed her +the crumpled bit of paper which he had held in his own hand. He beckoned +to her--yet again--for silence, but she did not understand. + +"What is it?" asked Aurora. "What do you mean?" + +"From the state's attorney! I have accepted this retainer. I'm of the +prosecution! You have come too late. What can I do?" + +"Prosecution--what do you mean? Prosecute him--_Don_? Too late--my God! +Am I always too late--is it always in all the world for me--too late! +Prosecute _him_? What do you _mean_?" + +The sudden, wailing cry broke from her. Then her voice trailed off into +a whisper--a whisper which might have been heard very far--which was +heard through the half-closed door which led to the inner room. "Too +late!" And at length the long-tried soul of Aurora Lane broke out in a +final and uncontrolled rebellion, all bounds down, all restraint +forgotten, every instinct at last released of its long fettering: + +"You disown him--you'd disown your own flesh and blood--you'd let him +die! Why, you'd betray your own Master for the price of office and of +honor! Oh, I know, I know! The limelight! Publicity! Oh, you Judas!--Ah, +Judas! Judas! You, his father! _Your own son!_" + +Then sobs, deep, convulsive. + +Came sudden rustling of garments in the adjoining room. The intervening +door was flung wide. Anne Oglesby, her face pale, tense, came out into +the room where stood these two. + +"What is this?" she demanded of Judge Henderson. "This is Mrs. Lane? +_Don's your son?_" + +She turned to Aurora inquiringly. + +"I have heard--I could not help hearing. His father! Don told me his +father was dead. What's all this? Tell me!" + +For a moment they stood apart, three individuals only. Then, slowly, +with subtle affiliation of sex, the women drew together, allied against +the man. + +It was Anne who again was first to speak. Her voice was high, clear, +cold as ice, with a patrician note which came from somewhere out of the +past. + +"Let me have all this quite plain," said she. "Mrs. Lane said 'flesh and +blood!' Mrs. Lane said '_your own son!_' I heard her. What does it +mean?" + +"This is what it means!" said Aurora Lane, suddenly drawing Anne to her +closely, after her one swift glance. "My boy's in jail. This--this +man--Judge Henderson--is his father. He says he's hired to murder +him--and he's our child." + +"I didn't know!" broke out Judge Henderson, now facing both his hearers. +"I never knew! You said he was dead--you told me so. It's all half a +lifetime ago. I've had nothing to do with you, nor you with me, since we +broke off more than twenty years ago. That was as you wished. God! I was +only a man. You _said_ the child died." + +"Yes," said Aurora Lane, turning to Anne; "that's true--I did. I told +that one lie to protect the boy. I sent him away when he was a baby to +protect him. I said he was dead--to protect him--to keep him from ever +knowing. But you know--you saw him--you _felt_ it--you must have known, +yesterday." She confronted the trembling man once more. + +"Yesterday?" said Anne Oglesby. + +"Yes. There was another trial then--and Judge Henderson prosecuted then +also!" She turned again to him for his answer. + +"I dropped the case." + +"You dropped it because you were paid to drop it! You traded another man +out of his own life's ambition--a better man than you are--that's what +you did when you dropped the case. There's nothing more to trade--we've +nothing more to pay--but how can you prosecute him--now--when his very +life's at stake--when he's charged with murder? The punishment's death! +You'd send him to the gallows now--my boy--and yours? You didn't know +him then! Is it likely? Don't lie about it--if you didn't know him, +_why_ didn't you? Were you so busy looking at your own picture on the +wall--so wrapped up in your own ambitions, that you couldn't see +anything else? Couldn't you see your own flesh and blood--and mine? +What's twenty years? Haven't I lived them, and wouldn't I know +him--didn't I--when I saw him? You Judas!" + +Motionless, she stood looking at the speechless man before her, until +she felt the closer drawing to her of the tall young beauty at her side. + +"And you're Anne?" she said, turning to the girl, her own large dark +eyes now soft. "I know. He loves you, Don. Has he said good-by to you? +Has he said he wasn't worthy of you, because he had--no father? _This_ +is his father--Don's father--Judge William Henderson. He'll not deny it. +I told Don he mustn't think of you--of all women in the world--just +because you are so close to Judge Henderson--Don's father. + +"Now you see why I told my boy that lie--I didn't want him ever to know +his father--yes, I'd told him his father was dead. And I don't want to +seem a worse liar to my own boy--I've been bad enough, the way it is." + +She felt Anne Oglesby's arm draw her closer yet, felt the soft warm body +of the girl against her own. + +"I make only trouble," said Aurora, murmuring. "And you--you're so +beautiful. I don't blame him." + +"I love him, too!" said Anne Oglesby steadily. "I'm not going to give +him up." + +Aurora Lane's tears came then. + +"You--you two women--" gasped Judge Henderson--"do you know what you're +doing here? Do you think I don't suffer, too?" Then Anne saw that every +accusation Aurora Lane had made was true and more than true. + +"About that trial yesterday"--he turned to Aurora--"I _did_ have some +sort of superstitious feeling--I own that--I couldn't account for it--I +couldn't explain it. But you had assured me that your--our--er--the +child--had died in infancy. I thought--I hoped it was only my own guilty +conscience making me see things. I--I _have_ had a conscience. But I +knew nothing--we'd not met for years." + +"That's all true," said Aurora to Anne, nodding toward Judge Henderson. +"I've scarce spoken more than twenty words to him in twenty years. I've +kept the secret, and carried the blame. Until yesterday Don never knew +about himself--about his having no father. He hasn't a guess even now +who his father was--or is--at least he'll never make the right guess. No +one has, no one ever will. They may wrong another man, but they'll not +suspect the right one." + +She felt the strong young arm of Anne still about her, and so went on, +nodding again toward Judge Henderson--"I asked him to defend his own +son--you heard me, then? And he's told me he's hired to hang his son! +And I called him 'Judas.' And I pray God to sink him in hell if he does +this work. After all, there must be a hell somewhere--I think there must +be. This is not right--it's not right! I've stood it all till now, but I +can't stand this." + +"Wait!" exclaimed Judge Henderson. "Give me time to think, I tell you! +My whole life's up on this, as well as yours. You've had twenty years to +think about this, and I've not had that many minutes. You and I've not +met, I say--our paths have lain totally apart. It was in the past--we'd +lived it down." + +"_We_ had lived it down!" Aurora Lane's laugh was bitter enough, and she +made no other comment. + +Still she felt, closer and closer, the warm young body of the girl who +stood by her as the two women faced the man in the ancient and undying +battle of sex. + +"Well, I dropped that case," resumed Judge Henderson, "name or claim the +reason as you like. But _this_ case is different----" + +"Why?" asked Anne Oglesby. "What's the difference between the two cases? +You say you didn't know, then. Now you know." + +"But I've my reputation to keep clean, Anne! The higher you climb, the +riskier the ladder. I could drop that little case yesterday, but let me +drop _this_ case, with all the whole town back of it--and all my whole +political party back of it, too--that's another matter!" + +"Is it, indeed!" + +"Yes!" he rasped. "I put Judge Reeves on the bench here. It's a big +case. If I withdrew a second time--if things got stirred up and people +began to talk--why, that would be enough to put Old Hod Brooks on the +scent. He'd well enough take care of all the rest! It would be the end +of my career--in twenty minutes. There'd be nothing left of my +chances--there'd be nothing left of my reputation--the work of twenty +years would be undone. I'd be ruined!" + +"The work of twenty years!" whispered Aurora Lane to herself. "Twenty +years! And--ruin!" Her voice rose again. "What about us others? You're +talking about yourself, your reputation, your success--how about Don? +His _life's_ at stake. So is mine--I'd not survive it if they killed my +boy." + +"What's he to you, anyhow?" broke out Judge Henderson--"this man Brooks? +Are you in any conspiracy of his? What's under this? What's he to you? +Was he ever--has he ever----" + +"Stop!" said Aurora Lane, her voice sharp, her face cameo-cold. "Not +another word!" And even the sullen and distracted soul of the man before +her acknowledged the imperative command. "You traded him out of his +place. You're trying to trade now in your own son's life! Is that--can +that really be true of any man?" + +"Don't bait me too far!" he rejoined savagely. "Don't you go on now and +drive me into fighting these charges." + +"I don't think you would, Uncle," said the calm voice of Anne Oglesby. +"I don't think you would. + +"So this," she added softly, "is what my guardian was! _In loco +parentis!_" + +The man before her writhed in his own bitter suffering, flinging out his +hands imploringly under the lash of her words. + +"Anne! Anne!"--Aurora turned to the girl at her side--"I wish all this +might have been spared you. You're so young! But it all had to come out +some time, I suppose, and I'd rather have you learn it from me than from +Don. You've not seen him--he has not told you?" + +"No. We only had a moment--not alone--just a little while ago. They took +him away--I didn't know why, till just now. We've just heard what the +coroner's jury said. But I'll not leave him till he tells me, to, and +only then if he says he doesn't love me." + +"He could never say that!" said Aurora Lane. "But I told him he must +leave you." + +"Did he say he would?" + +"Yes, yes, of course! But when I told him that, I didn't know you; and I +did not think Don ever would know who his father was. He doesn't know +even now." + +Judge Henderson turned suddenly, catching at a thought which came to him +from Aurora's words. + +"Why should anyone _ever_ know!" he began. "If this whole matter could +be quieted down--if this case could be dismissed---- + +"Would you promise me," he turned toward Aurora--"if I could manage in +some way to get all this hushed down--if I could save the boy's +life--would you promise me, both of you, never to tell a soul in the +world--never to let anyone get a breath of this? You are the only two +that really know it at all--you said, Aurora, that even the boy doesn't +know it all. Why should he, ever? It's been hid this long, why not +longer?" + +"Anne and I, and yourself, are the only human beings in the world who +know it all," said Aurora Lane. + +"Can _you_ keep such a secret?" Judge Henderson turned more doubtfully +to Anne Oglesby, whose cold, quiet scorn had cut him even more deeply +than the bitterer words of the older woman. + +"I'd do anything for Don--anything I thought he'd be willing to have me +do. But I don't see how such a thing as this could be kept down. How can +the law be set aside?" + +"Listen here," he said, facing her, a little color of hope at last in +his face. "You don't in the least know what you've been starting here, +and you don't know anything about the remedy for it. The law? It's close +to politics, sometimes! If I fall--can't you see--I drag down plenty of +others--I drag down my own town--I drag down my whole judiciary--I've +been on the bench here myself. Oh, you two don't know all about how +things are done in politics. I'd drag down all the machinery of my own +party in this state--the thing would go even wider than that--I'd be +compromising the national administration itself. I tell you, it's ruin, +ruin, if this thing gets out. This is the very crisis of all my life--my +whole fate, my whole past and future, are in your hands now, and much +more beside--in the hands of you two women. + +"But I've got to fight the best I may," he added, walking excitedly +apart, and smiting one hand into the other. "Look here, now," and he +turned to them with a new look on his haggard face. "Your fate's _in my +hands_, too! Go beyond reason with me--threaten and goad me too far--and +I'll see what can be done to ruin you two, if you succeed in ruining +me!" + +"I've not asked that," said Aurora Lane. "I don't care about that. +What's revenge to me? And what's ruin? I've asked nothing of +you--nothing, but my boy's life, and never that till now. You gave it to +me once, unasked. I'm asking it again, now--his life--my boy's. I bore +him in grief and sorrow. It's your time of travail now. That's all." + +Judge Henderson almost wept in his own self-pity. + +"Think how horribly, how grotesquely unjust all this is," his voice +trembled--"raking up all the deeds of a man's youth. The past ought to +be _forgotten_. A man's past----" + +"Or a woman's?" said Aurora. + +"Well, yes, or a woman's. But it's men like me who have to build up +things, do things, administer things, wisely and justly. I've been a +judge on the bench here, before the world, I say. And here you two +women--why, it's ghastly, it's terrible, its _criminal_. Your dragging +me down--it--it's a hellish thing to do." + +"What? What's that?" The voice of Aurora Lane rose again. "If there's +any hell, it's for a false judge. You once sat on the bench, +yonder--yes. Oh, Judas--worse--you are ten times worse than Judas!--Drag +you down--drag all the town, all the state, all the society down? Why, +yes, I would if I could! I will, I will!" + +But, sobbing as she was, and desperate, she felt the light hand of Anne +Oglesby now swiftly patting her shoulder for silence. The girl faced her +guardian with the same light smile on her lips, cool and contemptuous. + +"Wait a minute, Uncle," she said. "A moment ago you spoke of our fate +being in your hands, too--of one ruin offset against another. Come now, +you're a trader--you have been all your life, Uncle--it seems you're +always willing to trade in the practice of the law. That's how you've +got up where you are." + +Her smile, her words, cut him beyond measure, but he clung to his idea. + +"Very well, then. Now, suppose we trade!" He spoke sneeringly, but +inwardly he was trembling, for he knew not what moment Aurora Lane might +publicly make good her threat. + +"What can he mean?" Aurora turned to Anne. But Anne, shrewder at the +time, broke in: "Leave him alone. Let him go on." + +"Well, now," said Judge Henderson, and actually half began to clear his +throat, so sweet did his new thought appear to him, "as I was +saying--there's no actual indictment yet--there's been no trial--the +coroner has only held him over. Say I'd take on this prosecution, +ostensibly--ostensibly--conditionally--ostensibly--to keep down any +suspicion; and then, later on, after several continuances and delays, +you know, and the disappearance of all the witnesses for the +state--hum!--yes, I'll say it might be done. I'm not sure it couldn't be +done more or less easily, now I come to think of it--I know Reeves, and +I know how much he'd like to be governor of this state--they have to +come downstate every once in a while for available timber. + +"So, my dear girl," he turned to Anne in virtuous triumph, "after all, +since this would do two things--save the boy's life and save my +reputation, it might not be discreditable to be what you call a +'trader'!" There really was exultation in his smile. + +"What do you want for it?" asked Anne Oglesby coldly. "Where would it +leave Don? In jail indefinitely?" + +"I could not state it more precisely! _He looks like me!_ Oh, I'll admit +that--my feeling was right, my conscience was right! He _is_ my son. +But _because_ he is and _because_ he looks like me, he's got to stay in +jail where he'll not be _seen_,--a year or two, perhaps. There can't be +any bail." + +The two white-faced women looked each into the other's face, sad-eyed. +Anne's breath came tremblingly. "It's the best we can do!" said she at +last; and Aurora, seeing how it was, nodded mutely. + +"What do you want for it, Uncle?" demanded Anne contemptuously again. + +"I want--silence!" said he harshly, at last beginning to assert himself. +"Silence! And I've got to be sure about it." + +Suddenly he pulled open a drawer in the table before him. The women +started, fearing a weapon; but it was only a book he drew out--an old, +dusty book, the edges of its leaves once gilded--a copy of the Holy +Scriptures, very old and dusty. + +Judge Henderson by accident now saw the fly leaf, for the first time in +years. It was the little Bible his own father had given him, half a +lifetime ago, when he was first starting out into the practice of the +law. On the yellowed leaf in paled ink could still be seen the +inscription his father had written there in Latin for his son: + +"_Filio meo; Crede Deo._--To my son; Believe in God!" + +"Will you swear on the Bible?" demanded Judge Henderson, "both of you, +that you'll never tell nor hint a word of this to any human being in the +world--not even to him--the boy?" + +The hand which held the dusty little volume was trembling, but Judge +Henderson was not thinking of his own father, nor of the inscription in +the little book. + +"Yes!" said Aurora Lane at once. But Anne Oglesby raised a hand for +pause. + +"I'll not swear to keep back anything from him, my husband. I'm not sure +I could." + +"Your husband----" + +"I'm going to marry him, unless he sends me away." + +"It can't be soon--it may be very long--it will be years----" Judge +Henderson was getting back a little color now, a little +self-assertiveness, a little more readiness to argue. + +"I can wait," said Anne. "But I can't buy him cheap--Don wouldn't let +me. I know who his father is, and he ought to know it, too. That's his +right." + +"Anne," said Aurora Lane, "I denied him that right. You got my secret by +accident. Can't you keep it, too? It's a heavy weight that Judge +Henderson has laid on more than one woman--a load to be borne by three +women, myself, Miss Julia, and you. But this is to save Don's life." + +"You'll swear secrecy on the Book?" broke in Judge Henderson. + +"Yes!" said Anne Oglesby at length. "If you'll swear to perjure yourself +against your oath of office as judge and as attorney--as you've said you +would--I'll swear. Is that the trade?" + +"It's the only hope he has, the only hope that you have, and the only +hope that I have. Absolute silence! Absolute secrecy! I'm going to save +him--but I'm going to save my own self, too." A slight color was in +Henderson's gray face. + +"Oh, you trader!" said Anne Oglesby, all her scorn for him now patent, +fully voiced. "You sepulcher of a man! You failure! Oh, yes, yes, I'll +swear! And I'll keep my oaths and my promises all my life, so help me +God! Lift up the Book! You, too, Aurora." + +"I swore it twenty years ago," said Aurora Lane. "I will again. You +Judas! You coward! Lift up the Book! Lift it up, so that I may see! Is +that the book they call the Bible--that tells of love and mercy, and +truth, and justice, and forgiveness of sins? Lift it up, so that I may +see!" + +They faced him, their right hands raised, and he held up the Book, his +thumb under the cover, exposing the inscription which he had not seen +for years and did not now see. + +"As you believe in God!" began Judge William Henderson. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +AURORA AND ANNE + + +When Judge Henderson passed down the office stair, and out across the +street toward the narrow little brick walk of the courthouse--which even +on that day of the week now held a certain crowd--so disturbed, so +preoccupied, was he that he gave no greeting to one or two belated +loiterers about the store fronts. + +"I reckon that young feller'll get his dose now," said old Aaron +Craybill, demi-chorus to this tragedy, following with his bleared eyes +the tall and well-groomed figure, frock-coated, top-hatted, which now +was passing toward the temple of justice. "I wouldn't like to have no +man like the Jedge after me if I'd done what that boy done. He's a-going +to get _hung_, that's what's going to happen to him. Everybody knows +Slattery ain't big enough for this case. With a 'Nited States Senator +a-prosecutin' it, though, and ten reporters from the cities--well, I +guess Spring Valley'll be heard from some!" + +"I wonder when the funer'l's goin' to be," said his neighbor, Silas +Kneebone. "Of course Rawlins is goin' to preach the sermon. He's good on +funer'ls. Seems like he's e'en--a'most as comfortin' at a funer'l as +ary minister you could get in this town--and there's quite some +ministers here, too." + +They hurried on away now presently even as Judge Henderson disappeared +in the courthouse door. A strain of music had come to their ears, the +sound of reeds and brasses. + +"Thar's the band now!" exclaimed Aaron Craybill. "Knight Templar, too! +They're goin' over to the hall to practice for the funer'l. Come on +ahead! Hurry, Silas!" + +Down the street, audible also through the open windows of Judge +Henderson's office, came the music. Jerome Westbrook had hastened from +his duties on the coroner's jury only to assume his labors as leader of +the Spring Valley Silver Cornet Band; and as it was the duty of that +band to head the procession of the Knights Templar in the funeral march +of Joel Tarbush, himself a brother of the order, it seemed that a +certain rehearsal in the infrequent effort of playing under march was +needful on this Sabbath day. + +Slow-paced, with swords reversed and even step, with eyes looking +neither to the right nor to the left, following the music of the wailing +horns, the muffled tapping of the drums, it came now into the civic +center of the town, this solemn procession. At its head walked Saunders, +master in the order, his opportunity now at hand; and behind him, in +full regalia, came many others, all the leading citizens of this +community, the pillars of the church, the props of the business +structure of this village, the leaders and formers of its customs and +its social order; all these anxious that the appearance of the secret +order in public should be in all ways above reproach, even at cost of +this quasi-public rehearsal. Joel Tarbush dead was receiving more +tribute than ever had Joel Tarbush living. + +In accordance with ritual or custom, after the actual march to the tomb, +the musicians must render that selection which has spoken for so many +hearts bowed down in weight of woe; but Jerome Westbrook knew that his +men needed practice on Pleyel's Hymn; so they gave it now tentatively, +in advance, as they passed through the public square on the way to the +hall. To the strained senses of Aurora Lane, still sitting with Anne in +the office where they had lingered, the wailing of the music seemed a +thing unbearable. She caught her hands to her ears. + +"Oh, God!" she whispered. "Oh, God! If only they would not." + +The white, sad-faced young woman at her side took her trembling hand in +her own. "It will pass," said she. "Everything passes. You have been +brave all these years. I ought to be brave too! even now--after what +you've told me." + +"And I never knew you," said Aurora Lane after a time. "Not many women +have ever said much to me." + +"Nor did I know you," rejoined Anne Oglesby. "You were a stranger to me +when I saw you now, right here--Don's mother! We were so excited, Don +and I, that I never identified you two, although--yes--I knew--something +about--about----What shall I call you--you see, maybe I'll be your +daughter yet." + +"Some call me--Mrs. Lane. Some--Miss Lane. You can't call me 'mother.' +For most part I am the village milliner, my dear--nothing more than +that. I'm nobody. But generally, I'm 'Aurora Lane.' ... Now you know it +all. I'm so sorry for you, my dear girl. You're fine--you're splendid. +You're a good girl; and you're so very beautiful. If only you belonged +with--with him--with me. It's too bad for you." + +Anne Oglesby, the more composed of the two, impulsively stroked back the +thick ruff of auburn hair from Aurora's face. "You mustn't bother about +me," she said. + +"But I must bother about you! You must give him up. My dear, my dear, it +can't be! I'm just learning now how hard that would be for him because +it's so hard for me." + +"He kissed me," said Anne Oglesby simply. "After that it was too late." + +"Why, what do you mean, my dear?" + +"He didn't have to do anything more after that," said Anne Oglesby +slowly. "He had not had time to say anything before that." + +"He should not have kissed you," said Aurora Lane. "But that was his +farewell to you." + +"It was not farewell!" said Anne Oglesby. "It was our beginning! I will +_not_ give him up. If he had not kissed me--just when he did--just as he +did--I would not have known! I'm glad!" + +Aurora Lane looked at her searchingly, slowly. + +"Poor girl!" said she. "Dear girl! He could not help loving you--I +cannot help it myself. You are the only woman in the world, I think, for +him." + +"I am not good enough," said Anne Oglesby stoutly. But then suddenly she +cast both her strong young arms about the neck of Aurora Lane and +dropped her head upon Aurora's shoulder. + +"Oh, yes I am!" she said; "oh, yes I _am_! I know I must have been meant +for him, or else--else--" + +But she did not as yet reveal the secret of the Sphinx. They both fell +silent. + +"Ah, sacrifice!" said Aurora, wearily, after a time. "Sacrifice always +for the woman. We are all so bent on that." + +"There's much more than that," said Anne Oglesby, sagely. "Besides, +sacrifice itself is not an odious thing. You sacrificed much of your +life, your happiness, your freedom. Are you sorry for that now, or +proud?" + +"Dear girl!" murmured Aurora Lane, patting her on the shoulder. "Ah, you +sweet girl! If you could only just remain always this young and +wise--and ignorant!" + +But Anne Oglesby seemed not to hear her. She was looking out of the +window musingly now, her yellow-gloved hands supported on her +tight-rolled umbrella, her hat making a half-shadow for her dark hair +and her clear, definite features. + +Now the red sun ball, having well completed its circuit over the parched +and breathless town, was sinking to yet another lurid sunset. There lay +over all a blanket of that humid heat which so often arrests activity in +communities such as this, situated in the interior, where few cooling +breezes come. The dry, dust-covered leaves of the maples hung unmoved. +Here and there, still hitched to the iron piping which served as a rail +on all sides of the courthouse fence, stood the teams of farmers still +tarrying, unwilling to face the hot ride home from town, even though the +duty of church attendance was long since past. A murder and a funeral--a +Knights Templar funeral--Spring Valley had never known the like! And +there was going to be a trial--a murder trial. Court would sit tomorrow. +What village could ask more than was the portion of Spring Valley in +these few hurrying days? And it was her boy, 'Rory Lane's; and she'd +fooled everybody--but now----! Spring Valley licked its chops as it said +"But now----" + +The two women in Judge Henderson's office sat still in the sultry heat, +looking out of the window over the sultry, sordid, solemn little town; +how long they did not know; until now there came again across the +heat-hazy spaces of the maples, over the hot tops of the two-storied +brick buildings, the sound of the wailing music--the same music which +may come from the noblest organs of the world, the same music which may +have pealed on fields of battle after heroes have fallen, speaking, as +music may, of a soul passed, of a life ended, so soon to be forgot. For +a time let the wailing of the horns, the tapping even of these unskilled +drums, record the duty of this man's fellows to give him at least a +moment's full remembrance. + +In this hot lifeless air of the somber Sabbath afternoon the burden of +sorrow, the weight of solemnity, seemed yet heavier and more oppressive. +If a soldier dies the music plays some lilting air which speaks +forgetfulness on the march home; but now, for the second time came this +reiterated mournful wailing for a passing soul. The band had learned its +lesson by now. The dirge for the dead arose in a volume well regulated +and sustained as the men marched from the hall at last for the final +trial on the street. + +To the tapping rhythm of the anthem of the dead, sometimes such a +community as this does take thought--these uniforms are justified, these +white plumes, these reversed swords are justified; for an humble man who +has passed is dignified before his fellow men; and he has had his +tribute. Sometimes at least men thus stand shoulder to shoulder, heads +bared, and forget envy, backbiting, little jealousies, forget cynicism +and ridicule. The diapason of the drums surely had its hearing. It sank +deep to the soul of Aurora Lane, striking some chord long left +unresponsive. + +"Anne!" said she, her hand lying in that of the wet-eyed girl at her +side, "it's over--for him." + +The girl nodded. But after all, Anne was young. She raised her head in +the arrogance of youth, even as there passed more and more remotely the +mournful cadence of the drums. + +"But he was old!" she said, defensively. All of youth and hope was in +her protest. + +Aurora turned upon her her own large eyes, dark-ringed today. Her mouth, +long drawn down in resolution, was wondrous sweet now as it trembled a +little in its once ripe red fulness. It became the mouth of a young +woman--not made for sorrow. "You still can hope, then?" she smiled. And +Anne nodded, bravely. So, seeing replica of her own soul, Aurora Lane +could do no more nor less than to fold her in her own arms, the two +understanding perfectly a thousand unsaid things. + +"But come!" said Anne Oglesby at last. "We must make plans. There's a +lot to be done yet, and we must start." + +"I have no money," said Aurora Lane. "I don't know what to do." + +"Money isn't everything," said Anne Oglesby, with the assurance of those +who have all the money that they need. "I suppose I have plenty of money +if my guardian will let me have it." + +"Even if your guardian allowed it," said Aurora Lane proudly, "Don would +not. He would not let you help him, nor would I, though we are +paupers--worse than that. Did you know that, Anne?" + +"I am finding out these things one by one," was the girl's reply. "But +they have come after my decision." She spoke with her own quaint +primness and certainty of her mind. + +"There's just one man could help us," said Aurora Lane, hesitating, and +coloring a trifle. "I mean Mr. Brooks, Horace Brooks. He's a good +lawyer. Some say he is the equal of Judge Henderson--I don't know. You +heard what Judge Henderson said of him. It's fear of Horace Brooks, as +much as his own conscience, that's influencing Judge Henderson." + +"And why couldn't we go to Horace Brooks then?" demanded Anne Oglesby. +"What is the objection--why can't you go to him?" + +"I'd rather not tell you," said Aurora Lane, and in spite of herself +felt the color rise yet more to her face. + +Anne Oglesby sat looking at her for some time in silence. "There are +complications sometimes, are there not?" said she. So silence fell +between them. + +The drums had passed by now. The sun had almost sunk to the edge of the +last row of dust-crowned maples. The farmers here and there below were +unhitching the sunburned horses at the courthouse rail. + +"I see," said Anne at length. "You love him--or did--Don's father. Or do +you still pity him!" + +"Who are you?" said Aurora Lane, looking at her steadfastly. "You, so +young! You talk of pity. Where have you learned so much--so soon? When +you grow older, perhaps you may find it hard _not_ to forgive. +Everything's so little after all, and it's all so soon over." + +Unsmilingly Anne Oglesby held her peace. "Why don't you want to ask Mr. +Brooks to act as our attorney?" she asked. "And who is he--I don't know +him, you see." + +Aurora did not answer the first part of her question. "I'll tell you +where Mr. Brooks' office is," said she--"you see that little stair just +across the courthouse yard? Sometimes he spends Sunday afternoon in his +office. It's--well--it's hard for me to go over there and ask him." + +"Has he--has he--ever been much to you?" asked Anne Oglesby, directly. + +"In a way, yes," said Aurora Lane, quite truthfully, but flushing red. +"Outside of my own son, he is the only man that's ever raised voice or +hand in my defense here in this town. Beyond that--don't ask me." + +Anne Oglesby did not ask her beyond that. But when she spoke, there was +decision in her tones. + +"It is no doubt your duty to go to Mr. Brooks at once. Will he too +refuse us?" + +Aurora Lane's face remained flushed in spite of herself. + +"I don't think he will refuse," said she. "But only Don's danger would +ever induce me to ask him for any help. I'll ask him--for Don and you." + +Twilight fell, and they still sat silent. There came at last the +footfalls on the office stairs, and the two arose in the dim light to +face the door. + +Judge Henderson entered slowly, hesitatingly. He half started as, +looking within the unlightened room, he saw standing silhouetted against +the window front the tall, trimly-clad figure of his ward, and at her +side, equally tall, the dim, vague outline of Aurora, clad in black. The +two stood hand in hand, and for the time made no speech. + +"I must go," said Aurora Lane, at length. + +Anne would have passed out with her, but her guardian raised a hand. "I +must ask you where you are going?" said he. + +"Not with me," said Aurora, quickly. "No, no, you must not." And so, +quickly hurrying down the stair, she herself turned into the open +street. + +"Anne," said Judge Henderson, "I am deeply distressed. This all is +terrible--it's an awful thing. Did you hear that funeral march? God! an +awful thing, right when I am in this terrible dilemma. I've just been on +the long distance 'phone trying to get Slattery--I can't find either him +or Reeves; and I've got to act before court actually opens." + +"What do you mean by a dilemma?" she asked coldly. "Does any dilemma +last long with you, Uncle, when there is any question of your own +self-interest?" + +His face flushed under the cool insolence of her tone. "It's a fine +courtesy you have learned in your schooling!" + +"Have you heard all her history now?" he asked after an icy pause. + +"Not all of it, no. Enough to admire her, yes. Enough to understand how +this town feels toward her, yes. Why don't you all burn her as a witch +in the public square?" + +"You have a bitter tongue, Anne," said he. "You are not like your +sainted mother." + +"A while ago you said I was! But my sainted mother, whom I never knew, +never found herself in a situation such as this," rejoined Anne Oglesby. +"At least, while my father lived, she had a man to fend for her. I have +none. We are women only in this case." + +"So it was your plan to marry a nameless man? You've sworn he always +shall be nameless." The man's face showed a curious mixture of eagerness +and anxiety. He wished to argue, to expound, but dared not face this +young girl with the icy smile. + +"Yes, I've sworn silence. It is a great and grave responsibility," said +she. "I'm sadder for that, that's true. But there are many things in the +world besides just being happy, don't you think? You see, I've no +dilemma at all!" + +Judge Henderson passed a hand over his forehead. He had fought hard +cases at the bar, but never had he fought a case like this. + +"Anne," said he presently, "I'm very weary. I've had a hard day. I want +you to go on up to the house now--the servants will make you comfortable +until I come. Just now I was afraid you were going on over with Aurora +Lane to her house." + +"Not yet, Uncle," said she. "Perhaps at some later time, if you cast me +out." + +He only groaned at this thrust. + +She passed, a cool picture of youth, self-possessed and calm. He heard +her foot tapping fainter as it descended the stair, listened to hear if +she might come back again. But Anne went on down the street steadily, +looking straight ahead of her. Already, it seemed to her, she had grown +old. To those who saw her she seemed a beautiful young woman. + +"That's Don Lane's girl," said one ancient to another, back of his hand. +"Lives over at Columbus. He kissed her right there on the depot +platform, this very morning. Huh!" + +"I don't blame him," rejoined the other, with a coarse laugh. "But he +ain't apt to get many more chances now. I wonder how he fooled her about +himself--and her the judge's ward, or something." + +"Nerve?" said his friend. "He's got nerve enough to a-done anything. But +I guess they got him dead to rights this time." + +"Yeh. The _town's_ got him dead to rights. No matter what the law----" +he stopped, his head up, as though sniffing at something in the air. +"Gawd!" said he. "Wasn't that music a awful thing! I can feel it in my +bones right now. It makes me feel----" + +"It makes a feller feel like doing something more'n being just sad! It +makes a feller feel like--well----" + +"Like _startin'_ something!" + +The other nodded, grimly, his mouth caved in at the corners, tight shut +now. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +THE ANGELS AND MISS JULIA + + +Anne scarcely had left the office when Judge Henderson, stepping into +the inner room, pulled open a certain door of a cabinet beneath the +washhand-stand. He drew forth a half-filled bottle of whisky, shook it +once meditatively, and poured himself an adequate drink, refreshing +himself with water at the tap. He stood for a moment, the half-emptied +glass in his hand, looking at his features in the little glass which +hung above the cabinet. + +Not an unpleasant face it seemed to him; for so slowly had the lines +come in his features, so slowly the gray in his hair, that almost he was +persuaded they were not there at all. Delayed by the mirror to the +extent of having consumed but half of his refreshing draft, yet +purposing further imbibition, Judge Henderson paused at the sound of +some person ascending the outer stair. + +It was a very halting and uncertain step that came this time, one which +seemed to double on each lift of the stair, with an accentuating +tap-tap, as of a stick used in aid. But after a time he sensed its pause +at his door. There was a rap, a faint little rap, although the door +itself was ajar. Judge Henderson discreetly returned to the cabinet his +half-finished glass of whisky and water, and stepped into the other +room. + +It was Miss Julia Delafield whom he met. + +She was standing, her hand on the knob of the door, as if seeking +support, or rather as though ready for flight. Her eyes were especially +large and luminous now, as always they were when any supreme emotion +governed her. Her cheeks were flushed in that fashion which she never +yet had learned to control. Her smooth brown hair was held tightly back +under her cool summer hat, and the hands resting on her smooth-topped +cane were well gloved. Not ill-looking she was as she stood, stooped a +trifle, bent over a bit. + +She was half a-tremble now with the excitement that she felt. To any +chance observer, even at this hour of this Sabbath day, it must have +seemed that here was only a client come with purpose of consultation +with an attorney. To the angels above who looked down on such matters as +this, it must have seemed a pathetic scene, this in which Miss Julia +figured now. To any human being knowing all the facts it must have been +apparent that this call upon Judge Henderson was Miss Julia Delafield's +great adventure. + +It _was_ her great adventure--the greatest ever known in all her life; +and she had dared it now only because of two of the strongest emotions +known to a woman's soul. These are two. They both come under a common +name. That name is love. + +It was love had brought Miss Julia hither. Love in the first place for +Dieudonné Lane--or was it, really, in the first place, love for him? For +we, who know as much as Aurora Lane knew of Miss Julia's secret--who +once saw her gazing adoringly at a certain framed portrait when she +fancied herself alone--would have known that there was more than one +mansion in the heart of the little lame librarian. + +Helpless, resigned--but yet a woman--Miss Julia loved in the first place +as every woman with any touch of normality does love in spite of all. +She had known all these years that her love was hopeless, that it was +wrong, that it was a sin--she classed it as her sin. And her sin being +her own, she hugged it to her bosom and wept over it these twenty +years--became repentant over it--became defiant for it; prayed over it +and clung to it--in short, comported herself as any woman would. And now +Miss Julia, being what she was, stood flushed, her tiding pulses rising +to her eyes, staining her fair skin deep to her very neck, as she faced +her great adventure--as she stood looking into the face she had framed +on her wall, framed on her desk, framed in her heart as well, in silver +and gold and all the brilliants and the gems of a woman's soul. + +But she was here by reason of a twofold love. Always in her heart, +since she could remember, there had been the great secondary longing for +something small to love, to hold in her arms--the desire for a child of +her own--the one thing which, as Miss Julia knew, might never be for +her. + +Indeed, this great craving had always remained unformulated, +unidentified, until that time, years and years ago, when she first saw +the baby of Aurora Lane lifting up its hands to her. So she had become +one-half a mother, at the least. + +He was half her boy, at least, he who now lay in prison. A woman is a +coward as to revealing her love for her chosen mate--she will conceal +that, deny that, to the death. But for the child her love is +different--then she becomes bold--she will defy all the world--will +force herself even into situations otherwise unthinkable. Except for her +love for Don Lane, the fatherless, Miss Julia would never have +undertaken to find a father for him. + +But that child had a father! Each must have. Ah! how must the angels +have wept over that piteous spectacle of Miss Julia in her own room, +looking smilingly at the face she saw pictured here in her own hand--the +face of one whom she held to be a great man, a noble man, a man good, +just, wise, one with love and kindness in his heart as well as brawn and +brains in his physical self. Yes, there was a father.... And he was +perfect, heroic, for her; her love being thus much blessed by that +divine blindness love works within us all. + +Now, the face which Miss Julia saw in her boudoir, the face which she +saw framed upon the wall of her library room, was the same which she saw +now close at hand! She started, flushed, trembled, finding difference +between a picture and a man. + +Judge Henderson was urbane, as always with a woman. He led her to a +seat, taking pains to turn on another clip of the electric light, which +Miss Julia suddenly wished he had not done, since now she was most +sensible of her uncontrollable blushes. + +Yes, it was a great adventure! She had never before been alone with +him--not in all her life. She had never been this close to him before. +It was somewhat cruel now; but the angels have their ways of being cruel +with us at times. + +"Miss Julia," he began with an extra unctuousness in his tones, "Miss +Julia, my dear girl, I surely am delighted to see you here. You have +never before been here, I am persuaded--this is the first time in all +our long and pleasant acquaintance. If ever in the past I have been able +to be of service to you----" + +In any conversation Judge Henderson was sure to bring the talk around to +himself, to his own deeds, his own ambitions. His was an egotism so +extreme as to be almost beyond accountability--he was a moron not in +mentality but in sense of proportion. He could not have put two square +blocks together if one of these blocks had to do with the interest of +another but himself. There are such men, and at times they go far. + +Miss Julia flushed again prettily, but she was too much the lady to +giggle or squirm or do any of those unlovable things by which the +hopeless female makes herself more hopeless. She was used to hearing +herself addressed as "Miss Julia" by all the world; but it seemed none +the less especially sweet to hear the words in these rich, full, manly +tones. (In her diary she wrote, "He addressed me in rich, full, manly +tones.") + +"Yes, I came as soon as my duties allowed me to get away today, Judge. +It was a busy day for me, although it is the Sabbath. I was classifying +some of the books. Thanks to your generosity, we have just received a +good shipment. + +"But you see, the town is all wrapped up in all these other things that +have happened--that's why I came, Judge Henderson." + +"I presume you have reference to that unfortunate young man who now lies +in prison? In what capacity then can I serve you, Miss Julia?" His tone +now was icy and reserved. + +"I came to you, Judge Henderson, because I knew I would find in you a +champion for justice. Why, all the town has come to depend on you for +almost _everything_! I suppose that is why I came--it seemed the +natural thing to do." + +Judge Henderson, regretting his half-finished glass, now impossible, +coughed behind his hand. + +"I am afraid, Miss Julia," said he, "that you don't quite know who he +is, that boy." + +"Ah, do I not! Why, he is _my_ boy, my _own_ boy!" + +"I beg pardon, but what do you mean, Miss Julia?" + +"I say he's my boy! What I say about that is privileged--it's +professional, Judge Henderson. No one else has heard me say what I am +telling you now. But he _is_ my boy--my love has gone into him, the same +as if I were his mother." + +He only stared as she rushed on. + +"I know his mother--we have been friends here since we were girls, real +friends. I'm the only friend she's got in this town--and the only fair +and kind thing this town has ever done has been to allow me to be the +friend of Aurora Lane. I suppose that's because I am only the little +lame librarian! I don't count. She doesn't count. But--well, between us +two--we've had a boy!" + +He stared, pale, as she went on: + +"Between us two, we've brought him up. We've educated him. Between us +two, we have saved our money--it wasn't much--and we've managed to give +him something of an education, something of a life more than he could +have gotten in this town. We have put him through college--we have +given him a profession--we were going to give him a start. + +"I say 'we,' and I mean that. But, it isn't the money of mine that went +into him--it's my _love_--it's the _love_ I felt for him! Why, Judge, +I've seen him grow up. I've held him in my two hands, this way, when he +was so little ... oh, very little.... So you see, he's my boy, too! + +"And so," she added inconsequently, as he made no answer, "I came to +you." (What the angels understood in Miss Julia's unspoken words then +they did not make plain to the ears of the man who heard them.) + +Judge Henderson sat astounded, looking at her steadily, unable to grasp +all the emotion which evidently she felt, unable wholly to understand an +act of clean unselfishness on the part of any human being. + +"You see," said Miss Julia tremblingly, after a time--"his father--I +never knew his father. She'd never tell me--I never asked but once. But +you see, I only _fancied_ that he had a father. I fancied I was his +mother. I fancied----" But now Miss Julia's voice failed her, and her +blushes alone spoke. + +"I see," said Judge Henderson, not unkindly, and breathing more freely, +"you fancied that you held an undivided interest in this child, this +young man." She did not see his face very plainly, did not catch his +hesitation as he engaged on this touchy theme. + +Miss Julia nodded rapidly, swallowing hard. Her face was very beautiful +indeed now. (The angels must have smiled with tears in their eyes as +they looked down upon her now and saw how pathetically beautiful she +was!) + +"And that interest is still undivided?" + +"Yes, we've not seen each other very much, Aurora and I, today, because +things have been traveling so fast, but we are--we are partners in this +trouble, as in everything else. We've got to have a lawyer, of course. +There's not much money left between us--even my next month's salary is +pledged. It cost more than we thought to get him through the graduation. +There were clothes, you know--many things." And now she flushed again +vividly. She was thinking of Don's little clothes, which once long ago +she had helped to sew; and the angels knew this, gravely. + +"He's a _splendid_ young man, our boy!" she broke out again at length. +"Can't you see that? Good in his classes--and an athlete--a splendid +one. He's such a gentleman in all his ways, Judge Henderson, a son +worthy of a father, of some good father, if only he had one! His father +died, you know, when Don was just a baby." She was not looking at him +now, not daring, as she went on. + +"But you see, we are in trouble about him. That may come to anyone. Why, +even you yourself, Judge Henderson, successful as you are--some time +even you may know such a thing as trouble. It is the common human lot. +And I have been told enough----" + +"If I were in trouble," said Judge Henderson gallantly, and with a push +of a full ounce of Monongahela back of his words, "I would go to just +some such woman as you for help. But women don't seem to see any of the +intervening obstacles that exist, do they, Miss Julia?" + +"If we did, the world would stop," said Miss Julia, simply. And spoke a +great truth. + +"None the less there are obstacles," said he, after a time. "I fear +there are insuperable ones, my dear." ("He called me 'My dear!'" wrote +Miss Julia in her diary.) + +"Why, not at all! I can't believe that, Judge. We'll manage it all in +some way, Aurora and I. And, naturally we come to you as our +champion--who should help us if not you yourself? Do I say too much, +Judge Henderson?" she inquired timidly. + +"No, not too much," said he with much modesty, "not too much, I trust. I +hope I have always had, at every stage of my own career, the confidence +of all my friends in this community." + +There was a little pause. "But also, Miss Julia," he continued, raising +a hand, "wait a minute--wait a minute. In order to deserve the +confidence of all my friends I have always been forced to adhere to that +course which to me and my own conscience seemed just and right. I will +not undertake to disguise the truth, Miss Julia, I am already retained +for the prosecution of this case. I must not listen to you coming to ask +me to act for the defense. That at least is the present status of +affairs. I shall be guided all along by my sense of right and duty. At +present I cannot take the case for the defense." + +She was feeling at the head of her stick, stumblingly, half rising. +Suddenly it seemed to her that the walls were closing in upon her, that +she must get away, get out into the open. + +"That's cruel!" she exclaimed. + +"At times it is necessary for us to be cruel," said Judge Henderson, +virtuously. "If I am cruel, I regret with all my heart that it must be +cruelty to one whom so long I have held in such esteem as I do you. We +have long known your life, how exquisitely ordered it has been. I have +never known before, of course, how much it was wrapped up with this +young man's life. I am astonished at what I have learned. It is only my +own high standard of honor, my dear--that same standard to which I have +unflinchingly adhered at whatever cost it might entail upon me--which +enables me to refuse any request that you might make me. Now I am pained +and grieved, I am indeed." + +A tear stood in the corner of Judge Henderson's eyes. It was an argument +which he always had at hand if need were--an argument which had won him +perhaps more than one case before a jury. And now he felt himself, as +always, the central figure, appealing to a jury, extenuating, +explaining, expounding. Moreover, he felt himself misjudged, an injured +man. He did not care at the time to divulge any of the plan he but now +had confided to Aurora and Anne. + +"I have hurt you!" said Miss Julia, impulsively. "Oh, I would never mean +to do that." She held out a hand swiftly, in part forgetful of her +errand. + +He took her hand in both his own--small and white it was, and veined +somewhat, ink-stained as to some of the fingers--a hand which rested +trembling in his own. (Now, what the angels saw is not for mortals to +inquire! "He took my hand in both his own!" wrote Miss Julia in her +diary.) + +Judge Henderson gallantly clasped the hand and drew it a trifle closer +to his bosom. "You believe me, do you not, my dear?" said he. "It +grieves me to give you any pain. As for me, it does not matter." He +dashed the tear from his eye. + +But now Miss Julia's courage failed her. Her double sacrifice for the +child and the child's unknown and uncreated father had failed! She +limped toward the door. Her great adventure was ended. + +But, at least, she had been alone in the presence of the great man whom +she had loved these many years. And she had found him in all ways +worthy! He was still a hero in her eyes, a great man, a noble man--yes, +she was sure of that. + +How must the angels have sighed as Miss Julia stumbled down the stair +with this thing in her heart! For, in all her heart, she knew that, had +she been young as Aurora Lane once was young, and had such a man as this +asked of her anything--anything--she would have given! She would have +yielded gladly all she had to yield--she would have given her life into +his keeping.... For of such is the kingdom of love, if not the kingdom +of heaven. And as to that last let the angels say, who watched poor Miss +Julia as she stumbled down the stair. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +HORACE BROOKS, ATTORNEY AT LAW + + +As for Aurora Lane, at about the time Miss Julia was leaving Judge +Henderson's office, she herself was in the office of another lawyer upon +the opposite side of the square--the man Henderson hated and feared more +than any other human being. + +Horace Brooks, after his usual fashion, was spending his Sunday +afternoon in his legal chambers. He lived as a bachelor, the sole +boarder of a family far out toward the edge of town--a family that had +no social standing, but that never became accustomed to the ways of Mr. +Brooks, who came and went, ate, slept, and acted, as one largely in a +trance, so occupied was he with thoughts of his business affairs. Never +was a soul less concerned with conventions or formalities than he; nor +one more absorbed, more concentrated of purpose in large things. + +He was sitting now, as often he might have been seen to sit, tilted back +in his chair, with his feet on his table, where rested in extreme +disorder many volumes of the law, some opened, face-down, others piled +in untidy masses here and there. Mr. Brooks had no clerk and no partner. +When he cited an authority in his library he left the book where last +it was used, and searched for it pellmell if later need arose. This same +system applied to every other article of use in the entire office--it +was all chance medley, and the pursuit of the desired article was short +or long in accordance with the luck of the searcher. + +Around him on the floor lay countless burned matches, a pipe or two +which scattered tobacco. The floor itself was covered layers deep with +the ruins of two Sunday papers--at which form of journalism Horace +Brooks openly scoffed, but none the less ruthlessly devoured after his +own fashion each Sabbath afternoon. + +He sat with his bearded chin sunk in his shirt bosom, his mild blue eye +seeing nothing at all, his hands idle in his lap. He was concluding his +Sabbath as usually he did, in the midst of the scenes surrounding his +daily toil throughout the week. He started at the sound of Aurora Lane's +knock on the door. + +"Come in!" he called. + +He supposed it was some young lawyer from one of the offices down the +hall, where struggling students, or clerks from the abstract offices, +sometimes brought knotty problems for him to solve. These folk still +lived in the rear of their offices--as indeed Horace Brooks but recently +had done himself. A disorderly couch still might have been found in the +room beyond, fragments of soap, a soiled towel or so, a broken comb, a +sidelong mirror--traces of his own humble and arduous beginnings in the +law. + +But he turned half about now, and dropped his feet to the floor as he +heard the rustle of a gown. He sat half leaning forward as Aurora Lane +entered. He had small training in the social usages--he did not always +rise when a woman entered the room, unless some special reason for that +act existed. So he sat for just a time, and looked at her, the fact of +her presence seeming slowly to filter into his brain. Then quickly he +stood and went forward to her, his rare smile illuminating his homely +features. + +"Come in," said he. "Will you be seated? Why have you come here?" He was +simple and direct of habit. + +Aurora Lane looked at him not only with the eyes of a client, but with +the eyes of a woman. She saw plainly the quick look of eagerness, the +swift hopefulness which came into his eyes. + +But she must forestall all that. "Mr. Brooks," said she, "I've come to +you for help--I need your professional services." + +He sat looking at her gravely for some time, the light in his face +slowly fading away. "Help?" said he. "As how?" He was of the plain +people, and at times lapsed into the colloquial inelegancies of his +early life. But he needed little divination now to know that Aurora +Lane came to him for no personal reasons that offered him any hope. + +"It's about my boy," said Aurora. "You know--Don." + +He nodded slowly. "Yes, I know--the coroner's jury has held him over." + +"But he's in jail." + +"Yes, they had that right--to hold him for the investigation of the +grand jury. And this is a grand jury matter, as you must know. Court +opens tomorrow. The grand jury sits tomorrow morning. At least the +preliminaries won't take long. But the outlook is bad, Aurora--they mean +to get him if they can." + +Aurora Lane for a third time that day produced from her shabby pocket +book the little worn bill which represented her sole worldly fortune. A +flush rose to her temples now as she held it hesitatingly between her +fingers. + +He saw it very plainly, and caught something of her meaning in the +pause. A slow red came also into his own face. + +"You'd better keep that for the present," said he slowly after a time. +He pushed her fingers back with the bill. "I know this is professional, +but I can't take money from you now--not that money--because I know very +well you've got none you can afford to spend. Aurora, there's no use +trying to have secrets from me--we know each other too well." + +"But what right do you leave me then to come to you?" + +"I don't know that you have any right to come to me at all," said he +slowly. "I've my own right to decline to deal with you at all in +business matters. And you come here on business." + +Aurora sank back into her chair. "Then what could I do?" she said +faintly. + +"Have you tried Henderson?" + +"Yes," she said, faintly, and with much reluctance, "I did." + +"Why, if you wanted me?" + +"I can't tell you that. But I did. He refused to have anything to do +with the defense for my boy." + +"Very naturally--very naturally. Didn't you know he would before you +went to ask him? Couldn't you guess that?--couldn't you have figured out +that much for your own self? Didn't you know that man? He's not with the +under dog." + +"It seems not," said Aurora Lane, wearily. "So I came to you." + +"Even after last night?" + +"Yes, after last night. At first it was hard to think of it." + +"Aurora," said he, "I reckon I'm not a very practical sort of man. If I +were--if I were a man like Judge Henderson, say, I'd clamp on the screws +right now. I'd try to get you to alter what you said to me last night." + +"It wouldn't be like you. You've never yet--in all our lives--done +anything like that." + +"No? I'm second choice--that's my fate, is it--that's as high as I get? +Yes, I reckon that's about a fair estimate of me--I'm a typical second +choice man. I suppose I'll have to accept that fact." And now he laughed +uproariously, though none too happily. + +"Well, Aurora," said he after a time, "you have broken in here, +anyway--just as I broke down your gate last night in my own clumsiness. +Suppose we call it quits. Let's not figure too close on the moving +consideration. There's nothing you can give Horace Brooks, attorney at +law, in the way of pay. And you need Horace Brooks--_only_ as attorney +at law. What can I do for you?' + +"I don't know, but all that can be done now for him you can do. I've +nowhere else to go. It wasn't easy for me to come here, but I'd make any +sacrifice for my boy." + +"Sacrifices are at a discount in a lawyer's office. I don't ask you to +reconsider your decision, as to me--as to me as your husband. But +speaking of sacrifices, I only point out to you that so far as I'm +concerned as a lawyer in this town, I might as well be your husband or +your lover as your lawyer of record in this case! Since the trial +yesterday, and my walk home with you last night, there'll be plenty +who'll think so anyway. I may be held as a man worse than I ever +was--and neither of us gain by that." + +"That may be so," said she, bending her face forward in her hands. "God! +What a trial, what a risk, what a peril I am to myself and everyone I +meet! I've brought loss, suspicion, wrong on you--you who're noble! And +after twenty years----" + +"Yes, Aurora. Twenty years outlaws a claim in the law--for men--but not +for women. Now, I take on those twenty years of yours when I take on +this case. I'm clear about that. I can see this thing straight enough. +This town will go into two camps. Ours is the hopeless one, as things +stand now. We are the under dog. If I took this case--maybe even if I +won it--I'd be hated by the men and snubbed by the women of this town. +Now, I see all that clearly. And speaking of pay----" + +"Oh, if you would," she exclaimed, leaning toward him, her hands +extended, "I'd do anything you asked me. Do you understand +that--_anything_!" + +She paused. In the silence the little clock on the mantel ticked so loud +it seemed almost to burst the walls. He sat for a long time motionless, +and she went on, leaning yet more toward him. + +"I've thought it all over again," she said desperately. "I'd--I'd begin +it again--I'd do anything--I'd do _anything_ you asked me----Why, I've +nothing--nothing--oh, so little to give! But--as to what you said last +night--I've thought of that. I'm ready--what is it that you wish?" + +He looked at her dumbly for a long time, and she thought it was in +condemnation. For almost the first time she voiced in her +life--continually on the defensive. + +"I don't understand it all," said she. "I've tried very hard since then. +I was so young. I didn't know much at first--I didn't feel that it was +all so wrong--I didn't know much of anything at all, don't you see?" + +Now he raised his great hand, his lips trembling. "Just wait a bit, my +dear," said he. "We'll take what you've said as proof of your love for +your own son. We'll let it stop right there, please. We'll forget what +happened last night at your broken gate--we'll forget what's happened +just now inside my broken gate. I told you if I ever married you I'd do +it on such a basis that I could look you in the face, and you could me. +That's the only way, Aurora. There's not any other way. I reckon I'll +always love you--but only on the square." + +"But what can we do--you refuse to help us--and the boy's innocent!" + +"Wait, my dear," said he slowly. "I've not a woman's wit, so I can't +leap on quite so fast as you do. A lawyer reads word by word. I'm still +in the preliminaries, not even into the argument of this case yet." + +"But you have refused--you have said it meant ruin to you--I know--I +mean that to everyone." + +"You've meant a great deal more than that to me, my dear," said Horace +Brooks, "and no matter what you mean--no matter what my decision may do +to my future--no matter what it may cost me in my larger ambitions, +which I entertain, or once did, the same as any other man here in +America--why, let it go." + +"But what are you going to do? I'm costing you everything, +everything--and I can give you nothing, nothing--and I'm asking still of +you everything, everything." + +"Tut, tut! Aurora," said Horace Brooks, "I'm going to take this +case--for better or for worse! Didn't I tell you I wanted to stand +between you and trouble--any trouble? A man likes to do things for a +woman--for the woman he loves." + +She sat for a long time, white, motionless, looking at him. + +"The pay----" she began stumblingly. + +"I'd rather not hear you say anything about that," he replied simply. +"You did not say anything at all. This is the _office_ of Horace Brooks, +attorney at law. As I understand it, I'm duly retained for the defense +in the case of the state against Dieudonné Lane, charged with murder." + +The blood came pouring back into Aurora Lane's face as she straightened. +"You are a good man," said she. "I always knew it. I----" + +He raised a hand once more. "These are business hours," said he, "and +believe me, no time is left for anyone to do anything but work on this +case." + +"He's innocent, of course. He couldn't have done this--who was it, do +you think?" + +"Oh, now, I don't _know_ who it was. It may have been Don himself. All +men are human. A lawyer has to look all the facts in any case square in +the face." + +"But, my God! You can't think--you don't believe----" + +"Please let me act as attorney. Now, I'm to blame in a sort of way in +this case. I started a good deal of this trouble. I gave your boy the +advice which threw him in jail--when I told him to thrash any man who +said a word against his mother--you. He's made a certain threat or two. +He's been found in very compromising circumstances indeed. The case +looks bad against him. Yes, he needs a lawyer--but he's got one! We'll +fight it through. You see," and he smiled again his wide and winning +smile, "all my life, I've had a sort of leaning for the under dog. + +"Now," said he, abruptly rising, "I'm in this case, and I'm going to +take my chances. I've lost my chances on the Senatorship of the United +States. I've kept my promise to Henderson and I've sent word to our +central committee. I'm the under dog. But before all this is over, the +people of Spring Valley are going to know there are two sides to this +fight--and all these fights! + +"Now, listen, Aurora," he went on in his careless paternal fashion, as +he walked, his great head drooped, his hands thrust into his pockets. +"Figure it over. Last night we three walked home together--before them +all. Everybody saw us. Everybody saw Tarbush. It can be proved that Don +left us and went over, following after Tarbush. It can be proved that he +was seen running away from that place--at just the wrong time--in just +the wrong way." + +"But it was someone else who killed him--it wasn't my boy----" + +"You can't convince a jury by assertions. If it was not this man, they +will ask, Who was it? Who was the other man, and why do you think so? +Now, who _was_ that other man, Aurora?" + +"I don't know." + +"Neither do I. But we've got to find him. There's no trace of him. But +as for Don, the boy, it's a trail, a plain one, and it leads----" He +threw out his hands widely, as though reluctant to name the truth. + +"But," he went on, "if he isn't guilty someone else is guilty. Under +this criminal act in all its phases there lies some cause, of +course--there is some criminal, of course. There has been crime +committed, a very beastly, brutal sort of crime, almost inhuman--and +that was done by some man. If I could put my hand on that man, why +then----" + +"It would mean life and happiness to me. It would mean satisfaction to +you?" + +"More than that," he smiled. "It would mean the life of your boy--many +years yet for you and him together--once I'd have said maybe it might +mean six years in the United States Senate for me. I don't know--I can't +tell. The chances now are rather that even if I clear the boy, it means +I'll have to close up this office and go somewhere else to hunt a law +practice. But we'll take our chances." + +"You are a great man, Horace Brooks," said Aurora Lane; and there was a +sort of reverence in her tone. "Even after what has been between us, I +can say that. Oh, I so much like--I so much admire a man who is not +afraid, and who doesn't parley and weigh and dicker with himself when it +comes to any hard decision. I like a brave man, a good man. You'll +understand." + +He raised a hand, a large hand, nervous, full-veined, gnarled, awkward, +a hand never in all his life to be freed from toil's indelible imprint. + +"Please don't," said he. + +"But how can I say what I want?" said she. "I've always wanted to pay +all my debts--that's to make up for all my faults, don't you see? I must +be scrupulous--because----" + +"Yes," said he, "I see. I've seen that for more than twenty years, ever +since I've known you. Because that's true of you, and is true of so few +women, so very few, is why I wished last night--that you were a widow! + +"Now, that's about all. When you _wish_ that you could pay this +debt--which isn't any debt so far--you've paid it, so far as I'm +concerned. It is the _wish_ to pay your debts that amounts to moral +principle--and to business success too--in this world. + +"And so," he laughed again his great resounding laugh, and thrust out +his hand toward her, "I reckon you can call yourself something of a +business success tonight after all. Now go home, and see that you +sleep." + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +AT CHURCH + + +That Sunday evening Aurora Lane sat alone in her dingy little home. The +walls seemed to her close as those of any prison. She found about her +nothing of comfort. For once the little white bedside, all her life her +shrine, failed in its ministration. There rose in her heart a great +vague hunger for gregarious worship--the sort which all these others had +freely offered every week of all their lives--that same wish for +gregarious worship on which are based all the churches, all the creeds, +of all the world. As never in her life before Aurora felt now that she +could no longer fight alone, in solitude--she needed something--she +needed the sight of other faces, the touch of other hearts; needed the +assemblage, the crowd--needed, in short, the world _en masse_, as we all +do. She had lived without association and without sympathy too long. Now +her starved nature at last rebelled. + +So, having prayed faithfully, Aurora Lane rose not wholly comforted; and +therefore she resolved to break the habit of her life, as she had lived +it more than twenty years in this little town. In all that time she had +not been within the door of any church, but now she felt that she must +go--must be at least in part like to all these others on this evening of +the Sabbath day. + +The main note of such a community as Spring Valley is that of a resigned +acceptance of life. This means a drab middle course, of small heroics, +which yet does not debar from a quiet sympathy and mutual understanding. +This in turn essentially implies some manner of religious belief, for +the most part of the passive, un-investigative sort. Without doubt the +church of this or that denomination--and in any such community there +will be many--is the club and the court alike to those who maintain its +beliefs--aye, and it is their hope and stay as well. + +Aurora chose the largest church, where there was most apt to be the +largest congregation. Passing there, she had heard the organ roll in its +moving appeal. It seemed to her that she must hear music or she must +starve, must die. The drain on her nature now had been so great that, +much as every impulse drew her to yonder other edifice, the one with +iron bars where lay her own son, a prisoner, she could not go there, +could not see him again, until she herself had had restoration of some +of the forces of her own life. She wanted music--she wanted light--she +wanted the presence, close, near to her, of other human beings. Surely +they must know--surely they too must some time have suffered, have +grieved, have yearned. + +The slow life of the little town, which the excitement of this +extraordinary Sabbath had so largely diverted from its usual channels, +now began to reassemble and to trickle toward the conventional meeting +grounds. Those who had been delinquent at the morning services were at +least tonight devout. + +There is a sort of life of affairs, a sort of business life, of any +church in any community. Thus, there may be many meetings beside that of +the Sabbath day, in each church in any community. There must fall the +practice of the choir, weekly, usually of Wednesday, sometimes of +Saturday evenings as well, if the anthem prove especially difficult of +mastery. + +As to the choir proper, there must of course be the soprano--not always +elocutionist, as was the soprano in this church of Spring Valley--but +always well-clad, most frequently with long and glossy curls of chestnut +and the most modish hat of any in the church. Most tenors are bank +clerks or cashiers. It is the function of the tenor in any such choir to +escort the soprano to her home. The contralto is for the most part +married, beginning to show _embonpoint_. She is brunette, with wide and +pleasant mouth; is able to make excellent currant jelly, of which she +gives her neighbors generously. Her attire is apt to be not quite so +well-appointed as that of the soprano, which indeed should not be +expected of the mother of three, the arrangement of those white starched +collars in a part of each Sunday's task. The basso may sometimes be a +school teacher, yet some of the best have been owners of livery barns, +no more; modest folk withal, and covetous of the back seat in the choir. + +To this essential personnel of the church choir there may be added +others, supplements or understudies for this or that musical part, young +men with large cameo pins in their cravats, young women with spectacles. +All these who sing soprano or contralto, at least all who still are +young, must be taken home after services--not only the regular services +of the church, but those of the choir practice midway of the week or at +the week's close. And thereto, one must count the weekly prayer +meetings, mostly for the old, but for the young in part. + +It is, therefore, easy to be seen that the vestibule of any Spring +Valley church of a Wednesday evening, sometimes of a Thursday evening, +quite often a Saturday evening, and always of a Sunday evening, must +hold a certain lay representation of the community. It is, or once was, +one of the proper functions of the village church to act as social +meeting ground. Practically all of the respectable marriages in Spring +Valley actually were contracted, at least as to the preliminary stages, +under the eaves of this or that church. + +The vestibule was crowded this Sunday evening, as was customary, when +Aurora Lane, quite alone, turned in from the sidewalk and ascended the +eight broad wooden steps up to the church door. Passing thence to the +inner door, she felt the silence which came upon the boys and young men +who loitered there, waiting for the entrance or the exit of those of the +opposite sex. She felt the stares which fell upon her--felt, rather than +saw, the icy disapproval which greeted her even here, even among these. +But she passed by, entered the house of worship, and sank into a seat +very far back in the long, bare, ghastly, rectangular room. + +Before or after the entry of Aurora Lane, there failed not in coming +those who sit in judgment upon the lives of their fellows--the baker, +the butcher, the school teacher, the hanger of paper, the maker of +candlesticks as well. All these were here, parts of the life of this +community. Miss Julia was not there, as Aurora Lane discovered. She +wondered dully if it had not been her duty to go around to the library +and ask for Miss Julia; but the longing for personal solitude had been +as strong in her heart as the longing for silent human companionship, so +she had come alone. In truth Miss Julia was recreant tonight. She was +alone in her own room--alone with her diary--that is to say, face to +face with the picture of the same man whom Aurora Lane had met that +afternoon. + +In the slowly filling pews there reigned now silence, broken only by the +shuffling footfalls of the arrivals, that uneasy, solemn silence which +holds those seated and waiting for the services at church. A school +teacher who was born in the East somewhere leaned her head forward on +the back of the seat before her, and with a certain ostentation prayed, +or seemed to pray. Others would have done this very fetching thing as +well, but lacked the courage, so sat coldly, stiffly, unhappily, bolt +upright, awaiting the arrival of the minister. + +The tenor came after a time, soon following the soprano, models alike of +social graces and correct attire. They passed modestly, seemingly +unregardful of the glances bent upon them. The bass singer was more +conscious of his ill-fitting clothes as he hurried up the aisle, his +Adam's apple agitated, betokening his lack of ease. The soprano by this +time was shaking out her curls, fussing among the music sheets at the +top of the organ, pushing back the stool, twirling its top about--all +the while still quite highly unmindful of the gazes of the audience. The +contralto came last, her brow furrowed with the thought that perhaps she +had not left the cold meat on the table where her husband, the doctor, +would find it when he came back from the country. + +Came also in due and proper time the minister of church, the pillar of +it all, bearing in his hand, rolled in its leather case, the sermon +which he had written last Thursday morning--and which perforce he had +been obliged wholly to rewrite since Saturday at noon! For, be sure, +this sermon must take up the issues of the day--must stand for the +weekly platform of the town's morality. The eyes of all now were bent +upon the little roll of leather in the preacher's hand. They knew what +must be there. In a way they moistened their lips. This was why the +attendance was so large and prompt tonight. + +But Aurora Lane, unskilled in any of these things, the prey to so many +conflicting emotions at this hour, a novice in the house of God, sat +silent, her hands folded, well enough aware she was not welcomed by +those who saw her there, yet craving of them, dumbly, anguished, all +their tolerance in her time of need. + +Now the organ rolled after its fashion. There were voices not too highly +skilled, perhaps, yet after all productive of a certain melody. The +music softened the ice of Aurora Lane's heart. She felt that after all +she was a human being, as these others all about her. Was not this +anthem universal in its wording? Did it not say "Come unto Me"? Did it +not say something about "All ye"?--something about "Whosoever"? And +Aurora Lane, all her life debarred from this manner of human +classification, felt her heart tremble within her bosom as she heard +these universal, all-embracing words. Those about her, righteous, +virtuous, heard them not at all, because they had been sung so oft +before. + +The text of the evening matters little. Everyone there, excepting Aurora +Lane, knew that the real text was the red-handed young criminal lying in +the prison. + +The preacher invoked the wrath of God upon him who had raised his hand +against the life of one of the town's beloved. He read large lessons as +to right living, educed all proper morals from these events, so +startling, which had come upon this peaceful town. In short, he preached +what manner of sermon he must have preached in this manner of church and +this manner of town. At times his voice was low and tense, at times his +tones grew thunderous. And every word he said he felt was true, or +thought was true, or hoped to be the truth; because he himself had +written it; and this was the Lord's day; and these were the services +wherein the Lord is worshiped regularly. + +But the music of the anthem remained in Aurora Lane's soul, so that she +was practically unconscious of all this. Her mind was vague, dazed. She +did not know her son had been tried and found guilty. The words clung in +her heart; "All ye"; "Whosoever." And presently they sang yet another +hymn, and in it again were the words, "Come unto Me!" There was great +emotional uplift in all Spring Valley this day. The minister felt the +emotion, here upon the souls of his audience. He prayed for what he +termed an awakening. + +But Aurora was not awakened. On the contrary, for a time her strained +senses seemed dull, relaxed. Only she heard the music, only the Divine +words still lingered in her consciousness. It seemed but a moment to her +before she saw all the others rising noisily, opening hymn books, for +the final hymn. She herself therefore rose and stood silently, her hands +folded before her, her eyes fixed forward. They sang a dismissal hymn. +Perhaps there were some who really praised God, from Whom all blessings +flow. The minister raised his hands in that benediction which sent them +all away full of a sense of duty done, albeit a trifle guilty as to that +moral awakening regarding which the minister righteously had upbraided +them. + +All this was but the usual and regular experience of the congregation. +To this woman, this outcast, the unconscious object of the wrath so +lately uttered from the pulpit, it had been a great and gracious +experience. Yes, she said to herself, she had been one of these others! +She was within sight and touch of other women. There were boys and +girls, young human beings, close to her, all about her. And nothing had +happened to her after all! + +Her precious words, assimilated rather from the hymns than from the +sermon, were uppermost in her consciousness as, absorbed, almost +unseeing, she stepped out once more into the vestibule. "All ye ... +_All_ ye...." + +Many passed her; none addressed her; a few drew aside their gowns as she +came near. All stared. A sort of commotion therefore existed in the back +portion of the vestibule as she emerged. The eyes of many young men +were upon her boldly, curiously, insultingly, perhaps--she did not know. + +It is a part of the formula of village life in such a community as +Spring Valley, for the young men thus lingering in the vestibule to +accost the maidens of their choice as they emerge from the body proper +of the church building. The youth steps forward--preceding any rival if +he may--removes his hat, at least in part, and having gained the +maiden's eye, speaks the unvarying phrase, "May I see you home tonight?" +Whereupon the young lady, smiling if favorably disposed to him, is +expected to take his arm in sight of all; and they thus, arm in arm, +descend the eight wooden steps to the sidewalk, and so walk away +undisturbed. Thus there gradually ensues a general pairing off of all. +The swain or the maid left alone is not rated of the social elect. This +is the selecting place of the sexes, far more than the sacred parlor +with its horsehair chairs and its album midway on the table of the +marble top. + +But now, as the little assemblage in the vestibule dissipated, there +came an added commotion, not at the rear, but at the front of the +vestibule. Someone was pushing on inside of the door--someone who +apparently did not belong there. + +It was the half-witted son of Ephraim Adamson, John, commonly called +Johnnie, the idiot! Why he had come hither, why he was allowed to come, +none might say, nor why he came unattended by any of his kin as was the +usual custom. But none molested him. A bold youth said "Hello, Johnnie," +and Johnnie respectfully took off his hat to him with an amiable grin. +They would have mocked him had they dared, but in truth none knew what +to do with him. + +When Aurora Lane had passed in part the gauntlet of the loitering +youths, and was about to step down the stair into the street, she felt a +heavy hand fall on her arm. Then a peal of laughter rose back of +her--laughter on the threshold of the church itself. For what the +half-wit did was what he had seen these others do. Sidling up to her, +his hat off, he said, "May I see--may I see you home this--this +evening?" + +This was accounted the greatest jest, the most unfailingly mirthful +thing in the recountal, ever known in the annals of Spring Valley. + +Aurora Lane started back from him in sudden shocked loathing, swiftly +resentful also of the mocking laughter that she heard from those who +still stood within the sanctuary. Sanctuary? Was there such a place as +sanctuary for her in all the world? Was there any place where she might +be safe, where she might be unmolested? + +"Go on away!" she said sharply, and would have hurried down the stair. +She looked this way and that. There was not a man to whom she might +appeal as her champion--not one! She must trust herself. + +"Go along!" said she. But actually she saw tears in the eyes of the +half-witted giant now. "No, Johnnie; but I'll walk with you with these +others as far as the corner of the square." + +"All right," said he. "I'll do--I'll do that." A wide gap opened in the +ranks of the slow procession on the sidewalk now as these two joined in. +Not too wide, however, for there were certain ones who must keep track +of all details regarding this epochal event. + +"Where is your father, Johnnie?" asked Aurora Lane, quietly and +distinctly, so that all might hear. + +"He--he--I don't--I don't know. I ain't--I ain't been home. I'm out!" +said Johnnie. + +"You've not been home? What do you mean?" + +"Wasn't there--wasn't there a funer'l for somebody today?" he asked +mysteriously. "I can whip any man in Jackson County. My pa said so. +We've--we've done it--we'd done it then if he--if he hadn't pitched on +to me. He done that." + +A sudden terror caught Aurora Lane's soul as she realized that the +addled mind of this half-wit was more than to a usual extent gone wrong. +She feared him with every fiber in her body. She stepped aside quickly +as he made a loutish thrust at her arm, as though to pinch her. + +"I'll pinch you!" said he. "You know why?" + +"No, don't! Go away!" she exclaimed, and pushed out her hand. + +"'Cause--'cause I like you!" said the half-wit. "That's why!" + +Then for a time those who crowded up at the rear heard little, until he +resumed. + +"Oh, I know a lot more I could tell you some time. I ain't--I ain't been +home at all. I'm just looking round. Ain't no one can stop me. There was +some sort of--of funer'l, wasn't there, in town today? Me and my father, +we can lick ary two men in Jackson County." + +He would have made some sort of rude approach once more. But now even +the tardy chivalry of these men of Spring Valley came back to them. Two +or three stepped in between him and Aurora Lane. "Here, you," said the +voice of one, "that'll do! Quit it now." + +Aurora Lane did not have time to thank her rescuers. The painful +situation was relieved suddenly. Just as they were turning at the corner +of the public square there hurried up a man, an oldish man, untidy even +in his Sunday garb, half running toward the group which now he saw +approaching. + +"Hello, Pa," exclaimed the half-wit, and laughed long and loud. "I +didn't come home," said he. "I'm--I'm out!" + +The sad face of Ephraim Adamson was seen by all, as he pushed in among +them and took his son by the arm. They walked away briskly now +together, Johnnie looking back over his shoulder. + +But now, to the surprise of all--to her own surprise as well, so sudden +was her resolve--Aurora Lane hurried after these two. + +"Mr. Adamson," said she, "wait, don't whip him--I'm not angry--I +understand." + +Adamson halted for just a moment. "He's been away all day," said he, his +face showing no resentment of her presence. "I didn't know they let him +out last night--he didn't come home. I began looking for him as soon as +I knew he was out--I thought he might be hiding in the fields--he does +sometimes. He always runs away whenever he gets a chance. I'm sorry if +he's done wrong--has he been bad to you?" + +"I understand everything," said Aurora Lane. Many heard her say that. +"Don't mind. Tomorrow, will you both be in town?--I might talk to you." + +"No, Ma'am," said Adamson briefly. "He can't come any more. I may be +here. What do you want of me--after what I've said--after what I've done +to you? And here you come and bring him back to me." + +His own face showed whitish blue in the flicker of the great arc light. + +"Ma'am," he went on again, "there's a lot about you--you're some woman +after all. Where have you been--at church?" + +"Yes," said Aurora Lane, "I was at church." + +"I ain't been there in years," said Eph Adamson sadly. + +"Neither have I," rejoined Aurora Lane, "twenty years, I think--perhaps +more." + +He gazed at her now out of his old, bleared, sad eyes. "I wouldn't of +been here now but for what's happened," said he. "Already I was sad--and +I was drunk before I was. And I was--well, I felt like I was a rebel, +that was all, yesterday. That boy of yours looked so fine, I couldn't +stand it. Look at mine! I done wrong, Ma'am. I said what I had no right +to say. I'm sorry, clean through--with all my heart I'm sorry for what I +done yesterday." + +She made no answer to him, and he went on. "It seems like some folks was +sort of born under a cloud, don't it? I'm one of them, I reckon. All +this has been my fault. I'm sorry as I can be. Can't you forgive me, +Miss Lane, can't you forgive me any?" + +"You didn't hear the anthem," said Aurora Lane, "because you were not in +church. It said 'Whosoever.' It said 'All ye.'" + +"In some ways," said Eph Adamson slowly--they had been for some time +quite apart from the others, walking on slowly--"it seems like you and +me was living our lives pretty much alike, don't it, Miss Lane? It's +funny, ain't it--we hadn't either of us been to church--not in twenty +years!" + +None the less, as of old, these others passed by upon the other side, +and left unattended those whose wounds were grievous. + +At the corner of her street Aurora Lane paused. "Good-by, Mr. Adamson," +said she. "Good night. I don't want to be unjust to anyone. I'm going to +try not to blame you--I'd like to forgive all the world if I could. I'm +in great trouble now." + +He broke out in a sullen rage. "Forgive? Do that if you can," said he. +"I can't. Maybe a woman can--but forgiving ain't in my line. Well, I'd +give anything I could in the world if I hadn't said what I did yesterday +right there on the public square. All this has come out of that--this +whole trouble. You're different from what I thought. You're a good +woman. I take off my hat to you." + +"I take off my hat to you," mowed the idiot also, imitating what he saw +and heard.... "May I see you home--may I see you home tonight? I'm--I'm +out--I was out all last night. They can't pitch on us. Whip any man in +Jackson County. Good night--good night, Ma'am. I'm sorry--I'm sorry, +too." + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +AT THE COUNTY JAIL + + +Neither Judge Henderson nor his ward attended church services this +Sunday evening, the former because of a certain physical reaction which +disposed him to slumber, the latter because she had other plans of her +own. The great white house, with its wide flanking grounds, where Judge +Henderson had so long lived in somewhat solitary state, was now lighted +up from top to bottom; but presently a light in an upper window +vanished. + +Anne Oglesby tiptoed down the stair side by side with the housekeeper. +She cast a glance of inquiry into the front parlor, where, prone upon a +large couch, was Judge Henderson--rendering audible tribute to Morpheus. + +"He's violating the town ordinance about the muffler cut-out," said Anne +smilingly to the housekeeper. "Oh, don't wake him--I'll be back +presently--tell him." + +She hurried through the yard and down the street toward the central part +of the town. The streets about the square now were well-nigh deserted, +since most folk were in the churches. Her own destination was a square +or two beyond the courthouse, where stood another brick building of +public interest; in short, the county jail. + +It was the duty of the sheriff to care for the tenants of his jail, and +he made his own home in a part of the brick building which served in +that capacity--a small building with iron grates on the lower windows, +arranged at about the height of a man's eyes as he would stand within on +the cement floor of a cell, so that he might look out just above the +greensward, his face visible to any who passed by. Many a boy had thus +gazed with horror on the unshaven face of some ruffian who begged him +for tobacco, or some tramp who had trifled too long with the patience of +the community, usually so generous with its alms. Many a school child +could show you the very place where the woman who killed her children +was confined before they took her away--could point out the very window +where she stood looking and weeping and wringing her hands--"Just like +this"--as any child would tell you. + +And some day perhaps children would point out this very window where now +stood looking out, motionless--"Not saying a word to nobody"--the "man +who killed the city marshal." Don Lane was standing at his grated window +and looking out when Anne Oglesby crossed the grass plot and came up the +brick sidewalk, fenced in by chains supported on little iron posts, +which led to the jail's iron-bound door. + +His heart gave a great leap. He saw her. She was coming to him--the one +faithful, his beloved! Not even Miss Julia--not even his mother--had +come, but here was Anne! + +But at the next instant he stepped back from the window, hoping that she +would not gain admission. Shame, deep and unspeakable, additional shame, +twofold shame, compassed him as soon as he reflected. The bitterest of +all was the fact that he must yield her up forever. He must tell her +why. And now she had come--to see him in a cell! It was here that he +must break his heart, and hers. + +Sheriff Cowles opened the door when Anne Oglesby rang the bell. He stood +for a moment looking out into the twilight. + +"Who is it?" he asked. Then he recognized the girl whom he had brought +down town from the railway station in his car that morning. Anne Oglesby +was not a person easily to be forgotten. + +"You know who I am, Mr. Cowles," said she--"I am Miss Oglesby, Judge +Henderson's ward. I'm--I am respectable." + +"Yes," said Cowles, "I know that, but why are you here?" + +"Because I'd not be respectable if I were not here," she said quietly. +"You probably know." + +"Does the Judge know you have come?" + +"No, he wouldn't have let me come if he had known. I want to see +him--that young man, you know." Her own color was high by this time. + +The sheriff hesitated. "Well," said he, "I don't want to do anything +that isn't right, anything that isn't fair. I reckon I know how you +feel." + +"We're engaged to be married," said Anne Oglesby simply, and looked him +directly in the face. "That gives me some rights, doesn't it?" + +"In one way, maybe, but no legal rights," replied the sheriff, who was +much perplexed, but who could not escape the compelling fact of Anne +Oglesby's presence, the compelling charm of Anne Oglesby herself. "He's +not really committed as yet, of course, only bound over by the coroner's +jury; but the grand jury meets tomorrow, and they'll indict him sure. +You know that. I can't take any chances of his getting away. I have to +be sure." + +"Your wife may come with me," said Anne Oglesby. "It's my right to talk +to him a little while, don't you think? I'm not going to try to get him +out. He hasn't had anyone to help him--he hasn't had any legal counsel." + +"Who'd he send for, anyway?" asked the sheriff. "He's a sort of a waif, +isn't he--her boy? I suppose you've heard about him fighting here around +town yesterday?" + +"I don't know why he fought, but I know that if he did he had cause. I +hope he fought well." + +"They said it was about his mother," began Sheriff Cowles. "Some word +about her was passed----" + +"You needn't say any more," said Anne Oglesby. + +"He hasn't told me to send for any lawyer for him," said Cowles. "It +don't seem like he's thought of it. He's just sort of quiet--mighty +still all the time. Ha-hum!--I don't know what to say about your seeing +him. Why didn't you ask your uncle, Judge Henderson?" + +"Don't call him my uncle," said Anne Oglesby. "He's only my guardian in +law. I've just told you he wouldn't let me come. That's why I've got to +hurry." + +"Well," hesitated the sheriff, "I'll have to warn you not to talk about +this case where I can hear it. I'll have to hear all you say." + +"Would you like to do that?" + +The sheriff flushed. "No," said he, "not special; but you see my own +duty is right clear. I can't play any favorites. If you was his lawyer, +now, it might be different." + +"I am his lawyer, the only one he's got so far as I know." + +"Yes, I reckon the judge wouldn't care to take his case." The sheriff +wagged his head. "He's no ways rich--not beyond four dollars and +seventy-five cents and a pocket knife and some keys on a ring. He's +broke, all right." + +"He's never been anything else," said Anne Oglesby, hotly. "He's never +had a chance. Do you want to keep a man from his chance all his life--do +you want to help railroad him to the gallows? That's for the courts, not +for you. Do you want to hang a man--are you anxious to begin that?" + +Cowles' face grew pale. "God knows I don't! I never done that in my +life, and I don't want to have to, neither. Don't talk about that to me, +Miss." + +"Then don't talk to me any more about those other things. I give you my +word I'll not try to get him out, but I want to see him--I must see +him--he'll want to see me. Don't you know--we've--we've just begun to be +engaged." + +"Some things I can't understand no ways," pondered Sheriff Cowles. "He's +nobody, so far as I can learn. You're the Judge's ward--why, you're +rich, they say." + +"I'd give every cent I have to see him walk out right now. I suppose you +were young once yourself. Were you ever in love, Mr. Cowles?" + +"Yes," said the sheriff, slowly. "I was--I am yet, some. I can remember +back. I don't believe I ought to let you in. But I'm afraid I'll have +to, because you are young--like we all was once--and because you're in +love. Did anyone see you coming over here?" + +"I don't know; but all the town knows about him and me. Well, let them." + +"You must promise not to help him in any way to get out--not to do +anything you hadn't ought to do, nor against the law." + +"I give you my promise," said Anne Oglesby. + +Without more speech the sheriff turned and led the way down the +stone-paved hall to the short cement stairs which made down upon the +half-floor below, at the level of the cells. He turned the switch of an +electric light, so that they might see the better in the hall. + +There was but one tenant, and from beyond his door there came no sound, +not even when Cowles unlocked the iron-shod door and stood, his revolver +easy at his belt. + +As Anne entered she saw Don Lane sitting on the edge of the narrow +pallet, looking at the door. He had not risen. He had been sitting with +his head in his hands. + +He groaned now. "My God!" said he. "Anne! What made you come?" + +[Illustration: "Anne! What made you come?"] + +The sheriff stepped within the door at the side of Anne Oglesby. "I'd +stay about ten minutes or so if I was you," said he, and tried to look +unconscious and impersonal. + +Don Lane rose now, but stood still apart. + +"Why do you say that, Don?" asked Anne, stepping closer to him. "Didn't +you know I'd come?" + +She reached out her hands to him, and he caught both of them in his. + +"I ought to have known you would," said he, "and I know you oughtn't to. +It makes it very hard. I said good-by to you--this morning--today." + +"Won't you kiss me--again, Don?" asked Anne Oglesby. + +He kissed her again, his face white. + +"It's hard to know you for so little a while," said he, his young face +drawn, his voice trembling--"awfully hard. What time there's left to +me--I'll have it all to remember you. But we must never meet after this. +It's over." + +"Don, if I thought it was all over, do you suppose I'd let you kiss me +now?" + +"It's like heaven," said he. "It's all I'll have to remember." + +"A long time, Don--a very long time!" + +"I can't tell. They are not apt to lose much time with my case. The only +crime of my life was in ever lifting my eyes to you, Anne. Oh, you know +I'd never have done that if I had known--what I found out yesterday. But +then I've said good-by to you." + +"_I_ didn't say good-by, Don!" + +He half raised a hand, shaking his head sadly. "You must forget me, no +matter what happens--no matter whether I am cleared or not. I'll never +be the coward to ask you to remember me--that wouldn't be right. I'm +beyond all hope, whichever way it goes." + +"I've come tonight, Don," said she, quietly, "to see about your lawyer." + +He half laughed. "There'll be small need for one, and if there were I've +got no funds. It will take a lot of money." + +"Well, what of that? I've got a lot of money. My guardian told me so +today. I'm worth somewhere between a quarter and a half million dollars +anyway--I'm not rich--but that would help us." + +He laughed at this harshly. "I didn't know you had any money at all. And +you think I'd be coward enough to take your money to get out of +here--after what I have learned about myself since yesterday? Do you +suppose I'd take my life from you--such a life as it's got to be now?" + +"What do you mean, Don?--you won't let me go, will you? You don't +mean----" She stepped toward him, in sudden terror of his resolution. +"Why, _Don_!" + +"Yes, yes. I spent all the afternoon here alone trying to think. Well, I +won't compromise. I never meant to pull you into this--I'll not let you +be dragged into it by your own great-heartedness. But, Anne, Anne, +dearest, dearest, surely you know that when I spoke to you yesterday I +didn't know what I know today! I thought I had a father. You _know_ I'd +not deceive you--you _do_ know that?" + +There was a shuffle on the stone floor of the cell. Sheriff Cowles, +coughing loudly, was turning away from them. A moment later the door +closed behind him. "Ha-hum!" said he to himself outside the door. "Oh, +hell! I wish't I wasn't sher'ff." + +They were alone. With the door closed the cell was dark, save for the +twilight filtering through the barred windows high up along the wall. + +Anne came closer to him and put her hands upon his shoulders. "Oh, Don," +said she, "it's hard, awfully hard, isn't it, to start with such a +handicap? But when did all the men in the world start even? And is it +always the one who starts first that finishes best? Don, you played the +game in college--so did I--we've both got to play the game now! We'll +have to take our handicap. But you mustn't talk about sending me away. I +can't stand everything. Oh, don't! I can't stand that!" Her voice was +choking now. She was sobbing, striving not to do so. + +He caught her wrists in his hands, as her hands still lay upon his +shoulders; but he did not draw her to him. + +"Anne," said he, "the time comes in every man's life for him to die. I +heard once about a man who could not swim and who saw his wife drown in +the stream by him, almost at his side. He ran along and shouted, and +said he could not swim. Well, he lived. The woman died. Suppose that +had been our case. If we both went down together, it wouldn't be so bad, +perhaps. But I'll not have my life as that sort of a gift." + +"You won't let me help you, Don?" + +"No! I won't let you have anything to do with me! I'll never allow your +name to come on my lips, and you must never think of mentioning mine! +Only--Anne, Anne--surely you don't think I had any idea before +yesterday--about my father? I wouldn't buy my own happiness at that +price. I'm no one's son. I'm dead, and doubly dead. But I never knew." + +"No," said she, "I know you did not--I know you would not." + +They both were so young, as they talked on now, wisely, soberly. + +"So you are free," he said, casting away her hands from him, and +standing back. "You never were anything but free." + +"I'll never be free again, Don," said she, shaking her head. "You kissed +me! I'm not a girl any more--I'm a woman now. I can't go back. And now +you tell me to go away! Don't you love me, Don? Why, I love you--so +much!" + +"My God, don't!" he groaned. "Don't! I can't stand everything. But I +can't take anything but the best and truest sort of love." + +"Isn't mine?" + +"No. It's pity, maybe--I can't tell. This is no place for us to talk of +that now. You must go away. I hope you will forget you ever saw me. I +don't even know my father's name--I don't know whether he is living--I +don't know anything! I have been walled in all my life--I'm walled in +now. I never ought to have touched even the hem of your garment, for I +wasn't fit. But I couldn't help it." + +"That's the trouble," said Anne. "I can't help it, either." + +"Ah!" he half groaned, "you ought to be kept from yourself." + +"Kept from myself, Don? If that were true of all the women in the world, +how much world would there be left? That's why I'm here--why, Don, I had +to come!" + +"Anne! It can't be. It's only cruel for you to tear me up by coming +here--by staying here--by standing here. I love you! Anne! Anne! I don't +see how it could be hard as this for any man to part from any woman." He +was trembling through all his strong frame now. + +"But we promised!" + +"The law says that a promise is such only when two minds meet. Our minds +never met--I didn't know the facts--you didn't know about me--we have +just found out about it now." + +"Our minds didn't meet?" said Anne Oglesby. "Our _minds_? Did not our +_hearts_ meet--don't they meet now--and isn't _that_ what it all means +between a man and a woman?" + +He stood, trembling, apart from her in the twilight. + +"Don't!" he whispered. "I love you! I will love you all my life! You +must go away. Oh, go now, go quickly!" + +A merciful footfall sounded on the stone floor of the outer hall. The +door opened, letting in a shaft of light with it. Cowles stood +hesitating, looking at the two young people, still separated, standing +wretchedly. + +"I hate to say anything," said the sheriff, "but I reckon----" + +"She must go," said Don Lane. "Take her away. Good-by--Anne! Anne! Oh, +good-by!" + +"Won't you kiss me, Don?" said Anne Oglesby--"when I love you so much?" + +There were four tears, two great, sudden drops from each eye, that +sprang now on Dan Cowles' wrinkled, sunburned cheeks. + +But Don Lane had cast himself down once more on the pallet and was +trying with all his power to be silent until after she had gone. + +"In some ways," said Dan Cowles to his wife later that night, "he's got +me guessing, that young fellow. He don't act like no murderer to me. But +since she left, and since all this here happened, he's wild--Lord! he's +wild!" + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +THE MOB + + +Anne Oglesby left the jail shortly after the time when church services +were ending. As she hurried by Aurora Lane's house in Mulberry Street +she saw a light shining from the windows, but she did not enter--she +could not have spoken to anyone now. + +She evaded any meeting with her guardian after she had made her way back +home. Judge Henderson had not known of her absence and was not aware of +her return. Anne thus by a certain period of time missed seeing what Dan +Cowles presently saw. + +It was noticeable that Sabbath day that more than the usual number of +farmers' wagons remained in town, quite past the time when the country +church members usually started back for their homes. The farmers seemed +to be in no hurry, even although they had seen a double church service. +There was something restless, something vague, disturbing, over the +town. A number of townsmen also seemed impelled to walk back toward the +public square. Some strange indefinite summons drew them thither. Little +knots of men stood here and there. Groups of women gathered at this or +that gallery front. + +No one knows the point where in vague public thought a general +resolution actually begins. The ripple in the pool spreads widely when a +stone is cast. What chance word, or what deliberate resolve, may have +started the slowly growing resolution of Spring Valley may not be known; +but now a sort of stealthy silence fell over the village as groups +gathered here and there, speaking cautiously, in low tones. + +A knot of men stood near the corner of the square looking down the +street to the light which shone red from the shaded window of Aurora +Lane. + +"I know what was done right in this here town thirty year ago," said one +high pitched voice. "It was old Eph Adamson's father that led them, too. +Them was days when----" + +"Why ain't Eph in town today?" asked another voice. "I seen considerable +of his neighbors around in town today." + +"He was, a while back," said someone. + +"That must have been about a hour ago," said some other, looking about +furtively at the faces of his neighbors. + +"Let's take a stroll over towards the open lots near the jail," +suggested someone else. + +So, following the first to start with definite purpose, little +straggling groups passed on beyond the corner of the square, beyond the +jail itself, to a sort of open space not yet encroached upon by public +or private buildings. + +There was no shouting, no loud talking. The light was dim. The crowd +itself moved vaguely, milling about, like cattle restive and ready to +stampede, but not yet determined on their course. + +"God! Did you hear that music this afternoon--they're done a-buryin' +poor old Joel Tarbush by now, but I can hear it yet, seems to me! Now, +what had poor old Joel ever done--all his life--to deserve bein' +murdered like a dog? It makes my blood sort of rise up to think of that. +Now, them that done that--them that was back of that----" + +His friend, accosted, nodded grimly, his mouth was shut tight and turned +down deep at the corners. + +There did not lack one or two willing at least to talk further. One was +a young man, rather well dressed, apparently fresh from church. He spoke +to any who would listen. + +"What I mean to say, men, is this," said he, "we've got to do something +to clean up this town. It's the _people_ that's behind the law anyhow. +Am I right?" + +"He talks like a lawyer--what he says is pretty true," said one farmer +to another. + +"That was a strong sermon our minister preached tonight," said yet +another. "He said we'd have to stamp out crime and make a warnin'. The +preacher e'en--a'most pointed out what we ought to do." + +"... We'd ought to make a clean sweep of this whole family," said the +same young man, more boldly now. "They're a bad lot--both her son and +her." + +"... We could break into the jail easy," said someone, after a time. +"Cowles couldn't keep us from it. Maybe he wouldn't want to." + +"... The trouble is," resumed the voice of the young man who had earlier +spoken, "it's hard to make a law case stick. We've seen how that worked +out in the trial yesterday--he came clear--they dropped the case, and +nothing was done. Old Eph Adamson had to take all the medicine. But we +ought to take our place as a law-abiding community--I've always said +that." + +"And God-fearin'," said a devout voice. + +"Yes, a God-fearing community! It's been twenty years now that that +woman has flaunted her vice in the face of this community." + +"Ain't a man in this town that don't know about her--it's just sort o' +quieted down, that's all," said a gray-bearded, peak-chinned man grimly; +which was more or less true, as more than one man present knew, himself +not guiltless enough of heart at least to cast the first stone at Aurora +Lane. + +"In the old times," grinned one stoutish man, chewing tobacco and +speaking to a neighbor who held a hand cupped at his ear, "the folks +wouldn't of stood it. They'd just 'a' had a little feather party. They +rid such people out of town on a rail them days--that's what they done. +And they didn't never come back after that--never in the world. As for a +murderer--they made a eend of him!" + +"And so could we make a eend of it all right now, this very night, if we +had a little sand," said another voice. + +For a time all these speakers fell silent, seeking resolve, waiting for +an order, a command. But as they became silent they grew more uneasy. +They broke ground, shifted, milled about, still like cattle. Then head +was laid to head, beard wagged to beard again. + +And then, all at once, it broke! + +"_Come on, boys!_" cried a loud voice at last--not that of the young man +who first had spoken--not that of any of these others speakers who had +hesitated, lacking courage of definite sort. "_Come on! Who's with me?_" + +The town of Spring Valley never mentioned the name of this speaker. The +report got out in a general way that he was a farmer who lived a few +miles out in the country. Indeed, sympathy for Ephraim Adamson's bad +fortune in this case was no doubt largely at the bottom of this affair +tonight--along with these other things; sympathy for Tarbush; the +sermons of the preachers; the emotional spell of the dirge music, still +lingering on these crude souls. No mob reasons. It was plain that most +of the men, though not all, were farmers. But now they all fell in +behind the leader as he started, a motley procession. Some folded +handkerchiefs and tied them about their faces. Yet others reversed their +coats, wearing them with the linings outside. Others pulled their hats +down over their eyes. + +Their feet, although not keeping time, none the less caught a ragged +unison, in a sound which could have been heard at a considerable +distance. Dan Cowles heard it now, and came to the door of the county +jail. As he saw the crowd, he drew a long breath. + +"They're coming here!" said he to himself at length. "I reckon they'll +try to get him. I'll hold him anyways, and they know that." Quickly he +darted back into the jail. + +The procession debouched at the edge of the jail yard square, halted for +a moment, then came on steadily, because someone at their head walked +steadily. Perhaps there were seventy-five or a hundred of them in all. +Most of them were neighbors, nearly every man knew who was his neighbor +here, even in the darkness. Not one of these could precisely have told +why he was here. By some process of self-persuasion, some working of +hysteria, some general acceptance of the auto-suggestion of the mob, +most had persuaded themselves that they were there to "do their duty." +It sounded well. If, indeed, they had been brought hither merely by the +excitement of it, merely under the hypnosis of it, they forgot that, or +tried to forget it, and said they were there to do their duty--their +duty to their God-fearing town.... But in the mind of each was a picture +out of the past of which we may not inquire. That night far worse than +murder might have been done. + +"We want him, Dan. Bring him out!" The voice of the leader sounded dry +and hoarse, but he did not waver, for he saw the sheriff make no move of +resistance. + +"You can't get him," said Dan Cowles. "You couldn't even if he was here. +But he ain't here." + +"What do you mean, he ain't here? We know he is!" + +"Come in and see," said Cowles, stepping back. "I just been to his cell +and he ain't there. Come in and search the whole jail." + +They did come in and search the jail, piling into the corridors, opening +every door, looking into every room even of the sheriff's living +quarters, but the jail was empty! There was no prisoner there at all. + +"We want Don Lane, that killed the city marshal," repeated the husky +voice of the leader once more. "Where is he?" + +"I don't know," said Sheriff Cowles. "If I did, I wouldn't tell you." +And indeed he spoke only truth in both these statements. + +"I know!" screamed a high voice in the middle of the man pack. "He's +maybe up at her house--'Rory Lane's. Let's go search the place--we'll +get him yet!" + +It was enough. The mob, thus resisted, disappointed, began to mutter, to +talk now, in a low, hoarse half roar of united voices. They turned away +on a new trail. Some broke into shouts as they began to hurry down the +brick walk of the jail yard. They jostled and crowded in the street, as +they came into the corner of the public square. A general outcry arose +as they caught sight of the light in the window of Aurora Lane's little +home, a half block down the street, beyond the corner of the square. + +Aurora heard the sound of their feet coming down the sidewalk. She heard +the noise at her gate--heard the crash as the gate was kicked off its +new-mended hinges--heard the men crowd up her little walk, heard their +feet clumping on the little gallery floor. Her heart stopped. She stood +white-faced, her hands clasped. What was it? What did they mean? Were +they going to kill her boy? Had they killed him? Were they going to tell +her that? Were they going to kill her, too? + +"Come on out!" she heard someone calling to her. It seemed to her that +she must go. In some strange hypnosis, her feet began to move, +unsanctioned by her volition.... She stood at the door facing them all, +her eyes large, her face showing her distress, her query, her new +terror. On her face indeed was written now the whole story of her +despair, her failure, her terrible unhappiness. She had aged by years, +these last twenty-four hours. Now sheer terror was written there also. +The mob! The lynchers! The avengers! What had they not and more than +once done in this little savage town?... A picture rose before her +mind ... a horrible picture out of the past. Wide-eyed, she caught at the +throat of her gown, caught at the covering of her bosom--and then went +at bay, as does any despairing creature that has been pressed too hard. + +She looked down at them. Those nearest to her were masked. Back of them +rose groups of shoulders, rough clad, hats pulled down.... No, she did +not know one of them; she did not recognize even a face--or was not sure +she had done so. They jostled and shifted and pushed forward. + +"No! No! Go back! Go on away!" she cried, pale, her eyes starting. And +again she called aloud, piteously, on that God who seemed to have +forsaken her. + +"Come on out!" cried a voice, thick and husky. "Come on out, and hurry +up about it. Bring him out--we know he's here. We want Don Lane, and +we're going to git him--or we'll git you. Damn you, look out, or we'll +git you both! Where's that boy, that killed the marshal?" + +"He's not here," answered Aurora, in a voice she would not have known to +be her own. "I don't know where he is. Believe me, if he's not there in +the jail, I don't know where he is. What do you want of him? He's not +here--I give you my word he's not." + +She still stood, near the door, her hands clutching at her clothing, a +mortal terror in her soul, her frail woman's body the only fence now for +her home, no longer sanctuary. + +"You lie! We know he is here--he ain't in the jail. If the sher'f let +him out, he'd come here. You've got him hid. Bring him out--it's no use +trying to get him away from us. We want him, and we've come to git him." + +The words of the leader got their support in the rumble of fourscore +throats. + +"I'm telling you the truth," quavered poor Aurora Lane. "Men, can't you +believe me? Have I ever lied to you?" + +A roar of brutish laughter greeted this. "Listen at her talk!" cried one +tall young man. "Fine, ain't it! She's been just a angel here! Oh, no, +she wouldn't lie to us about that boy--oh! no, she never has! Why, you +ain't never done nothing _but_ lie, all your life!" + +They laughed again at this, and became impatient. + +"This is her little old place," began the same voice. "I've never been +in it before. I bet they's been goings-on, right here, more'n once." + +"That's so!" said a man whose mouth corners were drawn down hard. "And +in this here God-fearin' town o' ours, that's always wanted to be +respectable." + +"Sure we did, all of us!" encored the cracking treble of the same tall, +well-dressed young man. "Whose fault if we ain't? She's his mother. This +whole business come of her bein' what she is--looser'n hell, that's all. +We stood it all for years--but this is too much--killin' the city +marshal----" + +"I didn't!" cried Aurora Lane, ghastly pale. "He never did. I've tried +to live here clean for twenty years. Not one of you can raise a voice +against me--you cowards, you liars! My boy--if he were here, not any ten +of you'd dare say that! You'd not dare to touch him. Oh, you brutes--you +low-down cowards!" + +"We'll show you if we don't dare!" rejoined the steady voice of the +leader. "Fetch him out now and we'll show you about that. We're goin' to +git him, first 'r last, and it's no use trying to stop it. We'll +reg'late this town now, in our own way. If that boy's out of jail, he's +either skipped or else he's here. Either way, the safest thing to do is +to come on through with him. If you don't, we'll see about _you_--and +we'll do it mighty soon. Bring him out." + +"Oh, hell!" shrilled a falsetto voice, "you're wastin' time with her. +Go on in after him--she's got him hid--she's kep' him hid for twenty +years and she's keepin' him hid now--and you can gamble on it! Go on in +and git him!" + +There came a shuffling of feet on the walk, on the gallery floor. Aurora +was conscious that the blur of faces was closer to her.... She saw +masks, hats, kerchiefs, stubbled chins crowding in, close up to her. A +reek of the man pack came to her, close, stifling, mingled of tobacco, +alcohol, and the worse effluvia of many men excited.... The terror, the +horror, the disgust, the repugnance of it all fell on her like a +blanket, stifling, suffocating, terrifying. She no longer reasoned--it +was only desperation, terror, which made her spread out her arms from +lintel to lintel of her little deserted door, where the last sacred +shred of her personal privacy now was periled. The last instinctive, +virginal--yes, virginal--terror at the intrusion of man, of men, of many +men, was hers now. Home--sanctuary--refuge--all, all was gone. She +stood, disheveled, her gown now half loosed at the neck as she spread +her weak arms open across her door. Her eyes were large, round, open, +staring, her face a tragic mask as she stood trying--a woman, weak and +quite alone--to beat back the passion of these who now had come to rob +her of the last--the very last--of the things dear to her; the last of +the things sacred to her, the things any woman ought to claim inviolate +and under sanctuary, no matter who or what she is or ever may have been. + +But the fever, the hysteria of these no longer left either reason or +decency to them, neither any manner of respect for the sacredness of +womanhood; a thing for the most part inherent even under the severest +strains ever brought to bear on man to make him lower than the +brute--the brute which at its basest never lacks acknowledgment of the +claims of sex. + +These men had reverted, dropped, declined as only man himself, noblest +and lowest of all animals, may do. There was no mercy in them, indeed no +comprehension, else the appeal of the outraged horror on the face of +Aurora Lane must have driven them back, or have struck them down where +they stood. + +"You git on out of the way now!" she heard the coarse voice of someone +say in her face.... + +She held her arms out across her door only for an instant longer--she +never knew by whom it was, or when, that they were swept down, and she +herself swept aside, crumpled in a corner of her room. + +The mob was in her home; she had no sanctuary! She caught glimpses of +dark shoulders, compacted by the narrowness of the little rooms, surging +on in and over everything, into every room, testing every crack and +crevice. She heard laughs, oaths, obscenity such as she had never +dreamed men used--for she knew little of the man animal--heard the +rising unison of voices recording a renewed disappointment and chagrin. + +"Damn her! She's got away with him!" called out someone. + +"Sure she has--we might of expected it," rejoined another. "She always +gets by with it somehow--she's pulled the wool over our eyes all her +life. She's fooled us now once more." + +"What'll we do, boys?" cried out the falsetto of the tall young man, +whose face was not set strong with a man's beard-roots. "Are we going to +let her get away with it like this?" + +He made some sort of answer for himself, for there came the crash of +broken glass as he flung some object across the room. + +It was enough--it was the cue. "Smash her up, boys!" cried out another +voice. "Put her out of business now! She's fooled us for the last time." + +They did not find Don Lane, not though they searched this house as they +had the jail. So now their anger caught them, resentful, unreasoning, +unfeeling, brutal anger.... + +So they wrecked the little house of Aurora Lane. They tore down the +pictures from the walls, the curtains from the windows, broke in the +windows themselves. They smashed one piece of furniture against another. +They even tore up the little white bed--at which for twenty years +nightly Aurora Lane had kneeled to pray. Someone caught up one of the +pillows, laughing loudly. "Here you are, here's plenty, I reckon! Damn +you! You're lucky we don't give you a ride. Tar'n feathers, 'n a ride on +a rail--that's the medicine for such as you." + +The thought of escape, of rescue, of resistance now had passed from the +mind of Aurora Lane. Frozen, speechless, motionless, she waited, +helpless before this blind fury. They had been after Don, and they had +not found him. Where was Don? And what would they now do to her? What +was that last coarse, terrible threat that they had meant? + +She caught her torn frock again to her throat as she saw, not a definite +movement toward her, but a cessation of movement, a pause, a silence, +which seemed more terrible and more ominous than anything yet in all +this hour of torment and terror. What would they do now? + +They had halted, paused, they stood irresolute, still a pack, a mass, a +mob, not yet resolved into units of thinking, reasoning, human beings; +when without warning suddenly, there came something to give them cause +for thought. + +There was still a rather dense crowd around the gate, on the walk, where +some score or more lingered, who either had not entered the house or who +had emerged from it. It was against the edge of this mass that a +heavily built man, heavy of face, heavy of hand, cast himself as he now +came running up. + +It was the sheriff, Dan Cowles. He thrust a revolver barrel into the +face of the nearest man, caught another by the shoulder. A halt, a +pause, whether of irresolution or of doubt, of indecision or of shame, +came like a falling and restraining hand upon all this lately demoniacal +assemblage. They did not move. It was as though a net had been sprung +above them all. + +"Halt!" called out the voice of the sheriff, high and clear. "What are +you doing here?" + +"It's the sher'f!" croaked one gray beard farther back. "God! what'll he +do to us now?" + +The feeling of apprehension gave courage to some of the bolder. Two or +three sprang upon Cowles from behind and broke him down. He fell, his +revolver pulled from his hand. He looked up into faces that he knew. + +"Make a move and you'll get it," said a hoarse, croaking voice above +him. "Shut up now and keep quiet, and keep to yourself what you seen. +We're just having a little surprise party, that's all. We're only +cleaning up this town." + +But now another figure came running--more than one. Judge Henderson +himself had heard the tumult on the streets. It was he who first hurried +up to the edge of the crowd. + +"Men!" he cried, holding up his hand. "What are you doing? Disperse, in +the name of the law! I command it!" + +They had long been used to obeying the voice of Judge Henderson. He was +their guide, their counselor, their leader. Some hesitated now. + +And then Judge Henderson pushed into the little group, looked over their +heads, their shoulders--and saw what ruin had been wrought in Aurora +Lane's little home. He saw Aurora standing there, outraged in every +fiber, desecrated in her very soul, the ruins of her lost sanctuary +lying all about her and on her face the last, last anguish of a woman +who has said farewell to all, everything--life, happiness, peace, hope, +and trust in God. + +Henderson cast his own hands to his face as he pushed back from that +sight. He stood trembling and silent, unstrung by one swift, remorseless +blow from his own soul, his own long sleeping conscience. + +Afar off, in the village, someone rang a bell--that at the engine house. +Its summons of alarm called out every townsman not already in the +streets. + +But before this time reaction had begun in the mob. Something about +Judge Henderson--the sudden change in his attitude--the blanched terror, +the awful horror which showed now in his face--seemed to bring reason to +their own inflamed and muddled minds. And now, as they hesitated, they +felt the impact of two other strong men who flung themselves against +them, shouldered their way through, up to the side of the struggling +sheriff. Those in the way looked into the barrels of two revolvers, one +held in each hand of a tall man, a giant in his rugged strength, as +those knew whom he jostled aside in his savage on-coming. + +"Hold on, men!" cried out the great voice of Horace Brooks. "I'll kill +the first man that makes a move. Law or no law, I'll kill you if you +move. What are you doing here?" + +At his side there was another, a young man--white-faced--a tall young +man whom not all of them had seen before, whom not many recognized now +in the sudden confusion as they swayed back, jostling one and another in +the attempt to get away--the young man, the prisoner they had wanted and +not found. The young man swung at one arm of Hod Brooks, tried to wrest +from him one of the revolvers--sought to gain some weapon with which he +might kill. But Hod Brooks kept him away. + +"Get back," he said, "leave it to us. God! Don't look at that! They've +smashed her place all to hell!" + +Still another man came, running, shouting--calling out--calling some of +those present by their own names. It was old Eph Adamson, and tears were +streaming down his face. + +"You men!" he called out, and he named them one after another. "You're +my neighbors, you're my friends. What are you doing here--oh, my +God!--my God! What have you done? She's a good woman--I tell you she's a +good woman." + +The three of these newcomers broke their way in to the side of the +sheriff, who by this time was up to his knees. They caught his gun away +from the man who had taken it. + +"Give it to me!" said the low, cold voice of the young man who was +fighting--and before his straight thudding blows a man dropped every now +and then as he came on, struggling desperately to get the weapon. "Give +it to me!" + +He reached out his hand for the sheriff's gun; but still they put him +away, gasping, his eyes with murder in them. + +"Get back," cried Horace Brooks. "Leave it alone. Get back. Look out, +men--he'll shoot!" + +There were five of them now who made a little group. Two others came +running to join them--Nels Jorgens, the wagon-maker and blacksmith--at +his side the spare figure of the gray-bearded minister, Rawlins, of the +Church of Christ. + +"Get into them now, Dan!" cried the great voice of Horace Brooks. "Break +through." + +So they broke through. Men fell and stumbled, whether from blows or in +the confusion of their own efforts to escape. At the edges of the crowd +men turned and ran--ran as fast as they could. After a time they of the +smaller party were almost alone. + +The sheriff turned away, picking up a coat which he found lying on the +ground. The tall young man who had fought at his side stood now leaning +against the fence, his face dropped into his hands, shaking his head +from side to side, unable to weep. Cowles stepped up to him. + +"I'm glad you come, boy," said he, "but it's no place for you here. I +must have left the door open when I went away--I plumb forgot it. +Where've you been, anyhow?" + +"You forgot--you left the door unlocked after she went away--Anne. But I +wasn't trying to escape--I wasn't going out of town." + +"Where was you, then?" + +"I was down at the bridge--I was thinking what to do. Once my mother was +going to take me there.... But I thought of her--Anne, you know, and my +mother, too. I hardly knew what was right.... I heard the noise...." + +Dan Cowles looked at him soberly. "Run on down to the jail now, son, and +tell my wife to lock you in. Tell her I'll be on down, soon's I can." + +Judge Henderson, white-faced, trembling, looked in the starlight into +the face of the one man whom he classed as his rival, his enemy in this +town--it was a wide, white face with narrow and burning eyes, a +Berserker face framed with its fringe of red. Horace Brooks himself was +still almost sobbing with sheer fighting rage. There was that in his eye +terrible to look upon. + +"Oh, my God!" said Judge Henderson again and again. "Oh, my God!--my +God!----" He supported himself against the broken posts of what had been +the little gate of Aurora Lane. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +THE IDIOT + + +At seven o'clock of Monday morning, Johnnie Adamson stood at the +roadside at the front of his father's farmhouse. He held in his hands a +wagon stake which he had found somewhere and with it smote aimlessly at +anything which came in his way. His usual amiable smile was gone. A low +scowl, like that of some angered anthropoid, had replaced it. His +mother, seeing that some unusual turn had taken place in his affliction, +stood at the window of the farmhouse looking out at him and wringing her +hands. She long ago had ceased to weep--the fountain of tears had dried +within her soul. There came to her now and then the sound of his hoarse +defiance, hurled at all who passed by on the road. + +"Son John!--Eejit!--Whip any man in Jackson County!" + +Ephraim Adamson was at the time in the field at work. His wife at length +crept out to the back porch and pulled the cord of the dinner bell. Its +sound rang out across the fields. Her husband came running, more than +half suspicious of the cause of the alarm. Long had their lives been +lived in vague dread of this very thing--a violent turn in the son's +affliction. The father's anxious face spoke the question. + +"Yes, he's bad," said the wife to him. "I'm afraid of him--he's getting +worse." + +The father walked out into the front yard. The youth came toward him, +grinning pleasantly. He fell into the position of a batsman, swinging +his club back and forth as he must some time have seen ball players do. + +"Now you--now you throw it at me--and I'll hit it," said the half-wit. +"You--you throw it at me--and I'll hit--I'll hit it." + +To humor him, his father pitched at him a broken apple that lay on the +ground near by. Johnny struck at it and by chance caught it fair, +crushing it to fragments. At this he laughed in glee. + +"Now--now--another one," said he. "I'll hit--I'll hit them all." + +His father walked up to him and reached out a hand, but for the first +time the boy resented his control. He broke away, swinging his club +menacingly, striking at everything in his way. Ephraim Adamson followed +him; but still evading, the half-wit passed out through the gate which +led into the garden patch at the rear of the house. With his club he cut +at the tops of everything green that he passed. Especially, with many +yells of glee, he fell upon the rows of cabbages, then beginning to head +out. With heavy blows of his club he cut down one after another. The +game seemed to excite him more and more. At last it seemed to enrage him +more and more. He struck with greater viciousness. + +"Eejit!" said he. "I'm out--they can't pick on me! I can hit them! I +will, too, hit them! I'll hit him!" + +His father, following him, saw the face of the club all stained +now--stained dark--black or red--stained green. He caught at the stick, +but for once found his own strength insufficient to cope with that of +his son. The latter wrestled with him. In a direct grip, one against the +other, in which both struggled for the club, the father was unable to +wrest it from him; and continually he saw a new and savage light come +into the eyes of his son. The boy threatened him, menaced him with the +club. His father drew back, for the first time afraid. He went back into +the house, to his wife, on whom he turned a gray, sad face. + +"I'm afraid," said he slowly, "I'm afraid we'll have to send him away. +He's awfully bad--he might do anything. I'd rather see him dead." + +The nod of the sad-faced woman was full assent. She gazed out of the +window blankly, barrenly. Ephraim Adamson went out again into the yard. +He passed the boy, unseen, went out into the stable yard, and caught up +his team, which soon he had harnessed to his light wagon. By this time +Johnnie had gone to the woodpile and taken up the ax. He was +endeavoring to split some cordwood, but he rarely could hit twice in the +same place, all his correlations being bad. His father now threw open +the gate and drove into the yard. + +"Want a ride, Johnnie?" he asked; and the boy docilely came and climbed +into the front seat beside him. Not even looking at his wife, Adamson +started out at good speed for the eight-mile drive into Spring Valley. +For the most part the boy was quiet now, but once in a while the return +of a paroxysm would lead him to shout and fling up his hands, to grin or +make faces at any who passed. + +In town, at the corner of the public square, Johnnie became unruly. Some +vague memory was in his mind. He pointed down the head of Mulberry +Street. + +"I want to go--I want to go there!" said he. + +Before his father could stop him he had sprung out of the wagon and run +on ahead. Adamson as quickly as possible hitched his team at the nearest +rack and followed at full speed, sudden terror now renewed in his own +soul. The boy had turned in at the gate of the little house of Aurora +Lane--that little house now scarce longer to be called a home! + +Aurora Lane was alive, within. She moved about dully, slowly, her mind +numb at the horror of all she had gone through. The feeling possessed +her that she was without help or hope in all the world, that her God +himself had forsaken her. She heard the sound of running footsteps, and, +gazing through the window, saw the idiot son of Ephraim Adamson standing +just inside the gate. She heard him come up the steps, heard him begin +to pound on the door. + +"Quick! Miss Lane," called Adamson as he came following up on the +run--he hoped that Aurora would hear him. "Don't let him in. +Telephone--get the sher'f as soon as you can." + +He walked up the steps now and took the boy by the arm as he hammered at +the door with the head of the club. + +"Come on, Johnnie," said he. "We'll go see the pictures. Come along." + +It was not better than an animal, the creature who now turned facing +him, growling. "Get out!" said Johnnie to him. "No one--no one can pick +on me! I'll hit--I'll hit you. Whip any man in Jackson County. I'm +out--I'll hit anybody touches me. I guess I know!" + +His sweeping blows about him with the club forced his father back, and +showed that any attempt to close with him would be dangerous. Adamson +retired to the gate. Johnnie went on smashing everything about him, +flower beds, chairs, a little table which stood on the front +gallery--anything left undestroyed by the more intelligent but not less +malignant visitors of the night before, who thus had set a pattern for +him. + +"I want in," he said pleasantly after a time, seating himself on the +front steps. "Eejit--best man in Jackson County. She was good to me. She +spoke to me kind. I won't hurt her." + +Aurora Lane could see him as she gazed out from behind the window +curtain. Her call on the telephone to the officer of the law had been +loud, insistent, the appeal of a woman in terror. But now, as she looked +out at Johnnie Adamson, something other than terror was in her wan +face;--something like surprise--something like conviction! The thought +brought with it no additional terror--rather it carried a swift ray of +hope! + +It was toward eight o'clock in the morning now. Few were abroad on the +streets of Spring Valley, but now and then a passer-by turned to gaze at +a man who was hurrying across from the court and turning into Mulberry +Street. It was Dan Cowles, the sheriff, and they wondered where he was +going now. + +Ephraim Adamson heard the hurrying approach as Dan Cowles came down the +street. The boy still was sitting on the steps. Suddenly he turned--and +caught sight of the face of Aurora Lane at the window. He rose, removed +his hat, and smirked. + +"May I see you home?" said he. "Eejit--the best man in Jackson County. I +can hit anybody! I'll show you." + +He was mowing, smirking, talking to her through the glass of the window +pane, jerking and twitching about, but he turned now when he heard the +steps of his father and the sheriff on the brick walk back of him. + +"He's gone bad, Dan," said Adamson in a low tone to the sheriff. "We'll +have to lock him up. He'll have to go to the asylum. He's dangerous. +Look out!" + +Suddenly the half-wit turned upon them. His eyes seemed fixed on the +star shining on the coat of Dan Cowles--identically the same star that +City Marshal Tarbush had worn, Cowles having for the time taken on the +deceased man's duties also. The sight enraged him. He brandished his +club. + +"There he is!" he cried. "I hit him once--I killed him--I'm going to +kill him again! You can't pick on me. I'm out. I'll kill you again!" + +"My God! _what's he saying, Dan_?" quavered the voice of the unhappy +man, the father of this wild creature. "What's he _saying_?" + +"Johnnie!" he himself called out aloud. "Johnnie, tell me--tell me who +it was, and I'll take you to see the pictures right away." + +"Him!" shrieked Johnnie. "Him--there's that shiny thing." + +"When was it, Johnnie--what do you mean about this man?" The sheriff now +spoke to him. + +"I hit you--that night--I'll hit you again now! Nobody going to pick on +Johnnie. Best man in Jackson County--eejit!" + +"You're going to take me away to jail again," said he cunningly. "But +you can't. I was just going to talk to her before, and you come and took +me away. But I hit him. Now I'll kill you so you'll stay dead." + +Slowly, cautiously creeping down the steps, club in hand, he followed +the two men, who backed away from him--backed out through the gate on to +the sidewalk, into the street. + +From across the street Nels Jorgens in his wagon shop saw what was going +on, and came running, a stout wagon spoke caught up in his own hand. He +passed this to Ephraim Adamson. + +"Look out, Sheriff!" he called out. "He's wild. He'll kill somebody +yet." + +Nels Jorgens and one or two others saw what then happened. The madman, +now murderously excited, stopped in his deliberate advance. His eyes +flamed green with hatred at all this before him. The lust of blood +showed on his features, usually so mild. He saw his father standing now, +this weapon in his hand; and forgetting every tie in the world, if ever +he had felt one, sprang at him with a scream of rage. Ephraim Adamson +stepped back, tripped, fell. He saw above him the face of his son, with +murder in his eyes. He closed his own eyes. + +And then Nels Jorgens and one or two others who came hurrying up saw a +puff of smoke, heard the roar of a shot Dan Cowles had fired just in +time.... + +There was no need to send poor Johnnie Adamson to the asylum. He had +gone now to a farther country. He sank, a vast bulk, at his full length +along the narrow strip of dusty grass between the curb and the walk. His +shoulders heaved once or twice, his arms fell lax. + +Dan Cowles, solemn-faced, his weapon still in his hand, turned to gaze +at the haggard man who rose slowly, turning away from that which he now +saw. + +"It was the act of committing a felony," said Dan Cowles slowly. "It was +to save human life. He resisted arrest, and he was armed. It was a +felony." + +But when old Ephraim Adamson turned his gray face to that of the officer +of the law, in his sad eyes there was no resentment. He held out his +hand. + +"Dan," said he, "thank God you done it! Thank God it's over!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +A TRUE BILL + + +Now it was nine o'clock of the Monday morning. The grand jury was in +session thus early, and it had thus early brought in a true bill against +one Dieudonné Lane for murder in the first degree. The session of the +jury had just begun. None of the jury knew of these late events at the +house of Aurora Lane. + +In his office Judge Henderson was pacing up and down all that morning. +He had failed in every attempt to stop the progress of the law. He could +not on Sunday afternoon reach by telephone or otherwise the men he +wished to see; on Sunday night had seen this horror; and now, early on +Monday, there was no way by which even he could arrest the procedure of +the grand jury, made up of men who lived here, and who before this had +made up their minds on the bill which Slattery, state's attorney, +zealous as they, had rushed through at a late session with his own +clerks on Sunday night after he had ended his Sabbath motor ride to an +adjoining town. + +Fate conspired against Judge Henderson and his shrewd plan for delay +which was to have left him secure in his ambition and saved in his own +conceit. These things now seemed shrunk, faded, unimportant. + +He had not slept at all that night. Before him now swept such a panorama +as it seemed to him would never let him sleep again. He was indeed +facing now the crisis of his life--a crisis not in his material affairs +alone, but a crisis of his moral nature. He had learned in one swift +lesson what others sometimes learn more deliberately--that the world is +not for the use of any one man alone, but for the use of all men who +dwell in it. It is the world of human beings who are partners in its +use. They stand alike on its soil, they fight there for the same end. +They are brothers, even though savage brothers, after all. + +And among these are fathers, too. It was his own son who lay in yonder +jail. Now at last some thought, a new, stirring and compelling emotion +came into his soul. It was not her boy, but his--it was his son! And now +he knew he had been indeed a Judas and a coward. + +Judge Henderson's dulled senses heard a sound, a distinct and unusual +sound. He stepped out into the hall and spoke to a neighbor who also was +looking out of his office door. + +"What was that shot?" he asked. + +"I don't know," said the other. "Where was it at--around that corner? +Oh, I reckon it was probably a tire blew out at Nels Jorgen's wagon +shop--he has automobiles there sometimes." + +Henderson turned back to his own office, his nerves twitching. He was +obliged to face the duties of this day. + +What was to happen now to William Henderson, the leading citizen of +Spring Valley? Actually, he now did not so much care. It was his +son--his own son--in yonder jail! The heart of a father began to be born +in him, thus late, thus very, very late.... He had seen her face, last +night. + +He walked slowly down his stair and across the street to the courthouse. +His course was such that he could not see into Mulberry Street. Some +persons were hurrying in that direction, but he did not join them. He +was too preoccupied to pay much attention to the sounds which came to +his ears. As for himself, he could have gone anywhere rather than near +to the house of Aurora Lane that morning. A great terror filled his +soul, a terror largely of these people among whom he had lived thus +long. They had wrecked her home. They might have done worse in their +savagery. But it was he himself who was the real cause of that. Would +she still keep her oath now, after this? Could she be silent now? + +He walked on now into the courthouse and down the long hall. He was +about to step into the county clerk's office, when he came face to face +with a tall man just stepping out. It was Horace Brooks. + +"Well, Judge," said the latter, "how is it with you today?" + +He spoke not unkindly, although his own face was haggard and gray. +Neither had he slept that night. + +"It goes badly enough," said Henderson. "Nothing could be much worse. +Well?" + +"You want to know if the grand jury has voted that bill? They have--I +have just heard. Of course you know I am counsel of record for the +defense." + +"I didn't know it." + +"Yes, Judge, there's going to be a fight on this case," said Hod Brooks +grimly. "That is, if you really want to fight. I've got nothing left to +trade--but, Judge, do you think you and I really ought to fight--over +this particular case?" + +"I can't forswear my own professional duties," began Judge Henderson, +his mouth dry in his dull dread, his heart wrenched. He wondered what +Hod Brooks knew, what he was going to do. He knew what must come, but he +was not ready for the hour. + +"Come into this room," said Horace Brooks suddenly. "I won't go to your +office, and I won't ask you to come to mine. But come in here, and let's +have a little talk." + +They stepped over to the door of the county treasurer's office, across +the hall. It was a room of the sort usual in a country courthouse, with +its high stools and desks, its map-hung walls, its scattered chairs, its +great red record books lying here and there upon the desk top. + +A young woman sat making some entry in a book. "Miss Carrie," said +Horace Brooks to her, "Judge Henderson and I want to talk a little +together privately. Please keep us from being disturbed. You run +away--we won't steal the county funds." + +Smilingly the clerk obeyed. Brooks turned to Judge Henderson abruptly. + +"Look here, Judge," said he. + +He pointed to a large framed lithograph which hung on the wall--the same +which had hung on the wall in the library at the exercises of Saturday +night. It was a portrait of the candidate for the United States +Senate--Judge Henderson himself. The latter looked at it for a moment +without comment, and turned back with an inquiring eye. + +Brooks was fumbling in the side pocket of his alpaca coat, and now he +drew out from it a good-sized photograph, which he placed face upward on +the desk beside them. It was done in half-profile, as was the portrait +upon the wall. + +"Look at this picture too, Judge, if you please," said he, "and then +look back again at the lithograph. That was taken some years ago, when +you were young, wasn't it?" + +Judge Henderson flushed lividly. "I leave all those things to the +committee," croaked he. + +"--But this one here," said Horace Brooks slowly, "was taken when you +were still younger, _say, when you were twenty-two_, wasn't it?" He +moved back so that Judge Henderson might look at the photograph. He saw +the face of the great man grow yellow pale. + +"Where did you get this?" he whispered. "How?" + +"I got it of Miss Julia Delafield, at the library, early this morning," +said Horace Brooks. "I told Miss Julia, whatever she did, to stay in the +library and not to go over to Aurora Lane's house. I--I didn't want her +to see what had happened there. She was busy, but she found this picture +for me. And we both know that really it is a photograph of the young man +against whom the grand jury have just brought a true bill--within the +last ten minutes." + +There was silence in the dusty little room. The large white hand on the +desk top was visibly trembling. Hod Brooks' voice was low as he went on: + +"Now, as to trying this case, Judge, I brought you in here to ask you +what you really want to do? I don't my own self very often try cases out +of court--although I have sometimes--sometimes. Yes, sometimes that's +the way to serve the ends of substantial justice." + +Henderson made no reply--he scarcely could have spoken. He could feel +the net tightening; he knew what he was to expect now. + +"Now, here are these two pictures," resumed Brooks. "Suppose I _were_ +trying this case _in_ court. I'm not sure, but I think I could get them +both introduced in evidence, these two pictures. I think they are both +germane to this case--don't you? You've been on the bench--we've both +read law. Do you think as a judge you could keep a good lawyer from +getting these two pictures introduced in evidence in that case?" + +"I don't see how you could," said the hoarse voice of Judge Henderson. +"It would be altogether immaterial and incompetent." + +"Perhaps, perhaps," said Hod Brooks. "That's another good reason why I'd +rather try the case here, if it suits you! But just suppose I enlarged +this photograph to the exact size of the lithograph on the wall, and +suppose I did get them both into evidence, and suppose I unveiled the +two at just the psychological moment--I presume you would trust me to do +that? + +"Now if I hadn't seen you last night just where you were, if I hadn't +hoped, from what I saw of you, that you were part man at least--_that's +how I would try this case_! What do you think about it?" + +"I think you are practising politics again, and not law," sneered +Henderson. But his face was white. + +"Yes? Well, I'll tell you, I don't want to see you go to the United +States Senate. In the first place, though I agreed not to run at all, I +never agreed to help you run. In the second place, I never did think you +were a good enough man to go there, and now I think it less than ever. +And since you ask me a direct question of political bearing, I'll say +that, if the public records--that is to say, the court records and all +the newspapers--showed the similarity of these two pictures side by +side, the effect on your political future might be very considerable! +What do you think? + +"Now, if you take you and that boy side by side today," he went on, +having had no reply, "the resemblance between you two might not be +noticed. But get the _ages_ together--get the view of the face the same +in each case--take him at his age and you at something near the same +age--and don't you think there is much truth in what I said? The boy has +red hair, like me! But in black and white he looks like you!" + +Judge Henderson, unable to make reply, had turned away. He was staring +out from the window over the courthouse yard. + +"Some excitement over there," he said. Hod Brooks did not hear him. + +"That face on the wall there, Judge Henderson," said he, "is the face of +a murderer! The face of this boy is not that of a murderer. But _you_ +murdered a woman twenty years ago--not a man, but a woman--and damn +you, you know it, absolutely well! I saw last night that at last you +realized your own crime, that crime--you had _guilt_ on your face. I am +going to charge you--just as you maybe were planning to charge that +boy--with murder, worse than murder in the first degree, if that be +possible--worse even than prosecuting your own son for murder when you +know he's innocent! + +"_You_ murdered that woman whom we two saw last night! _You_ made that +beastly mob a possible thing--not now, but years ago. Do you think the +people of this community will want to send you to the United States +Senate if they ever get a look at that act? Do you think they would +relish the thought that _you're_ the special prosecutor where _your son_ +is on trial for his life? I say it--_your son_! You know it, and I know +it. You'd jeopardize the life that you yourself gave to him and were too +cowardly to acknowledge! Do you think you'd have a chance on earth here +if those things were known--if they knew you'd refused to defend +him--that you'd denied your own son? And do you think for a moment these +things will _not_ be known if I take this case?" + +"This is blackmail!" exclaimed Judge Henderson, swinging around. "I'll +not stand for this." + +"Of course, it's blackmail, Judge. I know that. But it's justice. And +you will stand for it! I didn't take this boy's case to get him hanged, +but to get him clear. I don't care a damn how I do it, but I'm going to +do it. I'd fight a man like you with anything I could get my hands on. +This is blackmail, yes; and it's politics--but it's justice." + +"I didn't think this was possible," began Henderson, his voice shaking. +"I didn't think this of you." + +"There's a lot of things people never thought of me," smiled Hod Brooks. +"I'm something of a trader my own self. Here's where we trade again. + +"Listen. I didn't have the start that you had. I started far back beyond +the flag, and I have had to run hard to get into any place. Maybe I'll +lose all my place through this, I don't know. But I never got anywhere +in my life by shirking or sidestepping." + +"You have some hidden interest in this." + +"Yes! Now you have come to it! I'm not so much thinking of myself, not +so much thinking of you. I'm thinking of that woman." + +He could not find Henderson's eyes now, for Henderson's face was buried +in his hands. + +"I was thinking of something of the sort," Brooks went on slowly, "in +that other case, in Blackman's court last Saturday. Why didn't you try +that case, Judge? Didn't you know then he was your boy?" + +The suddenly aged man before him did not make any reply. His full eyes +seemed to protrude yet more. "I felt something--I wasn't sure. She'd +told me years ago the boy was dead. How could I believe I was his +father? Don't ask me." + +"I wish to God _I_ could have been the father of that boy!" said Hod +Brooks deliberately. + +"We seem to be talking freely enough!" said Henderson. The perspiration +was breaking out on his forehead. But Horace Brooks took no shame to +himself for what he had said. + +"The mother of that boy," he went on, "is the one woman I ever cared +for, Judge. I'll admit that to you. If there were any way in the world +so that I could take that woman's troubles on my own shoulders, I'd do +it.... So, you see, this wasn't blackmail after all, Judge. It wasn't +really politics after all. I was doing this for _her_." + +"For her?" + +"Yes. Now listen. You met her as a girl, when she didn't know much. I +never met her really to know much about her until she was a grown woman, +with a character--a splendid character whose like you'll not find +anywhere in this town, nor in many another town. You never had the +courage to come out and say that she was your wife--you never had the +courage to make her your wife. You thought you could last her out in +this town, because she was a person of no consequence--because she was a +woman. And all the time she was the grandest woman in this town. But she +didn't have any friends. Now, it seemed to me, she ought to have a +friend. + +"Do you call it blackmail now, Judge?" he asked presently. "Is this +politics?" + +But he ceased in his assault as he saw the pallor of the face of his +antagonist. + +"You've got me, Hod!" said Judge William Henderson, gasping. "I confess! +It's over. You've got me!" + +"Yes, I've got you, but I don't want you," said Hod Brooks. "I'm not +after you socially, legally, politically, or any other way. I tell you, +I'm thinking of those two women who put your son through college--who +had all they could do to keep their souls in their bodies, while you +lived the way you have lived here. They paid your debts for you--they +advanced cash and character _both_ for you--just two poor women. The +question now is, How are you going to pay any of your debts? There'll be +considerable accrued interest." + +"I didn't know it all, I tell you," broke out Judge Henderson. "She +hasn't spoken to me for years, you might say--we never met. I didn't +know the boy was alive--she told me twenty years ago that he'd died, a +baby. This has all come up in a day--I've not had time to learn, to +think, to plan, to adjust----God! don't you think it's terrible enough, +with him there in jail?" + +"She never asked you for help?" + +"No, not till yesterday." + +"She was game. I was sure. That was one reason why I went to that woman +night before last and asked her if she'd marry me." + +"What--you did that?" + +"I did that! I told her _I_ would take the boy and give him a father. I +said I'd even call him my own--I'd come that close to losing my own +self-respect in just this one case in the world. But, I told her, of +course I couldn't do that unless she was a widow. And, Judge, I +learned--from her--that she wasn't a widow. Oh, no, she didn't tell me +about you--and I never figured it out all clean till just now--that the +late District Judge of this county, and the Senatorial candidate for +this State--was the father of the boy, Don Lane. Huh? Oh, stand up to +it--you've got to take it. + +"Now, this boy of yours had no father and two mothers--it's an odd case. +But how did I learn who was the father of that boy? Not from Aurora +Lane. No, I learned that from the other mother--this morning--Miss +Julia. And as soon as I did--as soon as I was convinced I had proofs--I +started over to find you." + +"My God! man, what could you have meant?--You told her you would marry +her?" Judge Henderson's sheer astonishment overcame all other emotions. + +"I meant every word I said. If it could have been humanly possible for +me to marry her, I'd have done that. Yes--I wanted to give her her +chance. I couldn't give her her chance. It looks as though she didn't +have one, never has had, never can have. + +"Now, if I hadn't seen you last night right where I did--if I didn't +believe that somewhere inside of you there was just a trace of +manhood--it's not very much--it's damned little--I wouldn't have asked +you to come in here to talk. I'd have waited until I got you in the +courtroom. I'd have waited until I got you on the platform, and then I'd +have taken your heart out in public. I'd have broken you before the +people of this town. I'd have flayed you alive and prayed your hide to +grow so I could take it off again, and I'd have hung it on the public +fence. But, you see--last night----My God! + +"I wouldn't trade places with you now, Judge Henderson," said Hod +Brooks, after a time. "If I knew I had been responsible for what we saw +last night, as you were responsible--I'd never raise my head again. + +"As for the United States Senate, Judge, do you think you're fit to go +there? Do you think this is blackmail now? Do you think you want to try +this murder case? Do you think you want to try this case against this +boy--your son--her son? There may be men worse than you in the United +States Senate, but I will say it might be full of better. You're never +going there, Judge. And you're never going to try this case." + +"You've got me, Hod," croaked the ashy-faced man. + +"Yeh, Judge, I have! But that's not the question." + +"What do you mean?" + +"You swore the oath of justice and support of the law when you were +admitted to this bar. You've broken your oath--all your oaths. Are you +going to throw yourself on the court now and ask for forgiveness?" + +Henderson stood weakly, half supporting himself against the desk edge. +He seemed shrunken all at once, his clothing fitted him less snugly. A +roughened place showed on the side of his shining top hat--the only top +hat in Spring Valley. + +"I've tried this case," said Hod Brooks sharply. "I've tried it before +your own conscience. It took twenty years for a woman to square herself. +I'm going to ask the court to send you up for twenty years. You murdered +a good woman. That's a light sentence." + +A large fly was buzzing on the window-pane in the sunlight, and the +sound was distinctly audible in the silence that now fell in the little +room. It might indeed have been twenty years that had passed here in as +many minutes, so swift a revolution had taken place. The making over of +a soul; the cleansing of a life; the changing of an entire creed of +conduct; the surrender of a dominating inborn trait; the tearing down +and building over a vain and wholly selfish man. + +"I think she's a good woman," said Hod Brooks simply, after a time. + +"So do I!" broke out Judge Henderson at length, with a sudden gasp. "So +do I! She's a good woman. I knew it last night. I've known it all along, +in a way. It all came over me last night--I saw it all plain for the +first time in all these years. Hod! You're right. I don't deserve mercy. +I don't ask it--I'd be ashamed to." + +"Religion," said Hod Brooks, quite irrelevantly, "is not altogether +confined to churches, you know. A man's conviction may hit him +anywhere--even in the office of the county treasurer of Jackson County. +But if I was a preacher, Judge Henderson, I'd be mighty glad to hear you +say what you have said." + +In his face there showed some sort of strange emotion of his own, a sort +of yearning for the understanding of his own nature by this other man; +and some sort of rude man's sympathy for the broken man who stood before +him. + +"You both were young," said he softly and irrelevantly. "I'm not your +judge." + +"Hod," said Judge Henderson--"I'm done! I wouldn't go to the Senate +tomorrow if they'd let me. For twenty years she's taken her fate. She's +never told my name. She's never blamed me. She's paid all her debts. In +the next twenty years--can I live as well as that?" + +"Yes, she's paid her debts. We've all got to do that some time--there +doesn't seem to be any good way of getting clear of an honest debt, +does there? It costs considerable, sometimes." Hod Brooks' voice held no +wavering, but it was not unkind. + +"But now, Judge," he resumed, "we get around to my profession, which is +that of the practice of the law. There's a true bill against the boy. +State's Attorney Slattery don't amount to much--I know about a lot of +things. You're the real intended prosecutor here. Now, I don't want any +passing over of this case to another term of court--I'm not going to let +that boy lie in jail." + +"That was what I meant to do--I wasn't going to try for a conviction--I +was going to try for delay." + +"Come into court with me and openly ask the quashing of this +indictment," said Hod Brooks. "And we can beat that delay game a +thousand ways of the deck! But now, now--you _did_ have the heart of a +father, then? So, so--well, well! Say, Judge, we're not opponents--we're +partners in this case." + +"Hod----" began the other; but Hod Brooks was the master mind. "I +believe we can show, some time, somehow," said he, "that the boy didn't +do it. I know the boy's _mother_. Of course, his father wasn't so much!" +He broke out into his great laugh, but in the corners of his eyes there +was visible a dampness. + +Judge Henderson hesitated for just a moment. "Believe at least this +much, Hod," said he. "I didn't know as much at first as I do now. +She--she told me all--I saw it all--last night. I want to tell the +truth--near as I know. When I saw the boy in Blackman's court--it didn't +seem possible, and yet it did. But who gave you the notion? What made +_you_ suspect it? You didn't suspect it then, in the justice court, did +you?" + +"Only vaguely," said Hod Brooks; "not so very much. I'll tell you who +did--a woman." + +"Aurora?" + +"No--Miss Julia. Miss Julia sat there looking from the face of Don Lane +to your own face. There was something in her face--I can't tell what. +Why, hell! I don't suppose a man ever does know what's going on in a +woman's heart, least of all a crude man like me, that never had any fine +feelings in all his life. But there was something there in Miss Julia's +face--I can't tell what. In some way, in her mind, she was connecting +those two faces that she saw before her. If I hadn't seen her face, I +wouldn't ever have suspected you of being the father of that boy! + +"But something stuck in my mind. Now, this morning, getting ready to +prepare my case, defending this boy, I went over to Miss Julia's +library. I still remembered what I had seen. I found this picture +there--she had that other picture there, hanging on her wall, too. She +had them both! One was on the wall and the other on her desk. Now, she +had certainly established some connection in her own mind between those +two pictures, or else she wouldn't have had them there both right +before her." + +"Then you, too, know," interrupted Henderson, "the story of those two +women--how they brought him up from babyhood--and kept the secret? Why +did Miss Julia do that?" + +"Because she was a woman." + +"But why didn't she tell?" + +"Because she was a woman." + +"But why--what makes you suppose she ever would care in the first place +for this boy when he was a baby?" + +"Again, because she was a woman, Judge!" + +"She came and told me all about her friendship for Aurora. But she +admitted she didn't know who the father of the boy was. Then why should +she connect me with this?" + +"The same reason, Judge--because she was a woman! + +"And when you come to that," he added as he turned toward the door, +"that covers our whole talk today. That's why I got you to come here. +That's why I'm interested in this case. That's why I've made you try +this case yourself, here, now, Judge, before the court of your own +conscience. A crime worse than murder has been done here in this town to +Aurora Lane--because she was a woman! She's borne the brunt of it--paid +all her debts--carried all her awful, unspeakable, unbelievable +load--because she was a woman! + +"And," he concluded, "if you ask me why I was specially interested in +the boy's case and yours and hers--I'll tell you. I gave up--to you--all +my hope of success and honor and preferment just so as to help her all I +could; to stand between her and the world all I could; to help her and +her boy all I could. It was because she was a woman--the very best I +ever knew." + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +MISS JULIA + + +It was now ten o'clock of this eventful morning in quiet old Spring +Valley. A hush seemed to have fallen on all the town. The streets were +well-nigh deserted so far as one might see from the public square. Only +one figure seemed animated by a definite purpose. + +Miss Julia Delafield came rapidly as she might across the street from +the foot of the stair that led up to Judge Henderson's office. She had +hobbled up the stair and hobbled down again, and now was crossing the +street that led to the courthouse. She came through the little turnstile +and tap-tapped her way up the wide brick walk. Her face, turned up +eagerly, was flushed, full of great emotions. + +Miss Julia was clad in her best finery. She had on a bright new +hat--which she had had over from Aurora's shop but recently. She had +worn it at the great event of Don Lane's homecoming--worn it to make +tribute to her "son." She wore it now in search of that son's +father--and she had not the slightest idea in the world who that father +in fact might be. Miss Julia's divination was only such stuff as dreams +are made on. The father of Don, the unborn father of her unborn +beloved--was not yet caught out of chaos, not yet resolved out of +time--he was but a creature of her dreams. + +So Miss Julia walked haltingly through star dust. It whirled all about +her as she crossed the dirty street. Around her spun all the nebulć of +life yet to be. Somewhere on beyond and back of this was a soft, gray, +vague light, the light of creation itself, of the dawn, of the birth of +time. Perhaps some would have said it was the light shining down through +the courthouse hall from the farther open door. Who would deny poor +little Miss Julia her splendid dreams? + +For Miss Julia was very, very happy. She had found how the world was +made and why it was made. And mighty few wise men ever have learned so +much as that. + +She searched for the father of her first-born--a man tall and splendid +and beautiful--a man strong and just and noble. Such only might be the +father of her boy.... And she met him at the door of the county +treasurer's office, his silk hat slightly rumpled on one side. + +"Oh!" she cried, and started back. + +She had only been thinking. But here he was. This was proof to Miss +Julia's mind that God actually does engage in our daily lives. For here +he was! + +Now she could bring father and son together; and that would correlate +this world of question and doubt with that world of the star dust and +the whirling nebulć. + +"Miss Julia!" The judge stopped, suddenly embarrassed. He flushed, which +was all the better, for he had been ashen pale. + +"Oh, I'm so glad!" she exclaimed. "I was looking for you, all over. I +was at your office, but did not find you. Of course you have heard?" + +"Heard? No, what was it?" + +"Why, the death of Johnnie Adamson--it was the sheriff, just now--Dan +Cowles shot him, right in front of Aurora Lane's house. He must have +been trying to break in or something. His father was there." + +"Why, great heavens!--what are you telling me? The sheriff shot him? +Where is Cowles? I must see him." + +"He's here in the courthouse now, they say. But it's all over now. Where +have you been? I was going over to Aurora's house early this morning, +but Mr. Brooks came in. I must go over at once----" + +"Come this way, Miss Julia," he interrupted. + +He led her into the room he had just left. Racked as he was himself, he +knew it would be too cruel an unkindness to tell Miss Julia now of what +had befallen Aurora Lane the night before. + +"The reason I came to you first," said Miss Julia--"before I went to +Aurora--was about the boy--about Don. You see, he confessed--the +half-wit did--before he was killed. The sheriff and others and his own +father heard him say that he had killed Tarbush, don't you see? He'd +gone wild, don't you see--he was a maniac. It was a madman killed +Tarbush. Why, Don didn't do it--I _told_ you he couldn't have done it! +Didn't I? + +"So now it's all cleared--and I'm so glad!" she concluded, breathless. + +"What's all this you are telling me, Miss Julia? Why, this is basic +evidence--it does end the case! But you say there were witnesses to this +confession?" A vast relief came into Judge Henderson's ashen face. + +"Yes, yes, the sheriff and Eph Adamson and Nels Jorgens--they all heard +him. And the poor boy--his body's in the justice's office now. They've +sent a messenger after his mother--poor thing--oh, poor woman that she +is!" + +"Where is Adamson now--where's the sheriff?" + +"As I said, the sheriff is here in the building somewhere. Old Eph +Adamson won't speak to anyone. He seems half out of his own mind now. +But he doesn't blame the sheriff. They say he's sorry for Aurora. Why? + +"So you see," said Miss Julia, leaping over a vast sea of intervening +facts, "everything's all right now." And she sighed a great soft sigh +of complete content. "Of course Don didn't do it. I knew that all +along." + +"Where's Anne--my ward?" asked Judge Henderson suddenly. "I want to +speak to her a moment." + +"I don't know," said Miss Julia. But she smiled, and all her choicest +dimples came out in fine array. "I shouldn't wonder if she was in jail! +Now I've got to go over to Aurora's. All this news, you know----" + +But Miss Julia did not hasten away. To the contrary, she seemed not +unwilling to linger yet a time--unconsciously. The truth was that all +her heart was happy, with the one supreme happiness possible for her in +all her life. For a second time she was here, standing face to face with +her hero. So she sighed and smiled and dimpled and talked over this +thing and that--until at length she turned and caught sight of the two +pictures, the one on the wall, the other on the desk--which both men had +left there, forgotten. + +"Why, what's this?" said she. "I gave Mr. Brooks this one this morning," +she said. "He might at least have returned it to me. He said he wanted +to borrow it for a little while. Was he here?" + +"He just went away," said Judge Henderson uneasily. "He was here just +now." + +Miss Julia was taking up the little photograph and looking from it to +the lithograph with soft eyes. + +"Isn't it fine?" said she. "Fine!" But she did not say which one of the +two faces she saw before her was most in her mind.... And then in the +little room with its dusty windows and its tumbled books and map-hung +walls, Miss Julia leaped to the great fundamental conclusion of her own +life. + +She saw out far into the time of star dust and the soft vague light and +the whirling nebulć. She saw all the great truths--saw the one great +truth for any woman--saw her hero standing here--the dream father of her +own dream child.... But Miss Julia never grasped the real, the inferior, +the human truth at all. On the contrary, she made a vast and very +beautiful mistake. She had assigned a dream father to her dream son, but +no more. That Judge William Henderson was the father indeed of Dieudonné +Lane she no more suspected than she suspected herself to be his actual +mother. So, therefore, it had been only a path of dreams that Horace +Brooks had followed when he saw her look from the boy's to the father's +face. It was only a path of dreams now that again her eyes followed, as +she looked from the portrait of the youth to the man who stood before +her. Ah! Miss Julia. Poor, little, happy Miss Julia! + +"So now, Judge," said she at last, "you can clear him, after all. It +will be so fine for you to do that--so dramatic--so fitting, won't it?" + +If Judge Henderson could have spoken, perhaps he would have done so; but +she misunderstood his choking silence. She was miles away from the +actual truth; and never was to know it in all her life. + +"Don hadn't any father," said she. "His father's dead long ago, or +Aurora would have told me. He's in his grave--and she'll not open it +even for me, who have loved her so much. But if he had had a father..." +Her voice ceased wistfully. + +Judge Henderson coughed, his hands at his throat. She did not see his +face. + +"... If only he could have had a father like--this!" + +Her own little hand fell gently--ever so gently--on the lithographed +face of the great man, her hero, her champion--who always was to be such +for her. It was the boldest act of all her quiet life. Her hand was very +gentle, but as it fell, perhaps it dealt the heaviest blow to the +vanity, the egotism, the innate selfishness of the man ever he had +known, even in this swift series of blows he was now receiving. For once +remorse, regret, understanding smote him sore. He saw how little he had +earned what life had given him. He saw--himself! + +"But then," she added hastily, and flushed to the roots of her hair--"I +beg your pardon. That could not have been, of course. Don's father--the +way he was born--why, _Don's_ father couldn't have been a man like +_you_! We all know that." + +Miss Julia hobbled on away now to find her friend, Aurora Lane. She did +not know the story of the night before. Miss Julia was very, very +happy. She had her boy and his father after all--and both were above +reproach! And she never told, not in all her life--and she never knew, +not in all her life. And as she hobbled now up the walk beyond the +little gate--somewhat repentant that her own eagerness had kept her away +thus long from Aurora, she felt no remorse in her heart that she had not +told Aurora Lane the real secret of her own life. "Because," remarked +Miss Julia, to herself, like any woman, "there is one secret she has +never told me--she has never told me who was Don's father!" + +Poor little Miss Julia! Ah, very happy, very happy, little Miss Julia! +Because she was a woman. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +THE STATE VS. DIEUDONNÉ LANE + + +Judge Henderson, haggard, shaken, turned and walked down one of the +halls which traversed the courthouse building. In the central space, +where the two halls crossed at right angles, was a curving stair leading +up to the courtrooms and the offices of the immediate servants of +justice. As he stood here he saw again the tall figure of Horace Brooks +approaching. He walked even more stooped forward than was usually his +case, shambling, his feet turned out at wide angles. His great face in +its fringe of red beard hung forward--but it bore now nothing but +smiles. It showed nothing of triumph over the man he saw standing here +waiting, humble and broken. He himself had said that he lacked birth and +breeding. If so, whence got he this strange gentleness which marked his +face now, as he stepped up to Judge Henderson--the man who but now had +stood between him and success--who must always, so long as he lived, +stand between him and happiness--the man whom he had beaten? + +"Judge," said Horace Brooks, "I reckon about the best thing we can do is +to go right on up to the court and get this thing cleaned up. You've +heard the news by now?" + +Henderson nodded. "Yes, just now." + +"Well, that softens up a lot of things, doesn't it? It will make things +easier for everyone concerned--a whole lot easier for you and me, Judge. +Now we can ask for the quashing of this indictment and the court can't +help granting it. Cowles is there. He's just gone up. Adamson is with +him." + +So they went up before the court, and the judge listened to the story of +the sad-faced officer and the sad-faced old man with him. And presently +the clerk at his side inscribed in the records: "The State vs. Dieudonné +Lane, murder in the first degree. Indictment quashed on motion of +Assistant State's Attorney." + +"You will discharge the prisoner from custody, Mr. Sheriff," said the +judge. + +"I'd like to say, if it please the Court," said Cowles, drawing a large +and adequate handkerchief from his pocket and blowing a large and +adequate nose, "that last night, at the time of the--the disturbance +which these gentlemen here helped me to quell--this same young man +that's just been discharged--why, he helped me as much as anybody." + +"What do you mean?" demanded the judge severely. "You let him out of +your custody when he was under commitment?" + +"Yes, your Honor. I may have been short in some of my duties, your +Honor. I let a woman--a young woman--go in there last night to see him +for a few minutes. When she went out I must have forgot to lock the +door. What they said, now, it must have stirred me up some way. When the +mob formed and came to the jail the prisoner had walked out. But right +at the worst of it, there he was. And after it he went on back to jail +alone. When I got back he was in his cell. The door wasn't locked even +then. My wife wasn't there. + +"I reckon, your Honor, we've all of us sort of made a general mistake," +concluded Dan Cowles deprecatingly. "I allowed I'd tell this Court about +it." + +So, amid the frowning silence of the court, and the silence as well of +all who heard this, the two attorneys, the sheriff and Ephraim Adamson +walked on down the winding stairs. + +Adamson saw coming across the courthouse yard the figure of an angular +woman, dressed in calico, a sun-bonnet on her head, a sodden +handkerchief in her hand. He walked on hurriedly to meet her. At the +very spot where so lately he and his son had stood to challenge the +world to combat, he took this gaunt old woman in his arms, in the +sunlight before all the world. "Mother!" said he. + +And at about this same time--since after all the world and life and +swift keen joy of living must go on just the same--two young persons +stood not far distant from that scene; stood not in the full light of +the sun, stood not in the wisdom and sadness of middle age, but in +youth--in youth and the glory and splendor of the vast, ineffable, +indispensable illusion. The dim twilight which lighted them might have +been the soft, vague light of the world's own dawning--the same which +poor Miss Julia had seen that very day. + +Cowles hastened away from the door after he had thrown back the +bolts--the bolts and bars which had been laughed at by love all this +time. The young man came out into the stone-floored hall where Anne +Oglesby stood waiting for him--all beautiful and fresh and clean and +sweet--fragrant as a very flower in her worthiness for love. + +"Don!" she said, and held out her arms, running toward him. + +"Oh, Anne! Anne!" + +His arms went about her. And this time there was no one there to see. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +THE SACKCLOTH OF SPRING VALLEY + + +Number five roared eastward through the town that day on time. No one +stepped down from the train, and no one took passage on it. Spring +Valley had dropped back into its customary uneventfulness so far as the +outer world might tell. It was but a little hamlet on the long line of +fields and trees that lies along the way of Number Five. + +Hurrying on toward the vast confusion of the metropolis, Number Five +gave up its tenants to be lost in the cosmic focus of the great city, +where all about were the lights and the anxious faces. The city, with +its tall, dentated outline against the sky--wonderful, beautiful, +alluring; the city with its unceasing strife, its vast and brooding +peace, where walk side by side the ablest men, the most beautiful women +of all the world, all keyed to the highest pitch of effort, all living +at white heat of emotion and passion, of joy and of sorrow--the city and +its ways--we may not know these unless we, too, embark on Number Five. + +In the silk-lined recesses of one of the city's greatest hostelries, +where anything in the world may be bought, there sat, soon after the +arrival of Number Five at the metropolis, the traveling man, Ben McQuaid +of Spring Valley, and a little milliner from a town east of Spring +Valley which Ben McQuaid "made" in his regular travel for his "house." +He had bought for her now the most expensive viands, the most confusing +and inspiring wines that all the city could offer. Soft-footed servants +were attending them both. They were having their little fling. To the +city that was a matter of small consequence. + +Nor, when it comes to that, was all the city itself of so much +consequence. The great fact is that, while Ben McQuaid and the little +milliner were speeding east on Number Five, at midday, when the dusty +maples of Spring Valley still were motionless under the heat of the +inland summer day--old Nels Jorgens' wife was walking across the way +with a covered dish in her hands.... In the dish, you say, there was +only some crude cottage cheese for Aurora Lane? Was that all you saw? +Seek again: for you, too, are human and neither may you escape the great +things of life, nor ought you to miss its great discoveries. + +Mrs. Nels Jorgens had on no hat. Her gown was God knows what--gingham or +calico or silk or cloth of gold, who shall say? She was a woman of +fifty-eight. Her sunken stomach protruded far below her flattened and +withered bosom as she walked. Her stringy hair was gray and uncomely. +But her face--now her face--have you not seen it? Perhaps not in the +city. But the little supper in the city (not yet come to the time of +sack-cloth) was by no means so great a thing as the service of Mrs. Nels +Jorgens, the wagon-maker's wife, when she carried across to Aurora Lane +a dish of something for her luncheon. + +And others came. From the byways of this late cruel-hearted village came +women, surely not cruel-hearted after all. They seemed to have some +common errand. They were paying off the debt of years, though what they +brought was not in silver dishes and there was no bubbling wine. So far +from calling this a merciless, ignorant town, a hopeless town, at noon +of that day, had you been there and seen these women and their ways, you +would have called it charitable, kindly, beautiful; though after all it +was and had been only human. + +Over the breathless maples there seemed now to hang a stratum of another +atmosphere, as sensible, as appreciable, as though a physical thing +itself. The sympathy of Spring Valley was awake at last--after twenty +years! + +"'Rory, I just thought I'd come over and bring you a dish of this--I had +some already made. I said to myself, says I, if we can eat this all the +time, maybe you can just once"--it was the old jest, humble but kind. It +sounded wondrous sweet to Aurora Lane--after twenty years. + +After these had gone away again, a little awed by the white, sad +dignity of Aurora Lane--even nature seemed to relent. Ben McQuaid and +the little milliner were cooled by swiftly revolving electric fans +yonder in the city. But along in the evening of this summer day in +Spring Valley the leaves of the maples were stirred by softly moving +breezes done by nature's hand. + +"Aaron," said old Silas Kneebone to his crony, "seems like we're goin' +to get a change of weather. Maybe the hot spell's broke at last." + +"I'll tell you what I'll do, Silas," said his friend suddenly, +straightening up on his staff. "I'll tell you what I'll do with you, +Silas. Even if it _is_ goin' to be cool before long--I'll just take you +over to the drug store and buy you a drink of ice-cream sody at the +fountain!" + +"Time comes," he continued after a time, "when a fellow's been feelin' +kind of stirred up, some way--when he feels just like he didn't care a +hang for no expense. Ain't that the truth?" + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +BECAUSE SHE WAS A WOMAN + + +The blessed change in the weather came on apace. The sultry air softened +and became more life-giving. Folk moved into the open, sat out upon the +steps of the front galleries, rich and poor alike, willing to take the +air. There was an unusual silence, an unwonted scarcity of callings back +and forth across the fences. The people of the town did not care to +revive the memories of the last two days. + +But the narrow little porch in front of the millinery shop on Mulberry +Street held no occupant. There was a light within, but the blinds were +close drawn. None who passed could hear any sound. + +Aurora Lane had sat for hours, almost motionless, at the side of the +table where customarily she worked. She made no pretense to read in her +Bible now. Her little white bed was unrumpled by any pressure of her +body bowed at its side in prayer, although it was her hour now for these +things. + +She was trying to think. Her mind had been crushed. She sat dazed. It +seemed to her an age since these women--these strangely kind-hearted, +newly charitable women--had been here. Or, had she only dreamed that +they were here? Had it been a passage of angels she herself had +witnessed here? + +She had told Miss Julia not to let Don come to see her just yet. So, +though she had heard the great news of his release, she had not met him. +"I'll have to think, Julia," she said. "I don't know what I'll do. I +must be alone." + +The window of her shop was still unmended. The red hat which had been so +long, in one redressing or another, the sign of her wares, now was bent +and broken beyond all possibility of restoration. The walls were bare, +the furniture was broken. It was wreck and ruin that lay about her, as +dully she still was conscious. + +Twenty years of it--and this was the climax! What place was there left +for her in all the world? As she sat, hour after hour, alone, Aurora +Lane was thinking of the dark pool under the bridge, of how cool and +comforting it might be. Her bosom rose, torn now and then with deep, +slow sobs, like the ground swell of a sea moved by some vast, remote, +invisible cause. She had been sobbing thus for some twenty-four hours. + +She had not moved about very much today in her household, had not often +left her chair here at the table. The mob had destroyed most of her +pitiful store of gear, so there was small choice left her. + +Somewhere she had found, deep down in a trunk tray, an old and faded +garment, its silken sleeves so worn that the creases were now open--a +blouse which she had put away long, long ago--twenty years and more ago. +She wore it as best she might; and over the neck where the silk was gone +she had cast a white shawl, also of silk, a thing likewise come down, +treasured, from her meager girlhood days. This would serve her, so she +thought, until she could find heart to go to bed and endeavor to find +sleep.... Yes. They may have been of her own mother's wedding finery. +Yes. Perhaps she one day had planned they might be parts of her own +wedding gear.... But she had had no wedding. + +She had done her hair, with Miss Julia's weeping aid, as simply as might +be--as she had when she was younger. It lay now in long, heavy, deep +rolls, down the nape of her white neck, along the sides of her head, +covering her little ears, still shapely. Her face was white as death, +but still it held traces in its features, sharpened and refined, of what +once was a tender and joyous beauty of its own--a beauty now high and +spiritual. In her time Aurora Lane had been known far and wide as a very +beautiful girl; self-willed, yes; wild--but beautiful. She did not +remember these things now, not in the least; and there was no mirror +left unbroken in the place. + +The evening waxed on, approaching nine of the clock, at which time good +folk began to turn up the porch chairs against the wall so that the +rain might not hurt them if it came, and to draw back into the stuffy +rooms and to prepare for the use of the stuffy beds. Fathers of families +now drank deeply at the pitcher of ice water left on the center table. +One little group after another, visible here and there on the porches or +the stairs along the little street, lessened and gradually disappeared. +One by one the lights went out all over the town. By ten o'clock the +town would have settled down to slumber. It was Monday, and on Monday +night not even the most ardent swains frequent hammocks or front parlors +at an hour so late as ten o'clock in our town, Saturday night and the +Lord's day being more especially set apart for these usages. + +But the light in Aurora Lane's house still burned. She did not know how +late it was. The clock on the mantel was silent, for it had been broken +by the men who had been there the night before. She sat motionless as a +woman of stone. Not even her boy was there--not even Miss Julia was +there. She was alone--with her future, and with her past. + +It must have been toward midnight when at length Aurora Lane raised her +head, turned a little. She had heard a sound! A sharp pang of terror +caught at her--sheer, unreasoning terror. Were they coming again? But +no, it was not the sound of many footfalls, not the sound of many +voices. + +What came to her now was a single sound, not made up of others--a low, +definite sound. And it was not at her door in front--it was at the side +of the house--it was at her window! + +It was a slight sound--a sort of tapping rhythmically repeated--a +signal! + +Aurora Lane stopped breathing--her heart stopped in her bosom. The face +was icy white which she turned toward the window back of which she heard +this sound, this signal. She thought she had gone mad. She believed that +at last her mind had broken under all the trials that had been heaped +upon it. Then her eyes began to move about, startled, like those of a +wild deer, seeking which way to leap. + +It seemed to her she heard now another sound in addition, a sort of low +call, a word.... Yes, it was her name: + +"Aurora! Aurora!" + +What could it mean? It was some visitor come there in insult--it could +be no more than that. And yet what impiousness, what mockery! Because, +what she heard, she had heard before! It had been twenty years since, +and more--but she had heard it then. + +Resolved suddenly to brave the worst, whatever it might be, she rose and +swiftly stepped to the side door which made out upon the narrow yard. + +A man was standing near the door, now turning away from the window--a +tall man, slouching down like an old man. + +"Who's there?" she cried, intending to call out aloud to give the alarm, +but failing to raise her voice above a whisper, such was her fear. Yes, +it was someone come here to offer yet another insult. + +But the man came into the field of light which shone around her through +the door--came closer, reaching out his hands to her. She heard him +struggling with his own voice, trying to speak. At last: "Aurora! +Aurora! Let me in! Will you let me in?" + +She threw open the door so that the light might come. But it was late. +The town slept. No one saw the light. No one saw the man who entered her +door. + +He came on slowly, bending down, groaning, almost sobbing, it seemed to +her. He entered the room, sank down into a chair. He was that pitiable +thing, a man with his nerves set loose by cataclysm of the emotions. + +Not less than this had William Henderson met this day. It had shortened +actually his physical stature, had altered every line in his face. He +was twenty years and more older now than when she had seen him last. In +one short day William Henderson had burned down to a speck in the cosmic +plan. He had learned for himself how little is any man. And vanity torn +out by the roots--a megalomaniac egotism done away by a capital +operation--a life-long self-content, an ingrown selfishness, all +wrenched out at once--that sort of thing takes its toll in the doing. + +William Henderson was paying his debts all at once--with interest +accrued, as Hod Brooks had said to him. It was an old, old, ashen-faced +man who turned to her at last, as he came into the little lighted room. + +Neither had spoken since he came within. The door now was closed back of +him. No one without could have any inkling of what went on within this +little room.... The drawn curtains ... the low light ... the man ... the +woman ... midnight! All which had been here twenty years before for +setting, that same now was here! And if there was ruin now of what here +once was fresh and fair, if ruin lay about them now, who had wrought +that ruin? + +... Yes, it had been here. It was at this very place--when she was just +starting, struggling, young--all the vague, soft, mysterious, compelling +impulses of youth and life just now hers--so strange, so strong, so +sweet, so ineffable, so indispensable, so little understood.... + +That had been his signal! And when he had rapped before--when he was +young and comely, not old and ashen--she could no more have helped +opening the door than the white wisps from the cottonwoods could cease +to pass upon the air in their ancient seeking, blown by the spirit of +life, coming from thither, passing thence, under an impulse soft, sweet, +gentle, unsought but irresistible. + +"Will!" she said at length. "Will, what's wrong? What have you done? +What does this mean?" In some sense, swiftly, the past seemed back +again, its twenty years effaced, so that she thought in terms of other +days. + +He raised his head. "What, you speak to me? You said 'Will'? Oh, Aurie, +Aurie, don't!--I can't stand it. I'm not good enough for this." + +"What's happened?" she insisted. "Why are you here?" + +He sat, his lips loosely working now, his eyes red, his face flabby, his +gray hair tumbled on his temples. It was as though all life's excesses +and indulgences had culminated and taken full revenge on him in this one +day. + +"And you can say that to me?" he murmured. It was very difficult for him +to talk. He was broken--he was gone--he was just an old man--a shell, a +rim, a ruin of a man, now seeing himself as he actually had been all +these years--God knows, a pitiable sight, that, for many and many a man +of us all. + +"I'm--I'm afraid, Will! Last night--it broke me, someway--I don't think +much more can happen.... I can't think--I can't pull together, +someway.... I was going down to the bridge tonight.... But I thought of +Don." + +"But you couldn't think of _me_, Aurora?--Have you ever, in all these +years?" + +She made him no answer at all. + +"No. You could only hate the thought of me," he said. "What a coward +I've been, what a cur! Ah, what a coward I've been all these years!" + +"I wish you wouldn't, Will," she said. Dazed, troubled, she was trying +to think in terms of the present; trying, as she had said, to pull +together. "You are Don's father.... Well, you were a man, Will," she +added, sighing. "I was only a woman." + +She had neither sarcasm nor resentfulness in her words. It was simply +what she had learned by herself, in her own life, without any great +horizon in the world. + +"It was pretty hard sometimes," said she, after a time, slowly. "I had +to contrive so much. Putting the boy through college--it began to cost +more the last four years--so much more than we had supposed it would. +You know, sometimes I was almost----" She flushed and paused. + +"What was it, Aurie?" + +"At one time not long ago, the bills were so large that we had to +pay--it was so hard to get the money, I was almost on the point of going +to you--for him, you know--and to ask you for a little help. But that's +all over now." + +"Oh, I ought to have come through--I ought to have owned it all up!" + +"Yes, Will, you ought." + +"Why did you keep it--why didn't you name me? I always thought, for a +long time, that you would, that you must." + +"I don't know. Don't ask me anything. But at least, Don's out now. Thank +God! he's clear--he's innocent, and they all know it now. They can't +keep him down, can they? He won't have as hard a time as I've had? He'll +succeed, won't he? He must, after it all!" + +"Yes," said the man, shaking as in a palsy, "after it all, he ought to, +and I pray he may." But he could talk no more. + +"And he's such a fine boy! I don't see how you could----" + +"How I could disown him? Yesterday?" + +She nodded. "I can't understand that. I never could. I can't see how you +could hesitate. I--I wish you hadn't. I--I can't forgive that." Her +voice rose slightly at last, a spot of color came into her pallid cheek. + +"I didn't have the courage to come through square, and that's the truth +about it. I've never had, all along. Maybe a man doesn't have the same +feeling that a woman does about a child--I don't know. But I was worse +than the average man--more selfish. I got caught up in politics, in +business. Success?--well, I saw how hard it is. I thought I had to keep +down the past. Well, it's over now. But as for you----" + +"I lived it down for a good many years. Don's twenty-two now." + +"But how could you keep that secret--what made you? Why didn't you go +into court and force me to do my duty to my own flesh and blood--and to +you?" + +"I don't know," she answered. "I told you, I don't know. Maybe I was +proud. Maybe I thought I'd wait till you shamed your own self into +coming. I'm glad you've come now, at last. I don't know--maybe I thought +some day you would." + +"I'm not Judge Henderson!" he broke out bitterly. "I'm Arthur +Dimmesdale! I ought to be in the pillory, on the gallows, before this +town. I'm a thief and a coward, and I deserve no pity, neither of man +nor of God himself. You've carried all the blame, when I was the one to +blame. And I can't see why you didn't tell, Aurie--what made you keep it +all a secret?" + +"I don't know," said she simply again. "I don't know. It seemed--it +seemed somehow to me--_sacred_--what was between us! It was--Don! I have +never told anyone. I was waiting, hoping you'd come--for your own sake. +Why should I rob you of your chance?" + +"Thank God that you did keep the secret!" he broke out at length. "It's +all the chance I have left to be a man. At least I'll confess the +truth." + +"Why, Will, what do you mean? I'll never tell. I told you I wouldn't--I +swore I wouldn't. + +"I'll be going away before long, Will," she added. "I can't stay here +now. I suppose Don and I will go away somewhere. I'm glad he's found a +good girl. Ah!--Anne, she's splendid.... I'm not going to make any +objections to his marrying _her_. And, you see, I'll know that you came +here. And some time he will know--who was his father. He doesn't, yet. +In justice, some time he will. God will attend to that, not any of us." + +"All the world shall know it, Aurora!" said the man at her side. "I saw +them a little while ago, walking together. He was listening to the +drums. He was looking at the Flag--and so was she. They are up at my +house now. They're happy. God bless them." + +"But they don't know--you've not told?" + +"No, I've been walking out in the country--all evening. I was up +there--on the road to the Calvary Cemetery. I'm going to tell Don the +truth tomorrow. + +"But look at your house--your poor little home." He cast about him a +gaze which took in the ruin that had been made of all her belongings. +"Oh, my God, Aurora! It was my own fault. It was _I_ who made that mob a +possible thing. And you were a good woman. You've been a good woman all +the time. I never knew before what a splendid thing a woman can be. +Why--strong!... And you called me 'Will' just now. What made you do +that?" + +"I don't know," said Aurora Lane. "I suppose a woman never does quite +forget the--the first man of--of her life." + +"But how sweet it all was," he broke out, "in spite of it all, in spite +of everything! Oh, Aurie, don't you remember when I'd come and tap there +on the window--and you'd come and let me in? I don't deserve even that +memory ... a woman like you--and a man like me. But I can't forget it. +And you let me come in now--that's my one last joy left for all my life. +Why, it's the one thing I can never think of again without a shudder. +Yes, I've come without your asking--and you--you've let me in. + +"Aurie," he went on, "that's what leaves me so helpless. I know what I +deserve--but I don't want to be despised.... I want more than I deserve! +I've always had more than I deserved. It's about all any man can say. +It's life itself, I suppose. I don't know what it is. But, Aurie, Aurie, +I do see a thousand things now I never saw before." + +She still sat, white, dumb. Only, now, her head began to move, slowly, +from side to side. He caught the evidence of negative, and a new +resolution came to him at last. + +"Let it all go!" he said at length--and now indeed he was on his knees +at her side. "What I have lost is nothing. I'll never ask for office +until I have lived here twenty years, openly, as you have. I must have +loved you! I did--I do! I do! I wish I were fit to love you now. +Because, in twenty years more.... The years pass, Aurie. Won't they +pass? My sentence----" + +His gray head was bent down low in her lap now, as her son's had been at +this very place but a day before. Her hands--hands stained with needle +work, rough on the finger ends, the taper gone there into a little +square--were the same long shapely hands that had touched his hair at +another time. The eyes that looked down at him now under long, soft, +dark lashes were the same. But they were more brooding--tender, yes, but +more sad, more wise. There was no passion in her gaze, in her touch. +What was hatred or revenge to her? + +His face was hid deep in his hands as he knelt. It lay there in that +haven, the lap of woman, the place of forgiveness--and of hope, as some +vague memory seemed to say to him. Indeed, all the wisdom and all the +mercy and all the hope of a world or of a universe of worlds were in the +low voice of Aurora Lane as she stroked back his hair--the gray hair of +an old man, who knelt beside her. It was the ancient pitying instinct of +woman that was in her touch. Hardly she knew she touched him, so +impersonal was it all to her. + +"Will, you poor boy, you poor boy! Oh, poor boy!" He heard her voice +once more. Suddenly he raised his head, he sprang up, he stood before +her. + +"You do forgive me!" A sort of triumph was in the eager note of his +voice. "You say 'poor boy!' You do forgive me!" He advanced toward her. + +But Aurora also had risen quickly. Now, suddenly, some shock came to +her, vivifying, clarifying. The needle of her heart swung on the dial of +Today. + +"Forgive you!" she exclaimed, her color suddenly gone high. "Forgive +you--what do you mean?--what do you _mean_?" + +"You said you pitied me----" + +"Pity you, yes, I do. I'm sorry for you from the bottom of my heart. I'd +be sorry to see any man go through what you've got to face. Yes, _pity_ +you--but--love you? What do you mean? Is that what you mean? _Respect_ +you--is that what you mean? Oh, no! Oh, no! Use for you, in any way in +the world?--Oh, no! Oh, no! Don't mistake. _Pity_--that's all! Don't I +know what it means to descend into hell? And that's what you must do." + +"But, Aurie--Aurie--you just said----" + +"I said I was sorry for you, and so I am, in all my heart. But he's our +boy. I've paid my share in anguish. So must you." + +"Haven't I? Haven't I?" + +"Not yet! You're only beginning. It takes twenty years.--Oh, not of +hidden and secret repentance--but _open_ repentance, before all the +world! And square living. And your prayer to God each night for twenty +years for understanding and forgiveness! + +"Go out and earn it," she said, walking to the door and opening it. +"Pity?--yes. Love? No--no--_no_! I've no use for you. I don't need you +now. My boy doesn't need you--we're able to stand alone. We've +_succeeded_! You? You're a failure--you're a broken-down, used-up, +hopeless failure--so much, I'm sorry for you, sorry. + +"You didn't really think I'd ever take you back, did you, Will?" she +went on, eager to be fair even now. "I was only _sorry_ for you, that's +all. God knows, I'm sorry for any human being, woman or man, that has to +go through hell as I have. Twenty years? That'll leave you old, Will. +But--go serve it, in this town, as I have! And God have mercy on your +soul!" + +She flung the door yet wider, and stumbling, he began to grope toward +it. The black wall of the night lay beyond. + +Slowly the color faded from the cheeks of the woman now left alone yet +again. She sank down, crumpling, white, her face marble clear, her eyes +staring straight ahead at what picture none may ask. Then, as the white +column of her throat fluttered again, she beat one hand slightly +against the other, ere she crushed them both together in her lap, ere +she flung them wide above her. + +"God! God!" cried Aurora Lane. "If it wasn't right, why did He say, +'Suffer little children'? It was in the Book ... little ... little +children ... the Kingdom of Heaven!" + +It was more than an hour before she, too, rose and, stepping toward the +door, looked out again into the night. A red light showed here or there. +Homes--the homes of our town. + + + + +By Emerson Hough + + The Broken Gate + The Man Next Door + The Magnificent Adventure + Let Us Go Afield + Out of Doors + The Story of the Cowboy + The Girl at the Halfway House + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Broken Gate, by Emerson Hough + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BROKEN GATE *** + +***** This file should be named 33475-8.txt or 33475-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/3/4/7/33475/ + +Produced by David Edwards, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Broken Gate + A Novel + +Author: Emerson Hough + +Illustrator: M. Leone Bracker + +Release Date: August 20, 2010 [EBook #33475] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BROKEN GATE *** + + + + +Produced by David Edwards, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" alt="cover" +id="coverpage" /> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + +<h1>The BROKEN GATE</h1> + +<h3><i>A NOVEL</i></h3> + +<h2>BY EMERSON HOUGH</h2> + +<h3>AUTHOR OF "THE MAN NEXT DOOR," "THE MAGNIFICENT ADVENTURE," "54° 40' OR +FIGHT," "THE MISSISSIPPI BUBBLE," ETC.</h3> + +<h3>ILLUSTRATED BY<br /> +M. LEONE BRACKER</h3> + +<h3>D. APPLETON <span class="smcap">and</span> COMPANY<br /> +NEW YORK LONDON<br /> +1917</h3> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Copyright, 1917, by Emerson Hough</span></h3> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Copyright, 1917, by The Pictorial Review Company</span></h3> + +<h3>Printed in the United States of America</h3> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h3>TO<br /> +ARTHUR T. VANCE<br /> +FAITHFUL AND KINDLY COUNSELOR<br /></h3> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="front" id="front"></a> +<img src="images/front.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<h3> He felt her hands resting on his head as though in +shelter.</h3> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<p> +<a href="#CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I. <span class="smcap">The Homecoming of Dieudonné Lane</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II. <span class="smcap">Aurora Lane</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III. <span class="smcap">Two Mothers</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV. <span class="smcap">In Open Court</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V. <span class="smcap">Closed Doors</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI. <span class="smcap">The Dividing Line</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII. <span class="smcap">At Midnight</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII. <span class="smcap">The Extraordinary Horace Brooks</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX. <span class="smcap">The Other Woman Concerned</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X. <span class="smcap">The Murder</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI. <span class="smcap">In the Name of the Law</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII. <span class="smcap">Anne Oglesby</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII. <span class="smcap">"As You Believe in God!"</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER XIV. <span class="smcap">Aurora and Anne</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XV">CHAPTER XV. <span class="smcap">The Angels and Miss Julia</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">CHAPTER XVI. <span class="smcap">Horace Brooks, Attorney at Law</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">CHAPTER XVII. <span class="smcap">At Church</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">CHAPTER XVIII. <span class="smcap">At the County Jail</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">CHAPTER XIX. <span class="smcap">The Mob</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XX">CHAPTER XX. <span class="smcap">The Idiot</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">CHAPTER XXI. <span class="smcap">A True Bill</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">CHAPTER XXII. <span class="smcap">Miss Julia</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII">CHAPTER XXIII. <span class="smcap">The State</span> <i>vs.</i> <span class="smcap">Dieudonné Lane</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV">CHAPTER XXIV. <span class="smcap">The Sackcloth of Spring Valley</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXV">CHAPTER XXV. <span class="smcap">Because She Was a Woman</span></a><br /><br /> +<a href="#By_Emerson_Hough">By Emerson Hough</a> +</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h2> + + +<p><a href="#front">He felt her hands resting on his head as though in Shelter.</a></p> + +<p><a href="#illus1">"Your Honor," said he, "I presume I am the defendant in this case."</a></p> + +<p><a href="#illus2">"I was kissing you and saying good-by ... when Miss Julia came in——"</a></p> + +<p><a href="#illus3">"Anne! What made you come?"</a></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>The BROKEN GATE</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2> + +<h3>THE HOMECOMING OF DIEUDONNÉ LANE</h3> + + +<p>"Eejit! My son John! Whip ary man in Jackson County! Whoop! Come along! +Who'll fight old Eph Adamson?"</p> + +<p>The populace of Spring Valley, largely assembled in the shade of the +awnings which served as shelter against an ardent June sun, remained +cold to the foregoing challenge. It had been repeated more than once by +a stout, middle-aged man in shirt sleeves and a bent straw hat, who +still turned a truculent gaze this side and that, taking in the +straggling buildings which lined the public square—a quadrangle which +had for its center the brick courthouse, surrounded by a plat of +scorched and faded greensward. At his side walked a taller though +younger man, grinning amiably.</p> + +<p>The audience remained indifferent, although the challenger now shifted +his position to the next path leading out to a street entrance; and +repeated this until he had quite traversed the square. Only, at the +farther corner back of him, a woman paused as she entered the courthouse +inclosure—paused and turned back as she caught sight of the challenger +and heard his raucous summons, although evidently she had been hurrying +upon some errand.</p> + +<p>Ephraim Adamson walked hither and thither, his muscular arms now bared +to the elbows; and at his side stalked his stalwart son, who now and +then beat his fists together, and cracked his knuckles with a vehemence +like that of pistol shots. But none paid great attention to either of +the Adamsons. Indeed, the eyes of most now were following the comely +figure of this woman, as usually was the case when she appeared.</p> + +<p>"Take her now, right how she is," said one of the sidewalk philosophers, +"and you got to admit yonder's the handsomest woman in this town, and +has been for twenty years." He nodded to where she stood, hesitating.</p> + +<p>That she was a tallish woman, of less than middle age and of good +figure, was perceptible even at some distance as she finally advanced. +She was well clad enough, and with a certain grace and trimness in her +appointings—indeed seemed smart in a quiet and unobtrusive way—very +neat as to hands and feet, and trim as to the small turban which served +now as her only defense against the heat of the summer sun.</p> + +<p>"'Rory Lane," said one languid citizen to another, as they sat on +comfortable boxes in front of the leading grocery store. "Wonder where +<i>she's</i> goin', this time of day? Anyhow, she runs into Old Man Adamson +on his regular weekly spree. He wants to fight, as usual, him and his +half-wit boy. It's a shame."</p> + +<p>"But they kin do it," responded the other ruminatingly. "It's got so +lately, every Saturday afternoon regular, him and his half-wit yonder +stands off the whole town. No man wants to fight a eejit—it ain't +proper."</p> + +<p>"Some has," remarked the first citizen thoughtfully.</p> + +<p>"Well, anyways, old Joel Tarbush, the town marshal, had ought to look +after such things. There he sets now, over yonder under the awnings in +front of the Golden Eagle, and he sees them two plain enough."</p> + +<p>His crony only chuckled. "Reckon Old Man Tarbush knows when he's well +off," was his sententious reply.</p> + +<p>The first speaker again pointed a thumb toward the courthouse grounds, +where the woman now was crossing toward the street. She was walking +rapidly, apparently anxious to escape the notice of the two men in the +yard, and intent on her purpose, as though she feared being late at some +appointment. The younger and taller was hastening toward her, but +shrinking from him she hurried on across through the turnstile, and out +into the street. She advanced with a nod here and there to those whom +she met along the street front, but she showed no effusiveness, and did +not pause to talk with anyone, although all seemed to know her. Some +women smiled at her faintly. Some men smiled at her also—after she had +passed. All talked of her, sometimes nodding, head to head.</p> + +<p>The woman so frankly discussed presently disappeared around the corner +of the street which led down to the railway station, a half-mile +distant. And now could be heard the rumble of the town "bus," bringing +in its tribute from the train to the solitary hotel.</p> + +<p>"Huh!" said one of these twain, "'Rory was too late, like enough, if she +was plannin' to meet Number Four, fer any reason. Here comes the bus +a'ready."</p> + +<p>Aurora Lane had indeed been too late to meet the train, but not too late +to attain the purpose of her hurried walk. A moment later the two +watchers on the sidewalk, and all the other Saturday loafers, saw her +emerge again from the street that led up from the railway station.</p> + +<p>She was not alone now. A young man had spied her from his place in the +hotel bus, and, whether in answer to a signal from her, or wholly of his +own notion—regarding which there was later discussion by the two +gossips above mentioned—had sprung out to join her on the street.</p> + +<p>He walked by her side now, holding her by the arm, patting her shoulder, +talking to her volubly, excitedly, all the time—a tall young man in +modern garb; a young man with good shoulders and a strong and easy +stride. His face seemed flushed with eagerness and happiness. His hat, +pushed back on his brow, showed the short curling auburn hair, strong +and dense above the brown cheeks. Those who were close might have seen +the kindly, frank and direct gaze of his open blue eyes.</p> + +<p>A certain aloof distinction seemed to cling about the young man also as +he advanced now, laughing and bubbling over with very joy of life and +eagerness at greeting this woman at his side—this woman whose face +suddenly was glorified with a light none ever had seen it bear before. +Why not? It was his mother—Aurora Lane, the best known woman of Spring +Valley, and the woman with least reputation.</p> + +<p>The two passed directly into the center of the town's affairs, and yet +they seemed apart in some strange way. They met greetings, but the +greetings were vague, curious. No one knew this young man.</p> + +<p>"Huh!" exclaimed one of the two town critics once more. "There they go. +Pretty sight, ain't it! Who's he?"</p> + +<p>Old Silas Kneebone leaned to his friend, Aaron Craybill, on the adjacent +store box. "Taller'n she is, and got red hair, too, like hers. I +wonder—but law!—No, good law! No! It kain't be. She ain't nobody's +wife, and never was."</p> + +<p>"But there they go, walking through the streets in broad daylight, as +bold as you please," commented his crony.</p> + +<p>"I dunno as I'd call her bold, neither," rejoined Silas. "'Rory Lane, +she's kept up her head all these years, and I must say she's minded her +own business. Everybody knows, these twenty years, she had a baby, and +that the baby died; but that's about all anybody ever did know. The +baby's dad, if it had one, has hid damned well—the man nor the woman +neither don't live in this town that can even guess who he was. But +who's this young feller? Some relative o' hern from somewheres, like +enough—reckon she must 'a' been goin' down to the train to meet him. +Never told nobody, and just like her not to. She sure is close-mouthed. +They're going on over towards her place, seems like," he continued. +"Say, don't she look proud? Seems like she's glad over something. But +why—that's what I want to know—why?"</p> + +<p>The two persons thus in the public eye of Spring Valley by this time had +come again to the corner of the courthouse inclosure, and apparently +purposed to pass diagonally through the courthouse yard. Now and again +the young man turned in friendly fashion to the onlookers, none of whom +he knew, but whom he fancied to be acquaintances of his companion. He +himself was altogether a stranger in the town. He felt a chill at the +curious stares, the silent half smiles he encountered, but attributed +that to bucolic reticence, so shrugged his shoulders and turned to +Aurora Lane. Had any at that time heard his speech, they surely must +have felt yet more surprise.</p> + +<p>"Mom!" said he. "Mother! I've got a mother, after all—and such a +splendid one! I can't believe it at all—it must all be a dream. To be +an orphan all my life—and then to get word that I'm not—that I've a +mother, after all—and you! Why, I'd have known you anyhow, I'm sure, if +I'd never seen you, even from the picture I had. It was when you were a +girl. But you've not changed—you couldn't. And it's you who've been my +mother all the time. It's fine to be home with you at last. So this is +the town where you have lived—that I've never seen. And here are all +your friends?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Don," said she, "all I have, pretty much." Aurora Lane's speaking +voice was of extraordinary sweetness.</p> + +<p>"Well, you have lived here all your life."</p> + +<p>"Yes," she smiled.</p> + +<p>"And they all know you."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes," noncommittally. "It was too bad you had to be away from me, +Don, boy. You seem like a stranger to me—I can't realize you are here, +that you are my own boy, Dieudonné! I'm afraid of you—I don't know +you—and I'm so proud and frightened, so surprised, so <i>glad</i>—why, I +don't know what to do. But I'd have known you anywhere—I <i>did</i> know +you. You're just as I've always dreamed of you—and I'm glad—I'm so +very glad!"</p> + +<p>"Mom! I loved your little picture, but I never knew how much I loved +<i>you</i> till now—why—you're my <i>mother</i>! My mother! And I've never seen +you—I've never known you—till right now. You're a ripper, that's what +you are!</p> + +<p>"And is that where you live, over yonder?" he added quickly, to conceal +the catch in his throat, the quick moisture in his eyes. His mother! And +never in all his life had he seen her face—this sweet, strange, +wistful, wonderful face. His mother! He had not even known she was +alive. And now, so overwhelmed was he, he did not as yet even think of +unraveling the veil of ignorance or deceit—call it what one +might—which had left him in orphanage all his life till now.</p> + +<p>"Yes, over yonder," said Aurora, and pointed across the square. "That +little house under the shade trees, just at the corner. That's home and +workshop for me, Don."</p> + +<p>She spoke softly, her eyes still fixed on him, the color of her cheeks +deepening.</p> + +<p>"Not so much of a house, is it?" laughed the boy, tears on his face, +born of his new emotion, so sudden, so tremendous and so strange.</p> + +<p>"Not so very much," she assented, laughing gayly also, and also in +tears, which gave him sudden grief—"but it has served."</p> + +<p>"Well, never mind. We're going to do better out West, Mom. We're going +to have you with us right away, as soon as I can get started."</p> + +<p>"What—what do you say—with <i>us</i>! With <i>us</i>?"</p> + +<p>She spoke in swift dismay, halting in her walk. "What do you mean, +Don—<i>us</i>?"</p> + +<p>"I didn't tell you the news," said he, "for I've just got it myself.</p> + +<p>"What a week! I heard of you—that you were alive, that you were living +here—though why you never told me I can't dream—and now, today, Anne! +Two such women—and for me. I can call God kind to me. As if I deserved +it!"</p> + +<p>He did not see her face as he went on rapidly:</p> + +<p>"We didn't know it ourselves much more than an hour or so ago—Anne and +I. She came out on the same train with me—we finished school together, +don't you see! Anne lives in Columbus, fifty miles west. She's fine! I +haven't had time to tell you."</p> + +<p>He didn't have time now—did not have time to note even yet the sudden +pallor which came upon his mother's face. "Anne?" she began.</p> + +<p>"Huh!" said Silas Kneebone again from his place under the awning, "there +she goes—'Rory Lane. Wonder who that kin be with her! And I wonder +what old Eph Adamson's goin' to say to them! Watch at them now."</p> + +<p>The young man and his mother by this time were within the courthouse +fence and coming face to face with the two public challengers, who had +so fervently notified all mankind of their wish to engage in personal +combat.</p> + +<p>Those beneath the awnings now saw the tall figure of the half-wit boy, +Johnnie Adamson, advance toward Aurora Lane. They saw her and the tall +young stranger halt suddenly—saw the young man gently push the woman +back of him and stand full front, frowning, questioning, almost directly +against the half-wit. He reached out a hand and thrust him back, +sternly, fearlessly, half contemptuously.</p> + +<p>"Wait, Don! Come back!" called out Aurora Lane. "Don't get into trouble +here—come—come away!"</p> + +<p>She plucked at the sleeve of his coat to draw him back. It was too late. +The half-wit, cracking his knuckles now yet more loudly, and knocking +his fists together, had wholly lost his amiable smile. Something +primordial was going on, deep down in his rudimentary brain.</p> + +<p>As for Eph Adamson, he also stood scowling and silent, a sudden wave of +resentment filling his soul at seeing the happiness of these two.</p> + +<p>"No, you don't—just you leave him be!" called out Eph Adamson, as the +young man pushed the half-wit back from him, his own blue eyes now +beginning to glint. "Leave him alone, unless you want to fight. He can +lick you anyways, whoever you are. Do you want to fight?"</p> + +<p>"No, why should I? I don't know you."</p> + +<p>Don Lane turned toward the stranger, still frowning and somewhat +wondering, but in no terror whatever.</p> + +<p>"I don't know you neither, nor what you're doin' here, but you've got to +fight or 'pologize," said Eph Adamson, arriving at this conclusion +through certain mental processes of his own not apparent. "You got to +have our consent to cross this here courtyard. This is my son John, and +you shan't insult him."</p> + +<p>"Get on away—step back," said Don Lane. "I guess it's all right, but +let my mother and myself alone—we're just going home."</p> + +<p>A sudden wave of rage and wonder, mingled, filled the soul of drunken +Eph Adamson as his venom rose to the boiling point.</p> + +<p>"Mother!" he half screamed, "your <i>mother</i>? Who're you? You're a pretty +pair, you two, ain't you? She said her baby died twenty years ago. Did +she have some more? Who're you? <i>Mother?</i>—Say, after all, are <i>you</i> the +town's boy—coming pushing past my son with her—your <i>mother</i>! What do +you mean? If you're her son, you ain't <i>got</i> no mother, nor no father +neither."</p> + +<p>And now there came a pause, an icy pause—icy it was, out there in the +glare of the hot summer sun. These four who stood in view of all the +village might have been statues for the time, so motionless, so tense +was each.</p> + +<p>Not many actually heard the words of old Eph Adamson—words wrung out of +the bitterness of his own soul perhaps, but words intolerable none the +less. None had heard the words of Aurora Lane and the young man as they +had spoken previous to this. None guessed who the stranger was or might +be—none but drunken Eph Adamson. But all could see what now happened.</p> + +<p>For one instant the young man stood almost like a statue. Then with one +sudden thrust of his fist he smote the old man full in the mouth, so +swift and hard a blow that Adamson dropped prostrate, and for the time +motionless.</p> + +<p>A sudden, instantaneous, electric buzz, a murmur, ran all around the +square. A sound of shuffling feet and falling boxes might have been +heard as men here and there rose eagerly, their necks craned out toward +this swiftly made arena.</p> + +<p>They saw the half-wit boy now advance upon Don Lane with a roar or bawl +of rage, his arms swinging flail-like. All expected to see the newcomer +turn and run. Not so. He simply stood for a half instant, sidestepped, +and again swung in close upon his foe. Old Silas Kneebone described the +affair many a time afterwards, at a time when Spring Valley knew more +about Don Lane.</p> + +<p>"You see, the eejit, he gets up again, hollering, and he goes in again +at Dewdonny, bound for to knock his head off. But Dewdonny, he ducks +down like a regular prize-fighter—I hear tell, at colleges, them +athaletes they have to learn all them sort of things—and he put up a +fight like a regular old hand. But all the time he keeps hollering to +the crowd, 'Take him away! Take him away! Keep him off, I say! I don't +want to hit him!'</p> + +<p>"Well, folks begun to laugh at Dewdonny then—before they knowed who he +was—thinking he was afraid of that eejit; yet it didn't seem like he +was, neither, for he didn't run away. At last he hits the eejit fair a +second time, and he knocks him down flat. Folks then begun to allow he +could hit him whenever he wanted to, and knock him down whenever he +pleased.</p> + +<p>"Now, the eejit, he gets up and begins to beller like a calf. He puts +his hand on his face where Dewdonny Lane had done hit him the last time +or two and he hollers out, 'Pa, he hit me!'</p> + +<p>"But his pa could only set up on the grass and shake his head. I reckon +old Eph was soberer then than he had been five minutes sooner. Say, that +boy had a punch like the kick of a full growed mule!</p> + +<p>"Of course, you all know what happened then. It was then that old Man +Tarbush come in, seeing the boy had both of them two licked. He got up +his own nerve after that. So now he goes over there to the courthouse +ground, through the gate where they all was, and he lays his hand on +Dewdonny Lane and then on the eejit.</p> + +<p>"'I arrest you both for disturbing of the peace,' says he then. 'Come on +now, in the name of the law.'</p> + +<p>"'The law be damned!' says Dewdonny Lane then. 'Go take this man to +jail. Are you crazy—what do you mean by arresting me when I'm just +walking home with my mother? This wasn't my fault. I didn't want to hit +him.</p> + +<p>"'Come on, Mom!' says he, and before Tarbush could help hisself he'd +took 'Rory Lane by the arm again and off they went, and right soon they +was in their house—them two, the milliner and her boy.</p> + +<p>"And Joel Tarbush he heard him call her 'Mom' right there—that's how it +all begun to git out.</p> + +<p>"That's right—this was the town milliner and the boy she sent away, +that never died none at all nohow.—'Rory Lane, and her boy we all +thought was dead. And we'd never knowed it nor dreamed it till he spoke, +right there in the public square! 'My mother!' says he. Can you beat +that?</p> + +<p>"Then 'Rory Lane turns around and fronts the whole lot of them. Says +she: 'Yes, it's true! This is my son, Dewdonny Lane,' says she. She said +it cold.</p> + +<p>"That was before we knowed all about how she had put him through +college, and that this was his first visit home, and the first time he'd +ever seen her—his own mother! I heard as how he'd thought all his life +he was a orphan, and someone on the inside that very week—just when +he'd finished in college—had wrote him that he wasn't no orphan, but +had a mother living right here! So here he comes, hot foot—and didn't +he spill the beans!</p> + +<p>"She'd tried her durnedest to keep it all covered up—and you must say +she'd made one big fight of it, fer it's hard fer a woman to keep her +eyes and her hands off of her own flesh and blood, even if it ain't +legal. But, somehow, it's hard to keep that sort of thing covered up, +for a woman. It all comes out, time'n again—ain't it the truth? How she +done it for twenty years is a miracle. But law! What's twenty years, +come to forgettin' things like what she done?"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2> + +<h3>AURORA LANE</h3> + + +<p>While the doughty town marshal, endowed now with a courage long foreign +to his nature, was leading away his sobbing prisoner, followed by the +prisoner's dazed yet angered parent, these other two, mother and son, +continued rapidly on their way toward the home of Aurora Lane. The young +man walked in silence, his enthusiasm stilled, although he held his +mother's hand tight and close as it lay upon his arm. His face, frowning +and stern, seemed suddenly grown strangely older.</p> + +<p>They arrived at the corner of the tawny grassplot of the courthouse +yard, crossed the street once more, and turned in at the long shady lane +of maples which made off from that corner of the square. Here, just in +the neutral strip between business and residence property, opposite a +wagon-making and blacksmith shop, and adjoining the humble abode of a +day-laborer, they came to a little gate which swung upon a decrepit +hinge. It made in upon a strip of narrow brick walk, swept scrupulously +clean, lined with well-kept tulips; a walk which in turn arrived at the +foot of a short and narrow stair leading up to the porch of the +green-shuttered house itself.</p> + +<p>It was a small place of some half-dozen rooms, and it served now, as it +had for these twenty years, as home and workshop alike for its tenant. +Aurora Lane had lived here so long that most folk thought she owned the +place. As a matter of fact, she owned only a vast sheaf of receipted +bills for rent paid to Nels Jorgens, the wagon-maker across the street. +In all these twenty years her rent had been paid promptly, as were all +her other bills.</p> + +<p>Aurora Lane was a milliner, who sometimes did dress-making as well—the +only milliner in Spring Valley—and had held that honor for many years. +A tiny sign above the door announced her calling. A certain hat, red of +brim and pronounced of plume, which for unknown years had reposed in the +front window of the place—the sort of hat which proved bread-winning +among farmers' wives and in the families of villagers of moderate +income—likewise announced that here one might find millinery.</p> + +<p>When she first had moved into these quarters so many years ago, scarce +more than a young girl, endeavoring to make a living in the world, the +maples had not been quite so wide, the grass along the sidewalk not +quite so dusty.</p> + +<p>It was here that for twenty years Aurora Lane had made her fight +against the world. It had been the dream, the fierce, flaming ambition +of all her life, that her son, her son beloved, her son born out of holy +wedlock, might after all have some chance in life.</p> + +<p>It was for this that she aided in his disappearance in his infancy, +studiously giving out to all—without doubt even to the unknown father +of the boy—the word that the child had died, still in its infancy, in a +distant state, among relatives of her own. She herself, caught in the +shallows of poverty and unable to travel, had not seen him in all these +years—had not dared to see him—had in all the dulled but not dead +agony of a mother's yearning postponed her sweet dream of a mother's +love, and with unmeasurable bravery held her secret all these awful +years. Schooling here and there, at length the long term in college, had +kept the boy altogether a stranger to his native town, a stranger even +to his own mother. He did not know his own past, nor hers. He did not +dream how life had been made smooth for him, nor at what fearful cost. +Shielded about always by a mother's love, he had not known he had a +mother.</p> + +<p>This was as his mother had wished. As for him, in some way he received +the requisite funds. He wondered only that he knew so little of his own +people, half orphan though he was. He had been told that his father, +long since dead, had left a certain sum for the purpose of his +education, although further of his own history he knew nothing. That he +was not of honorable birth he never once had dreamed. And now he had +heard this charge for the first time—heard it made publicly, openly, +before all the world, on this which was to have been the happiest day in +all his life.</p> + +<p>But if Don Lane knew little about himself, there lacked not knowledge of +his story, actual or potential, here in Spring Valley, once his presence +called up the past to Spring Valley's languid mind. There had not yet +been excitement enough for one day. Everyone, male and female, surging +here and there in swift gossiping, now called up the bitter story so +long hid in Aurora Lane's bosom.</p> + +<p>As for Aurora, she had before this well won her fight of all these +years. She was known as the town milliner, a woman honorable in her +business transactions and prompt with all her bills. Socially she had no +place. She was not invited to any home, any table. The best people of +the town, the banker's wife, the families of the leading merchants, +bought bonnets of her. Ministers—while yet new in their pulpits—had +been known to call upon her sometimes—one had even offered to kneel and +pray with her in her workroom, promising her salvation even yet, and +telling her the story of the thief upon the cross. Once Aurora Lane went +to church and sat far back, unseen, but she did so no longer now, had +not for many years, feeling that she dared not appear in the +church—the church which had not ratified her nuptial night!</p> + +<p>She had her place, definite and yet indefinite, accepted and yet +rejected, here in this village. But gradually, dumbly, doggedly she had +fought on; and she had won. Long since, Spring Valley had ceased openly +to call up her story. If once she had been wearer of the scarlet letter, +the color thereof had faded these years back. She was the town milliner, +a young woman under suspicion always, but no man could bring true word +against her character. She had sinned—once—no more. If she had known +opportunity for other sins than her first one, she held her peace. Human +nature were here as it is elsewhere—women as keen; men as lewd. But the +triumph of Aurora Lane might now have been called complete. She had +"lived it down."</p> + +<p>This long and terrible battle of one woman against so many strangely +enough had not wholly embittered her life, so strong and sweet and true +and normal had it originally been. She still could smile—smile in two +fashions. One was a pleasant, sunny and open smile for those who came in +the surface affairs of life. The other was deeper, a slow, wry smile, +very wise, and yet perhaps charitable, after all. Aurora Lane knew!</p> + +<p>But all these years she had worked on with but one purpose—to bring up +her boy and to keep her boy in ignorance of his birth. He had never +known—not in all these years! It had been her dream, her prayer, that +he might never know.</p> + +<p>And now he knew—he must know.</p> + +<p>They stepped through the little picket gate, up the tiny brick walk and +across the little narrow porch together, into the tiny apartments which +had been the arena for Aurora Lane—in which she had fought for her own +life, her own soul, and for the life of her son, her tribute to the +scheme of life itself. Here lay the <i>penetralia</i> of this domicile, this +weak fortification against the world.</p> + +<p>In this room were odds and ends of furniture, a few pictures not +ill-chosen—pictures not in crude colors, but good blacks and whites. +Woman or girl, Aurora Lane had had her own longings for the great +things, the beautiful things of life, for the wide world which she never +was to see. Her taste for good things was instinctive, perhaps +hereditary. Had she herself not been an orphan, perhaps she had not +dared the attempt to orphan her own son. There were books and magazines +upon the table, mixed in with odds and ends of scraps of work sometimes +brought hither; the margin between her personal and her professional +life being a very vague matter.</p> + +<p>Back of this central room, through the open door, showed the small white +bed in the tiny sleeping room. At the side of this was the yet more tiny +kitchen where Aurora Lane all these years had cooked for herself and +washed for herself and drawn wood and water for herself. She had no +servant, or at least usually had not. Daily she wrought a woman's +miracles in economy. Year by year she had, in some inscrutable fashion, +been able to keep up appearances, and to pay her bills, and to send +money to her son—her son whom she had not seen in twenty years—her son +for whom her eyes and her heart ached every hour of every day. She +sewed. She made hats. What wonder if the scarlet of the hat in the +window had faded somewhat—and what wonder if the scarlet of the letter +on her bosom had faded even more?... Because it had all been for him, +her son, her first-born. And he must never, never know! He must have his +chance in the world. Though the woman should fail, at least the man must +not.</p> + +<p>So it was thus that, heavy-hearted enough now, she brought him to see +the place where his mother had lived these twenty years. And now he knew +about it, must know. It took all her courage—the last drop of her +splendid, unflinching woman-courage.</p> + +<p>"Come in, Don," she said. "Welcome home!"</p> + +<p>He looked about him, still frowning with what was on his mind.</p> + +<p>"Home?" said he.</p> + +<p>"Don!" she said softly.</p> + +<p>"Tough work, wasn't it, waiting for me to get through, dear Mom? For I +know you did wait. I know you meant that some day——"</p> + +<p>He laid a hand on her head, his lips trembling. He knew he was +postponing, evading. She shrank back in some conviction also of +postponing, evading. All her soul was honest. She hated deceit—though +all her life she had been engaged in this glorious deceit which now was +about to end.</p> + +<p>"Tough sometimes, yes," she said, smiling up at him. "But don't you like +it?"</p> + +<p>"If my dad had lived," said Don, "or if he had had very much to give +either of us, you'd never have lived this way at all. Too bad he died, +wasn't it, Mom?"</p> + +<p>He smiled also, or tried to smile, yet restraint was upon them both, +neither dared ask why.</p> + +<p>She caught up his hand suddenly, spying upon it a strand of blood.</p> + +<p>"Don!" she exclaimed, wiping it with her kerchief, "you are hurt!"</p> + +<p>He laughed at this. "Surely you don't know much of boxing or football," +said he.</p> + +<p>"You ought not to fight," she reproved him. "On your first day—and all +the town saw it, Don! You and I—we ought not to fight. What—on the +first day I've seen you in all these years—the first day you're out of +college—the first day I could ever in all my life claim you for my very +own? I believe I <i>would</i> have claimed you—yes, I do! But you +came—when you knew you had a mother, why you came to her, didn't you, +Don? Even me. But you mustn't fight."</p> + +<p>"Why?" He turned upon her quickly, his voice suddenly harsh, his eyes +narrowing under drawn brows. "Why shouldn't I fight?"</p> + +<p>He seemed suddenly grown graver, more mature, strong, masterful, his eye +threatening. She almost smiled as she looked at him, goodly as he was, +her pride that she had borne him overpowering all, her exultation that +she had brought a man into the world, a strong man, one fit to prevail, +scornful of hurt—one who had fought for her! For the first time in her +life a man had fought for her, and not against her.</p> + +<p>But on the soul of Aurora Lane still sat the ancient dread. She saw the +issue coming now.</p> + +<p>"Mother——" said he, throwing his hat upon the table and walking toward +her quickly.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Don." (She had named her son Dieudonné—"God-given." Those who did +not know what this might mean later called him "Dewdonny," and hence +"Don.")</p> + +<p>"I didn't thrash them half enough, those fellows, just now."</p> + +<p>"Don't say that, Don. It was too bad—it was terrible that it had to be +today, right when you were first coming here. I had been waiting for you +so long, and I wanted——"</p> + +<p>"Well, I tell you what I want—I want you just to come away with me. I +want to get you away from this town, right away, at once, as quick as I +can. I'm beginning to see some things and to wonder about others. I am +ashamed I have cost you so much—in spite of what Dad left, you had to +live close—I can see that now—although I never knew a thing about it +until right now. I feel like a big loafer, spending all the money I +have, while you have lived like this. Where did you get it, Mom?"</p> + +<p>She swept a gesture about her with both hands. "I got it here," said she +suddenly. "It <i>all</i> came from—here. You father sent you—nothing! I've +not let you know all the truth—you've known almost nothing of the +truth."</p> + +<p>Then her native instinct forced her to amend. "At least half of it came +from here. It was honest money, Don, you know it was that, don't +you—you believe it was honest?"</p> + +<p>"Money that would have burned my fingers if I had known how it came. But +I didn't. What's up here? Have you fooled me, tricked me—made a loafer +of me? I supposed my father set aside enough for my education—and +enough for you, too. What's been wrong here? What's under all this? Tell +me, now!"</p> + +<p>His mother's eyes were turned away from him. "At least we have done it, +Don," said she, with her shrewd, crooked smile. "We've not to do it +over again. You can't forget what you have learned—you can't get away +from your college education now, can you? You've got it—your diploma, +your degree in engineering. You're a college man, Don, the only one in +Spring Valley. And I'm so proud, and I'm so glad. Oh! Don—Don——"</p> + +<p>She laid a hand on his breast shyly, almost afraid of him now—the first +hand she had ever laid upon the heart of any man these twenty years. It +was her son, a man finished, a gentleman, she hoped.... Could he not be +a gentleman? So many things of that sort happened here in America. Poor +boys had come up and come through—had they not? And even a poor boy +might grow up to be a gentleman—was not that true—oh, might it not +after all be true?</p> + +<p>He laid his own hand over hers now, the hand on which the blood was not +yet dried.</p> + +<p>"Mom," said he, "I ought to go back and thrash the life out of that man +yet. I ought to wring the neck of that doddering old fool marshal. I +ought to whip every drunken loafer on those streets. Whose business was +it? Couldn't we cross the square without all that?"</p> + +<p>He stopped suddenly, the fatal thought ever recurring to his mind. But +he lacked courage. Why should he not? Was this not far worse than facing +death for both of them? Their eyes no longer sought one another.</p> + +<p>"Mom——" said he, with effort now.</p> + +<p>"Yes, my boy."</p> + +<p>"<i>Where's my dad?</i>"</p> + +<p>A long silence fell. Could she lie to him now?</p> + +<p>"The truth now!" he said after a time.</p> + +<p>"You have none, Don!" said she gaspingly at last. "He's gone. Isn't that +enough? He's dead—yes—call him dead—for he's gone."</p> + +<p>He pushed back roughly and looked at her straight.</p> + +<p>"Did he really leave any money for my education?"</p> + +<p>She looked at him, her throat fluttering. "I wish I could lie," said +she. "I do wish I could lie to you. I have almost forgot how. I have +been trying so long to live on the square—I don't believe, Don, I know +how to do any different. I've been trying to live so that—so that——"</p> + +<p>"So what, mother?"</p> + +<p>"So I could be worthy of <i>you</i>, Don! That's been about all my life."</p> + +<p>"<i>I have no father?</i>"</p> + +<p>She could not reply.</p> + +<p>"Then was what—what that man said—was <i>that the truth</i>?"</p> + +<p>After what seemed to both of them an age of agony she looked up.</p> + +<p>She nodded mutely.</p> + +<p>Then her hand gripped fiercely at his coat lapel. A great dread filled +her. Must she lose also her boy, for whom she had lived, for whom she +had denied herself all these years—the boy who was more than life +itself to her? Her face was white. She looked up into another face, a +strange face, that of her son; and it was white as her own.</p> + +<p>"I didn't know it," said he simply at length. "Of course, if I had +known, I wouldn't have done what I did. I would have worked."</p> + +<p>"No, no! Now you are just fitted to work. It's over—it's done—we have +put you through."</p> + +<p>"You told me my father was dead. Where is he—who is he?"</p> + +<p>"I will never tell you, Don," said she steadily, "not so long as you +live will I tell you. I have never told anyone on earth, and I never +will."</p> + +<p>"Then how do they know—then why should that man say what he did?"</p> + +<p>"They know—about you—that—that you happened—that's all. They thought +you died as a child, a baby—we sent you away. They don't know who it +was—your father—I couldn't have lived here if anyone had known—that +was my secret—my one secret—and I will keep it all my life. But here +are you, my boy! I will not say I am sorry—I will never say that again! +I am glad—I'm glad for anything that's given me <i>you</i>! And you fought +for me—the first time anyone ever did, Don."</p> + +<p>He was turning away from her now slowly, and she followed after him, +agonized.</p> + +<p>"It wasn't <i>your</i> fault, Don!" said she. "Try to remember that always. +Haven't I taken it up with God—there on my knees?" She pointed to the +little room where the corner of the white bed showed. "On my knees!"</p> + +<p>She followed him as he still walked away. "Oh, Don," she cried, "what do +you mean, and what are you going to do?"</p> + +<p>"I'm going to try to forget everything of all my life. God! if I could +undo it—if I could forget how I got my education," said he. "Tell me, +didn't he help at all—did you, all alone, bring me up, far away, never +seeing me, educating me, keeping me—taking care of me—didn't he, my +father, do anything at all—for you?"</p> + +<p>"No, I did it—or at least half of it."</p> + +<p>"And who the other half?"</p> + +<p>"Never mind, Don, never mind." She patted eagerly on the lapel of his +coat, which once more she had caught and was fingering. "Oh, this was to +have been my very happiest day—I have been living and working for this +all these long, long years—for the day when I'd see you. Let me have a +little of it, can't you, Don? If you should forsake me now, I will know +that God has; and then I'll know I never had a chance."</p> + +<p>Quickly he laid a hand upon her shoulder. "No, I'll wait."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?" she asked. "What is it that you will do?"</p> + +<p>"Find out who he was," said he, his face haggard.</p> + +<p>"You will never do that, Don."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes. And when I do——"</p> + +<p>"What then?"</p> + +<p>"I'll kill him, probably. At least I'll choke this lie or this truth, +whichever it is, down the throats of this town. God! I'm <i>filius +nullius</i>! I'm the son of no man! I'm worse. I'm a loafer. I've been +supported by a woman—my own mother, who had so little, who was left +alone—oh, God! God!"</p> + +<p>"Don," she cried out now. "Don, I'd died if I could have kept it from +you. Oh, my son—my son!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2> + +<h3>TWO MOTHERS</h3> + + +<p>The young man stood motionless, facing the white-faced woman who had +pronounced his fate for him. Happily it chanced that there came +interruption, for a moment relieving both of the necessity of speech.</p> + +<p>The click of the little crippled gate as it swung to brought Aurora Lane +to her senses now. She hastened to the door, toward the outer stair. She +met someone at the door.</p> + +<p>"Julia!" she exclaimed. "Come in. Oh, I'm so glad. Come! He's here—he's +come—he's right here now!"</p> + +<p>There entered now the figure of a youngish-looking woman, her hair just +tinged with gray here and there upon the temples; a woman perhaps the +junior of Aurora Lane by a year or so. Of middle stature, she was of +dark hair, and of brown eyes singularly luminous and soft. Not uncomely, +one would have called her at first sight. The second glance would have +shown the limp with which Julia Delafield walked, the bent-top cane +which was her constant companion. She was one of those handicapped in +the race of life, a cripple from her childhood, but a cripple in body +only. One might not look in her face without the feeling that here was a +nature of much charm.</p> + +<p>Miss Julia likewise was owner of two smiles. The one was sad, pathetic, +the smile of the hopeless soul. The other, and that usually seen by +those about her, was wide and winning beyond words—the smile which had +given her her place in the hearts of all Spring Valley. These many years +"Miss Julia," as she was known to all, had held her place as "city +librarian," in which quasi-public capacity she was known of all, and +loved of all as well.</p> + +<p>She came in now smiling, and kissed Aurora Lane before she allowed +herself to see, standing in the inner room, the tall young man, who +seemed to fill up the little apartment. A swift color came into her face +as, with a sort of summoning up of her courage, she went up to him, +holding out her hands. Even she put up her cheek to be kissed by him. It +was her peculiarity when feeling any emotion, any eagerness, to flush +brightly. She did so now.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Miss Julia!" exclaimed Don. "I'm glad to see you. Why, I know you +too—I feel as though I've always known you just as you are! So—you're +my fairy godmother, who's got a real mother for me! All these +years—till I was a man grown—how could you?—but I'd know you +anywhere, because you're just the image of the picture you sent me with +that of her. I mean when you wrote me last week for the first time—that +wonderful letter—and told me I had a mother, and she was here, but that +I mustn't ever come to see her. Of course, I wired at once I <i>was</i> +coming! See now——"</p> + +<p>"You are tall, Don," said Miss Julia softly. "You are very tall. You +are—you are fine! I'm so glad you grew up tall. All the heroes in my +books are tall, you know." She laughed aloud now, a rippling, joyous +little laugh, and hooking her cane across the chair arm, sank back into +Aurora Lane's largest rocker, her tender, wistful face very much +suffused.</p> + +<p>Don fetched his mother also a chair, and seated himself, still regarding +Miss Julia curiously. He saw the two women look at one another, and +could not quite tell what lay in the look.</p> + +<p>As for Miss Julia, she was still in ignorance of the late events in the +public square, because she had come directly across to Aurora Lane's +house after the closing of her own duties at the library this Saturday +afternoon, when most of her own patrons were disposed for the open than +for books.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Don," said she again, "you are fine!" Her eyes were all alight +with genuine pride in him. "I'm so glad after all you came to see us +before you went on West—even when I told you you mustn't! Oh, believe +me, your mother scolded me! But I presume you are in a hurry to get +away? And you've grown up! After all, twenty years is only a little +time. Must you be in a hurry to leave us?"</p> + +<p>"I ought not to be," said he, smiling pleasantly after all. "Surely I +ought to come and see you two good partners first—I could not go away +without that. Oh, mother has told me about you—or at least I'm sure she +was just going to when you came in. Strange—I've got to get acquainted +with my mother—and you. But I know you—you're two good partners, +that's what you are—two good scouts together—isn't it true?"</p> + +<p>Miss Julia flushed brightly. His chance word had gone passing close to +the truth, but he did not know the truth. Don Lane did not know that +here sat almost the only woman friend Aurora Lane could claim in all +Spring Valley. Miss Julia in fact was silent partner in this very +millinery shop—and silent partner in yet other affairs of which Don +Lane was yet to learn.</p> + +<p>This was a great day for Miss Julia as well as for Don's mother. Time +and again these two women had sat in this very room and planned for this +homecoming of the boy—this boy—time and again planned, and then agreed +he must not come—their son. For—yes—they <i>both</i> called him son! If +Don Lane, Dieudonné Lane, was <i>filius nullius</i>, at least he might boast +two mothers.</p> + +<p>How came this to pass? One would need to go back into the story of Miss +Julia's life as well as that of Aurora Lane. She had been lame from +birth, hopelessly so, disfiguringly so. Yet callous nature had been kind +to her, had been compassionate. It gave to her a face of wondrous +sweetness, a heart of wondrous softness thereto. Hopeless and resigned, +yet never pathetic and never seeking pity, no living soul had ever heard +an unkind or impatient word from Julia Delafield's lips, not in all her +life, even when she was a child. She had suffered, yes. The story of +that was written on her face—she knew she might not hope—and yet she +hoped.</p> + +<p>She knew all the great romances of the world, and knew likewise more +than the greatest romancer ever wrote of women. For her—even with her +wistful smile, the sudden flashing of her wistful eyes—there could be +no romance, and she knew that well. Not for her was to be ever the love +of man. She was of those cruelly defective in body, who may not hope for +any love worth having. Surrounded daily by her friends, her books, Miss +Julia was an eager reader, and an eager lover. She knew more of life's +philosophy perhaps than any soul in all her town, and yet she might +enjoy less of life's rewards than any other. A woman to the heart, +feminine in every item, flaming with generous instincts, and yet denied +all hope of motherhood; a woman steeped in philosophy and yet trained in +emotion—what must she do—what could she do—she, one of the denied?</p> + +<p>What Miss Julia had done long years ago was to select as her best +friend the girl who of all in that heartless little town most needed a +friend—Aurora Lane. She knew Aurora's secret—in part. In full she +never yet had asked to know, so large was she herself of heart. All +Spring Valley had scorned Aurora Lane, for that she had no father for +her child. And—with what logic or lack of logic, who shall say?—Julia +Delafield had taken Aurora Lane close to her own heart—<i>because</i> she +had the child!</p> + +<p>It is not too much to say that these two hopeless women, the one outcast +of society, the other outcast of God, had brought up that child between +them. Those who say women have no secrets they can keep should have +noted this strange partnership in business, in life, in maternity! This +had gone on for twenty years, and not a soul in Spring Valley could have +told the truth of it. Don Lane did not know of it even now.</p> + +<p>"Why, Aurora," said Miss Julia more than once in those early years to +her friend, "you must not grieve. See what God has given you—a +son!—and such a son! How glad, how proud, how contented you ought to +be. You have a son! Look at me!"</p> + +<p>So Aurora Lane did look at Julia Delafield. They comforted one another. +It was from Miss Julia that year by year, falteringly, she learned to +hope, learned to hold up her head. Thus gradually, by the aid of the +love of another woman—a rare and beautiful thing, a wondrous thing—a +thing so very rare in that world of jealousy in which by fate women so +largely live—she got back some hold on life—she, mother of the son of +no man, at the urge of a woman who could never have a son!</p> + +<p>"Oh, we will plan, Aurora!" said Miss Julia in those piteous earlier +times. "We will plan—we will get on. We'll fight it out together." And +so they had, shoulder to shoulder, unnoted, unpraised and unadvised, +year by year; and because they knew she had at least one friend, those +who sat in judgment on Aurora Lane came little by little to forgive or +to forget her sin, as it once was called of all the pulpits there.</p> + +<p>And now a drunken tongue had recalled sharply, unforgivably, +unescapably, that past which had so long lain buried—a past to which +neither of them ever referred.</p> + +<p>In all these years time had been doing what it could to repair what had +been. Time wreathes the broken tree with vines to bind up its wounds. It +covers the scarred earth with grasses presently. In all these years some +men had died, others had left the village. Certain old women, poisonous +of heart, also had died, and so the better for all concerned. Other +women mayhap had their sacrifices—and their secrets. But as for Aurora +Lane, at least she had won and held one friend. And so they two had had +between them a child, a son, a man. One had gathered of the philosophy +of life, of the world's great minds. The other had brought into the +partnership the great equipment with which Nature forever defies all law +and all philosophy save her own.</p> + +<p>Now, product of their twenty years of friendship, here he stood, tall +and strong—Don Lane, their boy, blood on his hand because of that truth +which he swiftly—too swiftly—had declared to be a lie; and which was +no lie but the very truth.</p> + +<p>But Don Lane still was ignorant of the closeness of truth of his last +remark. He only put such face now on all this as he might.</p> + +<p>"Miss Julia," said he lamely, and giving her instinctively the title +which the town gave her, "I know you have been good to my mother."</p> + +<p>"Why, no, I haven't, Don," said she, "not at all. I've been so busy I +have hardly seen your mother for a month or so. But we have kept track +of you—why, Don, I've got your class records, every one. You don't know +how I got them? Isn't it true, Aurie?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know what I would ever have done without her," said Aurora Lane +slowly.</p> + +<p>Don Lane laughed suddenly. "Why," said he, "it's almost as if I had +<i>two</i> mothers, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>Both women grew red now, and poor Don, knowing little as he did, grew +red as well.</p> + +<p>"But what's the matter with your hand, Don—you've cut yourself! I've +told your mother she ought to fix that gate-latch."</p> + +<p>Don looked once more at his wounded hand, and sought to cover the +blood-stain with his kerchief. He saw that Miss Julia had heard nothing +of the affair of a few moments earlier in the public square.</p> + +<p>"Why, that's nothing," he mumbled.</p> + +<p>This was too much for the straightforward nature of Aurora Lane, and +rapidly as she might she gave some account to Miss Julia of these late +events. She told all—except the basic and essential truth. A sad shame +held her back from talking even before Miss Julia of the fact that her +boy now knew he was the child of shame itself.</p> + +<p>"That's too bad," said Julia Delafield slowly, gravely, as she heard the +half news. "I'm awfully sorry—I'm awfully sorry for your mother, Don. +You fought? My! I wish I had been there to see it."</p> + +<p>Miss Julia's face flushed once more, indicative of the heroic soul which +lay in her own misshapen body.</p> + +<p>"I didn't want to hit that fellow," said Don. "Of course, they had no +chance, either of them, with a man who could box a bit."</p> + +<p>"And you learned that—in college, Don?"</p> + +<p>He only grinned in reply, and thrust the wounded hand into his pocket, +out of sight.</p> + +<p>"I'll warrant you, Don," said Miss Julia, "that if it hadn't been for +you old Tarbush, the town marshal, never would have taken Johnnie +Adamson to jail. Those two were a public nuisance every Saturday +afternoon. I'm glad you have ended it. But tell me, what made them pick +on you?"</p> + +<p>Don Lane struggled for a time, not daring to look at his mother, before +he spoke. "The half-wit wouldn't let us pass, and then his father called +me a name—if that man or any other ever calls me that again, I'm going +to beat him up till his own people won't know him. I can't tell you," he +went on, flushing.</p> + +<p>He did not catch the sudden look which now passed between the two women. +A sudden paleness replaced the flush on Miss Julia's cheek. A horror sat +in her eye. "What does he know?" was the question she asked of Aurora +Lane, eye only speaking the query.</p> + +<p>"At least, Miss Julia," said poor Don, "you somehow certainly must know +about me. I'll get all my debts squared around some time. As soon as I +can get settled down in my new place West—I've got a fine engineering +job out in Wyoming already—I'm going to have my mother come. And if +ever I get on in the world, there are some other things I'm not going to +forget. Any friend of hers——" His big hand, waved toward his mother, +told the rest of what he could not speak.</p> + +<p>They sat on, uncomfortable, for a time, neither of the three knowing +how much the others knew, nor how much each ought to know. Of the three, +Aurora Lane was most prepared. For twenty years she had been learning to +be prepared. For twenty years she had been praying that her boy never +would know what now he did know.</p> + +<p>Don Lane looked at his mother's face, but could not fathom it. Life to +him thus far had been more or less made up of small things—sports, +books, joys, small things, no great ponderings, no problems, no +introspections, no self-communings—and until but very recently no love, +no great emotion, no passion to unsettle him. This shadow which now fell +over him—he could not have suspected that. But his mother all these +years had known that perhaps at any unforeseen time this very hour might +come—had prayed against it, but known always in her heart that it might +come, nay, indeed one day must come.</p> + +<p>"Damn the place, anyhow!" he broke out at length. "You've lived here +long enough, both of you. It's nothing but a little gossiping hell, +that's all. I'll take you away from here, both of you, that's what I'll +do!" He stretched out a hand suddenly to his mother, who took it, +stroking it softly.</p> + +<p>"Don, boy," said she, "I didn't run away. Why should we run away now? If +we did, we'd take ourselves with us wherever we went, wouldn't we? This +is as good a place to live out life as any I could have found. You +can't really evade things, you know."</p> + +<p>"As though I asked to! I'd rather fight things than evade them."</p> + +<p>"I think so," said his mother mournfully. "I suppose that's true."</p> + +<p>"But you've got to be happy, mother," said he, again taking her hand in +his. "I'll <i>make</i> you happy. I'm ready to work for you now—I'll pay you +back."</p> + +<p>"And Miss Julia?" smiled his mother. "It was she who told you the news, +you know, and you didn't obey her—you came against orders."</p> + +<p>"Why, yes, of course. She's been so awfully good to you. I know what +she's been, be sure of that." (As though he did know!)</p> + +<p>"Don't be too bitter, Don," said Miss Julia Delafield, slowly now, +hoping only to salve a wound she felt he might have, yet not sure +herself what the wound might be. "Don't be unrelenting. Why, it seems to +me, as we grow older and begin to read and think, we find out the best +of life is just being—well, being charitable—just forgetting. Nothing +matters so very much, Don. That's doctrine, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>Don Lane never finished what reply he might have made. There came yet +another interruption, yet another footfall on the little walk without, +following the clash of the crippled gate as it swung to. It was a man's +footfall which they heard on the gallery. They all rose now as Aurora +threw open the door.</p> + +<p>It was the solemn visage of Joel Tarbush, the town marshal, which met +Aurora Lane.</p> + +<p>"How do you do, Mr. Tarbush?" asked she. "Won't you come in?"</p> + +<p>The gentleman accosted gave a quick glance up the street and down.</p> + +<p>"I'm a married man," said he, with something of a vile grin on his face +as he looked at her.</p> + +<p>She answered him only with the level gaze of her own eyes, and pushed +open the door. He followed her in, hesitatingly, and then saw the others +in the little room.</p> + +<p>"Ma'am," said he, "I come to summons you to the justice court this +afternoon."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Aurora Lane. "Why?"</p> + +<p>"It's that Adamson case," said he—"he knows." He turned now to the tall +figure of Dieudonné Lane, instinctively stepping back as he did so.</p> + +<p>"In what way do you want us?" asked Don Lane now. "As witnesses? My +mother——?"</p> + +<p>"I want your—your <i>ma</i> as a witness, yes," said Tarbush, grinning, +"since you've said it. For you, you'll have to come along on charge of +resisting a officer; likewise for assault and battery, charge brought by +Ephraim Adamson; likewise for disturbing the peace. Likewise we're +going to test the case of <i>habeas chorus</i>. Old Man Adamson's got money. +He's sober now, and he's got a lawyer—the best lawyer in town. They're +going to get the eejit out of jail, and Old Man Adamson's going to make +trouble for you."</p> + +<p>How much longer Tarbush might have prattled on in his double capacity of +officer and gossip remained uncertain. Miss Julia turned upon him, her +large dark eyes flashing:</p> + +<p>"Why do you bring her into it? She's just told me—they were only +crossing the square—she was only trying to go home—she wasn't +troubling anyone in all the world! Leave her out of it."</p> + +<p>"I ain't got no choice in it," said Tarbush. "I'm serving the papers +now. Miss Lane and the boy both comes. Not that I got any feeling in the +matter."</p> + +<p>"Why should you have?" asked Don Lane, with a cynical smile. "You've +been letting that ruffian run this town every Saturday for years, they +tell me, and you didn't dare call his bluff till you saw he was whipped. +All right, we'll go. I'll see this thing through—but I want to tell +you, you've started something that will be almighty hard to stop. You +needn't think I'm going to let this thing drop here."</p> + +<p>"Oh, now," began the man of authority, "I wish't you wouldn't feel +thataway. I done my duty as I seen it. Didn't I take him to jail?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, you did, after I had turned him over to you. But you took the +wrong man at that."</p> + +<p>"Who should I of took?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know," laughed Don Lane bitterly. "All the town, I think. We'll +see."</p> + +<p>This was too cryptic for Joel Tarbush. Weakly he felt in his pocket for +tobacco.</p> + +<p>"Well," said he at length, "I done summonsed you."</p> + +<p>"We have no choice," said Aurora Lane, after a time. "We'll get ready. +Miss Julia, can't you go with me?"</p> + +<p>"Of course," said Julia Delafield quietly.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2> + +<h3>IN OPEN COURT</h3> + + +<p>In his narrow little room upstairs in one of the two-story brick +buildings which framed the public square of Spring Valley sat J. B. +Blackman, Justice of the Peace, upholder of the majesty of the law. His +throne was a knock-kneed, broken chair. In front of him stood a large +scarred table, whereon rested the equipment of well-thumbed tomes which +bolstered him in his administration of justice. In the room beyond stood +a few scattered chairs, a long bench or two. On one wall, by way of +ornament, was a steel engraving of Daniel Webster. On the opposite wall +hung certain lithographs of political candidates of like party +persuasion with Blackman himself, for this was a presidential year, and +certain crises of political sort existed, among others the choosing of a +Senator of the United States. Among lesser likenesses on Blackman's +grimy wall loomed large the portrait of his party's candidate, to wit: +the Honorable William Henderson, late County Attorney, late District +Judge, late member of the Legislature, late candidate for Governor, late +Chairman of the State Republican Committee; and by virtue of the death +of the late incumbent in the office of United States senator, himself +now present candidate for that lofty honor. Otherwise than as to these +purposeful decorations the room had small adornment and appeared +judicially austere.</p> + +<p>The hour was mid-afternoon, but so swiftly had the news of recent events +spread abroad in the little village that already the room of Justice of +Peace Blackman was packed. Aurora Lane's baby—why, she had fooled +everybody—her boy never had died at all—here he was—he had been +through college—he'd been somewhere all the time and now he had come to +life all at once, and had fought Eph Adamson and the eejit, and had been +arrested and was going to be tried. Naturally, the stair leading to the +Justice's office was lined, and sundry citizens were grouped about the +bottom or under the adjacent awnings.</p> + +<p>Much speculation existed as to the exact issue of the legal proceedings +which, it seemed, had been instituted by old Eph Adamson. When that +worthy appeared, escorted by the clerk of Judge Henderson's law office, +room respectfully was made for the two, it being taken for granted that +Judge Henderson would appear for Adamson, as he always had in earlier +embroglios. Much greater excitement prevailed when presently there came +none less than Tarbush, city marshal, followed by Don Lane and the two +women. Then indeed all Spring Valley well-nigh choked of its own unsated +curiosity.</p> + +<p>They walked steadily, these three, staring ahead, following close after +the marshal, who now officiously ordered room for himself and his +charges. When they entered Blackman's court that worthy looked up, +coughed solemnly, and resumed his occupation of poring over the legal +authorities spread before him on the table. Don Lane made room for his +mother and Miss Julia, and took his own place at the side of the +marshal. The latter laid his hand upon his arm, as if to show the +assembled multitude that he had no fear of his prisoner. Don shook off +the hand impatiently.</p> + +<p>Outside, unable to restrain themselves sufficiently to be seated within +the room, old Kneebone and his friend Craybill walked up and down in the +narrow hall—lined with signs of attorneys, real estate men, and +insurance agents—from which made off the door of Blackman's office.</p> + +<p>"They'll bind him over," said old Silas to his friend. "They'll do that +shore."</p> + +<p>"Bind who over, Silas," said Craybill. "You mean Old Man Adamson and his +eejit, don't you? The eejit's arrested, anyhow. But what's it all about? +You don't believe it's true this here <i>is</i> 'Rory's son, now do you? How +can that come?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I ain't saying," replied old Silas cryptically, and nodding only +in the general direction of the door, "but you'll see."</p> + +<p>Old Aaron helped himself to a chew of tobacco thoughtfully. "They say +Old Eph has got his dander up now, and's going to make plenty of trouble +all along the line. Reckon he's ashamed of his son being licked thataway +by just a kid like this. Come to think of it, it looks like Eph ain't +got much glory out of it so far, has he?"</p> + +<p>"No, and I'll bet he had to dig up some money—the Judge, he likely +wouldn't think of it for less'n fifteen dollars anyways. That's the +price of a good shoat these days. If the case was appealed, or if it got +into a court of <i>nisy prisus</i>, or maybe got over into another county on +a change of <i>venoo</i>, you can bet Judge Henderson wouldn't be doing none +of them things for nothing, neither. The law's all right for them that +has plenty of money. Sometimes I think there's other ways."</p> + +<p>"Huh," said his companion, "old Adamson tried the other way, didn't he? +Now look at him! If I was Old Man Adamson, or if I was his eejit son +either, the best thing we could do, seems to me, would be to get out of +town. This here boy's a fighter, if I'm any judge. Wonder if it is her +boy! If it is, whoever was his father, huh? And how was he kep' hid for +more'n twenty year?"</p> + +<p>"He looks sort of changed since a couple of hours ago," said his friend +judicially. "He's quieter now—why, when he come into town he was just +laughing and talking like a kid. Of course, he must have knew—he knows +who his father is all right. Now, come to think of it, if this here boy +had any money he could sue them Adamsons for deefamation of character."</p> + +<p>"How comes it he could? I hear say that all Old Man Adamson said was to +call him nobody's son, and that's true enough, if he's her boy. If you +call the truth to a man, that ain't no deefamation of character. As to +'Rory Lane, everybody knows the truth about her. You can't deefame a +woman nohow, least of all her. We all know she had a baby when she was a +girl, and it was sent away, and it died. Leastways, we <i>thought</i> we +knew. I ain't right shore what we've knew. It looks like that woman had +put up some sort of game on this town. What right had she to do that?"</p> + +<p>"She was right white," said the other, somewhat irrelevantly. "Never +seen no one no whiter than she was when she went in that door right +now."</p> + +<p>"I don't reckon we can get no seats any more—the room's plumb full."</p> + +<p>They both were looking wistfully in at the packed assembly, when they +had occasion to make room for the dignified figure of a man who now +pushed his way through the throng.</p> + +<p>"How do, Judge Henderson," said old Silas Kneebone, who knew everybody.</p> + +<p>The newcomer nodded somewhat coldly. He nodded also, none too warmly, +to another man who stood near the door—a tall man, of loose and bulky +figure, with a fringe of red beard under his chin, a wide and smiling +mouth, blue eyes, and a broad face which showed shrewdness and humor +alike.</p> + +<p>"How are you, Hod?" said Henderson carelessly; thus accosting the only +man at the Spring Valley bar for whom really he had much respect or +fear—Horace Brooks, popularly known in Spring Valley as "old Hod +Brooks," perhaps the most carelessly dressed man physically and the most +exactly appointed man mentally then practising before that bar. A little +sign far down the narrow hall betokened that the office of Horace Brooks +might thereabouts be found by any in search of counsel in the law.</p> + +<p>"Oh, are you retained in this case, Hod?" Judge Hendenson spoke over his +shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Not at all, Judge, not at all," said the other. None the less he +himself followed on into the crowded little room.</p> + +<p>As Judge Henderson entered all eyes were turned upon him. Conscious of +the fact that he honored this assemblage, he comported himself with +dignity proper for a candidate. He was a man well used to success in any +undertaking, and he looked his part now. The full, florid face, the +broad brow, sloping back to a ridge of iron-gray hair, the full blue +eyes, the loose, easy lips, the curved chin, the large, white hands, +the full chest, the soft body, the reddening skin of the face—all of +these offered good index to the character of William Henderson. Lawyer, +judge, politician and leading citizen—he was the type of these things, +the village Cćsar, and knew well enough the tribute due to Cćsar.</p> + +<p>A few eyes turned from the adequate figure of Judge Henderson to the +loose and shambling form of the man who edged in to the front of the +table. Rumor had it that in the early times, twenty years or more ago, +Judge Henderson had come to that city with a single law book under his +arm as his sole capital in his profession. Old Hod Brooks had made his +own advent in precisely similar fashion, belated much in life by reason +of his having to work his way through school. Since then his life had +been one steady combat, mostly arrayed against Henderson himself. +Perhaps it might have been said that they two from the first were rivals +for the leading place at the local bar, little as Henderson himself now +cared for that. He was well intrenched, and all opponents, such as this +shambling giant with the red beard and nondescript carriage, must attack +in the open.</p> + +<p>Judge Blackman coughed ominously once more. "Order in the court!" he +intoned, pounding on the table in front of him.</p> + +<p>There was a general shuffling and scraping of chairs. Those standing +seated themselves so far as was possible. Judge Henderson alone stood +for a time in front of the table of Justice Blackman. The afternoon was +very warm, but he represented the full traditions of his profession, for +he appeared in long black coat, white waistcoat, and folded collar, tied +with a narrow white tie. In some way he had the appearance of always +being freshly laundered. His fresh pink cheeks were smooth and clean, +his hands were immaculate as his linen. One might have said that at one +time in his life he had been a handsome man, a fine young man in his +earlier days, and that he still was "well preserved."</p> + +<p>Not so much might have been said of old Hod Brooks, who had slumped into +a seat close to Tarbush and his prisoner. That worthy wore an alpaca +coat, a pair of trousers which shrieked of the Golden Eagle Clothing +Store, no waistcoat at all, and it must be confessed, no collar at all, +beyond a limp strip of wilted linen decorated by no cravat whatever.</p> + +<p>As he sat now Brooks suddenly cast a keen, curious gaze upon the face of +the young defendant who sat at the left of the city marshal—a gaze +which, passing at length, rested steadily, intently, on the face of +Aurora Lane, who sat, icy pale, staring straight in front of her. Her +left hand lay in that of Miss Julia Delafield. The eyes of the +latter—whose face was flushed, as was usual with her in any time of +mental emotion—remained fixed upon the man who was to prosecute this +boy, whose life was linked so closely with her own.</p> + +<p>The great lawyer seemed not to see these women at all, and at first cast +no glance whatever at the defendant. The whole thing was rather trivial +for him; for although his fee really had been five hundred dollars—in +form of a note from Ephraim Adamson secured by a certain mortgage on +certain live stock—he knew well enough he honored Adamson and this +court by appearing here in a mere Justice trial.</p> + +<p>"Order in the court!" said Blackman once more. "The case coming on for +trial is City of Spring Valley on the complaint of Ephraim Adamson +against Dewdonny Lane." At this bold declaration of what had been a half +credited secret to Spring Valley, all Spring Valley now straightened and +sat up, expectant. A sort of sigh, half a murmur of intense curiosity +went over the audience. It was indeed a great day for Spring Valley. +"Lane—Dewdonny Lane." So he <i>was</i> the son of Aurora Lane—and had no +family name for his own!</p> + +<p>Justice Blackman paused and looked inquiringly at the battered visage of +old Eph Adamson. He coughed hesitatingly. "I understand this case is one +of assault and battery. I believe, Judge Henderson, that you represent +the plaintiff in this case?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, your Honor," said Judge Henderson slowly, turning his full eye +upon the court from its late resting place upon the campaign portrait of +himself as it appeared on the wall. "I have consented to be of such +service as I may in the case. Mr. Ephraim Adamson, our well-known friend +here, is ready for the trial of the cause now, as I understand. I may +say further, your Honor, that there will be a writ of <i>habeas corpus</i> +sued out in due course demanding the body of the son of Ephraim Adamson, +who is wrongfully restrained of his liberty at present in our city jail.</p> + +<p>"As for this defendant——" Judge Henderson turned and cast an +insolently inquiring eye upon the young man at the side of the town +marshal.</p> + +<p>"Who appears for the defendant?" demanded Judge Blackman austerely, +casting a glance upon the prisoner at the bar.</p> + +<p>Don Lane arose, half hesitatingly. "Your Honor," said he, "I presume I +am the defendant in this case, although I hardly know what it's all +about. I haven't any lawyer—I don't know anybody here—I'm just in +town. All this has come on me very suddenly, and I haven't had time to +look around. I don't see how I am guilty of anything——"</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="illus1" id="illus1"></a> +<img src="images/illus1.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<h3>"Your Honor," said he, "I presume I am the defendant in +this case."</h3> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>Just then arose the soft and kindly tones of a large voice which easily +filled all the room. Old Hod Brooks half rose.</p> + +<p>"Your Honor," said he, "it isn't customary for a member of the bar to +offer his services unsolicited. I would say, however, that if the Court +desires to appoint me as counsel for this young man I will do the best I +can for him, since he seems a stranger here and unprepared for a defense +at law. If there were any other younger lawyer here I would not suggest +this course to your Honor—indeed, I have no right to do so now. I +trust, however,"—and he smiled at Judge Henderson at the other end of +the table—"that my learned brother will not accuse me of champerty, +maintenance, or any other offense against my office as a servant of +justice in this community. Of course, I may add, your Honor"—he turned +to Justice Blackman again—"that in such circumstances my own services, +such as they are, would be rendered entirely free of charge."</p> + +<p>People wondered, turning curious looks on the big, gaunt speaker thus +suddenly offering himself as champion in a rôle evidently unpopular.</p> + +<p>Justice Blackman hesitated, and cast again a glance of query at Judge +Henderson, on whom he much relied in all decisions. The latter waved a +hand of impatient assent, and began to whisper with his clerk.</p> + +<p>"The Court will allow this procedure," said Justice Blackman. "Does the +defendant accept Mr. Brooks as counsel?"</p> + +<p>Don Lane, embarrassed and somewhat red of face, half rose again, meeting +full the fascinated, absorbed look on the face of Hod Brooks—a look +which the keen eye of Henderson also saw. He puckered a lip and frowned +estimatingly. Rumor said that Old Hod Brooks was going to come out as +candidate for U. S. Senator on the opposing ticket. Henderson began now +to speculate as to what he could do with Hod Brooks, if ever they should +meet on the hustings. He studied him now as a boxer, none too certain of +himself, studies his antagonist when he strips and goes to his corner +opposite in the ring.</p> + +<p>"Your Honor," said Don, "I don't know this gentleman, but what he says +seems to me most kind. I surely shall be glad to have his assistance +now." He did not look at his mother's face, did not see the quick look +with which Hod Brooks turned from him to her.</p> + +<p>"Does my learned brother require time for preparation of his case?" +inquired Judge Henderson sarcastically. "I will agree to a brief recess +of the Court in such case."</p> + +<p>"Oh, not at all, not at all," said Old Hod Brooks. "I know all about +this case, better than my learned brother does. Not having any special +interest in anything but this case—that is to say, not any alien +interest, political or otherwise—I am ready to go to trial right now to +defend this young man. If Judge Henderson will move his chair so he can +get a better look at his own picture on the wall, I don't see but what +we might as well begin the trial."</p> + +<p>Certain smiles passed over the faces of a few in the audience as they +saw the quick flush spring to the face of Judge Henderson. The chief +delight in life of Old Hod Brooks was to bait his learned brother by +some such jibes as this, whenever the fortunes of the law brought them +together on opposing sides.</p> + +<p>Judge Henderson coughed. "Your Honor," said he hastily, "I am glad that +in the course of justice this young man has secured counsel—even +counsel such as that of my learned brother—who also, I am informed, is +not beyond aspirations of a political nature. I have no time for idle +jests. If the defense is ready I may perhaps state briefly what we +propose to prove."</p> + +<p>"By criminy!" whispered Silas to Aaron at the hall door, peering in. "By +criminy! I believe Old Hod's got him rattled right now!"</p> + +<p>But Judge Henderson pulled himself together. He now assumed his regular +oratorical position, an eye upon his audience.</p> + +<p>"Your Honor," he said, "this case is very plain and simple. The quiet of +our city has been violated by this young man, who has publicly assaulted +one of our best-known citizens."</p> + +<p>"Which one do you mean?" interrupted Hod Brooks, most unethically, and +smiling behind his hand. "Which do you mean, the old drunkard or the +young idiot?"</p> + +<p>"Order in the court!" rapped Blackman, as still further smiles and +shufflings became apparent at the rear of the room. Judge Henderson went +on, flushing yet more.</p> + +<p>"My client, your Honor," he said, "was standing peacefully in the public +square, accompanied by his son. They were beaten up, both of them, by +this young man who has been brought into this court by our properly +constituted officer of the law. Without any provocation whatever, this +defendant inflicted great personal injury upon my client."</p> + +<p>"We will make Eph's face 'Exhibit A,' and let it go into evidence," +smiled Hod Brooks amicably; and the audience smiled and shuffled yet +more.</p> + +<p>"As to the unlawful detention of the son of my client," resumed Judge +Henderson, beet-red now, "we have chosen the remedy of <i>habeas corpus</i> +rather than a simple discharge, because we wish to bring before our +people the full enormity of the offense which has been committed here in +the public view, actually upon the grounds of our temple of justice. We +shall show——"</p> + +<p>"Your Honor," interrupted old Hod Brooks at this point, half rising, "if +this were a political gathering indeed, and not the trial of a cause in +a justice court, I would rise to a point of order. As it is, I rise to a +point of law."</p> + +<p>"State your point," said Justice Blackman.</p> + +<p>"We are trying, as I understand it, the case of this defendant, +Dewdonny Lane, accused by this plaintiff, Ephraim Adamson, of assault +and battery?"</p> + +<p>Justice Blackman nodded gravely.</p> + +<p>"Then why does my learned brother speak of <i>habeas corpus</i> in this case, +and what is the case which he is trying, or thinks he is trying? What is +his evidence going to be? And why does he not get on?"</p> + +<p>"Your Honor," blazed Henderson, "I shall not endure this sort of thing."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, you will, my learned brother," said Hod Brooks, still smiling +gently. If Henderson had other resources, he needed them now, for keenly +enough he sensed himself as slipping in this battle of wits before +assembled electors; and it really was politics alone that had brought +him here—he scented a crowd afar off. He now lost his temper utterly.</p> + +<p>"If the Court will excuse us for a brief moment of recess," said he +savagely, "I should like to ask the privilege of a brief personal +consultation with the attorney for the defense. If he will retire with +me for just a moment I'll make him eat his words! After that we can +better shape these proceedings."</p> + +<p>The blue eye that Hod Brooks turned upon his opponent was calmly +inquiring, but wholly fearless. On the other hand, some sudden idea +seemed to strike him now. He resolved to change his tactics. He was +shrewd enough to know that, irritated beyond a certain point, Henderson +would fight his case hard; and Hod Brooks did not want to lose this +case.</p> + +<p>Henderson, with a little wave of the hand, his face livid in anger, +edged away from the table of the Justice of the Peace. Hod Brooks +followed him out into the hall.</p> + +<p>"Order in the court!" intoned the Justice yet again. There was a rush +toward the door. "There now, go back, men," said Hod Brooks, raising a +hand. "There's not going to be any fight. Let us two alone—we want to +talk, that's all."</p> + +<p>Don Lane looked steadily at the face of Justice Blackman. Aurora Lane +stared ahead, still icy pale, her hand clasped in that of Miss Julia's. +She felt, rather than saw, the gazes of all these others boring into her +very soul. Here were her enemies—here in what had been her home. It +seemed an hour to her before at length those standing about the door +shuffled apart to allow the two forensic enemies to reënter, though +really it had not been above ten minutes. Neither man bore any traces of +personal combat. The face of Judge Henderson was a shade +triumphant—strangely enough, since now he was to admit his own defeat.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>"I tell you, I heard the whole business," said old Silas later on to his +crony, who owned to a certain defect in one ear in hot weather such as +this. "I heard the whole business. There wasn't no fight at all—not +that neither of them seemed a bit a-scared. Hod, he raises a hand, and +that made the Judge slow down.</p> + +<p>"'It's what you might expect, Judge,' says Hod, for appearing in a +measly little justice court case.' He's got a mighty nasty way of +smiling, Hod has. But scared? No. Not none.</p> + +<p>"'I'll fight this case as long as you like,' says the Judge, 'and I'll +win it, too.'</p> + +<p>"'Maybe, maybe, Judge,' says Hod. 'But they's more ways than one of +skinning a cat. Suppose you do win it, what've you won? It's all plumb +wrong anyhow, and it orto be stopped. These people all orto go on home.'</p> + +<p>"'So you want to try the case here, huh?' says the Judge; and says Hod:</p> + +<p>"'That's just what I do. I mean I don't want to try it none at all. I've +got various reasons, beside, why I don't want to try this case, or have +it tried. Are you a good guesser?' I didn't know what he meant by that.</p> + +<p>"'What're you getting at?' says the Judge. 'I know you've got something +hid. There's a sleeper in here somewheres.'</p> + +<p>"'Well, let it stay hid,' says Hod. 'But one thing is sure, you ain't +hiding it none that you're out for Senator?'</p> + +<p>"'Why should I? I'll win it, too,' says the Judge.</p> + +<p>"'Maybe, maybe,' says Hod. 'All I was going to say was, maybe you'd like +to have me help you, say left-handed, thataway? Even left-handed help is +some good.'</p> + +<p>"'What do you mean, Hod?' says he. 'They tell me you're mentioned strong +for the other ticket and are out after the place your own self?' He +takes a kind of look-over at Hod, no collar nor nothing, and that sleazy +coat of his'n.</p> + +<p>"'That's so,' says Hod. 'I've got a chance anyhow. Even every bad-chance +candidate out of your way is so much to the candy for you, Judge, ain't +it so?' says he.</p> + +<p>"'Say now, you don't mean you'd talk of withdrawing?' Judge Henderson he +was all lit up when he says this. 'On what terms?' says he. 'Of course, +there's terms of some sort.'</p> + +<p>"'Easiest terms in the world,' says Hod—though I don't think it was +easy for him to say it, for he's got as good a chance as the Judge, like +enough. But he says, 'Easiest sort of terms,' and laughs.</p> + +<p>"'Talk fast,' says the Judge.</p> + +<p>"'Dismiss this suit—withdraw from this case—and I'll withdraw from all +candidacy on any ticket! That goes!' He said it savage.</p> + +<p>"'Do you mean it?' says the Judge, and Hod he says he does. 'I've got +reasons for not wanting this case to go on,' says he. 'It's politics +brought you here, Judge, and I know that, but it's mighty good politics +you'll be playing not never to try this case at all. Drop it, Judge. +Politics against politics; you win. Lawyer against lawyer, <i>I</i> win. But +I pay the biggest price, and you know it mighty well, even if you're a +poor guesser why I'm doing this. Since you're getting all the best of +the bargain, is it a bargain, then?'</p> + +<p>"Henderson he thinks for a while, and says he at last, 'Anyhow, I never +knew you to break your word,' says he.</p> + +<p>"'No,' says Hod, simple, 'I don't do that,'</p> + +<p>"'I'll go you!' says the Judge, sudden, and he sticks out his hand. 'I +shake politically, Judge,' says Hod. 'No more; but it's enough. We don't +neither of us need explain no more,' And <i>damn me</i>! If they didn't quit +right there, where it seemed to me a whole lot of explaining what they +meant 'd a-ben a right good thing for me anyways, for I couldn't gether +what it was all about.</p> + +<p>"But I heard the whole business—and there wasn't no fight, nor nothing, +just only that talk like I said, and I don't know nothing of <i>why</i> they +done it, I only know what they done. <i>That's</i> why there wasn't no fight, +no trial after all—and us setting there that long! I want to say, some +things is beginning to look mighty mysterious to me. But I ain't saying +what I think. You'll see."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Hod Brooks was first to address the court. He stood, a tall and hulking +figure, one hand upon the shoulder of Dieudonné Lane—stood in such +fashion as in part to shield Don's mother from the gaze alike of court +and audience.</p> + +<p>"Your Honor," said he, and his face now was very grave; "I assume the +Court has been in recess. After conference with my learned brother I +believe that he has some statement to make to the Court."</p> + +<p>He turned now toward Henderson, who straightened up.</p> + +<p>"May it please the Court," he began, "I find it incumbent upon me to +withdraw as counsel in this case. My learned brother has lived up to the +full traditions of courtesy in our profession, but I will only say that +I have learned certain facts which render it impossible for me to +represent this client properly in this cause. There would seem to have +been certain justifying circumstances, not at first put before me, which +leave me more reluctant to prosecute this defendant. I shall counsel my +client to withdraw his suit."</p> + +<p>Blackman in his surprise scarcely heard the deep voice of Don Lane's +attorney as he spoke in turn.</p> + +<p>"May it please the Court," said he gently, "it is the best function of +an attorney to counsel restraint and moderation; it is most honorable of +any great counsel to decline any case which does not enlist his full +convictions. It is the duty of all of us to uphold the actual peace and +actual dignity of this community. I have never entertained a fuller +respect for my learned brother than I have at this moment. I withdraw +what I said about his portrait yonder—and may say I do not blame any +man for being well content even in the offer of an honor which I cannot +and do not contemplate for myself—the great honor of the candidacy for +the Senate of the United States. It is my own function, none the less, +to state that there is no cause why my client should be longer detained. +He and others, these witnesses, are virtually restrained of their +liberty. I therefore move the dismissal of this case. I think these +people all ought to go home. I further suggest that this court +adjourn—if this latter suggestion be fully within my own province."</p> + +<p>He turned an inquiring gaze upon Tarbush, city marshal, who by this time +had fairly sunken down into the depths of his coat collar.</p> + +<p>"How about the plaintiff?" said Blackman, turning a hesitating glance +upon Judge Henderson, who seemed much relieved by what his opponent in +fact and in <i>posse</i> had said.</p> + +<p>"There is other counsel for him," said Judge Henderson, "but if he will +take my own advice, he will drop the case now and at this point."</p> + +<p>"What does the plaintiff say?" Blackman bent an inquiring gaze on the +battered visage of Ephraim Adamson. The latter lifted up a swollen +eyelid with thumb and finger, and turned a still confused gaze upon +court and counsel. His reply, crestfallen though it was, brought a +titter from the audience.</p> + +<p>"I guess I'm satisfied," said he.</p> + +<p>Blackman looked from one to the other, and then back to the faces of the +disappointed audience of the citizens of Spring Valley.</p> + +<p>"Order in the court!" exclaimed Blackman, J. P., fiercely. "This court +is adjourned!" He spoke with a certain disgust, as of one aware of +participation in a fiasco.</p> + +<p>With a rush and a surge the room began to empty. Judge Henderson +departed, well in advance, looking straight ahead, and acknowledging +none of the greetings which met him. He evidently was above such work, +even disgusted with the whole affair. Hod Brooks remained, his curious +glance still riveted on Don Lane.</p> + +<p>Don stood hesitating before the table of justice. He had not known +before that his burly counsel had any acquaintance with his mother, but +he saw plainly the glance of recognition which passed between them.</p> + +<p>Aurora Lane and Miss Julia waited until the stair was clear, but as Don +would have followed them, Hod Brooks beckoned to him, in his blue eyes a +sort of puzzled wonderment, a surprise that seemed half conviction.</p> + +<p>"I thank you, Mr. Brooks," said Don Lane, turning to his counsel. He +wondered curiously why the big man should seem so red of face and so +perturbed. "What can I do for you—I have not much——"</p> + +<p>The great face of Hod Brooks flushed yet more. "Don't talk to me about +pay, my boy," said he—"don't talk to me about anything. Wait till +things straighten out a little. The prosecution's dropped. That's +all—or that's enough. Now, listen. I knew you when I saw you come in +here! They told me you were dead, but I knew you when first my eyes fell +on you. You're like your mother. I've known your mother for years—I +think a lot of her and her friend Miss Julia, don't you see? It's +strange news to me you are alive, but you are, and that's enough. I must +be going now. I'll see you and your mother both. But before I do, just +come with me, for I've a little more counsel to give you—it won't cost +you anything, and I think it will do some good."</p> + +<p>He beckoned Don to join him once more in the hall, and what he said +required but a moment. An instant later, and old Brooks had hurried down +the stair. A part of his words to Don had been overheard by old Silas, +but the latter could only wonder what it all might mean.</p> + +<p>"Aaron," said he, "I ain't no detecative, and don't claim to be, but +now, some day if anything should happen—well, I ain't sayin', but I +know what I know, and some day, some day, Aaron, I may have to tell."</p> + +<p>Brooks joined Aurora Lane and Miss Julia and walked with them along the +shady street. They walked in silence, Aurora Lane still staring straight +ahead, icy cold. It was not until they three halted at her little gate +that she could find voice.</p> + +<p>"How can we thank you?" said she. "How can we pay?"</p> + +<p>The deep color came into the big man's moody face once more. He waved a +hand. "You mustn't talk of that," said he. "I reckon I owe you that much +and more—a lot more. I'm not done yet. I've done what I thought was +right. But as for the case, I didn't fight it, and I didn't win it—the +Judge and I, we just didn't make any fight at all, that's all. We +settled it out of court, on terms that suited him, anyhow. I'm sorry for +Blackman,—he was just honing to soak that boy the limit! <i>Your</i> boy, +Aurora—that ought to have stayed dead, I'm afraid, but didn't.</p> + +<p>"But peace and dignity," he added—"listen to me—we'll make a Sabbath +school out of this town yet! I can't talk very much more now."</p> + +<p>With a great uproarious laugh, somewhat nervous, very much perturbed, he +raised his hat clumsily, turned upon his heel clumsily, and would have +walked off clumsily. An exclamation from Miss Julia stopped him.</p> + +<p>"Where's Don?" asked she. "And what's that over yonder—what does the +crowd mean?" She pointed down to the corner of the courthouse square, +where indeed a closely packed group was thrusting this way and that, +apparently about some center of interest.</p> + +<p>"Oh, that?" said Hod Brooks, carelessly, turning his gaze thither; +"that's nothing. Pray don't be excited—it's only my—my client, +carrying out the last of my legal instructions to him."</p> + +<p>"But what does it mean?" demanded Aurora Lane in sudden terror—"what's +going on there? Is there more trouble?"</p> + +<p>Hod Brooks broke off a spear of grass from its place between the +sidewalk and the fence, and meditatively began to chew it.</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, I think not," said he gently. "I don't think the boy will have +much trouble. He's doing what I counseled him to do."</p> + +<p>"What have you told him—what is he doing—what does it all mean?" +demanded Aurora Lane.</p> + +<p>"Nothing," said the big man, still gazing ruminatingly at the scene +beyond. "As a member of the bar I was bound to give him such counsel as +should be of most practical benefit to him—I swore that in my oath of +admission to the bar. So I told him that as soon as court was adjourned +he ought to take old Eph Adamson and thrash him this time good and +proper. I told him nothing would come of it if he did. I told him it was +his plain duty to do it, and if he didn't do it I'd do it myself, +because the dogs have got to be put to sleep again now in this town.... +I must say," he added, "I am inclined to believe that my client is +following his instructions to the letter!" After which Hod Brooks +strolled on away.</p> + +<p>The crowd at the farther corner of the square broke apart before long.</p> + +<p>"By jinks! Silas," said old Aaron to his friend, "who'd a thought it? +I've seen some fights, but that was the shortest I ever did see. And he +made old Eph Adamson holler 'enough!' By criminy! he done that very +thing. Looks to me, safest thing right is not to talk too much about +'Rory Lane!"</p> + +<p>Don Lane emerged from the thick of the crowd, his coat over his arm, his +face pale in anger, his eye seeking any other champion who might oppose +him.</p> + +<p>"Listen to me now, you people!" he said. "If there's another one of you +that ever does what that man there has done, or says what he said, he'll +get the same he did, or worse. You hear me, now—I'll thrash the life +out of any man that raises his voice against anyone of my family. You +hear me, now?"</p> + +<p>He cast a straight and steady gaze upon Old Man Tarbush, who stood +irresolute.</p> + +<p>"No, you'll not arrest me again," said he. "You know you won't. You'll +leave me alone. If you don't, you'll be the next. I don't love you any +too well the way it is.</p> + +<p>"Get out now, all of you—you most of all," he added, and gave Marshal +Tarbush a contemptuous shove as he elbowed his own way on out of the +crowd.</p> + +<p>Old Hod Brooks passed on down the street and took the opposite side of +the public square, paying no attention to all this. He ambled on until +he found his own office at length. A half hour later he might have been +seen in his customary attitude, slouched deep down into his chair, his +head sunk between his shoulders, his feet propped up on the table, and +his eyes bent on the pages of a volume of the law.</p> + +<p>He had in his lap now no less an authority than "Chitty on Pleadings." +He had sat there for some moments—and he had not seen a word on all the +page.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2> + +<h3>CLOSED DOORS</h3> + + +<p>By the time Don Lane had reached his mother's house he partially had +pulled himself together, but his face was still pale and sullen, not yet +recovered from the late encounter.</p> + +<p>He cast himself down in a chair, his chin in his hand, looking +everywhere but at his mother. His wounds, poor lad, were of the soul, +slow to heal. The white-faced woman who sat looking at him had also her +wounds, scarred though they were, these years. Her features seemed +sharpened, her eyes larger for the dark shadows now about them. But she +was first to speak.</p> + +<p>"Wasn't it enough, Don," said she—"didn't I have enough without all +this? And on the very day I have looked forward to so long—so long! You +don't know how I have worked and waited for this very day. Why, it's the +first time I've ever seen you, since you were a baby. You're a stranger +to me—I don't know you yet. And then all this comes—now, on my one +happy day."</p> + +<p>"Well, how about it, then?" he demanded brusquely. "You know what +they've been saying—I couldn't let it go. I <i>had</i> to fight!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes, you have—and in a few hours you've undone twenty years of +work for me. The sleeping dogs were lying. Why waken them this late?"</p> + +<p>"<i>Who was my father?</i>" demanded the young man, now, sternly. "Come, it's +time for me to know. I couldn't help loving you—no one could. But—him! +Tell me—was it that man who defended me? Is my name Don Brooks?"</p> + +<p>She made him no answer, though her throat throbbed and she half started +as though at a blow.</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, oh, no! What am I saying! Of course you understand, mother," he +went on after a long, long silence, "I don't believe anything of this, +not even what you have said to me about my being—well, <i>filius +nullius</i>. There was a quick divorce—a hidden decree—you separated, you +two—he was poor—that often happens. Women never like to talk about it. +I can't blame you for calling me 'nobody's son,' for that sort of thing +does happen—secret and suppressed divorces, you know. But as to that +other——"</p> + +<p>For a long time Aurora Lane sat facing a temptation to accept this +loophole of escape which thus crudely her boy offered her—escape from +the bitter truth. He would fight! He—and Hod Brooks—those two might +defy all the town—might cow them all to silence even now. But—once +more her inborn honesty and courage, her years-old resolution +triumphed.</p> + +<p>"I cannot tell you who your father was, Don," said she quietly, at +length, ash pale, trembling.</p> + +<p>"When were you married—when—where?"</p> + +<p>"I was <i>never</i> married, Don! What I told you was true! Oh, you make me +say a thing to you I ought never to have been asked to say, but it is +the truth. You may believe it—you must believe it—it's—it's no good +keeping on evading—for it's true, all of it." She was gasping, choking, +now. "This is a ghastly thing to have to do," she cried at last. "Ah, it +oughtn't ever to have been asked of me."</p> + +<p>The boy's breath also came in a quick sob now.</p> + +<p>"Mother, that's not true—it <i>can't</i> be! Why, where does that leave +you—where does it leave <i>me</i>?"</p> + +<p>Her voice rose as she looked at him, so young and strong, so fine, so +manly.</p> + +<p>"But I'm not sorry," she exclaimed, "I'm not—I'm <i>not</i>!"</p> + +<p>"So what they told me—what I made them all take back—<i>it was true</i>?" +He sank back in his chair.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Don. We can't fight. We are ruined."</p> + +<p>"Born out of wedlock!—But my father only ran away—you told me he was +dead."</p> + +<p>"Regard him so, Don."</p> + +<p>"Where is he—who was he? Why did that man tell me to fight them all?"</p> + +<p>"I will never tell you, Don, never."</p> + +<p>Her dark eyes were turned upon him now, eyes unspeakably sad.</p> + +<p>"But you must! You wouldn't deny me my own chance in the world?"</p> + +<p>"You will have to make your own chance, Don, as I did. We all must. I +have my secret. The door is closed. There is no power ever can open that +door—not even my love for you, my boy. Besides, the knowledge could be +of no use to you."</p> + +<p>"Yes? Is that indeed so? You would debar me from the one great right of +all my life? Tell me, is my guess right? I'll make that man marry you."</p> + +<p>"Ah, you mean revenge?"</p> + +<p>He nodded, savagely, his jaws shut tight. But his brow grew troubled. +"But not if he came out and stood by me and you, even this late. I +suppose——"</p> + +<p>"There is no revenge for a woman, Don. They only dream there is—once I +dreamed there might be for me. I don't want it now. I am content. +There's more pity than revenge about me now. I only want to be fair now, +if I can, and now I'm glad—this is my one glorious day. For you're +mine. You are my boy—and I'll never say that I am sorry. Because I've +got you. They can't help that, can they, Don?"</p> + +<p>"He got us out of worse trouble, didn't he? Why did he do that, Mother? +What made him look at us the way he did? And what made the other lawyer, +Henderson, drop the case? How did they settle it out of court? Lucky +for us—but <i>why</i>?" He spoke sharply, abruptly.</p> + +<p>A trifle of color came to Aurora Lane's cheeks. "It was his way," she +said. "He's a good lawyer—advancing right along, more and more every +year, they say. He's always had a hard time getting a start. He's like +me."</p> + +<p>Don Lane sat silent for a time, but what he thought he held. He cast a +discontented glance about him at the meager surroundings of his mother's +home, with which he could claim no familiarity.</p> + +<p>"How did you manage it, Mother?" he asked, at length. "How did you get +me through—big, ignorant loafer that I've been all my life. You say he +never helped any. Was he so poor as all that?"</p> + +<p>"I couldn't have done it alone," said Aurora Lane, slowly. Mechanically +she smoothed down the folds of her gown in her lap as she spoke.</p> + +<p>"I have told you you had two mothers, if no father," said she at last, +suddenly. "That's almost true. You don't know how much you owe to Miss +Julia. She helped me put you through school! It was her little salary +and my little earnings—well, they have proved enough."</p> + +<p>"Go on!" said he, bitterly. "Tell me more! Humiliate me all you can! +Tell me more of what I ought to know. Good God!" He squared his +shoulders as if to throw off some weight which he felt upon them.</p> + +<p>His mother looked at him in silence for some time. "Shall I tell you all +about it, Don?" she said. "All that I may?"</p> + +<p>He nodded, frowning. "Let's have it over and done with."</p> + +<p>"When I came here I was young," said Aurora Lane, slowly, after a long +time. "Julia was young, too, just a girl. We both had to make our way. +Then—then—it happened."</p> + +<p>"You didn't love me, Mother? You hated me?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, I loved you—you don't know what you say—you don't know how I +loved you. But everything was very hard and cruel.... Well, one night I +had made up my mind what I must do....</p> + +<p>"I washed you all clean that night. I dressed you the best I could—I +didn't have much for you. But you were a sweet baby, and strong. I was +kissing you and saying good-by to you then, when Miss Julia came in, +right at the door."</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="illus2" id="illus2"></a> +<img src="images/illus2.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<h3>"I was kissing you and saying good-bye ... when Miss +Julia came in—"</h3> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>"You were going to put me in a home—in some institution?"</p> + +<p>"No!" She spoke now in short, quick, sobbing breaths.... "Don, do you +know the little stream that runs through the edge of the town? Do you +know the deep pool beneath the bridge where the water turns around? +Well, I had washed you and dressed you.... I was going to put you +<i>there</i>.... It was then that Julia came."</p> + +<p>He turned upon her a face which it seemed to her never again could be +happy and free from care.</p> + +<p>"I didn't know all this, Mother," said he, quietly, whitely. "I ask your +pardon. I ask you to forgive me."</p> + +<p>"No, I have told you I wanted to spare you all this—I wanted that door +to remain closed forever. But now it is open—you have opened it. I will +have to tell you what there is behind."</p> + +<p>It seemed many moments before she could summon self-control to go on.</p> + +<p>"...So we two sat here in this little room, Julia and I. You were in my +lap, holding up your hands and kicking up your feet, and we two wept +over you—we prayed over you, too—she, that little crippled girl, +hopeless, who could never have a boy of her own! I told her what I was +going to do with you. She fought me and took you away from me.... And +she saved you ... and she saved me.</p> + +<p>"So now you have it." He heard her voice trailing on somewhere at a +distance which seemed immeasurable. "You owe your life not to one woman, +but to two, after all. Now you know why I called you Dieudonné. God sent +you to me. As I have known how, I have resolved to pay my debt to +God—for you. I want to pity, not hate. I want to be grateful. I want to +be fair, if I can learn how."</p> + +<p>Aurora spoke no more for some moments, nor did her son.</p> + +<p>"We two talked it all over between us," said she after a time. "She +asked me then, once, who was your father—Julia did. I said he was poor. +I told her never to ask me again. She never has. Oh, a good woman, Julia +Delafield—fine, fine as the Lord ever made!</p> + +<p>"But she knew—we both knew—that I did not have the means of bringing +you up. We put our hearts together—to own you. We put our little purses +together—to bring you up. She took you away from me, pretty soon. She +sent you to some of her people, very distant relatives. They were poor, +too, but they took you in and they never knew—they died, both of them, +who took you in.</p> + +<p>"Then for a time we sent you to an institution for orphans. But we told +everybody here that you had died. I told him so—your—your father—and +I forbade him ever to speak to me again. I told you he was dead. I told +him you were dead. He <i>is</i> dead. So are <i>you</i> dead. But all the dead +have come to life. The lost is found. Oh, Don, Don, the lost is found! +I've found so much today—so much, so much. You're my boy, my own boy. A +man!"</p> + +<p>He sat mute. At length she went on.</p> + +<p>"We schemed and saved and contrived, all the little ways that we could +to save our money—we have both done that all our lives for you. We +wanted to educate you, your mothers did. And oh! above all things we +wanted the secret kept. I did the best I knew. They all thought you +died. I didn't want you to come here—it was Miss Julia. I didn't know +you were coming till you wired. I was going to tell you not to come +up—even from the depot. But you got in the bus. I was delayed there in +the square by those men. And then all this happened. And after twenty +years!"</p> + +<p>She sat silent, using all her splendid command of her own soul to still +the stubborn fluttering in her throat.</p> + +<p>Dieudonné Lane looked everywhere but at her.</p> + +<p>"Mother," said he at length, "did you—did you ever—love him?"</p> + +<p>His own face flushed at the cruelty of this question, too late, after +the words were gone. He saw her wince.</p> + +<p>"I don't know, Don," said she, simply. "It happened. It couldn't again. +You don't know about women. Seal your lips now, as mine are sealed. +Never again a question such as that to me."</p> + +<p>The sight of her suffering at his own words stirred the elemental rage +in his heart.</p> + +<p>"Tell me," he demanded again and again. "Who was he? Is that the man? I +begin to see—I'd kill him if I knew for sure."</p> + +<p>She only shook her head.</p> + +<p>"But you must!" said he at last. "You are cruel. You don't know."</p> + +<p>"What is that, Don? What do you mean? Oh, I see—<i>it is because of her</i>. +It's Anne! There's someone else you love, more than you do me."</p> + +<p>"Yes!" he confessed, "more than I do life. <i>That's</i> the reason I must +know all about myself. Can't you see I've got to play fair? There's +Anne!"</p> + +<p>"Who is she, Don—you've never told me very much yet."</p> + +<p>"Anne Oglesby—her family lived at Columbus before she was left alone. +You know her—why, she's the ward of Judge Henderson, here in town. I +believe she was left a considerable estate, and he handles it for her. +She's been here. She's told me about this place—she's seen you, +maybe—before I ever did. Yes—it's Anne! I've got to think of her. I +don't dare drag her into trouble—my hands are tied."</p> + +<p>He rose now, and in his excitement walked away from his mother, so that +he did not note her face at the moment.</p> + +<p>"You see, we met from time to time back East in our college town. I +never told her much about myself, because I didn't know much about +myself, really, when it comes to that. I said I was an orphan, +and poor. But—I'd made all the teams—and I've studied, too. I was +valedictorian, in spite of all, Mother. They don't amount to much, +usually—valedictorians—but I was sure I would—when I knew that +Anne——</p> + +<p>"I didn't know about our caring for one another until we found we had to +part—just now, today, this morning on the train before I got off here. +Then we couldn't part, you know. So just before we passed through this +town, right on the train—today, in less than half an hour before I met +you—this morning, this very day, I—we—well——"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Don," she said, "I know!" Her eyes were very large, her face very +pale.</p> + +<p>He choked.</p> + +<p>"But now we've got to part," said he. "If I am nobody, or worse, I've +got to be fair with her."</p> + +<p>A look of pride came into his mother's face at his words. "I'm glad, +Don," said she. "You've got honor in you. But in no case could I see you +marry that girl."</p> + +<p>He turned upon her in sudden astonishment. "Isn't she as good as we are? +Isn't her family—don't you know the Oglesbys of Columbus—who they are +and what they stand for—where they came from? Can we say as much?"</p> + +<p>"They are better than we can claim to be, Don, yes," said she, ignoring +his brutal frankness. "I know her, yes. I knew her years ago—the ward +of Judge Henderson. Sometimes she has been here and kept his household +for him—some day she'll live with Judge Henderson even if she marries. +He's very fond of her. But as to your marrying Anne Oglesby, you must +not think of it."</p> + +<p>"What on earth!" he began. "What have you against her?"</p> + +<p>"It is enough that I feel as I do about any girl who has been here and +who knows about—about the way—the way I've lived. Will she know who I +am when she knows who <i>you</i> are—and what you are not? Has she +identified us two—have you really been fair with her?" Now the color +began to rise in her paled cheeks.</p> + +<p>"I've not had time yet! I told you it all happened just a moment ago." +Then, still brutally, he went on. "Why, what do you know of love? What +do you know about the way I feel toward Anne?"</p> + +<p>"Be as cruel as you like," said she, flushing now under such words. "I +presume you feel as all men think they feel sometimes. They see that +woman for that moment—they think that they believe what they say—they +think they must do what they do. You are a man, yes, Don, or you could +not have said to me what you have."</p> + +<p>He flung out his arms, impatient. "I am having a fine start, am I not? +I'm a beggar, a pauper, and worse than that. I've got to pay you and +Miss Julia. I've got to go on through life, with that secret on my mind. +I can't confront that man and tell him. You and I—just today +meeting—why, we begin to argue. And now I've got to face Anne Oglesby +with that secret. It can't be a secret from her. I'd never ask her to +join her life to one like mine. And—God! a woman like her.... I can't +tell you.... Death—why, I believe this is worse."</p> + +<p>"Don't tell me, Don, don't try." She turned to him, her voice hoarse and +low. "It's a wrong thing for you to talk to me about things of that +sort. Birds out of the nest begin all over again—this must begin again, +I suppose—but it's too awful—too terrible. I don't want to hear any +more talk about love. But rather than see you live with her, rather than +see you talk that way of her, it seems to me I'd rather die. Because, +she knows all about <i>me</i>—or will. What made you come? Why didn't you +stay away? Why couldn't you find some other girl to love, away from +here?"</p> + +<p>"Which shows how much you really care for my happiness! I suppose, like +many women, you are stubborn. Is that it, mother?"</p> + +<p>She winced under this, wringing her hands. "If I could only lie—if I +only could!"</p> + +<p>"And if I only could, also!" he repeated after her. "But she's coming +tomorrow, Mother—I've made her promise she'd come to see you. She said +she'd make some excuse to come down and see her guardian. I'm going to +meet her tomorrow. And when I do, I've got to tell her what I've learned +today—every word of it—all—all! And I'll be helpless. I'll not be +able to fight. I'll have to take it."</p> + +<p>"That's right, Don, that's right. Even if I loved her as you do, even if +it were the best thing in the world for you if you could marry her, I'd +say that you should not. Don, whatever you do, don't ever be crooked +with a woman. She's a woman, too. No matter what it cost, I couldn't see +her suffer by finding out anything after it was too late."</p> + +<p>"It won't take long," said he, simply. "We'll part tomorrow. But oh! Why +did you save me—why did Miss Julia come that night? My place was under +the water—there! Then the door would have been closed indeed. But now +all the doors are closed on ahead, and none behind. I'll never be happy +again. And I'm making her unhappy, too, who's not to blame. It runs far, +doesn't it?—far and long."</p> + +<p>"As you grow older, Don," said she, "you will find it doesn't so much +matter whether or not you are happy."</p> + +<p>He shook his head. "I'm done. It's over. There's nothing ahead for me. I +never had a chance. Mother, you and Miss Julia made a bad mistake."</p> + +<p>It seemed that she scarcely heard him, or as though his words, brutal, +cruel though they were, no longer impinged upon her consciousness. She +spoke faintly, as though almost breathless, yet addressed herself to +him.</p> + +<p>"Why, Don, it was here in this very room ... and you lay in my arms and +looked up at me and laughed. You were so sweet.... But what shall I do? +I love you, and I want you to love me, and you can't. What have I done +to you? Oh, wasn't the world cruel enough to me, Don? Oh, yes, yes, it +runs far—far and long, a woman's sin! You are my sin. And oh! I love +you, and I will not repent! God do so to me—I'll not repent!"</p> + +<p>He looked at her, still frowning, but with tenderness under the pain of +his own brow. At last he flung himself on his knees before her and +dropped his head into her lap.</p> + +<p>He felt her hands resting on his head as though in shelter—hands that +lay side by side, hands long and shapely once, but bruised and worn now +with labor could he but have seen them—Aurora's hands—he could not +have helped but realize her long years of toil. He heard her faint, +steady sobbing now.</p> + +<p>After a time she bent lower above his head as he knelt there, silent and +motionless. Slowly her hand began once more to stroke his hair.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2> + +<h3>THE DIVIDING LINE</h3> + + +<p>The commonplace sound of the telephone's ring broke the silence in the +little room. Aurora Lane arose and passed into the adjoining room to +answer it. Her son regarded her with lackluster eyes when she returned.</p> + +<p>"It was Miss Julia," said she, "at the library. She wanted to know if +you were here. She says we must be sure to come out tonight."</p> + +<p>"Come out—to what?"</p> + +<p>"It's her annual jubilee, when she reports progress to the town. She is +very proud of her new books and rugs and pictures. Everybody will be +there. You see, Don, we don't have much in a town like this to entertain +us. Why, if I could see a real theater once—I don't know how happy I +would be. We've had movies, and now and then a lecture—and Miss Julia."</p> + +<p>"I don't want to go, mother."</p> + +<p>"Neither do I, Don; so I'm going."</p> + +<p>"Why should we go? It's nothing to us."</p> + +<p>"It's everything to Miss Julia—and it's everything to us, Don. Stop to +think and you will realize what I mean. We can't run away under fire."</p> + +<p>"There's something in that," he rejoined after a time, slowly. "Besides, +what Miss Julia wishes we both ought to do."</p> + +<p>Hands in pockets, he began once more gloomily to pace up and down the +narrow room. "I can't stand this much longer, mother," said he. "I've +got to get out—I've got to get hold of some money somehow."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said she. "As for me, I have collected the last money due me—it +went for your graduation suit. I don't know how you saved your railway +fare home. I didn't want you to know these things, of course, but as +things have happened, you had to know. A great many things today—well, +they've gotten away from me."</p> + +<p>"It's I who have spoiled everything, too. But how could I help it—I +just couldn't submit."</p> + +<p>"It's hard to submit, Don," said she slowly. "Perhaps a man ought not to +learn it. A woman has to learn it."</p> + +<p>He turned to look at her wonderingly, and at length went over and put a +hand on her shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Dear Mom!" said he gently. "You're wonderful. You are fine—splendid! +I'm just getting acquainted with you, am I not? You're a good woman, +mother; I'm so glad."</p> + +<p>She looked at him now with eyes suddenly wet, her face working +strangely, and turned away.</p> + +<p>"Come, Don," said she after a time. "We must get ready for our little +supper. Spring Valley, you see," she added, gaily, "dines at six and +goes to the movies at seven."</p> + +<p>Presently she left him to his own devices for a time, before calling him +out into the little kitchen which served her also as a dining-room.</p> + +<p>"It's not much," said she, shrugging and spreading out her hands, "but +it's all I'd have had—bread and milk and cereal. I don't use much sugar +or butter." Then, hurriedly, seeing the pain she had caused him, she +went on.</p> + +<p>"You soon get used to such things. Why, I have only two gowns to my +name, and I put on my best one to meet you, when you wired you were +coming, and I saw I'd have to meet you. This hat has been fixed over I +don't know how many times—once more, for you. You will see, I'll not be +at much trouble to dress for the entertainment tonight."</p> + +<p>She opened upon the table cover her little pocket book and showed its +contents—one small, tightly-folded, much-creased bill, which still lay +within its depths.</p> + +<p>"My last!" said she, grimacing. "That's our capital in life, Don! And we +have all the world against us now. We must fight, whether or not we want +to fight."</p> + +<p>"But now," she added, "I can't talk any more. Let us go. It may do us +good. Miss Julia at least will be glad to see us, if no one else is."</p> + +<p>Early as they were, they were not the first arrivals at the library +room where Miss Julia Delafield had devised her entertainment. She had +borrowed certain benches from the public school, certain chairs as well. +Already a goodly portion of Spring Valley's best people filled these. +The seats made back from the little raised platform which usually served +as the librarian's desk place. This now was enlarged by the removal of +all the desks.</p> + +<p>Back of this narrow dais was draped a large flag of our Union, and in +the center of its folds was the campaign portrait of Judge Henderson, +chief speaker of the evening.</p> + +<p>Aurora Lane and her son entered unnoticed for the time, and quietly took +seats in the last row of benches at the rear, near to some awkward +youths who had straggled in and seemed uncomfortable in their +surroundings. Not even Miss Julia noted them, for presently it became +her flushing duty to escort Judge Henderson, and several of her other +speakers, to the edge of the little platform, where they took their +places back of the conventional table and pitcher of water.</p> + +<p>The leader in the town's affairs bent over affably to speak with his +associates—three ministers of the gospel, Reverend Augustus Wilson, of +the U. P. Church, Reverend Henry Fullerton, of the Congregationalist +Church, and Reverend William B. Burnham, of the Methodists. There were +many other ministers of the gospel in Spring Valley, which rejoiced +exceedingly in the multiplicity of its churches; but to these, in the +belief of Miss Julia, had more specially been given the gift of tongues.</p> + +<p>There came presently and seated himself on the bench next to Aurora Lane +yet another minister of the gospel, old Mr. Rawlins, of the Church of +Christ, the least important denomination of the village, so few of +numbers and so scant of means that its house of worship must needs be +located just at the edge of town, where land was very cheap. A kindly +man, Parson Rawlins, and of mysterious life, for none might say whence +came his raven-brought revenue. Questioned, Brother Rawlins admitted +that he was not in the least sure whether or not he had a definite +creed. He held out his hand smilingly to Aurora Lane.... An old man he +was, with white hair and a thin face, his chin shaven smooth and shining +between his bushy white side whiskers. His eyes were very mild.</p> + +<p>"How do you do, Aurora?" said he. "Now, don't say a word to me—I know +this boy." And he shook hands with Don also. "I know him," said he, "and +I know all he has done today—we all know all about it, Aurora, so don't +talk to me. Tut, tut, my son! But had I been in your place very likely I +should have done the same thing—I might have whipped old Eph Adamson. +You know, sometimes even a minister asks, 'Lord, shall we smite with the +sword?'"</p> + +<p>The face of the old man grew grave as he looked from one to the other. +Some presentiment told him that a change had come across Aurora Lane's +manner of life. Could it be possible that she had grown defiant—was she +restive under the weight of the years? Had this sudden and sensational +resurrection of her past brought rebellion to her heart, all these years +so patient, so gentle?</p> + +<p>He waved a hand towards the backs of the assemblage. "I suppose you +recognize some of your own handicraft, don't you, 'Rory?" said he, +laughing.</p> + +<p>Aurora laughed, also. "A good many," said she frankly. "But the mail +order business in ready-trimmed hats has cut into my trade a great deal +of late. Then there are excursions into Columbus. Still, I see some of +my bonnets here and there—even now and then a gown."</p> + +<p>They both laughed yet again, cheerily, both knowing the philosophy of +the poor. Further conversation at the time was cut off by the entrance +of the musicians of the evening, an organization known as the Spring +Valley Cornet Band. These young men, a dozen in number, made their way +solemnly to a place adjacent to the platform, where presently they +busied themselves with certain mild tapping of drums and soft moanings +of alto horns and subdued tootlings of cornets.</p> + +<p>The leader of the band was the chief clerk in the First National Bank, +Mr. Jerome Westbrook by name, himself Spring Valley's glass of fashion +and mold of form, and not unconscious of the public attention attracted +to himself in his present capacity. Now and again he looked out over the +audience to see if he could locate a certain young lady, none less than +Sallie Lester, the daughter of the president of his bank, upon whom he +had bestowed the honor of his affections. He was willing to add thereto +eke the honor of his hand.</p> + +<p>It was as Aurora Lane had said—this annual gathering of Miss Julia's +was the social clearing house of the community. And this typical +attendance, representative of the little city at its best, offered that +strange contrast of the sexes so notable in any American assemblage. The +men were ordinary of look and garb, astonishingly ordinary, if one might +use the term; stalwart enough, but slouchy, shapeless, and ill-clad. Not +so the women, who seemed as though of another and superior social world. +If here and there the face of a man seemed stolid, cloddish, +peasant-like, not so any of the half dozen faces of the women next +adjoining him. Type, class—call what you like that which is owned by +the average American woman, even of middle class—that distinction was +as obvious as is usual in all such gatherings. Scattered here and there +through this audience, as in any audience of even the humblest sort in +America, were a half dozen faces of young women, any of whom must have +been called very beautiful, strikingly beautiful—beautiful as Aurora +Lane must once have been.</p> + +<p>The apparel of the men was nondescript. That of the women, however or +wherever secured, made them creatures apart. The men, too, sat +uncommunicative, silent; whereas their daughters or spouses turned, +chattering, laughing, waving a hand to this or that friend. In short, +the women availed themselves fully, as women will, of this opportunity +of social intercourse. And always, as head turned to head, there was a +look, a whispered word, of woman to woman. Little by little, in the +mysterious way of such assemblages, every woman in the house came to +know that Aurora Lane and her boy—who had only been hid, and not dead, +all these years—were seated on the back seat, next to Old Man Rawlins. +Did anyone ever hear the like of <i>that</i>? In reality Spring Valley was +out to hear the rest of the news about Aurora Lane and her unfathered +boy as soon as possible. Gossip covers all the nuances, the shades, the +inner and hidden things of information, especially when information may +be classified as scandal. This is the real news. It never needs wings. +It needed no wings now.</p> + +<p>Naturally, it was incumbent upon Judge Henderson to introduce a minister +of the gospel to open the meeting with prayer—we Americans apologize to +Providence at all public occasions, even our political conventions. +Naturally thereafter Judge Henderson rose once more, took a drink of +water, and signaled to the leader of the Spring Valley Silver Cornet +Band; whereupon Mr. Jerome Westbrook, wiping all previous trace of +German silver from below his mustache, essayed once more the leadership +in concord of sweet sounds. This brought Judge Henderson up to his +introductory remarks, properly so-called.</p> + +<p>He made no ill figure as he stood, immaculately clad as was his custom, +his costume still being the long black coat, his white waistcoat, the +white tie, which he had worn that afternoon in court. It was charged +against him, by certain of his enemies, that Judge Henderson had been +known to change his shirt twice in one day, but this was not commonly +believed. That he changed it at least once every day had, however, come +to be accepted in common credence, although this also was held as his +sheer eccentricity.</p> + +<p>His face was smooth-shaven, for really he was shaved daily, and not +merely on Saturday nights. His wide, easy, good-humored mouth, his large +features, his well-defined brows, his full eye, his commanding figure, +gave him a presence good enough for almost any stage. He stood easily +now, accepting as his right the applause which greeted him, and smiled +as he placed on the table beside him the inevitable glass of water at +which he had sipped. Some said that in his own office Judge Henderson +did not confine himself to water—but any leading citizen must have his +enemies.</p> + +<p>The worthy Judge made precisely what manner of address must be made on +precisely such occasions. To him his audience was made up of fellow +citizens, ladies and gentlemen. He accosted them with the deference and +yet the confidence of some statesman of old. Indeed, he might have been +scarce less a figure than Senator Thomas Hart Benton himself, so +profuse—and so inaccurate—were the classical quotations which he saw +fit to employ. It had grown his custom to do this with care-free mind. +Indeed, there was but one here in this audience tonight who perhaps +might have chided him for his Greek—a young man who sat far back in the +rear, in a place near the door—a young man who none the less, it must +be confessed, paid small attention to the Hendersonian allusions which +had to do with literature, with history, the gentle arts, the culture, +the progress of our proud republic, and of this particular American +community.</p> + +<p>So now it came on to the time of Reverend Henry B. Fullerton, who +likewise spoke of literature and culture, patriotism and the glories of +our republic. The other ministers also in due course, after certain +uneasy consultation of the clock upon the opposite wall, spoke much in +similar fashion.</p> + +<p>After these formidable preliminaries, it was time for Judge Henderson to +give the real address of the evening—this latter now delivered with +frequent consultations of the large watch which he placed beside him on +the table. So presently he came to such portion of his speech as +requires the orator to say, "But, my friends, the hour grows late." +Whereafter presently, figuratively, he dismissed the audience with his +blessing, well satisfied from the applause that his campaign was doing +well. He had but casually and incidentally allowed it to be known that +his own annual check to the city library was for a thousand dollars—no +more than would cover the librarian's salary.</p> + +<p>By this time, it was a half-hour past midnight, and none present might +say that he had not had full worth of all the moneys expended for this +entertainment. It had been a great evening for the candidate. Moreover, +most of the old ladies present had enjoyed themselves in social +conversation regarding the absorbing news of the day. As for the half +dozen young village beauties present, there was not one who did not know +precisely where Don Lane sat—not even Sally Lester, who irritated +Jerome Westbrook beyond measure when he saw her pretending to look at +the clock at the back of the hall to see what time it was. Really, as +Jerome Westbrook knew very well, she was only trying to see Don Lane, +the newest young man in town—wholly impossible socially, but one who +had made sudden history of interest in feminine eyes.</p> + +<p>Moody and intent upon his own thoughts, Don Lane himself by no means +realized the importance of the occasion so far as he himself and his +mother were concerned. He did not know that he was on trial here, that +they two were on inspection. His ears were deaf to the impassioned words +of all and several of the orators of the evening. Before his eyes +appeared only one face. It was that of a young girl with a face +clean-cut and high-browed, with sweet and kindly eyes—the girl he was +to meet tomorrow, to whom he was to say good-by—Anne Oglesby. "Anne! +Anne!" his heart was exclaiming all the time. For now he knew that he in +turn must bruise yet another human heart, because of what had been, and +in his brain was room now for no other thought, no other scene, no other +face. There swept down upon him, if he thought of it at all now and +then, only a feeling of the insufficiency, the narrowness, the +unworthiness, the tawdriness, of all this which lay about him. And yet +it was this to which he must come back—this was his world—this at +least was the world in which his mother had made her own battle—had won +for a time, and now had lost.</p> + +<p>After midnight, when the assembly was dismissed, Spring Valley felt it +had done its duty—it had come out to see Miss Julia's library. Everyone +who passed Miss Julia, as she stood near the door, flushed and pleased, +congratulated her on the progress she had made, on the neatness of her +desks and shelves. Some said a word about the great work she was doing. +Others shook hands with the elevated elbow, smiled sweetly, and +repeated, parrot-like, "So glad!" and "Thanks so much!" In any case, +little by little the room was cleared. There remained only the +unspeakable desolation of any room lately occupied by a crowd—the +litter of paper and odds and ends, the dulled lights, the heavy and +oppressive air.</p> + +<p>In her place, back of the dividing line which fenced off the socially +elect, stood Aurora Lane, pale, weary, and yet composed, her hands +folded low before her. She looked straight ahead, nor asked any of these +people passing out for that recognition which she knew they would not +give her. Don himself, speaking now and then to the kindly old man who +retained his place at their side, found himself now and again in spite +of himself wondering that of all these who passed, and of these many who +turned and gazed their way, none ventured a greeting. His own face grew +hard. All life to him had been a sweet, happy, sunny thing till now. He +never had known any contest but that of sport, and there, even in +defeat, he had met sportsmanship. He had not learned that in human life +as we live it, honor and fair play and generosity and justice are things +not in any great demand, nor sportsmanship in any general practice.</p> + +<p>"Come, we must go," said Aurora at length.</p> + +<p>They were the last to leave the room, although they might have been the +first. In a brief lesson Don Lane's mother had taught him much.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2> + +<h3>AT MIDNIGHT</h3> + + +<p>Miss Julia, late mistress of ceremonies, passed here and there, turning +out the lights. The bonnets and blouses all had departed, the coughs and +shufflings had subsided. She might give way now to the weariness, the +reaction, attendant upon long hours of eager enterprise.</p> + +<p>Strange, she did not look about to find her friend, Aurora Lane, did not +even hasten to take the hand of Don Lane before he had left the room.</p> + +<p>The little group at the door—Aurora, Don and the old minister, now was +increased in the entry way by the addition of none less than the tall +and awkward figure of Horace Brooks, who came forward, smiling +uncertainly as the other three finally emerged from the door. Aurora, +quickly divining his purpose, made some hesitating excuse, and darted +back into the hall, where now Miss Julia had well accomplished the +purpose of extinguishing the lights. But what Aurora saw caused her to +withdraw softly, and not to speak to Miss Julia at all that evening!</p> + +<p>One by one the switches had cut off the side lights, the desk lights, +those of the ceiling. Two lights remained burning at the back of the +little platform where the speakers had sat, one electrolier on each side +of the portrait over which still hung the draped flag of the Union—the +portrait of the Honorable William Henderson, lawyer, judge, politician +and leading citizen.</p> + +<p>Before this portrait stood Julia Delafield, her smooth-topped stick +resting on the little table against which she supported herself now. She +stood, both her hands clasped at her bosom. She was looking up directly +at the lighted features of this portrait, and on her face was so rapt a +look, her gaze was so much that of one adoring a being of another +world—so much ardor was in her face, pale as it was—that Aurora Lane, +seeing and knowing much, all with a sudden wrench of her own heart, +withdrew silently, thankful that Miss Julia had not known.</p> + +<p>"Miss Julia's tired," said she to her companions, who still stood +waiting at the entry way. "We'll not disturb her tonight, Don, after +all. I know she wants to see you. You can imagine she has a thousand +things to talk about—books, pictures, everything. But tonight we'll +just go on home. We'll come again tomorrow."</p> + +<p>The people of Spring Valley scattered this way and that from the +classical front of the Carnegie Library. They passed away in long +streams in each direction on the street, which, arched across in places +by the wide branches of the soft maples, lay half lighted by the moon, +and yet more by the flickering arc light sputtering at the top of its +mast at the corner of the public square, which made the shadows sheer +black. So close did the trees stand to the street that the summer wind +could not get through them to lighten the pall of the night's +sultriness.</p> + +<p>In Spring Valley the climate in the summer time was at times so +balefully hot that common folk were forced to take the mattress from the +bed and spread it on the floor at the front door in order to get a +partial breath of air. The atmosphere was close and heavy under the +trees tonight, and some commented on the fact as they passed on toward +the public square where yet further separations of the scattered groups +must ensue.</p> + +<p>They passed along a street lined by residence houses, some small, others +large, all hedged about with shrubs or trees, all with little flower +beds; a certain conformity to accepted canons in good taste being +exacted of all who dwelt in the village. Each one of this dispersing +assemblage knew his neighbor, and all the other neighbors of the town. +This was general plebiscite. Moreover, it seemed to have a certain +purpose—an ultimate purpose of justice.</p> + +<p>This was the actual jury of peers—this long stream of halting, +hesitating figures who at midnight strolled on across the patch-work +shadows of the maples. And before it had come on for trial the case of +Aurora Lane and her unfathered boy.</p> + +<p>"Look at them go!" said Old Hod Brooks, chuckling bitterly to himself as +he and his companions turned toward the public square, this same thought +occurring to him. "For instance, there's an even dozen just ahead of us +now, if we cared to poll them."</p> + +<p>Had this jury been polled it might have been found in some part +resembling the original concourse which filled Noah's ark, since for the +most part they walked two and two. Ben McQuaid, traveling salesman—the +deadly rival of Jerome Westbrook in matters of fashion—who traveled out +of Chicago but had his home in Spring Valley, because it was cheaper +living there—walked now arm in arm with Newman, the clothing merchant +of the Golden Eagle. He inquired solicitously as to the condition of +business. Newman said he "gouldn't gomplaim, though gollections mide be +better." But that was not in the least what both were thinking of at +that time.</p> + +<p>"Seems like there was a little rukus on the square today," said McQuaid +casually. "I just heard of it—Number Four come in a little late today."</p> + +<p>"Vell, yes," said Newman, looking around to see that he might not be +heard. "I ain't saying a vord about it—but listen, that kid has the +punch in either hand—the last time you should have seen it—you see, +they got at it twice now already——"</p> + +<p>They drew apart, because they now saw approaching them too closely at +the rear two of the ministers of the gospel. These found themselves none +too happily assorted.</p> + +<p>"I enjoyed your remarks very much indeed, Brother Burnham," said +Reverend Fullerton, with a mendacity for which no doubt the recording +angel dropped a suitable tear. "I agree with you that the tendency +towards looseness of living in modern life——"</p> + +<p>Reverend Fullerton coughed ominously. Anyone very close to him might +have heard half-whispered words of "brazen exhibition" and "necessity of +public measures."</p> + +<p>But these did not speak freely, because close behind them came yet +two—Dr. Arthur Bowling, the homeopathic physician, who somewhat against +his will had fallen into the company of Miss Elvira Sonsteby. Now, Miss +Elvira Sonsteby was the town's professional invalid. She tried regularly +all the doctors in turn as they arrived. It was well known of all that +she had suffered all the diseases ever known to man, as well as many of +which no man ever had known. Just now, with much eagerness, she was +explaining to Dr. Bowling that she feared her neuritis had become +complicated with valvular heart trouble, and that she suspected gall +stones as well. As to her rheumatism, of course she had long since given +up all hope of that—but this trouble in her arm——; and much other +conversation extremely painful to Dr. Bowling at that time, because he +was much possessed of the inclination to step forward a few paces and +walk with Sally Lester, the banker's daughter. But even they hit common +ground of converse when Miss Sonsteby voiced her belief that it was an +outrage for a public personage like a certain milliner she could name if +she cared to say, to appear in public on an occasion such as this, when +only the most refined personages of the town should have been invited.</p> + +<p>"I am sure," said she in tense tones to the young doctor, "that although +alone in the world myself—not so old as some would try to make me out, +either—I would die rather than have anyone voice the slightest +suspicion of blame against me—the slightest blemish on my name. Now, +<i>that</i> woman...."</p> + +<p>Back of these two came yet others. Old Mr. Rawlins had gently said his +farewells to Aurora and her son when they emerged upon the open street, +and as he advanced passed certain of these groups, until presently he +fell in with none less than Miss Hattie Clarkson, soprano and +elocutionist of Spring Valley, who had favored the assemblage that +evening with two selections, but who, it seemed, was not wholly +satisfied.</p> + +<p>"It seemed to me, Mr. Rawlins," said she, throwing about her shoulders +the light scarf of tulle which she always wore when entertaining +professionally—"that the exercises rather dragged tonight. Of course, +we know what to expect when Judge Henderson speaks—he's very +entertaining, to be sure. But it seemed to me that had there been a +selection or two more of elocutionary sort it might have lightened up +the evening——Who is that coming just back of us?" she whispered, +looking back over her shoulder.</p> + +<p>"That's Aurora Lane, my dear," said Mr. Rawlins, quietly. "Her son is +with her."</p> + +<p>"Indeed!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, indeed! There's one of the best women I ever knew, my dear."</p> + +<p>Miss Clarkson drew herself up proudly, and bent upon him an icy glance. +By now they had approached the corner of public square. "I think I must +say good <i>night</i>, Mr. Rawlins!" said she, with icy emphasis.</p> + +<p>"Good night, my dear," said the old minister, sighing.</p> + +<p>Not far ahead of Ben McQuaid and merchant Newman walked two other +citizens, J.B. Saunders, leading grocer and prominent Knight Templar, +and Nels Jorgens, village blacksmith—the same whose shop was across the +way from the home of Aurora Lane. It was said of Mr. Saunders that it +would have been difficult to surprise him at any hour of the day or +night when he was not in his uniform of a Knight Templar, or carrying +his sword case and hat. For some reasons best known to himself, and +anticipating all possible surprises, he had taken with him to the +meeting this evening the two latter accessories of his wardrobe, which +now he carried as he walked on in conversation.</p> + +<p>His neighbor wore an alpaca coat and no necktie whatever—a reticent, +gray-whiskered man, whose bank account had a goodliness perhaps not to +be suspected from first look at its owner. The two talked of many +things, but naturally came around to the only topic which was in the +mind of all.</p> + +<p>"What'll he do—old Eph Adamson," asked Saunders. "It looks like he +couldn't stand for what's been handed to him. That young fellow has +pounded him up a couple of times. If I was Adamson I certainly would +have the law on him good and plenty."</p> + +<p>"Well," said Old Man Jorgens, comfortably, "I don't know much about it +anyway, but it looks to me Adamson has got pretty near enough already. +He pays a lawyer to get him clear, and when he gets out of that court +already he gets licked once more again. And he knows the boy can lick +him."</p> + +<p>"You think he'll like enough lick him again?"</p> + +<p>"Yeh, that's like enough, yeh. I heard things have been said of his +mother by Adamson. Oh, yes, the news is out now—she couldn't hide it no +more now—there is the boy she said was dead. But, you know, after all, +my friend, a mother is a mother, and men is men. When they say things of +how we was born, you would fought, I hope? Me, I hope too. No man likes +to hear his mother called of names. And she is his mother. Too bad it +is—a bad business all around."</p> + +<p>"But then—why, Nels, we know——"</p> + +<p>"Yes, we all know," said Jorgens stolidly. "I know and you know, and we +all know. And what I know is this:—For twenty years she lives across +the street from me, as straight and as good a woman as anyone in this +town—each first day of the month right in my hand here she pays the +rent, not a month missed in twenty years. I rather rent a house to her +as to any business man in this town, and I say she is straight as any +woman in this town! No man goes there, not any more now in twenty years. +The man who meets her on the public street he takes his hat off—now. +Her boy—well, he looks citified to me, but at least he can fight. Yeh, +I vote he was in the right. Tomorrow my wife shall take some more eggs +to Aurora Lane in her house; yeh, and coffee."</p> + +<p>There were two other members of the unpolled jury, and they paused now +in the full light which came from the mast at the corner of the public +square. Judge Henderson, wearied by the exertions of the evening, was +disposed to ascend the stair to his own office in search of a manner of +refreshment which he well knew he would find there. Turning in this +laudable enterprise he met face to face the city marshal, Old Man +Tarbush, who halted him for a moment's speech, drawing him apart to the +edge of the sidewalk.</p> + +<p>"I just thought I'd ask you, Judge, since I see you," said Tarbush, +"whether you think I done right or not."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean, Mr. Marshal," inquired the judge, none too happy at +being interrupted.</p> + +<p>"You know how it was. He licked Old Man Adamson again right at the foot +of the stair, before the record of his trial was hardly dry on the +books. It was unlawful, of course. I didn't arrest him no more, because +I seen what had happened in the other trial. You pulled out of that. I +didn't want to make no needless expense for the county. But I been sort +of uneasy in my mind about it, and I just thought I'd ask you."</p> + +<p>"Exactly, exactly," rejoined Judge Henderson. "Well, now, Tarbush, come +to think it over, that matter came up for trial, and we concluded the +best thing to do was to sort of let things take their course—you see, +the young man in all likelihood will leave town very soon. In the +conduct of my own affairs I sometimes have seen that it is well enough +not to stir things up. Leave them alone, and sometimes they will smooth +themselves down."</p> + +<p>"Then you wouldn't run him in if you was me?"</p> + +<p>"No, I think not, I think not. Let it go for the time. Perhaps there may +be further developments, but with such information as I have at hand +now, I would be disposed to approve your conduct. There's nothing like +letting bygones be bygones in this world—isn't that the truth?"</p> + +<p>"But now, about the eejit, Johnnie," resumed the city marshal once more, +reaching out his hand still to detain the other, "I don't know as I done +right about him, neither."</p> + +<p>"What have you done then, Tarbush?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I let him go. You see, I don't know but maybe the <i>habeas chorus</i> +proceedings would be squashed like the rest. Besides, the eejit boy has +been raising all kinds of hell down at the jail, raving and shouting and +threatening me. About a hour ago or less I concluded to let him loose, +so as to get shut of him."</p> + +<p>"You did let him go? And he was not discharged?"</p> + +<p>"Well, now, what's the difference, Judge," said the old man. "We +couldn't really get no sleep down there, he was making so much fuss, so +I just let him out. He lit out upon the street right thataway, towards +home—not so very long ago."</p> + +<p>Judge Henderson gazed moodily in the direction to which Tarbush pointed.</p> + +<p>"Well," said he, "maybe you did right, and in any case this isn't the +time and place to discuss it. My professional hours"—and he turned away +and walked slowly up the stairs to his own office, intent upon the +purpose already prominent in his mind.</p> + +<p>The arc light illumined fully the great town clock in the cupola of the +courthouse. The hands pointed to a quarter of one, after midnight.</p> + +<p>The deliberations of the jury of Spring Valley might have been said to +have concluded at the time when Aurora Lane, her son Don, and old Hod +Brooks—the last group of the slow procession—themselves turned the +corner and emerged upon the public square. The matter of bringing in the +verdict was another affair.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2> + +<h3>THE EXTRAORDINARY HORACE BROOKS</h3> + + +<p>Something made Aurora Lane uneasy. She turned now and extended her hand +to the tall man who walked at her side. "Good night, Mr. Brooks," said +she.</p> + +<p>But old Hod Brooks only put his hands deeper in his pockets and slouched +on alongside. "I'll just go on along with you to the gate. It's hot +tonight, isn't it? I don't know when we've had such a spell."</p> + +<p>She could not well dismiss him now, so indeed the three walked yet a +while together.</p> + +<p>Don Lane still was silent, moody. There was little of the Jesuit in his +own frank soul. He knew nothing of dissembling, and had no art of +putting a good face upon a bad matter. All these complications which so +swiftly had come into his life seemed to him only a terrible and +overwhelming thing in the total. The morrow was coming for him—nay, it +already was at hand, and he knew what that must bring of additional +grief. Anne! Anne! He must tell her. He must leave her. Never in all his +care-free life had he been so wretched, so miserable, as he was now. +Moreover, for reasons he could not stifle he did not like the presence +of Brooks here, even though he and his mother must acknowledge the debt +under which he had laid them that day.</p> + +<p>"I'll tell you, Mother," said he after a time, when he had turned off +the square into their own street. "Just excuse me for a few minutes, +won't you? It's so hot and stuffy that I don't feel that I can sleep. +I'll just take a little run down the street, if you don't mind."</p> + +<p>"But why, Don?" she inquired.</p> + +<p>"You see, I've always been used to keeping fit, and I don't like to +break my training—we always had to exercise in college, on the teams. I +don't feel good when I don't. I'm used to doing my half mile or so every +night just before I go to sleep."</p> + +<p>"Huh!" said Old Hod Brooks, looking at the young man appraisingly. "So +that's how you keep in training, eh? Well, it seems to work all right!" +His sudden gusty laughter sounded loud in the night, but it lacked the +note of ease.</p> + +<p>"Go on, go on," he added—"as you get older maybe you'll find it takes +all your gimp to take care of your mind and your money, and you'll let +your body just about take care of itself. But go ahead—I'll just walk +on down with your mother."</p> + +<p>"Don't be long, Don," said Aurora Lane; and she meant it, for she felt +uneasy at thus being accompanied to her own gate, a thing unknown in her +history. She was glad that old Nels Jorgens, on ahead, had just turned +in at his own gate.</p> + +<p>Don Lane trotted off slowly, with long elastic stride, up on his toes, +with his elbows tucked in and his chin high, filling his lungs as best +he might with the hot and lifeless air. The sound of his footfalls +passed down the street, and was lost as he turned at the further corner +of the square.</p> + +<p>"Good night, now," said Aurora Lane once more, as she and her companion +approached her little gate.</p> + +<p>But Hod Brooks did not turn away, although he made no attempt to enter. +Instead he reached out a large hand impulsively and arrested hers as it +would have pulled together the little crippled gate behind her. Still +she did close the gate—until the sudden impact of his own weight +snapped off its last remaining hinge. He picked it up carelessly and set +it within the fence, himself leaning against the post, filling the gap, +his hands back in his pockets.</p> + +<p>"Aurora," said he, with a strange softness in his voice, "this seems to +me almost like Providence."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?" she said. "I must go——"</p> + +<p>"Please, not yet," said he. "Just think—how else could it have been +possible for me to talk with you?"</p> + +<p>"Without compromising yourself?" She smiled slowly and bitterly, but did +not see the hot blood rise to his face.</p> + +<p>"That's not right!" said he. "Without compromising <i>you</i>—that's what I +meant. I only meant that there is no place where we well could meet. And +I wanted to say something to you, at last—what sometime has got to be +said between us."</p> + +<p>"We both know everything now, so why talk?" said she. "It was fine of +you today in the trial. We owe so much—we'll pay when we can."</p> + +<p>The dull red in his face deepened. "You may stop that, if you please," +said he. "It's not right between us. The showdown has come. Why not +settle up, at last?"</p> + +<p>She turned, not knowing what to do, unwilling to leave him standing +there.</p> + +<p>"It's been years, Aurora. Now, listen—I'm going on up in the world +myself, at last. I want to take you with me. I didn't want to say +anything till the right time. It's been a long, hard pull for me, too, +here in this town. It's hard for men like me to talk."</p> + +<p>"You mustn't talk," said she. "You mustn't say a word—you mustn't be +seen here even."</p> + +<p>He looked at her slowly. "I'm here deliberately," said he. "Listen +now—I must tell you some things, Aurora. I've loved you from the first +day I saw you. Can't you credit me at least a little? You're +splendid—you're beautiful—and you're good."</p> + +<p>She choked a bit, raised a hand in swift protest.</p> + +<p>"You're still young, Aurora," said he, not paying attention to what she +said. "Of course I'm older, but there's a lot of time left yet for you +and me—a lot of living. You've had mighty little out of life, here by +yourself. Now I've stood it as long as I can. Since the whole truth +about the boy has broken out today and can't ever be covered up again, +it seemed to me I just had to tell you that you needed me to take care +of you—someone more than just yourself. Things may go harder for you +now. They've been hard enough already. You need help. Who more natural +to help you than myself, feeling as I have, as I do?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, you <i>mustn't</i> talk that way!" Her voice trembled. "You must go on +away. I'm not—good——"</p> + +<p>"You're good enough for me—good as I am, surely—and I want to get into +this game with you now. You need me. That means we've got to be married. +Oh, the boy's fine, yes, but he'll be going away. You need a man—a +husband—someone you can depend on, Aurora. Isn't there anything welcome +in that thought for you? Aurora, I want to marry you—at once, right +away. I say that right now and here."</p> + +<p>Aurora Lane looked this way and that, every way. Her gaze happened to go +down the long vista beneath the maples, to fall upon the face of the +town clock on the courthouse. The hour hand with a short jerk moved +forward and the deep note of the bell boomed out—it was one o'clock of +the night; and all was not well.</p> + +<p>She turned as she felt the tense grasp of his great knotted hands still +upon her own.</p> + +<p>"You say that—to me——" she managed to say at last. "Why, everybody +knows—all the town knows——" Her voice shook. "I suppose I'll have to +leave here now after what's happened. But <i>you'd</i> have to leave if you +took up with such as me—even this late, it would ruin you. Don't you +think of your own prospects? Why, I couldn't marry you, no matter how +much I loved you."</p> + +<p>"You don't love me at all?"</p> + +<p>"How could I?"</p> + +<p>"That's true," said he simply. "How could you?"</p> + +<p>"I don't mean that," she corrected herself hastily.</p> + +<p>"It's just what I said," he rejoined. "This seems providential to me. I +can't allow these people to murder you a dozen times a week the way they +will do now. You can't make this fight alone any more, Aurora—I can't +any longer bear to see you try it. It's all out now. It's going to be +harder for you after this."</p> + +<p>She did not make any answer to him at all, but she heard his big voice +murmuring on.</p> + +<p>"I reckon it's love, after all, Aurora—I don't know. I don't know much +about women. I just feel as though I had to take care of you—I feel as +though you ought to depend on me. Can't you believe that?"</p> + +<p>"I ought not to believe that of any man," she broke out.</p> + +<p>"Like enough, like enough," he nodded, "but you've known only one +man—that's your full horizon. Now, having had so hard a fight in +business, I have put marrying to one side. Let's not say that we're both +young—for we're not. But let's remember what I told you—there's a lot +of life left for you and me yet if you'll only say the word. Don't you +want to make anybody happy?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, you mustn't say that to me!" said Aurora Lane. "But you would want +me to be honest, wouldn't you? You wouldn't want me to lie? Somehow, +I've never learned to lie very much."</p> + +<p>"No," said he simply; "no, I reckon not. You never have."</p> + +<p>"No matter what——"</p> + +<p>"No matter what."</p> + +<p>"Then tell me, how could I say I loved you now? For twenty years—all my +life—I have put that thought away from me. I'm old and cold now. My +heart's ashes, that part, can't you understand? And you're a man."</p> + +<p>"Yes," he nodded, "I'm a man. That's so, Aurora. But now you're just +troubled. You've not had time to think. I've held my secret, too. I've +never spoken out to you before. I tell you, you're too good a woman to +be lost—that isn't right."</p> + +<p>"You pity me!"</p> + +<p>"Maybe. But I want to marry you, Aurora."</p> + +<p>"What could I do—what could be done—where would you have any pay in +that?"</p> + +<p>"Don't trouble about the pay. How much have the past twenty years paid +you?"</p> + +<p>"Little enough," said she bitterly, "little enough. About all they've +given me—about all I've got left—is the boy. But I want to play fair."</p> + +<p>"That's it," said he. "So do I. That's why I tell you you're too good +for me, when it comes to that, after all."</p> + +<p>"Why, it would all have to come out—one way or the other. It all <i>has</i> +come out, as you say. We couldn't evade that now—it's too late. Here's +the proof—Dieudonné—and I can't deny him."</p> + +<p>He nodded gravely. She went on:</p> + +<p>"Everyone knows about the boy now—everybody knows he's—got no father. +<i>That's</i> my boy. Too late now to explain—he's ruined all that by coming +here. And yet you ask me to marry you. If I did, one of two things +surely would be said, and either of them would make you wretched all +your life."</p> + +<p>He turned to her and looked at her steadily.</p> + +<p>"They might say I was the father?"</p> + +<p>She nodded, flushing painfully. "They might guess. And a few might think +that after all these years——"</p> + +<p>"Maybe," said he slowly. "But you see, after all, it's only a +theoretical hurt I'm taking if I stand between you and these damned +harpies here. They're going to torture you, Aurora, going to flay and +burn you alive. I'd like to do about anything I could for you, anything +a man can in such a case as ours. As for sacrifice—why, whatever you +think I think of you, I believe we can both call it sure that I want to +stand between you and the world. I want to have the <i>right</i> to take care +of you. It's what I want to do—must do. I've waited too long. But it's +what I always have intended. You'd never let me. I never seemed to get +around to it before. But now——"</p> + +<p>"Impossible!" she whispered, white, her great eyes somber. "There is no +way. Love of man has gone by for me. It knocked once. It has gone by."</p> + +<p>"Wait now, let us go on with the argument just a little further, my +dear!" said he gently.</p> + +<p>"We have argued too long already," she said faintly. "You must go. +Please go—please don't talk to me. You must not."</p> + +<p>"I wish I could agree with you," said he, disturbed and frowning, +"because I don't want to make you any more unhappy. But listen, it just +seemed to me that this was providential—I had to come to you and tell +you what I have told you tonight. Why, widows remarry—time and again +widows marry."</p> + +<p>"Yes, <i>widows</i>!" He could barely hear the sob which she stifled in her +throat.</p> + +<p>"Well, then," said he, "how about you and me? I don't think it's a fair +argument, but I ought to point out to you that perhaps I've got a chance +in the world. They wanted me, for instance, to make the run for the +senatorship—against Judge Henderson. Today I agreed with him not to +accept the candidacy. In return he agreed to drop that case against Don. +Well, you've traded me out of the United States Senate, Aurora. But I +made that trade—for you and the boy."</p> + +<p>She looked up at him in sudden astonishment. She could not evade the +feeling of shelter in his great presence as he stood there, speaking +calmly, absolutely in hand, a grotesque and yet a great soul—yes, a +great soul as it seemed to her, so used to littler souls. After all, she +never really had known this man. Sacrifice? Had he not given freely, as +a sacrifice, the greatest gift a man has—his hope for power and +preferment? And he spoke of it as though it were a little thing. Aurora +Lane was large enough to know a large act, belittled though it were by +the doer of the deed.</p> + +<p>"You see," he began, "we're old enough perhaps to talk plainly, plainer +than young folks can—mostly I presume they don't talk at all—but I may +talk plainly?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes," said she, sighing. "I suppose we've made that certain."</p> + +<p>"Now, now, don't say that—nothing of the sort, my dear. Your past is +out of this question altogether. You're a <i>widow</i>, that's all. Your +unknown husband is dead—he is unknown, but he is dead. That's the +record, and accepted here. And isn't that our solution—the only one in +all the world possible for us?"</p> + +<p>She did not answer at all.</p> + +<p>"The boy and I—I reckon the two of us could keep most of the people in +this town or in this world attending to their own business, and not +bothering about ours. Don't you believe that, Aurora? We've made a +start—a sort of preliminary demonstration already."</p> + +<p>But still she did not answer, and, agonized now, he went on:</p> + +<p>"I'm a plain man, Aurora, pretty ignorant, I expect. I didn't come from +anywhere—there's no family much back of me—I have had really very +little schooling, and I've had to fight my own way. I can't play +bridge—I don't know one card from another. I don't dance—there's no +human being could ever teach a dance step to me. I've never been in +society, because I don't belong there. But, as I said, I've got some +standards of a man and some feelings of a man. I love you a lot more +than you can tell from what I've said, or what I've done. It'll be a +great deal more to you than you can believe now. I'll do a great deal +more for you than you can realize. I'll give you at last—later than I +ought to have done it—something you've never had—your <i>life</i>—your +<i>chance</i> in the world—your chance at real love and real affection and +real loyalty. You've never had that, Aurora. I couldn't offer it, for I +had my own secret to keep, and my own fight to make. But love and +loyalty—they'd be sweet, wouldn't they?"</p> + +<p>She bent her head down upon her hands, which lay folded at the top of +the pickets of the little fence.</p> + +<p>"Sweet—sweet—yes, yes!" he heard her murmur.</p> + +<p>"Well, then, why not end the argument?" he said. "Why, I've seen you +here, all these years. I know every hair of your head. I have come +really to love you, all of you, as a man ought to love his wife. I can't +resist it—it's an awful thing. I don't think I'll forget—it's too late +in life for me to begin over again, it's you or nothing for me. There's +never been any other woman for me—and that ought at least to speak for +me. There's been no other man for you. So why not end it? The world's +been cruel enough for you as it is. I'll not say it hasn't been cruel to +me, too. I've sat tight and eaten my heart. I've had to fight, too. But +don't I understand you, your fight, what it means to buck a game where +all the cards are stacked? Don't I know?"</p> + +<p>"It has been cruel, yes," said she at length, finding herself able to +speak, "but it seems it has not been quite so cruel as it could be +until—until now."</p> + +<p>"Why, what do you mean? Am I cruel? Why?"</p> + +<p>"You said—you said something about my being a widow."</p> + +<p>He nodded. "Yes. I pick you up now—it's as though I find you new—I +know you now at a later stage altogether in your life. You've grown. I +see you as new and fresh as though you were just risen from the sea.... +And all the past is nothing to me."</p> + +<p>"You must not talk," said she, "because it only is to make us both the +more unhappy. You are quixotic enough, or great enough—I don't know +which—I can't tell which it is—to say you'd take the shame on your own +shoulders in order to take it off of mine! You can't mean that! No! no! +One life ruined is enough—you've ruined yours enough now, today, by +what you've done for Don and me."</p> + +<p>He seemed not to hear her.</p> + +<p>"I've watched you all these years, and you've lived like a recluse, like +a widow. I can't reproach you. God! Which of us may first cast a stone?"</p> + +<p>Aurora Lane turned to him now a brave face, the same brave face she had +turned to the world all these years.</p> + +<p>"Oh," said she, "if only I had learned to lie! Maybe some women could +lie to you. And women get so tired—so awfully tired sometimes—I +couldn't blame them. I might marry you, yes—I believe I could. But I +would never lie to you—I won't lie to you now."</p> + +<p>"What are you going to say to me, Aurie?"</p> + +<p>"What I'm going to say to all the world! I've never been +married to anyone and can't be now. It would be more horrible to +me than—that other. It's too late. It—it means too much to +me—marriage—marriage—marriage! Don't—don't—you mustn't say some +things to a woman. Oh, if all this had happened twenty years ago, when I +was young, I might have been weak enough to listen to what you say. I +was weak and frightened then—I didn't know how I'd ever get on—all +life was a terror to me. But that was twenty years ago. I've made my +fight now, and I've learned that after a fashion at least I could get +on—I did—I have. I can go on through alone the rest of the way, and +it's right that I should. That's what I'm going to do!"</p> + +<p>She saw the great hand clutch the more tightly on two picket tops. They +broke under the closing grip of his great hand.</p> + +<p>"That's right hard," said he simply. "We can't be married now? But—tell +me, can't I help you?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, no, don't—don't talk of that!" she said. She was weeping now. +"Don't try to help me," she sobbed bitterly. "You can't help me—nobody +can help me—there's no help in the world—not even God can help me! +You've been cruel—all the world has been nothing but cruel to me all my +life. I've nothing to hope—there's nothing that can help me, nothing. +I'm one of the lost, that's all. Until today, I'd hoped. I never will +hope again."</p> + +<p>Now she felt the great hand closing once more on top of hers above the +broken pickets.</p> + +<p>"Listen, Aurora," said he, "if it doesn't seem that you and I can be +married, there's nothing in the world which makes it wrong for me to +help you all I can—you mustn't think I didn't love you. You don't think +that, do you?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know what I think!" said she, rubbing at the ceaseless tears, +so new to her. "All these matters have been out of my life—forever, as +I thought. But sometimes—I've been so lonesome, you know, and so +helpless—I'm tempted. It's hard for a woman to live all alone—it's +almost a thing impossible—she's so lonesome—sometimes I almost think I +could depend on you, even now."</p> + +<p>"That's fine!" said he, choking up; "that's fine. I expect that's about +all I had coming to me after all. So I oughtn't to be sorry—I ought to +be very happy. That's about the finest thing I ever heard in all my +life."</p> + +<p>"And about the sweetest words I ever heard in all my life were what you +said just now—after knowing all you do about me."</p> + +<p>"But you won't tell me that you'll marry me now?" He bent and picked up +her hand in both his great ones. "I know you will not." He kissed her +hand reverently.</p> + +<p>"Good night," said he gently. And presently she was sensible that his +shambling figure was passing away down the street under the checkered +shadows of the maples.</p> + +<p>Aurora Lane stood yet for just a moment, how long she did not know. +There came to her ear the sound of running footsteps. Her boy came down +the street, passing Horace Brooks with a wave of his hand. He reached +her side now as she still stood at the gate. He was panting, perspiring +a trifle.</p> + +<p>"Fine!" said he. "Let's go in. Maybe I can sleep—I'd like to sleep."</p> + +<p>"What kept you so late?" asked Aurora Lane. She hurried in ahead of +him.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2> + +<h3>THE OTHER WOMAN CONCERNED</h3> + + +<p>The sultry night at last was broken by a breathless dawn, the sun rising +a red ball over the farm lands beyond the massed maple trees of the +town. Not much refreshed by the attempt at sleep in the stuffy little +rooms, Don and his mother met once more in the little kitchen +dining-room where she had prepared the simple breakfast.</p> + +<p>He did not know, as he picked at the crisp bacon strips, that bacon, or +even eggs, made an unusual breakfast in his mother's household. He +trifled with his cereal and his coffee, happily too considerate to +mention the lack of butter and cream, but grumblingly sensible all the +time that the bread was no longer fresh. He was living in a new world, +the world of the very poor. His time had not yet been sufficient therein +to give him much understanding.</p> + +<p>He looked about him at the scantily furnished rooms, and in spite of +himself there rose before his mind pictures he had known these last few +years—wide green parks, with oaks and elms, stately buildings draped +with ivy, flowers about, and everywhere the air of quiet ease. He +recalled the fellowship of fresh-cheeked roistering youths like himself, +full of the zest of life, youth well-clad, with the stamp of having +known the good things of life; young women well-clad, well-appointed, +also. Books, art, the touch of the wide world of thought, the quiet, the +comfort, the beauty, the physical well-being of everything about +him—these had been a daily experience for him for years. He +unthinkingly had supposed that all life, all the world, must continue +much like this. He had supposed, had he given it any thought at all, +that the last meager bill in his pockets when he started home would in +some magic way always remain unneeded, always unspent. He had +opportunity waiting for him in his profession, and he knew he would get +on. Never before in all his life had he known the widow's cruse.</p> + +<p>So this was life, then—this little room, this tawdry, sullen town, this +hot and lifeless air, this hopelessly banal and uninteresting place that +had been his mother's home all these years—this was his beginning of +actual life! The first lesson he had had yesterday; the next, yet more +bitter, he must have today. The uninviting little kitchen seemed to him +the center of a drab and dismal world, in which could never be aught of +happiness for him or his.</p> + +<p>"It's not much, Don," said his mother, smiling bravely as her eyes noted +his abstraction. "I live so simply—I'm afraid a big man like you won't +get enough to eat with me."</p> + +<p>She did not mention her special preparations for his arrival. He did not +know that the half-dozen new serviettes had been bought for his coming. +He did not know that a new chair also had been purchased, and that he +himself was sitting in it at that very time. In short, he knew nothing +of the many sacrifices needful even for these inexpensive things about +him. He did not know that marvel of the widow's cruse, filled against +dire need by the hand of merciful Providence.</p> + +<p>"It's all right, Mother," said he, toying with his fork; "fine, fine."</p> + +<p>"Coffee strong enough, Don?" She looked at him anxiously. Usually she +made it weak for herself.</p> + +<p>"Oh, they never let us have it at all when we're training, mother," said +he, "and not strong at any time. I know the simple life." He smiled as +best he might.</p> + +<p>"I have lived it here, too, Don," said she slowly, "because I couldn't +well help it. I don't suppose anybody likes it when it's too simple. I +like things nice, so much. I've always longed to travel. You know, Don, +I hear of people going over to Europe, and I'm guilty of the sin of +envy. I live right here in this little place all the time—I've done so +all my life. I've scarcely been out of this town in twenty years. If I +could see pictures—if I could go to see the great actors—if I could +see a real theater—just once, Don—you don't know how happy I'd be. And +I'm sure there must be more beautiful countries than this. Still"—and +here she sighed—"Miss Julia and I have lived quite a life together—in +the books, the magazines—pictures too, sometimes."</p> + +<p>He looked at her dumbly now, trying to understand the steady heroism of +a life such as hers. The real character of his own mother never yet +fully had impressed itself upon him. Don Lane was a college graduate, +but now for the first time in his life he was beginning to think.</p> + +<p>"One thing," she added, "I'd never do. I'd never pretend to be what I +was not—I didn't ever pretend to have what I didn't have. You see me, +Don, and my life, pretty much as we are."</p> + +<p>"And all this has been for me?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," simply. "But although we grew up apart, I don't think I could +endure it if I thought we really were to part—if you would leave me +now.</p> + +<p>"I was half hoping," she went on musingly, "that you could find it in +your heart to stay here in this town."</p> + +<p>He shook his head. "Impossible! That's one thing you really mustn't ask +of me."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I feared you would think of it in that way! But, as for me, this +is my place—I've made my bed here, and I must lie in it. I know the +people of this town—I know what they'll all do to me now. You see, you +don't know these things yet."</p> + +<p>"No," said he, "but you and Miss Julia both will be paid back—the money +part of it—some time. As for me, I'm not going to have any home."</p> + +<p>She sat silent for quite a time, the meager breakfast now being ended +for both.</p> + +<p>"Oh, can't you forget her, Don? Can't you give her up?" she said +finally.</p> + +<p>"I can't forget her, Mother, but I'll have to give her up. It all +happened there on the car—just at once—in public."</p> + +<p>"I'm glad you never kissed her, Don," said she. "You're both so young."</p> + +<p>She shook her head slowly as she went on. "Love has to be loved in any +case. That means—I suppose it means—that for the very young, if it be +not one, it may later be another."</p> + +<p>He only smiled bitterly at this. "It all comes to the same thing in any +case," said he. "I'll have to tell her what I know, and we'll have to +part. It would be the same with any other woman, if there could be any +other. There can't be."</p> + +<p>"I've been frank with you, Don, and I don't know whether to be glad or +sorry for that. I'd love nothing so much in the world as to see you +happily married—but nothing in the world could so much hurt me as to +see you marry Anne Oglesby."</p> + +<p>"No fear of it!"</p> + +<p>"You'll tell her?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Today."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h2> + +<h3>THE MURDER</h3> + + +<p>Once more the strident call of the telephone broke in, and Aurora Lane +stepped aside.</p> + +<p>"It's Miss Julia," said she excitedly, turning upon her son eyes +suddenly grown large. "Why, it's something awful! Don—a terrible thing +has happened—last night."</p> + +<p>"What's wrong—what's happened?" he demanded.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Tarbush—the city marshal—why, you know—he was +killed—murdered—last night—found this morning! It was about one +o'clock, as near as they can tell, Miss Julia says. It's all over town."</p> + +<p>An exclamation left the young man's lips. "What's that? Murdered?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes—wait——" She spoke on into the telephone. "Yes, Julia, Don +and I were just at breakfast—no, we've not been on the street yet—one +o'clock, you said? That was when we were just coming home from the +library!"</p> + +<p>"Mother," said Don, "that's right! It must have been just about one +o'clock, wasn't it?"</p> + +<p>She looked at him steadily for a time, as she dropped the receiver, her +own face a trifle pale. "Yes—we hadn't gone to sleep at the time it +happened. He was killed right in front of his own house, Miss Julia +says."</p> + +<p>"And where is that?—you see, I don't know much about the town."</p> + +<p>"Beyond the square, about three blocks from the farther corner—the +little house with the low fence in front, and the deep front yard."</p> + +<p>"We didn't pass that when we came up from the station?"</p> + +<p>"No, we came another street. But, Don——"</p> + +<p>"Yes?"</p> + +<p>"When you were running last night, you must have passed right close to +there! You didn't see anything strange?"</p> + +<p>"Of course not! I'd have looked into it. I don't recall that particular +house.</p> + +<p>"Well," he added, after a moment's silence, "in spite of all that +happened yesterday between him and us, I'm not going to call him +anything but a good man—now."</p> + +<p>She looked at him strangely—studied his face steadily.</p> + +<p>"I'll be going out now, I think—I'm going to run over to see Julia for +a time. Please don't go out on the street, Don. Stay right here. We got +into trouble enough yesterday."</p> + +<p>"You needn't fear," said he. "There's nothing and nobody in this town I +want to see. I'll be glad when I shake the dust of it off my feet—when +I once get squared away in my own business you shall leave this place +and live with me."</p> + +<p>And then, as there came to him again and again the anticipated pain of +parting with the one he himself loved, he came up to his mother and put +his arms once more upon her shoulders. Again her hands found his hair. +She cast a quick glance about her, as though in his defense.</p> + +<p>"Don," said she, "I think I'll never get over thinking of you as just a +boy, a little boy."</p> + +<p>He tried to smile. "Pity you didn't drown me in the pool yonder," said +he.</p> + +<p>It was the most cruel thing he could have found to say, although he +spoke only in his own bitterness, careless, as a man so often is, of a +woman's hurts. But she left him without comment; and soon he had resumed +his own restless walking up and down in the narrow quarters which seemed +to him such a prison.</p> + +<p>Meantime all Spring Valley was afoot and agog over this news. It was the +most sensational thing that had happened, as Aaron Craybill said, since +Ben Wilson's wife went crazy out on the farm, come four years ago, and +killed her four babies, and hid in the haystack until they found her +three days later, and sent her to the asylum. And so forth, and so +forth.</p> + +<p>All the good folk met in groups at home or in the streets, so that +within an hour after breakfast there was not a soul in all Spring Valley +did not know that the town marshal had just been killed by some unknown +person for some unknown reason. The news seemed dulling, stupefying. The +clerks who opened the drug stores around the public square, the only +shops open of the Sunday, were slow in their sweeping out that morning. +Pedestrians on the streets walked slowly. The entire life of the town +seemed slow. The sluggish, arresting solemnity of death sat upon all the +little community.</p> + +<p>Spring Valley had no daily newspaper, and even the weekly <i>Clarion</i>, a +production of some six pages, had its trials in making a living there, +so close was the village to larger towns which reached out and covered +most of its commercial needs in this time of telegraph and trolley. The +editor of the <i>Clarion</i> was, naturally, the correspondent of the largest +daily of the near-by metropolis. Twice in all his life he had had +opportunity for a first page story in the great city daily. His first +metropolitan opportunity was when the aforementioned farmer's wife had +killed her children, some four years ago. And now here was something +quite as big. Editor Anderson sat at his own breakfast table for more +than half an hour pondering on the opening sentence which he was going +to write in his dispatch to the morning daily.</p> + +<p>By eleven-thirty he had written his story, and had taken it down to the +station agent for transmission by wire; and that worthy told him that as +soon as Number Five got by he would begin to send the message. "I can't +stop for anything so long as that now," said he.</p> + +<p>It was somewhat longer as written than as printed, but Mr. Anderson +described the murder of the city marshal in the following terms:</p> + +<blockquote><p>The progressive little city of Spring Valley, Jackson County, +this state, was electrified this morning by the startling news +of the murder of the well-known city marshal, Mr. Joel Tarbush, +a man of sterling qualities, who has held the office for many +years, and who had endeared himself in the hearts of the +community not only for his discharge of his official duties, +but for his kindliness of heart. The funeral will occur +tomorrow afternoon at half-past three. Reverend William D. +Rawlins will give the funeral address.</p> + +<p>The city of Spring Valley is all excitement at this writing. No +trace of the cowardly assassin has yet been found, and the +entire affair remains shrouded in the deepest mystery, which +not even the keenest intellects have been able to penetrate. +There is no one who can ascribe a motive sufficient to inspire +the murder of so respected and harmless a citizen.</p> + +<p>Some have ascribed the fiendish act to some hobo or tramp who +may have taken revenge on the marshal for some real or fancied +injury in the past. But no one can recall any instance in which +the deceased has ever incurred the enmity of any such +characters, so that all remain at a loss how to account for +this act. There seems to have been no eyewitness, and therefore +all is but mere conjecture.</p> + +<p>Your reporter was among the first at the premises early this +morning, and thus gained all the information that can be +secured at this writing. He has interviewed Miss Audrey +Tarbush, daughter of the deceased, who had for many years kept +house for him in their residence on Mulberry Street, about five +blocks from the courthouse, where the deceased had a small +garden and raised vegetables and flowers which he sold in the +best families of our flourishing city.</p> + +<p>Miss Audrey Tarbush, when interviewed by our reporter, said +that she had last night, according to her usual custom, retired +at the hour of half-past nine. She did not attend the exercises +at the city library, where most of the elite of the town were +present last night, because of a headache from which she +suffered. She left the front door unlocked, as was her custom, +for the entry of her father when he had finished the duties of +his day's work. Usually, Marshal Tarbush came home at about ten +o'clock, and himself then retired. On this night, by reason of +certain extraordinary occurrences during the preceding day, he +thought it wise to remain out later than usual. This was in +accordance with his well-known courage and his conscientious +endeavor to protect the residents of the city against any +possible danger.</p> + +<p>It was about a quarter after one o'clock, as near as Miss +Audrey Tarbush can recall, that she was awakened by the sound +of footfalls on the front porch. She called out, "Who's there?" +but got no answer. As she went to the door her father succeeded +in opening it and staggered in. He sank down into a chair near +the center table. She saw then that he was very pale, and had a +wound upon his head from which blood was still flowing. Much +alarmed, she inquired of him what had occurred. The deceased +was unable to answer. He seemed to be approaching a sort of +coma.</p> + +<p>"Who was it? Who did it?" Miss Audrey Tarbush demanded of him. +It was a dramatic situation.</p> + +<p>The deceased was unable to make an intelligent reply. "Someone +hit me," he muttered. That was all he could manage to say, and +that was all she could catch of his last words. Before long his +head sank forward and he breathed his last almost in her arms. +Unassisted she was able to carry the body of her father to the +near-by sofa.</p> + +<p>At that late hour the telephone operator had gone home, so she +was unable to call any of the neighbors by means of the +telephone. She does not recall how long she was alone with the +dead body of her esteemed parent, but after a time her cries +from the front porch were heard. The neighbors came to her +assistance, but nothing could be done.</p> + +<p>Examination of the remains of the deceased revealed a long and +ragged wound over the upper and left-hand part of the head, +breaking the cuticle for a distance of some four or five +inches. The marshal's hat had been on when he was struck. The +skull was broken for a distance of more than two inches, +according to the examination of Dr. Amos N. Beals, who examined +the body, the left parietal bone being crushed in as by some +heavy instrument.</p> + +<p>Your reporter deduces the following theory of the crime. At a +late hour, after City Marshal Tarbush had finished his duties +in the public square, he went towards his home, the public +meeting at the library having by this time been dismissed. At a +distance of perhaps fifty feet west of the front gate of his +own home the deceased was approached by some miscreant, who +with some heavy blunt instrument struck him down from behind, +and who then made his escape, leaving no sign behind him. No +club or weapon of any kind was found.</p> + +<p>After receiving his death blow this estimable citizen seems to +have walked, steadying himself against the top rail of the +fence, until he reached the gate. The bloody finger prints upon +the top of the fence were no doubt made by his own fingers, +which he must have raised up to his head. He was able to enter +his own gate, come up his own walk, and ascend his own front +steps. Up to that time no one can tell the story. What ensued +after that has been told by your reporter in the interview with +Miss Audrey Tarbush, his loving daughter.</p> + +<p>So ended a long and honorable life. The pallbearers will be +chosen from leading citizens of the town, but their names have +not yet been determined. He will be buried by the Knights +Templar, to which order he belonged, probably on Sunday +afternoon, because, although such haste may appear unseemly, +this early funeral will allow a representative attendance of +all the members of the order, including practically all our +leading citizens, with their full music, so that the concluding +exercises may thus show a greater tribute of respect, the +attendance at any later day being sure to be far less general.</p> + +<p>Your reporter has interviewed prominent citizens as to the +cause of this crime which has so shocked our community. When +approached by your reporter, Judge William Henderson, +well-known candidate for the United States senatorship, former +member of the Republic State Central Committee and prominent +citizen in this state, said, "I cannot hazard even a guess at +the perpetrator of this ghastly crime which has so shocked our +community."</p></blockquote> + +<p>The story written by Mr. Anderson ended at this point. As printed it +ended considerably in advance of this point; but at least, as he later +told his wife, he had done his best to give his paper a good story. By +the time his message was waiting in the hands of the station agent, +telephone wires were busy between Spring Valley and other larger towns. +The early afternoon papers in Columbus were on the streets by +eleven-thirty with big headlines, and a few lines of type about the +murder of "County Sheriff Abel Tarbush of Spring Valley, Jackson County, +for which murder four tramps had been suspected and placed in jail." The +deceased was described as a prominent Mason. By that time the star +reporters of the morning dailies were on the through train, Number Five, +bound east from Columbus to Spring Valley, as many learned by telephone; +so that the arrival of Number Five this day would be a matter of special +importance.</p> + +<p>Of exact details in all these matters, Don Lane knew but little. It was +for reasons of his own, easily obvious, that he went down to the little +station to meet the through train from the West. Anne Oglesby was +coming!</p> + +<p>His mother did not accompany him, of course, and he therefore was quite +alone. Of all those whom he encountered hurrying in the same direction, +all those who packed the little platform and who stood here and there in +groups speaking solemnly one with the other, he could count not a +friend, not an acquaintance. Dully he felt that here and there an eye +was turned upon him, that here and there a word was spoken about him. He +dismissed it as part of the aftermath of his own troubles of the +previous day. He walked nervously up and down, impatiently looking +westward down the line of rails, his own contemptuous hatred for all +these lost in the greater emotion that filled his heart. Anne was +coming—she was almost here! And he must say good-by.</p> + +<p>Meantime, in the courthouse, there was going forward due action on the +part of the officers of the law intrusted with the solution of such +mysteries as this murder. The sheriff, a large and solid man, Dan Cowles +by name, was one of the first to inspect the premises where the crime +had been committed. Shortly after that he went over to the office of +Blackman, Justice of the Peace and coroner, who by ten o'clock that +morning had summoned his jury of six men—Nels Jorgens, the blacksmith; +Mr. Rawlins, the minister of the Church of Christ; Ben McQuaid, the +traveling man; Newman, the clothing merchant; J. B. Saunders, the Knight +Templar; Jerome Westbrook, clerk in the First National Bank.</p> + +<p>It chanced that the county prosecutor, a young man by the name of +Slattery, was out of town at this time, so that the executive side of +the law for a moment hesitated. The sheriff therefore called up Judge +Henderson and asked his presence at the courthouse for a consultation. +The two were closeted for some time in the sheriff's office. At this +time the deliberations of the coroner's jury would have been well +advanced; therefore, Sheriff Cowles took up the telephone and called up +Coroner Blackman at the Tarbush residence, just as the latter was upon +the point of calling for a verdict of the jury in the accustomed words, +"Murder at the hands of party or parties unknown."</p> + +<p>"Wait, Mr. Coroner!" said Sheriff Cowles. "There's going to be some more +witnesses. Keep your jury together."</p> + +<p>A few moments later the long shrieking whistle of Number Five was heard +as she came up out of the Paw Paw Creek bottoms, climbing the hill at +the brick yards, and swung around the curve through South Spring Valley +into the stretch of straight track leading down to the station. As the +grinding brakes brought the heavy train finally to a standstill, three +or four young men swung down from the day coaches—reporters from +outside towns.</p> + +<p>Don Lane elbowed his way to the edge of the platform. His eye was +searching eagerly along the train exits for someone else—someone else +whom he longed and yet dreaded to see.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2> + +<h3> THE NAME OF THE LAW</h3> + + +<p>Don's moody face suddenly lighted up. A young woman was stepping down +from one of the cars at the farther end of the train, the porter +assisting her to the footstool. Now she was coming steadily along the +edge of the platform, carrying in one hand a trim little bag, in the +other a trim little umbrella. Now she was looking about, expectant. It +was she—Anne!</p> + +<p>His heart leaped out to her, his love rose surgingly at sight of her, +sweet and beautiful as she seemed, and all so fit for love of man.</p> + +<p>A tall young girl she was, who walked with head well up and the +suggestion of tennis about her—an indefinable something of chic also +about her, as indicative of physical well-being as that suggested by +some of the young faces on the magazine covers of the day; which would +explain why in her college Anne Oglesby always was known as "the +magazine girl." She had straightforward gray eyes, a fine mouth of much +sweetness. Above her forehead rose a deep and narrow ruff of dense brown +hair, golden brown. Trim, yet well-appointed, she was one of those types +whom unhesitatingly we class as aristocrats. A young woman fit for any +higher class, qualified for any rank, she seemed—and a creature utterly +apart from the crowd that now jostled her on the narrow platform.</p> + +<p>Her eyes, too, lighted up at sight of the young man who now hurried +forward to meet her, but no unseemly agitation marked her own personal +conduct in public. Demure, clean, cool and sweet, all in hand, she did +not hasten nor hold back.</p> + +<p>Dieudonné Lane had told his mother that never yet had he kissed Anne +Oglesby. Now, at sight of her and at the thought that almost at once +they must part forever, a great rebellion rose in his heart. He stepped +forward swiftly, impulsively, irresistibly.</p> + +<p>He caught her quickly in his arms before all the crowd and kissed +her—once. It was his great salutation to love—a salutation of great +longing—a salutation which meant farewell.</p> + +<p>She gasped, flushed rosy red, but walked straight along with him as he +caught the bag from her hands. She looked up at him, astonished, yet not +wholly resentful. It was no place for speech on the part of either. The +dust of the street seemed naught to him or her, and as for this curious +crowd, they did not chill nor offend—Anne Oglesby suddenly wished to +take all the world into her arms and greet it. Anne Oglesby at that +moment loved—the touch of this man's lips on hers had wrought the +irrevocable, immortal, awful change.</p> + +<p>They had not yet spoken a word, these two, at the time he left her to +call some vehicle for her use. He turned and looked directly into the +face of Dan Cowles, sheriff, a man whom he had never seen before, but +who now reached out and laid a hand upon his shoulder. Cowles had that +instant reached the station platform.</p> + +<p>Don would have passed, but the sheriff spoke:</p> + +<p>"I want you. Come with me."</p> + +<p>The tempestuous blood of the young man flamed at this, but now, as he +looked into the solemn face before him, he found something to give him +pause.</p> + +<p>"What's up?" he demanded. "Who are you?"</p> + +<p>"I'm the sheriff of this county," said Cowles. "Come with me."</p> + +<p>"What do you want?" again demanded Don. "I'm with this young lady."</p> + +<p>"That's no difference," said Cowles.</p> + +<p>"It must be about the Tarbush matter," said Dewdonny Lane. "I'll +testify, but I know nothing of that. I'll come on over directly. This +young lady is going to Judge Henderson's."</p> + +<p>The sheriff looked at the young girl curiously. The crowd now had surged +about them. Like so many cattle at the smell of blood, a strange low +sound, animal-like, a sort of moan of curiosity, seemed to rise. +Wide-eyed, the girl turned.</p> + +<p>"What is it, Don?" she exclaimed. "What has happened? The Tarbush +case—what do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"I'm going to take him to the coroner's hearing, miss," said the sheriff +in a low tone of voice.</p> + +<p>"Why, you see, Anne," began Don, "the city marshal of this town was +killed last night. I suppose the coroner is looking into it. It's a +terrible thing—the town's all upset—haven't you heard anything of it?"</p> + +<p>"Why, no. I left home before any of our papers came out. How did it +happen?"</p> + +<p>Don felt the sheriff again touch his arm. "Step into my car," said he, +"both of you—you get on the front seat with me."</p> + +<p>A moment later they were whirling off up the dusty street toward the +central part of the town. The crowd, breaking into little groups, came +hurrying on along the sidewalks, some even falling into a run in the +middle of the street.</p> + +<p>"Well, he got him!" said one citizen to another. "Quick work for the +sher'ff, wasn't it? A little more and that fellow would 'a' got off on +that train, like enough. That's what he was down here for. I seen him +lookin' for the train."</p> + +<p>"Yes, and that young fellow had a dangerous look on him, too," said +another. "He's <i>bad</i>, that's what he is! Look how he showed it +yesterday—right after court, too."</p> + +<p>Each had this or that comment to make, but all followed on now toward +the scenes where the further action in the drama of the day must now +ensue.</p> + +<p>Cowles pulled up on the side of the square on which Judge Henderson had +his office. "You may get out here, Miss," said he. "I think you'll find +the Judge in right now."</p> + +<p>"But why—what's the reason——" she began, much perturbed, and looking +at Don. "What's wrong, Don? Aren't you coming?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Mr. Sheriff," said Don, "let me go up with her. I'll be right on +over."</p> + +<p>The big man looked at the two, a sort of pity in his face. "I'm sorry," +said he, "but you'll have to come with me right away. Tell me, are you +Miss Oglesby, his kin from over Columbus way?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes," said she. "I've been here before. But tell me, what does +this mean—this murder? It's an awful thing, isn't it? It seems to me I +remember the marshal's name—maybe I've seen him. Who did it—whom do +they suspect?"</p> + +<p>"That's what we don't know for sure," said the sheriff, "and it's what +we've got to find out."</p> + +<p>"Why, who would ever have thought it of this little town!"</p> + +<p>"Things happen in this little town, I reckon, about the same as they do +anywhere," said the sheriff.</p> + +<p>"Don——" She turned to him once more as she stood on the pavement, he +still remaining on the front seat of the car where the sheriff's hand +restrained him. "Why, Don——"</p> + +<p>But the sheriff's solemn face was turned towards her. He shook his head. +An instant and the car had whirled away from the curb.</p> + +<p>They had parted, almost before they had met!</p> + +<p>To Dieudonné Lane, ignorant as he was of the cause of all this, it +seemed that the final parting of all had come, and, bitterly he +reflected, they had had no chance—no chance whatever—for what was due +them from their love, their life itself.</p> + +<p>Anne Oglesby, the kiss of her lover's lips still sweet and trembling +upon her mouth, her own mind confused, her own heart disturbed, turned +towards the dusty stair, all her senses in a whirl. And within five +minutes Don Lane, very pale and much distressed, was in the front part +of the little home of Joel Tarbush. The officer had brought him before +Justice Blackman, the coroner, and the coroner's jury, six solemn-faced +men who sat now in the front parlor which had no other occupants save +the red-eyed daughter of the dead man, and save the long and shrouded +figure which lay upon the couch near by.</p> + +<p>Don Lane could not misread the hostility of the gaze turned upon him by +most of these whom now he saw.</p> + +<p>Something suddenly caught at his heart—his first feeling of fear, of +uncertainty; but even this was mingled with a rage at fate, which could +be so cruelly unjust to him. And always, in spite of himself, he felt +his eyes turning to look, awed, terrified, upon the long thing which lay +upon the couch. And always the eyes of these six men saw what he did, +saw what he saw.</p> + +<p>"This is Dewdonny Lane," said the Sheriff briefly, and himself sat down +to await the progress of events.</p> + +<p>The formalities were few. "You may be sworn," said the coroner to +him—"it's just as well." Then the oath administered, Blackman began the +regular questions, and Don answered steadily.</p> + +<p>"My name is Dieudonné Lane. I am twenty-two years of age. I have no +residence as yet. I am a graduate in engineering. I'm going to Wyoming +some time this month to take up my work there."</p> + +<p>There was a little silence in the room, and then the coroner began +again:</p> + +<p>"Where were you just now?" he asked. "We sent for you at your home."</p> + +<p>"I was at the station—I went to meet a friend."</p> + +<p>"What friend was it?"</p> + +<p>Don Lane flushed red. "What difference is it? Oh, if I must answer, it +was Miss Anne Oglesby, of Columbus. I went down to the train to meet +her."</p> + +<p>Sheriff Cowles nodded. "That's true," said he. "I took her up to Judge +Henderson's office myself."</p> + +<p>"What relations have you with this young lady?" asked Blackman.</p> + +<p>"That's not the business of anyone," said Don Lane hotly.</p> + +<p>"Do you want counsel to protect you now?"</p> + +<p>"No, why should I? I am perfectly willing to tell all I know about the +case, and that's all I can do. There's no lawyer I'd send for anyhow."</p> + +<p>"Where were you last night at about midnight?"</p> + +<p>"I was at the library meeting with my mother."</p> + +<p>"When did you leave there?"</p> + +<p>"It must have been midnight or later—oh, yes, I remember seeing the +town clock as we passed through the square. That was just before one +o'clock—perhaps ten or fifteen minutes. We were out late—every one +was."</p> + +<p>"Who was with you when you were going home?"</p> + +<p>"My mother, and for a time Mr. Rawlins here—one of you gentlemen of the +jury. He will know. Just as we left the library we were joined by Mr. +Horace Brooks."</p> + +<p>"Where did you go?"</p> + +<p>"We three walked on together. It was at the second corner of the square, +where Mulberry Street turns off, that Mr. Brooks left me."</p> + +<p>Nels Jorgens, one of the jury, now spoke up. "That's true," said he. "I +saw the three of them walking along the front of the square, and saw +them turn in at Mulberry Street. Across from where I live I saw two +people at the gate. It was a man—a tall man—and her—Aurora Lane."</p> + +<p>"You yourself were not at the gate then?"</p> + +<p>"No," said Don, "I had left just at the corner of the square."</p> + +<p>"Why did you leave them?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I wanted to have a little run before I went to bed. I'm used to +taking exercise every night—I always did at college, to keep up my +training."</p> + +<p>"Where did you go when you were running?"</p> + +<p>"I may be mistaken in the directions, but it was across the square, +opposite from Mulberry Street. I turned to the right. I must have run +perhaps four or five blocks, I don't know just how far it was. It was +quite warm."</p> + +<p>"Did you come into this street?"</p> + +<p>"I don't really know."</p> + +<p>"You didn't see anybody?"</p> + +<p>"Not a soul. I didn't hear a sound."</p> + +<p>"What time was that?"</p> + +<p>"I heard the clock strike one before I turned back."</p> + +<p>"Gentlemen of the jury," said the coroner, "it was just about that time +that Joel Tarbush was killed, right here."</p> + +<p>"That's true," said Don Lane. "It's terrible to think of—but why——"</p> + +<p>"You heard Judge Henderson's testimony, gentlemen," went on the coroner. +"He told of seeing these three people pass by on the square in front of +his office stair. Just before that he had said good night to Tarbush +himself. He saw Tarbush start right over this way for his home. Now, +just in time to catch him before he got into his home—if a man was +running fast—a man <i>did</i> run from the square over in this direction!"</p> + +<p>The members of the jury remained silent. Their faces were extremely +grave.</p> + +<p>"And, gentlemen, you have heard the testimony of other witnesses here +before now, stating that this witness was heard to make threats to +Tarbush yesterday afternoon, right after he was dismissed from my own +court upstairs. Mr. Jorgens, I believe you were there. What did this +young man say after he had for the second time assaulted Ephraim +Adamson—twice in one day, and entirely regardless of the rebuke of the +law?"</p> + +<p>"He said, Mr. Coroner," replied Nels Jorgens gravely, even with sadness +in his face, "just when he came out of the crowd where he had left +Adamson laying on the ground already—he said to Tarbush, 'You'll come +next'—or I'll get you next'—something of that kind."</p> + +<p>"Was he angry at that time?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Mr. Coroner, he was," said Nels Jorgens, against his will.</p> + +<p>Ben McQuaid leaned over to whisper to Jerome Westbrook. "It seems like +this young fellow comes in here with his college education and +undertakes to run this whole town. Pretty coarse work, it looks like to +me."</p> + +<p>Jerome Westbrook nodded slowly. He recalled Sally Lester's look.</p> + +<p>Of all the six faces turned toward him from the scattered little group +of the coroner's jury, not more than two showed the least compassion or +sympathy. Don Lane's hot temper smarted under the renewed sense of the +injustice which had assailed him yet again.</p> + +<p>"What's the game?" he demanded. "Why am I brought here? What's the +matter with you people? Do you mean to charge me with killing this man? +What have I done to any of you? Damn your town, anyhow—the rotten, +lying, hypocritical lot of you all!"</p> + +<p>"The less you say the better," said the coroner; and the sheriff's +steady gaze cautioned Don Lane yet more.</p> + +<p>"Now, gentlemen," went on Blackman, "we have heard a number of witnesses +here, and we have not found any man here that could bring forward any +sight or sound of any suspicious character in this town. There hasn't +been a tramp or outsider seen here, unless we except this young man now +testifying here. The man on whose body we now are a-setting hadn't a +enemy in this town, so far as has been shown here—no, nor so far as +anyone of us knows. There has been no motive proved up here which would +lead us to suspect anyone else of this crime."</p> + +<p>Ben McQuaid once more leaned over to whisper to his seat-mate: "It's a +likely thing a man would be running for his health, a night like last +night, when he didn't have to! Ain't that the truth?"</p> + +<p>The coroner rapped with his pencil on the table top. He was well filled +with the sense of his own importance. In his mind he was +procureur-general for Spring Valley. And in his mind still rankled the +thought of the fiasco in his courtroom but the day before, in which he +had made so small a figure.</p> + +<p>"I want to ask you, Mr. Cowles," he said, turning to the sheriff, "if +you ever have seen this young man before."</p> + +<p>"Only once," said the sheriff, standing up. "Last night or this morning, +just after the clock had struck one—say, two or three minutes or so +after one o'clock—I was going out of my office and going over to the +east side of the square. I met this young man then. As he says, he was +running—that is, he was coming back from this direction, and running +toward the southeast corner of the square, the direction of his own +home."</p> + +<p>"Was he in a hurry—did he seem excited?"</p> + +<p>"He was panting a little bit. He was running. He didn't seem to see me."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, I did," said Don. "I remember you perfectly—that is, I +remember perfectly passing some man in the half darkness under the trees +as I came along that side of the square. As I said, it was warm."</p> + +<p>"Now, gentlemen, we have thought it over for a long time," said the +coroner, after a solemn pause. "We must bring in our verdict before +long. It must either be 'party or parties unknown,' or we must hold +someone we do suspect.</p> + +<p>"We have had no one here that we could suspect until now. Take this +young man—he is practically a stranger. He proves himself to be of +violent and ungovernable temper. Allowed to go once from the justice of +the law, he forgets that and goes violent again. He assaults a second +time one of our citizens, Mr. Adamson. He resists arrest once by a +officer of the law, and in the same afternoon he threatens that officer. +He says, 'I'll get you.'</p> + +<p>"This young man is seen just before one o'clock running over in this +direction. Just a little ahead of him the victim of this crime was seen +walking. He was killed, as his daughter testifies, somewhere just about +one o'clock—it was at that time that he staggered into the house here.</p> + +<p>"Just after one o'clock this young man is seen running—one of the +hottest nights we have had this summer—running away from the scene of +the crime, and toward his own home.</p> + +<p>"I don't want to lead your own convictions in any way. I am willing to +say, however, that if we have not found a man to hold for this crime, +then we ain't apt to find him!"</p> + +<p>"But, gentlemen, you don't mean"—poor Don began, his face pale for the +first time, a sudden terror in his soul—"you <i>can't</i> mean that <i>I</i> did +this!"</p> + +<p>But he gazed into the faces of six men, upon whom rested the duty of +vengeance for the wrong done to the society which they represented. Of +these six all but two were openly hostile to him, and those two were +sad. Rawlins, minister of the Church of Christ; Nels Jorgens, the +blacksmith—they two were sad. But they two also were citizens.</p> + +<p>"This witness," went on Coroner Blackman, "has in a way both abused us +and defied us. He said he was not on trial. That is true. We can't try +him. All we can do is to hold any man on whom a reas'nable suspicion of +this crime may be fixed. We could hold several suspects here, if there +was that many. All we do is to pass the whole question on to the grand +jury when it meets here. That's tomorrow morning. Before the grand jury +any man accused can have his own counsel and the case can be taken up +more conclusive. So the question for us now is, Shall we call it 'party +or parties unknown,' or shall we——"</p> + +<p>Don Lane dropped into a seat, his face in his hands, in his heart the +bitter cry that all the world and all the powers of justice governing +the world had now utterly forsaken him. The sheriff rose, and taking him +by the arm, led him into another room.</p> + +<p>In ten minutes a half-dozen reporters, trooping up from the train and +waiting impatiently at the outer door, knew the nature of the verdict: +"We the jury sitting upon the body of Joel Tarbush, deceased by +violence, find that deceased came to his death by a blow from a blunt +instrument held in the hands of Dieudonné Lane."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2> + +<h3>ANNE OGLESBY</h3> + + +<p>Judge William Henderson was sitting alone in the front room of his cool +and spacious office, before him his long table with its clean glass top, +so different from the work-bench of the average country lawyer. +Everything about him was modern and perfect in his office equipment, for +the judge had reached the period in his development in which he brought +in most of his own personal ideas from an outer and a wider world—that +same world which now occupied him as a field proper for one of his +ambitions.</p> + +<p>As he sat he was a not unpleasing figure of middle-aged success. His +gray hair was swept back smoothly from his temples; his red cheeks, +fresh reaped, bore the tinge of health. The large white hand before him +on the glass-topped table betokened prosperity and success in every +faint and fat-hid line.</p> + +<p>Judge Henderson now was absorbed in the contemplation of a bit of paper +which lay in his hand. It was a message from the telephone company, and +it came from Slattery, county prosecutor. Something in it was of +disturbing nature. Judge Henderson's brow was furrowed, his face was +troubled. He seemed, thus alone and not stimulated by an audience, years +older than he had been but now.</p> + +<p>He had been looking at this bit of paper for some time so intently that +now he did not hear his hall door open—did not see one who paused there +and then came, lightfooted, swiftly, across the space, to catch him and +blindfold him as he sat. He heard the rustle of her skirts, and knew at +once the deep counterfeit of her voice.</p> + +<p>"Who is it?" she demanded, her hand over his eyes.</p> + +<p>"Anne!" he exclaimed, catching at her hand. "You are here—when did you +come?"</p> + +<p>She went round and kissed him. "Just now," said she, "on the train from +the city. You were not expecting me?"</p> + +<p>"No, not at all."</p> + +<p>"Well, here I am, Nunkie,"—she sometimes called her guardian by this +pet name, although really they were not akin—"I'm finished and turned +out complete—I'm done my college work now and ready for what we +graduates call the Battle of Life. Do you think I'll do?"</p> + +<p>She drew back and made him a pretty curtsey, spreading out her skirts. +Indeed, she was very fair to look upon and he smiled at her admiringly.</p> + +<p>"You are beautiful, Anne," said he. "You are very beautiful—you are +fine."</p> + +<p>"Do I please you in every way?" said she.</p> + +<p>"Perfectly, my dear. You cannot do otherwise."</p> + +<p>She looked at him demurely. "I'm not so sure," said she. "Wait until you +have heard all I have to tell you."</p> + +<p>"What's wrong? Are you in debt?"</p> + +<p>"Worse than that, Nunkie dear—I'm engaged!"</p> + +<p>Now indeed he looked at her with sudden consternation in his face. +"What's that? You haven't told me anything of the sort."</p> + +<p>"I never knew it until just now—at the station." She came now and sat +down upon the arm of his chair. "It just happened yesterday—and today."</p> + +<p>She put up a finger to her lips and rubbed them, fearing that he might +see there the flame of the kiss they but now had borne.</p> + +<p>"Who is the young man—if you are really in earnest about all this? +Where did you meet him? Whoever he is, you've hardly done your duty by +me. I'm your guardian—I stand <i>in loco parentis</i> for you. When did all +this happen?"</p> + +<p>"Yesterday, on the train. I didn't expect it myself. But I promised. +He's promised me. We were going to tell you about it at once."</p> + +<p>She was the very picture of happy and contented young womanhood as she +spoke. Not so happy was the man whom she addressed.</p> + +<p>"I can't guess at all whom you mean," said he. "Is he anybody—is he a +man of station—has he any business—has he any means? How old is +he—who is he?"</p> + +<p>"I can't answer so many questions all at once, Nunkie," said she. "But +I'm going to be very happy, I know that. Perhaps you can answer some of +the questions for yourself—perhaps you know him. Well, it's Dieudonné +Lane!—he's in town right now—a schoolmate of mine for four years. +Surely, I know all about him."</p> + +<p>Judge Henderson swiftly turned and looked at her steadily, cold +consternation on his face. "Anne!" he exclaimed. "That can't be! It's +absurd."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I expected that," said she easily. "That's because he hasn't any +money. I knew that. As for his family—he told me long ago that he was +an orphan, that his father died when he was very young, and left only +enough for his education, and that he would have to make his own way. +Very well, some men have had to do that—you have had to yourself, +Nunkie, isn't it true? And Don was born here in this very town——"</p> + +<p>He put out his hand over hers as it lay upon the table-top. "Anne!" said +he. "My child! You're but a child—an impulsive, foolish child. What +have you done? You have not pledged your word—to <i>him</i>?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, I have. I'm promised—my promise is given. More——"</p> + +<p>"It's folly and worse than folly. It can't be—I won't have it—you hear +me?" He broke out savagely now.</p> + +<p>"I heard you—yes, but I'll jolly well not pay too much attention to +you, even when you roar at me that way. As I understand it, I'm of age. +I've been studying for four years to get ready to be able to know my own +mind—and I do! My own heart also. And I know what's due me."</p> + +<p>Her voice was low and very sweet, but the man who heard her winced at +its cutting calm.</p> + +<p>"You would marry a man like that, of no family, of no place, of no +name?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I've just said that. I know all about it. We'll have to start at +the bottom; and I ask you, didn't you start that way?"</p> + +<p>"That's an entirely different proposition, my dear girl," said her +guardian. "Times were different then. You are an heiress—you are a +woman of family and place—and you don't have to go back to the old +days—you don't need to ruin your own life through such terrible +beginnings.</p> + +<p>"But now, do you know who this young man's people are?" He asked this +last after a considerable pause, during which his ward sat silent, +looking at him steadily.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes. He told me he is an orphan—his father's dead long ago. And +his mother——"</p> + +<p>"You know his mother?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, a milliner—I believe. But a good woman."</p> + +<p>"Ah!"</p> + +<p>She still looked at him, smiling. "I am 'advanced,' you see, Nunkie! In +college we studied things. I don't care for the social rank—I want to +marry a <i>man</i>. I love Don. I love—well, that kind of man. I'm so +happy!"</p> + +<p>She squeezed him tight in a sudden warm embrace. "I love all the world, +I believe, Nunkie—even you, and you are an old bear, as everybody +knows! And I thank you for all those papers in the long envelopes—with +the lines and the crosses on them, and the pencil mark 'Sign +here'—powers of attorney and receipts, and bonds and shares and +mortgages and certificates—all that sort of thing. Am I very rich, +Nunkie?"</p> + +<p>"Not very, as heiresses go these days," said he. "You're worth maybe four +or five hundred thousand dollars, not very much. But that's not the +question. That's not really everything there is at stake in +this—although I'm well enough satisfied that's all this young man cares +for."</p> + +<p>"Thank you!" said she proudly. "I had not known that."</p> + +<p>"A good many things you have not known, my dear. Now listen here. Do you +know what this marriage would mean to me? I want to be United States +Senator from this state—and everything bids fair to see my ambition +gratified. But politics is a ticklish game."</p> + +<p>"Well, what on earth has that to do with me and Don?"</p> + +<p>"It has everything to do! I'm <i>not</i> 'advanced,' I'm old fashioned enough +to know that social rank does count in my business at least. In politics +every little thing counts; so I tell you, for every reason in the world +you must dismiss this young man from your thoughts. You are quixotic, I +know—you are stubborn, like your mother—a good woman, but stubborn."</p> + +<p>He was arguing with her, but Anne could not read his face, although she +sought to do so—there seemed some veil hiding his real thoughts. And +his face was troubled. She thought he had aged very much.</p> + +<p>"In one particular matter," said she slowly, at last. "It seems to me a +woman should be stubborn. She should have her own say about the man she +is to marry."</p> + +<p>"How much time have you had to decide on this?"</p> + +<p>"Plenty. Twenty-four hours, or a little less—no, I'll say twenty +minutes. Plenty. Uncle—he kissed me—before the world. I can't take it +back—we have given—I have promised. Uncle, I have promised—well, all +through me."</p> + +<p>"Stop where you are!" said he. "Have you disgraced us all so soon? Has +it gone so far? However that is, you shall go no further."</p> + +<p>He rose, his fingers on the table-top, rapping in emphasis.</p> + +<p>"My dear," he said, "I am older than you, and I have seen the world more +than you have. I recognize fully enough the dynamic quality of what you +call love—what I call merely sex in younger human beings. It is a thing +of extreme seriousness, that's true. But the surest thing about all that +sort of thing is that it changes, it passes. You will forget all this."</p> + +<p>"You do me much honor!" said Anne Oglesby, coloring. "You speak with +much delicacy. But love me, love my lover."</p> + +<p>The swift resistance of a strong nature seemed suddenly to flash out at +Judge Henderson from her gray eyes. Suddenly he turned and took her arm. +He escorted her to the inner room, which served as his own study and +consultation chambers.</p> + +<p>"Come here," said he. "Well have to talk this thing over quietly. This +is a terrible matter—you don't know how terrible. There's a lot under +this that you don't know at all. Anne, my dear girl, what can I say to +you to alter you in this foolish resolve?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing! I'm going to see his mother this very afternoon. He told me to +come, so I could meet his mother——"</p> + +<p>"You're going to do nothing of the kind!" said Judge Henderson in sudden +anger. "You're going to stay here and listen to reason, that's what +you're going to do! You undertake to go into a situation which reaches +wider than this town, wider than this state, do you? It is your duty, +then, to prevent me from <i>my</i> duty? Are you so selfish, so egotistic as +all that?"</p> + +<p>She smiled at him amusedly, cynically, a wide and frank smile, which +irritated him unspeakably. He frowned.</p> + +<p>"It is time now for you to reflect. First—as you say—this young man +has no father. His mother——"</p> + +<p>He paused suddenly, his pallid face working strangely now. The shrill +summons of the telephone close at his hand as he sat had caused him to +start, but it was with relief. He took down the receiver and placed his +hand for the moment over the mouthpiece.</p> + +<p>"Aurora Lane—you don't know about her?" he began.</p> + +<p>Then she saw a sudden change of expression which passed over his face. +"Yes—yes," he said, into the telephone. "The jury has brought in its +verdict? <i>What's that?</i>——"</p> + +<p>The phone dropped clattering from his hand on the desk, so shaking and +uncertain was his grasp. He turned to his ward slowly.</p> + +<p>"You don't know!" said he. "You don't know what that was I have just +heard this moment! Well, I'll tell you. Dieudonné Lane has been held to +the grand jury—while we've been sitting here. They've charged him with +the murder of Tarbush, the city marshal. My God! Anne——"</p> + +<p>It seemed an hour to both before she spoke. Her face, first flushed, +then pale, became set and cold as she looked toward the man who brought +this news. Once she flinched; then pulled together. But yesterday a +girl, this hour a young woman, now she was all at once mature, resolved.</p> + +<p>"You heard me, did you not?" he went on, his voice rising. +"Charged—with murder! No one in the world knew he was alive—no one but +you, and you never told me of him—no one ever dreamed of him till the +last twenty-four hours, when he came blundering in here—out of his +grave, I say! And in twenty-four hours he has made his record here—and +<i>this</i> is his record. Do you know what this means? He may not come +through—I want to say the chances look bad for him, very bad indeed." +Judge Henderson's smooth face showed more agitation than ever it had in +all his life before.</p> + +<p>"Uncle," she said, after a long time, reaching out a hand to him, "now +is your opportunity!"</p> + +<p>"What do you mean? <i>My</i> opportunity? It's—it's a terrible thing—you +don't know."</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes. But you say you have been in the place of a parent to me. +That's true—I owe you much—you have been good—you have been kind. Be +good, be kind now! Oh, don't you see what is your duty? Now you can use +your learning, your wisdom, your oratory. You can save Don—for me. +You're my parent—can't you be his, too? We're both orphans—can't you +be a father for us both? Of <i>course</i> you will defend him. He hasn't +much. He couldn't pay you now. But I have money—you've just told me +that I have.</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, I don't mean that, about the money—but listen," she went on, +since he made no reply. "Do you think <i>I'd</i> desert him now that he's in +trouble? Do you think any woman of my family would do that? We're not so +low, I trust, either of us, either side. You are not so low as that, I +trust, yourself. Why, you'd not desert anyone, surely not an orphan boy, +just starting out—you'd never in the world do that, I know."</p> + +<p>In answer he smoothed out before her on the desk top the crumpled paper +he had held in his hand.</p> + +<p>"This," said he, "was brought to me just before you came in yourself. +Before you told me of this affair, I was retained by the state's +attorney to assist in the prosecution of the perpetrator of this crime, +<i>whoever he might be</i>. I must say it is one of the most terrible crimes +ever known in this community. The man who did it must pass from among +his fellow men forever. It is my duty to accept this retainer for the +prosecution, as I have done——"</p> + +<p>"What—as you <i>have</i> done?—You'd help prosecute him—you'd help send +him to the gallows, if you could—as innocent as he is? You—you—and he +has no one to counsel with—only a poor woman, a widow, who's never had +a chance—he an orphan, without a friend! You'd do <i>that</i>?"</p> + +<p>His large white hand was raised restrainingly. "We must both be calm," +said he. "I've got to think."</p> + +<p>"Why, where will Don go—where will they put him?"</p> + +<p>"He will go to jail, and be there until the grand jury meets—longer +than that, perhaps—and yet longer, if the trial judge and jury bring a +verdict against him!"</p> + +<p>"But that's taking him away from me—right now—that's not right!—Can't +he get out?"</p> + +<p>"He might perhaps be released on bail if the bail were large enough, but +the crime is the maximum crime, and the suspicion is most severe. I +don't know what means he can command, but he needs counsel now.</p> + +<p>"But one thing, Anne," he added, "I forbid you. You must have nothing to +do with him. Keep away from him. Go home, and don't meddle in this case. +It must take its course."</p> + +<p>"I would follow him to the foot of the gallows, if need be, Judge +Henderson!" broke out Anne Oglesby in a sudden flare of passionate +anger. "Ah, fine!—to give your word, your promise—to give your love, +and then within an hour forget it all—to leave the one you love when +the trouble comes! Is that all one gains—is that all one may +expect—is that all a woman ought to do for the man she loves? Is that +all she ought to expect from a man? Suppose it were I in trouble—would +<i>he</i> forget me? Would <i>he</i> forsake me? Then shall I? You don't know me +if you think that of me!</p> + +<p>"You don't know me at all," she blazed on at him, as he turned away. +"I've tried to reason. Whatever my success at that, the answer's in my +own heart now." (Her heart, now beating so fast under the heaving bosom +on which both her hands were clasped.)</p> + +<p>"And you forget me? I—I'm in trouble now—it's awful—it's a terrible +trouble that I'm in now." Judge Henderson's voice was trembling, his +face was pale.</p> + +<p>"You—in what way am I bound to you? Trouble—what do you mean? Why, +listen!—All your life you have lived with just one aim and purpose and +ambition in your heart—and that was yourself! Your own ambition—your +own pleasure, your own comfort—those were the things that have +controlled you always—don't I know, haven't I heard? You've been a very +leech in this town—you have taken <i>all</i> the success in it—<i>all</i> the +success of everybody, from <i>all</i> its people—and used it for yourself! +It has been so common to you—you are so used to it—that you can't +think of anything else—you can't visualize anything else. You think of +yourself as the source and center of all good—you can't help +that—that's your nature. So I suppose you think you are altogether +within your rights when you tell me that I must wreck and ruin my own +life to save you and your ambition! Why, you are—you're a +<i>sponge</i>—that's what you are—you are just soaking in <i>all</i> the +happiness of others—<i>all</i> the success of others, I tell you—taking it +<i>all</i> for yourself. 'Our most prominent citizen!' Great God! But what +has it cost this community to produce you—what are you asking it to +cost me and those I love? Drops in the same bucket? Food for you and +your ambition? Do you think I am going to stand that, when it comes to +me—me and him—the man I have promised—the man I love? You don't know +me! You don't know him! We'll fight!"</p> + +<p>He sat, so astounded at this sudden outburst—the first thing of the +kind he had ever heard from any human being in all his life—that for +the time he could make no reply at all. She went on bitterly now:</p> + +<p>"Men like you, sponges like yourself, have made what they call success +in all the ages of the world—yes, that's true. Great kings, great +cardinals, great politicians, great business men, great thieves have +made that kind of a success, that's true enough—I've read about them, +yes. Men of that sort—Judge Henderson—sometimes they stop at nothing. +They'd betray their very own. I'm not your blood, but if I were, I'd not +trust you! Men like you are so absorbed with their own vanity, their own +selfishness—they're so used to having everything given to them without +exertion, without cost, they grow regardless of what that cost may be to +the ones that do the giving. In time they begin to think themselves +apart from the rest of the world—don't you think that about yourself +now? Oh, are you better than the world? Or are you just a man, like the +rest of them? Didn't you ever know—didn't you ever kiss a woman in all +your life and know what that meant?"</p> + +<p>He had sat, his shocked face turned toward her, too stunned for answer. +But she saw him start as though under the blow of a dagger at her last +words.</p> + +<p>"Don't think this hasn't hurt," said she, more composedly now. "It's the +truth as far as I know it. With your power, your influence, you could +get him free—soon—very soon—perhaps. You could make us both happy. +But, so you say, that would make <i>you</i> unhappy! I know you well enough +to know what the decision will be in a case like that, Judge Henderson!</p> + +<p>"As for me—" she was closer to him now, utterly fearless, as a woman is +who loves and sees the object of her love threatened—"our paths part +here, now! I'm of age and my own mistress. I know my own mind, as I've +told you. I'm going to stay—I'm going to stick—do you hear? I'm going +to love him long as he lives. I'm going to <i>marry</i> him, if it's in a +jail!"</p> + +<p>Judge Henderson only began to wag his head now from side to side. His +face had gone ghastly.</p> + +<p>"Why, Uncle dear"—she came over to him now—"forgive me if I've been +too outspoken—it's only because I'm so strained."</p> + +<p>"Myself also," he groaned. "Strain? Why, yes. You don't know—you don't +know!"</p> + +<p>Suddenly she changed once more, still the woman, still the young girl, +as yet half ignorant of life, her hands still on her heaving bosom now, +the faint flush back in her cheeks.</p> + +<p>"He <i>kissed</i> me, Uncle!" said she. "I don't know much, but it seems to +me if a man kisses a woman—in that way—it's <i>life</i> for her and him! +They can't help it after that. After that, a woman's got to do just all +she can in the game of life—and he's got to do the best he knows. They +can't help it. He <i>kissed</i> me.... And I told you I'll not desert him. It +wouldn't be right. And, right or wrong, I can't—I <i>can't</i>!"</p> + +<p>Panting, the tears now almost ready to drop from her moist eyes, she +stood, a beautiful picture of young womanhood, so soft, so fully fitted +for love and love's caresses; and now so wronged out of her love by +sudden fate. But in her there was no sign of weakness or of yielding. +The man who faced her felt the truth of that. His own face now was far +the more irresolute of the two—far the more agitated.</p> + +<p>Suddenly, haggard, frowning, he rose, at a sound which he heard in the +outer room. Someone had entered.</p> + +<p>As he stepped to the door between the two rooms, Judge Henderson turned, +his finger on his lips, and made signs that Anne should remain where she +was, undiscovered. The door hung just a trifle, wedged open by the +corner of a fallen rug. Judge Henderson had not time, or did not think, +to close it wholly. He stood face to face with the newcomer.</p> + +<p>It was Aurora Lane!</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h2> + +<h3>"AS YOU BELIEVE IN GOD!"</h3> + + +<p>Aurora Lane and Judge Henderson both started back as they faced one +another. For the moment neither spoke.</p> + +<p>Aurora was pale, quite beyond her wont, haggard-looking about the eyes. +She had come direct from her home, without alteration of her usual daily +costume. In spite of all, she was very far from uncomely as she stood +now, about her the old indefinable stamp of class which always had clung +to her. Certainly she was quite the equal in appearance of this tall +man, soft from easy living, who faced her now, a trifle pasty of skin, a +trifle soft about the jaws, a trifle indefinite about the waist—a man +with a face as pale and haggard as her own.</p> + +<p>Tense as she was, her long schooling in repression stood her in such +stead as to leave her in the better possession of self-control.</p> + +<p>"My dear—my dear Madam——" began Judge Henderson.</p> + +<p>The hearer in the room beyond must have caught the pause in his voice, +its agitation—and must have heard the even tones of the woman as she +spoke at last, after a long silence.</p> + +<p>"I have come to your office, as you know, for the first time," said +Aurora Lane. She gave him no title, no formal address. "It is the first +time in twenty years."</p> + +<p>"You have lived a somewhat secluded life, yes, my dear Madam." His +voice, his manner, his attitude, all were labored. He at least knew or +suspected that he was talking to two women, and not one; for there was +no way for Anne to escape and no way in which he could be sure she did +not hear.</p> + +<p>"You know about him—about the boy? Of course, everyone in town does. He +didn't die. He's been away—in college. I never wanted him to see this +place. But now he's come back—you know all about it. He's in jail. +We've been thinking perhaps you could do something—that you would help +us."</p> + +<p>Her high, clear, staccato voice, easily audible far, now showed her own +keyed-up condition.</p> + +<p>Judge Henderson raised a large white hand. "My dear Madam," said he, +himself very far from calm, "let us be calm! Let us above all things be +calm and practical."</p> + +<p>Aurora Lane's face froze into a sudden icy mask of wonder, of +astonishment. She gulped a little. "I'm trying to be calm. I'm +desperate, or I'd never have come here. You know that."</p> + +<p>He was mumbling and clucking in his throat, gesturing imploringly, +trying to stop her swift speech, which might be overheard, but she went +on, not understanding.</p> + +<p>"Until just now I was so happy. He was done with his schooling—ready to +go out at his work. The expenses were very heavy for us, but we've +managed. Look!"</p> + +<p>She drew from her worn pocketbook the single bill that she had left in +all the world, a tight-creased, worn thing. "In some way I've managed to +hold on to this," said she. "It's all I've got left in all the world. +That's my twenty-odd years of savings—except what I've spent to bring +up my boy. I've got no more."</p> + +<p>"My dear Madam," said Judge Henderson again, sighing, "life certainly +has its trials at times." A remark sufficiently banal to pass muster +with both his hearers, Aurora Lane here and Anne Oglesby in the room +beyond. But, still ignorant of any other auditor, Aurora went on as +though she had not heard him:</p> + +<p>"I thought I'd come and talk to you—at last. If only Don could get out, +I'd be willing to leave with him. We'd never trouble anybody any more." +Her face was turned to him beseechingly.</p> + +<p>"I know, of course, that you could save him if you liked.... I've had a +pretty hard time of it. Don't you want to do this for him—for us—how +can you <i>help</i> wanting to? You, of all men! My God! Oh, my God!"</p> + +<p>"Hush! Hush! Don't speak so loud! Pray compose yourself, my dear Madam," +exclaimed Judge Henderson, himself so far from composed. His own face +was ghastly in its open apprehension. "He's ruined himself, that's all, +that boy," he concluded lamely.</p> + +<p>She stood before him, stony cold, for a time, growing whiter and whiter.</p> + +<p>"And what about my own ruin? What does it leave to me, if they take my +boy—all I have in the world? I didn't think you could hesitate a +moment—not even you!" Her voice, icy cold, was that of another woman.</p> + +<p>He turned from her, flinging out his hands. "He has disgraced you——" +he began, still weakly; for he at least knew he was doubly on the +defensive now, before these two women, terrible in their love.</p> + +<p>"No, he has not!" flared Aurora Lane at last. "If I've had disgrace it's +not through any fault of his. If he raised a hand in my defense, it was +the first man's hand that has been raised for me in all this town—in +all my life!"</p> + +<p>She held before him again the tight-folded little bill, seeking with +trembling fingers to unfold it so that he might see its pitifully small +denomination. She shook it in his face in sudden rage. "That's my life +savings! If there was such a thing as justice in the world, would I be +helpless as this—so helpless that I could find it possible to come here +to talk to you? Justice? Justice! Ah, my God in heaven!"</p> + +<p>Aurora Lane's voice was slightly rising. She was fronting him in the +last courage of despair. "You'd see that boy perish—you'd let him die? +If I thought that was true, I'd be willing to do everything I could to +ruin this town. I'd pull the roof down on it if I were strong enough. +I'd throw myself away, indeed. I'd curse God—I'd die. Above all, I'd +curse you, with my last breath."</p> + +<p>Anne, in the next room, rooted in the horror of her silence, could not +have heard his reply, but almost she might have pictured him, standing +white, ghastly, trembling, as he was when he heard these words.</p> + +<p>"But you can't do it—you can't deny him—he's a human being like +yourself—he's part of——Ah, you'll get him free, I know!" Aurora's +voice was pleading now. Judge Henderson's own voice was hoarse, +unnatural, when at last he got it.</p> + +<p>"Look at this message," he croaked, in a half whisper; and showed her +the crumpled bit of paper which he had held in his own hand. He beckoned +to her—yet again—for silence, but she did not understand.</p> + +<p>"What is it?" asked Aurora. "What do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"From the state's attorney! I have accepted this retainer. I'm of the +prosecution! You have come too late. What can I do?"</p> + +<p>"Prosecution—what do you mean? Prosecute him—<i>Don</i>? Too late—my God! +Am I always too late—is it always in all the world for me—too late! +Prosecute <i>him</i>? What do you <i>mean</i>?"</p> + +<p>The sudden, wailing cry broke from her. Then her voice trailed off into +a whisper—a whisper which might have been heard very far—which was +heard through the half-closed door which led to the inner room. "Too +late!" And at length the long-tried soul of Aurora Lane broke out in a +final and uncontrolled rebellion, all bounds down, all restraint +forgotten, every instinct at last released of its long fettering:</p> + +<p>"You disown him—you'd disown your own flesh and blood—you'd let him +die! Why, you'd betray your own Master for the price of office and of +honor! Oh, I know, I know! The limelight! Publicity! Oh, you Judas!—Ah, +Judas! Judas! You, his father! <i>Your own son!</i>"</p> + +<p>Then sobs, deep, convulsive.</p> + +<p>Came sudden rustling of garments in the adjoining room. The intervening +door was flung wide. Anne Oglesby, her face pale, tense, came out into +the room where stood these two.</p> + +<p>"What is this?" she demanded of Judge Henderson. "This is Mrs. Lane? +<i>Don's your son?</i>"</p> + +<p>She turned to Aurora inquiringly.</p> + +<p>"I have heard—I could not help hearing. His father! Don told me his +father was dead. What's all this? Tell me!"</p> + +<p>For a moment they stood apart, three individuals only. Then, slowly, +with subtle affiliation of sex, the women drew together, allied against +the man.</p> + +<p>It was Anne who again was first to speak. Her voice was high, clear, +cold as ice, with a patrician note which came from somewhere out of the +past.</p> + +<p>"Let me have all this quite plain," said she. "Mrs. Lane said 'flesh and +blood!' Mrs. Lane said '<i>your own son!</i>' I heard her. What does it +mean?"</p> + +<p>"This is what it means!" said Aurora Lane, suddenly drawing Anne to her +closely, after her one swift glance. "My boy's in jail. This—this +man—Judge Henderson—is his father. He says he's hired to murder +him—and he's our child."</p> + +<p>"I didn't know!" broke out Judge Henderson, now facing both his hearers. +"I never knew! You said he was dead—you told me so. It's all half a +lifetime ago. I've had nothing to do with you, nor you with me, since we +broke off more than twenty years ago. That was as you wished. God! I was +only a man. You <i>said</i> the child died."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Aurora Lane, turning to Anne; "that's true—I did. I told +that one lie to protect the boy. I sent him away when he was a baby to +protect him. I said he was dead—to protect him—to keep him from ever +knowing. But you know—you saw him—you <i>felt</i> it—you must have known, +yesterday." She confronted the trembling man once more.</p> + +<p>"Yesterday?" said Anne Oglesby.</p> + +<p>"Yes. There was another trial then—and Judge Henderson prosecuted then +also!" She turned again to him for his answer.</p> + +<p>"I dropped the case."</p> + +<p>"You dropped it because you were paid to drop it! You traded another man +out of his own life's ambition—a better man than you are—that's what +you did when you dropped the case. There's nothing more to trade—we've +nothing more to pay—but how can you prosecute him—now—when his very +life's at stake—when he's charged with murder? The punishment's death! +You'd send him to the gallows now—my boy—and yours? You didn't know +him then! Is it likely? Don't lie about it—if you didn't know him, +<i>why</i> didn't you? Were you so busy looking at your own picture on the +wall—so wrapped up in your own ambitions, that you couldn't see +anything else? Couldn't you see your own flesh and blood—and mine? +What's twenty years? Haven't I lived them, and wouldn't I know +him—didn't I—when I saw him? You Judas!"</p> + +<p>Motionless, she stood looking at the speechless man before her, until +she felt the closer drawing to her of the tall young beauty at her side.</p> + +<p>"And you're Anne?" she said, turning to the girl, her own large dark +eyes now soft. "I know. He loves you, Don. Has he said good-by to you? +Has he said he wasn't worthy of you, because he had—no father? <i>This</i> +is his father—Don's father—Judge William Henderson. He'll not deny it. +I told Don he mustn't think of you—of all women in the world—just +because you are so close to Judge Henderson—Don's father.</p> + +<p>"Now you see why I told my boy that lie—I didn't want him ever to know +his father—yes, I'd told him his father was dead. And I don't want to +seem a worse liar to my own boy—I've been bad enough, the way it is."</p> + +<p>She felt Anne Oglesby's arm draw her closer yet, felt the soft warm body +of the girl against her own.</p> + +<p>"I make only trouble," said Aurora, murmuring. "And you—you're so +beautiful. I don't blame him."</p> + +<p>"I love him, too!" said Anne Oglesby steadily. "I'm not going to give +him up."</p> + +<p>Aurora Lane's tears came then.</p> + +<p>"You—you two women—" gasped Judge Henderson—"do you know what you're +doing here? Do you think I don't suffer, too?" Then Anne saw that every +accusation Aurora Lane had made was true and more than true.</p> + +<p>"About that trial yesterday"—he turned to Aurora—"I <i>did</i> have some +sort of superstitious feeling—I own that—I couldn't account for it—I +couldn't explain it. But you had assured me that your—our—er—the +child—had died in infancy. I thought—I hoped it was only my own guilty +conscience making me see things. I—I <i>have</i> had a conscience. But I +knew nothing—we'd not met for years."</p> + +<p>"That's all true," said Aurora to Anne, nodding toward Judge Henderson. +"I've scarce spoken more than twenty words to him in twenty years. I've +kept the secret, and carried the blame. Until yesterday Don never knew +about himself—about his having no father. He hasn't a guess even now +who his father was—or is—at least he'll never make the right guess. No +one has, no one ever will. They may wrong another man, but they'll not +suspect the right one."</p> + +<p>She felt the strong young arm of Anne still about her, and so went on, +nodding again toward Judge Henderson—"I asked him to defend his own +son—you heard me, then? And he's told me he's hired to hang his son! +And I called him 'Judas.' And I pray God to sink him in hell if he does +this work. After all, there must be a hell somewhere—I think there must +be. This is not right—it's not right! I've stood it all till now, but I +can't stand this."</p> + +<p>"Wait!" exclaimed Judge Henderson. "Give me time to think, I tell you! +My whole life's up on this, as well as yours. You've had twenty years to +think about this, and I've not had that many minutes. You and I've not +met, I say—our paths have lain totally apart. It was in the past—we'd +lived it down."</p> + +<p>"<i>We</i> had lived it down!" Aurora Lane's laugh was bitter enough, and she +made no other comment.</p> + +<p>Still she felt, closer and closer, the warm young body of the girl who +stood by her as the two women faced the man in the ancient and undying +battle of sex.</p> + +<p>"Well, I dropped that case," resumed Judge Henderson, "name or claim the +reason as you like. But <i>this</i> case is different——"</p> + +<p>"Why?" asked Anne Oglesby. "What's the difference between the two cases? +You say you didn't know, then. Now you know."</p> + +<p>"But I've my reputation to keep clean, Anne! The higher you climb, the +riskier the ladder. I could drop that little case yesterday, but let me +drop <i>this</i> case, with all the whole town back of it—and all my whole +political party back of it, too—that's another matter!"</p> + +<p>"Is it, indeed!"</p> + +<p>"Yes!" he rasped. "I put Judge Reeves on the bench here. It's a big +case. If I withdrew a second time—if things got stirred up and people +began to talk—why, that would be enough to put Old Hod Brooks on the +scent. He'd well enough take care of all the rest! It would be the end +of my career—in twenty minutes. There'd be nothing left of my +chances—there'd be nothing left of my reputation—the work of twenty +years would be undone. I'd be ruined!"</p> + +<p>"The work of twenty years!" whispered Aurora Lane to herself. "Twenty +years! And—ruin!" Her voice rose again. "What about us others? You're +talking about yourself, your reputation, your success—how about Don? +His <i>life's</i> at stake. So is mine—I'd not survive it if they killed my +boy."</p> + +<p>"What's he to you, anyhow?" broke out Judge Henderson—"this man Brooks? +Are you in any conspiracy of his? What's under this? What's he to you? +Was he ever—has he ever——"</p> + +<p>"Stop!" said Aurora Lane, her voice sharp, her face cameo-cold. "Not +another word!" And even the sullen and distracted soul of the man before +her acknowledged the imperative command. "You traded him out of his +place. You're trying to trade now in your own son's life! Is that—can +that really be true of any man?"</p> + +<p>"Don't bait me too far!" he rejoined savagely. "Don't you go on now and +drive me into fighting these charges."</p> + +<p>"I don't think you would, Uncle," said the calm voice of Anne Oglesby. +"I don't think you would.</p> + +<p>"So this," she added softly, "is what my guardian was! <i>In loco +parentis!</i>"</p> + +<p>The man before her writhed in his own bitter suffering, flinging out his +hands imploringly under the lash of her words.</p> + +<p>"Anne! Anne!"—Aurora turned to the girl at her side—"I wish all this +might have been spared you. You're so young! But it all had to come out +some time, I suppose, and I'd rather have you learn it from me than from +Don. You've not seen him—he has not told you?"</p> + +<p>"No. We only had a moment—not alone—just a little while ago. They took +him away—I didn't know why, till just now. We've just heard what the +coroner's jury said. But I'll not leave him till he tells me, to, and +only then if he says he doesn't love me."</p> + +<p>"He could never say that!" said Aurora Lane. "But I told him he must +leave you."</p> + +<p>"Did he say he would?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes, of course! But when I told him that, I didn't know you; and I +did not think Don ever would know who his father was. He doesn't know +even now."</p> + +<p>Judge Henderson turned suddenly, catching at a thought which came to him +from Aurora's words.</p> + +<p>"Why should anyone <i>ever</i> know!" he began. "If this whole matter could +be quieted down—if this case could be dismissed——</p> + +<p>"Would you promise me," he turned toward Aurora—"if I could manage in +some way to get all this hushed down—if I could save the boy's +life—would you promise me, both of you, never to tell a soul in the +world—never to let anyone get a breath of this? You are the only two +that really know it at all—you said, Aurora, that even the boy doesn't +know it all. Why should he, ever? It's been hid this long, why not +longer?"</p> + +<p>"Anne and I, and yourself, are the only human beings in the world who +know it all," said Aurora Lane.</p> + +<p>"Can <i>you</i> keep such a secret?" Judge Henderson turned more doubtfully +to Anne Oglesby, whose cold, quiet scorn had cut him even more deeply +than the bitterer words of the older woman.</p> + +<p>"I'd do anything for Don—anything I thought he'd be willing to have me +do. But I don't see how such a thing as this could be kept down. How can +the law be set aside?"</p> + +<p>"Listen here," he said, facing her, a little color of hope at last in +his face. "You don't in the least know what you've been starting here, +and you don't know anything about the remedy for it. The law? It's close +to politics, sometimes! If I fall—can't you see—I drag down plenty of +others—I drag down my own town—I drag down my whole judiciary—I've +been on the bench here myself. Oh, you two don't know all about how +things are done in politics. I'd drag down all the machinery of my own +party in this state—the thing would go even wider than that—I'd be +compromising the national administration itself. I tell you, it's ruin, +ruin, if this thing gets out. This is the very crisis of all my life—my +whole fate, my whole past and future, are in your hands now, and much +more beside—in the hands of you two women.</p> + +<p>"But I've got to fight the best I may," he added, walking excitedly +apart, and smiting one hand into the other. "Look here, now," and he +turned to them with a new look on his haggard face. "Your fate's <i>in my +hands</i>, too! Go beyond reason with me—threaten and goad me too far—and +I'll see what can be done to ruin you two, if you succeed in ruining +me!"</p> + +<p>"I've not asked that," said Aurora Lane. "I don't care about that. +What's revenge to me? And what's ruin? I've asked nothing of +you—nothing, but my boy's life, and never that till now. You gave it to +me once, unasked. I'm asking it again, now—his life—my boy's. I bore +him in grief and sorrow. It's your time of travail now. That's all."</p> + +<p>Judge Henderson almost wept in his own self-pity.</p> + +<p>"Think how horribly, how grotesquely unjust all this is," his voice +trembled—"raking up all the deeds of a man's youth. The past ought to +be <i>forgotten</i>. A man's past——"</p> + +<p>"Or a woman's?" said Aurora.</p> + +<p>"Well, yes, or a woman's. But it's men like me who have to build up +things, do things, administer things, wisely and justly. I've been a +judge on the bench here, before the world, I say. And here you two +women—why, it's ghastly, it's terrible, its <i>criminal</i>. Your dragging +me down—it—it's a hellish thing to do."</p> + +<p>"What? What's that?" The voice of Aurora Lane rose again. "If there's +any hell, it's for a false judge. You once sat on the bench, +yonder—yes. Oh, Judas—worse—you are ten times worse than Judas!—Drag +you down—drag all the town, all the state, all the society down? Why, +yes, I would if I could! I will, I will!"</p> + +<p>But, sobbing as she was, and desperate, she felt the light hand of Anne +Oglesby now swiftly patting her shoulder for silence. The girl faced her +guardian with the same light smile on her lips, cool and contemptuous.</p> + +<p>"Wait a minute, Uncle," she said. "A moment ago you spoke of our fate +being in your hands, too—of one ruin offset against another. Come now, +you're a trader—you have been all your life, Uncle—it seems you're +always willing to trade in the practice of the law. That's how you've +got up where you are."</p> + +<p>Her smile, her words, cut him beyond measure, but he clung to his idea.</p> + +<p>"Very well, then. Now, suppose we trade!" He spoke sneeringly, but +inwardly he was trembling, for he knew not what moment Aurora Lane might +publicly make good her threat.</p> + +<p>"What can he mean?" Aurora turned to Anne. But Anne, shrewder at the +time, broke in: "Leave him alone. Let him go on."</p> + +<p>"Well, now," said Judge Henderson, and actually half began to clear his +throat, so sweet did his new thought appear to him, "as I was +saying—there's no actual indictment yet—there's been no trial—the +coroner has only held him over. Say I'd take on this prosecution, +ostensibly—ostensibly—conditionally—ostensibly—to keep down any +suspicion; and then, later on, after several continuances and delays, +you know, and the disappearance of all the witnesses for the +state—hum!—yes, I'll say it might be done. I'm not sure it couldn't be +done more or less easily, now I come to think of it—I know Reeves, and +I know how much he'd like to be governor of this state—they have to +come downstate every once in a while for available timber.</p> + +<p>"So, my dear girl," he turned to Anne in virtuous triumph, "after all, +since this would do two things—save the boy's life and save my +reputation, it might not be discreditable to be what you call a +'trader'!" There really was exultation in his smile.</p> + +<p>"What do you want for it?" asked Anne Oglesby coldly. "Where would it +leave Don? In jail indefinitely?"</p> + +<p>"I could not state it more precisely! <i>He looks like me!</i> Oh, I'll admit +that—my feeling was right, my conscience was right! He <i>is</i> my son. +But <i>because</i> he is and <i>because</i> he looks like me, he's got to stay in +jail where he'll not be <i>seen</i>,—a year or two, perhaps. There can't be +any bail."</p> + +<p>The two white-faced women looked each into the other's face, sad-eyed. +Anne's breath came tremblingly. "It's the best we can do!" said she at +last; and Aurora, seeing how it was, nodded mutely.</p> + +<p>"What do you want for it, Uncle?" demanded Anne contemptuously again.</p> + +<p>"I want—silence!" said he harshly, at last beginning to assert himself. +"Silence! And I've got to be sure about it."</p> + +<p>Suddenly he pulled open a drawer in the table before him. The women +started, fearing a weapon; but it was only a book he drew out—an old, +dusty book, the edges of its leaves once gilded—a copy of the Holy +Scriptures, very old and dusty.</p> + +<p>Judge Henderson by accident now saw the fly leaf, for the first time in +years. It was the little Bible his own father had given him, half a +lifetime ago, when he was first starting out into the practice of the +law. On the yellowed leaf in paled ink could still be seen the +inscription his father had written there in Latin for his son:</p> + +<p>"<i>Filio meo; Crede Deo.</i>—To my son; Believe in God!"</p> + +<p>"Will you swear on the Bible?" demanded Judge Henderson, "both of you, +that you'll never tell nor hint a word of this to any human being in the +world—not even to him—the boy?"</p> + +<p>The hand which held the dusty little volume was trembling, but Judge +Henderson was not thinking of his own father, nor of the inscription in +the little book.</p> + +<p>"Yes!" said Aurora Lane at once. But Anne Oglesby raised a hand for +pause.</p> + +<p>"I'll not swear to keep back anything from him, my husband. I'm not sure +I could."</p> + +<p>"Your husband——"</p> + +<p>"I'm going to marry him, unless he sends me away."</p> + +<p>"It can't be soon—it may be very long—it will be years——" Judge +Henderson was getting back a little color now, a little +self-assertiveness, a little more readiness to argue.</p> + +<p>"I can wait," said Anne. "But I can't buy him cheap—Don wouldn't let +me. I know who his father is, and he ought to know it, too. That's his +right."</p> + +<p>"Anne," said Aurora Lane, "I denied him that right. You got my secret by +accident. Can't you keep it, too? It's a heavy weight that Judge +Henderson has laid on more than one woman—a load to be borne by three +women, myself, Miss Julia, and you. But this is to save Don's life."</p> + +<p>"You'll swear secrecy on the Book?" broke in Judge Henderson.</p> + +<p>"Yes!" said Anne Oglesby at length. "If you'll swear to perjure yourself +against your oath of office as judge and as attorney—as you've said you +would—I'll swear. Is that the trade?"</p> + +<p>"It's the only hope he has, the only hope that you have, and the only +hope that I have. Absolute silence! Absolute secrecy! I'm going to save +him—but I'm going to save my own self, too." A slight color was in +Henderson's gray face.</p> + +<p>"Oh, you trader!" said Anne Oglesby, all her scorn for him now patent, +fully voiced. "You sepulcher of a man! You failure! Oh, yes, yes, I'll +swear! And I'll keep my oaths and my promises all my life, so help me +God! Lift up the Book! You, too, Aurora."</p> + +<p>"I swore it twenty years ago," said Aurora Lane. "I will again. You +Judas! You coward! Lift up the Book! Lift it up, so that I may see! Is +that the book they call the Bible—that tells of love and mercy, and +truth, and justice, and forgiveness of sins? Lift it up, so that I may +see!"</p> + +<p>They faced him, their right hands raised, and he held up the Book, his +thumb under the cover, exposing the inscription which he had not seen +for years and did not now see.</p> + +<p>"As you believe in God!" began Judge William Henderson.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h2> + +<h3>AURORA AND ANNE</h3> + + +<p>When Judge Henderson passed down the office stair, and out across the +street toward the narrow little brick walk of the courthouse—which even +on that day of the week now held a certain crowd—so disturbed, so +preoccupied, was he that he gave no greeting to one or two belated +loiterers about the store fronts.</p> + +<p>"I reckon that young feller'll get his dose now," said old Aaron +Craybill, demi-chorus to this tragedy, following with his bleared eyes +the tall and well-groomed figure, frock-coated, top-hatted, which now +was passing toward the temple of justice. "I wouldn't like to have no +man like the Jedge after me if I'd done what that boy done. He's a-going +to get <i>hung</i>, that's what's going to happen to him. Everybody knows +Slattery ain't big enough for this case. With a 'Nited States Senator +a-prosecutin' it, though, and ten reporters from the cities—well, I +guess Spring Valley'll be heard from some!"</p> + +<p>"I wonder when the funer'l's goin' to be," said his neighbor, Silas +Kneebone. "Of course Rawlins is goin' to preach the sermon. He's good on +funer'ls. Seems like he's e'en—a'most as comfortin' at a funer'l as +ary minister you could get in this town—and there's quite some +ministers here, too."</p> + +<p>They hurried on away now presently even as Judge Henderson disappeared +in the courthouse door. A strain of music had come to their ears, the +sound of reeds and brasses.</p> + +<p>"Thar's the band now!" exclaimed Aaron Craybill. "Knight Templar, too! +They're goin' over to the hall to practice for the funer'l. Come on +ahead! Hurry, Silas!"</p> + +<p>Down the street, audible also through the open windows of Judge +Henderson's office, came the music. Jerome Westbrook had hastened from +his duties on the coroner's jury only to assume his labors as leader of +the Spring Valley Silver Cornet Band; and as it was the duty of that +band to head the procession of the Knights Templar in the funeral march +of Joel Tarbush, himself a brother of the order, it seemed that a +certain rehearsal in the infrequent effort of playing under march was +needful on this Sabbath day.</p> + +<p>Slow-paced, with swords reversed and even step, with eyes looking +neither to the right nor to the left, following the music of the wailing +horns, the muffled tapping of the drums, it came now into the civic +center of the town, this solemn procession. At its head walked Saunders, +master in the order, his opportunity now at hand; and behind him, in +full regalia, came many others, all the leading citizens of this +community, the pillars of the church, the props of the business +structure of this village, the leaders and formers of its customs and +its social order; all these anxious that the appearance of the secret +order in public should be in all ways above reproach, even at cost of +this quasi-public rehearsal. Joel Tarbush dead was receiving more +tribute than ever had Joel Tarbush living.</p> + +<p>In accordance with ritual or custom, after the actual march to the tomb, +the musicians must render that selection which has spoken for so many +hearts bowed down in weight of woe; but Jerome Westbrook knew that his +men needed practice on Pleyel's Hymn; so they gave it now tentatively, +in advance, as they passed through the public square on the way to the +hall. To the strained senses of Aurora Lane, still sitting with Anne in +the office where they had lingered, the wailing of the music seemed a +thing unbearable. She caught her hands to her ears.</p> + +<p>"Oh, God!" she whispered. "Oh, God! If only they would not."</p> + +<p>The white, sad-faced young woman at her side took her trembling hand in +her own. "It will pass," said she. "Everything passes. You have been +brave all these years. I ought to be brave too! even now—after what +you've told me."</p> + +<p>"And I never knew you," said Aurora Lane after a time. "Not many women +have ever said much to me."</p> + +<p>"Nor did I know you," rejoined Anne Oglesby. "You were a stranger to me +when I saw you now, right here—Don's mother! We were so excited, Don +and I, that I never identified you two, although—yes—I knew—something +about—about——What shall I call you—you see, maybe I'll be your +daughter yet."</p> + +<p>"Some call me—Mrs. Lane. Some—Miss Lane. You can't call me 'mother.' +For most part I am the village milliner, my dear—nothing more than +that. I'm nobody. But generally, I'm 'Aurora Lane.' ... Now you know it +all. I'm so sorry for you, my dear girl. You're fine—you're splendid. +You're a good girl; and you're so very beautiful. If only you belonged +with—with him—with me. It's too bad for you."</p> + +<p>Anne Oglesby, the more composed of the two, impulsively stroked back the +thick ruff of auburn hair from Aurora's face. "You mustn't bother about +me," she said.</p> + +<p>"But I must bother about you! You must give him up. My dear, my dear, it +can't be! I'm just learning now how hard that would be for him because +it's so hard for me."</p> + +<p>"He kissed me," said Anne Oglesby simply. "After that it was too late."</p> + +<p>"Why, what do you mean, my dear?"</p> + +<p>"He didn't have to do anything more after that," said Anne Oglesby +slowly. "He had not had time to say anything before that."</p> + +<p>"He should not have kissed you," said Aurora Lane. "But that was his +farewell to you."</p> + +<p>"It was not farewell!" said Anne Oglesby. "It was our beginning! I will +<i>not</i> give him up. If he had not kissed me—just when he did—just as he +did—I would not have known! I'm glad!"</p> + +<p>Aurora Lane looked at her searchingly, slowly.</p> + +<p>"Poor girl!" said she. "Dear girl! He could not help loving you—I +cannot help it myself. You are the only woman in the world, I think, for +him."</p> + +<p>"I am not good enough," said Anne Oglesby stoutly. But then suddenly she +cast both her strong young arms about the neck of Aurora Lane and +dropped her head upon Aurora's shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes I am!" she said; "oh, yes I <i>am</i>! I know I must have been meant +for him, or else—else—"</p> + +<p>But she did not as yet reveal the secret of the Sphinx. They both fell +silent.</p> + +<p>"Ah, sacrifice!" said Aurora, wearily, after a time. "Sacrifice always +for the woman. We are all so bent on that."</p> + +<p>"There's much more than that," said Anne Oglesby, sagely. "Besides, +sacrifice itself is not an odious thing. You sacrificed much of your +life, your happiness, your freedom. Are you sorry for that now, or +proud?"</p> + +<p>"Dear girl!" murmured Aurora Lane, patting her on the shoulder. "Ah, you +sweet girl! If you could only just remain always this young and +wise—and ignorant!"</p> + +<p>But Anne Oglesby seemed not to hear her. She was looking out of the +window musingly now, her yellow-gloved hands supported on her +tight-rolled umbrella, her hat making a half-shadow for her dark hair +and her clear, definite features.</p> + +<p>Now the red sun ball, having well completed its circuit over the parched +and breathless town, was sinking to yet another lurid sunset. There lay +over all a blanket of that humid heat which so often arrests activity in +communities such as this, situated in the interior, where few cooling +breezes come. The dry, dust-covered leaves of the maples hung unmoved. +Here and there, still hitched to the iron piping which served as a rail +on all sides of the courthouse fence, stood the teams of farmers still +tarrying, unwilling to face the hot ride home from town, even though the +duty of church attendance was long since past. A murder and a funeral—a +Knights Templar funeral—Spring Valley had never known the like! And +there was going to be a trial—a murder trial. Court would sit tomorrow. +What village could ask more than was the portion of Spring Valley in +these few hurrying days? And it was her boy, 'Rory Lane's; and she'd +fooled everybody—but now——! Spring Valley licked its chops as it said +"But now——"</p> + +<p>The two women in Judge Henderson's office sat still in the sultry heat, +looking out of the window over the sultry, sordid, solemn little town; +how long they did not know; until now there came again across the +heat-hazy spaces of the maples, over the hot tops of the two-storied +brick buildings, the sound of the wailing music—the same music which +may come from the noblest organs of the world, the same music which may +have pealed on fields of battle after heroes have fallen, speaking, as +music may, of a soul passed, of a life ended, so soon to be forgot. For +a time let the wailing of the horns, the tapping even of these unskilled +drums, record the duty of this man's fellows to give him at least a +moment's full remembrance.</p> + +<p>In this hot lifeless air of the somber Sabbath afternoon the burden of +sorrow, the weight of solemnity, seemed yet heavier and more oppressive. +If a soldier dies the music plays some lilting air which speaks +forgetfulness on the march home; but now, for the second time came this +reiterated mournful wailing for a passing soul. The band had learned its +lesson by now. The dirge for the dead arose in a volume well regulated +and sustained as the men marched from the hall at last for the final +trial on the street.</p> + +<p>To the tapping rhythm of the anthem of the dead, sometimes such a +community as this does take thought—these uniforms are justified, these +white plumes, these reversed swords are justified; for an humble man who +has passed is dignified before his fellow men; and he has had his +tribute. Sometimes at least men thus stand shoulder to shoulder, heads +bared, and forget envy, backbiting, little jealousies, forget cynicism +and ridicule. The diapason of the drums surely had its hearing. It sank +deep to the soul of Aurora Lane, striking some chord long left +unresponsive.</p> + +<p>"Anne!" said she, her hand lying in that of the wet-eyed girl at her +side, "it's over—for him."</p> + +<p>The girl nodded. But after all, Anne was young. She raised her head in +the arrogance of youth, even as there passed more and more remotely the +mournful cadence of the drums.</p> + +<p>"But he was old!" she said, defensively. All of youth and hope was in +her protest.</p> + +<p>Aurora turned upon her her own large eyes, dark-ringed today. Her mouth, +long drawn down in resolution, was wondrous sweet now as it trembled a +little in its once ripe red fulness. It became the mouth of a young +woman—not made for sorrow. "You still can hope, then?" she smiled. And +Anne nodded, bravely. So, seeing replica of her own soul, Aurora Lane +could do no more nor less than to fold her in her own arms, the two +understanding perfectly a thousand unsaid things.</p> + +<p>"But come!" said Anne Oglesby at last. "We must make plans. There's a +lot to be done yet, and we must start."</p> + +<p>"I have no money," said Aurora Lane. "I don't know what to do."</p> + +<p>"Money isn't everything," said Anne Oglesby, with the assurance of those +who have all the money that they need. "I suppose I have plenty of money +if my guardian will let me have it."</p> + +<p>"Even if your guardian allowed it," said Aurora Lane proudly, "Don would +not. He would not let you help him, nor would I, though we are +paupers—worse than that. Did you know that, Anne?"</p> + +<p>"I am finding out these things one by one," was the girl's reply. "But +they have come after my decision." She spoke with her own quaint +primness and certainty of her mind.</p> + +<p>"There's just one man could help us," said Aurora Lane, hesitating, and +coloring a trifle. "I mean Mr. Brooks, Horace Brooks. He's a good +lawyer. Some say he is the equal of Judge Henderson—I don't know. You +heard what Judge Henderson said of him. It's fear of Horace Brooks, as +much as his own conscience, that's influencing Judge Henderson."</p> + +<p>"And why couldn't we go to Horace Brooks then?" demanded Anne Oglesby. +"What is the objection—why can't you go to him?"</p> + +<p>"I'd rather not tell you," said Aurora Lane, and in spite of herself +felt the color rise yet more to her face.</p> + +<p>Anne Oglesby sat looking at her for some time in silence. "There are +complications sometimes, are there not?" said she. So silence fell +between them.</p> + +<p>The drums had passed by now. The sun had almost sunk to the edge of the +last row of dust-crowned maples. The farmers here and there below were +unhitching the sunburned horses at the courthouse rail.</p> + +<p>"I see," said Anne at length. "You love him—or did—Don's father. Or do +you still pity him!"</p> + +<p>"Who are you?" said Aurora Lane, looking at her steadfastly. "You, so +young! You talk of pity. Where have you learned so much—so soon? When +you grow older, perhaps you may find it hard <i>not</i> to forgive. +Everything's so little after all, and it's all so soon over."</p> + +<p>Unsmilingly Anne Oglesby held her peace. "Why don't you want to ask Mr. +Brooks to act as our attorney?" she asked. "And who is he—I don't know +him, you see."</p> + +<p>Aurora did not answer the first part of her question. "I'll tell you +where Mr. Brooks' office is," said she—"you see that little stair just +across the courthouse yard? Sometimes he spends Sunday afternoon in his +office. It's—well—it's hard for me to go over there and ask him."</p> + +<p>"Has he—has he—ever been much to you?" asked Anne Oglesby, directly.</p> + +<p>"In a way, yes," said Aurora Lane, quite truthfully, but flushing red. +"Outside of my own son, he is the only man that's ever raised voice or +hand in my defense here in this town. Beyond that—don't ask me."</p> + +<p>Anne Oglesby did not ask her beyond that. But when she spoke, there was +decision in her tones.</p> + +<p>"It is no doubt your duty to go to Mr. Brooks at once. Will he too +refuse us?"</p> + +<p>Aurora Lane's face remained flushed in spite of herself.</p> + +<p>"I don't think he will refuse," said she. "But only Don's danger would +ever induce me to ask him for any help. I'll ask him—for Don and you."</p> + +<p>Twilight fell, and they still sat silent. There came at last the +footfalls on the office stairs, and the two arose in the dim light to +face the door.</p> + +<p>Judge Henderson entered slowly, hesitatingly. He half started as, +looking within the unlightened room, he saw standing silhouetted against +the window front the tall, trimly-clad figure of his ward, and at her +side, equally tall, the dim, vague outline of Aurora, clad in black. The +two stood hand in hand, and for the time made no speech.</p> + +<p>"I must go," said Aurora Lane, at length.</p> + +<p>Anne would have passed out with her, but her guardian raised a hand. "I +must ask you where you are going?" said he.</p> + +<p>"Not with me," said Aurora, quickly. "No, no, you must not." And so, +quickly hurrying down the stair, she herself turned into the open +street.</p> + +<p>"Anne," said Judge Henderson, "I am deeply distressed. This all is +terrible—it's an awful thing. Did you hear that funeral march? God! an +awful thing, right when I am in this terrible dilemma. I've just been on +the long distance 'phone trying to get Slattery—I can't find either him +or Reeves; and I've got to act before court actually opens."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean by a dilemma?" she asked coldly. "Does any dilemma +last long with you, Uncle, when there is any question of your own +self-interest?"</p> + +<p>His face flushed under the cool insolence of her tone. "It's a fine +courtesy you have learned in your schooling!"</p> + +<p>"Have you heard all her history now?" he asked after an icy pause.</p> + +<p>"Not all of it, no. Enough to admire her, yes. Enough to understand how +this town feels toward her, yes. Why don't you all burn her as a witch +in the public square?"</p> + +<p>"You have a bitter tongue, Anne," said he. "You are not like your +sainted mother."</p> + +<p>"A while ago you said I was! But my sainted mother, whom I never knew, +never found herself in a situation such as this," rejoined Anne Oglesby. +"At least, while my father lived, she had a man to fend for her. I have +none. We are women only in this case."</p> + +<p>"So it was your plan to marry a nameless man? You've sworn he always +shall be nameless." The man's face showed a curious mixture of eagerness +and anxiety. He wished to argue, to expound, but dared not face this +young girl with the icy smile.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I've sworn silence. It is a great and grave responsibility," said +she. "I'm sadder for that, that's true. But there are many things in the +world besides just being happy, don't you think? You see, I've no +dilemma at all!"</p> + +<p>Judge Henderson passed a hand over his forehead. He had fought hard +cases at the bar, but never had he fought a case like this.</p> + +<p>"Anne," said he presently, "I'm very weary. I've had a hard day. I want +you to go on up to the house now—the servants will make you comfortable +until I come. Just now I was afraid you were going on over with Aurora +Lane to her house."</p> + +<p>"Not yet, Uncle," said she. "Perhaps at some later time, if you cast me +out."</p> + +<p>He only groaned at this thrust.</p> + +<p>She passed, a cool picture of youth, self-possessed and calm. He heard +her foot tapping fainter as it descended the stair, listened to hear if +she might come back again. But Anne went on down the street steadily, +looking straight ahead of her. Already, it seemed to her, she had grown +old. To those who saw her she seemed a beautiful young woman.</p> + +<p>"That's Don Lane's girl," said one ancient to another, back of his hand. +"Lives over at Columbus. He kissed her right there on the depot +platform, this very morning. Huh!"</p> + +<p>"I don't blame him," rejoined the other, with a coarse laugh. "But he +ain't apt to get many more chances now. I wonder how he fooled her about +himself—and her the judge's ward, or something."</p> + +<p>"Nerve?" said his friend. "He's got nerve enough to a-done anything. But +I guess they got him dead to rights this time."</p> + +<p>"Yeh. The <i>town's</i> got him dead to rights. No matter what the law——" +he stopped, his head up, as though sniffing at something in the air. +"Gawd!" said he. "Wasn't that music a awful thing! I can feel it in my +bones right now. It makes me feel——"</p> + +<p>"It makes a feller feel like doing something more'n being just sad! It +makes a feller feel like—well——"</p> + +<p>"Like <i>startin'</i> something!"</p> + +<p>The other nodded, grimly, his mouth caved in at the corners, tight shut +now.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV</h2> + +<h3>THE ANGELS AND MISS JULIA</h3> + + +<p>Anne scarcely had left the office when Judge Henderson, stepping into +the inner room, pulled open a certain door of a cabinet beneath the +washhand-stand. He drew forth a half-filled bottle of whisky, shook it +once meditatively, and poured himself an adequate drink, refreshing +himself with water at the tap. He stood for a moment, the half-emptied +glass in his hand, looking at his features in the little glass which +hung above the cabinet.</p> + +<p>Not an unpleasant face it seemed to him; for so slowly had the lines +come in his features, so slowly the gray in his hair, that almost he was +persuaded they were not there at all. Delayed by the mirror to the +extent of having consumed but half of his refreshing draft, yet +purposing further imbibition, Judge Henderson paused at the sound of +some person ascending the outer stair.</p> + +<p>It was a very halting and uncertain step that came this time, one which +seemed to double on each lift of the stair, with an accentuating +tap-tap, as of a stick used in aid. But after a time he sensed its pause +at his door. There was a rap, a faint little rap, although the door +itself was ajar. Judge Henderson discreetly returned to the cabinet his +half-finished glass of whisky and water, and stepped into the other +room.</p> + +<p>It was Miss Julia Delafield whom he met.</p> + +<p>She was standing, her hand on the knob of the door, as if seeking +support, or rather as though ready for flight. Her eyes were especially +large and luminous now, as always they were when any supreme emotion +governed her. Her cheeks were flushed in that fashion which she never +yet had learned to control. Her smooth brown hair was held tightly back +under her cool summer hat, and the hands resting on her smooth-topped +cane were well gloved. Not ill-looking she was as she stood, stooped a +trifle, bent over a bit.</p> + +<p>She was half a-tremble now with the excitement that she felt. To any +chance observer, even at this hour of this Sabbath day, it must have +seemed that here was only a client come with purpose of consultation +with an attorney. To the angels above who looked down on such matters as +this, it must have seemed a pathetic scene, this in which Miss Julia +figured now. To any human being knowing all the facts it must have been +apparent that this call upon Judge Henderson was Miss Julia Delafield's +great adventure.</p> + +<p>It <i>was</i> her great adventure—the greatest ever known in all her life; +and she had dared it now only because of two of the strongest emotions +known to a woman's soul. These are two. They both come under a common +name. That name is love.</p> + +<p>It was love had brought Miss Julia hither. Love in the first place for +Dieudonné Lane—or was it, really, in the first place, love for him? For +we, who know as much as Aurora Lane knew of Miss Julia's secret—who +once saw her gazing adoringly at a certain framed portrait when she +fancied herself alone—would have known that there was more than one +mansion in the heart of the little lame librarian.</p> + +<p>Helpless, resigned—but yet a woman—Miss Julia loved in the first place +as every woman with any touch of normality does love in spite of all. +She had known all these years that her love was hopeless, that it was +wrong, that it was a sin—she classed it as her sin. And her sin being +her own, she hugged it to her bosom and wept over it these twenty +years—became repentant over it—became defiant for it; prayed over it +and clung to it—in short, comported herself as any woman would. And now +Miss Julia, being what she was, stood flushed, her tiding pulses rising +to her eyes, staining her fair skin deep to her very neck, as she faced +her great adventure—as she stood looking into the face she had framed +on her wall, framed on her desk, framed in her heart as well, in silver +and gold and all the brilliants and the gems of a woman's soul.</p> + +<p>But she was here by reason of a twofold love. Always in her heart, +since she could remember, there had been the great secondary longing for +something small to love, to hold in her arms—the desire for a child of +her own—the one thing which, as Miss Julia knew, might never be for +her.</p> + +<p>Indeed, this great craving had always remained unformulated, +unidentified, until that time, years and years ago, when she first saw +the baby of Aurora Lane lifting up its hands to her. So she had become +one-half a mother, at the least.</p> + +<p>He was half her boy, at least, he who now lay in prison. A woman is a +coward as to revealing her love for her chosen mate—she will conceal +that, deny that, to the death. But for the child her love is +different—then she becomes bold—she will defy all the world—will +force herself even into situations otherwise unthinkable. Except for her +love for Don Lane, the fatherless, Miss Julia would never have +undertaken to find a father for him.</p> + +<p>But that child had a father! Each must have. Ah! how must the angels +have wept over that piteous spectacle of Miss Julia in her own room, +looking smilingly at the face she saw pictured here in her own hand—the +face of one whom she held to be a great man, a noble man, a man good, +just, wise, one with love and kindness in his heart as well as brawn and +brains in his physical self. Yes, there was a father.... And he was +perfect, heroic, for her; her love being thus much blessed by that +divine blindness love works within us all.</p> + +<p>Now, the face which Miss Julia saw in her boudoir, the face which she +saw framed upon the wall of her library room, was the same which she saw +now close at hand! She started, flushed, trembled, finding difference +between a picture and a man.</p> + +<p>Judge Henderson was urbane, as always with a woman. He led her to a +seat, taking pains to turn on another clip of the electric light, which +Miss Julia suddenly wished he had not done, since now she was most +sensible of her uncontrollable blushes.</p> + +<p>Yes, it was a great adventure! She had never before been alone with +him—not in all her life. She had never been this close to him before. +It was somewhat cruel now; but the angels have their ways of being cruel +with us at times.</p> + +<p>"Miss Julia," he began with an extra unctuousness in his tones, "Miss +Julia, my dear girl, I surely am delighted to see you here. You have +never before been here, I am persuaded—this is the first time in all +our long and pleasant acquaintance. If ever in the past I have been able +to be of service to you——"</p> + +<p>In any conversation Judge Henderson was sure to bring the talk around to +himself, to his own deeds, his own ambitions. His was an egotism so +extreme as to be almost beyond accountability—he was a moron not in +mentality but in sense of proportion. He could not have put two square +blocks together if one of these blocks had to do with the interest of +another but himself. There are such men, and at times they go far.</p> + +<p>Miss Julia flushed again prettily, but she was too much the lady to +giggle or squirm or do any of those unlovable things by which the +hopeless female makes herself more hopeless. She was used to hearing +herself addressed as "Miss Julia" by all the world; but it seemed none +the less especially sweet to hear the words in these rich, full, manly +tones. (In her diary she wrote, "He addressed me in rich, full, manly +tones.")</p> + +<p>"Yes, I came as soon as my duties allowed me to get away today, Judge. +It was a busy day for me, although it is the Sabbath. I was classifying +some of the books. Thanks to your generosity, we have just received a +good shipment.</p> + +<p>"But you see, the town is all wrapped up in all these other things that +have happened—that's why I came, Judge Henderson."</p> + +<p>"I presume you have reference to that unfortunate young man who now lies +in prison? In what capacity then can I serve you, Miss Julia?" His tone +now was icy and reserved.</p> + +<p>"I came to you, Judge Henderson, because I knew I would find in you a +champion for justice. Why, all the town has come to depend on you for +almost <i>everything</i>! I suppose that is why I came—it seemed the +natural thing to do."</p> + +<p>Judge Henderson, regretting his half-finished glass, now impossible, +coughed behind his hand.</p> + +<p>"I am afraid, Miss Julia," said he, "that you don't quite know who he +is, that boy."</p> + +<p>"Ah, do I not! Why, he is <i>my</i> boy, my <i>own</i> boy!"</p> + +<p>"I beg pardon, but what do you mean, Miss Julia?"</p> + +<p>"I say he's my boy! What I say about that is privileged—it's +professional, Judge Henderson. No one else has heard me say what I am +telling you now. But he <i>is</i> my boy—my love has gone into him, the same +as if I were his mother."</p> + +<p>He only stared as she rushed on.</p> + +<p>"I know his mother—we have been friends here since we were girls, real +friends. I'm the only friend she's got in this town—and the only fair +and kind thing this town has ever done has been to allow me to be the +friend of Aurora Lane. I suppose that's because I am only the little +lame librarian! I don't count. She doesn't count. But—well, between us +two—we've had a boy!"</p> + +<p>He stared, pale, as she went on:</p> + +<p>"Between us two, we've brought him up. We've educated him. Between us +two, we have saved our money—it wasn't much—and we've managed to give +him something of an education, something of a life more than he could +have gotten in this town. We have put him through college—we have +given him a profession—we were going to give him a start.</p> + +<p>"I say 'we,' and I mean that. But, it isn't the money of mine that went +into him—it's my <i>love</i>—it's the <i>love</i> I felt for him! Why, Judge, +I've seen him grow up. I've held him in my two hands, this way, when he +was so little ... oh, very little.... So you see, he's my boy, too!</p> + +<p>"And so," she added inconsequently, as he made no answer, "I came to +you." (What the angels understood in Miss Julia's unspoken words then +they did not make plain to the ears of the man who heard them.)</p> + +<p>Judge Henderson sat astounded, looking at her steadily, unable to grasp +all the emotion which evidently she felt, unable wholly to understand an +act of clean unselfishness on the part of any human being.</p> + +<p>"You see," said Miss Julia tremblingly, after a time—"his father—I +never knew his father. She'd never tell me—I never asked but once. But +you see, I only <i>fancied</i> that he had a father. I fancied I was his +mother. I fancied——" But now Miss Julia's voice failed her, and her +blushes alone spoke.</p> + +<p>"I see," said Judge Henderson, not unkindly, and breathing more freely, +"you fancied that you held an undivided interest in this child, this +young man." She did not see his face very plainly, did not catch his +hesitation as he engaged on this touchy theme.</p> + +<p>Miss Julia nodded rapidly, swallowing hard. Her face was very beautiful +indeed now. (The angels must have smiled with tears in their eyes as +they looked down upon her now and saw how pathetically beautiful she +was!)</p> + +<p>"And that interest is still undivided?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, we've not seen each other very much, Aurora and I, today, because +things have been traveling so fast, but we are—we are partners in this +trouble, as in everything else. We've got to have a lawyer, of course. +There's not much money left between us—even my next month's salary is +pledged. It cost more than we thought to get him through the graduation. +There were clothes, you know—many things." And now she flushed again +vividly. She was thinking of Don's little clothes, which once long ago +she had helped to sew; and the angels knew this, gravely.</p> + +<p>"He's a <i>splendid</i> young man, our boy!" she broke out again at length. +"Can't you see that? Good in his classes—and an athlete—a splendid +one. He's such a gentleman in all his ways, Judge Henderson, a son +worthy of a father, of some good father, if only he had one! His father +died, you know, when Don was just a baby." She was not looking at him +now, not daring, as she went on.</p> + +<p>"But you see, we are in trouble about him. That may come to anyone. Why, +even you yourself, Judge Henderson, successful as you are—some time +even you may know such a thing as trouble. It is the common human lot. +And I have been told enough——"</p> + +<p>"If I were in trouble," said Judge Henderson gallantly, and with a push +of a full ounce of Monongahela back of his words, "I would go to just +some such woman as you for help. But women don't seem to see any of the +intervening obstacles that exist, do they, Miss Julia?"</p> + +<p>"If we did, the world would stop," said Miss Julia, simply. And spoke a +great truth.</p> + +<p>"None the less there are obstacles," said he, after a time. "I fear +there are insuperable ones, my dear." ("He called me 'My dear!'" wrote +Miss Julia in her diary.)</p> + +<p>"Why, not at all! I can't believe that, Judge. We'll manage it all in +some way, Aurora and I. And, naturally we come to you as our +champion—who should help us if not you yourself? Do I say too much, +Judge Henderson?" she inquired timidly.</p> + +<p>"No, not too much," said he with much modesty, "not too much, I trust. I +hope I have always had, at every stage of my own career, the confidence +of all my friends in this community."</p> + +<p>There was a little pause. "But also, Miss Julia," he continued, raising +a hand, "wait a minute—wait a minute. In order to deserve the +confidence of all my friends I have always been forced to adhere to that +course which to me and my own conscience seemed just and right. I will +not undertake to disguise the truth, Miss Julia, I am already retained +for the prosecution of this case. I must not listen to you coming to ask +me to act for the defense. That at least is the present status of +affairs. I shall be guided all along by my sense of right and duty. At +present I cannot take the case for the defense."</p> + +<p>She was feeling at the head of her stick, stumblingly, half rising. +Suddenly it seemed to her that the walls were closing in upon her, that +she must get away, get out into the open.</p> + +<p>"That's cruel!" she exclaimed.</p> + +<p>"At times it is necessary for us to be cruel," said Judge Henderson, +virtuously. "If I am cruel, I regret with all my heart that it must be +cruelty to one whom so long I have held in such esteem as I do you. We +have long known your life, how exquisitely ordered it has been. I have +never known before, of course, how much it was wrapped up with this +young man's life. I am astonished at what I have learned. It is only my +own high standard of honor, my dear—that same standard to which I have +unflinchingly adhered at whatever cost it might entail upon me—which +enables me to refuse any request that you might make me. Now I am pained +and grieved, I am indeed."</p> + +<p>A tear stood in the corner of Judge Henderson's eyes. It was an argument +which he always had at hand if need were—an argument which had won him +perhaps more than one case before a jury. And now he felt himself, as +always, the central figure, appealing to a jury, extenuating, +explaining, expounding. Moreover, he felt himself misjudged, an injured +man. He did not care at the time to divulge any of the plan he but now +had confided to Aurora and Anne.</p> + +<p>"I have hurt you!" said Miss Julia, impulsively. "Oh, I would never mean +to do that." She held out a hand swiftly, in part forgetful of her +errand.</p> + +<p>He took her hand in both his own—small and white it was, and veined +somewhat, ink-stained as to some of the fingers—a hand which rested +trembling in his own. (Now, what the angels saw is not for mortals to +inquire! "He took my hand in both his own!" wrote Miss Julia in her +diary.)</p> + +<p>Judge Henderson gallantly clasped the hand and drew it a trifle closer +to his bosom. "You believe me, do you not, my dear?" said he. "It +grieves me to give you any pain. As for me, it does not matter." He +dashed the tear from his eye.</p> + +<p>But now Miss Julia's courage failed her. Her double sacrifice for the +child and the child's unknown and uncreated father had failed! She +limped toward the door. Her great adventure was ended.</p> + +<p>But, at least, she had been alone in the presence of the great man whom +she had loved these many years. And she had found him in all ways +worthy! He was still a hero in her eyes, a great man, a noble man—yes, +she was sure of that.</p> + +<p>How must the angels have sighed as Miss Julia stumbled down the stair +with this thing in her heart! For, in all her heart, she knew that, had +she been young as Aurora Lane once was young, and had such a man as this +asked of her anything—anything—she would have given! She would have +yielded gladly all she had to yield—she would have given her life into +his keeping.... For of such is the kingdom of love, if not the kingdom +of heaven. And as to that last let the angels say, who watched poor Miss +Julia as she stumbled down the stair.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI</h2> + +<h3>HORACE BROOKS, ATTORNEY AT LAW</h3> + + +<p>As for Aurora Lane, at about the time Miss Julia was leaving Judge +Henderson's office, she herself was in the office of another lawyer upon +the opposite side of the square—the man Henderson hated and feared more +than any other human being.</p> + +<p>Horace Brooks, after his usual fashion, was spending his Sunday +afternoon in his legal chambers. He lived as a bachelor, the sole +boarder of a family far out toward the edge of town—a family that had +no social standing, but that never became accustomed to the ways of Mr. +Brooks, who came and went, ate, slept, and acted, as one largely in a +trance, so occupied was he with thoughts of his business affairs. Never +was a soul less concerned with conventions or formalities than he; nor +one more absorbed, more concentrated of purpose in large things.</p> + +<p>He was sitting now, as often he might have been seen to sit, tilted back +in his chair, with his feet on his table, where rested in extreme +disorder many volumes of the law, some opened, face-down, others piled +in untidy masses here and there. Mr. Brooks had no clerk and no partner. +When he cited an authority in his library he left the book where last +it was used, and searched for it pellmell if later need arose. This same +system applied to every other article of use in the entire office—it +was all chance medley, and the pursuit of the desired article was short +or long in accordance with the luck of the searcher.</p> + +<p>Around him on the floor lay countless burned matches, a pipe or two +which scattered tobacco. The floor itself was covered layers deep with +the ruins of two Sunday papers—at which form of journalism Horace +Brooks openly scoffed, but none the less ruthlessly devoured after his +own fashion each Sabbath afternoon.</p> + +<p>He sat with his bearded chin sunk in his shirt bosom, his mild blue eye +seeing nothing at all, his hands idle in his lap. He was concluding his +Sabbath as usually he did, in the midst of the scenes surrounding his +daily toil throughout the week. He started at the sound of Aurora Lane's +knock on the door.</p> + +<p>"Come in!" he called.</p> + +<p>He supposed it was some young lawyer from one of the offices down the +hall, where struggling students, or clerks from the abstract offices, +sometimes brought knotty problems for him to solve. These folk still +lived in the rear of their offices—as indeed Horace Brooks but recently +had done himself. A disorderly couch still might have been found in the +room beyond, fragments of soap, a soiled towel or so, a broken comb, a +sidelong mirror—traces of his own humble and arduous beginnings in the +law.</p> + +<p>But he turned half about now, and dropped his feet to the floor as he +heard the rustle of a gown. He sat half leaning forward as Aurora Lane +entered. He had small training in the social usages—he did not always +rise when a woman entered the room, unless some special reason for that +act existed. So he sat for just a time, and looked at her, the fact of +her presence seeming slowly to filter into his brain. Then quickly he +stood and went forward to her, his rare smile illuminating his homely +features.</p> + +<p>"Come in," said he. "Will you be seated? Why have you come here?" He was +simple and direct of habit.</p> + +<p>Aurora Lane looked at him not only with the eyes of a client, but with +the eyes of a woman. She saw plainly the quick look of eagerness, the +swift hopefulness which came into his eyes.</p> + +<p>But she must forestall all that. "Mr. Brooks," said she, "I've come to +you for help—I need your professional services."</p> + +<p>He sat looking at her gravely for some time, the light in his face +slowly fading away. "Help?" said he. "As how?" He was of the plain +people, and at times lapsed into the colloquial inelegancies of his +early life. But he needed little divination now to know that Aurora +Lane came to him for no personal reasons that offered him any hope.</p> + +<p>"It's about my boy," said Aurora. "You know—Don."</p> + +<p>He nodded slowly. "Yes, I know—the coroner's jury has held him over."</p> + +<p>"But he's in jail."</p> + +<p>"Yes, they had that right—to hold him for the investigation of the +grand jury. And this is a grand jury matter, as you must know. Court +opens tomorrow. The grand jury sits tomorrow morning. At least the +preliminaries won't take long. But the outlook is bad, Aurora—they mean +to get him if they can."</p> + +<p>Aurora Lane for a third time that day produced from her shabby pocket +book the little worn bill which represented her sole worldly fortune. A +flush rose to her temples now as she held it hesitatingly between her +fingers.</p> + +<p>He saw it very plainly, and caught something of her meaning in the +pause. A slow red came also into his own face.</p> + +<p>"You'd better keep that for the present," said he slowly after a time. +He pushed her fingers back with the bill. "I know this is professional, +but I can't take money from you now—not that money—because I know very +well you've got none you can afford to spend. Aurora, there's no use +trying to have secrets from me—we know each other too well."</p> + +<p>"But what right do you leave me then to come to you?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know that you have any right to come to me at all," said he +slowly. "I've my own right to decline to deal with you at all in +business matters. And you come here on business."</p> + +<p>Aurora sank back into her chair. "Then what could I do?" she said +faintly.</p> + +<p>"Have you tried Henderson?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said, faintly, and with much reluctance, "I did."</p> + +<p>"Why, if you wanted me?"</p> + +<p>"I can't tell you that. But I did. He refused to have anything to do +with the defense for my boy."</p> + +<p>"Very naturally—very naturally. Didn't you know he would before you +went to ask him? Couldn't you guess that?—couldn't you have figured out +that much for your own self? Didn't you know that man? He's not with the +under dog."</p> + +<p>"It seems not," said Aurora Lane, wearily. "So I came to you."</p> + +<p>"Even after last night?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, after last night. At first it was hard to think of it."</p> + +<p>"Aurora," said he, "I reckon I'm not a very practical sort of man. If I +were—if I were a man like Judge Henderson, say, I'd clamp on the screws +right now. I'd try to get you to alter what you said to me last night."</p> + +<p>"It wouldn't be like you. You've never yet—in all our lives—done +anything like that."</p> + +<p>"No? I'm second choice—that's my fate, is it—that's as high as I get? +Yes, I reckon that's about a fair estimate of me—I'm a typical second +choice man. I suppose I'll have to accept that fact." And now he laughed +uproariously, though none too happily.</p> + +<p>"Well, Aurora," said he after a time, "you have broken in here, +anyway—just as I broke down your gate last night in my own clumsiness. +Suppose we call it quits. Let's not figure too close on the moving +consideration. There's nothing you can give Horace Brooks, attorney at +law, in the way of pay. And you need Horace Brooks—<i>only</i> as attorney +at law. What can I do for you?'</p> + +<p>"I don't know, but all that can be done now for him you can do. I've +nowhere else to go. It wasn't easy for me to come here, but I'd make any +sacrifice for my boy."</p> + +<p>"Sacrifices are at a discount in a lawyer's office. I don't ask you to +reconsider your decision, as to me—as to me as your husband. But +speaking of sacrifices, I only point out to you that so far as I'm +concerned as a lawyer in this town, I might as well be your husband or +your lover as your lawyer of record in this case! Since the trial +yesterday, and my walk home with you last night, there'll be plenty +who'll think so anyway. I may be held as a man worse than I ever +was—and neither of us gain by that."</p> + +<p>"That may be so," said she, bending her face forward in her hands. "God! +What a trial, what a risk, what a peril I am to myself and everyone I +meet! I've brought loss, suspicion, wrong on you—you who're noble! And +after twenty years——"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Aurora. Twenty years outlaws a claim in the law—for men—but not +for women. Now, I take on those twenty years of yours when I take on +this case. I'm clear about that. I can see this thing straight enough. +This town will go into two camps. Ours is the hopeless one, as things +stand now. We are the under dog. If I took this case—maybe even if I +won it—I'd be hated by the men and snubbed by the women of this town. +Now, I see all that clearly. And speaking of pay——"</p> + +<p>"Oh, if you would," she exclaimed, leaning toward him, her hands +extended, "I'd do anything you asked me. Do you understand +that—<i>anything</i>!"</p> + +<p>She paused. In the silence the little clock on the mantel ticked so loud +it seemed almost to burst the walls. He sat for a long time motionless, +and she went on, leaning yet more toward him.</p> + +<p>"I've thought it all over again," she said desperately. "I'd—I'd begin +it again—I'd do anything—I'd do <i>anything</i> you asked me——Why, I've +nothing—nothing—oh, so little to give! But—as to what you said last +night—I've thought of that. I'm ready—what is it that you wish?"</p> + +<p>He looked at her dumbly for a long time, and she thought it was in +condemnation. For almost the first time she voiced in her +life—continually on the defensive.</p> + +<p>"I don't understand it all," said she. "I've tried very hard since then. +I was so young. I didn't know much at first—I didn't feel that it was +all so wrong—I didn't know much of anything at all, don't you see?"</p> + +<p>Now he raised his great hand, his lips trembling. "Just wait a bit, my +dear," said he. "We'll take what you've said as proof of your love for +your own son. We'll let it stop right there, please. We'll forget what +happened last night at your broken gate—we'll forget what's happened +just now inside my broken gate. I told you if I ever married you I'd do +it on such a basis that I could look you in the face, and you could me. +That's the only way, Aurora. There's not any other way. I reckon I'll +always love you—but only on the square."</p> + +<p>"But what can we do—you refuse to help us—and the boy's innocent!"</p> + +<p>"Wait, my dear," said he slowly. "I've not a woman's wit, so I can't +leap on quite so fast as you do. A lawyer reads word by word. I'm still +in the preliminaries, not even into the argument of this case yet."</p> + +<p>"But you have refused—you have said it meant ruin to you—I know—I +mean that to everyone."</p> + +<p>"You've meant a great deal more than that to me, my dear," said Horace +Brooks, "and no matter what you mean—no matter what my decision may do +to my future—no matter what it may cost me in my larger ambitions, +which I entertain, or once did, the same as any other man here in +America—why, let it go."</p> + +<p>"But what are you going to do? I'm costing you everything, +everything—and I can give you nothing, nothing—and I'm asking still of +you everything, everything."</p> + +<p>"Tut, tut! Aurora," said Horace Brooks, "I'm going to take this +case—for better or for worse! Didn't I tell you I wanted to stand +between you and trouble—any trouble? A man likes to do things for a +woman—for the woman he loves."</p> + +<p>She sat for a long time, white, motionless, looking at him.</p> + +<p>"The pay——" she began stumblingly.</p> + +<p>"I'd rather not hear you say anything about that," he replied simply. +"You did not say anything at all. This is the <i>office</i> of Horace Brooks, +attorney at law. As I understand it, I'm duly retained for the defense +in the case of the state against Dieudonné Lane, charged with murder."</p> + +<p>The blood came pouring back into Aurora Lane's face as she straightened. +"You are a good man," said she. "I always knew it. I——"</p> + +<p>He raised a hand once more. "These are business hours," said he, "and +believe me, no time is left for anyone to do anything but work on this +case."</p> + +<p>"He's innocent, of course. He couldn't have done this—who was it, do +you think?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, now, I don't <i>know</i> who it was. It may have been Don himself. All +men are human. A lawyer has to look all the facts in any case square in +the face."</p> + +<p>"But, my God! You can't think—you don't believe——"</p> + +<p>"Please let me act as attorney. Now, I'm to blame in a sort of way in +this case. I started a good deal of this trouble. I gave your boy the +advice which threw him in jail—when I told him to thrash any man who +said a word against his mother—you. He's made a certain threat or two. +He's been found in very compromising circumstances indeed. The case +looks bad against him. Yes, he needs a lawyer—but he's got one! We'll +fight it through. You see," and he smiled again his wide and winning +smile, "all my life, I've had a sort of leaning for the under dog.</p> + +<p>"Now," said he, abruptly rising, "I'm in this case, and I'm going to +take my chances. I've lost my chances on the Senatorship of the United +States. I've kept my promise to Henderson and I've sent word to our +central committee. I'm the under dog. But before all this is over, the +people of Spring Valley are going to know there are two sides to this +fight—and all these fights!</p> + +<p>"Now, listen, Aurora," he went on in his careless paternal fashion, as +he walked, his great head drooped, his hands thrust into his pockets. +"Figure it over. Last night we three walked home together—before them +all. Everybody saw us. Everybody saw Tarbush. It can be proved that Don +left us and went over, following after Tarbush. It can be proved that he +was seen running away from that place—at just the wrong time—in just +the wrong way."</p> + +<p>"But it was someone else who killed him—it wasn't my boy——"</p> + +<p>"You can't convince a jury by assertions. If it was not this man, they +will ask, Who was it? Who was the other man, and why do you think so? +Now, who <i>was</i> that other man, Aurora?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know."</p> + +<p>"Neither do I. But we've got to find him. There's no trace of him. But +as for Don, the boy, it's a trail, a plain one, and it leads——" He +threw out his hands widely, as though reluctant to name the truth.</p> + +<p>"But," he went on, "if he isn't guilty someone else is guilty. Under +this criminal act in all its phases there lies some cause, of +course—there is some criminal, of course. There has been crime +committed, a very beastly, brutal sort of crime, almost inhuman—and +that was done by some man. If I could put my hand on that man, why +then——"</p> + +<p>"It would mean life and happiness to me. It would mean satisfaction to +you?"</p> + +<p>"More than that," he smiled. "It would mean the life of your boy—many +years yet for you and him together—once I'd have said maybe it might +mean six years in the United States Senate for me. I don't know—I can't +tell. The chances now are rather that even if I clear the boy, it means +I'll have to close up this office and go somewhere else to hunt a law +practice. But we'll take our chances."</p> + +<p>"You are a great man, Horace Brooks," said Aurora Lane; and there was a +sort of reverence in her tone. "Even after what has been between us, I +can say that. Oh, I so much like—I so much admire a man who is not +afraid, and who doesn't parley and weigh and dicker with himself when it +comes to any hard decision. I like a brave man, a good man. You'll +understand."</p> + +<p>He raised a hand, a large hand, nervous, full-veined, gnarled, awkward, +a hand never in all his life to be freed from toil's indelible imprint.</p> + +<p>"Please don't," said he.</p> + +<p>"But how can I say what I want?" said she. "I've always wanted to pay +all my debts—that's to make up for all my faults, don't you see? I must +be scrupulous—because——"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said he, "I see. I've seen that for more than twenty years, ever +since I've known you. Because that's true of you, and is true of so few +women, so very few, is why I wished last night—that you were a widow!</p> + +<p>"Now, that's about all. When you <i>wish</i> that you could pay this +debt—which isn't any debt so far—you've paid it, so far as I'm +concerned. It is the <i>wish</i> to pay your debts that amounts to moral +principle—and to business success too—in this world.</p> + +<p>"And so," he laughed again his great resounding laugh, and thrust out +his hand toward her, "I reckon you can call yourself something of a +business success tonight after all. Now go home, and see that you +sleep."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII</h2> + +<h3>AT CHURCH</h3> + + +<p>That Sunday evening Aurora Lane sat alone in her dingy little home. The +walls seemed to her close as those of any prison. She found about her +nothing of comfort. For once the little white bedside, all her life her +shrine, failed in its ministration. There rose in her heart a great +vague hunger for gregarious worship—the sort which all these others had +freely offered every week of all their lives—that same wish for +gregarious worship on which are based all the churches, all the creeds, +of all the world. As never in her life before Aurora felt now that she +could no longer fight alone, in solitude—she needed something—she +needed the sight of other faces, the touch of other hearts; needed the +assemblage, the crowd—needed, in short, the world <i>en masse</i>, as we all +do. She had lived without association and without sympathy too long. Now +her starved nature at last rebelled.</p> + +<p>So, having prayed faithfully, Aurora Lane rose not wholly comforted; and +therefore she resolved to break the habit of her life, as she had lived +it more than twenty years in this little town. In all that time she had +not been within the door of any church, but now she felt that she must +go—must be at least in part like to all these others on this evening of +the Sabbath day.</p> + +<p>The main note of such a community as Spring Valley is that of a resigned +acceptance of life. This means a drab middle course, of small heroics, +which yet does not debar from a quiet sympathy and mutual understanding. +This in turn essentially implies some manner of religious belief, for +the most part of the passive, un-investigative sort. Without doubt the +church of this or that denomination—and in any such community there +will be many—is the club and the court alike to those who maintain its +beliefs—aye, and it is their hope and stay as well.</p> + +<p>Aurora chose the largest church, where there was most apt to be the +largest congregation. Passing there, she had heard the organ roll in its +moving appeal. It seemed to her that she must hear music or she must +starve, must die. The drain on her nature now had been so great that, +much as every impulse drew her to yonder other edifice, the one with +iron bars where lay her own son, a prisoner, she could not go there, +could not see him again, until she herself had had restoration of some +of the forces of her own life. She wanted music—she wanted light—she +wanted the presence, close, near to her, of other human beings. Surely +they must know—surely they too must some time have suffered, have +grieved, have yearned.</p> + +<p>The slow life of the little town, which the excitement of this +extraordinary Sabbath had so largely diverted from its usual channels, +now began to reassemble and to trickle toward the conventional meeting +grounds. Those who had been delinquent at the morning services were at +least tonight devout.</p> + +<p>There is a sort of life of affairs, a sort of business life, of any +church in any community. Thus, there may be many meetings beside that of +the Sabbath day, in each church in any community. There must fall the +practice of the choir, weekly, usually of Wednesday, sometimes of +Saturday evenings as well, if the anthem prove especially difficult of +mastery.</p> + +<p>As to the choir proper, there must of course be the soprano—not always +elocutionist, as was the soprano in this church of Spring Valley—but +always well-clad, most frequently with long and glossy curls of chestnut +and the most modish hat of any in the church. Most tenors are bank +clerks or cashiers. It is the function of the tenor in any such choir to +escort the soprano to her home. The contralto is for the most part +married, beginning to show <i>embonpoint</i>. She is brunette, with wide and +pleasant mouth; is able to make excellent currant jelly, of which she +gives her neighbors generously. Her attire is apt to be not quite so +well-appointed as that of the soprano, which indeed should not be +expected of the mother of three, the arrangement of those white starched +collars in a part of each Sunday's task. The basso may sometimes be a +school teacher, yet some of the best have been owners of livery barns, +no more; modest folk withal, and covetous of the back seat in the choir.</p> + +<p>To this essential personnel of the church choir there may be added +others, supplements or understudies for this or that musical part, young +men with large cameo pins in their cravats, young women with spectacles. +All these who sing soprano or contralto, at least all who still are +young, must be taken home after services—not only the regular services +of the church, but those of the choir practice midway of the week or at +the week's close. And thereto, one must count the weekly prayer +meetings, mostly for the old, but for the young in part.</p> + +<p>It is, therefore, easy to be seen that the vestibule of any Spring +Valley church of a Wednesday evening, sometimes of a Thursday evening, +quite often a Saturday evening, and always of a Sunday evening, must +hold a certain lay representation of the community. It is, or once was, +one of the proper functions of the village church to act as social +meeting ground. Practically all of the respectable marriages in Spring +Valley actually were contracted, at least as to the preliminary stages, +under the eaves of this or that church.</p> + +<p>The vestibule was crowded this Sunday evening, as was customary, when +Aurora Lane, quite alone, turned in from the sidewalk and ascended the +eight broad wooden steps up to the church door. Passing thence to the +inner door, she felt the silence which came upon the boys and young men +who loitered there, waiting for the entrance or the exit of those of the +opposite sex. She felt the stares which fell upon her—felt, rather than +saw, the icy disapproval which greeted her even here, even among these. +But she passed by, entered the house of worship, and sank into a seat +very far back in the long, bare, ghastly, rectangular room.</p> + +<p>Before or after the entry of Aurora Lane, there failed not in coming +those who sit in judgment upon the lives of their fellows—the baker, +the butcher, the school teacher, the hanger of paper, the maker of +candlesticks as well. All these were here, parts of the life of this +community. Miss Julia was not there, as Aurora Lane discovered. She +wondered dully if it had not been her duty to go around to the library +and ask for Miss Julia; but the longing for personal solitude had been +as strong in her heart as the longing for silent human companionship, so +she had come alone. In truth Miss Julia was recreant tonight. She was +alone in her own room—alone with her diary—that is to say, face to +face with the picture of the same man whom Aurora Lane had met that +afternoon.</p> + +<p>In the slowly filling pews there reigned now silence, broken only by the +shuffling footfalls of the arrivals, that uneasy, solemn silence which +holds those seated and waiting for the services at church. A school +teacher who was born in the East somewhere leaned her head forward on +the back of the seat before her, and with a certain ostentation prayed, +or seemed to pray. Others would have done this very fetching thing as +well, but lacked the courage, so sat coldly, stiffly, unhappily, bolt +upright, awaiting the arrival of the minister.</p> + +<p>The tenor came after a time, soon following the soprano, models alike of +social graces and correct attire. They passed modestly, seemingly +unregardful of the glances bent upon them. The bass singer was more +conscious of his ill-fitting clothes as he hurried up the aisle, his +Adam's apple agitated, betokening his lack of ease. The soprano by this +time was shaking out her curls, fussing among the music sheets at the +top of the organ, pushing back the stool, twirling its top about—all +the while still quite highly unmindful of the gazes of the audience. The +contralto came last, her brow furrowed with the thought that perhaps she +had not left the cold meat on the table where her husband, the doctor, +would find it when he came back from the country.</p> + +<p>Came also in due and proper time the minister of church, the pillar of +it all, bearing in his hand, rolled in its leather case, the sermon +which he had written last Thursday morning—and which perforce he had +been obliged wholly to rewrite since Saturday at noon! For, be sure, +this sermon must take up the issues of the day—must stand for the +weekly platform of the town's morality. The eyes of all now were bent +upon the little roll of leather in the preacher's hand. They knew what +must be there. In a way they moistened their lips. This was why the +attendance was so large and prompt tonight.</p> + +<p>But Aurora Lane, unskilled in any of these things, the prey to so many +conflicting emotions at this hour, a novice in the house of God, sat +silent, her hands folded, well enough aware she was not welcomed by +those who saw her there, yet craving of them, dumbly, anguished, all +their tolerance in her time of need.</p> + +<p>Now the organ rolled after its fashion. There were voices not too highly +skilled, perhaps, yet after all productive of a certain melody. The +music softened the ice of Aurora Lane's heart. She felt that after all +she was a human being, as these others all about her. Was not this +anthem universal in its wording? Did it not say "Come unto Me"? Did it +not say something about "All ye"?—something about "Whosoever"? And +Aurora Lane, all her life debarred from this manner of human +classification, felt her heart tremble within her bosom as she heard +these universal, all-embracing words. Those about her, righteous, +virtuous, heard them not at all, because they had been sung so oft +before.</p> + +<p>The text of the evening matters little. Everyone there, excepting Aurora +Lane, knew that the real text was the red-handed young criminal lying in +the prison.</p> + +<p>The preacher invoked the wrath of God upon him who had raised his hand +against the life of one of the town's beloved. He read large lessons as +to right living, educed all proper morals from these events, so +startling, which had come upon this peaceful town. In short, he preached +what manner of sermon he must have preached in this manner of church and +this manner of town. At times his voice was low and tense, at times his +tones grew thunderous. And every word he said he felt was true, or +thought was true, or hoped to be the truth; because he himself had +written it; and this was the Lord's day; and these were the services +wherein the Lord is worshiped regularly.</p> + +<p>But the music of the anthem remained in Aurora Lane's soul, so that she +was practically unconscious of all this. Her mind was vague, dazed. She +did not know her son had been tried and found guilty. The words clung in +her heart; "All ye"; "Whosoever." And presently they sang yet another +hymn, and in it again were the words, "Come unto Me!" There was great +emotional uplift in all Spring Valley this day. The minister felt the +emotion, here upon the souls of his audience. He prayed for what he +termed an awakening.</p> + +<p>But Aurora was not awakened. On the contrary, for a time her strained +senses seemed dull, relaxed. Only she heard the music, only the Divine +words still lingered in her consciousness. It seemed but a moment to her +before she saw all the others rising noisily, opening hymn books, for +the final hymn. She herself therefore rose and stood silently, her hands +folded before her, her eyes fixed forward. They sang a dismissal hymn. +Perhaps there were some who really praised God, from Whom all blessings +flow. The minister raised his hands in that benediction which sent them +all away full of a sense of duty done, albeit a trifle guilty as to that +moral awakening regarding which the minister righteously had upbraided +them.</p> + +<p>All this was but the usual and regular experience of the congregation. +To this woman, this outcast, the unconscious object of the wrath so +lately uttered from the pulpit, it had been a great and gracious +experience. Yes, she said to herself, she had been one of these others! +She was within sight and touch of other women. There were boys and +girls, young human beings, close to her, all about her. And nothing had +happened to her after all!</p> + +<p>Her precious words, assimilated rather from the hymns than from the +sermon, were uppermost in her consciousness as, absorbed, almost +unseeing, she stepped out once more into the vestibule. "All ye ... +<i>All</i> ye...."</p> + +<p>Many passed her; none addressed her; a few drew aside their gowns as she +came near. All stared. A sort of commotion therefore existed in the back +portion of the vestibule as she emerged. The eyes of many young men +were upon her boldly, curiously, insultingly, perhaps—she did not know.</p> + +<p>It is a part of the formula of village life in such a community as +Spring Valley, for the young men thus lingering in the vestibule to +accost the maidens of their choice as they emerge from the body proper +of the church building. The youth steps forward—preceding any rival if +he may—removes his hat, at least in part, and having gained the +maiden's eye, speaks the unvarying phrase, "May I see you home tonight?" +Whereupon the young lady, smiling if favorably disposed to him, is +expected to take his arm in sight of all; and they thus, arm in arm, +descend the eight wooden steps to the sidewalk, and so walk away +undisturbed. Thus there gradually ensues a general pairing off of all. +The swain or the maid left alone is not rated of the social elect. This +is the selecting place of the sexes, far more than the sacred parlor +with its horsehair chairs and its album midway on the table of the +marble top.</p> + +<p>But now, as the little assemblage in the vestibule dissipated, there +came an added commotion, not at the rear, but at the front of the +vestibule. Someone was pushing on inside of the door—someone who +apparently did not belong there.</p> + +<p>It was the half-witted son of Ephraim Adamson, John, commonly called +Johnnie, the idiot! Why he had come hither, why he was allowed to come, +none might say, nor why he came unattended by any of his kin as was the +usual custom. But none molested him. A bold youth said "Hello, Johnnie," +and Johnnie respectfully took off his hat to him with an amiable grin. +They would have mocked him had they dared, but in truth none knew what +to do with him.</p> + +<p>When Aurora Lane had passed in part the gauntlet of the loitering +youths, and was about to step down the stair into the street, she felt a +heavy hand fall on her arm. Then a peal of laughter rose back of +her—laughter on the threshold of the church itself. For what the +half-wit did was what he had seen these others do. Sidling up to her, +his hat off, he said, "May I see—may I see you home this—this +evening?"</p> + +<p>This was accounted the greatest jest, the most unfailingly mirthful +thing in the recountal, ever known in the annals of Spring Valley.</p> + +<p>Aurora Lane started back from him in sudden shocked loathing, swiftly +resentful also of the mocking laughter that she heard from those who +still stood within the sanctuary. Sanctuary? Was there such a place as +sanctuary for her in all the world? Was there any place where she might +be safe, where she might be unmolested?</p> + +<p>"Go on away!" she said sharply, and would have hurried down the stair. +She looked this way and that. There was not a man to whom she might +appeal as her champion—not one! She must trust herself.</p> + +<p>"Go along!" said she. But actually she saw tears in the eyes of the +half-witted giant now. "No, Johnnie; but I'll walk with you with these +others as far as the corner of the square."</p> + +<p>"All right," said he. "I'll do—I'll do that." A wide gap opened in the +ranks of the slow procession on the sidewalk now as these two joined in. +Not too wide, however, for there were certain ones who must keep track +of all details regarding this epochal event.</p> + +<p>"Where is your father, Johnnie?" asked Aurora Lane, quietly and +distinctly, so that all might hear.</p> + +<p>"He—he—I don't—I don't know. I ain't—I ain't been home. I'm out!" +said Johnnie.</p> + +<p>"You've not been home? What do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"Wasn't there—wasn't there a funer'l for somebody today?" he asked +mysteriously. "I can whip any man in Jackson County. My pa said so. +We've—we've done it—we'd done it then if he—if he hadn't pitched on +to me. He done that."</p> + +<p>A sudden terror caught Aurora Lane's soul as she realized that the +addled mind of this half-wit was more than to a usual extent gone wrong. +She feared him with every fiber in her body. She stepped aside quickly +as he made a loutish thrust at her arm, as though to pinch her.</p> + +<p>"I'll pinch you!" said he. "You know why?"</p> + +<p>"No, don't! Go away!" she exclaimed, and pushed out her hand.</p> + +<p>"'Cause—'cause I like you!" said the half-wit. "That's why!"</p> + +<p>Then for a time those who crowded up at the rear heard little, until he +resumed.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I know a lot more I could tell you some time. I ain't—I ain't been +home at all. I'm just looking round. Ain't no one can stop me. There was +some sort of—of funer'l, wasn't there, in town today? Me and my father, +we can lick ary two men in Jackson County."</p> + +<p>He would have made some sort of rude approach once more. But now even +the tardy chivalry of these men of Spring Valley came back to them. Two +or three stepped in between him and Aurora Lane. "Here, you," said the +voice of one, "that'll do! Quit it now."</p> + +<p>Aurora Lane did not have time to thank her rescuers. The painful +situation was relieved suddenly. Just as they were turning at the corner +of the public square there hurried up a man, an oldish man, untidy even +in his Sunday garb, half running toward the group which now he saw +approaching.</p> + +<p>"Hello, Pa," exclaimed the half-wit, and laughed long and loud. "I +didn't come home," said he. "I'm—I'm out!"</p> + +<p>The sad face of Ephraim Adamson was seen by all, as he pushed in among +them and took his son by the arm. They walked away briskly now +together, Johnnie looking back over his shoulder.</p> + +<p>But now, to the surprise of all—to her own surprise as well, so sudden +was her resolve—Aurora Lane hurried after these two.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Adamson," said she, "wait, don't whip him—I'm not angry—I +understand."</p> + +<p>Adamson halted for just a moment. "He's been away all day," said he, his +face showing no resentment of her presence. "I didn't know they let him +out last night—he didn't come home. I began looking for him as soon as +I knew he was out—I thought he might be hiding in the fields—he does +sometimes. He always runs away whenever he gets a chance. I'm sorry if +he's done wrong—has he been bad to you?"</p> + +<p>"I understand everything," said Aurora Lane. Many heard her say that. +"Don't mind. Tomorrow, will you both be in town?—I might talk to you."</p> + +<p>"No, Ma'am," said Adamson briefly. "He can't come any more. I may be +here. What do you want of me—after what I've said—after what I've done +to you? And here you come and bring him back to me."</p> + +<p>His own face showed whitish blue in the flicker of the great arc light.</p> + +<p>"Ma'am," he went on again, "there's a lot about you—you're some woman +after all. Where have you been—at church?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Aurora Lane, "I was at church."</p> + +<p>"I ain't been there in years," said Eph Adamson sadly.</p> + +<p>"Neither have I," rejoined Aurora Lane, "twenty years, I think—perhaps +more."</p> + +<p>He gazed at her now out of his old, bleared, sad eyes. "I wouldn't of +been here now but for what's happened," said he. "Already I was sad—and +I was drunk before I was. And I was—well, I felt like I was a rebel, +that was all, yesterday. That boy of yours looked so fine, I couldn't +stand it. Look at mine! I done wrong, Ma'am. I said what I had no right +to say. I'm sorry, clean through—with all my heart I'm sorry for what I +done yesterday."</p> + +<p>She made no answer to him, and he went on. "It seems like some folks was +sort of born under a cloud, don't it? I'm one of them, I reckon. All +this has been my fault. I'm sorry as I can be. Can't you forgive me, +Miss Lane, can't you forgive me any?"</p> + +<p>"You didn't hear the anthem," said Aurora Lane, "because you were not in +church. It said 'Whosoever.' It said 'All ye.'"</p> + +<p>"In some ways," said Eph Adamson slowly—they had been for some time +quite apart from the others, walking on slowly—"it seems like you and +me was living our lives pretty much alike, don't it, Miss Lane? It's +funny, ain't it—we hadn't either of us been to church—not in twenty +years!"</p> + +<p>None the less, as of old, these others passed by upon the other side, +and left unattended those whose wounds were grievous.</p> + +<p>At the corner of her street Aurora Lane paused. "Good-by, Mr. Adamson," +said she. "Good night. I don't want to be unjust to anyone. I'm going to +try not to blame you—I'd like to forgive all the world if I could. I'm +in great trouble now."</p> + +<p>He broke out in a sullen rage. "Forgive? Do that if you can," said he. +"I can't. Maybe a woman can—but forgiving ain't in my line. Well, I'd +give anything I could in the world if I hadn't said what I did yesterday +right there on the public square. All this has come out of that—this +whole trouble. You're different from what I thought. You're a good +woman. I take off my hat to you."</p> + +<p>"I take off my hat to you," mowed the idiot also, imitating what he saw +and heard.... "May I see you home—may I see you home tonight? I'm—I'm +out—I was out all last night. They can't pitch on us. Whip any man in +Jackson County. Good night—good night, Ma'am. I'm sorry—I'm sorry, +too."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII</h2> + +<h3>AT THE COUNTY JAIL</h3> + + +<p>Neither Judge Henderson nor his ward attended church services this +Sunday evening, the former because of a certain physical reaction which +disposed him to slumber, the latter because she had other plans of her +own. The great white house, with its wide flanking grounds, where Judge +Henderson had so long lived in somewhat solitary state, was now lighted +up from top to bottom; but presently a light in an upper window +vanished.</p> + +<p>Anne Oglesby tiptoed down the stair side by side with the housekeeper. +She cast a glance of inquiry into the front parlor, where, prone upon a +large couch, was Judge Henderson—rendering audible tribute to Morpheus.</p> + +<p>"He's violating the town ordinance about the muffler cut-out," said Anne +smilingly to the housekeeper. "Oh, don't wake him—I'll be back +presently—tell him."</p> + +<p>She hurried through the yard and down the street toward the central part +of the town. The streets about the square now were well-nigh deserted, +since most folk were in the churches. Her own destination was a square +or two beyond the courthouse, where stood another brick building of +public interest; in short, the county jail.</p> + +<p>It was the duty of the sheriff to care for the tenants of his jail, and +he made his own home in a part of the brick building which served in +that capacity—a small building with iron grates on the lower windows, +arranged at about the height of a man's eyes as he would stand within on +the cement floor of a cell, so that he might look out just above the +greensward, his face visible to any who passed by. Many a boy had thus +gazed with horror on the unshaven face of some ruffian who begged him +for tobacco, or some tramp who had trifled too long with the patience of +the community, usually so generous with its alms. Many a school child +could show you the very place where the woman who killed her children +was confined before they took her away—could point out the very window +where she stood looking and weeping and wringing her hands—"Just like +this"—as any child would tell you.</p> + +<p>And some day perhaps children would point out this very window where now +stood looking out, motionless—"Not saying a word to nobody"—the "man +who killed the city marshal." Don Lane was standing at his grated window +and looking out when Anne Oglesby crossed the grass plot and came up the +brick sidewalk, fenced in by chains supported on little iron posts, +which led to the jail's iron-bound door.</p> + +<p>His heart gave a great leap. He saw her. She was coming to him—the one +faithful, his beloved! Not even Miss Julia—not even his mother—had +come, but here was Anne!</p> + +<p>But at the next instant he stepped back from the window, hoping that she +would not gain admission. Shame, deep and unspeakable, additional shame, +twofold shame, compassed him as soon as he reflected. The bitterest of +all was the fact that he must yield her up forever. He must tell her +why. And now she had come—to see him in a cell! It was here that he +must break his heart, and hers.</p> + +<p>Sheriff Cowles opened the door when Anne Oglesby rang the bell. He stood +for a moment looking out into the twilight.</p> + +<p>"Who is it?" he asked. Then he recognized the girl whom he had brought +down town from the railway station in his car that morning. Anne Oglesby +was not a person easily to be forgotten.</p> + +<p>"You know who I am, Mr. Cowles," said she—"I am Miss Oglesby, Judge +Henderson's ward. I'm—I am respectable."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Cowles, "I know that, but why are you here?"</p> + +<p>"Because I'd not be respectable if I were not here," she said quietly. +"You probably know."</p> + +<p>"Does the Judge know you have come?"</p> + +<p>"No, he wouldn't have let me come if he had known. I want to see +him—that young man, you know." Her own color was high by this time.</p> + +<p>The sheriff hesitated. "Well," said he, "I don't want to do anything +that isn't right, anything that isn't fair. I reckon I know how you +feel."</p> + +<p>"We're engaged to be married," said Anne Oglesby simply, and looked him +directly in the face. "That gives me some rights, doesn't it?"</p> + +<p>"In one way, maybe, but no legal rights," replied the sheriff, who was +much perplexed, but who could not escape the compelling fact of Anne +Oglesby's presence, the compelling charm of Anne Oglesby herself. "He's +not really committed as yet, of course, only bound over by the coroner's +jury; but the grand jury meets tomorrow, and they'll indict him sure. +You know that. I can't take any chances of his getting away. I have to +be sure."</p> + +<p>"Your wife may come with me," said Anne Oglesby. "It's my right to talk +to him a little while, don't you think? I'm not going to try to get him +out. He hasn't had anyone to help him—he hasn't had any legal counsel."</p> + +<p>"Who'd he send for, anyway?" asked the sheriff. "He's a sort of a waif, +isn't he—her boy? I suppose you've heard about him fighting here around +town yesterday?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know why he fought, but I know that if he did he had cause. I +hope he fought well."</p> + +<p>"They said it was about his mother," began Sheriff Cowles. "Some word +about her was passed——"</p> + +<p>"You needn't say any more," said Anne Oglesby.</p> + +<p>"He hasn't told me to send for any lawyer for him," said Cowles. "It +don't seem like he's thought of it. He's just sort of quiet—mighty +still all the time. Ha-hum!—I don't know what to say about your seeing +him. Why didn't you ask your uncle, Judge Henderson?"</p> + +<p>"Don't call him my uncle," said Anne Oglesby. "He's only my guardian in +law. I've just told you he wouldn't let me come. That's why I've got to +hurry."</p> + +<p>"Well," hesitated the sheriff, "I'll have to warn you not to talk about +this case where I can hear it. I'll have to hear all you say."</p> + +<p>"Would you like to do that?"</p> + +<p>The sheriff flushed. "No," said he, "not special; but you see my own +duty is right clear. I can't play any favorites. If you was his lawyer, +now, it might be different."</p> + +<p>"I am his lawyer, the only one he's got so far as I know."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I reckon the judge wouldn't care to take his case." The sheriff +wagged his head. "He's no ways rich—not beyond four dollars and +seventy-five cents and a pocket knife and some keys on a ring. He's +broke, all right."</p> + +<p>"He's never been anything else," said Anne Oglesby, hotly. "He's never +had a chance. Do you want to keep a man from his chance all his life—do +you want to help railroad him to the gallows? That's for the courts, not +for you. Do you want to hang a man—are you anxious to begin that?"</p> + +<p>Cowles' face grew pale. "God knows I don't! I never done that in my +life, and I don't want to have to, neither. Don't talk about that to me, +Miss."</p> + +<p>"Then don't talk to me any more about those other things. I give you my +word I'll not try to get him out, but I want to see him—I must see +him—he'll want to see me. Don't you know—we've—we've just begun to be +engaged."</p> + +<p>"Some things I can't understand no ways," pondered Sheriff Cowles. "He's +nobody, so far as I can learn. You're the Judge's ward—why, you're +rich, they say."</p> + +<p>"I'd give every cent I have to see him walk out right now. I suppose you +were young once yourself. Were you ever in love, Mr. Cowles?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said the sheriff, slowly. "I was—I am yet, some. I can remember +back. I don't believe I ought to let you in. But I'm afraid I'll have +to, because you are young—like we all was once—and because you're in +love. Did anyone see you coming over here?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know; but all the town knows about him and me. Well, let them."</p> + +<p>"You must promise not to help him in any way to get out—not to do +anything you hadn't ought to do, nor against the law."</p> + +<p>"I give you my promise," said Anne Oglesby.</p> + +<p>Without more speech the sheriff turned and led the way down the +stone-paved hall to the short cement stairs which made down upon the +half-floor below, at the level of the cells. He turned the switch of an +electric light, so that they might see the better in the hall.</p> + +<p>There was but one tenant, and from beyond his door there came no sound, +not even when Cowles unlocked the iron-shod door and stood, his revolver +easy at his belt.</p> + +<p>As Anne entered she saw Don Lane sitting on the edge of the narrow +pallet, looking at the door. He had not risen. He had been sitting with +his head in his hands.</p> + +<p>He groaned now. "My God!" said he. "Anne! What made you come?"</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="illus3" id="illus3"></a> +<img src="images/illus3.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<h3>"Anne! What made you come?"</h3> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>The sheriff stepped within the door at the side of Anne Oglesby. "I'd +stay about ten minutes or so if I was you," said he, and tried to look +unconscious and impersonal.</p> + +<p>Don Lane rose now, but stood still apart.</p> + +<p>"Why do you say that, Don?" asked Anne, stepping closer to him. "Didn't +you know I'd come?"</p> + +<p>She reached out her hands to him, and he caught both of them in his.</p> + +<p>"I ought to have known you would," said he, "and I know you oughtn't to. +It makes it very hard. I said good-by to you—this morning—today."</p> + +<p>"Won't you kiss me—again, Don?" asked Anne Oglesby.</p> + +<p>He kissed her again, his face white.</p> + +<p>"It's hard to know you for so little a while," said he, his young face +drawn, his voice trembling—"awfully hard. What time there's left to +me—I'll have it all to remember you. But we must never meet after this. +It's over."</p> + +<p>"Don, if I thought it was all over, do you suppose I'd let you kiss me +now?"</p> + +<p>"It's like heaven," said he. "It's all I'll have to remember."</p> + +<p>"A long time, Don—a very long time!"</p> + +<p>"I can't tell. They are not apt to lose much time with my case. The only +crime of my life was in ever lifting my eyes to you, Anne. Oh, you know +I'd never have done that if I had known—what I found out yesterday. But +then I've said good-by to you."</p> + +<p>"<i>I</i> didn't say good-by, Don!"</p> + +<p>He half raised a hand, shaking his head sadly. "You must forget me, no +matter what happens—no matter whether I am cleared or not. I'll never +be the coward to ask you to remember me—that wouldn't be right. I'm +beyond all hope, whichever way it goes."</p> + +<p>"I've come tonight, Don," said she, quietly, "to see about your lawyer."</p> + +<p>He half laughed. "There'll be small need for one, and if there were I've +got no funds. It will take a lot of money."</p> + +<p>"Well, what of that? I've got a lot of money. My guardian told me so +today. I'm worth somewhere between a quarter and a half million dollars +anyway—I'm not rich—but that would help us."</p> + +<p>He laughed at this harshly. "I didn't know you had any money at all. And +you think I'd be coward enough to take your money to get out of +here—after what I have learned about myself since yesterday? Do you +suppose I'd take my life from you—such a life as it's got to be now?"</p> + +<p>"What do you mean, Don?—you won't let me go, will you? You don't +mean——" She stepped toward him, in sudden terror of his resolution. +"Why, <i>Don</i>!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes. I spent all the afternoon here alone trying to think. Well, I +won't compromise. I never meant to pull you into this—I'll not let you +be dragged into it by your own great-heartedness. But, Anne, Anne, +dearest, dearest, surely you know that when I spoke to you yesterday I +didn't know what I know today! I thought I had a father. You <i>know</i> I'd +not deceive you—you <i>do</i> know that?"</p> + +<p>There was a shuffle on the stone floor of the cell. Sheriff Cowles, +coughing loudly, was turning away from them. A moment later the door +closed behind him. "Ha-hum!" said he to himself outside the door. "Oh, +hell! I wish't I wasn't sher'ff."</p> + +<p>They were alone. With the door closed the cell was dark, save for the +twilight filtering through the barred windows high up along the wall.</p> + +<p>Anne came closer to him and put her hands upon his shoulders. "Oh, Don," +said she, "it's hard, awfully hard, isn't it, to start with such a +handicap? But when did all the men in the world start even? And is it +always the one who starts first that finishes best? Don, you played the +game in college—so did I—we've both got to play the game now! We'll +have to take our handicap. But you mustn't talk about sending me away. I +can't stand everything. Oh, don't! I can't stand that!" Her voice was +choking now. She was sobbing, striving not to do so.</p> + +<p>He caught her wrists in his hands, as her hands still lay upon his +shoulders; but he did not draw her to him.</p> + +<p>"Anne," said he, "the time comes in every man's life for him to die. I +heard once about a man who could not swim and who saw his wife drown in +the stream by him, almost at his side. He ran along and shouted, and +said he could not swim. Well, he lived. The woman died. Suppose that +had been our case. If we both went down together, it wouldn't be so bad, +perhaps. But I'll not have my life as that sort of a gift."</p> + +<p>"You won't let me help you, Don?"</p> + +<p>"No! I won't let you have anything to do with me! I'll never allow your +name to come on my lips, and you must never think of mentioning mine! +Only—Anne, Anne—surely you don't think I had any idea before +yesterday—about my father? I wouldn't buy my own happiness at that +price. I'm no one's son. I'm dead, and doubly dead. But I never knew."</p> + +<p>"No," said she, "I know you did not—I know you would not."</p> + +<p>They both were so young, as they talked on now, wisely, soberly.</p> + +<p>"So you are free," he said, casting away her hands from him, and +standing back. "You never were anything but free."</p> + +<p>"I'll never be free again, Don," said she, shaking her head. "You kissed +me! I'm not a girl any more—I'm a woman now. I can't go back. And now +you tell me to go away! Don't you love me, Don? Why, I love you—so +much!"</p> + +<p>"My God, don't!" he groaned. "Don't! I can't stand everything. But I +can't take anything but the best and truest sort of love."</p> + +<p>"Isn't mine?"</p> + +<p>"No. It's pity, maybe—I can't tell. This is no place for us to talk of +that now. You must go away. I hope you will forget you ever saw me. I +don't even know my father's name—I don't know whether he is living—I +don't know anything! I have been walled in all my life—I'm walled in +now. I never ought to have touched even the hem of your garment, for I +wasn't fit. But I couldn't help it."</p> + +<p>"That's the trouble," said Anne. "I can't help it, either."</p> + +<p>"Ah!" he half groaned, "you ought to be kept from yourself."</p> + +<p>"Kept from myself, Don? If that were true of all the women in the world, +how much world would there be left? That's why I'm here—why, Don, I had +to come!"</p> + +<p>"Anne! It can't be. It's only cruel for you to tear me up by coming +here—by staying here—by standing here. I love you! Anne! Anne! I don't +see how it could be hard as this for any man to part from any woman." He +was trembling through all his strong frame now.</p> + +<p>"But we promised!"</p> + +<p>"The law says that a promise is such only when two minds meet. Our minds +never met—I didn't know the facts—you didn't know about me—we have +just found out about it now."</p> + +<p>"Our minds didn't meet?" said Anne Oglesby. "Our <i>minds</i>? Did not our +<i>hearts</i> meet—don't they meet now—and isn't <i>that</i> what it all means +between a man and a woman?"</p> + +<p>He stood, trembling, apart from her in the twilight.</p> + +<p>"Don't!" he whispered. "I love you! I will love you all my life! You +must go away. Oh, go now, go quickly!"</p> + +<p>A merciful footfall sounded on the stone floor of the outer hall. The +door opened, letting in a shaft of light with it. Cowles stood +hesitating, looking at the two young people, still separated, standing +wretchedly.</p> + +<p>"I hate to say anything," said the sheriff, "but I reckon——"</p> + +<p>"She must go," said Don Lane. "Take her away. Good-by—Anne! Anne! Oh, +good-by!"</p> + +<p>"Won't you kiss me, Don?" said Anne Oglesby—"when I love you so much?"</p> + +<p>There were four tears, two great, sudden drops from each eye, that +sprang now on Dan Cowles' wrinkled, sunburned cheeks.</p> + +<p>But Don Lane had cast himself down once more on the pallet and was +trying with all his power to be silent until after she had gone.</p> + +<p>"In some ways," said Dan Cowles to his wife later that night, "he's got +me guessing, that young fellow. He don't act like no murderer to me. But +since she left, and since all this here happened, he's wild—Lord! he's +wild!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX</h2> + +<h3>THE MOB</h3> + + +<p>Anne Oglesby left the jail shortly after the time when church services +were ending. As she hurried by Aurora Lane's house in Mulberry Street +she saw a light shining from the windows, but she did not enter—she +could not have spoken to anyone now.</p> + +<p>She evaded any meeting with her guardian after she had made her way back +home. Judge Henderson had not known of her absence and was not aware of +her return. Anne thus by a certain period of time missed seeing what Dan +Cowles presently saw.</p> + +<p>It was noticeable that Sabbath day that more than the usual number of +farmers' wagons remained in town, quite past the time when the country +church members usually started back for their homes. The farmers seemed +to be in no hurry, even although they had seen a double church service. +There was something restless, something vague, disturbing, over the +town. A number of townsmen also seemed impelled to walk back toward the +public square. Some strange indefinite summons drew them thither. Little +knots of men stood here and there. Groups of women gathered at this or +that gallery front.</p> + +<p>No one knows the point where in vague public thought a general +resolution actually begins. The ripple in the pool spreads widely when a +stone is cast. What chance word, or what deliberate resolve, may have +started the slowly growing resolution of Spring Valley may not be known; +but now a sort of stealthy silence fell over the village as groups +gathered here and there, speaking cautiously, in low tones.</p> + +<p>A knot of men stood near the corner of the square looking down the +street to the light which shone red from the shaded window of Aurora +Lane.</p> + +<p>"I know what was done right in this here town thirty year ago," said one +high pitched voice. "It was old Eph Adamson's father that led them, too. +Them was days when——"</p> + +<p>"Why ain't Eph in town today?" asked another voice. "I seen considerable +of his neighbors around in town today."</p> + +<p>"He was, a while back," said someone.</p> + +<p>"That must have been about a hour ago," said some other, looking about +furtively at the faces of his neighbors.</p> + +<p>"Let's take a stroll over towards the open lots near the jail," +suggested someone else.</p> + +<p>So, following the first to start with definite purpose, little +straggling groups passed on beyond the corner of the square, beyond the +jail itself, to a sort of open space not yet encroached upon by public +or private buildings.</p> + +<p>There was no shouting, no loud talking. The light was dim. The crowd +itself moved vaguely, milling about, like cattle restive and ready to +stampede, but not yet determined on their course.</p> + +<p>"God! Did you hear that music this afternoon—they're done a-buryin' +poor old Joel Tarbush by now, but I can hear it yet, seems to me! Now, +what had poor old Joel ever done—all his life—to deserve bein' +murdered like a dog? It makes my blood sort of rise up to think of that. +Now, them that done that—them that was back of that——"</p> + +<p>His friend, accosted, nodded grimly, his mouth was shut tight and turned +down deep at the corners.</p> + +<p>There did not lack one or two willing at least to talk further. One was +a young man, rather well dressed, apparently fresh from church. He spoke +to any who would listen.</p> + +<p>"What I mean to say, men, is this," said he, "we've got to do something +to clean up this town. It's the <i>people</i> that's behind the law anyhow. +Am I right?"</p> + +<p>"He talks like a lawyer—what he says is pretty true," said one farmer +to another.</p> + +<p>"That was a strong sermon our minister preached tonight," said yet +another. "He said we'd have to stamp out crime and make a warnin'. The +preacher e'en—a'most pointed out what we ought to do."</p> + +<p>"... We'd ought to make a clean sweep of this whole family," said the +same young man, more boldly now. "They're a bad lot—both her son and +her."</p> + +<p>"... We could break into the jail easy," said someone, after a time. +"Cowles couldn't keep us from it. Maybe he wouldn't want to."</p> + +<p>"... The trouble is," resumed the voice of the young man who had earlier +spoken, "it's hard to make a law case stick. We've seen how that worked +out in the trial yesterday—he came clear—they dropped the case, and +nothing was done. Old Eph Adamson had to take all the medicine. But we +ought to take our place as a law-abiding community—I've always said +that."</p> + +<p>"And God-fearin'," said a devout voice.</p> + +<p>"Yes, a God-fearing community! It's been twenty years now that that +woman has flaunted her vice in the face of this community."</p> + +<p>"Ain't a man in this town that don't know about her—it's just sort o' +quieted down, that's all," said a gray-bearded, peak-chinned man grimly; +which was more or less true, as more than one man present knew, himself +not guiltless enough of heart at least to cast the first stone at Aurora +Lane.</p> + +<p>"In the old times," grinned one stoutish man, chewing tobacco and +speaking to a neighbor who held a hand cupped at his ear, "the folks +wouldn't of stood it. They'd just 'a' had a little feather party. They +rid such people out of town on a rail them days—that's what they done. +And they didn't never come back after that—never in the world. As for a +murderer—they made a eend of him!"</p> + +<p>"And so could we make a eend of it all right now, this very night, if we +had a little sand," said another voice.</p> + +<p>For a time all these speakers fell silent, seeking resolve, waiting for +an order, a command. But as they became silent they grew more uneasy. +They broke ground, shifted, milled about, still like cattle. Then head +was laid to head, beard wagged to beard again.</p> + +<p>And then, all at once, it broke!</p> + +<p>"<i>Come on, boys!</i>" cried a loud voice at last—not that of the young man +who first had spoken—not that of any of these others speakers who had +hesitated, lacking courage of definite sort. "<i>Come on! Who's with me?</i>"</p> + +<p>The town of Spring Valley never mentioned the name of this speaker. The +report got out in a general way that he was a farmer who lived a few +miles out in the country. Indeed, sympathy for Ephraim Adamson's bad +fortune in this case was no doubt largely at the bottom of this affair +tonight—along with these other things; sympathy for Tarbush; the +sermons of the preachers; the emotional spell of the dirge music, still +lingering on these crude souls. No mob reasons. It was plain that most +of the men, though not all, were farmers. But now they all fell in +behind the leader as he started, a motley procession. Some folded +handkerchiefs and tied them about their faces. Yet others reversed their +coats, wearing them with the linings outside. Others pulled their hats +down over their eyes.</p> + +<p>Their feet, although not keeping time, none the less caught a ragged +unison, in a sound which could have been heard at a considerable +distance. Dan Cowles heard it now, and came to the door of the county +jail. As he saw the crowd, he drew a long breath.</p> + +<p>"They're coming here!" said he to himself at length. "I reckon they'll +try to get him. I'll hold him anyways, and they know that." Quickly he +darted back into the jail.</p> + +<p>The procession debouched at the edge of the jail yard square, halted for +a moment, then came on steadily, because someone at their head walked +steadily. Perhaps there were seventy-five or a hundred of them in all. +Most of them were neighbors, nearly every man knew who was his neighbor +here, even in the darkness. Not one of these could precisely have told +why he was here. By some process of self-persuasion, some working of +hysteria, some general acceptance of the auto-suggestion of the mob, +most had persuaded themselves that they were there to "do their duty." +It sounded well. If, indeed, they had been brought hither merely by the +excitement of it, merely under the hypnosis of it, they forgot that, or +tried to forget it, and said they were there to do their duty—their +duty to their God-fearing town.... But in the mind of each was a picture +out of the past of which we may not inquire. That night far worse than +murder might have been done.</p> + +<p>"We want him, Dan. Bring him out!" The voice of the leader sounded dry +and hoarse, but he did not waver, for he saw the sheriff make no move of +resistance.</p> + +<p>"You can't get him," said Dan Cowles. "You couldn't even if he was here. +But he ain't here."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean, he ain't here? We know he is!"</p> + +<p>"Come in and see," said Cowles, stepping back. "I just been to his cell +and he ain't there. Come in and search the whole jail."</p> + +<p>They did come in and search the jail, piling into the corridors, opening +every door, looking into every room even of the sheriff's living +quarters, but the jail was empty! There was no prisoner there at all.</p> + +<p>"We want Don Lane, that killed the city marshal," repeated the husky +voice of the leader once more. "Where is he?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know," said Sheriff Cowles. "If I did, I wouldn't tell you." +And indeed he spoke only truth in both these statements.</p> + +<p>"I know!" screamed a high voice in the middle of the man pack. "He's +maybe up at her house—'Rory Lane's. Let's go search the place—we'll +get him yet!"</p> + +<p>It was enough. The mob, thus resisted, disappointed, began to mutter, to +talk now, in a low, hoarse half roar of united voices. They turned away +on a new trail. Some broke into shouts as they began to hurry down the +brick walk of the jail yard. They jostled and crowded in the street, as +they came into the corner of the public square. A general outcry arose +as they caught sight of the light in the window of Aurora Lane's little +home, a half block down the street, beyond the corner of the square.</p> + +<p>Aurora heard the sound of their feet coming down the sidewalk. She heard +the noise at her gate—heard the crash as the gate was kicked off its +new-mended hinges—heard the men crowd up her little walk, heard their +feet clumping on the little gallery floor. Her heart stopped. She stood +white-faced, her hands clasped. What was it? What did they mean? Were +they going to kill her boy? Had they killed him? Were they going to tell +her that? Were they going to kill her, too?</p> + +<p>"Come on out!" she heard someone calling to her. It seemed to her that +she must go. In some strange hypnosis, her feet began to move, +unsanctioned by her volition.... She stood at the door facing them all, +her eyes large, her face showing her distress, her query, her new +terror. On her face indeed was written now the whole story of her +despair, her failure, her terrible unhappiness. She had aged by years, +these last twenty-four hours. Now sheer terror was written there also. +The mob! The lynchers! The avengers! What had they not and more than +once done in this little savage town?... A picture rose before her +mind ... a horrible picture out of the past. Wide-eyed, she caught at the +throat of her gown, caught at the covering of her bosom—and then went +at bay, as does any despairing creature that has been pressed too hard.</p> + +<p>She looked down at them. Those nearest to her were masked. Back of them +rose groups of shoulders, rough clad, hats pulled down.... No, she did +not know one of them; she did not recognize even a face—or was not sure +she had done so. They jostled and shifted and pushed forward.</p> + +<p>"No! No! Go back! Go on away!" she cried, pale, her eyes starting. And +again she called aloud, piteously, on that God who seemed to have +forsaken her.</p> + +<p>"Come on out!" cried a voice, thick and husky. "Come on out, and hurry +up about it. Bring him out—we know he's here. We want Don Lane, and +we're going to git him—or we'll git you. Damn you, look out, or we'll +git you both! Where's that boy, that killed the marshal?"</p> + +<p>"He's not here," answered Aurora, in a voice she would not have known to +be her own. "I don't know where he is. Believe me, if he's not there in +the jail, I don't know where he is. What do you want of him? He's not +here—I give you my word he's not."</p> + +<p>She still stood, near the door, her hands clutching at her clothing, a +mortal terror in her soul, her frail woman's body the only fence now for +her home, no longer sanctuary.</p> + +<p>"You lie! We know he is here—he ain't in the jail. If the sher'f let +him out, he'd come here. You've got him hid. Bring him out—it's no use +trying to get him away from us. We want him, and we've come to git him."</p> + +<p>The words of the leader got their support in the rumble of fourscore +throats.</p> + +<p>"I'm telling you the truth," quavered poor Aurora Lane. "Men, can't you +believe me? Have I ever lied to you?"</p> + +<p>A roar of brutish laughter greeted this. "Listen at her talk!" cried one +tall young man. "Fine, ain't it! She's been just a angel here! Oh, no, +she wouldn't lie to us about that boy—oh! no, she never has! Why, you +ain't never done nothing <i>but</i> lie, all your life!"</p> + +<p>They laughed again at this, and became impatient.</p> + +<p>"This is her little old place," began the same voice. "I've never been +in it before. I bet they's been goings-on, right here, more'n once."</p> + +<p>"That's so!" said a man whose mouth corners were drawn down hard. "And +in this here God-fearin' town o' ours, that's always wanted to be +respectable."</p> + +<p>"Sure we did, all of us!" encored the cracking treble of the same tall, +well-dressed young man. "Whose fault if we ain't? She's his mother. This +whole business come of her bein' what she is—looser'n hell, that's all. +We stood it all for years—but this is too much—killin' the city +marshal——"</p> + +<p>"I didn't!" cried Aurora Lane, ghastly pale. "He never did. I've tried +to live here clean for twenty years. Not one of you can raise a voice +against me—you cowards, you liars! My boy—if he were here, not any ten +of you'd dare say that! You'd not dare to touch him. Oh, you brutes—you +low-down cowards!"</p> + +<p>"We'll show you if we don't dare!" rejoined the steady voice of the +leader. "Fetch him out now and we'll show you about that. We're goin' to +git him, first 'r last, and it's no use trying to stop it. We'll +reg'late this town now, in our own way. If that boy's out of jail, he's +either skipped or else he's here. Either way, the safest thing to do is +to come on through with him. If you don't, we'll see about <i>you</i>—and +we'll do it mighty soon. Bring him out."</p> + +<p>"Oh, hell!" shrilled a falsetto voice, "you're wastin' time with her. +Go on in after him—she's got him hid—she's kep' him hid for twenty +years and she's keepin' him hid now—and you can gamble on it! Go on in +and git him!"</p> + +<p>There came a shuffling of feet on the walk, on the gallery floor. Aurora +was conscious that the blur of faces was closer to her.... She saw +masks, hats, kerchiefs, stubbled chins crowding in, close up to her. A +reek of the man pack came to her, close, stifling, mingled of tobacco, +alcohol, and the worse effluvia of many men excited.... The terror, the +horror, the disgust, the repugnance of it all fell on her like a +blanket, stifling, suffocating, terrifying. She no longer reasoned—it +was only desperation, terror, which made her spread out her arms from +lintel to lintel of her little deserted door, where the last sacred +shred of her personal privacy now was periled. The last instinctive, +virginal—yes, virginal—terror at the intrusion of man, of men, of many +men, was hers now. Home—sanctuary—refuge—all, all was gone. She +stood, disheveled, her gown now half loosed at the neck as she spread +her weak arms open across her door. Her eyes were large, round, open, +staring, her face a tragic mask as she stood trying—a woman, weak and +quite alone—to beat back the passion of these who now had come to rob +her of the last—the very last—of the things dear to her; the last of +the things sacred to her, the things any woman ought to claim inviolate +and under sanctuary, no matter who or what she is or ever may have been.</p> + +<p>But the fever, the hysteria of these no longer left either reason or +decency to them, neither any manner of respect for the sacredness of +womanhood; a thing for the most part inherent even under the severest +strains ever brought to bear on man to make him lower than the +brute—the brute which at its basest never lacks acknowledgment of the +claims of sex.</p> + +<p>These men had reverted, dropped, declined as only man himself, noblest +and lowest of all animals, may do. There was no mercy in them, indeed no +comprehension, else the appeal of the outraged horror on the face of +Aurora Lane must have driven them back, or have struck them down where +they stood.</p> + +<p>"You git on out of the way now!" she heard the coarse voice of someone +say in her face....</p> + +<p>She held her arms out across her door only for an instant longer—she +never knew by whom it was, or when, that they were swept down, and she +herself swept aside, crumpled in a corner of her room.</p> + +<p>The mob was in her home; she had no sanctuary! She caught glimpses of +dark shoulders, compacted by the narrowness of the little rooms, surging +on in and over everything, into every room, testing every crack and +crevice. She heard laughs, oaths, obscenity such as she had never +dreamed men used—for she knew little of the man animal—heard the +rising unison of voices recording a renewed disappointment and chagrin.</p> + +<p>"Damn her! She's got away with him!" called out someone.</p> + +<p>"Sure she has—we might of expected it," rejoined another. "She always +gets by with it somehow—she's pulled the wool over our eyes all her +life. She's fooled us now once more."</p> + +<p>"What'll we do, boys?" cried out the falsetto of the tall young man, +whose face was not set strong with a man's beard-roots. "Are we going to +let her get away with it like this?"</p> + +<p>He made some sort of answer for himself, for there came the crash of +broken glass as he flung some object across the room.</p> + +<p>It was enough—it was the cue. "Smash her up, boys!" cried out another +voice. "Put her out of business now! She's fooled us for the last time."</p> + +<p>They did not find Don Lane, not though they searched this house as they +had the jail. So now their anger caught them, resentful, unreasoning, +unfeeling, brutal anger....</p> + +<p>So they wrecked the little house of Aurora Lane. They tore down the +pictures from the walls, the curtains from the windows, broke in the +windows themselves. They smashed one piece of furniture against another. +They even tore up the little white bed—at which for twenty years +nightly Aurora Lane had kneeled to pray. Someone caught up one of the +pillows, laughing loudly. "Here you are, here's plenty, I reckon! Damn +you! You're lucky we don't give you a ride. Tar'n feathers, 'n a ride on +a rail—that's the medicine for such as you."</p> + +<p>The thought of escape, of rescue, of resistance now had passed from the +mind of Aurora Lane. Frozen, speechless, motionless, she waited, +helpless before this blind fury. They had been after Don, and they had +not found him. Where was Don? And what would they now do to her? What +was that last coarse, terrible threat that they had meant?</p> + +<p>She caught her torn frock again to her throat as she saw, not a definite +movement toward her, but a cessation of movement, a pause, a silence, +which seemed more terrible and more ominous than anything yet in all +this hour of torment and terror. What would they do now?</p> + +<p>They had halted, paused, they stood irresolute, still a pack, a mass, a +mob, not yet resolved into units of thinking, reasoning, human beings; +when without warning suddenly, there came something to give them cause +for thought.</p> + +<p>There was still a rather dense crowd around the gate, on the walk, where +some score or more lingered, who either had not entered the house or who +had emerged from it. It was against the edge of this mass that a +heavily built man, heavy of face, heavy of hand, cast himself as he now +came running up.</p> + +<p>It was the sheriff, Dan Cowles. He thrust a revolver barrel into the +face of the nearest man, caught another by the shoulder. A halt, a +pause, whether of irresolution or of doubt, of indecision or of shame, +came like a falling and restraining hand upon all this lately demoniacal +assemblage. They did not move. It was as though a net had been sprung +above them all.</p> + +<p>"Halt!" called out the voice of the sheriff, high and clear. "What are +you doing here?"</p> + +<p>"It's the sher'f!" croaked one gray beard farther back. "God! what'll he +do to us now?"</p> + +<p>The feeling of apprehension gave courage to some of the bolder. Two or +three sprang upon Cowles from behind and broke him down. He fell, his +revolver pulled from his hand. He looked up into faces that he knew.</p> + +<p>"Make a move and you'll get it," said a hoarse, croaking voice above +him. "Shut up now and keep quiet, and keep to yourself what you seen. +We're just having a little surprise party, that's all. We're only +cleaning up this town."</p> + +<p>But now another figure came running—more than one. Judge Henderson +himself had heard the tumult on the streets. It was he who first hurried +up to the edge of the crowd.</p> + +<p>"Men!" he cried, holding up his hand. "What are you doing? Disperse, in +the name of the law! I command it!"</p> + +<p>They had long been used to obeying the voice of Judge Henderson. He was +their guide, their counselor, their leader. Some hesitated now.</p> + +<p>And then Judge Henderson pushed into the little group, looked over their +heads, their shoulders—and saw what ruin had been wrought in Aurora +Lane's little home. He saw Aurora standing there, outraged in every +fiber, desecrated in her very soul, the ruins of her lost sanctuary +lying all about her and on her face the last, last anguish of a woman +who has said farewell to all, everything—life, happiness, peace, hope, +and trust in God.</p> + +<p>Henderson cast his own hands to his face as he pushed back from that +sight. He stood trembling and silent, unstrung by one swift, remorseless +blow from his own soul, his own long sleeping conscience.</p> + +<p>Afar off, in the village, someone rang a bell—that at the engine house. +Its summons of alarm called out every townsman not already in the +streets.</p> + +<p>But before this time reaction had begun in the mob. Something about +Judge Henderson—the sudden change in his attitude—the blanched terror, +the awful horror which showed now in his face—seemed to bring reason to +their own inflamed and muddled minds. And now, as they hesitated, they +felt the impact of two other strong men who flung themselves against +them, shouldered their way through, up to the side of the struggling +sheriff. Those in the way looked into the barrels of two revolvers, one +held in each hand of a tall man, a giant in his rugged strength, as +those knew whom he jostled aside in his savage on-coming.</p> + +<p>"Hold on, men!" cried out the great voice of Horace Brooks. "I'll kill +the first man that makes a move. Law or no law, I'll kill you if you +move. What are you doing here?"</p> + +<p>At his side there was another, a young man—white-faced—a tall young +man whom not all of them had seen before, whom not many recognized now +in the sudden confusion as they swayed back, jostling one and another in +the attempt to get away—the young man, the prisoner they had wanted and +not found. The young man swung at one arm of Hod Brooks, tried to wrest +from him one of the revolvers—sought to gain some weapon with which he +might kill. But Hod Brooks kept him away.</p> + +<p>"Get back," he said, "leave it to us. God! Don't look at that! They've +smashed her place all to hell!"</p> + +<p>Still another man came, running, shouting—calling out—calling some of +those present by their own names. It was old Eph Adamson, and tears were +streaming down his face.</p> + +<p>"You men!" he called out, and he named them one after another. "You're +my neighbors, you're my friends. What are you doing here—oh, my +God!—my God! What have you done? She's a good woman—I tell you she's a +good woman."</p> + +<p>The three of these newcomers broke their way in to the side of the +sheriff, who by this time was up to his knees. They caught his gun away +from the man who had taken it.</p> + +<p>"Give it to me!" said the low, cold voice of the young man who was +fighting—and before his straight thudding blows a man dropped every now +and then as he came on, struggling desperately to get the weapon. "Give +it to me!"</p> + +<p>He reached out his hand for the sheriff's gun; but still they put him +away, gasping, his eyes with murder in them.</p> + +<p>"Get back," cried Horace Brooks. "Leave it alone. Get back. Look out, +men—he'll shoot!"</p> + +<p>There were five of them now who made a little group. Two others came +running to join them—Nels Jorgens, the wagon-maker and blacksmith—at +his side the spare figure of the gray-bearded minister, Rawlins, of the +Church of Christ.</p> + +<p>"Get into them now, Dan!" cried the great voice of Horace Brooks. "Break +through."</p> + +<p>So they broke through. Men fell and stumbled, whether from blows or in +the confusion of their own efforts to escape. At the edges of the crowd +men turned and ran—ran as fast as they could. After a time they of the +smaller party were almost alone.</p> + +<p>The sheriff turned away, picking up a coat which he found lying on the +ground. The tall young man who had fought at his side stood now leaning +against the fence, his face dropped into his hands, shaking his head +from side to side, unable to weep. Cowles stepped up to him.</p> + +<p>"I'm glad you come, boy," said he, "but it's no place for you here. I +must have left the door open when I went away—I plumb forgot it. +Where've you been, anyhow?"</p> + +<p>"You forgot—you left the door unlocked after she went away—Anne. But I +wasn't trying to escape—I wasn't going out of town."</p> + +<p>"Where was you, then?"</p> + +<p>"I was down at the bridge—I was thinking what to do. Once my mother was +going to take me there.... But I thought of her—Anne, you know, and my +mother, too. I hardly knew what was right.... I heard the noise...."</p> + +<p>Dan Cowles looked at him soberly. "Run on down to the jail now, son, and +tell my wife to lock you in. Tell her I'll be on down, soon's I can."</p> + +<p>Judge Henderson, white-faced, trembling, looked in the starlight into +the face of the one man whom he classed as his rival, his enemy in this +town—it was a wide, white face with narrow and burning eyes, a +Berserker face framed with its fringe of red. Horace Brooks himself was +still almost sobbing with sheer fighting rage. There was that in his eye +terrible to look upon.</p> + +<p>"Oh, my God!" said Judge Henderson again and again. "Oh, my God!—my +God!—--" He supported himself against the broken posts of what had been +the little gate of Aurora Lane.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX</h2> + +<h3>THE IDIOT</h3> + + +<p>At seven o'clock of Monday morning, Johnnie Adamson stood at the +roadside at the front of his father's farmhouse. He held in his hands a +wagon stake which he had found somewhere and with it smote aimlessly at +anything which came in his way. His usual amiable smile was gone. A low +scowl, like that of some angered anthropoid, had replaced it. His +mother, seeing that some unusual turn had taken place in his affliction, +stood at the window of the farmhouse looking out at him and wringing her +hands. She long ago had ceased to weep—the fountain of tears had dried +within her soul. There came to her now and then the sound of his hoarse +defiance, hurled at all who passed by on the road.</p> + +<p>"Son John!—Eejit!—Whip any man in Jackson County!"</p> + +<p>Ephraim Adamson was at the time in the field at work. His wife at length +crept out to the back porch and pulled the cord of the dinner bell. Its +sound rang out across the fields. Her husband came running, more than +half suspicious of the cause of the alarm. Long had their lives been +lived in vague dread of this very thing—a violent turn in the son's +affliction. The father's anxious face spoke the question.</p> + +<p>"Yes, he's bad," said the wife to him. "I'm afraid of him—he's getting +worse."</p> + +<p>The father walked out into the front yard. The youth came toward him, +grinning pleasantly. He fell into the position of a batsman, swinging +his club back and forth as he must some time have seen ball players do.</p> + +<p>"Now you—now you throw it at me—and I'll hit it," said the half-wit. +"You—you throw it at me—and I'll hit—I'll hit it."</p> + +<p>To humor him, his father pitched at him a broken apple that lay on the +ground near by. Johnny struck at it and by chance caught it fair, +crushing it to fragments. At this he laughed in glee.</p> + +<p>"Now—now—another one," said he. "I'll hit—I'll hit them all."</p> + +<p>His father walked up to him and reached out a hand, but for the first +time the boy resented his control. He broke away, swinging his club +menacingly, striking at everything in his way. Ephraim Adamson followed +him; but still evading, the half-wit passed out through the gate which +led into the garden patch at the rear of the house. With his club he cut +at the tops of everything green that he passed. Especially, with many +yells of glee, he fell upon the rows of cabbages, then beginning to head +out. With heavy blows of his club he cut down one after another. The +game seemed to excite him more and more. At last it seemed to enrage him +more and more. He struck with greater viciousness.</p> + +<p>"Eejit!" said he. "I'm out—they can't pick on me! I can hit them! I +will, too, hit them! I'll hit him!"</p> + +<p>His father, following him, saw the face of the club all stained +now—stained dark—black or red—stained green. He caught at the stick, +but for once found his own strength insufficient to cope with that of +his son. The latter wrestled with him. In a direct grip, one against the +other, in which both struggled for the club, the father was unable to +wrest it from him; and continually he saw a new and savage light come +into the eyes of his son. The boy threatened him, menaced him with the +club. His father drew back, for the first time afraid. He went back into +the house, to his wife, on whom he turned a gray, sad face.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid," said he slowly, "I'm afraid we'll have to send him away. +He's awfully bad—he might do anything. I'd rather see him dead."</p> + +<p>The nod of the sad-faced woman was full assent. She gazed out of the +window blankly, barrenly. Ephraim Adamson went out again into the yard. +He passed the boy, unseen, went out into the stable yard, and caught up +his team, which soon he had harnessed to his light wagon. By this time +Johnnie had gone to the woodpile and taken up the ax. He was +endeavoring to split some cordwood, but he rarely could hit twice in the +same place, all his correlations being bad. His father now threw open +the gate and drove into the yard.</p> + +<p>"Want a ride, Johnnie?" he asked; and the boy docilely came and climbed +into the front seat beside him. Not even looking at his wife, Adamson +started out at good speed for the eight-mile drive into Spring Valley. +For the most part the boy was quiet now, but once in a while the return +of a paroxysm would lead him to shout and fling up his hands, to grin or +make faces at any who passed.</p> + +<p>In town, at the corner of the public square, Johnnie became unruly. Some +vague memory was in his mind. He pointed down the head of Mulberry +Street.</p> + +<p>"I want to go—I want to go there!" said he.</p> + +<p>Before his father could stop him he had sprung out of the wagon and run +on ahead. Adamson as quickly as possible hitched his team at the nearest +rack and followed at full speed, sudden terror now renewed in his own +soul. The boy had turned in at the gate of the little house of Aurora +Lane—that little house now scarce longer to be called a home!</p> + +<p>Aurora Lane was alive, within. She moved about dully, slowly, her mind +numb at the horror of all she had gone through. The feeling possessed +her that she was without help or hope in all the world, that her God +himself had forsaken her. She heard the sound of running footsteps, and, +gazing through the window, saw the idiot son of Ephraim Adamson standing +just inside the gate. She heard him come up the steps, heard him begin +to pound on the door.</p> + +<p>"Quick! Miss Lane," called Adamson as he came following up on the +run—he hoped that Aurora would hear him. "Don't let him in. +Telephone—get the sher'f as soon as you can."</p> + +<p>He walked up the steps now and took the boy by the arm as he hammered at +the door with the head of the club.</p> + +<p>"Come on, Johnnie," said he. "We'll go see the pictures. Come along."</p> + +<p>It was not better than an animal, the creature who now turned facing +him, growling. "Get out!" said Johnnie to him. "No one—no one can pick +on me! I'll hit—I'll hit you. Whip any man in Jackson County. I'm +out—I'll hit anybody touches me. I guess I know!"</p> + +<p>His sweeping blows about him with the club forced his father back, and +showed that any attempt to close with him would be dangerous. Adamson +retired to the gate. Johnnie went on smashing everything about him, +flower beds, chairs, a little table which stood on the front +gallery—anything left undestroyed by the more intelligent but not less +malignant visitors of the night before, who thus had set a pattern for +him.</p> + +<p>"I want in," he said pleasantly after a time, seating himself on the +front steps. "Eejit—best man in Jackson County. She was good to me. She +spoke to me kind. I won't hurt her."</p> + +<p>Aurora Lane could see him as she gazed out from behind the window +curtain. Her call on the telephone to the officer of the law had been +loud, insistent, the appeal of a woman in terror. But now, as she looked +out at Johnnie Adamson, something other than terror was in her wan +face;—something like surprise—something like conviction! The thought +brought with it no additional terror—rather it carried a swift ray of +hope!</p> + +<p>It was toward eight o'clock in the morning now. Few were abroad on the +streets of Spring Valley, but now and then a passer-by turned to gaze at +a man who was hurrying across from the court and turning into Mulberry +Street. It was Dan Cowles, the sheriff, and they wondered where he was +going now.</p> + +<p>Ephraim Adamson heard the hurrying approach as Dan Cowles came down the +street. The boy still was sitting on the steps. Suddenly he turned—and +caught sight of the face of Aurora Lane at the window. He rose, removed +his hat, and smirked.</p> + +<p>"May I see you home?" said he. "Eejit—the best man in Jackson County. I +can hit anybody! I'll show you."</p> + +<p>He was mowing, smirking, talking to her through the glass of the window +pane, jerking and twitching about, but he turned now when he heard the +steps of his father and the sheriff on the brick walk back of him.</p> + +<p>"He's gone bad, Dan," said Adamson in a low tone to the sheriff. "We'll +have to lock him up. He'll have to go to the asylum. He's dangerous. +Look out!"</p> + +<p>Suddenly the half-wit turned upon them. His eyes seemed fixed on the +star shining on the coat of Dan Cowles—identically the same star that +City Marshal Tarbush had worn, Cowles having for the time taken on the +deceased man's duties also. The sight enraged him. He brandished his +club.</p> + +<p>"There he is!" he cried. "I hit him once—I killed him—I'm going to +kill him again! You can't pick on me. I'm out. I'll kill you again!"</p> + +<p>"My God! <i>what's he saying, Dan</i>?" quavered the voice of the unhappy +man, the father of this wild creature. "What's he <i>saying</i>?"</p> + +<p>"Johnnie!" he himself called out aloud. "Johnnie, tell me—tell me who +it was, and I'll take you to see the pictures right away."</p> + +<p>"Him!" shrieked Johnnie. "Him—there's that shiny thing."</p> + +<p>"When was it, Johnnie—what do you mean about this man?" The sheriff now +spoke to him.</p> + +<p>"I hit you—that night—I'll hit you again now! Nobody going to pick on +Johnnie. Best man in Jackson County—eejit!"</p> + +<p>"You're going to take me away to jail again," said he cunningly. "But +you can't. I was just going to talk to her before, and you come and took +me away. But I hit him. Now I'll kill you so you'll stay dead."</p> + +<p>Slowly, cautiously creeping down the steps, club in hand, he followed +the two men, who backed away from him—backed out through the gate on to +the sidewalk, into the street.</p> + +<p>From across the street Nels Jorgens in his wagon shop saw what was going +on, and came running, a stout wagon spoke caught up in his own hand. He +passed this to Ephraim Adamson.</p> + +<p>"Look out, Sheriff!" he called out. "He's wild. He'll kill somebody +yet."</p> + +<p>Nels Jorgens and one or two others saw what then happened. The madman, +now murderously excited, stopped in his deliberate advance. His eyes +flamed green with hatred at all this before him. The lust of blood +showed on his features, usually so mild. He saw his father standing now, +this weapon in his hand; and forgetting every tie in the world, if ever +he had felt one, sprang at him with a scream of rage. Ephraim Adamson +stepped back, tripped, fell. He saw above him the face of his son, with +murder in his eyes. He closed his own eyes.</p> + +<p>And then Nels Jorgens and one or two others who came hurrying up saw a +puff of smoke, heard the roar of a shot Dan Cowles had fired just in +time....</p> + +<p>There was no need to send poor Johnnie Adamson to the asylum. He had +gone now to a farther country. He sank, a vast bulk, at his full length +along the narrow strip of dusty grass between the curb and the walk. His +shoulders heaved once or twice, his arms fell lax.</p> + +<p>Dan Cowles, solemn-faced, his weapon still in his hand, turned to gaze +at the haggard man who rose slowly, turning away from that which he now +saw.</p> + +<p>"It was the act of committing a felony," said Dan Cowles slowly. "It was +to save human life. He resisted arrest, and he was armed. It was a +felony."</p> + +<p>But when old Ephraim Adamson turned his gray face to that of the officer +of the law, in his sad eyes there was no resentment. He held out his +hand.</p> + +<p>"Dan," said he, "thank God you done it! Thank God it's over!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI</h2> + +<h3>A TRUE BILL</h3> + + +<p>Now it was nine o'clock of the Monday morning. The grand jury was in +session thus early, and it had thus early brought in a true bill against +one Dieudonné Lane for murder in the first degree. The session of the +jury had just begun. None of the jury knew of these late events at the +house of Aurora Lane.</p> + +<p>In his office Judge Henderson was pacing up and down all that morning. +He had failed in every attempt to stop the progress of the law. He could +not on Sunday afternoon reach by telephone or otherwise the men he +wished to see; on Sunday night had seen this horror; and now, early on +Monday, there was no way by which even he could arrest the procedure of +the grand jury, made up of men who lived here, and who before this had +made up their minds on the bill which Slattery, state's attorney, +zealous as they, had rushed through at a late session with his own +clerks on Sunday night after he had ended his Sabbath motor ride to an +adjoining town.</p> + +<p>Fate conspired against Judge Henderson and his shrewd plan for delay +which was to have left him secure in his ambition and saved in his own +conceit. These things now seemed shrunk, faded, unimportant.</p> + +<p>He had not slept at all that night. Before him now swept such a panorama +as it seemed to him would never let him sleep again. He was indeed +facing now the crisis of his life—a crisis not in his material affairs +alone, but a crisis of his moral nature. He had learned in one swift +lesson what others sometimes learn more deliberately—that the world is +not for the use of any one man alone, but for the use of all men who +dwell in it. It is the world of human beings who are partners in its +use. They stand alike on its soil, they fight there for the same end. +They are brothers, even though savage brothers, after all.</p> + +<p>And among these are fathers, too. It was his own son who lay in yonder +jail. Now at last some thought, a new, stirring and compelling emotion +came into his soul. It was not her boy, but his—it was his son! And now +he knew he had been indeed a Judas and a coward.</p> + +<p>Judge Henderson's dulled senses heard a sound, a distinct and unusual +sound. He stepped out into the hall and spoke to a neighbor who also was +looking out of his office door.</p> + +<p>"What was that shot?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"I don't know," said the other. "Where was it at—around that corner? +Oh, I reckon it was probably a tire blew out at Nels Jorgen's wagon +shop—he has automobiles there sometimes."</p> + +<p>Henderson turned back to his own office, his nerves twitching. He was +obliged to face the duties of this day.</p> + +<p>What was to happen now to William Henderson, the leading citizen of +Spring Valley? Actually, he now did not so much care. It was his +son—his own son—in yonder jail! The heart of a father began to be born +in him, thus late, thus very, very late.... He had seen her face, last +night.</p> + +<p>He walked slowly down his stair and across the street to the courthouse. +His course was such that he could not see into Mulberry Street. Some +persons were hurrying in that direction, but he did not join them. He +was too preoccupied to pay much attention to the sounds which came to +his ears. As for himself, he could have gone anywhere rather than near +to the house of Aurora Lane that morning. A great terror filled his +soul, a terror largely of these people among whom he had lived thus +long. They had wrecked her home. They might have done worse in their +savagery. But it was he himself who was the real cause of that. Would +she still keep her oath now, after this? Could she be silent now?</p> + +<p>He walked on now into the courthouse and down the long hall. He was +about to step into the county clerk's office, when he came face to face +with a tall man just stepping out. It was Horace Brooks.</p> + +<p>"Well, Judge," said the latter, "how is it with you today?"</p> + +<p>He spoke not unkindly, although his own face was haggard and gray. +Neither had he slept that night.</p> + +<p>"It goes badly enough," said Henderson. "Nothing could be much worse. +Well?"</p> + +<p>"You want to know if the grand jury has voted that bill? They have—I +have just heard. Of course you know I am counsel of record for the +defense."</p> + +<p>"I didn't know it."</p> + +<p>"Yes, Judge, there's going to be a fight on this case," said Hod Brooks +grimly. "That is, if you really want to fight. I've got nothing left to +trade—but, Judge, do you think you and I really ought to fight—over +this particular case?"</p> + +<p>"I can't forswear my own professional duties," began Judge Henderson, +his mouth dry in his dull dread, his heart wrenched. He wondered what +Hod Brooks knew, what he was going to do. He knew what must come, but he +was not ready for the hour.</p> + +<p>"Come into this room," said Horace Brooks suddenly. "I won't go to your +office, and I won't ask you to come to mine. But come in here, and let's +have a little talk."</p> + +<p>They stepped over to the door of the county treasurer's office, across +the hall. It was a room of the sort usual in a country courthouse, with +its high stools and desks, its map-hung walls, its scattered chairs, its +great red record books lying here and there upon the desk top.</p> + +<p>A young woman sat making some entry in a book. "Miss Carrie," said +Horace Brooks to her, "Judge Henderson and I want to talk a little +together privately. Please keep us from being disturbed. You run +away—we won't steal the county funds."</p> + +<p>Smilingly the clerk obeyed. Brooks turned to Judge Henderson abruptly.</p> + +<p>"Look here, Judge," said he.</p> + +<p>He pointed to a large framed lithograph which hung on the wall—the same +which had hung on the wall in the library at the exercises of Saturday +night. It was a portrait of the candidate for the United States +Senate—Judge Henderson himself. The latter looked at it for a moment +without comment, and turned back with an inquiring eye.</p> + +<p>Brooks was fumbling in the side pocket of his alpaca coat, and now he +drew out from it a good-sized photograph, which he placed face upward on +the desk beside them. It was done in half-profile, as was the portrait +upon the wall.</p> + +<p>"Look at this picture too, Judge, if you please," said he, "and then +look back again at the lithograph. That was taken some years ago, when +you were young, wasn't it?"</p> + +<p>Judge Henderson flushed lividly. "I leave all those things to the +committee," croaked he.</p> + +<p>"—But this one here," said Horace Brooks slowly, "was taken when you +were still younger, <i>say, when you were twenty-two</i>, wasn't it?" He +moved back so that Judge Henderson might look at the photograph. He saw +the face of the great man grow yellow pale.</p> + +<p>"Where did you get this?" he whispered. "How?"</p> + +<p>"I got it of Miss Julia Delafield, at the library, early this morning," +said Horace Brooks. "I told Miss Julia, whatever she did, to stay in the +library and not to go over to Aurora Lane's house. I—I didn't want her +to see what had happened there. She was busy, but she found this picture +for me. And we both know that really it is a photograph of the young man +against whom the grand jury have just brought a true bill—within the +last ten minutes."</p> + +<p>There was silence in the dusty little room. The large white hand on the +desk top was visibly trembling. Hod Brooks' voice was low as he went on:</p> + +<p>"Now, as to trying this case, Judge, I brought you in here to ask you +what you really want to do? I don't my own self very often try cases out +of court—although I have sometimes—sometimes. Yes, sometimes that's +the way to serve the ends of substantial justice."</p> + +<p>Henderson made no reply—he scarcely could have spoken. He could feel +the net tightening; he knew what he was to expect now.</p> + +<p>"Now, here are these two pictures," resumed Brooks. "Suppose I <i>were</i> +trying this case <i>in</i> court. I'm not sure, but I think I could get them +both introduced in evidence, these two pictures. I think they are both +germane to this case—don't you? You've been on the bench—we've both +read law. Do you think as a judge you could keep a good lawyer from +getting these two pictures introduced in evidence in that case?"</p> + +<p>"I don't see how you could," said the hoarse voice of Judge Henderson. +"It would be altogether immaterial and incompetent."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps, perhaps," said Hod Brooks. "That's another good reason why I'd +rather try the case here, if it suits you! But just suppose I enlarged +this photograph to the exact size of the lithograph on the wall, and +suppose I did get them both into evidence, and suppose I unveiled the +two at just the psychological moment—I presume you would trust me to do +that?</p> + +<p>"Now if I hadn't seen you last night just where you were, if I hadn't +hoped, from what I saw of you, that you were part man at least—<i>that's +how I would try this case</i>! What do you think about it?"</p> + +<p>"I think you are practising politics again, and not law," sneered +Henderson. But his face was white.</p> + +<p>"Yes? Well, I'll tell you, I don't want to see you go to the United +States Senate. In the first place, though I agreed not to run at all, I +never agreed to help you run. In the second place, I never did think you +were a good enough man to go there, and now I think it less than ever. +And since you ask me a direct question of political bearing, I'll say +that, if the public records—that is to say, the court records and all +the newspapers—showed the similarity of these two pictures side by +side, the effect on your political future might be very considerable! +What do you think?</p> + +<p>"Now, if you take you and that boy side by side today," he went on, +having had no reply, "the resemblance between you two might not be +noticed. But get the <i>ages</i> together—get the view of the face the same +in each case—take him at his age and you at something near the same +age—and don't you think there is much truth in what I said? The boy has +red hair, like me! But in black and white he looks like you!"</p> + +<p>Judge Henderson, unable to make reply, had turned away. He was staring +out from the window over the courthouse yard.</p> + +<p>"Some excitement over there," he said. Hod Brooks did not hear him.</p> + +<p>"That face on the wall there, Judge Henderson," said he, "is the face of +a murderer! The face of this boy is not that of a murderer. But <i>you</i> +murdered a woman twenty years ago—not a man, but a woman—and damn +you, you know it, absolutely well! I saw last night that at last you +realized your own crime, that crime—you had <i>guilt</i> on your face. I am +going to charge you—just as you maybe were planning to charge that +boy—with murder, worse than murder in the first degree, if that be +possible—worse even than prosecuting your own son for murder when you +know he's innocent!</p> + +<p>"<i>You</i> murdered that woman whom we two saw last night! <i>You</i> made that +beastly mob a possible thing—not now, but years ago. Do you think the +people of this community will want to send you to the United States +Senate if they ever get a look at that act? Do you think they would +relish the thought that <i>you're</i> the special prosecutor where <i>your son</i> +is on trial for his life? I say it—<i>your son</i>! You know it, and I know +it. You'd jeopardize the life that you yourself gave to him and were too +cowardly to acknowledge! Do you think you'd have a chance on earth here +if those things were known—if they knew you'd refused to defend +him—that you'd denied your own son? And do you think for a moment these +things will <i>not</i> be known if I take this case?"</p> + +<p>"This is blackmail!" exclaimed Judge Henderson, swinging around. "I'll +not stand for this."</p> + +<p>"Of course, it's blackmail, Judge. I know that. But it's justice. And +you will stand for it! I didn't take this boy's case to get him hanged, +but to get him clear. I don't care a damn how I do it, but I'm going to +do it. I'd fight a man like you with anything I could get my hands on. +This is blackmail, yes; and it's politics—but it's justice."</p> + +<p>"I didn't think this was possible," began Henderson, his voice shaking. +"I didn't think this of you."</p> + +<p>"There's a lot of things people never thought of me," smiled Hod Brooks. +"I'm something of a trader my own self. Here's where we trade again.</p> + +<p>"Listen. I didn't have the start that you had. I started far back beyond +the flag, and I have had to run hard to get into any place. Maybe I'll +lose all my place through this, I don't know. But I never got anywhere +in my life by shirking or sidestepping."</p> + +<p>"You have some hidden interest in this."</p> + +<p>"Yes! Now you have come to it! I'm not so much thinking of myself, not +so much thinking of you. I'm thinking of that woman."</p> + +<p>He could not find Henderson's eyes now, for Henderson's face was buried +in his hands.</p> + +<p>"I was thinking of something of the sort," Brooks went on slowly, "in +that other case, in Blackman's court last Saturday. Why didn't you try +that case, Judge? Didn't you know then he was your boy?"</p> + +<p>The suddenly aged man before him did not make any reply. His full eyes +seemed to protrude yet more. "I felt something—I wasn't sure. She'd +told me years ago the boy was dead. How could I believe I was his +father? Don't ask me."</p> + +<p>"I wish to God <i>I</i> could have been the father of that boy!" said Hod +Brooks deliberately.</p> + +<p>"We seem to be talking freely enough!" said Henderson. The perspiration +was breaking out on his forehead. But Horace Brooks took no shame to +himself for what he had said.</p> + +<p>"The mother of that boy," he went on, "is the one woman I ever cared +for, Judge. I'll admit that to you. If there were any way in the world +so that I could take that woman's troubles on my own shoulders, I'd do +it.... So, you see, this wasn't blackmail after all, Judge. It wasn't +really politics after all. I was doing this for <i>her</i>."</p> + +<p>"For her?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Now listen. You met her as a girl, when she didn't know much. I +never met her really to know much about her until she was a grown woman, +with a character—a splendid character whose like you'll not find +anywhere in this town, nor in many another town. You never had the +courage to come out and say that she was your wife—you never had the +courage to make her your wife. You thought you could last her out in +this town, because she was a person of no consequence—because she was a +woman. And all the time she was the grandest woman in this town. But she +didn't have any friends. Now, it seemed to me, she ought to have a +friend.</p> + +<p>"Do you call it blackmail now, Judge?" he asked presently. "Is this +politics?"</p> + +<p>But he ceased in his assault as he saw the pallor of the face of his +antagonist.</p> + +<p>"You've got me, Hod!" said Judge William Henderson, gasping. "I confess! +It's over. You've got me!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I've got you, but I don't want you," said Hod Brooks. "I'm not +after you socially, legally, politically, or any other way. I tell you, +I'm thinking of those two women who put your son through college—who +had all they could do to keep their souls in their bodies, while you +lived the way you have lived here. They paid your debts for you—they +advanced cash and character <i>both</i> for you—just two poor women. The +question now is, How are you going to pay any of your debts? There'll be +considerable accrued interest."</p> + +<p>"I didn't know it all, I tell you," broke out Judge Henderson. "She +hasn't spoken to me for years, you might say—we never met. I didn't +know the boy was alive—she told me twenty years ago that he'd died, a +baby. This has all come up in a day—I've not had time to learn, to +think, to plan, to adjust——God! don't you think it's terrible enough, +with him there in jail?"</p> + +<p>"She never asked you for help?"</p> + +<p>"No, not till yesterday."</p> + +<p>"She was game. I was sure. That was one reason why I went to that woman +night before last and asked her if she'd marry me."</p> + +<p>"What—you did that?"</p> + +<p>"I did that! I told her <i>I</i> would take the boy and give him a father. I +said I'd even call him my own—I'd come that close to losing my own +self-respect in just this one case in the world. But, I told her, of +course I couldn't do that unless she was a widow. And, Judge, I +learned—from her—that she wasn't a widow. Oh, no, she didn't tell me +about you—and I never figured it out all clean till just now—that the +late District Judge of this county, and the Senatorial candidate for +this State—was the father of the boy, Don Lane. Huh? Oh, stand up to +it—you've got to take it.</p> + +<p>"Now, this boy of yours had no father and two mothers—it's an odd case. +But how did I learn who was the father of that boy? Not from Aurora +Lane. No, I learned that from the other mother—this morning—Miss +Julia. And as soon as I did—as soon as I was convinced I had proofs—I +started over to find you."</p> + +<p>"My God! man, what could you have meant?—You told her you would marry +her?" Judge Henderson's sheer astonishment overcame all other emotions.</p> + +<p>"I meant every word I said. If it could have been humanly possible for +me to marry her, I'd have done that. Yes—I wanted to give her her +chance. I couldn't give her her chance. It looks as though she didn't +have one, never has had, never can have.</p> + +<p>"Now, if I hadn't seen you last night right where I did—if I didn't +believe that somewhere inside of you there was just a trace of +manhood—it's not very much—it's damned little—I wouldn't have asked +you to come in here to talk. I'd have waited until I got you in the +courtroom. I'd have waited until I got you on the platform, and then I'd +have taken your heart out in public. I'd have broken you before the +people of this town. I'd have flayed you alive and prayed your hide to +grow so I could take it off again, and I'd have hung it on the public +fence. But, you see—last night——My God!</p> + +<p>"I wouldn't trade places with you now, Judge Henderson," said Hod +Brooks, after a time. "If I knew I had been responsible for what we saw +last night, as you were responsible—I'd never raise my head again.</p> + +<p>"As for the United States Senate, Judge, do you think you're fit to go +there? Do you think this is blackmail now? Do you think you want to try +this murder case? Do you think you want to try this case against this +boy—your son—her son? There may be men worse than you in the United +States Senate, but I will say it might be full of better. You're never +going there, Judge. And you're never going to try this case."</p> + +<p>"You've got me, Hod," croaked the ashy-faced man.</p> + +<p>"Yeh, Judge, I have! But that's not the question."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"You swore the oath of justice and support of the law when you were +admitted to this bar. You've broken your oath—all your oaths. Are you +going to throw yourself on the court now and ask for forgiveness?"</p> + +<p>Henderson stood weakly, half supporting himself against the desk edge. +He seemed shrunken all at once, his clothing fitted him less snugly. A +roughened place showed on the side of his shining top hat—the only top +hat in Spring Valley.</p> + +<p>"I've tried this case," said Hod Brooks sharply. "I've tried it before +your own conscience. It took twenty years for a woman to square herself. +I'm going to ask the court to send you up for twenty years. You murdered +a good woman. That's a light sentence."</p> + +<p>A large fly was buzzing on the window-pane in the sunlight, and the +sound was distinctly audible in the silence that now fell in the little +room. It might indeed have been twenty years that had passed here in as +many minutes, so swift a revolution had taken place. The making over of +a soul; the cleansing of a life; the changing of an entire creed of +conduct; the surrender of a dominating inborn trait; the tearing down +and building over a vain and wholly selfish man.</p> + +<p>"I think she's a good woman," said Hod Brooks simply, after a time.</p> + +<p>"So do I!" broke out Judge Henderson at length, with a sudden gasp. "So +do I! She's a good woman. I knew it last night. I've known it all along, +in a way. It all came over me last night—I saw it all plain for the +first time in all these years. Hod! You're right. I don't deserve mercy. +I don't ask it—I'd be ashamed to."</p> + +<p>"Religion," said Hod Brooks, quite irrelevantly, "is not altogether +confined to churches, you know. A man's conviction may hit him +anywhere—even in the office of the county treasurer of Jackson County. +But if I was a preacher, Judge Henderson, I'd be mighty glad to hear you +say what you have said."</p> + +<p>In his face there showed some sort of strange emotion of his own, a sort +of yearning for the understanding of his own nature by this other man; +and some sort of rude man's sympathy for the broken man who stood before +him.</p> + +<p>"You both were young," said he softly and irrelevantly. "I'm not your +judge."</p> + +<p>"Hod," said Judge Henderson—"I'm done! I wouldn't go to the Senate +tomorrow if they'd let me. For twenty years she's taken her fate. She's +never told my name. She's never blamed me. She's paid all her debts. In +the next twenty years—can I live as well as that?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, she's paid her debts. We've all got to do that some time—there +doesn't seem to be any good way of getting clear of an honest debt, +does there? It costs considerable, sometimes." Hod Brooks' voice held no +wavering, but it was not unkind.</p> + +<p>"But now, Judge," he resumed, "we get around to my profession, which is +that of the practice of the law. There's a true bill against the boy. +State's Attorney Slattery don't amount to much—I know about a lot of +things. You're the real intended prosecutor here. Now, I don't want any +passing over of this case to another term of court—I'm not going to let +that boy lie in jail."</p> + +<p>"That was what I meant to do—I wasn't going to try for a conviction—I +was going to try for delay."</p> + +<p>"Come into court with me and openly ask the quashing of this +indictment," said Hod Brooks. "And we can beat that delay game a +thousand ways of the deck! But now, now—you <i>did</i> have the heart of a +father, then? So, so—well, well! Say, Judge, we're not opponents—we're +partners in this case."</p> + +<p>"Hod——" began the other; but Hod Brooks was the master mind. "I +believe we can show, some time, somehow," said he, "that the boy didn't +do it. I know the boy's <i>mother</i>. Of course, his father wasn't so much!" +He broke out into his great laugh, but in the corners of his eyes there +was visible a dampness.</p> + +<p>Judge Henderson hesitated for just a moment. "Believe at least this +much, Hod," said he. "I didn't know as much at first as I do now. +She—she told me all—I saw it all—last night. I want to tell the +truth—near as I know. When I saw the boy in Blackman's court—it didn't +seem possible, and yet it did. But who gave you the notion? What made +<i>you</i> suspect it? You didn't suspect it then, in the justice court, did +you?"</p> + +<p>"Only vaguely," said Hod Brooks; "not so very much. I'll tell you who +did—a woman."</p> + +<p>"Aurora?"</p> + +<p>"No—Miss Julia. Miss Julia sat there looking from the face of Don Lane +to your own face. There was something in her face—I can't tell what. +Why, hell! I don't suppose a man ever does know what's going on in a +woman's heart, least of all a crude man like me, that never had any fine +feelings in all his life. But there was something there in Miss Julia's +face—I can't tell what. In some way, in her mind, she was connecting +those two faces that she saw before her. If I hadn't seen her face, I +wouldn't ever have suspected you of being the father of that boy!</p> + +<p>"But something stuck in my mind. Now, this morning, getting ready to +prepare my case, defending this boy, I went over to Miss Julia's +library. I still remembered what I had seen. I found this picture +there—she had that other picture there, hanging on her wall, too. She +had them both! One was on the wall and the other on her desk. Now, she +had certainly established some connection in her own mind between those +two pictures, or else she wouldn't have had them there both right +before her."</p> + +<p>"Then you, too, know," interrupted Henderson, "the story of those two +women—how they brought him up from babyhood—and kept the secret? Why +did Miss Julia do that?"</p> + +<p>"Because she was a woman."</p> + +<p>"But why didn't she tell?"</p> + +<p>"Because she was a woman."</p> + +<p>"But why—what makes you suppose she ever would care in the first place +for this boy when he was a baby?"</p> + +<p>"Again, because she was a woman, Judge!"</p> + +<p>"She came and told me all about her friendship for Aurora. But she +admitted she didn't know who the father of the boy was. Then why should +she connect me with this?"</p> + +<p>"The same reason, Judge—because she was a woman!</p> + +<p>"And when you come to that," he added as he turned toward the door, +"that covers our whole talk today. That's why I got you to come here. +That's why I'm interested in this case. That's why I've made you try +this case yourself, here, now, Judge, before the court of your own +conscience. A crime worse than murder has been done here in this town to +Aurora Lane—because she was a woman! She's borne the brunt of it—paid +all her debts—carried all her awful, unspeakable, unbelievable +load—because she was a woman!</p> + +<p>"And," he concluded, "if you ask me why I was specially interested in +the boy's case and yours and hers—I'll tell you. I gave up—to you—all +my hope of success and honor and preferment just so as to help her all I +could; to stand between her and the world all I could; to help her and +her boy all I could. It was because she was a woman—the very best I +ever knew."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII</h2> + +<h3>MISS JULIA</h3> + + +<p>It was now ten o'clock of this eventful morning in quiet old Spring +Valley. A hush seemed to have fallen on all the town. The streets were +well-nigh deserted so far as one might see from the public square. Only +one figure seemed animated by a definite purpose.</p> + +<p>Miss Julia Delafield came rapidly as she might across the street from +the foot of the stair that led up to Judge Henderson's office. She had +hobbled up the stair and hobbled down again, and now was crossing the +street that led to the courthouse. She came through the little turnstile +and tap-tapped her way up the wide brick walk. Her face, turned up +eagerly, was flushed, full of great emotions.</p> + +<p>Miss Julia was clad in her best finery. She had on a bright new +hat—which she had had over from Aurora's shop but recently. She had +worn it at the great event of Don Lane's homecoming—worn it to make +tribute to her "son." She wore it now in search of that son's +father—and she had not the slightest idea in the world who that father +in fact might be. Miss Julia's divination was only such stuff as dreams +are made on. The father of Don, the unborn father of her unborn +beloved—was not yet caught out of chaos, not yet resolved out of +time—he was but a creature of her dreams.</p> + +<p>So Miss Julia walked haltingly through star dust. It whirled all about +her as she crossed the dirty street. Around her spun all the nebulć of +life yet to be. Somewhere on beyond and back of this was a soft, gray, +vague light, the light of creation itself, of the dawn, of the birth of +time. Perhaps some would have said it was the light shining down through +the courthouse hall from the farther open door. Who would deny poor +little Miss Julia her splendid dreams?</p> + +<p>For Miss Julia was very, very happy. She had found how the world was +made and why it was made. And mighty few wise men ever have learned so +much as that.</p> + +<p>She searched for the father of her first-born—a man tall and splendid +and beautiful—a man strong and just and noble. Such only might be the +father of her boy.... And she met him at the door of the county +treasurer's office, his silk hat slightly rumpled on one side.</p> + +<p>"Oh!" she cried, and started back.</p> + +<p>She had only been thinking. But here he was. This was proof to Miss +Julia's mind that God actually does engage in our daily lives. For here +he was!</p> + +<p>Now she could bring father and son together; and that would correlate +this world of question and doubt with that world of the star dust and +the whirling nebulć.</p> + +<p>"Miss Julia!" The judge stopped, suddenly embarrassed. He flushed, which +was all the better, for he had been ashen pale.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'm so glad!" she exclaimed. "I was looking for you, all over. I +was at your office, but did not find you. Of course you have heard?"</p> + +<p>"Heard? No, what was it?"</p> + +<p>"Why, the death of Johnnie Adamson—it was the sheriff, just now—Dan +Cowles shot him, right in front of Aurora Lane's house. He must have +been trying to break in or something. His father was there."</p> + +<p>"Why, great heavens!—what are you telling me? The sheriff shot him? +Where is Cowles? I must see him."</p> + +<p>"He's here in the courthouse now, they say. But it's all over now. Where +have you been? I was going over to Aurora's house early this morning, +but Mr. Brooks came in. I must go over at once——"</p> + +<p>"Come this way, Miss Julia," he interrupted.</p> + +<p>He led her into the room he had just left. Racked as he was himself, he +knew it would be too cruel an unkindness to tell Miss Julia now of what +had befallen Aurora Lane the night before.</p> + +<p>"The reason I came to you first," said Miss Julia—"before I went to +Aurora—was about the boy—about Don. You see, he confessed—the +half-wit did—before he was killed. The sheriff and others and his own +father heard him say that he had killed Tarbush, don't you see? He'd +gone wild, don't you see—he was a maniac. It was a madman killed +Tarbush. Why, Don didn't do it—I <i>told</i> you he couldn't have done it! +Didn't I?</p> + +<p>"So now it's all cleared—and I'm so glad!" she concluded, breathless.</p> + +<p>"What's all this you are telling me, Miss Julia? Why, this is basic +evidence—it does end the case! But you say there were witnesses to this +confession?" A vast relief came into Judge Henderson's ashen face.</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes, the sheriff and Eph Adamson and Nels Jorgens—they all heard +him. And the poor boy—his body's in the justice's office now. They've +sent a messenger after his mother—poor thing—oh, poor woman that she +is!"</p> + +<p>"Where is Adamson now—where's the sheriff?"</p> + +<p>"As I said, the sheriff is here in the building somewhere. Old Eph +Adamson won't speak to anyone. He seems half out of his own mind now. +But he doesn't blame the sheriff. They say he's sorry for Aurora. Why?</p> + +<p>"So you see," said Miss Julia, leaping over a vast sea of intervening +facts, "everything's all right now." And she sighed a great soft sigh +of complete content. "Of course Don didn't do it. I knew that all +along."</p> + +<p>"Where's Anne—my ward?" asked Judge Henderson suddenly. "I want to +speak to her a moment."</p> + +<p>"I don't know," said Miss Julia. But she smiled, and all her choicest +dimples came out in fine array. "I shouldn't wonder if she was in jail! +Now I've got to go over to Aurora's. All this news, you know——"</p> + +<p>But Miss Julia did not hasten away. To the contrary, she seemed not +unwilling to linger yet a time—unconsciously. The truth was that all +her heart was happy, with the one supreme happiness possible for her in +all her life. For a second time she was here, standing face to face with +her hero. So she sighed and smiled and dimpled and talked over this +thing and that—until at length she turned and caught sight of the two +pictures, the one on the wall, the other on the desk—which both men had +left there, forgotten.</p> + +<p>"Why, what's this?" said she. "I gave Mr. Brooks this one this morning," +she said. "He might at least have returned it to me. He said he wanted +to borrow it for a little while. Was he here?"</p> + +<p>"He just went away," said Judge Henderson uneasily. "He was here just +now."</p> + +<p>Miss Julia was taking up the little photograph and looking from it to +the lithograph with soft eyes.</p> + +<p>"Isn't it fine?" said she. "Fine!" But she did not say which one of the +two faces she saw before her was most in her mind.... And then in the +little room with its dusty windows and its tumbled books and map-hung +walls, Miss Julia leaped to the great fundamental conclusion of her own +life.</p> + +<p>She saw out far into the time of star dust and the soft vague light and +the whirling nebulć. She saw all the great truths—saw the one great +truth for any woman—saw her hero standing here—the dream father of her +own dream child.... But Miss Julia never grasped the real, the inferior, +the human truth at all. On the contrary, she made a vast and very +beautiful mistake. She had assigned a dream father to her dream son, but +no more. That Judge William Henderson was the father indeed of Dieudonné +Lane she no more suspected than she suspected herself to be his actual +mother. So, therefore, it had been only a path of dreams that Horace +Brooks had followed when he saw her look from the boy's to the father's +face. It was only a path of dreams now that again her eyes followed, as +she looked from the portrait of the youth to the man who stood before +her. Ah! Miss Julia. Poor, little, happy Miss Julia!</p> + +<p>"So now, Judge," said she at last, "you can clear him, after all. It +will be so fine for you to do that—so dramatic—so fitting, won't it?"</p> + +<p>If Judge Henderson could have spoken, perhaps he would have done so; but +she misunderstood his choking silence. She was miles away from the +actual truth; and never was to know it in all her life.</p> + +<p>"Don hadn't any father," said she. "His father's dead long ago, or +Aurora would have told me. He's in his grave—and she'll not open it +even for me, who have loved her so much. But if he had had a father..." +Her voice ceased wistfully.</p> + +<p>Judge Henderson coughed, his hands at his throat. She did not see his +face.</p> + +<p>"... If only he could have had a father like—this!"</p> + +<p>Her own little hand fell gently—ever so gently—on the lithographed +face of the great man, her hero, her champion—who always was to be such +for her. It was the boldest act of all her quiet life. Her hand was very +gentle, but as it fell, perhaps it dealt the heaviest blow to the +vanity, the egotism, the innate selfishness of the man ever he had +known, even in this swift series of blows he was now receiving. For once +remorse, regret, understanding smote him sore. He saw how little he had +earned what life had given him. He saw—himself!</p> + +<p>"But then," she added hastily, and flushed to the roots of her hair—"I +beg your pardon. That could not have been, of course. Don's father—the +way he was born—why, <i>Don's</i> father couldn't have been a man like +<i>you</i>! We all know that."</p> + +<p>Miss Julia hobbled on away now to find her friend, Aurora Lane. She did +not know the story of the night before. Miss Julia was very, very +happy. She had her boy and his father after all—and both were above +reproach! And she never told, not in all her life—and she never knew, +not in all her life. And as she hobbled now up the walk beyond the +little gate—somewhat repentant that her own eagerness had kept her away +thus long from Aurora, she felt no remorse in her heart that she had not +told Aurora Lane the real secret of her own life. "Because," remarked +Miss Julia, to herself, like any woman, "there is one secret she has +never told me—she has never told me who was Don's father!"</p> + +<p>Poor little Miss Julia! Ah, very happy, very happy, little Miss Julia! +Because she was a woman.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII</h2> + +<h3>THE STATE VS. DIEUDONNÉ LANE</h3> + + +<p>Judge Henderson, haggard, shaken, turned and walked down one of the +halls which traversed the courthouse building. In the central space, +where the two halls crossed at right angles, was a curving stair leading +up to the courtrooms and the offices of the immediate servants of +justice. As he stood here he saw again the tall figure of Horace Brooks +approaching. He walked even more stooped forward than was usually his +case, shambling, his feet turned out at wide angles. His great face in +its fringe of red beard hung forward—but it bore now nothing but +smiles. It showed nothing of triumph over the man he saw standing here +waiting, humble and broken. He himself had said that he lacked birth and +breeding. If so, whence got he this strange gentleness which marked his +face now, as he stepped up to Judge Henderson—the man who but now had +stood between him and success—who must always, so long as he lived, +stand between him and happiness—the man whom he had beaten?</p> + +<p>"Judge," said Horace Brooks, "I reckon about the best thing we can do is +to go right on up to the court and get this thing cleaned up. You've +heard the news by now?"</p> + +<p>Henderson nodded. "Yes, just now."</p> + +<p>"Well, that softens up a lot of things, doesn't it? It will make things +easier for everyone concerned—a whole lot easier for you and me, Judge. +Now we can ask for the quashing of this indictment and the court can't +help granting it. Cowles is there. He's just gone up. Adamson is with +him."</p> + +<p>So they went up before the court, and the judge listened to the story of +the sad-faced officer and the sad-faced old man with him. And presently +the clerk at his side inscribed in the records: "The State vs. Dieudonné +Lane, murder in the first degree. Indictment quashed on motion of +Assistant State's Attorney."</p> + +<p>"You will discharge the prisoner from custody, Mr. Sheriff," said the +judge.</p> + +<p>"I'd like to say, if it please the Court," said Cowles, drawing a large +and adequate handkerchief from his pocket and blowing a large and +adequate nose, "that last night, at the time of the—the disturbance +which these gentlemen here helped me to quell—this same young man +that's just been discharged—why, he helped me as much as anybody."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?" demanded the judge severely. "You let him out of +your custody when he was under commitment?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, your Honor. I may have been short in some of my duties, your +Honor. I let a woman—a young woman—go in there last night to see him +for a few minutes. When she went out I must have forgot to lock the +door. What they said, now, it must have stirred me up some way. When the +mob formed and came to the jail the prisoner had walked out. But right +at the worst of it, there he was. And after it he went on back to jail +alone. When I got back he was in his cell. The door wasn't locked even +then. My wife wasn't there.</p> + +<p>"I reckon, your Honor, we've all of us sort of made a general mistake," +concluded Dan Cowles deprecatingly. "I allowed I'd tell this Court about +it."</p> + +<p>So, amid the frowning silence of the court, and the silence as well of +all who heard this, the two attorneys, the sheriff and Ephraim Adamson +walked on down the winding stairs.</p> + +<p>Adamson saw coming across the courthouse yard the figure of an angular +woman, dressed in calico, a sun-bonnet on her head, a sodden +handkerchief in her hand. He walked on hurriedly to meet her. At the +very spot where so lately he and his son had stood to challenge the +world to combat, he took this gaunt old woman in his arms, in the +sunlight before all the world. "Mother!" said he.</p> + +<p>And at about this same time—since after all the world and life and +swift keen joy of living must go on just the same—two young persons +stood not far distant from that scene; stood not in the full light of +the sun, stood not in the wisdom and sadness of middle age, but in +youth—in youth and the glory and splendor of the vast, ineffable, +indispensable illusion. The dim twilight which lighted them might have +been the soft, vague light of the world's own dawning—the same which +poor Miss Julia had seen that very day.</p> + +<p>Cowles hastened away from the door after he had thrown back the +bolts—the bolts and bars which had been laughed at by love all this +time. The young man came out into the stone-floored hall where Anne +Oglesby stood waiting for him—all beautiful and fresh and clean and +sweet—fragrant as a very flower in her worthiness for love.</p> + +<p>"Don!" she said, and held out her arms, running toward him.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Anne! Anne!"</p> + +<p>His arms went about her. And this time there was no one there to see.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV</h2> + +<h3>THE SACKCLOTH OF SPRING VALLEY</h3> + + +<p>Number five roared eastward through the town that day on time. No one +stepped down from the train, and no one took passage on it. Spring +Valley had dropped back into its customary uneventfulness so far as the +outer world might tell. It was but a little hamlet on the long line of +fields and trees that lies along the way of Number Five.</p> + +<p>Hurrying on toward the vast confusion of the metropolis, Number Five +gave up its tenants to be lost in the cosmic focus of the great city, +where all about were the lights and the anxious faces. The city, with +its tall, dentated outline against the sky—wonderful, beautiful, +alluring; the city with its unceasing strife, its vast and brooding +peace, where walk side by side the ablest men, the most beautiful women +of all the world, all keyed to the highest pitch of effort, all living +at white heat of emotion and passion, of joy and of sorrow—the city and +its ways—we may not know these unless we, too, embark on Number Five.</p> + +<p>In the silk-lined recesses of one of the city's greatest hostelries, +where anything in the world may be bought, there sat, soon after the +arrival of Number Five at the metropolis, the traveling man, Ben McQuaid +of Spring Valley, and a little milliner from a town east of Spring +Valley which Ben McQuaid "made" in his regular travel for his "house." +He had bought for her now the most expensive viands, the most confusing +and inspiring wines that all the city could offer. Soft-footed servants +were attending them both. They were having their little fling. To the +city that was a matter of small consequence.</p> + +<p>Nor, when it comes to that, was all the city itself of so much +consequence. The great fact is that, while Ben McQuaid and the little +milliner were speeding east on Number Five, at midday, when the dusty +maples of Spring Valley still were motionless under the heat of the +inland summer day—old Nels Jorgens' wife was walking across the way +with a covered dish in her hands.... In the dish, you say, there was +only some crude cottage cheese for Aurora Lane? Was that all you saw? +Seek again: for you, too, are human and neither may you escape the great +things of life, nor ought you to miss its great discoveries.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Nels Jorgens had on no hat. Her gown was God knows what—gingham or +calico or silk or cloth of gold, who shall say? She was a woman of +fifty-eight. Her sunken stomach protruded far below her flattened and +withered bosom as she walked. Her stringy hair was gray and uncomely. +But her face—now her face—have you not seen it? Perhaps not in the +city. But the little supper in the city (not yet come to the time of +sack-cloth) was by no means so great a thing as the service of Mrs. Nels +Jorgens, the wagon-maker's wife, when she carried across to Aurora Lane +a dish of something for her luncheon.</p> + +<p>And others came. From the byways of this late cruel-hearted village came +women, surely not cruel-hearted after all. They seemed to have some +common errand. They were paying off the debt of years, though what they +brought was not in silver dishes and there was no bubbling wine. So far +from calling this a merciless, ignorant town, a hopeless town, at noon +of that day, had you been there and seen these women and their ways, you +would have called it charitable, kindly, beautiful; though after all it +was and had been only human.</p> + +<p>Over the breathless maples there seemed now to hang a stratum of another +atmosphere, as sensible, as appreciable, as though a physical thing +itself. The sympathy of Spring Valley was awake at last—after twenty +years!</p> + +<p>"'Rory, I just thought I'd come over and bring you a dish of this—I had +some already made. I said to myself, says I, if we can eat this all the +time, maybe you can just once"—it was the old jest, humble but kind. It +sounded wondrous sweet to Aurora Lane—after twenty years.</p> + +<p>After these had gone away again, a little awed by the white, sad +dignity of Aurora Lane—even nature seemed to relent. Ben McQuaid and +the little milliner were cooled by swiftly revolving electric fans +yonder in the city. But along in the evening of this summer day in +Spring Valley the leaves of the maples were stirred by softly moving +breezes done by nature's hand.</p> + +<p>"Aaron," said old Silas Kneebone to his crony, "seems like we're goin' +to get a change of weather. Maybe the hot spell's broke at last."</p> + +<p>"I'll tell you what I'll do, Silas," said his friend suddenly, +straightening up on his staff. "I'll tell you what I'll do with you, +Silas. Even if it <i>is</i> goin' to be cool before long—I'll just take you +over to the drug store and buy you a drink of ice-cream sody at the +fountain!"</p> + +<p>"Time comes," he continued after a time, "when a fellow's been feelin' +kind of stirred up, some way—when he feels just like he didn't care a +hang for no expense. Ain't that the truth?"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV"></a>CHAPTER XXV</h2> + +<h3>BECAUSE SHE WAS A WOMAN</h3> + + +<p>The blessed change in the weather came on apace. The sultry air softened +and became more life-giving. Folk moved into the open, sat out upon the +steps of the front galleries, rich and poor alike, willing to take the +air. There was an unusual silence, an unwonted scarcity of callings back +and forth across the fences. The people of the town did not care to +revive the memories of the last two days.</p> + +<p>But the narrow little porch in front of the millinery shop on Mulberry +Street held no occupant. There was a light within, but the blinds were +close drawn. None who passed could hear any sound.</p> + +<p>Aurora Lane had sat for hours, almost motionless, at the side of the +table where customarily she worked. She made no pretense to read in her +Bible now. Her little white bed was unrumpled by any pressure of her +body bowed at its side in prayer, although it was her hour now for these +things.</p> + +<p>She was trying to think. Her mind had been crushed. She sat dazed. It +seemed to her an age since these women—these strangely kind-hearted, +newly charitable women—had been here. Or, had she only dreamed that +they were here? Had it been a passage of angels she herself had +witnessed here?</p> + +<p>She had told Miss Julia not to let Don come to see her just yet. So, +though she had heard the great news of his release, she had not met him. +"I'll have to think, Julia," she said. "I don't know what I'll do. I +must be alone."</p> + +<p>The window of her shop was still unmended. The red hat which had been so +long, in one redressing or another, the sign of her wares, now was bent +and broken beyond all possibility of restoration. The walls were bare, +the furniture was broken. It was wreck and ruin that lay about her, as +dully she still was conscious.</p> + +<p>Twenty years of it—and this was the climax! What place was there left +for her in all the world? As she sat, hour after hour, alone, Aurora +Lane was thinking of the dark pool under the bridge, of how cool and +comforting it might be. Her bosom rose, torn now and then with deep, +slow sobs, like the ground swell of a sea moved by some vast, remote, +invisible cause. She had been sobbing thus for some twenty-four hours.</p> + +<p>She had not moved about very much today in her household, had not often +left her chair here at the table. The mob had destroyed most of her +pitiful store of gear, so there was small choice left her.</p> + +<p>Somewhere she had found, deep down in a trunk tray, an old and faded +garment, its silken sleeves so worn that the creases were now open—a +blouse which she had put away long, long ago—twenty years and more ago. +She wore it as best she might; and over the neck where the silk was gone +she had cast a white shawl, also of silk, a thing likewise come down, +treasured, from her meager girlhood days. This would serve her, so she +thought, until she could find heart to go to bed and endeavor to find +sleep.... Yes. They may have been of her own mother's wedding finery. +Yes. Perhaps she one day had planned they might be parts of her own +wedding gear.... But she had had no wedding.</p> + +<p>She had done her hair, with Miss Julia's weeping aid, as simply as might +be—as she had when she was younger. It lay now in long, heavy, deep +rolls, down the nape of her white neck, along the sides of her head, +covering her little ears, still shapely. Her face was white as death, +but still it held traces in its features, sharpened and refined, of what +once was a tender and joyous beauty of its own—a beauty now high and +spiritual. In her time Aurora Lane had been known far and wide as a very +beautiful girl; self-willed, yes; wild—but beautiful. She did not +remember these things now, not in the least; and there was no mirror +left unbroken in the place.</p> + +<p>The evening waxed on, approaching nine of the clock, at which time good +folk began to turn up the porch chairs against the wall so that the +rain might not hurt them if it came, and to draw back into the stuffy +rooms and to prepare for the use of the stuffy beds. Fathers of families +now drank deeply at the pitcher of ice water left on the center table. +One little group after another, visible here and there on the porches or +the stairs along the little street, lessened and gradually disappeared. +One by one the lights went out all over the town. By ten o'clock the +town would have settled down to slumber. It was Monday, and on Monday +night not even the most ardent swains frequent hammocks or front parlors +at an hour so late as ten o'clock in our town, Saturday night and the +Lord's day being more especially set apart for these usages.</p> + +<p>But the light in Aurora Lane's house still burned. She did not know how +late it was. The clock on the mantel was silent, for it had been broken +by the men who had been there the night before. She sat motionless as a +woman of stone. Not even her boy was there—not even Miss Julia was +there. She was alone—with her future, and with her past.</p> + +<p>It must have been toward midnight when at length Aurora Lane raised her +head, turned a little. She had heard a sound! A sharp pang of terror +caught at her—sheer, unreasoning terror. Were they coming again? But +no, it was not the sound of many footfalls, not the sound of many +voices.</p> + +<p>What came to her now was a single sound, not made up of others—a low, +definite sound. And it was not at her door in front—it was at the side +of the house—it was at her window!</p> + +<p>It was a slight sound—a sort of tapping rhythmically repeated—a +signal!</p> + +<p>Aurora Lane stopped breathing—her heart stopped in her bosom. The face +was icy white which she turned toward the window back of which she heard +this sound, this signal. She thought she had gone mad. She believed that +at last her mind had broken under all the trials that had been heaped +upon it. Then her eyes began to move about, startled, like those of a +wild deer, seeking which way to leap.</p> + +<p>It seemed to her she heard now another sound in addition, a sort of low +call, a word.... Yes, it was her name:</p> + +<p>"Aurora! Aurora!"</p> + +<p>What could it mean? It was some visitor come there in insult—it could +be no more than that. And yet what impiousness, what mockery! Because, +what she heard, she had heard before! It had been twenty years since, +and more—but she had heard it then.</p> + +<p>Resolved suddenly to brave the worst, whatever it might be, she rose and +swiftly stepped to the side door which made out upon the narrow yard.</p> + +<p>A man was standing near the door, now turning away from the window—a +tall man, slouching down like an old man.</p> + +<p>"Who's there?" she cried, intending to call out aloud to give the alarm, +but failing to raise her voice above a whisper, such was her fear. Yes, +it was someone come here to offer yet another insult.</p> + +<p>But the man came into the field of light which shone around her through +the door—came closer, reaching out his hands to her. She heard him +struggling with his own voice, trying to speak. At last: "Aurora! +Aurora! Let me in! Will you let me in?"</p> + +<p>She threw open the door so that the light might come. But it was late. +The town slept. No one saw the light. No one saw the man who entered her +door.</p> + +<p>He came on slowly, bending down, groaning, almost sobbing, it seemed to +her. He entered the room, sank down into a chair. He was that pitiable +thing, a man with his nerves set loose by cataclysm of the emotions.</p> + +<p>Not less than this had William Henderson met this day. It had shortened +actually his physical stature, had altered every line in his face. He +was twenty years and more older now than when she had seen him last. In +one short day William Henderson had burned down to a speck in the cosmic +plan. He had learned for himself how little is any man. And vanity torn +out by the roots—a megalomaniac egotism done away by a capital +operation—a life-long self-content, an ingrown selfishness, all +wrenched out at once—that sort of thing takes its toll in the doing.</p> + +<p>William Henderson was paying his debts all at once—with interest +accrued, as Hod Brooks had said to him. It was an old, old, ashen-faced +man who turned to her at last, as he came into the little lighted room.</p> + +<p>Neither had spoken since he came within. The door now was closed back of +him. No one without could have any inkling of what went on within this +little room.... The drawn curtains ... the low light ... the man ... the +woman ... midnight! All which had been here twenty years before for +setting, that same now was here! And if there was ruin now of what here +once was fresh and fair, if ruin lay about them now, who had wrought +that ruin?</p> + +<p>... Yes, it had been here. It was at this very place—when she was just +starting, struggling, young—all the vague, soft, mysterious, compelling +impulses of youth and life just now hers—so strange, so strong, so +sweet, so ineffable, so indispensable, so little understood....</p> + +<p>That had been his signal! And when he had rapped before—when he was +young and comely, not old and ashen—she could no more have helped +opening the door than the white wisps from the cottonwoods could cease +to pass upon the air in their ancient seeking, blown by the spirit of +life, coming from thither, passing thence, under an impulse soft, sweet, +gentle, unsought but irresistible.</p> + +<p>"Will!" she said at length. "Will, what's wrong? What have you done? +What does this mean?" In some sense, swiftly, the past seemed back +again, its twenty years effaced, so that she thought in terms of other +days.</p> + +<p>He raised his head. "What, you speak to me? You said 'Will'? Oh, Aurie, +Aurie, don't!—I can't stand it. I'm not good enough for this."</p> + +<p>"What's happened?" she insisted. "Why are you here?"</p> + +<p>He sat, his lips loosely working now, his eyes red, his face flabby, his +gray hair tumbled on his temples. It was as though all life's excesses +and indulgences had culminated and taken full revenge on him in this one +day.</p> + +<p>"And you can say that to me?" he murmured. It was very difficult for him +to talk. He was broken—he was gone—he was just an old man—a shell, a +rim, a ruin of a man, now seeing himself as he actually had been all +these years—God knows, a pitiable sight, that, for many and many a man +of us all.</p> + +<p>"I'm—I'm afraid, Will! Last night—it broke me, someway—I don't think +much more can happen.... I can't think—I can't pull together, +someway.... I was going down to the bridge tonight.... But I thought of +Don."</p> + +<p>"But you couldn't think of <i>me</i>, Aurora?—Have you ever, in all these +years?"</p> + +<p>She made him no answer at all.</p> + +<p>"No. You could only hate the thought of me," he said. "What a coward +I've been, what a cur! Ah, what a coward I've been all these years!"</p> + +<p>"I wish you wouldn't, Will," she said. Dazed, troubled, she was trying +to think in terms of the present; trying, as she had said, to pull +together. "You are Don's father.... Well, you were a man, Will," she +added, sighing. "I was only a woman."</p> + +<p>She had neither sarcasm nor resentfulness in her words. It was simply +what she had learned by herself, in her own life, without any great +horizon in the world.</p> + +<p>"It was pretty hard sometimes," said she, after a time, slowly. "I had +to contrive so much. Putting the boy through college—it began to cost +more the last four years—so much more than we had supposed it would. +You know, sometimes I was almost——" She flushed and paused.</p> + +<p>"What was it, Aurie?"</p> + +<p>"At one time not long ago, the bills were so large that we had to +pay—it was so hard to get the money, I was almost on the point of going +to you—for him, you know—and to ask you for a little help. But that's +all over now."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I ought to have come through—I ought to have owned it all up!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Will, you ought."</p> + +<p>"Why did you keep it—why didn't you name me? I always thought, for a +long time, that you would, that you must."</p> + +<p>"I don't know. Don't ask me anything. But at least, Don's out now. Thank +God! he's clear—he's innocent, and they all know it now. They can't +keep him down, can they? He won't have as hard a time as I've had? He'll +succeed, won't he? He must, after it all!"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said the man, shaking as in a palsy, "after it all, he ought to, +and I pray he may." But he could talk no more.</p> + +<p>"And he's such a fine boy! I don't see how you could——"</p> + +<p>"How I could disown him? Yesterday?"</p> + +<p>She nodded. "I can't understand that. I never could. I can't see how you +could hesitate. I—I wish you hadn't. I—I can't forgive that." Her +voice rose slightly at last, a spot of color came into her pallid cheek.</p> + +<p>"I didn't have the courage to come through square, and that's the truth +about it. I've never had, all along. Maybe a man doesn't have the same +feeling that a woman does about a child—I don't know. But I was worse +than the average man—more selfish. I got caught up in politics, in +business. Success?—well, I saw how hard it is. I thought I had to keep +down the past. Well, it's over now. But as for you——"</p> + +<p>"I lived it down for a good many years. Don's twenty-two now."</p> + +<p>"But how could you keep that secret—what made you? Why didn't you go +into court and force me to do my duty to my own flesh and blood—and to +you?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know," she answered. "I told you, I don't know. Maybe I was +proud. Maybe I thought I'd wait till you shamed your own self into +coming. I'm glad you've come now, at last. I don't know—maybe I thought +some day you would."</p> + +<p>"I'm not Judge Henderson!" he broke out bitterly. "I'm Arthur +Dimmesdale! I ought to be in the pillory, on the gallows, before this +town. I'm a thief and a coward, and I deserve no pity, neither of man +nor of God himself. You've carried all the blame, when I was the one to +blame. And I can't see why you didn't tell, Aurie—what made you keep it +all a secret?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know," said she simply again. "I don't know. It seemed—it +seemed somehow to me—<i>sacred</i>—what was between us! It was—Don! I have +never told anyone. I was waiting, hoping you'd come—for your own sake. +Why should I rob you of your chance?"</p> + +<p>"Thank God that you did keep the secret!" he broke out at length. "It's +all the chance I have left to be a man. At least I'll confess the +truth."</p> + +<p>"Why, Will, what do you mean? I'll never tell. I told you I wouldn't—I +swore I wouldn't.</p> + +<p>"I'll be going away before long, Will," she added. "I can't stay here +now. I suppose Don and I will go away somewhere. I'm glad he's found a +good girl. Ah!—Anne, she's splendid.... I'm not going to make any +objections to his marrying <i>her</i>. And, you see, I'll know that you came +here. And some time he will know—who was his father. He doesn't, yet. +In justice, some time he will. God will attend to that, not any of us."</p> + +<p>"All the world shall know it, Aurora!" said the man at her side. "I saw +them a little while ago, walking together. He was listening to the +drums. He was looking at the Flag—and so was she. They are up at my +house now. They're happy. God bless them."</p> + +<p>"But they don't know—you've not told?"</p> + +<p>"No, I've been walking out in the country—all evening. I was up +there—on the road to the Calvary Cemetery. I'm going to tell Don the +truth tomorrow.</p> + +<p>"But look at your house—your poor little home." He cast about him a +gaze which took in the ruin that had been made of all her belongings. +"Oh, my God, Aurora! It was my own fault. It was <i>I</i> who made that mob a +possible thing. And you were a good woman. You've been a good woman all +the time. I never knew before what a splendid thing a woman can be. +Why—strong!... And you called me 'Will' just now. What made you do +that?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know," said Aurora Lane. "I suppose a woman never does quite +forget the—the first man of—of her life."</p> + +<p>"But how sweet it all was," he broke out, "in spite of it all, in spite +of everything! Oh, Aurie, don't you remember when I'd come and tap there +on the window—and you'd come and let me in? I don't deserve even that +memory ... a woman like you—and a man like me. But I can't forget it. +And you let me come in now—that's my one last joy left for all my life. +Why, it's the one thing I can never think of again without a shudder. +Yes, I've come without your asking—and you—you've let me in.</p> + +<p>"Aurie," he went on, "that's what leaves me so helpless. I know what I +deserve—but I don't want to be despised.... I want more than I deserve! +I've always had more than I deserved. It's about all any man can say. +It's life itself, I suppose. I don't know what it is. But, Aurie, Aurie, +I do see a thousand things now I never saw before."</p> + +<p>She still sat, white, dumb. Only, now, her head began to move, slowly, +from side to side. He caught the evidence of negative, and a new +resolution came to him at last.</p> + +<p>"Let it all go!" he said at length—and now indeed he was on his knees +at her side. "What I have lost is nothing. I'll never ask for office +until I have lived here twenty years, openly, as you have. I must have +loved you! I did—I do! I do! I wish I were fit to love you now. +Because, in twenty years more.... The years pass, Aurie. Won't they +pass? My sentence——"</p> + +<p>His gray head was bent down low in her lap now, as her son's had been at +this very place but a day before. Her hands—hands stained with needle +work, rough on the finger ends, the taper gone there into a little +square—were the same long shapely hands that had touched his hair at +another time. The eyes that looked down at him now under long, soft, +dark lashes were the same. But they were more brooding—tender, yes, but +more sad, more wise. There was no passion in her gaze, in her touch. +What was hatred or revenge to her?</p> + +<p>His face was hid deep in his hands as he knelt. It lay there in that +haven, the lap of woman, the place of forgiveness—and of hope, as some +vague memory seemed to say to him. Indeed, all the wisdom and all the +mercy and all the hope of a world or of a universe of worlds were in the +low voice of Aurora Lane as she stroked back his hair—the gray hair of +an old man, who knelt beside her. It was the ancient pitying instinct of +woman that was in her touch. Hardly she knew she touched him, so +impersonal was it all to her.</p> + +<p>"Will, you poor boy, you poor boy! Oh, poor boy!" He heard her voice +once more. Suddenly he raised his head, he sprang up, he stood before +her.</p> + +<p>"You do forgive me!" A sort of triumph was in the eager note of his +voice. "You say 'poor boy!' You do forgive me!" He advanced toward her.</p> + +<p>But Aurora also had risen quickly. Now, suddenly, some shock came to +her, vivifying, clarifying. The needle of her heart swung on the dial of +Today.</p> + +<p>"Forgive you!" she exclaimed, her color suddenly gone high. "Forgive +you—what do you mean?—what do you <i>mean</i>?"</p> + +<p>"You said you pitied me——"</p> + +<p>"Pity you, yes, I do. I'm sorry for you from the bottom of my heart. I'd +be sorry to see any man go through what you've got to face. Yes, <i>pity</i> +you—but—love you? What do you mean? Is that what you mean? <i>Respect</i> +you—is that what you mean? Oh, no! Oh, no! Use for you, in any way in +the world?—Oh, no! Oh, no! Don't mistake. <i>Pity</i>—that's all! Don't I +know what it means to descend into hell? And that's what you must do."</p> + +<p>"But, Aurie—Aurie—you just said——"</p> + +<p>"I said I was sorry for you, and so I am, in all my heart. But he's our +boy. I've paid my share in anguish. So must you."</p> + +<p>"Haven't I? Haven't I?"</p> + +<p>"Not yet! You're only beginning. It takes twenty years.—Oh, not of +hidden and secret repentance—but <i>open</i> repentance, before all the +world! And square living. And your prayer to God each night for twenty +years for understanding and forgiveness!</p> + +<p>"Go out and earn it," she said, walking to the door and opening it. +"Pity?—yes. Love? No—no—<i>no</i>! I've no use for you. I don't need you +now. My boy doesn't need you—we're able to stand alone. We've +<i>succeeded</i>! You? You're a failure—you're a broken-down, used-up, +hopeless failure—so much, I'm sorry for you, sorry.</p> + +<p>"You didn't really think I'd ever take you back, did you, Will?" she +went on, eager to be fair even now. "I was only <i>sorry</i> for you, that's +all. God knows, I'm sorry for any human being, woman or man, that has to +go through hell as I have. Twenty years? That'll leave you old, Will. +But—go serve it, in this town, as I have! And God have mercy on your +soul!"</p> + +<p>She flung the door yet wider, and stumbling, he began to grope toward +it. The black wall of the night lay beyond.</p> + +<p>Slowly the color faded from the cheeks of the woman now left alone yet +again. She sank down, crumpling, white, her face marble clear, her eyes +staring straight ahead at what picture none may ask. Then, as the white +column of her throat fluttered again, she beat one hand slightly +against the other, ere she crushed them both together in her lap, ere +she flung them wide above her.</p> + +<p>"God! God!" cried Aurora Lane. "If it wasn't right, why did He say, +'Suffer little children'? It was in the Book ... little ... little +children ... the Kingdom of Heaven!"</p> + +<p>It was more than an hour before she, too, rose and, stepping toward the +door, looked out again into the night. A red light showed here or there. +Homes—the homes of our town.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="By_Emerson_Hough" id="By_Emerson_Hough"></a>By Emerson Hough</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The Broken Gate<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The Man Next Door<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The Magnificent Adventure<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Let Us Go Afield<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Out of Doors<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The Story of the Cowboy<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The Girl at the Halfway House<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Broken Gate, by Emerson Hough + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BROKEN GATE *** + +***** This file should be named 33475-h.htm or 33475-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/3/4/7/33475/ + +Produced by David Edwards, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Broken Gate + A Novel + +Author: Emerson Hough + +Illustrator: M. Leone Bracker + +Release Date: August 20, 2010 [EBook #33475] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BROKEN GATE *** + + + + +Produced by David Edwards, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + + + + + + The BROKEN GATE + + _A NOVEL_ + + BY EMERSON HOUGH + +AUTHOR OF "THE MAN NEXT DOOR," "THE MAGNIFICENT ADVENTURE," "54 deg. 40' OR +FIGHT," "THE MISSISSIPPI BUBBLE," ETC. + + +ILLUSTRATED BY +M. LEONE BRACKER + +D. APPLETON and COMPANY +NEW YORK LONDON +1917 + +COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY EMERSON HOUGH + +COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY THE PICTORIAL REVIEW COMPANY + +Printed in the United States of America + + + TO + ARTHUR T. VANCE +FAITHFUL AND KINDLY COUNSELOR + + +[Illustration: He felt her hands resting on his head as though in +shelter.] + + + + +CONTENTS + + +I. THE HOMECOMING OF DIEUDONNE LANE + +II. AURORA LANE + +III. TWO MOTHERS + +IV. IN OPEN COURT + +V. CLOSED DOORS + +VI. THE DIVIDING LINE + +VII. AT MIDNIGHT + +VIII. THE EXTRAORDINARY HORACE BROOKS + +IX. THE OTHER WOMAN CONCERNED + +X. THE MURDER + +XI. IN THE NAME OF THE LAW + +XII. ANNE OGLESBY + +XIII. "AS YOU BELIEVE IN GOD!" + +XIV. AURORA AND ANNE + +XV. THE ANGELS AND MISS JULIA + +XVI. HORACE BROOKS, ATTORNEY AT LAW + +XVII. AT CHURCH + +XVIII. AT THE COUNTY JAIL + +XIX. THE MOB + +XX. THE IDIOT + +XXI. A TRUE BILL + +XXII. MISS JULIA + +XXIII. THE STATE _VS._ DIEUDONNE LANE + +XXIV. THE SACKCLOTH OF SPRING VALLEY + +XXV. BECAUSE SHE WAS A WOMAN + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + +He felt her hands resting on his head as though in Shelter. + +"Your Honor," said he, "I presume I am the defendant in this case." + +"I was kissing you and saying good-by ... when Miss Julia came in----" + +"Anne! What made you come?" + + + + +The BROKEN GATE + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE HOMECOMING OF DIEUDONNE LANE + + +"Eejit! My son John! Whip ary man in Jackson County! Whoop! Come along! +Who'll fight old Eph Adamson?" + +The populace of Spring Valley, largely assembled in the shade of the +awnings which served as shelter against an ardent June sun, remained +cold to the foregoing challenge. It had been repeated more than once by +a stout, middle-aged man in shirt sleeves and a bent straw hat, who +still turned a truculent gaze this side and that, taking in the +straggling buildings which lined the public square--a quadrangle which +had for its center the brick courthouse, surrounded by a plat of +scorched and faded greensward. At his side walked a taller though +younger man, grinning amiably. + +The audience remained indifferent, although the challenger now shifted +his position to the next path leading out to a street entrance; and +repeated this until he had quite traversed the square. Only, at the +farther corner back of him, a woman paused as she entered the courthouse +inclosure--paused and turned back as she caught sight of the challenger +and heard his raucous summons, although evidently she had been hurrying +upon some errand. + +Ephraim Adamson walked hither and thither, his muscular arms now bared +to the elbows; and at his side stalked his stalwart son, who now and +then beat his fists together, and cracked his knuckles with a vehemence +like that of pistol shots. But none paid great attention to either of +the Adamsons. Indeed, the eyes of most now were following the comely +figure of this woman, as usually was the case when she appeared. + +"Take her now, right how she is," said one of the sidewalk philosophers, +"and you got to admit yonder's the handsomest woman in this town, and +has been for twenty years." He nodded to where she stood, hesitating. + +That she was a tallish woman, of less than middle age and of good +figure, was perceptible even at some distance as she finally advanced. +She was well clad enough, and with a certain grace and trimness in her +appointings--indeed seemed smart in a quiet and unobtrusive way--very +neat as to hands and feet, and trim as to the small turban which served +now as her only defense against the heat of the summer sun. + +"'Rory Lane," said one languid citizen to another, as they sat on +comfortable boxes in front of the leading grocery store. "Wonder where +_she's_ goin', this time of day? Anyhow, she runs into Old Man Adamson +on his regular weekly spree. He wants to fight, as usual, him and his +half-wit boy. It's a shame." + +"But they kin do it," responded the other ruminatingly. "It's got so +lately, every Saturday afternoon regular, him and his half-wit yonder +stands off the whole town. No man wants to fight a eejit--it ain't +proper." + +"Some has," remarked the first citizen thoughtfully. + +"Well, anyways, old Joel Tarbush, the town marshal, had ought to look +after such things. There he sets now, over yonder under the awnings in +front of the Golden Eagle, and he sees them two plain enough." + +His crony only chuckled. "Reckon Old Man Tarbush knows when he's well +off," was his sententious reply. + +The first speaker again pointed a thumb toward the courthouse grounds, +where the woman now was crossing toward the street. She was walking +rapidly, apparently anxious to escape the notice of the two men in the +yard, and intent on her purpose, as though she feared being late at some +appointment. The younger and taller was hastening toward her, but +shrinking from him she hurried on across through the turnstile, and out +into the street. She advanced with a nod here and there to those whom +she met along the street front, but she showed no effusiveness, and did +not pause to talk with anyone, although all seemed to know her. Some +women smiled at her faintly. Some men smiled at her also--after she had +passed. All talked of her, sometimes nodding, head to head. + +The woman so frankly discussed presently disappeared around the corner +of the street which led down to the railway station, a half-mile +distant. And now could be heard the rumble of the town "bus," bringing +in its tribute from the train to the solitary hotel. + +"Huh!" said one of these twain, "'Rory was too late, like enough, if she +was plannin' to meet Number Four, fer any reason. Here comes the bus +a'ready." + +Aurora Lane had indeed been too late to meet the train, but not too late +to attain the purpose of her hurried walk. A moment later the two +watchers on the sidewalk, and all the other Saturday loafers, saw her +emerge again from the street that led up from the railway station. + +She was not alone now. A young man had spied her from his place in the +hotel bus, and, whether in answer to a signal from her, or wholly of his +own notion--regarding which there was later discussion by the two +gossips above mentioned--had sprung out to join her on the street. + +He walked by her side now, holding her by the arm, patting her shoulder, +talking to her volubly, excitedly, all the time--a tall young man in +modern garb; a young man with good shoulders and a strong and easy +stride. His face seemed flushed with eagerness and happiness. His hat, +pushed back on his brow, showed the short curling auburn hair, strong +and dense above the brown cheeks. Those who were close might have seen +the kindly, frank and direct gaze of his open blue eyes. + +A certain aloof distinction seemed to cling about the young man also as +he advanced now, laughing and bubbling over with very joy of life and +eagerness at greeting this woman at his side--this woman whose face +suddenly was glorified with a light none ever had seen it bear before. +Why not? It was his mother--Aurora Lane, the best known woman of Spring +Valley, and the woman with least reputation. + +The two passed directly into the center of the town's affairs, and yet +they seemed apart in some strange way. They met greetings, but the +greetings were vague, curious. No one knew this young man. + +"Huh!" exclaimed one of the two town critics once more. "There they go. +Pretty sight, ain't it! Who's he?" + +Old Silas Kneebone leaned to his friend, Aaron Craybill, on the adjacent +store box. "Taller'n she is, and got red hair, too, like hers. I +wonder--but law!--No, good law! No! It kain't be. She ain't nobody's +wife, and never was." + +"But there they go, walking through the streets in broad daylight, as +bold as you please," commented his crony. + +"I dunno as I'd call her bold, neither," rejoined Silas. "'Rory Lane, +she's kept up her head all these years, and I must say she's minded her +own business. Everybody knows, these twenty years, she had a baby, and +that the baby died; but that's about all anybody ever did know. The +baby's dad, if it had one, has hid damned well--the man nor the woman +neither don't live in this town that can even guess who he was. But +who's this young feller? Some relative o' hern from somewheres, like +enough--reckon she must 'a' been goin' down to the train to meet him. +Never told nobody, and just like her not to. She sure is close-mouthed. +They're going on over towards her place, seems like," he continued. +"Say, don't she look proud? Seems like she's glad over something. But +why--that's what I want to know--why?" + +The two persons thus in the public eye of Spring Valley by this time had +come again to the corner of the courthouse inclosure, and apparently +purposed to pass diagonally through the courthouse yard. Now and again +the young man turned in friendly fashion to the onlookers, none of whom +he knew, but whom he fancied to be acquaintances of his companion. He +himself was altogether a stranger in the town. He felt a chill at the +curious stares, the silent half smiles he encountered, but attributed +that to bucolic reticence, so shrugged his shoulders and turned to +Aurora Lane. Had any at that time heard his speech, they surely must +have felt yet more surprise. + +"Mom!" said he. "Mother! I've got a mother, after all--and such a +splendid one! I can't believe it at all--it must all be a dream. To be +an orphan all my life--and then to get word that I'm not--that I've a +mother, after all--and you! Why, I'd have known you anyhow, I'm sure, if +I'd never seen you, even from the picture I had. It was when you were a +girl. But you've not changed--you couldn't. And it's you who've been my +mother all the time. It's fine to be home with you at last. So this is +the town where you have lived--that I've never seen. And here are all +your friends?" + +"Yes, Don," said she, "all I have, pretty much." Aurora Lane's speaking +voice was of extraordinary sweetness. + +"Well, you have lived here all your life." + +"Yes," she smiled. + +"And they all know you." + +"Oh, yes," noncommittally. "It was too bad you had to be away from me, +Don, boy. You seem like a stranger to me--I can't realize you are here, +that you are my own boy, Dieudonne! I'm afraid of you--I don't know +you--and I'm so proud and frightened, so surprised, so _glad_--why, I +don't know what to do. But I'd have known you anywhere--I _did_ know +you. You're just as I've always dreamed of you--and I'm glad--I'm so +very glad!" + +"Mom! I loved your little picture, but I never knew how much I loved +_you_ till now--why--you're my _mother_! My mother! And I've never seen +you--I've never known you--till right now. You're a ripper, that's what +you are! + +"And is that where you live, over yonder?" he added quickly, to conceal +the catch in his throat, the quick moisture in his eyes. His mother! And +never in all his life had he seen her face--this sweet, strange, +wistful, wonderful face. His mother! He had not even known she was +alive. And now, so overwhelmed was he, he did not as yet even think of +unraveling the veil of ignorance or deceit--call it what one +might--which had left him in orphanage all his life till now. + +"Yes, over yonder," said Aurora, and pointed across the square. "That +little house under the shade trees, just at the corner. That's home and +workshop for me, Don." + +She spoke softly, her eyes still fixed on him, the color of her cheeks +deepening. + +"Not so much of a house, is it?" laughed the boy, tears on his face, +born of his new emotion, so sudden, so tremendous and so strange. + +"Not so very much," she assented, laughing gayly also, and also in +tears, which gave him sudden grief--"but it has served." + +"Well, never mind. We're going to do better out West, Mom. We're going +to have you with us right away, as soon as I can get started." + +"What--what do you say--with _us_! With _us_?" + +She spoke in swift dismay, halting in her walk. "What do you mean, +Don--_us_?" + +"I didn't tell you the news," said he, "for I've just got it myself. + +"What a week! I heard of you--that you were alive, that you were living +here--though why you never told me I can't dream--and now, today, Anne! +Two such women--and for me. I can call God kind to me. As if I deserved +it!" + +He did not see her face as he went on rapidly: + +"We didn't know it ourselves much more than an hour or so ago--Anne and +I. She came out on the same train with me--we finished school together, +don't you see! Anne lives in Columbus, fifty miles west. She's fine! I +haven't had time to tell you." + +He didn't have time now--did not have time to note even yet the sudden +pallor which came upon his mother's face. "Anne?" she began. + +"Huh!" said Silas Kneebone again from his place under the awning, "there +she goes--'Rory Lane. Wonder who that kin be with her! And I wonder +what old Eph Adamson's goin' to say to them! Watch at them now." + +The young man and his mother by this time were within the courthouse +fence and coming face to face with the two public challengers, who had +so fervently notified all mankind of their wish to engage in personal +combat. + +Those beneath the awnings now saw the tall figure of the half-wit boy, +Johnnie Adamson, advance toward Aurora Lane. They saw her and the tall +young stranger halt suddenly--saw the young man gently push the woman +back of him and stand full front, frowning, questioning, almost directly +against the half-wit. He reached out a hand and thrust him back, +sternly, fearlessly, half contemptuously. + +"Wait, Don! Come back!" called out Aurora Lane. "Don't get into trouble +here--come--come away!" + +She plucked at the sleeve of his coat to draw him back. It was too late. +The half-wit, cracking his knuckles now yet more loudly, and knocking +his fists together, had wholly lost his amiable smile. Something +primordial was going on, deep down in his rudimentary brain. + +As for Eph Adamson, he also stood scowling and silent, a sudden wave of +resentment filling his soul at seeing the happiness of these two. + +"No, you don't--just you leave him be!" called out Eph Adamson, as the +young man pushed the half-wit back from him, his own blue eyes now +beginning to glint. "Leave him alone, unless you want to fight. He can +lick you anyways, whoever you are. Do you want to fight?" + +"No, why should I? I don't know you." + +Don Lane turned toward the stranger, still frowning and somewhat +wondering, but in no terror whatever. + +"I don't know you neither, nor what you're doin' here, but you've got to +fight or 'pologize," said Eph Adamson, arriving at this conclusion +through certain mental processes of his own not apparent. "You got to +have our consent to cross this here courtyard. This is my son John, and +you shan't insult him." + +"Get on away--step back," said Don Lane. "I guess it's all right, but +let my mother and myself alone--we're just going home." + +A sudden wave of rage and wonder, mingled, filled the soul of drunken +Eph Adamson as his venom rose to the boiling point. + +"Mother!" he half screamed, "your _mother_? Who're you? You're a pretty +pair, you two, ain't you? She said her baby died twenty years ago. Did +she have some more? Who're you? _Mother?_--Say, after all, are _you_ the +town's boy--coming pushing past my son with her--your _mother_! What do +you mean? If you're her son, you ain't _got_ no mother, nor no father +neither." + +And now there came a pause, an icy pause--icy it was, out there in the +glare of the hot summer sun. These four who stood in view of all the +village might have been statues for the time, so motionless, so tense +was each. + +Not many actually heard the words of old Eph Adamson--words wrung out of +the bitterness of his own soul perhaps, but words intolerable none the +less. None had heard the words of Aurora Lane and the young man as they +had spoken previous to this. None guessed who the stranger was or might +be--none but drunken Eph Adamson. But all could see what now happened. + +For one instant the young man stood almost like a statue. Then with one +sudden thrust of his fist he smote the old man full in the mouth, so +swift and hard a blow that Adamson dropped prostrate, and for the time +motionless. + +A sudden, instantaneous, electric buzz, a murmur, ran all around the +square. A sound of shuffling feet and falling boxes might have been +heard as men here and there rose eagerly, their necks craned out toward +this swiftly made arena. + +They saw the half-wit boy now advance upon Don Lane with a roar or bawl +of rage, his arms swinging flail-like. All expected to see the newcomer +turn and run. Not so. He simply stood for a half instant, sidestepped, +and again swung in close upon his foe. Old Silas Kneebone described the +affair many a time afterwards, at a time when Spring Valley knew more +about Don Lane. + +"You see, the eejit, he gets up again, hollering, and he goes in again +at Dewdonny, bound for to knock his head off. But Dewdonny, he ducks +down like a regular prize-fighter--I hear tell, at colleges, them +athaletes they have to learn all them sort of things--and he put up a +fight like a regular old hand. But all the time he keeps hollering to +the crowd, 'Take him away! Take him away! Keep him off, I say! I don't +want to hit him!' + +"Well, folks begun to laugh at Dewdonny then--before they knowed who he +was--thinking he was afraid of that eejit; yet it didn't seem like he +was, neither, for he didn't run away. At last he hits the eejit fair a +second time, and he knocks him down flat. Folks then begun to allow he +could hit him whenever he wanted to, and knock him down whenever he +pleased. + +"Now, the eejit, he gets up and begins to beller like a calf. He puts +his hand on his face where Dewdonny Lane had done hit him the last time +or two and he hollers out, 'Pa, he hit me!' + +"But his pa could only set up on the grass and shake his head. I reckon +old Eph was soberer then than he had been five minutes sooner. Say, that +boy had a punch like the kick of a full growed mule! + +"Of course, you all know what happened then. It was then that old Man +Tarbush come in, seeing the boy had both of them two licked. He got up +his own nerve after that. So now he goes over there to the courthouse +ground, through the gate where they all was, and he lays his hand on +Dewdonny Lane and then on the eejit. + +"'I arrest you both for disturbing of the peace,' says he then. 'Come on +now, in the name of the law.' + +"'The law be damned!' says Dewdonny Lane then. 'Go take this man to +jail. Are you crazy--what do you mean by arresting me when I'm just +walking home with my mother? This wasn't my fault. I didn't want to hit +him. + +"'Come on, Mom!' says he, and before Tarbush could help hisself he'd +took 'Rory Lane by the arm again and off they went, and right soon they +was in their house--them two, the milliner and her boy. + +"And Joel Tarbush he heard him call her 'Mom' right there--that's how it +all begun to git out. + +"That's right--this was the town milliner and the boy she sent away, +that never died none at all nohow.--'Rory Lane, and her boy we all +thought was dead. And we'd never knowed it nor dreamed it till he spoke, +right there in the public square! 'My mother!' says he. Can you beat +that? + +"Then 'Rory Lane turns around and fronts the whole lot of them. Says +she: 'Yes, it's true! This is my son, Dewdonny Lane,' says she. She said +it cold. + +"That was before we knowed all about how she had put him through +college, and that this was his first visit home, and the first time he'd +ever seen her--his own mother! I heard as how he'd thought all his life +he was a orphan, and someone on the inside that very week--just when +he'd finished in college--had wrote him that he wasn't no orphan, but +had a mother living right here! So here he comes, hot foot--and didn't +he spill the beans! + +"She'd tried her durnedest to keep it all covered up--and you must say +she'd made one big fight of it, fer it's hard fer a woman to keep her +eyes and her hands off of her own flesh and blood, even if it ain't +legal. But, somehow, it's hard to keep that sort of thing covered up, +for a woman. It all comes out, time'n again--ain't it the truth? How she +done it for twenty years is a miracle. But law! What's twenty years, +come to forgettin' things like what she done?" + + + + +CHAPTER II + +AURORA LANE + + +While the doughty town marshal, endowed now with a courage long foreign +to his nature, was leading away his sobbing prisoner, followed by the +prisoner's dazed yet angered parent, these other two, mother and son, +continued rapidly on their way toward the home of Aurora Lane. The young +man walked in silence, his enthusiasm stilled, although he held his +mother's hand tight and close as it lay upon his arm. His face, frowning +and stern, seemed suddenly grown strangely older. + +They arrived at the corner of the tawny grassplot of the courthouse +yard, crossed the street once more, and turned in at the long shady lane +of maples which made off from that corner of the square. Here, just in +the neutral strip between business and residence property, opposite a +wagon-making and blacksmith shop, and adjoining the humble abode of a +day-laborer, they came to a little gate which swung upon a decrepit +hinge. It made in upon a strip of narrow brick walk, swept scrupulously +clean, lined with well-kept tulips; a walk which in turn arrived at the +foot of a short and narrow stair leading up to the porch of the +green-shuttered house itself. + +It was a small place of some half-dozen rooms, and it served now, as it +had for these twenty years, as home and workshop alike for its tenant. +Aurora Lane had lived here so long that most folk thought she owned the +place. As a matter of fact, she owned only a vast sheaf of receipted +bills for rent paid to Nels Jorgens, the wagon-maker across the street. +In all these twenty years her rent had been paid promptly, as were all +her other bills. + +Aurora Lane was a milliner, who sometimes did dress-making as well--the +only milliner in Spring Valley--and had held that honor for many years. +A tiny sign above the door announced her calling. A certain hat, red of +brim and pronounced of plume, which for unknown years had reposed in the +front window of the place--the sort of hat which proved bread-winning +among farmers' wives and in the families of villagers of moderate +income--likewise announced that here one might find millinery. + +When she first had moved into these quarters so many years ago, scarce +more than a young girl, endeavoring to make a living in the world, the +maples had not been quite so wide, the grass along the sidewalk not +quite so dusty. + +It was here that for twenty years Aurora Lane had made her fight +against the world. It had been the dream, the fierce, flaming ambition +of all her life, that her son, her son beloved, her son born out of holy +wedlock, might after all have some chance in life. + +It was for this that she aided in his disappearance in his infancy, +studiously giving out to all--without doubt even to the unknown father +of the boy--the word that the child had died, still in its infancy, in a +distant state, among relatives of her own. She herself, caught in the +shallows of poverty and unable to travel, had not seen him in all these +years--had not dared to see him--had in all the dulled but not dead +agony of a mother's yearning postponed her sweet dream of a mother's +love, and with unmeasurable bravery held her secret all these awful +years. Schooling here and there, at length the long term in college, had +kept the boy altogether a stranger to his native town, a stranger even +to his own mother. He did not know his own past, nor hers. He did not +dream how life had been made smooth for him, nor at what fearful cost. +Shielded about always by a mother's love, he had not known he had a +mother. + +This was as his mother had wished. As for him, in some way he received +the requisite funds. He wondered only that he knew so little of his own +people, half orphan though he was. He had been told that his father, +long since dead, had left a certain sum for the purpose of his +education, although further of his own history he knew nothing. That he +was not of honorable birth he never once had dreamed. And now he had +heard this charge for the first time--heard it made publicly, openly, +before all the world, on this which was to have been the happiest day in +all his life. + +But if Don Lane knew little about himself, there lacked not knowledge of +his story, actual or potential, here in Spring Valley, once his presence +called up the past to Spring Valley's languid mind. There had not yet +been excitement enough for one day. Everyone, male and female, surging +here and there in swift gossiping, now called up the bitter story so +long hid in Aurora Lane's bosom. + +As for Aurora, she had before this well won her fight of all these +years. She was known as the town milliner, a woman honorable in her +business transactions and prompt with all her bills. Socially she had no +place. She was not invited to any home, any table. The best people of +the town, the banker's wife, the families of the leading merchants, +bought bonnets of her. Ministers--while yet new in their pulpits--had +been known to call upon her sometimes--one had even offered to kneel and +pray with her in her workroom, promising her salvation even yet, and +telling her the story of the thief upon the cross. Once Aurora Lane went +to church and sat far back, unseen, but she did so no longer now, had +not for many years, feeling that she dared not appear in the +church--the church which had not ratified her nuptial night! + +She had her place, definite and yet indefinite, accepted and yet +rejected, here in this village. But gradually, dumbly, doggedly she had +fought on; and she had won. Long since, Spring Valley had ceased openly +to call up her story. If once she had been wearer of the scarlet letter, +the color thereof had faded these years back. She was the town milliner, +a young woman under suspicion always, but no man could bring true word +against her character. She had sinned--once--no more. If she had known +opportunity for other sins than her first one, she held her peace. Human +nature were here as it is elsewhere--women as keen; men as lewd. But the +triumph of Aurora Lane might now have been called complete. She had +"lived it down." + +This long and terrible battle of one woman against so many strangely +enough had not wholly embittered her life, so strong and sweet and true +and normal had it originally been. She still could smile--smile in two +fashions. One was a pleasant, sunny and open smile for those who came in +the surface affairs of life. The other was deeper, a slow, wry smile, +very wise, and yet perhaps charitable, after all. Aurora Lane knew! + +But all these years she had worked on with but one purpose--to bring up +her boy and to keep her boy in ignorance of his birth. He had never +known--not in all these years! It had been her dream, her prayer, that +he might never know. + +And now he knew--he must know. + +They stepped through the little picket gate, up the tiny brick walk and +across the little narrow porch together, into the tiny apartments which +had been the arena for Aurora Lane--in which she had fought for her own +life, her own soul, and for the life of her son, her tribute to the +scheme of life itself. Here lay the _penetralia_ of this domicile, this +weak fortification against the world. + +In this room were odds and ends of furniture, a few pictures not +ill-chosen--pictures not in crude colors, but good blacks and whites. +Woman or girl, Aurora Lane had had her own longings for the great +things, the beautiful things of life, for the wide world which she never +was to see. Her taste for good things was instinctive, perhaps +hereditary. Had she herself not been an orphan, perhaps she had not +dared the attempt to orphan her own son. There were books and magazines +upon the table, mixed in with odds and ends of scraps of work sometimes +brought hither; the margin between her personal and her professional +life being a very vague matter. + +Back of this central room, through the open door, showed the small white +bed in the tiny sleeping room. At the side of this was the yet more tiny +kitchen where Aurora Lane all these years had cooked for herself and +washed for herself and drawn wood and water for herself. She had no +servant, or at least usually had not. Daily she wrought a woman's +miracles in economy. Year by year she had, in some inscrutable fashion, +been able to keep up appearances, and to pay her bills, and to send +money to her son--her son whom she had not seen in twenty years--her son +for whom her eyes and her heart ached every hour of every day. She +sewed. She made hats. What wonder if the scarlet of the hat in the +window had faded somewhat--and what wonder if the scarlet of the letter +on her bosom had faded even more?... Because it had all been for him, +her son, her first-born. And he must never, never know! He must have his +chance in the world. Though the woman should fail, at least the man must +not. + +So it was thus that, heavy-hearted enough now, she brought him to see +the place where his mother had lived these twenty years. And now he knew +about it, must know. It took all her courage--the last drop of her +splendid, unflinching woman-courage. + +"Come in, Don," she said. "Welcome home!" + +He looked about him, still frowning with what was on his mind. + +"Home?" said he. + +"Don!" she said softly. + +"Tough work, wasn't it, waiting for me to get through, dear Mom? For I +know you did wait. I know you meant that some day----" + +He laid a hand on her head, his lips trembling. He knew he was +postponing, evading. She shrank back in some conviction also of +postponing, evading. All her soul was honest. She hated deceit--though +all her life she had been engaged in this glorious deceit which now was +about to end. + +"Tough sometimes, yes," she said, smiling up at him. "But don't you like +it?" + +"If my dad had lived," said Don, "or if he had had very much to give +either of us, you'd never have lived this way at all. Too bad he died, +wasn't it, Mom?" + +He smiled also, or tried to smile, yet restraint was upon them both, +neither dared ask why. + +She caught up his hand suddenly, spying upon it a strand of blood. + +"Don!" she exclaimed, wiping it with her kerchief, "you are hurt!" + +He laughed at this. "Surely you don't know much of boxing or football," +said he. + +"You ought not to fight," she reproved him. "On your first day--and all +the town saw it, Don! You and I--we ought not to fight. What--on the +first day I've seen you in all these years--the first day you're out of +college--the first day I could ever in all my life claim you for my very +own? I believe I _would_ have claimed you--yes, I do! But you +came--when you knew you had a mother, why you came to her, didn't you, +Don? Even me. But you mustn't fight." + +"Why?" He turned upon her quickly, his voice suddenly harsh, his eyes +narrowing under drawn brows. "Why shouldn't I fight?" + +He seemed suddenly grown graver, more mature, strong, masterful, his eye +threatening. She almost smiled as she looked at him, goodly as he was, +her pride that she had borne him overpowering all, her exultation that +she had brought a man into the world, a strong man, one fit to prevail, +scornful of hurt--one who had fought for her! For the first time in her +life a man had fought for her, and not against her. + +But on the soul of Aurora Lane still sat the ancient dread. She saw the +issue coming now. + +"Mother----" said he, throwing his hat upon the table and walking toward +her quickly. + +"Yes, Don." (She had named her son Dieudonne--"God-given." Those who did +not know what this might mean later called him "Dewdonny," and hence +"Don.") + +"I didn't thrash them half enough, those fellows, just now." + +"Don't say that, Don. It was too bad--it was terrible that it had to be +today, right when you were first coming here. I had been waiting for you +so long, and I wanted----" + +"Well, I tell you what I want--I want you just to come away with me. I +want to get you away from this town, right away, at once, as quick as I +can. I'm beginning to see some things and to wonder about others. I am +ashamed I have cost you so much--in spite of what Dad left, you had to +live close--I can see that now--although I never knew a thing about it +until right now. I feel like a big loafer, spending all the money I +have, while you have lived like this. Where did you get it, Mom?" + +She swept a gesture about her with both hands. "I got it here," said she +suddenly. "It _all_ came from--here. You father sent you--nothing! I've +not let you know all the truth--you've known almost nothing of the +truth." + +Then her native instinct forced her to amend. "At least half of it came +from here. It was honest money, Don, you know it was that, don't +you--you believe it was honest?" + +"Money that would have burned my fingers if I had known how it came. But +I didn't. What's up here? Have you fooled me, tricked me--made a loafer +of me? I supposed my father set aside enough for my education--and +enough for you, too. What's been wrong here? What's under all this? Tell +me, now!" + +His mother's eyes were turned away from him. "At least we have done it, +Don," said she, with her shrewd, crooked smile. "We've not to do it +over again. You can't forget what you have learned--you can't get away +from your college education now, can you? You've got it--your diploma, +your degree in engineering. You're a college man, Don, the only one in +Spring Valley. And I'm so proud, and I'm so glad. Oh! Don--Don----" + +She laid a hand on his breast shyly, almost afraid of him now--the first +hand she had ever laid upon the heart of any man these twenty years. It +was her son, a man finished, a gentleman, she hoped.... Could he not be +a gentleman? So many things of that sort happened here in America. Poor +boys had come up and come through--had they not? And even a poor boy +might grow up to be a gentleman--was not that true--oh, might it not +after all be true? + +He laid his own hand over hers now, the hand on which the blood was not +yet dried. + +"Mom," said he, "I ought to go back and thrash the life out of that man +yet. I ought to wring the neck of that doddering old fool marshal. I +ought to whip every drunken loafer on those streets. Whose business was +it? Couldn't we cross the square without all that?" + +He stopped suddenly, the fatal thought ever recurring to his mind. But +he lacked courage. Why should he not? Was this not far worse than facing +death for both of them? Their eyes no longer sought one another. + +"Mom----" said he, with effort now. + +"Yes, my boy." + +"_Where's my dad?_" + +A long silence fell. Could she lie to him now? + +"The truth now!" he said after a time. + +"You have none, Don!" said she gaspingly at last. "He's gone. Isn't that +enough? He's dead--yes--call him dead--for he's gone." + +He pushed back roughly and looked at her straight. + +"Did he really leave any money for my education?" + +She looked at him, her throat fluttering. "I wish I could lie," said +she. "I do wish I could lie to you. I have almost forgot how. I have +been trying so long to live on the square--I don't believe, Don, I know +how to do any different. I've been trying to live so that--so that----" + +"So what, mother?" + +"So I could be worthy of _you_, Don! That's been about all my life." + +"_I have no father?_" + +She could not reply. + +"Then was what--what that man said--was _that the truth_?" + +After what seemed to both of them an age of agony she looked up. + +She nodded mutely. + +Then her hand gripped fiercely at his coat lapel. A great dread filled +her. Must she lose also her boy, for whom she had lived, for whom she +had denied herself all these years--the boy who was more than life +itself to her? Her face was white. She looked up into another face, a +strange face, that of her son; and it was white as her own. + +"I didn't know it," said he simply at length. "Of course, if I had +known, I wouldn't have done what I did. I would have worked." + +"No, no! Now you are just fitted to work. It's over--it's done--we have +put you through." + +"You told me my father was dead. Where is he--who is he?" + +"I will never tell you, Don," said she steadily, "not so long as you +live will I tell you. I have never told anyone on earth, and I never +will." + +"Then how do they know--then why should that man say what he did?" + +"They know--about you--that--that you happened--that's all. They thought +you died as a child, a baby--we sent you away. They don't know who it +was--your father--I couldn't have lived here if anyone had known--that +was my secret--my one secret--and I will keep it all my life. But here +are you, my boy! I will not say I am sorry--I will never say that again! +I am glad--I'm glad for anything that's given me _you_! And you fought +for me--the first time anyone ever did, Don." + +He was turning away from her now slowly, and she followed after him, +agonized. + +"It wasn't _your_ fault, Don!" said she. "Try to remember that always. +Haven't I taken it up with God--there on my knees?" She pointed to the +little room where the corner of the white bed showed. "On my knees!" + +She followed him as he still walked away. "Oh, Don," she cried, "what do +you mean, and what are you going to do?" + +"I'm going to try to forget everything of all my life. God! if I could +undo it--if I could forget how I got my education," said he. "Tell me, +didn't he help at all--did you, all alone, bring me up, far away, never +seeing me, educating me, keeping me--taking care of me--didn't he, my +father, do anything at all--for you?" + +"No, I did it--or at least half of it." + +"And who the other half?" + +"Never mind, Don, never mind." She patted eagerly on the lapel of his +coat, which once more she had caught and was fingering. "Oh, this was to +have been my very happiest day--I have been living and working for this +all these long, long years--for the day when I'd see you. Let me have a +little of it, can't you, Don? If you should forsake me now, I will know +that God has; and then I'll know I never had a chance." + +Quickly he laid a hand upon her shoulder. "No, I'll wait." + +"What do you mean?" she asked. "What is it that you will do?" + +"Find out who he was," said he, his face haggard. + +"You will never do that, Don." + +"Oh, yes. And when I do----" + +"What then?" + +"I'll kill him, probably. At least I'll choke this lie or this truth, +whichever it is, down the throats of this town. God! I'm _filius +nullius_! I'm the son of no man! I'm worse. I'm a loafer. I've been +supported by a woman--my own mother, who had so little, who was left +alone--oh, God! God!" + +"Don," she cried out now. "Don, I'd died if I could have kept it from +you. Oh, my son--my son!" + + + + +CHAPTER III + +TWO MOTHERS + + +The young man stood motionless, facing the white-faced woman who had +pronounced his fate for him. Happily it chanced that there came +interruption, for a moment relieving both of the necessity of speech. + +The click of the little crippled gate as it swung to brought Aurora Lane +to her senses now. She hastened to the door, toward the outer stair. She +met someone at the door. + +"Julia!" she exclaimed. "Come in. Oh, I'm so glad. Come! He's here--he's +come--he's right here now!" + +There entered now the figure of a youngish-looking woman, her hair just +tinged with gray here and there upon the temples; a woman perhaps the +junior of Aurora Lane by a year or so. Of middle stature, she was of +dark hair, and of brown eyes singularly luminous and soft. Not uncomely, +one would have called her at first sight. The second glance would have +shown the limp with which Julia Delafield walked, the bent-top cane +which was her constant companion. She was one of those handicapped in +the race of life, a cripple from her childhood, but a cripple in body +only. One might not look in her face without the feeling that here was a +nature of much charm. + +Miss Julia likewise was owner of two smiles. The one was sad, pathetic, +the smile of the hopeless soul. The other, and that usually seen by +those about her, was wide and winning beyond words--the smile which had +given her her place in the hearts of all Spring Valley. These many years +"Miss Julia," as she was known to all, had held her place as "city +librarian," in which quasi-public capacity she was known of all, and +loved of all as well. + +She came in now smiling, and kissed Aurora Lane before she allowed +herself to see, standing in the inner room, the tall young man, who +seemed to fill up the little apartment. A swift color came into her face +as, with a sort of summoning up of her courage, she went up to him, +holding out her hands. Even she put up her cheek to be kissed by him. It +was her peculiarity when feeling any emotion, any eagerness, to flush +brightly. She did so now. + +"Oh, Miss Julia!" exclaimed Don. "I'm glad to see you. Why, I know you +too--I feel as though I've always known you just as you are! So--you're +my fairy godmother, who's got a real mother for me! All these +years--till I was a man grown--how could you?--but I'd know you +anywhere, because you're just the image of the picture you sent me with +that of her. I mean when you wrote me last week for the first time--that +wonderful letter--and told me I had a mother, and she was here, but that +I mustn't ever come to see her. Of course, I wired at once I _was_ +coming! See now----" + +"You are tall, Don," said Miss Julia softly. "You are very tall. You +are--you are fine! I'm so glad you grew up tall. All the heroes in my +books are tall, you know." She laughed aloud now, a rippling, joyous +little laugh, and hooking her cane across the chair arm, sank back into +Aurora Lane's largest rocker, her tender, wistful face very much +suffused. + +Don fetched his mother also a chair, and seated himself, still regarding +Miss Julia curiously. He saw the two women look at one another, and +could not quite tell what lay in the look. + +As for Miss Julia, she was still in ignorance of the late events in the +public square, because she had come directly across to Aurora Lane's +house after the closing of her own duties at the library this Saturday +afternoon, when most of her own patrons were disposed for the open than +for books. + +"Yes, Don," said she again, "you are fine!" Her eyes were all alight +with genuine pride in him. "I'm so glad after all you came to see us +before you went on West--even when I told you you mustn't! Oh, believe +me, your mother scolded me! But I presume you are in a hurry to get +away? And you've grown up! After all, twenty years is only a little +time. Must you be in a hurry to leave us?" + +"I ought not to be," said he, smiling pleasantly after all. "Surely I +ought to come and see you two good partners first--I could not go away +without that. Oh, mother has told me about you--or at least I'm sure she +was just going to when you came in. Strange--I've got to get acquainted +with my mother--and you. But I know you--you're two good partners, +that's what you are--two good scouts together--isn't it true?" + +Miss Julia flushed brightly. His chance word had gone passing close to +the truth, but he did not know the truth. Don Lane did not know that +here sat almost the only woman friend Aurora Lane could claim in all +Spring Valley. Miss Julia in fact was silent partner in this very +millinery shop--and silent partner in yet other affairs of which Don +Lane was yet to learn. + +This was a great day for Miss Julia as well as for Don's mother. Time +and again these two women had sat in this very room and planned for this +homecoming of the boy--this boy--time and again planned, and then agreed +he must not come--their son. For--yes--they _both_ called him son! If +Don Lane, Dieudonne Lane, was _filius nullius_, at least he might boast +two mothers. + +How came this to pass? One would need to go back into the story of Miss +Julia's life as well as that of Aurora Lane. She had been lame from +birth, hopelessly so, disfiguringly so. Yet callous nature had been kind +to her, had been compassionate. It gave to her a face of wondrous +sweetness, a heart of wondrous softness thereto. Hopeless and resigned, +yet never pathetic and never seeking pity, no living soul had ever heard +an unkind or impatient word from Julia Delafield's lips, not in all her +life, even when she was a child. She had suffered, yes. The story of +that was written on her face--she knew she might not hope--and yet she +hoped. + +She knew all the great romances of the world, and knew likewise more +than the greatest romancer ever wrote of women. For her--even with her +wistful smile, the sudden flashing of her wistful eyes--there could be +no romance, and she knew that well. Not for her was to be ever the love +of man. She was of those cruelly defective in body, who may not hope for +any love worth having. Surrounded daily by her friends, her books, Miss +Julia was an eager reader, and an eager lover. She knew more of life's +philosophy perhaps than any soul in all her town, and yet she might +enjoy less of life's rewards than any other. A woman to the heart, +feminine in every item, flaming with generous instincts, and yet denied +all hope of motherhood; a woman steeped in philosophy and yet trained in +emotion--what must she do--what could she do--she, one of the denied? + +What Miss Julia had done long years ago was to select as her best +friend the girl who of all in that heartless little town most needed a +friend--Aurora Lane. She knew Aurora's secret--in part. In full she +never yet had asked to know, so large was she herself of heart. All +Spring Valley had scorned Aurora Lane, for that she had no father for +her child. And--with what logic or lack of logic, who shall say?--Julia +Delafield had taken Aurora Lane close to her own heart--_because_ she +had the child! + +It is not too much to say that these two hopeless women, the one outcast +of society, the other outcast of God, had brought up that child between +them. Those who say women have no secrets they can keep should have +noted this strange partnership in business, in life, in maternity! This +had gone on for twenty years, and not a soul in Spring Valley could have +told the truth of it. Don Lane did not know of it even now. + +"Why, Aurora," said Miss Julia more than once in those early years to +her friend, "you must not grieve. See what God has given you--a +son!--and such a son! How glad, how proud, how contented you ought to +be. You have a son! Look at me!" + +So Aurora Lane did look at Julia Delafield. They comforted one another. +It was from Miss Julia that year by year, falteringly, she learned to +hope, learned to hold up her head. Thus gradually, by the aid of the +love of another woman--a rare and beautiful thing, a wondrous thing--a +thing so very rare in that world of jealousy in which by fate women so +largely live--she got back some hold on life--she, mother of the son of +no man, at the urge of a woman who could never have a son! + +"Oh, we will plan, Aurora!" said Miss Julia in those piteous earlier +times. "We will plan--we will get on. We'll fight it out together." And +so they had, shoulder to shoulder, unnoted, unpraised and unadvised, +year by year; and because they knew she had at least one friend, those +who sat in judgment on Aurora Lane came little by little to forgive or +to forget her sin, as it once was called of all the pulpits there. + +And now a drunken tongue had recalled sharply, unforgivably, +unescapably, that past which had so long lain buried--a past to which +neither of them ever referred. + +In all these years time had been doing what it could to repair what had +been. Time wreathes the broken tree with vines to bind up its wounds. It +covers the scarred earth with grasses presently. In all these years some +men had died, others had left the village. Certain old women, poisonous +of heart, also had died, and so the better for all concerned. Other +women mayhap had their sacrifices--and their secrets. But as for Aurora +Lane, at least she had won and held one friend. And so they two had had +between them a child, a son, a man. One had gathered of the philosophy +of life, of the world's great minds. The other had brought into the +partnership the great equipment with which Nature forever defies all law +and all philosophy save her own. + +Now, product of their twenty years of friendship, here he stood, tall +and strong--Don Lane, their boy, blood on his hand because of that truth +which he swiftly--too swiftly--had declared to be a lie; and which was +no lie but the very truth. + +But Don Lane still was ignorant of the closeness of truth of his last +remark. He only put such face now on all this as he might. + +"Miss Julia," said he lamely, and giving her instinctively the title +which the town gave her, "I know you have been good to my mother." + +"Why, no, I haven't, Don," said she, "not at all. I've been so busy I +have hardly seen your mother for a month or so. But we have kept track +of you--why, Don, I've got your class records, every one. You don't know +how I got them? Isn't it true, Aurie?" + +"I don't know what I would ever have done without her," said Aurora Lane +slowly. + +Don Lane laughed suddenly. "Why," said he, "it's almost as if I had +_two_ mothers, isn't it?" + +Both women grew red now, and poor Don, knowing little as he did, grew +red as well. + +"But what's the matter with your hand, Don--you've cut yourself! I've +told your mother she ought to fix that gate-latch." + +Don looked once more at his wounded hand, and sought to cover the +blood-stain with his kerchief. He saw that Miss Julia had heard nothing +of the affair of a few moments earlier in the public square. + +"Why, that's nothing," he mumbled. + +This was too much for the straightforward nature of Aurora Lane, and +rapidly as she might she gave some account to Miss Julia of these late +events. She told all--except the basic and essential truth. A sad shame +held her back from talking even before Miss Julia of the fact that her +boy now knew he was the child of shame itself. + +"That's too bad," said Julia Delafield slowly, gravely, as she heard the +half news. "I'm awfully sorry--I'm awfully sorry for your mother, Don. +You fought? My! I wish I had been there to see it." + +Miss Julia's face flushed once more, indicative of the heroic soul which +lay in her own misshapen body. + +"I didn't want to hit that fellow," said Don. "Of course, they had no +chance, either of them, with a man who could box a bit." + +"And you learned that--in college, Don?" + +He only grinned in reply, and thrust the wounded hand into his pocket, +out of sight. + +"I'll warrant you, Don," said Miss Julia, "that if it hadn't been for +you old Tarbush, the town marshal, never would have taken Johnnie +Adamson to jail. Those two were a public nuisance every Saturday +afternoon. I'm glad you have ended it. But tell me, what made them pick +on you?" + +Don Lane struggled for a time, not daring to look at his mother, before +he spoke. "The half-wit wouldn't let us pass, and then his father called +me a name--if that man or any other ever calls me that again, I'm going +to beat him up till his own people won't know him. I can't tell you," he +went on, flushing. + +He did not catch the sudden look which now passed between the two women. +A sudden paleness replaced the flush on Miss Julia's cheek. A horror sat +in her eye. "What does he know?" was the question she asked of Aurora +Lane, eye only speaking the query. + +"At least, Miss Julia," said poor Don, "you somehow certainly must know +about me. I'll get all my debts squared around some time. As soon as I +can get settled down in my new place West--I've got a fine engineering +job out in Wyoming already--I'm going to have my mother come. And if +ever I get on in the world, there are some other things I'm not going to +forget. Any friend of hers----" His big hand, waved toward his mother, +told the rest of what he could not speak. + +They sat on, uncomfortable, for a time, neither of the three knowing +how much the others knew, nor how much each ought to know. Of the three, +Aurora Lane was most prepared. For twenty years she had been learning to +be prepared. For twenty years she had been praying that her boy never +would know what now he did know. + +Don Lane looked at his mother's face, but could not fathom it. Life to +him thus far had been more or less made up of small things--sports, +books, joys, small things, no great ponderings, no problems, no +introspections, no self-communings--and until but very recently no love, +no great emotion, no passion to unsettle him. This shadow which now fell +over him--he could not have suspected that. But his mother all these +years had known that perhaps at any unforeseen time this very hour might +come--had prayed against it, but known always in her heart that it might +come, nay, indeed one day must come. + +"Damn the place, anyhow!" he broke out at length. "You've lived here +long enough, both of you. It's nothing but a little gossiping hell, +that's all. I'll take you away from here, both of you, that's what I'll +do!" He stretched out a hand suddenly to his mother, who took it, +stroking it softly. + +"Don, boy," said she, "I didn't run away. Why should we run away now? If +we did, we'd take ourselves with us wherever we went, wouldn't we? This +is as good a place to live out life as any I could have found. You +can't really evade things, you know." + +"As though I asked to! I'd rather fight things than evade them." + +"I think so," said his mother mournfully. "I suppose that's true." + +"But you've got to be happy, mother," said he, again taking her hand in +his. "I'll _make_ you happy. I'm ready to work for you now--I'll pay you +back." + +"And Miss Julia?" smiled his mother. "It was she who told you the news, +you know, and you didn't obey her--you came against orders." + +"Why, yes, of course. She's been so awfully good to you. I know what +she's been, be sure of that." (As though he did know!) + +"Don't be too bitter, Don," said Miss Julia Delafield, slowly now, +hoping only to salve a wound she felt he might have, yet not sure +herself what the wound might be. "Don't be unrelenting. Why, it seems to +me, as we grow older and begin to read and think, we find out the best +of life is just being--well, being charitable--just forgetting. Nothing +matters so very much, Don. That's doctrine, isn't it?" + +Don Lane never finished what reply he might have made. There came yet +another interruption, yet another footfall on the little walk without, +following the clash of the crippled gate as it swung to. It was a man's +footfall which they heard on the gallery. They all rose now as Aurora +threw open the door. + +It was the solemn visage of Joel Tarbush, the town marshal, which met +Aurora Lane. + +"How do you do, Mr. Tarbush?" asked she. "Won't you come in?" + +The gentleman accosted gave a quick glance up the street and down. + +"I'm a married man," said he, with something of a vile grin on his face +as he looked at her. + +She answered him only with the level gaze of her own eyes, and pushed +open the door. He followed her in, hesitatingly, and then saw the others +in the little room. + +"Ma'am," said he, "I come to summons you to the justice court this +afternoon." + +"Yes," said Aurora Lane. "Why?" + +"It's that Adamson case," said he--"he knows." He turned now to the tall +figure of Dieudonne Lane, instinctively stepping back as he did so. + +"In what way do you want us?" asked Don Lane now. "As witnesses? My +mother----?" + +"I want your--your _ma_ as a witness, yes," said Tarbush, grinning, +"since you've said it. For you, you'll have to come along on charge of +resisting a officer; likewise for assault and battery, charge brought by +Ephraim Adamson; likewise for disturbing the peace. Likewise we're +going to test the case of _habeas chorus_. Old Man Adamson's got money. +He's sober now, and he's got a lawyer--the best lawyer in town. They're +going to get the eejit out of jail, and Old Man Adamson's going to make +trouble for you." + +How much longer Tarbush might have prattled on in his double capacity of +officer and gossip remained uncertain. Miss Julia turned upon him, her +large dark eyes flashing: + +"Why do you bring her into it? She's just told me--they were only +crossing the square--she was only trying to go home--she wasn't +troubling anyone in all the world! Leave her out of it." + +"I ain't got no choice in it," said Tarbush. "I'm serving the papers +now. Miss Lane and the boy both comes. Not that I got any feeling in the +matter." + +"Why should you have?" asked Don Lane, with a cynical smile. "You've +been letting that ruffian run this town every Saturday for years, they +tell me, and you didn't dare call his bluff till you saw he was whipped. +All right, we'll go. I'll see this thing through--but I want to tell +you, you've started something that will be almighty hard to stop. You +needn't think I'm going to let this thing drop here." + +"Oh, now," began the man of authority, "I wish't you wouldn't feel +thataway. I done my duty as I seen it. Didn't I take him to jail?" + +"Yes, you did, after I had turned him over to you. But you took the +wrong man at that." + +"Who should I of took?" + +"I don't know," laughed Don Lane bitterly. "All the town, I think. We'll +see." + +This was too cryptic for Joel Tarbush. Weakly he felt in his pocket for +tobacco. + +"Well," said he at length, "I done summonsed you." + +"We have no choice," said Aurora Lane, after a time. "We'll get ready. +Miss Julia, can't you go with me?" + +"Of course," said Julia Delafield quietly. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +IN OPEN COURT + + +In his narrow little room upstairs in one of the two-story brick +buildings which framed the public square of Spring Valley sat J. B. +Blackman, Justice of the Peace, upholder of the majesty of the law. His +throne was a knock-kneed, broken chair. In front of him stood a large +scarred table, whereon rested the equipment of well-thumbed tomes which +bolstered him in his administration of justice. In the room beyond stood +a few scattered chairs, a long bench or two. On one wall, by way of +ornament, was a steel engraving of Daniel Webster. On the opposite wall +hung certain lithographs of political candidates of like party +persuasion with Blackman himself, for this was a presidential year, and +certain crises of political sort existed, among others the choosing of a +Senator of the United States. Among lesser likenesses on Blackman's +grimy wall loomed large the portrait of his party's candidate, to wit: +the Honorable William Henderson, late County Attorney, late District +Judge, late member of the Legislature, late candidate for Governor, late +Chairman of the State Republican Committee; and by virtue of the death +of the late incumbent in the office of United States senator, himself +now present candidate for that lofty honor. Otherwise than as to these +purposeful decorations the room had small adornment and appeared +judicially austere. + +The hour was mid-afternoon, but so swiftly had the news of recent events +spread abroad in the little village that already the room of Justice of +Peace Blackman was packed. Aurora Lane's baby--why, she had fooled +everybody--her boy never had died at all--here he was--he had been +through college--he'd been somewhere all the time and now he had come to +life all at once, and had fought Eph Adamson and the eejit, and had been +arrested and was going to be tried. Naturally, the stair leading to the +Justice's office was lined, and sundry citizens were grouped about the +bottom or under the adjacent awnings. + +Much speculation existed as to the exact issue of the legal proceedings +which, it seemed, had been instituted by old Eph Adamson. When that +worthy appeared, escorted by the clerk of Judge Henderson's law office, +room respectfully was made for the two, it being taken for granted that +Judge Henderson would appear for Adamson, as he always had in earlier +embroglios. Much greater excitement prevailed when presently there came +none less than Tarbush, city marshal, followed by Don Lane and the two +women. Then indeed all Spring Valley well-nigh choked of its own unsated +curiosity. + +They walked steadily, these three, staring ahead, following close after +the marshal, who now officiously ordered room for himself and his +charges. When they entered Blackman's court that worthy looked up, +coughed solemnly, and resumed his occupation of poring over the legal +authorities spread before him on the table. Don Lane made room for his +mother and Miss Julia, and took his own place at the side of the +marshal. The latter laid his hand upon his arm, as if to show the +assembled multitude that he had no fear of his prisoner. Don shook off +the hand impatiently. + +Outside, unable to restrain themselves sufficiently to be seated within +the room, old Kneebone and his friend Craybill walked up and down in the +narrow hall--lined with signs of attorneys, real estate men, and +insurance agents--from which made off the door of Blackman's office. + +"They'll bind him over," said old Silas to his friend. "They'll do that +shore." + +"Bind who over, Silas," said Craybill. "You mean Old Man Adamson and his +eejit, don't you? The eejit's arrested, anyhow. But what's it all about? +You don't believe it's true this here _is_ 'Rory's son, now do you? How +can that come?" + +"Well, I ain't saying," replied old Silas cryptically, and nodding only +in the general direction of the door, "but you'll see." + +Old Aaron helped himself to a chew of tobacco thoughtfully. "They say +Old Eph has got his dander up now, and's going to make plenty of trouble +all along the line. Reckon he's ashamed of his son being licked thataway +by just a kid like this. Come to think of it, it looks like Eph ain't +got much glory out of it so far, has he?" + +"No, and I'll bet he had to dig up some money--the Judge, he likely +wouldn't think of it for less'n fifteen dollars anyways. That's the +price of a good shoat these days. If the case was appealed, or if it got +into a court of _nisy prisus_, or maybe got over into another county on +a change of _venoo_, you can bet Judge Henderson wouldn't be doing none +of them things for nothing, neither. The law's all right for them that +has plenty of money. Sometimes I think there's other ways." + +"Huh," said his companion, "old Adamson tried the other way, didn't he? +Now look at him! If I was Old Man Adamson, or if I was his eejit son +either, the best thing we could do, seems to me, would be to get out of +town. This here boy's a fighter, if I'm any judge. Wonder if it is her +boy! If it is, whoever was his father, huh? And how was he kep' hid for +more'n twenty year?" + +"He looks sort of changed since a couple of hours ago," said his friend +judicially. "He's quieter now--why, when he come into town he was just +laughing and talking like a kid. Of course, he must have knew--he knows +who his father is all right. Now, come to think of it, if this here boy +had any money he could sue them Adamsons for deefamation of character." + +"How comes it he could? I hear say that all Old Man Adamson said was to +call him nobody's son, and that's true enough, if he's her boy. If you +call the truth to a man, that ain't no deefamation of character. As to +'Rory Lane, everybody knows the truth about her. You can't deefame a +woman nohow, least of all her. We all know she had a baby when she was a +girl, and it was sent away, and it died. Leastways, we _thought_ we +knew. I ain't right shore what we've knew. It looks like that woman had +put up some sort of game on this town. What right had she to do that?" + +"She was right white," said the other, somewhat irrelevantly. "Never +seen no one no whiter than she was when she went in that door right +now." + +"I don't reckon we can get no seats any more--the room's plumb full." + +They both were looking wistfully in at the packed assembly, when they +had occasion to make room for the dignified figure of a man who now +pushed his way through the throng. + +"How do, Judge Henderson," said old Silas Kneebone, who knew everybody. + +The newcomer nodded somewhat coldly. He nodded also, none too warmly, +to another man who stood near the door--a tall man, of loose and bulky +figure, with a fringe of red beard under his chin, a wide and smiling +mouth, blue eyes, and a broad face which showed shrewdness and humor +alike. + +"How are you, Hod?" said Henderson carelessly; thus accosting the only +man at the Spring Valley bar for whom really he had much respect or +fear--Horace Brooks, popularly known in Spring Valley as "old Hod +Brooks," perhaps the most carelessly dressed man physically and the most +exactly appointed man mentally then practising before that bar. A little +sign far down the narrow hall betokened that the office of Horace Brooks +might thereabouts be found by any in search of counsel in the law. + +"Oh, are you retained in this case, Hod?" Judge Hendenson spoke over his +shoulder. + +"Not at all, Judge, not at all," said the other. None the less he +himself followed on into the crowded little room. + +As Judge Henderson entered all eyes were turned upon him. Conscious of +the fact that he honored this assemblage, he comported himself with +dignity proper for a candidate. He was a man well used to success in any +undertaking, and he looked his part now. The full, florid face, the +broad brow, sloping back to a ridge of iron-gray hair, the full blue +eyes, the loose, easy lips, the curved chin, the large, white hands, +the full chest, the soft body, the reddening skin of the face--all of +these offered good index to the character of William Henderson. Lawyer, +judge, politician and leading citizen--he was the type of these things, +the village Caesar, and knew well enough the tribute due to Caesar. + +A few eyes turned from the adequate figure of Judge Henderson to the +loose and shambling form of the man who edged in to the front of the +table. Rumor had it that in the early times, twenty years or more ago, +Judge Henderson had come to that city with a single law book under his +arm as his sole capital in his profession. Old Hod Brooks had made his +own advent in precisely similar fashion, belated much in life by reason +of his having to work his way through school. Since then his life had +been one steady combat, mostly arrayed against Henderson himself. +Perhaps it might have been said that they two from the first were rivals +for the leading place at the local bar, little as Henderson himself now +cared for that. He was well intrenched, and all opponents, such as this +shambling giant with the red beard and nondescript carriage, must attack +in the open. + +Judge Blackman coughed ominously once more. "Order in the court!" he +intoned, pounding on the table in front of him. + +There was a general shuffling and scraping of chairs. Those standing +seated themselves so far as was possible. Judge Henderson alone stood +for a time in front of the table of Justice Blackman. The afternoon was +very warm, but he represented the full traditions of his profession, for +he appeared in long black coat, white waistcoat, and folded collar, tied +with a narrow white tie. In some way he had the appearance of always +being freshly laundered. His fresh pink cheeks were smooth and clean, +his hands were immaculate as his linen. One might have said that at one +time in his life he had been a handsome man, a fine young man in his +earlier days, and that he still was "well preserved." + +Not so much might have been said of old Hod Brooks, who had slumped into +a seat close to Tarbush and his prisoner. That worthy wore an alpaca +coat, a pair of trousers which shrieked of the Golden Eagle Clothing +Store, no waistcoat at all, and it must be confessed, no collar at all, +beyond a limp strip of wilted linen decorated by no cravat whatever. + +As he sat now Brooks suddenly cast a keen, curious gaze upon the face of +the young defendant who sat at the left of the city marshal--a gaze +which, passing at length, rested steadily, intently, on the face of +Aurora Lane, who sat, icy pale, staring straight in front of her. Her +left hand lay in that of Miss Julia Delafield. The eyes of the +latter--whose face was flushed, as was usual with her in any time of +mental emotion--remained fixed upon the man who was to prosecute this +boy, whose life was linked so closely with her own. + +The great lawyer seemed not to see these women at all, and at first cast +no glance whatever at the defendant. The whole thing was rather trivial +for him; for although his fee really had been five hundred dollars--in +form of a note from Ephraim Adamson secured by a certain mortgage on +certain live stock--he knew well enough he honored Adamson and this +court by appearing here in a mere Justice trial. + +"Order in the court!" said Blackman once more. "The case coming on for +trial is City of Spring Valley on the complaint of Ephraim Adamson +against Dewdonny Lane." At this bold declaration of what had been a half +credited secret to Spring Valley, all Spring Valley now straightened and +sat up, expectant. A sort of sigh, half a murmur of intense curiosity +went over the audience. It was indeed a great day for Spring Valley. +"Lane--Dewdonny Lane." So he _was_ the son of Aurora Lane--and had no +family name for his own! + +Justice Blackman paused and looked inquiringly at the battered visage of +old Eph Adamson. He coughed hesitatingly. "I understand this case is one +of assault and battery. I believe, Judge Henderson, that you represent +the plaintiff in this case?" + +"Yes, your Honor," said Judge Henderson slowly, turning his full eye +upon the court from its late resting place upon the campaign portrait of +himself as it appeared on the wall. "I have consented to be of such +service as I may in the case. Mr. Ephraim Adamson, our well-known friend +here, is ready for the trial of the cause now, as I understand. I may +say further, your Honor, that there will be a writ of _habeas corpus_ +sued out in due course demanding the body of the son of Ephraim Adamson, +who is wrongfully restrained of his liberty at present in our city jail. + +"As for this defendant----" Judge Henderson turned and cast an +insolently inquiring eye upon the young man at the side of the town +marshal. + +"Who appears for the defendant?" demanded Judge Blackman austerely, +casting a glance upon the prisoner at the bar. + +Don Lane arose, half hesitatingly. "Your Honor," said he, "I presume I +am the defendant in this case, although I hardly know what it's all +about. I haven't any lawyer--I don't know anybody here--I'm just in +town. All this has come on me very suddenly, and I haven't had time to +look around. I don't see how I am guilty of anything----" + +[Illustration: "Your Honor," said he, "I presume I am the defendant in +this case."] + +Just then arose the soft and kindly tones of a large voice which easily +filled all the room. Old Hod Brooks half rose. + +"Your Honor," said he, "it isn't customary for a member of the bar to +offer his services unsolicited. I would say, however, that if the Court +desires to appoint me as counsel for this young man I will do the best I +can for him, since he seems a stranger here and unprepared for a defense +at law. If there were any other younger lawyer here I would not suggest +this course to your Honor--indeed, I have no right to do so now. I +trust, however,"--and he smiled at Judge Henderson at the other end of +the table--"that my learned brother will not accuse me of champerty, +maintenance, or any other offense against my office as a servant of +justice in this community. Of course, I may add, your Honor"--he turned +to Justice Blackman again--"that in such circumstances my own services, +such as they are, would be rendered entirely free of charge." + +People wondered, turning curious looks on the big, gaunt speaker thus +suddenly offering himself as champion in a role evidently unpopular. + +Justice Blackman hesitated, and cast again a glance of query at Judge +Henderson, on whom he much relied in all decisions. The latter waved a +hand of impatient assent, and began to whisper with his clerk. + +"The Court will allow this procedure," said Justice Blackman. "Does the +defendant accept Mr. Brooks as counsel?" + +Don Lane, embarrassed and somewhat red of face, half rose again, meeting +full the fascinated, absorbed look on the face of Hod Brooks--a look +which the keen eye of Henderson also saw. He puckered a lip and frowned +estimatingly. Rumor said that Old Hod Brooks was going to come out as +candidate for U. S. Senator on the opposing ticket. Henderson began now +to speculate as to what he could do with Hod Brooks, if ever they should +meet on the hustings. He studied him now as a boxer, none too certain of +himself, studies his antagonist when he strips and goes to his corner +opposite in the ring. + +"Your Honor," said Don, "I don't know this gentleman, but what he says +seems to me most kind. I surely shall be glad to have his assistance +now." He did not look at his mother's face, did not see the quick look +with which Hod Brooks turned from him to her. + +"Does my learned brother require time for preparation of his case?" +inquired Judge Henderson sarcastically. "I will agree to a brief recess +of the Court in such case." + +"Oh, not at all, not at all," said Old Hod Brooks. "I know all about +this case, better than my learned brother does. Not having any special +interest in anything but this case--that is to say, not any alien +interest, political or otherwise--I am ready to go to trial right now to +defend this young man. If Judge Henderson will move his chair so he can +get a better look at his own picture on the wall, I don't see but what +we might as well begin the trial." + +Certain smiles passed over the faces of a few in the audience as they +saw the quick flush spring to the face of Judge Henderson. The chief +delight in life of Old Hod Brooks was to bait his learned brother by +some such jibes as this, whenever the fortunes of the law brought them +together on opposing sides. + +Judge Henderson coughed. "Your Honor," said he hastily, "I am glad that +in the course of justice this young man has secured counsel--even +counsel such as that of my learned brother--who also, I am informed, is +not beyond aspirations of a political nature. I have no time for idle +jests. If the defense is ready I may perhaps state briefly what we +propose to prove." + +"By criminy!" whispered Silas to Aaron at the hall door, peering in. "By +criminy! I believe Old Hod's got him rattled right now!" + +But Judge Henderson pulled himself together. He now assumed his regular +oratorical position, an eye upon his audience. + +"Your Honor," he said, "this case is very plain and simple. The quiet of +our city has been violated by this young man, who has publicly assaulted +one of our best-known citizens." + +"Which one do you mean?" interrupted Hod Brooks, most unethically, and +smiling behind his hand. "Which do you mean, the old drunkard or the +young idiot?" + +"Order in the court!" rapped Blackman, as still further smiles and +shufflings became apparent at the rear of the room. Judge Henderson went +on, flushing yet more. + +"My client, your Honor," he said, "was standing peacefully in the public +square, accompanied by his son. They were beaten up, both of them, by +this young man who has been brought into this court by our properly +constituted officer of the law. Without any provocation whatever, this +defendant inflicted great personal injury upon my client." + +"We will make Eph's face 'Exhibit A,' and let it go into evidence," +smiled Hod Brooks amicably; and the audience smiled and shuffled yet +more. + +"As to the unlawful detention of the son of my client," resumed Judge +Henderson, beet-red now, "we have chosen the remedy of _habeas corpus_ +rather than a simple discharge, because we wish to bring before our +people the full enormity of the offense which has been committed here in +the public view, actually upon the grounds of our temple of justice. We +shall show----" + +"Your Honor," interrupted old Hod Brooks at this point, half rising, "if +this were a political gathering indeed, and not the trial of a cause in +a justice court, I would rise to a point of order. As it is, I rise to a +point of law." + +"State your point," said Justice Blackman. + +"We are trying, as I understand it, the case of this defendant, +Dewdonny Lane, accused by this plaintiff, Ephraim Adamson, of assault +and battery?" + +Justice Blackman nodded gravely. + +"Then why does my learned brother speak of _habeas corpus_ in this case, +and what is the case which he is trying, or thinks he is trying? What is +his evidence going to be? And why does he not get on?" + +"Your Honor," blazed Henderson, "I shall not endure this sort of thing." + +"Oh, yes, you will, my learned brother," said Hod Brooks, still smiling +gently. If Henderson had other resources, he needed them now, for keenly +enough he sensed himself as slipping in this battle of wits before +assembled electors; and it really was politics alone that had brought +him here--he scented a crowd afar off. He now lost his temper utterly. + +"If the Court will excuse us for a brief moment of recess," said he +savagely, "I should like to ask the privilege of a brief personal +consultation with the attorney for the defense. If he will retire with +me for just a moment I'll make him eat his words! After that we can +better shape these proceedings." + +The blue eye that Hod Brooks turned upon his opponent was calmly +inquiring, but wholly fearless. On the other hand, some sudden idea +seemed to strike him now. He resolved to change his tactics. He was +shrewd enough to know that, irritated beyond a certain point, Henderson +would fight his case hard; and Hod Brooks did not want to lose this +case. + +Henderson, with a little wave of the hand, his face livid in anger, +edged away from the table of the Justice of the Peace. Hod Brooks +followed him out into the hall. + +"Order in the court!" intoned the Justice yet again. There was a rush +toward the door. "There now, go back, men," said Hod Brooks, raising a +hand. "There's not going to be any fight. Let us two alone--we want to +talk, that's all." + +Don Lane looked steadily at the face of Justice Blackman. Aurora Lane +stared ahead, still icy pale, her hand clasped in that of Miss Julia's. +She felt, rather than saw, the gazes of all these others boring into her +very soul. Here were her enemies--here in what had been her home. It +seemed an hour to her before at length those standing about the door +shuffled apart to allow the two forensic enemies to reenter, though +really it had not been above ten minutes. Neither man bore any traces of +personal combat. The face of Judge Henderson was a shade +triumphant--strangely enough, since now he was to admit his own defeat. + + * * * * * + +"I tell you, I heard the whole business," said old Silas later on to his +crony, who owned to a certain defect in one ear in hot weather such as +this. "I heard the whole business. There wasn't no fight at all--not +that neither of them seemed a bit a-scared. Hod, he raises a hand, and +that made the Judge slow down. + +"'It's what you might expect, Judge,' says Hod, for appearing in a +measly little justice court case.' He's got a mighty nasty way of +smiling, Hod has. But scared? No. Not none. + +"'I'll fight this case as long as you like,' says the Judge, 'and I'll +win it, too.' + +"'Maybe, maybe, Judge,' says Hod. 'But they's more ways than one of +skinning a cat. Suppose you do win it, what've you won? It's all plumb +wrong anyhow, and it orto be stopped. These people all orto go on home.' + +"'So you want to try the case here, huh?' says the Judge; and says Hod: + +"'That's just what I do. I mean I don't want to try it none at all. I've +got various reasons, beside, why I don't want to try this case, or have +it tried. Are you a good guesser?' I didn't know what he meant by that. + +"'What're you getting at?' says the Judge. 'I know you've got something +hid. There's a sleeper in here somewheres.' + +"'Well, let it stay hid,' says Hod. 'But one thing is sure, you ain't +hiding it none that you're out for Senator?' + +"'Why should I? I'll win it, too,' says the Judge. + +"'Maybe, maybe,' says Hod. 'All I was going to say was, maybe you'd like +to have me help you, say left-handed, thataway? Even left-handed help is +some good.' + +"'What do you mean, Hod?' says he. 'They tell me you're mentioned strong +for the other ticket and are out after the place your own self?' He +takes a kind of look-over at Hod, no collar nor nothing, and that sleazy +coat of his'n. + +"'That's so,' says Hod. 'I've got a chance anyhow. Even every bad-chance +candidate out of your way is so much to the candy for you, Judge, ain't +it so?' says he. + +"'Say now, you don't mean you'd talk of withdrawing?' Judge Henderson he +was all lit up when he says this. 'On what terms?' says he. 'Of course, +there's terms of some sort.' + +"'Easiest terms in the world,' says Hod--though I don't think it was +easy for him to say it, for he's got as good a chance as the Judge, like +enough. But he says, 'Easiest sort of terms,' and laughs. + +"'Talk fast,' says the Judge. + +"'Dismiss this suit--withdraw from this case--and I'll withdraw from all +candidacy on any ticket! That goes!' He said it savage. + +"'Do you mean it?' says the Judge, and Hod he says he does. 'I've got +reasons for not wanting this case to go on,' says he. 'It's politics +brought you here, Judge, and I know that, but it's mighty good politics +you'll be playing not never to try this case at all. Drop it, Judge. +Politics against politics; you win. Lawyer against lawyer, _I_ win. But +I pay the biggest price, and you know it mighty well, even if you're a +poor guesser why I'm doing this. Since you're getting all the best of +the bargain, is it a bargain, then?' + +"Henderson he thinks for a while, and says he at last, 'Anyhow, I never +knew you to break your word,' says he. + +"'No,' says Hod, simple, 'I don't do that,' + +"'I'll go you!' says the Judge, sudden, and he sticks out his hand. 'I +shake politically, Judge,' says Hod. 'No more; but it's enough. We don't +neither of us need explain no more,' And _damn me_! If they didn't quit +right there, where it seemed to me a whole lot of explaining what they +meant 'd a-ben a right good thing for me anyways, for I couldn't gether +what it was all about. + +"But I heard the whole business--and there wasn't no fight, nor nothing, +just only that talk like I said, and I don't know nothing of _why_ they +done it, I only know what they done. _That's_ why there wasn't no fight, +no trial after all--and us setting there that long! I want to say, some +things is beginning to look mighty mysterious to me. But I ain't saying +what I think. You'll see." + + * * * * * + +Hod Brooks was first to address the court. He stood, a tall and hulking +figure, one hand upon the shoulder of Dieudonne Lane--stood in such +fashion as in part to shield Don's mother from the gaze alike of court +and audience. + +"Your Honor," said he, and his face now was very grave; "I assume the +Court has been in recess. After conference with my learned brother I +believe that he has some statement to make to the Court." + +He turned now toward Henderson, who straightened up. + +"May it please the Court," he began, "I find it incumbent upon me to +withdraw as counsel in this case. My learned brother has lived up to the +full traditions of courtesy in our profession, but I will only say that +I have learned certain facts which render it impossible for me to +represent this client properly in this cause. There would seem to have +been certain justifying circumstances, not at first put before me, which +leave me more reluctant to prosecute this defendant. I shall counsel my +client to withdraw his suit." + +Blackman in his surprise scarcely heard the deep voice of Don Lane's +attorney as he spoke in turn. + +"May it please the Court," said he gently, "it is the best function of +an attorney to counsel restraint and moderation; it is most honorable of +any great counsel to decline any case which does not enlist his full +convictions. It is the duty of all of us to uphold the actual peace and +actual dignity of this community. I have never entertained a fuller +respect for my learned brother than I have at this moment. I withdraw +what I said about his portrait yonder--and may say I do not blame any +man for being well content even in the offer of an honor which I cannot +and do not contemplate for myself--the great honor of the candidacy for +the Senate of the United States. It is my own function, none the less, +to state that there is no cause why my client should be longer detained. +He and others, these witnesses, are virtually restrained of their +liberty. I therefore move the dismissal of this case. I think these +people all ought to go home. I further suggest that this court +adjourn--if this latter suggestion be fully within my own province." + +He turned an inquiring gaze upon Tarbush, city marshal, who by this time +had fairly sunken down into the depths of his coat collar. + +"How about the plaintiff?" said Blackman, turning a hesitating glance +upon Judge Henderson, who seemed much relieved by what his opponent in +fact and in _posse_ had said. + +"There is other counsel for him," said Judge Henderson, "but if he will +take my own advice, he will drop the case now and at this point." + +"What does the plaintiff say?" Blackman bent an inquiring gaze on the +battered visage of Ephraim Adamson. The latter lifted up a swollen +eyelid with thumb and finger, and turned a still confused gaze upon +court and counsel. His reply, crestfallen though it was, brought a +titter from the audience. + +"I guess I'm satisfied," said he. + +Blackman looked from one to the other, and then back to the faces of the +disappointed audience of the citizens of Spring Valley. + +"Order in the court!" exclaimed Blackman, J. P., fiercely. "This court +is adjourned!" He spoke with a certain disgust, as of one aware of +participation in a fiasco. + +With a rush and a surge the room began to empty. Judge Henderson +departed, well in advance, looking straight ahead, and acknowledging +none of the greetings which met him. He evidently was above such work, +even disgusted with the whole affair. Hod Brooks remained, his curious +glance still riveted on Don Lane. + +Don stood hesitating before the table of justice. He had not known +before that his burly counsel had any acquaintance with his mother, but +he saw plainly the glance of recognition which passed between them. + +Aurora Lane and Miss Julia waited until the stair was clear, but as Don +would have followed them, Hod Brooks beckoned to him, in his blue eyes a +sort of puzzled wonderment, a surprise that seemed half conviction. + +"I thank you, Mr. Brooks," said Don Lane, turning to his counsel. He +wondered curiously why the big man should seem so red of face and so +perturbed. "What can I do for you--I have not much----" + +The great face of Hod Brooks flushed yet more. "Don't talk to me about +pay, my boy," said he--"don't talk to me about anything. Wait till +things straighten out a little. The prosecution's dropped. That's +all--or that's enough. Now, listen. I knew you when I saw you come in +here! They told me you were dead, but I knew you when first my eyes fell +on you. You're like your mother. I've known your mother for years--I +think a lot of her and her friend Miss Julia, don't you see? It's +strange news to me you are alive, but you are, and that's enough. I must +be going now. I'll see you and your mother both. But before I do, just +come with me, for I've a little more counsel to give you--it won't cost +you anything, and I think it will do some good." + +He beckoned Don to join him once more in the hall, and what he said +required but a moment. An instant later, and old Brooks had hurried down +the stair. A part of his words to Don had been overheard by old Silas, +but the latter could only wonder what it all might mean. + +"Aaron," said he, "I ain't no detecative, and don't claim to be, but +now, some day if anything should happen--well, I ain't sayin', but I +know what I know, and some day, some day, Aaron, I may have to tell." + +Brooks joined Aurora Lane and Miss Julia and walked with them along the +shady street. They walked in silence, Aurora Lane still staring straight +ahead, icy cold. It was not until they three halted at her little gate +that she could find voice. + +"How can we thank you?" said she. "How can we pay?" + +The deep color came into the big man's moody face once more. He waved a +hand. "You mustn't talk of that," said he. "I reckon I owe you that much +and more--a lot more. I'm not done yet. I've done what I thought was +right. But as for the case, I didn't fight it, and I didn't win it--the +Judge and I, we just didn't make any fight at all, that's all. We +settled it out of court, on terms that suited him, anyhow. I'm sorry for +Blackman,--he was just honing to soak that boy the limit! _Your_ boy, +Aurora--that ought to have stayed dead, I'm afraid, but didn't. + +"But peace and dignity," he added--"listen to me--we'll make a Sabbath +school out of this town yet! I can't talk very much more now." + +With a great uproarious laugh, somewhat nervous, very much perturbed, he +raised his hat clumsily, turned upon his heel clumsily, and would have +walked off clumsily. An exclamation from Miss Julia stopped him. + +"Where's Don?" asked she. "And what's that over yonder--what does the +crowd mean?" She pointed down to the corner of the courthouse square, +where indeed a closely packed group was thrusting this way and that, +apparently about some center of interest. + +"Oh, that?" said Hod Brooks, carelessly, turning his gaze thither; +"that's nothing. Pray don't be excited--it's only my--my client, +carrying out the last of my legal instructions to him." + +"But what does it mean?" demanded Aurora Lane in sudden terror--"what's +going on there? Is there more trouble?" + +Hod Brooks broke off a spear of grass from its place between the +sidewalk and the fence, and meditatively began to chew it. + +"Oh, no, I think not," said he gently. "I don't think the boy will have +much trouble. He's doing what I counseled him to do." + +"What have you told him--what is he doing--what does it all mean?" +demanded Aurora Lane. + +"Nothing," said the big man, still gazing ruminatingly at the scene +beyond. "As a member of the bar I was bound to give him such counsel as +should be of most practical benefit to him--I swore that in my oath of +admission to the bar. So I told him that as soon as court was adjourned +he ought to take old Eph Adamson and thrash him this time good and +proper. I told him nothing would come of it if he did. I told him it was +his plain duty to do it, and if he didn't do it I'd do it myself, +because the dogs have got to be put to sleep again now in this town.... +I must say," he added, "I am inclined to believe that my client is +following his instructions to the letter!" After which Hod Brooks +strolled on away. + +The crowd at the farther corner of the square broke apart before long. + +"By jinks! Silas," said old Aaron to his friend, "who'd a thought it? +I've seen some fights, but that was the shortest I ever did see. And he +made old Eph Adamson holler 'enough!' By criminy! he done that very +thing. Looks to me, safest thing right is not to talk too much about +'Rory Lane!" + +Don Lane emerged from the thick of the crowd, his coat over his arm, his +face pale in anger, his eye seeking any other champion who might oppose +him. + +"Listen to me now, you people!" he said. "If there's another one of you +that ever does what that man there has done, or says what he said, he'll +get the same he did, or worse. You hear me, now--I'll thrash the life +out of any man that raises his voice against anyone of my family. You +hear me, now?" + +He cast a straight and steady gaze upon Old Man Tarbush, who stood +irresolute. + +"No, you'll not arrest me again," said he. "You know you won't. You'll +leave me alone. If you don't, you'll be the next. I don't love you any +too well the way it is. + +"Get out now, all of you--you most of all," he added, and gave Marshal +Tarbush a contemptuous shove as he elbowed his own way on out of the +crowd. + +Old Hod Brooks passed on down the street and took the opposite side of +the public square, paying no attention to all this. He ambled on until +he found his own office at length. A half hour later he might have been +seen in his customary attitude, slouched deep down into his chair, his +head sunk between his shoulders, his feet propped up on the table, and +his eyes bent on the pages of a volume of the law. + +He had in his lap now no less an authority than "Chitty on Pleadings." +He had sat there for some moments--and he had not seen a word on all the +page. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +CLOSED DOORS + + +By the time Don Lane had reached his mother's house he partially had +pulled himself together, but his face was still pale and sullen, not yet +recovered from the late encounter. + +He cast himself down in a chair, his chin in his hand, looking +everywhere but at his mother. His wounds, poor lad, were of the soul, +slow to heal. The white-faced woman who sat looking at him had also her +wounds, scarred though they were, these years. Her features seemed +sharpened, her eyes larger for the dark shadows now about them. But she +was first to speak. + +"Wasn't it enough, Don," said she--"didn't I have enough without all +this? And on the very day I have looked forward to so long--so long! You +don't know how I have worked and waited for this very day. Why, it's the +first time I've ever seen you, since you were a baby. You're a stranger +to me--I don't know you yet. And then all this comes--now, on my one +happy day." + +"Well, how about it, then?" he demanded brusquely. "You know what +they've been saying--I couldn't let it go. I _had_ to fight!" + +"Yes, yes, you have--and in a few hours you've undone twenty years of +work for me. The sleeping dogs were lying. Why waken them this late?" + +"_Who was my father?_" demanded the young man, now, sternly. "Come, it's +time for me to know. I couldn't help loving you--no one could. But--him! +Tell me--was it that man who defended me? Is my name Don Brooks?" + +She made him no answer, though her throat throbbed and she half started +as though at a blow. + +"Oh, no, oh, no! What am I saying! Of course you understand, mother," he +went on after a long, long silence, "I don't believe anything of this, +not even what you have said to me about my being--well, _filius +nullius_. There was a quick divorce--a hidden decree--you separated, you +two--he was poor--that often happens. Women never like to talk about it. +I can't blame you for calling me 'nobody's son,' for that sort of thing +does happen--secret and suppressed divorces, you know. But as to that +other----" + +For a long time Aurora Lane sat facing a temptation to accept this +loophole of escape which thus crudely her boy offered her--escape from +the bitter truth. He would fight! He--and Hod Brooks--those two might +defy all the town--might cow them all to silence even now. But--once +more her inborn honesty and courage, her years-old resolution +triumphed. + +"I cannot tell you who your father was, Don," said she quietly, at +length, ash pale, trembling. + +"When were you married--when--where?" + +"I was _never_ married, Don! What I told you was true! Oh, you make me +say a thing to you I ought never to have been asked to say, but it is +the truth. You may believe it--you must believe it--it's--it's no good +keeping on evading--for it's true, all of it." She was gasping, choking, +now. "This is a ghastly thing to have to do," she cried at last. "Ah, it +oughtn't ever to have been asked of me." + +The boy's breath also came in a quick sob now. + +"Mother, that's not true--it _can't_ be! Why, where does that leave +you--where does it leave _me_?" + +Her voice rose as she looked at him, so young and strong, so fine, so +manly. + +"But I'm not sorry," she exclaimed, "I'm not--I'm _not_!" + +"So what they told me--what I made them all take back--_it was true_?" +He sank back in his chair. + +"Yes, Don. We can't fight. We are ruined." + +"Born out of wedlock!--But my father only ran away--you told me he was +dead." + +"Regard him so, Don." + +"Where is he--who was he? Why did that man tell me to fight them all?" + +"I will never tell you, Don, never." + +Her dark eyes were turned upon him now, eyes unspeakably sad. + +"But you must! You wouldn't deny me my own chance in the world?" + +"You will have to make your own chance, Don, as I did. We all must. I +have my secret. The door is closed. There is no power ever can open that +door--not even my love for you, my boy. Besides, the knowledge could be +of no use to you." + +"Yes? Is that indeed so? You would debar me from the one great right of +all my life? Tell me, is my guess right? I'll make that man marry you." + +"Ah, you mean revenge?" + +He nodded, savagely, his jaws shut tight. But his brow grew troubled. +"But not if he came out and stood by me and you, even this late. I +suppose----" + +"There is no revenge for a woman, Don. They only dream there is--once I +dreamed there might be for me. I don't want it now. I am content. +There's more pity than revenge about me now. I only want to be fair now, +if I can, and now I'm glad--this is my one glorious day. For you're +mine. You are my boy--and I'll never say that I am sorry. Because I've +got you. They can't help that, can they, Don?" + +"He got us out of worse trouble, didn't he? Why did he do that, Mother? +What made him look at us the way he did? And what made the other lawyer, +Henderson, drop the case? How did they settle it out of court? Lucky +for us--but _why_?" He spoke sharply, abruptly. + +A trifle of color came to Aurora Lane's cheeks. "It was his way," she +said. "He's a good lawyer--advancing right along, more and more every +year, they say. He's always had a hard time getting a start. He's like +me." + +Don Lane sat silent for a time, but what he thought he held. He cast a +discontented glance about him at the meager surroundings of his mother's +home, with which he could claim no familiarity. + +"How did you manage it, Mother?" he asked, at length. "How did you get +me through--big, ignorant loafer that I've been all my life. You say he +never helped any. Was he so poor as all that?" + +"I couldn't have done it alone," said Aurora Lane, slowly. Mechanically +she smoothed down the folds of her gown in her lap as she spoke. + +"I have told you you had two mothers, if no father," said she at last, +suddenly. "That's almost true. You don't know how much you owe to Miss +Julia. She helped me put you through school! It was her little salary +and my little earnings--well, they have proved enough." + +"Go on!" said he, bitterly. "Tell me more! Humiliate me all you can! +Tell me more of what I ought to know. Good God!" He squared his +shoulders as if to throw off some weight which he felt upon them. + +His mother looked at him in silence for some time. "Shall I tell you all +about it, Don?" she said. "All that I may?" + +He nodded, frowning. "Let's have it over and done with." + +"When I came here I was young," said Aurora Lane, slowly, after a long +time. "Julia was young, too, just a girl. We both had to make our way. +Then--then--it happened." + +"You didn't love me, Mother? You hated me?" + +"Oh, yes, I loved you--you don't know what you say--you don't know how I +loved you. But everything was very hard and cruel.... Well, one night I +had made up my mind what I must do.... + +"I washed you all clean that night. I dressed you the best I could--I +didn't have much for you. But you were a sweet baby, and strong. I was +kissing you and saying good-by to you then, when Miss Julia came in, +right at the door." + +[Illustration: "I was kissing you and saying good-bye ... when Miss +Julia came in--"] + +"You were going to put me in a home--in some institution?" + +"No!" She spoke now in short, quick, sobbing breaths.... "Don, do you +know the little stream that runs through the edge of the town? Do you +know the deep pool beneath the bridge where the water turns around? +Well, I had washed you and dressed you.... I was going to put you +_there_.... It was then that Julia came." + +He turned upon her a face which it seemed to her never again could be +happy and free from care. + +"I didn't know all this, Mother," said he, quietly, whitely. "I ask your +pardon. I ask you to forgive me." + +"No, I have told you I wanted to spare you all this--I wanted that door +to remain closed forever. But now it is open--you have opened it. I will +have to tell you what there is behind." + +It seemed many moments before she could summon self-control to go on. + +"...So we two sat here in this little room, Julia and I. You were in my +lap, holding up your hands and kicking up your feet, and we two wept +over you--we prayed over you, too--she, that little crippled girl, +hopeless, who could never have a boy of her own! I told her what I was +going to do with you. She fought me and took you away from me.... And +she saved you ... and she saved me. + +"So now you have it." He heard her voice trailing on somewhere at a +distance which seemed immeasurable. "You owe your life not to one woman, +but to two, after all. Now you know why I called you Dieudonne. God sent +you to me. As I have known how, I have resolved to pay my debt to +God--for you. I want to pity, not hate. I want to be grateful. I want to +be fair, if I can learn how." + +Aurora spoke no more for some moments, nor did her son. + +"We two talked it all over between us," said she after a time. "She +asked me then, once, who was your father--Julia did. I said he was poor. +I told her never to ask me again. She never has. Oh, a good woman, Julia +Delafield--fine, fine as the Lord ever made! + +"But she knew--we both knew--that I did not have the means of bringing +you up. We put our hearts together--to own you. We put our little purses +together--to bring you up. She took you away from me, pretty soon. She +sent you to some of her people, very distant relatives. They were poor, +too, but they took you in and they never knew--they died, both of them, +who took you in. + +"Then for a time we sent you to an institution for orphans. But we told +everybody here that you had died. I told him so--your--your father--and +I forbade him ever to speak to me again. I told you he was dead. I told +him you were dead. He _is_ dead. So are _you_ dead. But all the dead +have come to life. The lost is found. Oh, Don, Don, the lost is found! +I've found so much today--so much, so much. You're my boy, my own boy. A +man!" + +He sat mute. At length she went on. + +"We schemed and saved and contrived, all the little ways that we could +to save our money--we have both done that all our lives for you. We +wanted to educate you, your mothers did. And oh! above all things we +wanted the secret kept. I did the best I knew. They all thought you +died. I didn't want you to come here--it was Miss Julia. I didn't know +you were coming till you wired. I was going to tell you not to come +up--even from the depot. But you got in the bus. I was delayed there in +the square by those men. And then all this happened. And after twenty +years!" + +She sat silent, using all her splendid command of her own soul to still +the stubborn fluttering in her throat. + +Dieudonne Lane looked everywhere but at her. + +"Mother," said he at length, "did you--did you ever--love him?" + +His own face flushed at the cruelty of this question, too late, after +the words were gone. He saw her wince. + +"I don't know, Don," said she, simply. "It happened. It couldn't again. +You don't know about women. Seal your lips now, as mine are sealed. +Never again a question such as that to me." + +The sight of her suffering at his own words stirred the elemental rage +in his heart. + +"Tell me," he demanded again and again. "Who was he? Is that the man? I +begin to see--I'd kill him if I knew for sure." + +She only shook her head. + +"But you must!" said he at last. "You are cruel. You don't know." + +"What is that, Don? What do you mean? Oh, I see--_it is because of her_. +It's Anne! There's someone else you love, more than you do me." + +"Yes!" he confessed, "more than I do life. _That's_ the reason I must +know all about myself. Can't you see I've got to play fair? There's +Anne!" + +"Who is she, Don--you've never told me very much yet." + +"Anne Oglesby--her family lived at Columbus before she was left alone. +You know her--why, she's the ward of Judge Henderson, here in town. I +believe she was left a considerable estate, and he handles it for her. +She's been here. She's told me about this place--she's seen you, +maybe--before I ever did. Yes--it's Anne! I've got to think of her. I +don't dare drag her into trouble--my hands are tied." + +He rose now, and in his excitement walked away from his mother, so that +he did not note her face at the moment. + +"You see, we met from time to time back East in our college town. I +never told her much about myself, because I didn't know much about +myself, really, when it comes to that. I said I was an orphan, +and poor. But--I'd made all the teams--and I've studied, too. I was +valedictorian, in spite of all, Mother. They don't amount to much, +usually--valedictorians--but I was sure I would--when I knew that +Anne---- + +"I didn't know about our caring for one another until we found we had to +part--just now, today, this morning on the train before I got off here. +Then we couldn't part, you know. So just before we passed through this +town, right on the train--today, in less than half an hour before I met +you--this morning, this very day, I--we--well----" + +"Yes, Don," she said, "I know!" Her eyes were very large, her face very +pale. + +He choked. + +"But now we've got to part," said he. "If I am nobody, or worse, I've +got to be fair with her." + +A look of pride came into his mother's face at his words. "I'm glad, +Don," said she. "You've got honor in you. But in no case could I see you +marry that girl." + +He turned upon her in sudden astonishment. "Isn't she as good as we are? +Isn't her family--don't you know the Oglesbys of Columbus--who they are +and what they stand for--where they came from? Can we say as much?" + +"They are better than we can claim to be, Don, yes," said she, ignoring +his brutal frankness. "I know her, yes. I knew her years ago--the ward +of Judge Henderson. Sometimes she has been here and kept his household +for him--some day she'll live with Judge Henderson even if she marries. +He's very fond of her. But as to your marrying Anne Oglesby, you must +not think of it." + +"What on earth!" he began. "What have you against her?" + +"It is enough that I feel as I do about any girl who has been here and +who knows about--about the way--the way I've lived. Will she know who I +am when she knows who _you_ are--and what you are not? Has she +identified us two--have you really been fair with her?" Now the color +began to rise in her paled cheeks. + +"I've not had time yet! I told you it all happened just a moment ago." +Then, still brutally, he went on. "Why, what do you know of love? What +do you know about the way I feel toward Anne?" + +"Be as cruel as you like," said she, flushing now under such words. "I +presume you feel as all men think they feel sometimes. They see that +woman for that moment--they think that they believe what they say--they +think they must do what they do. You are a man, yes, Don, or you could +not have said to me what you have." + +He flung out his arms, impatient. "I am having a fine start, am I not? +I'm a beggar, a pauper, and worse than that. I've got to pay you and +Miss Julia. I've got to go on through life, with that secret on my mind. +I can't confront that man and tell him. You and I--just today +meeting--why, we begin to argue. And now I've got to face Anne Oglesby +with that secret. It can't be a secret from her. I'd never ask her to +join her life to one like mine. And--God! a woman like her.... I can't +tell you.... Death--why, I believe this is worse." + +"Don't tell me, Don, don't try." She turned to him, her voice hoarse and +low. "It's a wrong thing for you to talk to me about things of that +sort. Birds out of the nest begin all over again--this must begin again, +I suppose--but it's too awful--too terrible. I don't want to hear any +more talk about love. But rather than see you live with her, rather than +see you talk that way of her, it seems to me I'd rather die. Because, +she knows all about _me_--or will. What made you come? Why didn't you +stay away? Why couldn't you find some other girl to love, away from +here?" + +"Which shows how much you really care for my happiness! I suppose, like +many women, you are stubborn. Is that it, mother?" + +She winced under this, wringing her hands. "If I could only lie--if I +only could!" + +"And if I only could, also!" he repeated after her. "But she's coming +tomorrow, Mother--I've made her promise she'd come to see you. She said +she'd make some excuse to come down and see her guardian. I'm going to +meet her tomorrow. And when I do, I've got to tell her what I've learned +today--every word of it--all--all! And I'll be helpless. I'll not be +able to fight. I'll have to take it." + +"That's right, Don, that's right. Even if I loved her as you do, even if +it were the best thing in the world for you if you could marry her, I'd +say that you should not. Don, whatever you do, don't ever be crooked +with a woman. She's a woman, too. No matter what it cost, I couldn't see +her suffer by finding out anything after it was too late." + +"It won't take long," said he, simply. "We'll part tomorrow. But oh! Why +did you save me--why did Miss Julia come that night? My place was under +the water--there! Then the door would have been closed indeed. But now +all the doors are closed on ahead, and none behind. I'll never be happy +again. And I'm making her unhappy, too, who's not to blame. It runs far, +doesn't it?--far and long." + +"As you grow older, Don," said she, "you will find it doesn't so much +matter whether or not you are happy." + +He shook his head. "I'm done. It's over. There's nothing ahead for me. I +never had a chance. Mother, you and Miss Julia made a bad mistake." + +It seemed that she scarcely heard him, or as though his words, brutal, +cruel though they were, no longer impinged upon her consciousness. She +spoke faintly, as though almost breathless, yet addressed herself to +him. + +"Why, Don, it was here in this very room ... and you lay in my arms and +looked up at me and laughed. You were so sweet.... But what shall I do? +I love you, and I want you to love me, and you can't. What have I done +to you? Oh, wasn't the world cruel enough to me, Don? Oh, yes, yes, it +runs far--far and long, a woman's sin! You are my sin. And oh! I love +you, and I will not repent! God do so to me--I'll not repent!" + +He looked at her, still frowning, but with tenderness under the pain of +his own brow. At last he flung himself on his knees before her and +dropped his head into her lap. + +He felt her hands resting on his head as though in shelter--hands that +lay side by side, hands long and shapely once, but bruised and worn now +with labor could he but have seen them--Aurora's hands--he could not +have helped but realize her long years of toil. He heard her faint, +steady sobbing now. + +After a time she bent lower above his head as he knelt there, silent and +motionless. Slowly her hand began once more to stroke his hair. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE DIVIDING LINE + + +The commonplace sound of the telephone's ring broke the silence in the +little room. Aurora Lane arose and passed into the adjoining room to +answer it. Her son regarded her with lackluster eyes when she returned. + +"It was Miss Julia," said she, "at the library. She wanted to know if +you were here. She says we must be sure to come out tonight." + +"Come out--to what?" + +"It's her annual jubilee, when she reports progress to the town. She is +very proud of her new books and rugs and pictures. Everybody will be +there. You see, Don, we don't have much in a town like this to entertain +us. Why, if I could see a real theater once--I don't know how happy I +would be. We've had movies, and now and then a lecture--and Miss Julia." + +"I don't want to go, mother." + +"Neither do I, Don; so I'm going." + +"Why should we go? It's nothing to us." + +"It's everything to Miss Julia--and it's everything to us, Don. Stop to +think and you will realize what I mean. We can't run away under fire." + +"There's something in that," he rejoined after a time, slowly. "Besides, +what Miss Julia wishes we both ought to do." + +Hands in pockets, he began once more gloomily to pace up and down the +narrow room. "I can't stand this much longer, mother," said he. "I've +got to get out--I've got to get hold of some money somehow." + +"Yes," said she. "As for me, I have collected the last money due me--it +went for your graduation suit. I don't know how you saved your railway +fare home. I didn't want you to know these things, of course, but as +things have happened, you had to know. A great many things today--well, +they've gotten away from me." + +"It's I who have spoiled everything, too. But how could I help it--I +just couldn't submit." + +"It's hard to submit, Don," said she slowly. "Perhaps a man ought not to +learn it. A woman has to learn it." + +He turned to look at her wonderingly, and at length went over and put a +hand on her shoulder. + +"Dear Mom!" said he gently. "You're wonderful. You are fine--splendid! +I'm just getting acquainted with you, am I not? You're a good woman, +mother; I'm so glad." + +She looked at him now with eyes suddenly wet, her face working +strangely, and turned away. + +"Come, Don," said she after a time. "We must get ready for our little +supper. Spring Valley, you see," she added, gaily, "dines at six and +goes to the movies at seven." + +Presently she left him to his own devices for a time, before calling him +out into the little kitchen which served her also as a dining-room. + +"It's not much," said she, shrugging and spreading out her hands, "but +it's all I'd have had--bread and milk and cereal. I don't use much sugar +or butter." Then, hurriedly, seeing the pain she had caused him, she +went on. + +"You soon get used to such things. Why, I have only two gowns to my +name, and I put on my best one to meet you, when you wired you were +coming, and I saw I'd have to meet you. This hat has been fixed over I +don't know how many times--once more, for you. You will see, I'll not be +at much trouble to dress for the entertainment tonight." + +She opened upon the table cover her little pocket book and showed its +contents--one small, tightly-folded, much-creased bill, which still lay +within its depths. + +"My last!" said she, grimacing. "That's our capital in life, Don! And we +have all the world against us now. We must fight, whether or not we want +to fight." + +"But now," she added, "I can't talk any more. Let us go. It may do us +good. Miss Julia at least will be glad to see us, if no one else is." + +Early as they were, they were not the first arrivals at the library +room where Miss Julia Delafield had devised her entertainment. She had +borrowed certain benches from the public school, certain chairs as well. +Already a goodly portion of Spring Valley's best people filled these. +The seats made back from the little raised platform which usually served +as the librarian's desk place. This now was enlarged by the removal of +all the desks. + +Back of this narrow dais was draped a large flag of our Union, and in +the center of its folds was the campaign portrait of Judge Henderson, +chief speaker of the evening. + +Aurora Lane and her son entered unnoticed for the time, and quietly took +seats in the last row of benches at the rear, near to some awkward +youths who had straggled in and seemed uncomfortable in their +surroundings. Not even Miss Julia noted them, for presently it became +her flushing duty to escort Judge Henderson, and several of her other +speakers, to the edge of the little platform, where they took their +places back of the conventional table and pitcher of water. + +The leader in the town's affairs bent over affably to speak with his +associates--three ministers of the gospel, Reverend Augustus Wilson, of +the U. P. Church, Reverend Henry Fullerton, of the Congregationalist +Church, and Reverend William B. Burnham, of the Methodists. There were +many other ministers of the gospel in Spring Valley, which rejoiced +exceedingly in the multiplicity of its churches; but to these, in the +belief of Miss Julia, had more specially been given the gift of tongues. + +There came presently and seated himself on the bench next to Aurora Lane +yet another minister of the gospel, old Mr. Rawlins, of the Church of +Christ, the least important denomination of the village, so few of +numbers and so scant of means that its house of worship must needs be +located just at the edge of town, where land was very cheap. A kindly +man, Parson Rawlins, and of mysterious life, for none might say whence +came his raven-brought revenue. Questioned, Brother Rawlins admitted +that he was not in the least sure whether or not he had a definite +creed. He held out his hand smilingly to Aurora Lane.... An old man he +was, with white hair and a thin face, his chin shaven smooth and shining +between his bushy white side whiskers. His eyes were very mild. + +"How do you do, Aurora?" said he. "Now, don't say a word to me--I know +this boy." And he shook hands with Don also. "I know him," said he, "and +I know all he has done today--we all know all about it, Aurora, so don't +talk to me. Tut, tut, my son! But had I been in your place very likely I +should have done the same thing--I might have whipped old Eph Adamson. +You know, sometimes even a minister asks, 'Lord, shall we smite with the +sword?'" + +The face of the old man grew grave as he looked from one to the other. +Some presentiment told him that a change had come across Aurora Lane's +manner of life. Could it be possible that she had grown defiant--was she +restive under the weight of the years? Had this sudden and sensational +resurrection of her past brought rebellion to her heart, all these years +so patient, so gentle? + +He waved a hand towards the backs of the assemblage. "I suppose you +recognize some of your own handicraft, don't you, 'Rory?" said he, +laughing. + +Aurora laughed, also. "A good many," said she frankly. "But the mail +order business in ready-trimmed hats has cut into my trade a great deal +of late. Then there are excursions into Columbus. Still, I see some of +my bonnets here and there--even now and then a gown." + +They both laughed yet again, cheerily, both knowing the philosophy of +the poor. Further conversation at the time was cut off by the entrance +of the musicians of the evening, an organization known as the Spring +Valley Cornet Band. These young men, a dozen in number, made their way +solemnly to a place adjacent to the platform, where presently they +busied themselves with certain mild tapping of drums and soft moanings +of alto horns and subdued tootlings of cornets. + +The leader of the band was the chief clerk in the First National Bank, +Mr. Jerome Westbrook by name, himself Spring Valley's glass of fashion +and mold of form, and not unconscious of the public attention attracted +to himself in his present capacity. Now and again he looked out over the +audience to see if he could locate a certain young lady, none less than +Sallie Lester, the daughter of the president of his bank, upon whom he +had bestowed the honor of his affections. He was willing to add thereto +eke the honor of his hand. + +It was as Aurora Lane had said--this annual gathering of Miss Julia's +was the social clearing house of the community. And this typical +attendance, representative of the little city at its best, offered that +strange contrast of the sexes so notable in any American assemblage. The +men were ordinary of look and garb, astonishingly ordinary, if one might +use the term; stalwart enough, but slouchy, shapeless, and ill-clad. Not +so the women, who seemed as though of another and superior social world. +If here and there the face of a man seemed stolid, cloddish, +peasant-like, not so any of the half dozen faces of the women next +adjoining him. Type, class--call what you like that which is owned by +the average American woman, even of middle class--that distinction was +as obvious as is usual in all such gatherings. Scattered here and there +through this audience, as in any audience of even the humblest sort in +America, were a half dozen faces of young women, any of whom must have +been called very beautiful, strikingly beautiful--beautiful as Aurora +Lane must once have been. + +The apparel of the men was nondescript. That of the women, however or +wherever secured, made them creatures apart. The men, too, sat +uncommunicative, silent; whereas their daughters or spouses turned, +chattering, laughing, waving a hand to this or that friend. In short, +the women availed themselves fully, as women will, of this opportunity +of social intercourse. And always, as head turned to head, there was a +look, a whispered word, of woman to woman. Little by little, in the +mysterious way of such assemblages, every woman in the house came to +know that Aurora Lane and her boy--who had only been hid, and not dead, +all these years--were seated on the back seat, next to Old Man Rawlins. +Did anyone ever hear the like of _that_? In reality Spring Valley was +out to hear the rest of the news about Aurora Lane and her unfathered +boy as soon as possible. Gossip covers all the nuances, the shades, the +inner and hidden things of information, especially when information may +be classified as scandal. This is the real news. It never needs wings. +It needed no wings now. + +Naturally, it was incumbent upon Judge Henderson to introduce a minister +of the gospel to open the meeting with prayer--we Americans apologize to +Providence at all public occasions, even our political conventions. +Naturally thereafter Judge Henderson rose once more, took a drink of +water, and signaled to the leader of the Spring Valley Silver Cornet +Band; whereupon Mr. Jerome Westbrook, wiping all previous trace of +German silver from below his mustache, essayed once more the leadership +in concord of sweet sounds. This brought Judge Henderson up to his +introductory remarks, properly so-called. + +He made no ill figure as he stood, immaculately clad as was his custom, +his costume still being the long black coat, his white waistcoat, the +white tie, which he had worn that afternoon in court. It was charged +against him, by certain of his enemies, that Judge Henderson had been +known to change his shirt twice in one day, but this was not commonly +believed. That he changed it at least once every day had, however, come +to be accepted in common credence, although this also was held as his +sheer eccentricity. + +His face was smooth-shaven, for really he was shaved daily, and not +merely on Saturday nights. His wide, easy, good-humored mouth, his large +features, his well-defined brows, his full eye, his commanding figure, +gave him a presence good enough for almost any stage. He stood easily +now, accepting as his right the applause which greeted him, and smiled +as he placed on the table beside him the inevitable glass of water at +which he had sipped. Some said that in his own office Judge Henderson +did not confine himself to water--but any leading citizen must have his +enemies. + +The worthy Judge made precisely what manner of address must be made on +precisely such occasions. To him his audience was made up of fellow +citizens, ladies and gentlemen. He accosted them with the deference and +yet the confidence of some statesman of old. Indeed, he might have been +scarce less a figure than Senator Thomas Hart Benton himself, so +profuse--and so inaccurate--were the classical quotations which he saw +fit to employ. It had grown his custom to do this with care-free mind. +Indeed, there was but one here in this audience tonight who perhaps +might have chided him for his Greek--a young man who sat far back in the +rear, in a place near the door--a young man who none the less, it must +be confessed, paid small attention to the Hendersonian allusions which +had to do with literature, with history, the gentle arts, the culture, +the progress of our proud republic, and of this particular American +community. + +So now it came on to the time of Reverend Henry B. Fullerton, who +likewise spoke of literature and culture, patriotism and the glories of +our republic. The other ministers also in due course, after certain +uneasy consultation of the clock upon the opposite wall, spoke much in +similar fashion. + +After these formidable preliminaries, it was time for Judge Henderson to +give the real address of the evening--this latter now delivered with +frequent consultations of the large watch which he placed beside him on +the table. So presently he came to such portion of his speech as +requires the orator to say, "But, my friends, the hour grows late." +Whereafter presently, figuratively, he dismissed the audience with his +blessing, well satisfied from the applause that his campaign was doing +well. He had but casually and incidentally allowed it to be known that +his own annual check to the city library was for a thousand dollars--no +more than would cover the librarian's salary. + +By this time, it was a half-hour past midnight, and none present might +say that he had not had full worth of all the moneys expended for this +entertainment. It had been a great evening for the candidate. Moreover, +most of the old ladies present had enjoyed themselves in social +conversation regarding the absorbing news of the day. As for the half +dozen young village beauties present, there was not one who did not know +precisely where Don Lane sat--not even Sally Lester, who irritated +Jerome Westbrook beyond measure when he saw her pretending to look at +the clock at the back of the hall to see what time it was. Really, as +Jerome Westbrook knew very well, she was only trying to see Don Lane, +the newest young man in town--wholly impossible socially, but one who +had made sudden history of interest in feminine eyes. + +Moody and intent upon his own thoughts, Don Lane himself by no means +realized the importance of the occasion so far as he himself and his +mother were concerned. He did not know that he was on trial here, that +they two were on inspection. His ears were deaf to the impassioned words +of all and several of the orators of the evening. Before his eyes +appeared only one face. It was that of a young girl with a face +clean-cut and high-browed, with sweet and kindly eyes--the girl he was +to meet tomorrow, to whom he was to say good-by--Anne Oglesby. "Anne! +Anne!" his heart was exclaiming all the time. For now he knew that he in +turn must bruise yet another human heart, because of what had been, and +in his brain was room now for no other thought, no other scene, no other +face. There swept down upon him, if he thought of it at all now and +then, only a feeling of the insufficiency, the narrowness, the +unworthiness, the tawdriness, of all this which lay about him. And yet +it was this to which he must come back--this was his world--this at +least was the world in which his mother had made her own battle--had won +for a time, and now had lost. + +After midnight, when the assembly was dismissed, Spring Valley felt it +had done its duty--it had come out to see Miss Julia's library. Everyone +who passed Miss Julia, as she stood near the door, flushed and pleased, +congratulated her on the progress she had made, on the neatness of her +desks and shelves. Some said a word about the great work she was doing. +Others shook hands with the elevated elbow, smiled sweetly, and +repeated, parrot-like, "So glad!" and "Thanks so much!" In any case, +little by little the room was cleared. There remained only the +unspeakable desolation of any room lately occupied by a crowd--the +litter of paper and odds and ends, the dulled lights, the heavy and +oppressive air. + +In her place, back of the dividing line which fenced off the socially +elect, stood Aurora Lane, pale, weary, and yet composed, her hands +folded low before her. She looked straight ahead, nor asked any of these +people passing out for that recognition which she knew they would not +give her. Don himself, speaking now and then to the kindly old man who +retained his place at their side, found himself now and again in spite +of himself wondering that of all these who passed, and of these many who +turned and gazed their way, none ventured a greeting. His own face grew +hard. All life to him had been a sweet, happy, sunny thing till now. He +never had known any contest but that of sport, and there, even in +defeat, he had met sportsmanship. He had not learned that in human life +as we live it, honor and fair play and generosity and justice are things +not in any great demand, nor sportsmanship in any general practice. + +"Come, we must go," said Aurora at length. + +They were the last to leave the room, although they might have been the +first. In a brief lesson Don Lane's mother had taught him much. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +AT MIDNIGHT + + +Miss Julia, late mistress of ceremonies, passed here and there, turning +out the lights. The bonnets and blouses all had departed, the coughs and +shufflings had subsided. She might give way now to the weariness, the +reaction, attendant upon long hours of eager enterprise. + +Strange, she did not look about to find her friend, Aurora Lane, did not +even hasten to take the hand of Don Lane before he had left the room. + +The little group at the door--Aurora, Don and the old minister, now was +increased in the entry way by the addition of none less than the tall +and awkward figure of Horace Brooks, who came forward, smiling +uncertainly as the other three finally emerged from the door. Aurora, +quickly divining his purpose, made some hesitating excuse, and darted +back into the hall, where now Miss Julia had well accomplished the +purpose of extinguishing the lights. But what Aurora saw caused her to +withdraw softly, and not to speak to Miss Julia at all that evening! + +One by one the switches had cut off the side lights, the desk lights, +those of the ceiling. Two lights remained burning at the back of the +little platform where the speakers had sat, one electrolier on each side +of the portrait over which still hung the draped flag of the Union--the +portrait of the Honorable William Henderson, lawyer, judge, politician +and leading citizen. + +Before this portrait stood Julia Delafield, her smooth-topped stick +resting on the little table against which she supported herself now. She +stood, both her hands clasped at her bosom. She was looking up directly +at the lighted features of this portrait, and on her face was so rapt a +look, her gaze was so much that of one adoring a being of another +world--so much ardor was in her face, pale as it was--that Aurora Lane, +seeing and knowing much, all with a sudden wrench of her own heart, +withdrew silently, thankful that Miss Julia had not known. + +"Miss Julia's tired," said she to her companions, who still stood +waiting at the entry way. "We'll not disturb her tonight, Don, after +all. I know she wants to see you. You can imagine she has a thousand +things to talk about--books, pictures, everything. But tonight we'll +just go on home. We'll come again tomorrow." + +The people of Spring Valley scattered this way and that from the +classical front of the Carnegie Library. They passed away in long +streams in each direction on the street, which, arched across in places +by the wide branches of the soft maples, lay half lighted by the moon, +and yet more by the flickering arc light sputtering at the top of its +mast at the corner of the public square, which made the shadows sheer +black. So close did the trees stand to the street that the summer wind +could not get through them to lighten the pall of the night's +sultriness. + +In Spring Valley the climate in the summer time was at times so +balefully hot that common folk were forced to take the mattress from the +bed and spread it on the floor at the front door in order to get a +partial breath of air. The atmosphere was close and heavy under the +trees tonight, and some commented on the fact as they passed on toward +the public square where yet further separations of the scattered groups +must ensue. + +They passed along a street lined by residence houses, some small, others +large, all hedged about with shrubs or trees, all with little flower +beds; a certain conformity to accepted canons in good taste being +exacted of all who dwelt in the village. Each one of this dispersing +assemblage knew his neighbor, and all the other neighbors of the town. +This was general plebiscite. Moreover, it seemed to have a certain +purpose--an ultimate purpose of justice. + +This was the actual jury of peers--this long stream of halting, +hesitating figures who at midnight strolled on across the patch-work +shadows of the maples. And before it had come on for trial the case of +Aurora Lane and her unfathered boy. + +"Look at them go!" said Old Hod Brooks, chuckling bitterly to himself as +he and his companions turned toward the public square, this same thought +occurring to him. "For instance, there's an even dozen just ahead of us +now, if we cared to poll them." + +Had this jury been polled it might have been found in some part +resembling the original concourse which filled Noah's ark, since for the +most part they walked two and two. Ben McQuaid, traveling salesman--the +deadly rival of Jerome Westbrook in matters of fashion--who traveled out +of Chicago but had his home in Spring Valley, because it was cheaper +living there--walked now arm in arm with Newman, the clothing merchant +of the Golden Eagle. He inquired solicitously as to the condition of +business. Newman said he "gouldn't gomplaim, though gollections mide be +better." But that was not in the least what both were thinking of at +that time. + +"Seems like there was a little rukus on the square today," said McQuaid +casually. "I just heard of it--Number Four come in a little late today." + +"Vell, yes," said Newman, looking around to see that he might not be +heard. "I ain't saying a vord about it--but listen, that kid has the +punch in either hand--the last time you should have seen it--you see, +they got at it twice now already----" + +They drew apart, because they now saw approaching them too closely at +the rear two of the ministers of the gospel. These found themselves none +too happily assorted. + +"I enjoyed your remarks very much indeed, Brother Burnham," said +Reverend Fullerton, with a mendacity for which no doubt the recording +angel dropped a suitable tear. "I agree with you that the tendency +towards looseness of living in modern life----" + +Reverend Fullerton coughed ominously. Anyone very close to him might +have heard half-whispered words of "brazen exhibition" and "necessity of +public measures." + +But these did not speak freely, because close behind them came yet +two--Dr. Arthur Bowling, the homeopathic physician, who somewhat against +his will had fallen into the company of Miss Elvira Sonsteby. Now, Miss +Elvira Sonsteby was the town's professional invalid. She tried regularly +all the doctors in turn as they arrived. It was well known of all that +she had suffered all the diseases ever known to man, as well as many of +which no man ever had known. Just now, with much eagerness, she was +explaining to Dr. Bowling that she feared her neuritis had become +complicated with valvular heart trouble, and that she suspected gall +stones as well. As to her rheumatism, of course she had long since given +up all hope of that--but this trouble in her arm----; and much other +conversation extremely painful to Dr. Bowling at that time, because he +was much possessed of the inclination to step forward a few paces and +walk with Sally Lester, the banker's daughter. But even they hit common +ground of converse when Miss Sonsteby voiced her belief that it was an +outrage for a public personage like a certain milliner she could name if +she cared to say, to appear in public on an occasion such as this, when +only the most refined personages of the town should have been invited. + +"I am sure," said she in tense tones to the young doctor, "that although +alone in the world myself--not so old as some would try to make me out, +either--I would die rather than have anyone voice the slightest +suspicion of blame against me--the slightest blemish on my name. Now, +_that_ woman...." + +Back of these two came yet others. Old Mr. Rawlins had gently said his +farewells to Aurora and her son when they emerged upon the open street, +and as he advanced passed certain of these groups, until presently he +fell in with none less than Miss Hattie Clarkson, soprano and +elocutionist of Spring Valley, who had favored the assemblage that +evening with two selections, but who, it seemed, was not wholly +satisfied. + +"It seemed to me, Mr. Rawlins," said she, throwing about her shoulders +the light scarf of tulle which she always wore when entertaining +professionally--"that the exercises rather dragged tonight. Of course, +we know what to expect when Judge Henderson speaks--he's very +entertaining, to be sure. But it seemed to me that had there been a +selection or two more of elocutionary sort it might have lightened up +the evening----Who is that coming just back of us?" she whispered, +looking back over her shoulder. + +"That's Aurora Lane, my dear," said Mr. Rawlins, quietly. "Her son is +with her." + +"Indeed!" + +"Yes, indeed! There's one of the best women I ever knew, my dear." + +Miss Clarkson drew herself up proudly, and bent upon him an icy glance. +By now they had approached the corner of public square. "I think I must +say good _night_, Mr. Rawlins!" said she, with icy emphasis. + +"Good night, my dear," said the old minister, sighing. + +Not far ahead of Ben McQuaid and merchant Newman walked two other +citizens, J.B. Saunders, leading grocer and prominent Knight Templar, +and Nels Jorgens, village blacksmith--the same whose shop was across the +way from the home of Aurora Lane. It was said of Mr. Saunders that it +would have been difficult to surprise him at any hour of the day or +night when he was not in his uniform of a Knight Templar, or carrying +his sword case and hat. For some reasons best known to himself, and +anticipating all possible surprises, he had taken with him to the +meeting this evening the two latter accessories of his wardrobe, which +now he carried as he walked on in conversation. + +His neighbor wore an alpaca coat and no necktie whatever--a reticent, +gray-whiskered man, whose bank account had a goodliness perhaps not to +be suspected from first look at its owner. The two talked of many +things, but naturally came around to the only topic which was in the +mind of all. + +"What'll he do--old Eph Adamson," asked Saunders. "It looks like he +couldn't stand for what's been handed to him. That young fellow has +pounded him up a couple of times. If I was Adamson I certainly would +have the law on him good and plenty." + +"Well," said Old Man Jorgens, comfortably, "I don't know much about it +anyway, but it looks to me Adamson has got pretty near enough already. +He pays a lawyer to get him clear, and when he gets out of that court +already he gets licked once more again. And he knows the boy can lick +him." + +"You think he'll like enough lick him again?" + +"Yeh, that's like enough, yeh. I heard things have been said of his +mother by Adamson. Oh, yes, the news is out now--she couldn't hide it no +more now--there is the boy she said was dead. But, you know, after all, +my friend, a mother is a mother, and men is men. When they say things of +how we was born, you would fought, I hope? Me, I hope too. No man likes +to hear his mother called of names. And she is his mother. Too bad it +is--a bad business all around." + +"But then--why, Nels, we know----" + +"Yes, we all know," said Jorgens stolidly. "I know and you know, and we +all know. And what I know is this:--For twenty years she lives across +the street from me, as straight and as good a woman as anyone in this +town--each first day of the month right in my hand here she pays the +rent, not a month missed in twenty years. I rather rent a house to her +as to any business man in this town, and I say she is straight as any +woman in this town! No man goes there, not any more now in twenty years. +The man who meets her on the public street he takes his hat off--now. +Her boy--well, he looks citified to me, but at least he can fight. Yeh, +I vote he was in the right. Tomorrow my wife shall take some more eggs +to Aurora Lane in her house; yeh, and coffee." + +There were two other members of the unpolled jury, and they paused now +in the full light which came from the mast at the corner of the public +square. Judge Henderson, wearied by the exertions of the evening, was +disposed to ascend the stair to his own office in search of a manner of +refreshment which he well knew he would find there. Turning in this +laudable enterprise he met face to face the city marshal, Old Man +Tarbush, who halted him for a moment's speech, drawing him apart to the +edge of the sidewalk. + +"I just thought I'd ask you, Judge, since I see you," said Tarbush, +"whether you think I done right or not." + +"What do you mean, Mr. Marshal," inquired the judge, none too happy at +being interrupted. + +"You know how it was. He licked Old Man Adamson again right at the foot +of the stair, before the record of his trial was hardly dry on the +books. It was unlawful, of course. I didn't arrest him no more, because +I seen what had happened in the other trial. You pulled out of that. I +didn't want to make no needless expense for the county. But I been sort +of uneasy in my mind about it, and I just thought I'd ask you." + +"Exactly, exactly," rejoined Judge Henderson. "Well, now, Tarbush, come +to think it over, that matter came up for trial, and we concluded the +best thing to do was to sort of let things take their course--you see, +the young man in all likelihood will leave town very soon. In the +conduct of my own affairs I sometimes have seen that it is well enough +not to stir things up. Leave them alone, and sometimes they will smooth +themselves down." + +"Then you wouldn't run him in if you was me?" + +"No, I think not, I think not. Let it go for the time. Perhaps there may +be further developments, but with such information as I have at hand +now, I would be disposed to approve your conduct. There's nothing like +letting bygones be bygones in this world--isn't that the truth?" + +"But now, about the eejit, Johnnie," resumed the city marshal once more, +reaching out his hand still to detain the other, "I don't know as I done +right about him, neither." + +"What have you done then, Tarbush?" + +"Well, I let him go. You see, I don't know but maybe the _habeas chorus_ +proceedings would be squashed like the rest. Besides, the eejit boy has +been raising all kinds of hell down at the jail, raving and shouting and +threatening me. About a hour ago or less I concluded to let him loose, +so as to get shut of him." + +"You did let him go? And he was not discharged?" + +"Well, now, what's the difference, Judge," said the old man. "We +couldn't really get no sleep down there, he was making so much fuss, so +I just let him out. He lit out upon the street right thataway, towards +home--not so very long ago." + +Judge Henderson gazed moodily in the direction to which Tarbush pointed. + +"Well," said he, "maybe you did right, and in any case this isn't the +time and place to discuss it. My professional hours"--and he turned away +and walked slowly up the stairs to his own office, intent upon the +purpose already prominent in his mind. + +The arc light illumined fully the great town clock in the cupola of the +courthouse. The hands pointed to a quarter of one, after midnight. + +The deliberations of the jury of Spring Valley might have been said to +have concluded at the time when Aurora Lane, her son Don, and old Hod +Brooks--the last group of the slow procession--themselves turned the +corner and emerged upon the public square. The matter of bringing in the +verdict was another affair. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE EXTRAORDINARY HORACE BROOKS + + +Something made Aurora Lane uneasy. She turned now and extended her hand +to the tall man who walked at her side. "Good night, Mr. Brooks," said +she. + +But old Hod Brooks only put his hands deeper in his pockets and slouched +on alongside. "I'll just go on along with you to the gate. It's hot +tonight, isn't it? I don't know when we've had such a spell." + +She could not well dismiss him now, so indeed the three walked yet a +while together. + +Don Lane still was silent, moody. There was little of the Jesuit in his +own frank soul. He knew nothing of dissembling, and had no art of +putting a good face upon a bad matter. All these complications which so +swiftly had come into his life seemed to him only a terrible and +overwhelming thing in the total. The morrow was coming for him--nay, it +already was at hand, and he knew what that must bring of additional +grief. Anne! Anne! He must tell her. He must leave her. Never in all his +care-free life had he been so wretched, so miserable, as he was now. +Moreover, for reasons he could not stifle he did not like the presence +of Brooks here, even though he and his mother must acknowledge the debt +under which he had laid them that day. + +"I'll tell you, Mother," said he after a time, when he had turned off +the square into their own street. "Just excuse me for a few minutes, +won't you? It's so hot and stuffy that I don't feel that I can sleep. +I'll just take a little run down the street, if you don't mind." + +"But why, Don?" she inquired. + +"You see, I've always been used to keeping fit, and I don't like to +break my training--we always had to exercise in college, on the teams. I +don't feel good when I don't. I'm used to doing my half mile or so every +night just before I go to sleep." + +"Huh!" said Old Hod Brooks, looking at the young man appraisingly. "So +that's how you keep in training, eh? Well, it seems to work all right!" +His sudden gusty laughter sounded loud in the night, but it lacked the +note of ease. + +"Go on, go on," he added--"as you get older maybe you'll find it takes +all your gimp to take care of your mind and your money, and you'll let +your body just about take care of itself. But go ahead--I'll just walk +on down with your mother." + +"Don't be long, Don," said Aurora Lane; and she meant it, for she felt +uneasy at thus being accompanied to her own gate, a thing unknown in her +history. She was glad that old Nels Jorgens, on ahead, had just turned +in at his own gate. + +Don Lane trotted off slowly, with long elastic stride, up on his toes, +with his elbows tucked in and his chin high, filling his lungs as best +he might with the hot and lifeless air. The sound of his footfalls +passed down the street, and was lost as he turned at the further corner +of the square. + +"Good night, now," said Aurora Lane once more, as she and her companion +approached her little gate. + +But Hod Brooks did not turn away, although he made no attempt to enter. +Instead he reached out a large hand impulsively and arrested hers as it +would have pulled together the little crippled gate behind her. Still +she did close the gate--until the sudden impact of his own weight +snapped off its last remaining hinge. He picked it up carelessly and set +it within the fence, himself leaning against the post, filling the gap, +his hands back in his pockets. + +"Aurora," said he, with a strange softness in his voice, "this seems to +me almost like Providence." + +"What do you mean?" she said. "I must go----" + +"Please, not yet," said he. "Just think--how else could it have been +possible for me to talk with you?" + +"Without compromising yourself?" She smiled slowly and bitterly, but did +not see the hot blood rise to his face. + +"That's not right!" said he. "Without compromising _you_--that's what I +meant. I only meant that there is no place where we well could meet. And +I wanted to say something to you, at last--what sometime has got to be +said between us." + +"We both know everything now, so why talk?" said she. "It was fine of +you today in the trial. We owe so much--we'll pay when we can." + +The dull red in his face deepened. "You may stop that, if you please," +said he. "It's not right between us. The showdown has come. Why not +settle up, at last?" + +She turned, not knowing what to do, unwilling to leave him standing +there. + +"It's been years, Aurora. Now, listen--I'm going on up in the world +myself, at last. I want to take you with me. I didn't want to say +anything till the right time. It's been a long, hard pull for me, too, +here in this town. It's hard for men like me to talk." + +"You mustn't talk," said she. "You mustn't say a word--you mustn't be +seen here even." + +He looked at her slowly. "I'm here deliberately," said he. "Listen +now--I must tell you some things, Aurora. I've loved you from the first +day I saw you. Can't you credit me at least a little? You're +splendid--you're beautiful--and you're good." + +She choked a bit, raised a hand in swift protest. + +"You're still young, Aurora," said he, not paying attention to what she +said. "Of course I'm older, but there's a lot of time left yet for you +and me--a lot of living. You've had mighty little out of life, here by +yourself. Now I've stood it as long as I can. Since the whole truth +about the boy has broken out today and can't ever be covered up again, +it seemed to me I just had to tell you that you needed me to take care +of you--someone more than just yourself. Things may go harder for you +now. They've been hard enough already. You need help. Who more natural +to help you than myself, feeling as I have, as I do?" + +"Oh, you _mustn't_ talk that way!" Her voice trembled. "You must go on +away. I'm not--good----" + +"You're good enough for me--good as I am, surely--and I want to get into +this game with you now. You need me. That means we've got to be married. +Oh, the boy's fine, yes, but he'll be going away. You need a man--a +husband--someone you can depend on, Aurora. Isn't there anything welcome +in that thought for you? Aurora, I want to marry you--at once, right +away. I say that right now and here." + +Aurora Lane looked this way and that, every way. Her gaze happened to go +down the long vista beneath the maples, to fall upon the face of the +town clock on the courthouse. The hour hand with a short jerk moved +forward and the deep note of the bell boomed out--it was one o'clock of +the night; and all was not well. + +She turned as she felt the tense grasp of his great knotted hands still +upon her own. + +"You say that--to me----" she managed to say at last. "Why, everybody +knows--all the town knows----" Her voice shook. "I suppose I'll have to +leave here now after what's happened. But _you'd_ have to leave if you +took up with such as me--even this late, it would ruin you. Don't you +think of your own prospects? Why, I couldn't marry you, no matter how +much I loved you." + +"You don't love me at all?" + +"How could I?" + +"That's true," said he simply. "How could you?" + +"I don't mean that," she corrected herself hastily. + +"It's just what I said," he rejoined. "This seems providential to me. I +can't allow these people to murder you a dozen times a week the way they +will do now. You can't make this fight alone any more, Aurora--I can't +any longer bear to see you try it. It's all out now. It's going to be +harder for you after this." + +She did not make any answer to him at all, but she heard his big voice +murmuring on. + +"I reckon it's love, after all, Aurora--I don't know. I don't know much +about women. I just feel as though I had to take care of you--I feel as +though you ought to depend on me. Can't you believe that?" + +"I ought not to believe that of any man," she broke out. + +"Like enough, like enough," he nodded, "but you've known only one +man--that's your full horizon. Now, having had so hard a fight in +business, I have put marrying to one side. Let's not say that we're both +young--for we're not. But let's remember what I told you--there's a lot +of life left for you and me yet if you'll only say the word. Don't you +want to make anybody happy?" + +"Oh, you mustn't say that to me!" said Aurora Lane. "But you would want +me to be honest, wouldn't you? You wouldn't want me to lie? Somehow, +I've never learned to lie very much." + +"No," said he simply; "no, I reckon not. You never have." + +"No matter what----" + +"No matter what." + +"Then tell me, how could I say I loved you now? For twenty years--all my +life--I have put that thought away from me. I'm old and cold now. My +heart's ashes, that part, can't you understand? And you're a man." + +"Yes," he nodded, "I'm a man. That's so, Aurora. But now you're just +troubled. You've not had time to think. I've held my secret, too. I've +never spoken out to you before. I tell you, you're too good a woman to +be lost--that isn't right." + +"You pity me!" + +"Maybe. But I want to marry you, Aurora." + +"What could I do--what could be done--where would you have any pay in +that?" + +"Don't trouble about the pay. How much have the past twenty years paid +you?" + +"Little enough," said she bitterly, "little enough. About all they've +given me--about all I've got left--is the boy. But I want to play fair." + +"That's it," said he. "So do I. That's why I tell you you're too good +for me, when it comes to that, after all." + +"Why, it would all have to come out--one way or the other. It all _has_ +come out, as you say. We couldn't evade that now--it's too late. Here's +the proof--Dieudonne--and I can't deny him." + +He nodded gravely. She went on: + +"Everyone knows about the boy now--everybody knows he's--got no father. +_That's_ my boy. Too late now to explain--he's ruined all that by coming +here. And yet you ask me to marry you. If I did, one of two things +surely would be said, and either of them would make you wretched all +your life." + +He turned to her and looked at her steadily. + +"They might say I was the father?" + +She nodded, flushing painfully. "They might guess. And a few might think +that after all these years----" + +"Maybe," said he slowly. "But you see, after all, it's only a +theoretical hurt I'm taking if I stand between you and these damned +harpies here. They're going to torture you, Aurora, going to flay and +burn you alive. I'd like to do about anything I could for you, anything +a man can in such a case as ours. As for sacrifice--why, whatever you +think I think of you, I believe we can both call it sure that I want to +stand between you and the world. I want to have the _right_ to take care +of you. It's what I want to do--must do. I've waited too long. But it's +what I always have intended. You'd never let me. I never seemed to get +around to it before. But now----" + +"Impossible!" she whispered, white, her great eyes somber. "There is no +way. Love of man has gone by for me. It knocked once. It has gone by." + +"Wait now, let us go on with the argument just a little further, my +dear!" said he gently. + +"We have argued too long already," she said faintly. "You must go. +Please go--please don't talk to me. You must not." + +"I wish I could agree with you," said he, disturbed and frowning, +"because I don't want to make you any more unhappy. But listen, it just +seemed to me that this was providential--I had to come to you and tell +you what I have told you tonight. Why, widows remarry--time and again +widows marry." + +"Yes, _widows_!" He could barely hear the sob which she stifled in her +throat. + +"Well, then," said he, "how about you and me? I don't think it's a fair +argument, but I ought to point out to you that perhaps I've got a chance +in the world. They wanted me, for instance, to make the run for the +senatorship--against Judge Henderson. Today I agreed with him not to +accept the candidacy. In return he agreed to drop that case against Don. +Well, you've traded me out of the United States Senate, Aurora. But I +made that trade--for you and the boy." + +She looked up at him in sudden astonishment. She could not evade the +feeling of shelter in his great presence as he stood there, speaking +calmly, absolutely in hand, a grotesque and yet a great soul--yes, a +great soul as it seemed to her, so used to littler souls. After all, she +never really had known this man. Sacrifice? Had he not given freely, as +a sacrifice, the greatest gift a man has--his hope for power and +preferment? And he spoke of it as though it were a little thing. Aurora +Lane was large enough to know a large act, belittled though it were by +the doer of the deed. + +"You see," he began, "we're old enough perhaps to talk plainly, plainer +than young folks can--mostly I presume they don't talk at all--but I may +talk plainly?" + +"Oh, yes," said she, sighing. "I suppose we've made that certain." + +"Now, now, don't say that--nothing of the sort, my dear. Your past is +out of this question altogether. You're a _widow_, that's all. Your +unknown husband is dead--he is unknown, but he is dead. That's the +record, and accepted here. And isn't that our solution--the only one in +all the world possible for us?" + +She did not answer at all. + +"The boy and I--I reckon the two of us could keep most of the people in +this town or in this world attending to their own business, and not +bothering about ours. Don't you believe that, Aurora? We've made a +start--a sort of preliminary demonstration already." + +But still she did not answer, and, agonized now, he went on: + +"I'm a plain man, Aurora, pretty ignorant, I expect. I didn't come from +anywhere--there's no family much back of me--I have had really very +little schooling, and I've had to fight my own way. I can't play +bridge--I don't know one card from another. I don't dance--there's no +human being could ever teach a dance step to me. I've never been in +society, because I don't belong there. But, as I said, I've got some +standards of a man and some feelings of a man. I love you a lot more +than you can tell from what I've said, or what I've done. It'll be a +great deal more to you than you can believe now. I'll do a great deal +more for you than you can realize. I'll give you at last--later than I +ought to have done it--something you've never had--your _life_--your +_chance_ in the world--your chance at real love and real affection and +real loyalty. You've never had that, Aurora. I couldn't offer it, for I +had my own secret to keep, and my own fight to make. But love and +loyalty--they'd be sweet, wouldn't they?" + +She bent her head down upon her hands, which lay folded at the top of +the pickets of the little fence. + +"Sweet--sweet--yes, yes!" he heard her murmur. + +"Well, then, why not end the argument?" he said. "Why, I've seen you +here, all these years. I know every hair of your head. I have come +really to love you, all of you, as a man ought to love his wife. I can't +resist it--it's an awful thing. I don't think I'll forget--it's too late +in life for me to begin over again, it's you or nothing for me. There's +never been any other woman for me--and that ought at least to speak for +me. There's been no other man for you. So why not end it? The world's +been cruel enough for you as it is. I'll not say it hasn't been cruel to +me, too. I've sat tight and eaten my heart. I've had to fight, too. But +don't I understand you, your fight, what it means to buck a game where +all the cards are stacked? Don't I know?" + +"It has been cruel, yes," said she at length, finding herself able to +speak, "but it seems it has not been quite so cruel as it could be +until--until now." + +"Why, what do you mean? Am I cruel? Why?" + +"You said--you said something about my being a widow." + +He nodded. "Yes. I pick you up now--it's as though I find you new--I +know you now at a later stage altogether in your life. You've grown. I +see you as new and fresh as though you were just risen from the sea.... +And all the past is nothing to me." + +"You must not talk," said she, "because it only is to make us both the +more unhappy. You are quixotic enough, or great enough--I don't know +which--I can't tell which it is--to say you'd take the shame on your own +shoulders in order to take it off of mine! You can't mean that! No! no! +One life ruined is enough--you've ruined yours enough now, today, by +what you've done for Don and me." + +He seemed not to hear her. + +"I've watched you all these years, and you've lived like a recluse, like +a widow. I can't reproach you. God! Which of us may first cast a stone?" + +Aurora Lane turned to him now a brave face, the same brave face she had +turned to the world all these years. + +"Oh," said she, "if only I had learned to lie! Maybe some women could +lie to you. And women get so tired--so awfully tired sometimes--I +couldn't blame them. I might marry you, yes--I believe I could. But I +would never lie to you--I won't lie to you now." + +"What are you going to say to me, Aurie?" + +"What I'm going to say to all the world! I've never been +married to anyone and can't be now. It would be more horrible to +me than--that other. It's too late. It--it means too much to +me--marriage--marriage--marriage! Don't--don't--you mustn't say some +things to a woman. Oh, if all this had happened twenty years ago, when I +was young, I might have been weak enough to listen to what you say. I +was weak and frightened then--I didn't know how I'd ever get on--all +life was a terror to me. But that was twenty years ago. I've made my +fight now, and I've learned that after a fashion at least I could get +on--I did--I have. I can go on through alone the rest of the way, and +it's right that I should. That's what I'm going to do!" + +She saw the great hand clutch the more tightly on two picket tops. They +broke under the closing grip of his great hand. + +"That's right hard," said he simply. "We can't be married now? But--tell +me, can't I help you?" + +"Oh, no, no, don't--don't talk of that!" she said. She was weeping now. +"Don't try to help me," she sobbed bitterly. "You can't help me--nobody +can help me--there's no help in the world--not even God can help me! +You've been cruel--all the world has been nothing but cruel to me all my +life. I've nothing to hope--there's nothing that can help me, nothing. +I'm one of the lost, that's all. Until today, I'd hoped. I never will +hope again." + +Now she felt the great hand closing once more on top of hers above the +broken pickets. + +"Listen, Aurora," said he, "if it doesn't seem that you and I can be +married, there's nothing in the world which makes it wrong for me to +help you all I can--you mustn't think I didn't love you. You don't think +that, do you?" + +"I don't know what I think!" said she, rubbing at the ceaseless tears, +so new to her. "All these matters have been out of my life--forever, as +I thought. But sometimes--I've been so lonesome, you know, and so +helpless--I'm tempted. It's hard for a woman to live all alone--it's +almost a thing impossible--she's so lonesome--sometimes I almost think I +could depend on you, even now." + +"That's fine!" said he, choking up; "that's fine. I expect that's about +all I had coming to me after all. So I oughtn't to be sorry--I ought to +be very happy. That's about the finest thing I ever heard in all my +life." + +"And about the sweetest words I ever heard in all my life were what you +said just now--after knowing all you do about me." + +"But you won't tell me that you'll marry me now?" He bent and picked up +her hand in both his great ones. "I know you will not." He kissed her +hand reverently. + +"Good night," said he gently. And presently she was sensible that his +shambling figure was passing away down the street under the checkered +shadows of the maples. + +Aurora Lane stood yet for just a moment, how long she did not know. +There came to her ear the sound of running footsteps. Her boy came down +the street, passing Horace Brooks with a wave of his hand. He reached +her side now as she still stood at the gate. He was panting, perspiring +a trifle. + +"Fine!" said he. "Let's go in. Maybe I can sleep--I'd like to sleep." + +"What kept you so late?" asked Aurora Lane. She hurried in ahead of +him. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE OTHER WOMAN CONCERNED + + +The sultry night at last was broken by a breathless dawn, the sun rising +a red ball over the farm lands beyond the massed maple trees of the +town. Not much refreshed by the attempt at sleep in the stuffy little +rooms, Don and his mother met once more in the little kitchen +dining-room where she had prepared the simple breakfast. + +He did not know, as he picked at the crisp bacon strips, that bacon, or +even eggs, made an unusual breakfast in his mother's household. He +trifled with his cereal and his coffee, happily too considerate to +mention the lack of butter and cream, but grumblingly sensible all the +time that the bread was no longer fresh. He was living in a new world, +the world of the very poor. His time had not yet been sufficient therein +to give him much understanding. + +He looked about him at the scantily furnished rooms, and in spite of +himself there rose before his mind pictures he had known these last few +years--wide green parks, with oaks and elms, stately buildings draped +with ivy, flowers about, and everywhere the air of quiet ease. He +recalled the fellowship of fresh-cheeked roistering youths like himself, +full of the zest of life, youth well-clad, with the stamp of having +known the good things of life; young women well-clad, well-appointed, +also. Books, art, the touch of the wide world of thought, the quiet, the +comfort, the beauty, the physical well-being of everything about +him--these had been a daily experience for him for years. He +unthinkingly had supposed that all life, all the world, must continue +much like this. He had supposed, had he given it any thought at all, +that the last meager bill in his pockets when he started home would in +some magic way always remain unneeded, always unspent. He had +opportunity waiting for him in his profession, and he knew he would get +on. Never before in all his life had he known the widow's cruse. + +So this was life, then--this little room, this tawdry, sullen town, this +hot and lifeless air, this hopelessly banal and uninteresting place that +had been his mother's home all these years--this was his beginning of +actual life! The first lesson he had had yesterday; the next, yet more +bitter, he must have today. The uninviting little kitchen seemed to him +the center of a drab and dismal world, in which could never be aught of +happiness for him or his. + +"It's not much, Don," said his mother, smiling bravely as her eyes noted +his abstraction. "I live so simply--I'm afraid a big man like you won't +get enough to eat with me." + +She did not mention her special preparations for his arrival. He did not +know that the half-dozen new serviettes had been bought for his coming. +He did not know that a new chair also had been purchased, and that he +himself was sitting in it at that very time. In short, he knew nothing +of the many sacrifices needful even for these inexpensive things about +him. He did not know that marvel of the widow's cruse, filled against +dire need by the hand of merciful Providence. + +"It's all right, Mother," said he, toying with his fork; "fine, fine." + +"Coffee strong enough, Don?" She looked at him anxiously. Usually she +made it weak for herself. + +"Oh, they never let us have it at all when we're training, mother," said +he, "and not strong at any time. I know the simple life." He smiled as +best he might. + +"I have lived it here, too, Don," said she slowly, "because I couldn't +well help it. I don't suppose anybody likes it when it's too simple. I +like things nice, so much. I've always longed to travel. You know, Don, +I hear of people going over to Europe, and I'm guilty of the sin of +envy. I live right here in this little place all the time--I've done so +all my life. I've scarcely been out of this town in twenty years. If I +could see pictures--if I could go to see the great actors--if I could +see a real theater--just once, Don--you don't know how happy I'd be. And +I'm sure there must be more beautiful countries than this. Still"--and +here she sighed--"Miss Julia and I have lived quite a life together--in +the books, the magazines--pictures too, sometimes." + +He looked at her dumbly now, trying to understand the steady heroism of +a life such as hers. The real character of his own mother never yet +fully had impressed itself upon him. Don Lane was a college graduate, +but now for the first time in his life he was beginning to think. + +"One thing," she added, "I'd never do. I'd never pretend to be what I +was not--I didn't ever pretend to have what I didn't have. You see me, +Don, and my life, pretty much as we are." + +"And all this has been for me?" + +"Yes," simply. "But although we grew up apart, I don't think I could +endure it if I thought we really were to part--if you would leave me +now. + +"I was half hoping," she went on musingly, "that you could find it in +your heart to stay here in this town." + +He shook his head. "Impossible! That's one thing you really mustn't ask +of me." + +"Yes, I feared you would think of it in that way! But, as for me, this +is my place--I've made my bed here, and I must lie in it. I know the +people of this town--I know what they'll all do to me now. You see, you +don't know these things yet." + +"No," said he, "but you and Miss Julia both will be paid back--the money +part of it--some time. As for me, I'm not going to have any home." + +She sat silent for quite a time, the meager breakfast now being ended +for both. + +"Oh, can't you forget her, Don? Can't you give her up?" she said +finally. + +"I can't forget her, Mother, but I'll have to give her up. It all +happened there on the car--just at once--in public." + +"I'm glad you never kissed her, Don," said she. "You're both so young." + +She shook her head slowly as she went on. "Love has to be loved in any +case. That means--I suppose it means--that for the very young, if it be +not one, it may later be another." + +He only smiled bitterly at this. "It all comes to the same thing in any +case," said he. "I'll have to tell her what I know, and we'll have to +part. It would be the same with any other woman, if there could be any +other. There can't be." + +"I've been frank with you, Don, and I don't know whether to be glad or +sorry for that. I'd love nothing so much in the world as to see you +happily married--but nothing in the world could so much hurt me as to +see you marry Anne Oglesby." + +"No fear of it!" + +"You'll tell her?" + +"Yes. Today." + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE MURDER + + +Once more the strident call of the telephone broke in, and Aurora Lane +stepped aside. + +"It's Miss Julia," said she excitedly, turning upon her son eyes +suddenly grown large. "Why, it's something awful! Don--a terrible thing +has happened--last night." + +"What's wrong--what's happened?" he demanded. + +"Mr. Tarbush--the city marshal--why, you know--he was +killed--murdered--last night--found this morning! It was about one +o'clock, as near as they can tell, Miss Julia says. It's all over town." + +An exclamation left the young man's lips. "What's that? Murdered?" + +"Yes, yes--wait----" She spoke on into the telephone. "Yes, Julia, Don +and I were just at breakfast--no, we've not been on the street yet--one +o'clock, you said? That was when we were just coming home from the +library!" + +"Mother," said Don, "that's right! It must have been just about one +o'clock, wasn't it?" + +She looked at him steadily for a time, as she dropped the receiver, her +own face a trifle pale. "Yes--we hadn't gone to sleep at the time it +happened. He was killed right in front of his own house, Miss Julia +says." + +"And where is that?--you see, I don't know much about the town." + +"Beyond the square, about three blocks from the farther corner--the +little house with the low fence in front, and the deep front yard." + +"We didn't pass that when we came up from the station?" + +"No, we came another street. But, Don----" + +"Yes?" + +"When you were running last night, you must have passed right close to +there! You didn't see anything strange?" + +"Of course not! I'd have looked into it. I don't recall that particular +house. + +"Well," he added, after a moment's silence, "in spite of all that +happened yesterday between him and us, I'm not going to call him +anything but a good man--now." + +She looked at him strangely--studied his face steadily. + +"I'll be going out now, I think--I'm going to run over to see Julia for +a time. Please don't go out on the street, Don. Stay right here. We got +into trouble enough yesterday." + +"You needn't fear," said he. "There's nothing and nobody in this town I +want to see. I'll be glad when I shake the dust of it off my feet--when +I once get squared away in my own business you shall leave this place +and live with me." + +And then, as there came to him again and again the anticipated pain of +parting with the one he himself loved, he came up to his mother and put +his arms once more upon her shoulders. Again her hands found his hair. +She cast a quick glance about her, as though in his defense. + +"Don," said she, "I think I'll never get over thinking of you as just a +boy, a little boy." + +He tried to smile. "Pity you didn't drown me in the pool yonder," said +he. + +It was the most cruel thing he could have found to say, although he +spoke only in his own bitterness, careless, as a man so often is, of a +woman's hurts. But she left him without comment; and soon he had resumed +his own restless walking up and down in the narrow quarters which seemed +to him such a prison. + +Meantime all Spring Valley was afoot and agog over this news. It was the +most sensational thing that had happened, as Aaron Craybill said, since +Ben Wilson's wife went crazy out on the farm, come four years ago, and +killed her four babies, and hid in the haystack until they found her +three days later, and sent her to the asylum. And so forth, and so +forth. + +All the good folk met in groups at home or in the streets, so that +within an hour after breakfast there was not a soul in all Spring Valley +did not know that the town marshal had just been killed by some unknown +person for some unknown reason. The news seemed dulling, stupefying. The +clerks who opened the drug stores around the public square, the only +shops open of the Sunday, were slow in their sweeping out that morning. +Pedestrians on the streets walked slowly. The entire life of the town +seemed slow. The sluggish, arresting solemnity of death sat upon all the +little community. + +Spring Valley had no daily newspaper, and even the weekly _Clarion_, a +production of some six pages, had its trials in making a living there, +so close was the village to larger towns which reached out and covered +most of its commercial needs in this time of telegraph and trolley. The +editor of the _Clarion_ was, naturally, the correspondent of the largest +daily of the near-by metropolis. Twice in all his life he had had +opportunity for a first page story in the great city daily. His first +metropolitan opportunity was when the aforementioned farmer's wife had +killed her children, some four years ago. And now here was something +quite as big. Editor Anderson sat at his own breakfast table for more +than half an hour pondering on the opening sentence which he was going +to write in his dispatch to the morning daily. + +By eleven-thirty he had written his story, and had taken it down to the +station agent for transmission by wire; and that worthy told him that as +soon as Number Five got by he would begin to send the message. "I can't +stop for anything so long as that now," said he. + +It was somewhat longer as written than as printed, but Mr. Anderson +described the murder of the city marshal in the following terms: + + The progressive little city of Spring Valley, Jackson County, + this state, was electrified this morning by the startling news + of the murder of the well-known city marshal, Mr. Joel Tarbush, + a man of sterling qualities, who has held the office for many + years, and who had endeared himself in the hearts of the + community not only for his discharge of his official duties, + but for his kindliness of heart. The funeral will occur + tomorrow afternoon at half-past three. Reverend William D. + Rawlins will give the funeral address. + + The city of Spring Valley is all excitement at this writing. No + trace of the cowardly assassin has yet been found, and the + entire affair remains shrouded in the deepest mystery, which + not even the keenest intellects have been able to penetrate. + There is no one who can ascribe a motive sufficient to inspire + the murder of so respected and harmless a citizen. + + Some have ascribed the fiendish act to some hobo or tramp who + may have taken revenge on the marshal for some real or fancied + injury in the past. But no one can recall any instance in which + the deceased has ever incurred the enmity of any such + characters, so that all remain at a loss how to account for + this act. There seems to have been no eyewitness, and therefore + all is but mere conjecture. + + Your reporter was among the first at the premises early this + morning, and thus gained all the information that can be + secured at this writing. He has interviewed Miss Audrey + Tarbush, daughter of the deceased, who had for many years kept + house for him in their residence on Mulberry Street, about five + blocks from the courthouse, where the deceased had a small + garden and raised vegetables and flowers which he sold in the + best families of our flourishing city. + + Miss Audrey Tarbush, when interviewed by our reporter, said + that she had last night, according to her usual custom, retired + at the hour of half-past nine. She did not attend the exercises + at the city library, where most of the elite of the town were + present last night, because of a headache from which she + suffered. She left the front door unlocked, as was her custom, + for the entry of her father when he had finished the duties of + his day's work. Usually, Marshal Tarbush came home at about ten + o'clock, and himself then retired. On this night, by reason of + certain extraordinary occurrences during the preceding day, he + thought it wise to remain out later than usual. This was in + accordance with his well-known courage and his conscientious + endeavor to protect the residents of the city against any + possible danger. + + It was about a quarter after one o'clock, as near as Miss + Audrey Tarbush can recall, that she was awakened by the sound + of footfalls on the front porch. She called out, "Who's there?" + but got no answer. As she went to the door her father succeeded + in opening it and staggered in. He sank down into a chair near + the center table. She saw then that he was very pale, and had a + wound upon his head from which blood was still flowing. Much + alarmed, she inquired of him what had occurred. The deceased + was unable to answer. He seemed to be approaching a sort of + coma. + + "Who was it? Who did it?" Miss Audrey Tarbush demanded of him. + It was a dramatic situation. + + The deceased was unable to make an intelligent reply. "Someone + hit me," he muttered. That was all he could manage to say, and + that was all she could catch of his last words. Before long his + head sank forward and he breathed his last almost in her arms. + Unassisted she was able to carry the body of her father to the + near-by sofa. + + At that late hour the telephone operator had gone home, so she + was unable to call any of the neighbors by means of the + telephone. She does not recall how long she was alone with the + dead body of her esteemed parent, but after a time her cries + from the front porch were heard. The neighbors came to her + assistance, but nothing could be done. + + Examination of the remains of the deceased revealed a long and + ragged wound over the upper and left-hand part of the head, + breaking the cuticle for a distance of some four or five + inches. The marshal's hat had been on when he was struck. The + skull was broken for a distance of more than two inches, + according to the examination of Dr. Amos N. Beals, who examined + the body, the left parietal bone being crushed in as by some + heavy instrument. + + Your reporter deduces the following theory of the crime. At a + late hour, after City Marshal Tarbush had finished his duties + in the public square, he went towards his home, the public + meeting at the library having by this time been dismissed. At a + distance of perhaps fifty feet west of the front gate of his + own home the deceased was approached by some miscreant, who + with some heavy blunt instrument struck him down from behind, + and who then made his escape, leaving no sign behind him. No + club or weapon of any kind was found. + + After receiving his death blow this estimable citizen seems to + have walked, steadying himself against the top rail of the + fence, until he reached the gate. The bloody finger prints upon + the top of the fence were no doubt made by his own fingers, + which he must have raised up to his head. He was able to enter + his own gate, come up his own walk, and ascend his own front + steps. Up to that time no one can tell the story. What ensued + after that has been told by your reporter in the interview with + Miss Audrey Tarbush, his loving daughter. + + So ended a long and honorable life. The pallbearers will be + chosen from leading citizens of the town, but their names have + not yet been determined. He will be buried by the Knights + Templar, to which order he belonged, probably on Sunday + afternoon, because, although such haste may appear unseemly, + this early funeral will allow a representative attendance of + all the members of the order, including practically all our + leading citizens, with their full music, so that the concluding + exercises may thus show a greater tribute of respect, the + attendance at any later day being sure to be far less general. + + Your reporter has interviewed prominent citizens as to the + cause of this crime which has so shocked our community. When + approached by your reporter, Judge William Henderson, + well-known candidate for the United States senatorship, former + member of the Republic State Central Committee and prominent + citizen in this state, said, "I cannot hazard even a guess at + the perpetrator of this ghastly crime which has so shocked our + community." + +The story written by Mr. Anderson ended at this point. As printed it +ended considerably in advance of this point; but at least, as he later +told his wife, he had done his best to give his paper a good story. By +the time his message was waiting in the hands of the station agent, +telephone wires were busy between Spring Valley and other larger towns. +The early afternoon papers in Columbus were on the streets by +eleven-thirty with big headlines, and a few lines of type about the +murder of "County Sheriff Abel Tarbush of Spring Valley, Jackson County, +for which murder four tramps had been suspected and placed in jail." The +deceased was described as a prominent Mason. By that time the star +reporters of the morning dailies were on the through train, Number Five, +bound east from Columbus to Spring Valley, as many learned by telephone; +so that the arrival of Number Five this day would be a matter of special +importance. + +Of exact details in all these matters, Don Lane knew but little. It was +for reasons of his own, easily obvious, that he went down to the little +station to meet the through train from the West. Anne Oglesby was +coming! + +His mother did not accompany him, of course, and he therefore was quite +alone. Of all those whom he encountered hurrying in the same direction, +all those who packed the little platform and who stood here and there in +groups speaking solemnly one with the other, he could count not a +friend, not an acquaintance. Dully he felt that here and there an eye +was turned upon him, that here and there a word was spoken about him. He +dismissed it as part of the aftermath of his own troubles of the +previous day. He walked nervously up and down, impatiently looking +westward down the line of rails, his own contemptuous hatred for all +these lost in the greater emotion that filled his heart. Anne was +coming--she was almost here! And he must say good-by. + +Meantime, in the courthouse, there was going forward due action on the +part of the officers of the law intrusted with the solution of such +mysteries as this murder. The sheriff, a large and solid man, Dan Cowles +by name, was one of the first to inspect the premises where the crime +had been committed. Shortly after that he went over to the office of +Blackman, Justice of the Peace and coroner, who by ten o'clock that +morning had summoned his jury of six men--Nels Jorgens, the blacksmith; +Mr. Rawlins, the minister of the Church of Christ; Ben McQuaid, the +traveling man; Newman, the clothing merchant; J. B. Saunders, the Knight +Templar; Jerome Westbrook, clerk in the First National Bank. + +It chanced that the county prosecutor, a young man by the name of +Slattery, was out of town at this time, so that the executive side of +the law for a moment hesitated. The sheriff therefore called up Judge +Henderson and asked his presence at the courthouse for a consultation. +The two were closeted for some time in the sheriff's office. At this +time the deliberations of the coroner's jury would have been well +advanced; therefore, Sheriff Cowles took up the telephone and called up +Coroner Blackman at the Tarbush residence, just as the latter was upon +the point of calling for a verdict of the jury in the accustomed words, +"Murder at the hands of party or parties unknown." + +"Wait, Mr. Coroner!" said Sheriff Cowles. "There's going to be some more +witnesses. Keep your jury together." + +A few moments later the long shrieking whistle of Number Five was heard +as she came up out of the Paw Paw Creek bottoms, climbing the hill at +the brick yards, and swung around the curve through South Spring Valley +into the stretch of straight track leading down to the station. As the +grinding brakes brought the heavy train finally to a standstill, three +or four young men swung down from the day coaches--reporters from +outside towns. + +Don Lane elbowed his way to the edge of the platform. His eye was +searching eagerly along the train exits for someone else--someone else +whom he longed and yet dreaded to see. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +IN THE NAME OF THE LAW + + +Don's moody face suddenly lighted up. A young woman was stepping down +from one of the cars at the farther end of the train, the porter +assisting her to the footstool. Now she was coming steadily along the +edge of the platform, carrying in one hand a trim little bag, in the +other a trim little umbrella. Now she was looking about, expectant. It +was she--Anne! + +His heart leaped out to her, his love rose surgingly at sight of her, +sweet and beautiful as she seemed, and all so fit for love of man. + +A tall young girl she was, who walked with head well up and the +suggestion of tennis about her--an indefinable something of chic also +about her, as indicative of physical well-being as that suggested by +some of the young faces on the magazine covers of the day; which would +explain why in her college Anne Oglesby always was known as "the +magazine girl." She had straightforward gray eyes, a fine mouth of much +sweetness. Above her forehead rose a deep and narrow ruff of dense brown +hair, golden brown. Trim, yet well-appointed, she was one of those types +whom unhesitatingly we class as aristocrats. A young woman fit for any +higher class, qualified for any rank, she seemed--and a creature utterly +apart from the crowd that now jostled her on the narrow platform. + +Her eyes, too, lighted up at sight of the young man who now hurried +forward to meet her, but no unseemly agitation marked her own personal +conduct in public. Demure, clean, cool and sweet, all in hand, she did +not hasten nor hold back. + +Dieudonne Lane had told his mother that never yet had he kissed Anne +Oglesby. Now, at sight of her and at the thought that almost at once +they must part forever, a great rebellion rose in his heart. He stepped +forward swiftly, impulsively, irresistibly. + +He caught her quickly in his arms before all the crowd and kissed +her--once. It was his great salutation to love--a salutation of great +longing--a salutation which meant farewell. + +She gasped, flushed rosy red, but walked straight along with him as he +caught the bag from her hands. She looked up at him, astonished, yet not +wholly resentful. It was no place for speech on the part of either. The +dust of the street seemed naught to him or her, and as for this curious +crowd, they did not chill nor offend--Anne Oglesby suddenly wished to +take all the world into her arms and greet it. Anne Oglesby at that +moment loved--the touch of this man's lips on hers had wrought the +irrevocable, immortal, awful change. + +They had not yet spoken a word, these two, at the time he left her to +call some vehicle for her use. He turned and looked directly into the +face of Dan Cowles, sheriff, a man whom he had never seen before, but +who now reached out and laid a hand upon his shoulder. Cowles had that +instant reached the station platform. + +Don would have passed, but the sheriff spoke: + +"I want you. Come with me." + +The tempestuous blood of the young man flamed at this, but now, as he +looked into the solemn face before him, he found something to give him +pause. + +"What's up?" he demanded. "Who are you?" + +"I'm the sheriff of this county," said Cowles. "Come with me." + +"What do you want?" again demanded Don. "I'm with this young lady." + +"That's no difference," said Cowles. + +"It must be about the Tarbush matter," said Dewdonny Lane. "I'll +testify, but I know nothing of that. I'll come on over directly. This +young lady is going to Judge Henderson's." + +The sheriff looked at the young girl curiously. The crowd now had surged +about them. Like so many cattle at the smell of blood, a strange low +sound, animal-like, a sort of moan of curiosity, seemed to rise. +Wide-eyed, the girl turned. + +"What is it, Don?" she exclaimed. "What has happened? The Tarbush +case--what do you mean?" + +"I'm going to take him to the coroner's hearing, miss," said the sheriff +in a low tone of voice. + +"Why, you see, Anne," began Don, "the city marshal of this town was +killed last night. I suppose the coroner is looking into it. It's a +terrible thing--the town's all upset--haven't you heard anything of it?" + +"Why, no. I left home before any of our papers came out. How did it +happen?" + +Don felt the sheriff again touch his arm. "Step into my car," said he, +"both of you--you get on the front seat with me." + +A moment later they were whirling off up the dusty street toward the +central part of the town. The crowd, breaking into little groups, came +hurrying on along the sidewalks, some even falling into a run in the +middle of the street. + +"Well, he got him!" said one citizen to another. "Quick work for the +sher'ff, wasn't it? A little more and that fellow would 'a' got off on +that train, like enough. That's what he was down here for. I seen him +lookin' for the train." + +"Yes, and that young fellow had a dangerous look on him, too," said +another. "He's _bad_, that's what he is! Look how he showed it +yesterday--right after court, too." + +Each had this or that comment to make, but all followed on now toward +the scenes where the further action in the drama of the day must now +ensue. + +Cowles pulled up on the side of the square on which Judge Henderson had +his office. "You may get out here, Miss," said he. "I think you'll find +the Judge in right now." + +"But why--what's the reason----" she began, much perturbed, and looking +at Don. "What's wrong, Don? Aren't you coming?" + +"Yes, Mr. Sheriff," said Don, "let me go up with her. I'll be right on +over." + +The big man looked at the two, a sort of pity in his face. "I'm sorry," +said he, "but you'll have to come with me right away. Tell me, are you +Miss Oglesby, his kin from over Columbus way?" + +"Yes, yes," said she. "I've been here before. But tell me, what does +this mean--this murder? It's an awful thing, isn't it? It seems to me I +remember the marshal's name--maybe I've seen him. Who did it--whom do +they suspect?" + +"That's what we don't know for sure," said the sheriff, "and it's what +we've got to find out." + +"Why, who would ever have thought it of this little town!" + +"Things happen in this little town, I reckon, about the same as they do +anywhere," said the sheriff. + +"Don----" She turned to him once more as she stood on the pavement, he +still remaining on the front seat of the car where the sheriff's hand +restrained him. "Why, Don----" + +But the sheriff's solemn face was turned towards her. He shook his head. +An instant and the car had whirled away from the curb. + +They had parted, almost before they had met! + +To Dieudonne Lane, ignorant as he was of the cause of all this, it +seemed that the final parting of all had come, and, bitterly he +reflected, they had had no chance--no chance whatever--for what was due +them from their love, their life itself. + +Anne Oglesby, the kiss of her lover's lips still sweet and trembling +upon her mouth, her own mind confused, her own heart disturbed, turned +towards the dusty stair, all her senses in a whirl. And within five +minutes Don Lane, very pale and much distressed, was in the front part +of the little home of Joel Tarbush. The officer had brought him before +Justice Blackman, the coroner, and the coroner's jury, six solemn-faced +men who sat now in the front parlor which had no other occupants save +the red-eyed daughter of the dead man, and save the long and shrouded +figure which lay upon the couch near by. + +Don Lane could not misread the hostility of the gaze turned upon him by +most of these whom now he saw. + +Something suddenly caught at his heart--his first feeling of fear, of +uncertainty; but even this was mingled with a rage at fate, which could +be so cruelly unjust to him. And always, in spite of himself, he felt +his eyes turning to look, awed, terrified, upon the long thing which lay +upon the couch. And always the eyes of these six men saw what he did, +saw what he saw. + +"This is Dewdonny Lane," said the Sheriff briefly, and himself sat down +to await the progress of events. + +The formalities were few. "You may be sworn," said the coroner to +him--"it's just as well." Then the oath administered, Blackman began the +regular questions, and Don answered steadily. + +"My name is Dieudonne Lane. I am twenty-two years of age. I have no +residence as yet. I am a graduate in engineering. I'm going to Wyoming +some time this month to take up my work there." + +There was a little silence in the room, and then the coroner began +again: + +"Where were you just now?" he asked. "We sent for you at your home." + +"I was at the station--I went to meet a friend." + +"What friend was it?" + +Don Lane flushed red. "What difference is it? Oh, if I must answer, it +was Miss Anne Oglesby, of Columbus. I went down to the train to meet +her." + +Sheriff Cowles nodded. "That's true," said he. "I took her up to Judge +Henderson's office myself." + +"What relations have you with this young lady?" asked Blackman. + +"That's not the business of anyone," said Don Lane hotly. + +"Do you want counsel to protect you now?" + +"No, why should I? I am perfectly willing to tell all I know about the +case, and that's all I can do. There's no lawyer I'd send for anyhow." + +"Where were you last night at about midnight?" + +"I was at the library meeting with my mother." + +"When did you leave there?" + +"It must have been midnight or later--oh, yes, I remember seeing the +town clock as we passed through the square. That was just before one +o'clock--perhaps ten or fifteen minutes. We were out late--every one +was." + +"Who was with you when you were going home?" + +"My mother, and for a time Mr. Rawlins here--one of you gentlemen of the +jury. He will know. Just as we left the library we were joined by Mr. +Horace Brooks." + +"Where did you go?" + +"We three walked on together. It was at the second corner of the square, +where Mulberry Street turns off, that Mr. Brooks left me." + +Nels Jorgens, one of the jury, now spoke up. "That's true," said he. "I +saw the three of them walking along the front of the square, and saw +them turn in at Mulberry Street. Across from where I live I saw two +people at the gate. It was a man--a tall man--and her--Aurora Lane." + +"You yourself were not at the gate then?" + +"No," said Don, "I had left just at the corner of the square." + +"Why did you leave them?" + +"Well, I wanted to have a little run before I went to bed. I'm used to +taking exercise every night--I always did at college, to keep up my +training." + +"Where did you go when you were running?" + +"I may be mistaken in the directions, but it was across the square, +opposite from Mulberry Street. I turned to the right. I must have run +perhaps four or five blocks, I don't know just how far it was. It was +quite warm." + +"Did you come into this street?" + +"I don't really know." + +"You didn't see anybody?" + +"Not a soul. I didn't hear a sound." + +"What time was that?" + +"I heard the clock strike one before I turned back." + +"Gentlemen of the jury," said the coroner, "it was just about that time +that Joel Tarbush was killed, right here." + +"That's true," said Don Lane. "It's terrible to think of--but why----" + +"You heard Judge Henderson's testimony, gentlemen," went on the coroner. +"He told of seeing these three people pass by on the square in front of +his office stair. Just before that he had said good night to Tarbush +himself. He saw Tarbush start right over this way for his home. Now, +just in time to catch him before he got into his home--if a man was +running fast--a man _did_ run from the square over in this direction!" + +The members of the jury remained silent. Their faces were extremely +grave. + +"And, gentlemen, you have heard the testimony of other witnesses here +before now, stating that this witness was heard to make threats to +Tarbush yesterday afternoon, right after he was dismissed from my own +court upstairs. Mr. Jorgens, I believe you were there. What did this +young man say after he had for the second time assaulted Ephraim +Adamson--twice in one day, and entirely regardless of the rebuke of the +law?" + +"He said, Mr. Coroner," replied Nels Jorgens gravely, even with sadness +in his face, "just when he came out of the crowd where he had left +Adamson laying on the ground already--he said to Tarbush, 'You'll come +next'--or I'll get you next'--something of that kind." + +"Was he angry at that time?" + +"Yes, Mr. Coroner, he was," said Nels Jorgens, against his will. + +Ben McQuaid leaned over to whisper to Jerome Westbrook. "It seems like +this young fellow comes in here with his college education and +undertakes to run this whole town. Pretty coarse work, it looks like to +me." + +Jerome Westbrook nodded slowly. He recalled Sally Lester's look. + +Of all the six faces turned toward him from the scattered little group +of the coroner's jury, not more than two showed the least compassion or +sympathy. Don Lane's hot temper smarted under the renewed sense of the +injustice which had assailed him yet again. + +"What's the game?" he demanded. "Why am I brought here? What's the +matter with you people? Do you mean to charge me with killing this man? +What have I done to any of you? Damn your town, anyhow--the rotten, +lying, hypocritical lot of you all!" + +"The less you say the better," said the coroner; and the sheriff's +steady gaze cautioned Don Lane yet more. + +"Now, gentlemen," went on Blackman, "we have heard a number of witnesses +here, and we have not found any man here that could bring forward any +sight or sound of any suspicious character in this town. There hasn't +been a tramp or outsider seen here, unless we except this young man now +testifying here. The man on whose body we now are a-setting hadn't a +enemy in this town, so far as has been shown here--no, nor so far as +anyone of us knows. There has been no motive proved up here which would +lead us to suspect anyone else of this crime." + +Ben McQuaid once more leaned over to whisper to his seat-mate: "It's a +likely thing a man would be running for his health, a night like last +night, when he didn't have to! Ain't that the truth?" + +The coroner rapped with his pencil on the table top. He was well filled +with the sense of his own importance. In his mind he was +procureur-general for Spring Valley. And in his mind still rankled the +thought of the fiasco in his courtroom but the day before, in which he +had made so small a figure. + +"I want to ask you, Mr. Cowles," he said, turning to the sheriff, "if +you ever have seen this young man before." + +"Only once," said the sheriff, standing up. "Last night or this morning, +just after the clock had struck one--say, two or three minutes or so +after one o'clock--I was going out of my office and going over to the +east side of the square. I met this young man then. As he says, he was +running--that is, he was coming back from this direction, and running +toward the southeast corner of the square, the direction of his own +home." + +"Was he in a hurry--did he seem excited?" + +"He was panting a little bit. He was running. He didn't seem to see me." + +"Oh, yes, I did," said Don. "I remember you perfectly--that is, I +remember perfectly passing some man in the half darkness under the trees +as I came along that side of the square. As I said, it was warm." + +"Now, gentlemen, we have thought it over for a long time," said the +coroner, after a solemn pause. "We must bring in our verdict before +long. It must either be 'party or parties unknown,' or we must hold +someone we do suspect. + +"We have had no one here that we could suspect until now. Take this +young man--he is practically a stranger. He proves himself to be of +violent and ungovernable temper. Allowed to go once from the justice of +the law, he forgets that and goes violent again. He assaults a second +time one of our citizens, Mr. Adamson. He resists arrest once by a +officer of the law, and in the same afternoon he threatens that officer. +He says, 'I'll get you.' + +"This young man is seen just before one o'clock running over in this +direction. Just a little ahead of him the victim of this crime was seen +walking. He was killed, as his daughter testifies, somewhere just about +one o'clock--it was at that time that he staggered into the house here. + +"Just after one o'clock this young man is seen running--one of the +hottest nights we have had this summer--running away from the scene of +the crime, and toward his own home. + +"I don't want to lead your own convictions in any way. I am willing to +say, however, that if we have not found a man to hold for this crime, +then we ain't apt to find him!" + +"But, gentlemen, you don't mean"--poor Don began, his face pale for the +first time, a sudden terror in his soul--"you _can't_ mean that _I_ did +this!" + +But he gazed into the faces of six men, upon whom rested the duty of +vengeance for the wrong done to the society which they represented. Of +these six all but two were openly hostile to him, and those two were +sad. Rawlins, minister of the Church of Christ; Nels Jorgens, the +blacksmith--they two were sad. But they two also were citizens. + +"This witness," went on Coroner Blackman, "has in a way both abused us +and defied us. He said he was not on trial. That is true. We can't try +him. All we can do is to hold any man on whom a reas'nable suspicion of +this crime may be fixed. We could hold several suspects here, if there +was that many. All we do is to pass the whole question on to the grand +jury when it meets here. That's tomorrow morning. Before the grand jury +any man accused can have his own counsel and the case can be taken up +more conclusive. So the question for us now is, Shall we call it 'party +or parties unknown,' or shall we----" + +Don Lane dropped into a seat, his face in his hands, in his heart the +bitter cry that all the world and all the powers of justice governing +the world had now utterly forsaken him. The sheriff rose, and taking him +by the arm, led him into another room. + +In ten minutes a half-dozen reporters, trooping up from the train and +waiting impatiently at the outer door, knew the nature of the verdict: +"We the jury sitting upon the body of Joel Tarbush, deceased by +violence, find that deceased came to his death by a blow from a blunt +instrument held in the hands of Dieudonne Lane." + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +ANNE OGLESBY + + +Judge William Henderson was sitting alone in the front room of his cool +and spacious office, before him his long table with its clean glass top, +so different from the work-bench of the average country lawyer. +Everything about him was modern and perfect in his office equipment, for +the judge had reached the period in his development in which he brought +in most of his own personal ideas from an outer and a wider world--that +same world which now occupied him as a field proper for one of his +ambitions. + +As he sat he was a not unpleasing figure of middle-aged success. His +gray hair was swept back smoothly from his temples; his red cheeks, +fresh reaped, bore the tinge of health. The large white hand before him +on the glass-topped table betokened prosperity and success in every +faint and fat-hid line. + +Judge Henderson now was absorbed in the contemplation of a bit of paper +which lay in his hand. It was a message from the telephone company, and +it came from Slattery, county prosecutor. Something in it was of +disturbing nature. Judge Henderson's brow was furrowed, his face was +troubled. He seemed, thus alone and not stimulated by an audience, years +older than he had been but now. + +He had been looking at this bit of paper for some time so intently that +now he did not hear his hall door open--did not see one who paused there +and then came, lightfooted, swiftly, across the space, to catch him and +blindfold him as he sat. He heard the rustle of her skirts, and knew at +once the deep counterfeit of her voice. + +"Who is it?" she demanded, her hand over his eyes. + +"Anne!" he exclaimed, catching at her hand. "You are here--when did you +come?" + +She went round and kissed him. "Just now," said she, "on the train from +the city. You were not expecting me?" + +"No, not at all." + +"Well, here I am, Nunkie,"--she sometimes called her guardian by this +pet name, although really they were not akin--"I'm finished and turned +out complete--I'm done my college work now and ready for what we +graduates call the Battle of Life. Do you think I'll do?" + +She drew back and made him a pretty curtsey, spreading out her skirts. +Indeed, she was very fair to look upon and he smiled at her admiringly. + +"You are beautiful, Anne," said he. "You are very beautiful--you are +fine." + +"Do I please you in every way?" said she. + +"Perfectly, my dear. You cannot do otherwise." + +She looked at him demurely. "I'm not so sure," said she. "Wait until you +have heard all I have to tell you." + +"What's wrong? Are you in debt?" + +"Worse than that, Nunkie dear--I'm engaged!" + +Now indeed he looked at her with sudden consternation in his face. +"What's that? You haven't told me anything of the sort." + +"I never knew it until just now--at the station." She came now and sat +down upon the arm of his chair. "It just happened yesterday--and today." + +She put up a finger to her lips and rubbed them, fearing that he might +see there the flame of the kiss they but now had borne. + +"Who is the young man--if you are really in earnest about all this? +Where did you meet him? Whoever he is, you've hardly done your duty by +me. I'm your guardian--I stand _in loco parentis_ for you. When did all +this happen?" + +"Yesterday, on the train. I didn't expect it myself. But I promised. +He's promised me. We were going to tell you about it at once." + +She was the very picture of happy and contented young womanhood as she +spoke. Not so happy was the man whom she addressed. + +"I can't guess at all whom you mean," said he. "Is he anybody--is he a +man of station--has he any business--has he any means? How old is +he--who is he?" + +"I can't answer so many questions all at once, Nunkie," said she. "But +I'm going to be very happy, I know that. Perhaps you can answer some of +the questions for yourself--perhaps you know him. Well, it's Dieudonne +Lane!--he's in town right now--a schoolmate of mine for four years. +Surely, I know all about him." + +Judge Henderson swiftly turned and looked at her steadily, cold +consternation on his face. "Anne!" he exclaimed. "That can't be! It's +absurd." + +"Oh, I expected that," said she easily. "That's because he hasn't any +money. I knew that. As for his family--he told me long ago that he was +an orphan, that his father died when he was very young, and left only +enough for his education, and that he would have to make his own way. +Very well, some men have had to do that--you have had to yourself, +Nunkie, isn't it true? And Don was born here in this very town----" + +He put out his hand over hers as it lay upon the table-top. "Anne!" said +he. "My child! You're but a child--an impulsive, foolish child. What +have you done? You have not pledged your word--to _him_?" + +"Oh, yes, I have. I'm promised--my promise is given. More----" + +"It's folly and worse than folly. It can't be--I won't have it--you hear +me?" He broke out savagely now. + +"I heard you--yes, but I'll jolly well not pay too much attention to +you, even when you roar at me that way. As I understand it, I'm of age. +I've been studying for four years to get ready to be able to know my own +mind--and I do! My own heart also. And I know what's due me." + +Her voice was low and very sweet, but the man who heard her winced at +its cutting calm. + +"You would marry a man like that, of no family, of no place, of no +name?" + +"Yes, I've just said that. I know all about it. We'll have to start at +the bottom; and I ask you, didn't you start that way?" + +"That's an entirely different proposition, my dear girl," said her +guardian. "Times were different then. You are an heiress--you are a +woman of family and place--and you don't have to go back to the old +days--you don't need to ruin your own life through such terrible +beginnings. + +"But now, do you know who this young man's people are?" He asked this +last after a considerable pause, during which his ward sat silent, +looking at him steadily. + +"Oh, yes. He told me he is an orphan--his father's dead long ago. And +his mother----" + +"You know his mother?" + +"Yes, a milliner--I believe. But a good woman." + +"Ah!" + +She still looked at him, smiling. "I am 'advanced,' you see, Nunkie! In +college we studied things. I don't care for the social rank--I want to +marry a _man_. I love Don. I love--well, that kind of man. I'm so +happy!" + +She squeezed him tight in a sudden warm embrace. "I love all the world, +I believe, Nunkie--even you, and you are an old bear, as everybody +knows! And I thank you for all those papers in the long envelopes--with +the lines and the crosses on them, and the pencil mark 'Sign +here'--powers of attorney and receipts, and bonds and shares and +mortgages and certificates--all that sort of thing. Am I very rich, +Nunkie?" + +"Not very, as heiresses go these days," said he. "You're worth maybe four +or five hundred thousand dollars, not very much. But that's not the +question. That's not really everything there is at stake in +this--although I'm well enough satisfied that's all this young man cares +for." + +"Thank you!" said she proudly. "I had not known that." + +"A good many things you have not known, my dear. Now listen here. Do you +know what this marriage would mean to me? I want to be United States +Senator from this state--and everything bids fair to see my ambition +gratified. But politics is a ticklish game." + +"Well, what on earth has that to do with me and Don?" + +"It has everything to do! I'm _not_ 'advanced,' I'm old fashioned enough +to know that social rank does count in my business at least. In politics +every little thing counts; so I tell you, for every reason in the world +you must dismiss this young man from your thoughts. You are quixotic, I +know--you are stubborn, like your mother--a good woman, but stubborn." + +He was arguing with her, but Anne could not read his face, although she +sought to do so--there seemed some veil hiding his real thoughts. And +his face was troubled. She thought he had aged very much. + +"In one particular matter," said she slowly, at last. "It seems to me a +woman should be stubborn. She should have her own say about the man she +is to marry." + +"How much time have you had to decide on this?" + +"Plenty. Twenty-four hours, or a little less--no, I'll say twenty +minutes. Plenty. Uncle--he kissed me--before the world. I can't take it +back--we have given--I have promised. Uncle, I have promised--well, all +through me." + +"Stop where you are!" said he. "Have you disgraced us all so soon? Has +it gone so far? However that is, you shall go no further." + +He rose, his fingers on the table-top, rapping in emphasis. + +"My dear," he said, "I am older than you, and I have seen the world more +than you have. I recognize fully enough the dynamic quality of what you +call love--what I call merely sex in younger human beings. It is a thing +of extreme seriousness, that's true. But the surest thing about all that +sort of thing is that it changes, it passes. You will forget all this." + +"You do me much honor!" said Anne Oglesby, coloring. "You speak with +much delicacy. But love me, love my lover." + +The swift resistance of a strong nature seemed suddenly to flash out at +Judge Henderson from her gray eyes. Suddenly he turned and took her arm. +He escorted her to the inner room, which served as his own study and +consultation chambers. + +"Come here," said he. "Well have to talk this thing over quietly. This +is a terrible matter--you don't know how terrible. There's a lot under +this that you don't know at all. Anne, my dear girl, what can I say to +you to alter you in this foolish resolve?" + +"Nothing! I'm going to see his mother this very afternoon. He told me to +come, so I could meet his mother----" + +"You're going to do nothing of the kind!" said Judge Henderson in sudden +anger. "You're going to stay here and listen to reason, that's what +you're going to do! You undertake to go into a situation which reaches +wider than this town, wider than this state, do you? It is your duty, +then, to prevent me from _my_ duty? Are you so selfish, so egotistic as +all that?" + +She smiled at him amusedly, cynically, a wide and frank smile, which +irritated him unspeakably. He frowned. + +"It is time now for you to reflect. First--as you say--this young man +has no father. His mother----" + +He paused suddenly, his pallid face working strangely now. The shrill +summons of the telephone close at his hand as he sat had caused him to +start, but it was with relief. He took down the receiver and placed his +hand for the moment over the mouthpiece. + +"Aurora Lane--you don't know about her?" he began. + +Then she saw a sudden change of expression which passed over his face. +"Yes--yes," he said, into the telephone. "The jury has brought in its +verdict? _What's that?_----" + +The phone dropped clattering from his hand on the desk, so shaking and +uncertain was his grasp. He turned to his ward slowly. + +"You don't know!" said he. "You don't know what that was I have just +heard this moment! Well, I'll tell you. Dieudonne Lane has been held to +the grand jury--while we've been sitting here. They've charged him with +the murder of Tarbush, the city marshal. My God! Anne----" + +It seemed an hour to both before she spoke. Her face, first flushed, +then pale, became set and cold as she looked toward the man who brought +this news. Once she flinched; then pulled together. But yesterday a +girl, this hour a young woman, now she was all at once mature, resolved. + +"You heard me, did you not?" he went on, his voice rising. +"Charged--with murder! No one in the world knew he was alive--no one but +you, and you never told me of him--no one ever dreamed of him till the +last twenty-four hours, when he came blundering in here--out of his +grave, I say! And in twenty-four hours he has made his record here--and +_this_ is his record. Do you know what this means? He may not come +through--I want to say the chances look bad for him, very bad indeed." +Judge Henderson's smooth face showed more agitation than ever it had in +all his life before. + +"Uncle," she said, after a long time, reaching out a hand to him, "now +is your opportunity!" + +"What do you mean? _My_ opportunity? It's--it's a terrible thing--you +don't know." + +"Yes, yes. But you say you have been in the place of a parent to me. +That's true--I owe you much--you have been good--you have been kind. Be +good, be kind now! Oh, don't you see what is your duty? Now you can use +your learning, your wisdom, your oratory. You can save Don--for me. +You're my parent--can't you be his, too? We're both orphans--can't you +be a father for us both? Of _course_ you will defend him. He hasn't +much. He couldn't pay you now. But I have money--you've just told me +that I have. + +"Oh, no, I don't mean that, about the money--but listen," she went on, +since he made no reply. "Do you think _I'd_ desert him now that he's in +trouble? Do you think any woman of my family would do that? We're not so +low, I trust, either of us, either side. You are not so low as that, I +trust, yourself. Why, you'd not desert anyone, surely not an orphan boy, +just starting out--you'd never in the world do that, I know." + +In answer he smoothed out before her on the desk top the crumpled paper +he had held in his hand. + +"This," said he, "was brought to me just before you came in yourself. +Before you told me of this affair, I was retained by the state's +attorney to assist in the prosecution of the perpetrator of this crime, +_whoever he might be_. I must say it is one of the most terrible crimes +ever known in this community. The man who did it must pass from among +his fellow men forever. It is my duty to accept this retainer for the +prosecution, as I have done----" + +"What--as you _have_ done?--You'd help prosecute him--you'd help send +him to the gallows, if you could--as innocent as he is? You--you--and he +has no one to counsel with--only a poor woman, a widow, who's never had +a chance--he an orphan, without a friend! You'd do _that_?" + +His large white hand was raised restrainingly. "We must both be calm," +said he. "I've got to think." + +"Why, where will Don go--where will they put him?" + +"He will go to jail, and be there until the grand jury meets--longer +than that, perhaps--and yet longer, if the trial judge and jury bring a +verdict against him!" + +"But that's taking him away from me--right now--that's not right!--Can't +he get out?" + +"He might perhaps be released on bail if the bail were large enough, but +the crime is the maximum crime, and the suspicion is most severe. I +don't know what means he can command, but he needs counsel now. + +"But one thing, Anne," he added, "I forbid you. You must have nothing to +do with him. Keep away from him. Go home, and don't meddle in this case. +It must take its course." + +"I would follow him to the foot of the gallows, if need be, Judge +Henderson!" broke out Anne Oglesby in a sudden flare of passionate +anger. "Ah, fine!--to give your word, your promise--to give your love, +and then within an hour forget it all--to leave the one you love when +the trouble comes! Is that all one gains--is that all one may +expect--is that all a woman ought to do for the man she loves? Is that +all she ought to expect from a man? Suppose it were I in trouble--would +_he_ forget me? Would _he_ forsake me? Then shall I? You don't know me +if you think that of me! + +"You don't know me at all," she blazed on at him, as he turned away. +"I've tried to reason. Whatever my success at that, the answer's in my +own heart now." (Her heart, now beating so fast under the heaving bosom +on which both her hands were clasped.) + +"And you forget me? I--I'm in trouble now--it's awful--it's a terrible +trouble that I'm in now." Judge Henderson's voice was trembling, his +face was pale. + +"You--in what way am I bound to you? Trouble--what do you mean? Why, +listen!--All your life you have lived with just one aim and purpose and +ambition in your heart--and that was yourself! Your own ambition--your +own pleasure, your own comfort--those were the things that have +controlled you always--don't I know, haven't I heard? You've been a very +leech in this town--you have taken _all_ the success in it--_all_ the +success of everybody, from _all_ its people--and used it for yourself! +It has been so common to you--you are so used to it--that you can't +think of anything else--you can't visualize anything else. You think of +yourself as the source and center of all good--you can't help +that--that's your nature. So I suppose you think you are altogether +within your rights when you tell me that I must wreck and ruin my own +life to save you and your ambition! Why, you are--you're a +_sponge_--that's what you are--you are just soaking in _all_ the +happiness of others--_all_ the success of others, I tell you--taking it +_all_ for yourself. 'Our most prominent citizen!' Great God! But what +has it cost this community to produce you--what are you asking it to +cost me and those I love? Drops in the same bucket? Food for you and +your ambition? Do you think I am going to stand that, when it comes to +me--me and him--the man I have promised--the man I love? You don't know +me! You don't know him! We'll fight!" + +He sat, so astounded at this sudden outburst--the first thing of the +kind he had ever heard from any human being in all his life--that for +the time he could make no reply at all. She went on bitterly now: + +"Men like you, sponges like yourself, have made what they call success +in all the ages of the world--yes, that's true. Great kings, great +cardinals, great politicians, great business men, great thieves have +made that kind of a success, that's true enough--I've read about them, +yes. Men of that sort--Judge Henderson--sometimes they stop at nothing. +They'd betray their very own. I'm not your blood, but if I were, I'd not +trust you! Men like you are so absorbed with their own vanity, their own +selfishness--they're so used to having everything given to them without +exertion, without cost, they grow regardless of what that cost may be to +the ones that do the giving. In time they begin to think themselves +apart from the rest of the world--don't you think that about yourself +now? Oh, are you better than the world? Or are you just a man, like the +rest of them? Didn't you ever know--didn't you ever kiss a woman in all +your life and know what that meant?" + +He had sat, his shocked face turned toward her, too stunned for answer. +But she saw him start as though under the blow of a dagger at her last +words. + +"Don't think this hasn't hurt," said she, more composedly now. "It's the +truth as far as I know it. With your power, your influence, you could +get him free--soon--very soon--perhaps. You could make us both happy. +But, so you say, that would make _you_ unhappy! I know you well enough +to know what the decision will be in a case like that, Judge Henderson! + +"As for me--" she was closer to him now, utterly fearless, as a woman is +who loves and sees the object of her love threatened--"our paths part +here, now! I'm of age and my own mistress. I know my own mind, as I've +told you. I'm going to stay--I'm going to stick--do you hear? I'm going +to love him long as he lives. I'm going to _marry_ him, if it's in a +jail!" + +Judge Henderson only began to wag his head now from side to side. His +face had gone ghastly. + +"Why, Uncle dear"--she came over to him now--"forgive me if I've been +too outspoken--it's only because I'm so strained." + +"Myself also," he groaned. "Strain? Why, yes. You don't know--you don't +know!" + +Suddenly she changed once more, still the woman, still the young girl, +as yet half ignorant of life, her hands still on her heaving bosom now, +the faint flush back in her cheeks. + +"He _kissed_ me, Uncle!" said she. "I don't know much, but it seems to +me if a man kisses a woman--in that way--it's _life_ for her and him! +They can't help it after that. After that, a woman's got to do just all +she can in the game of life--and he's got to do the best he knows. They +can't help it. He _kissed_ me.... And I told you I'll not desert him. It +wouldn't be right. And, right or wrong, I can't--I _can't_!" + +Panting, the tears now almost ready to drop from her moist eyes, she +stood, a beautiful picture of young womanhood, so soft, so fully fitted +for love and love's caresses; and now so wronged out of her love by +sudden fate. But in her there was no sign of weakness or of yielding. +The man who faced her felt the truth of that. His own face now was far +the more irresolute of the two--far the more agitated. + +Suddenly, haggard, frowning, he rose, at a sound which he heard in the +outer room. Someone had entered. + +As he stepped to the door between the two rooms, Judge Henderson turned, +his finger on his lips, and made signs that Anne should remain where she +was, undiscovered. The door hung just a trifle, wedged open by the +corner of a fallen rug. Judge Henderson had not time, or did not think, +to close it wholly. He stood face to face with the newcomer. + +It was Aurora Lane! + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +"AS YOU BELIEVE IN GOD!" + + +Aurora Lane and Judge Henderson both started back as they faced one +another. For the moment neither spoke. + +Aurora was pale, quite beyond her wont, haggard-looking about the eyes. +She had come direct from her home, without alteration of her usual daily +costume. In spite of all, she was very far from uncomely as she stood +now, about her the old indefinable stamp of class which always had clung +to her. Certainly she was quite the equal in appearance of this tall +man, soft from easy living, who faced her now, a trifle pasty of skin, a +trifle soft about the jaws, a trifle indefinite about the waist--a man +with a face as pale and haggard as her own. + +Tense as she was, her long schooling in repression stood her in such +stead as to leave her in the better possession of self-control. + +"My dear--my dear Madam----" began Judge Henderson. + +The hearer in the room beyond must have caught the pause in his voice, +its agitation--and must have heard the even tones of the woman as she +spoke at last, after a long silence. + +"I have come to your office, as you know, for the first time," said +Aurora Lane. She gave him no title, no formal address. "It is the first +time in twenty years." + +"You have lived a somewhat secluded life, yes, my dear Madam." His +voice, his manner, his attitude, all were labored. He at least knew or +suspected that he was talking to two women, and not one; for there was +no way for Anne to escape and no way in which he could be sure she did +not hear. + +"You know about him--about the boy? Of course, everyone in town does. He +didn't die. He's been away--in college. I never wanted him to see this +place. But now he's come back--you know all about it. He's in jail. +We've been thinking perhaps you could do something--that you would help +us." + +Her high, clear, staccato voice, easily audible far, now showed her own +keyed-up condition. + +Judge Henderson raised a large white hand. "My dear Madam," said he, +himself very far from calm, "let us be calm! Let us above all things be +calm and practical." + +Aurora Lane's face froze into a sudden icy mask of wonder, of +astonishment. She gulped a little. "I'm trying to be calm. I'm +desperate, or I'd never have come here. You know that." + +He was mumbling and clucking in his throat, gesturing imploringly, +trying to stop her swift speech, which might be overheard, but she went +on, not understanding. + +"Until just now I was so happy. He was done with his schooling--ready to +go out at his work. The expenses were very heavy for us, but we've +managed. Look!" + +She drew from her worn pocketbook the single bill that she had left in +all the world, a tight-creased, worn thing. "In some way I've managed to +hold on to this," said she. "It's all I've got left in all the world. +That's my twenty-odd years of savings--except what I've spent to bring +up my boy. I've got no more." + +"My dear Madam," said Judge Henderson again, sighing, "life certainly +has its trials at times." A remark sufficiently banal to pass muster +with both his hearers, Aurora Lane here and Anne Oglesby in the room +beyond. But, still ignorant of any other auditor, Aurora went on as +though she had not heard him: + +"I thought I'd come and talk to you--at last. If only Don could get out, +I'd be willing to leave with him. We'd never trouble anybody any more." +Her face was turned to him beseechingly. + +"I know, of course, that you could save him if you liked.... I've had a +pretty hard time of it. Don't you want to do this for him--for us--how +can you _help_ wanting to? You, of all men! My God! Oh, my God!" + +"Hush! Hush! Don't speak so loud! Pray compose yourself, my dear Madam," +exclaimed Judge Henderson, himself so far from composed. His own face +was ghastly in its open apprehension. "He's ruined himself, that's all, +that boy," he concluded lamely. + +She stood before him, stony cold, for a time, growing whiter and whiter. + +"And what about my own ruin? What does it leave to me, if they take my +boy--all I have in the world? I didn't think you could hesitate a +moment--not even you!" Her voice, icy cold, was that of another woman. + +He turned from her, flinging out his hands. "He has disgraced you----" +he began, still weakly; for he at least knew he was doubly on the +defensive now, before these two women, terrible in their love. + +"No, he has not!" flared Aurora Lane at last. "If I've had disgrace it's +not through any fault of his. If he raised a hand in my defense, it was +the first man's hand that has been raised for me in all this town--in +all my life!" + +She held before him again the tight-folded little bill, seeking with +trembling fingers to unfold it so that he might see its pitifully small +denomination. She shook it in his face in sudden rage. "That's my life +savings! If there was such a thing as justice in the world, would I be +helpless as this--so helpless that I could find it possible to come here +to talk to you? Justice? Justice! Ah, my God in heaven!" + +Aurora Lane's voice was slightly rising. She was fronting him in the +last courage of despair. "You'd see that boy perish--you'd let him die? +If I thought that was true, I'd be willing to do everything I could to +ruin this town. I'd pull the roof down on it if I were strong enough. +I'd throw myself away, indeed. I'd curse God--I'd die. Above all, I'd +curse you, with my last breath." + +Anne, in the next room, rooted in the horror of her silence, could not +have heard his reply, but almost she might have pictured him, standing +white, ghastly, trembling, as he was when he heard these words. + +"But you can't do it--you can't deny him--he's a human being like +yourself--he's part of----Ah, you'll get him free, I know!" Aurora's +voice was pleading now. Judge Henderson's own voice was hoarse, +unnatural, when at last he got it. + +"Look at this message," he croaked, in a half whisper; and showed her +the crumpled bit of paper which he had held in his own hand. He beckoned +to her--yet again--for silence, but she did not understand. + +"What is it?" asked Aurora. "What do you mean?" + +"From the state's attorney! I have accepted this retainer. I'm of the +prosecution! You have come too late. What can I do?" + +"Prosecution--what do you mean? Prosecute him--_Don_? Too late--my God! +Am I always too late--is it always in all the world for me--too late! +Prosecute _him_? What do you _mean_?" + +The sudden, wailing cry broke from her. Then her voice trailed off into +a whisper--a whisper which might have been heard very far--which was +heard through the half-closed door which led to the inner room. "Too +late!" And at length the long-tried soul of Aurora Lane broke out in a +final and uncontrolled rebellion, all bounds down, all restraint +forgotten, every instinct at last released of its long fettering: + +"You disown him--you'd disown your own flesh and blood--you'd let him +die! Why, you'd betray your own Master for the price of office and of +honor! Oh, I know, I know! The limelight! Publicity! Oh, you Judas!--Ah, +Judas! Judas! You, his father! _Your own son!_" + +Then sobs, deep, convulsive. + +Came sudden rustling of garments in the adjoining room. The intervening +door was flung wide. Anne Oglesby, her face pale, tense, came out into +the room where stood these two. + +"What is this?" she demanded of Judge Henderson. "This is Mrs. Lane? +_Don's your son?_" + +She turned to Aurora inquiringly. + +"I have heard--I could not help hearing. His father! Don told me his +father was dead. What's all this? Tell me!" + +For a moment they stood apart, three individuals only. Then, slowly, +with subtle affiliation of sex, the women drew together, allied against +the man. + +It was Anne who again was first to speak. Her voice was high, clear, +cold as ice, with a patrician note which came from somewhere out of the +past. + +"Let me have all this quite plain," said she. "Mrs. Lane said 'flesh and +blood!' Mrs. Lane said '_your own son!_' I heard her. What does it +mean?" + +"This is what it means!" said Aurora Lane, suddenly drawing Anne to her +closely, after her one swift glance. "My boy's in jail. This--this +man--Judge Henderson--is his father. He says he's hired to murder +him--and he's our child." + +"I didn't know!" broke out Judge Henderson, now facing both his hearers. +"I never knew! You said he was dead--you told me so. It's all half a +lifetime ago. I've had nothing to do with you, nor you with me, since we +broke off more than twenty years ago. That was as you wished. God! I was +only a man. You _said_ the child died." + +"Yes," said Aurora Lane, turning to Anne; "that's true--I did. I told +that one lie to protect the boy. I sent him away when he was a baby to +protect him. I said he was dead--to protect him--to keep him from ever +knowing. But you know--you saw him--you _felt_ it--you must have known, +yesterday." She confronted the trembling man once more. + +"Yesterday?" said Anne Oglesby. + +"Yes. There was another trial then--and Judge Henderson prosecuted then +also!" She turned again to him for his answer. + +"I dropped the case." + +"You dropped it because you were paid to drop it! You traded another man +out of his own life's ambition--a better man than you are--that's what +you did when you dropped the case. There's nothing more to trade--we've +nothing more to pay--but how can you prosecute him--now--when his very +life's at stake--when he's charged with murder? The punishment's death! +You'd send him to the gallows now--my boy--and yours? You didn't know +him then! Is it likely? Don't lie about it--if you didn't know him, +_why_ didn't you? Were you so busy looking at your own picture on the +wall--so wrapped up in your own ambitions, that you couldn't see +anything else? Couldn't you see your own flesh and blood--and mine? +What's twenty years? Haven't I lived them, and wouldn't I know +him--didn't I--when I saw him? You Judas!" + +Motionless, she stood looking at the speechless man before her, until +she felt the closer drawing to her of the tall young beauty at her side. + +"And you're Anne?" she said, turning to the girl, her own large dark +eyes now soft. "I know. He loves you, Don. Has he said good-by to you? +Has he said he wasn't worthy of you, because he had--no father? _This_ +is his father--Don's father--Judge William Henderson. He'll not deny it. +I told Don he mustn't think of you--of all women in the world--just +because you are so close to Judge Henderson--Don's father. + +"Now you see why I told my boy that lie--I didn't want him ever to know +his father--yes, I'd told him his father was dead. And I don't want to +seem a worse liar to my own boy--I've been bad enough, the way it is." + +She felt Anne Oglesby's arm draw her closer yet, felt the soft warm body +of the girl against her own. + +"I make only trouble," said Aurora, murmuring. "And you--you're so +beautiful. I don't blame him." + +"I love him, too!" said Anne Oglesby steadily. "I'm not going to give +him up." + +Aurora Lane's tears came then. + +"You--you two women--" gasped Judge Henderson--"do you know what you're +doing here? Do you think I don't suffer, too?" Then Anne saw that every +accusation Aurora Lane had made was true and more than true. + +"About that trial yesterday"--he turned to Aurora--"I _did_ have some +sort of superstitious feeling--I own that--I couldn't account for it--I +couldn't explain it. But you had assured me that your--our--er--the +child--had died in infancy. I thought--I hoped it was only my own guilty +conscience making me see things. I--I _have_ had a conscience. But I +knew nothing--we'd not met for years." + +"That's all true," said Aurora to Anne, nodding toward Judge Henderson. +"I've scarce spoken more than twenty words to him in twenty years. I've +kept the secret, and carried the blame. Until yesterday Don never knew +about himself--about his having no father. He hasn't a guess even now +who his father was--or is--at least he'll never make the right guess. No +one has, no one ever will. They may wrong another man, but they'll not +suspect the right one." + +She felt the strong young arm of Anne still about her, and so went on, +nodding again toward Judge Henderson--"I asked him to defend his own +son--you heard me, then? And he's told me he's hired to hang his son! +And I called him 'Judas.' And I pray God to sink him in hell if he does +this work. After all, there must be a hell somewhere--I think there must +be. This is not right--it's not right! I've stood it all till now, but I +can't stand this." + +"Wait!" exclaimed Judge Henderson. "Give me time to think, I tell you! +My whole life's up on this, as well as yours. You've had twenty years to +think about this, and I've not had that many minutes. You and I've not +met, I say--our paths have lain totally apart. It was in the past--we'd +lived it down." + +"_We_ had lived it down!" Aurora Lane's laugh was bitter enough, and she +made no other comment. + +Still she felt, closer and closer, the warm young body of the girl who +stood by her as the two women faced the man in the ancient and undying +battle of sex. + +"Well, I dropped that case," resumed Judge Henderson, "name or claim the +reason as you like. But _this_ case is different----" + +"Why?" asked Anne Oglesby. "What's the difference between the two cases? +You say you didn't know, then. Now you know." + +"But I've my reputation to keep clean, Anne! The higher you climb, the +riskier the ladder. I could drop that little case yesterday, but let me +drop _this_ case, with all the whole town back of it--and all my whole +political party back of it, too--that's another matter!" + +"Is it, indeed!" + +"Yes!" he rasped. "I put Judge Reeves on the bench here. It's a big +case. If I withdrew a second time--if things got stirred up and people +began to talk--why, that would be enough to put Old Hod Brooks on the +scent. He'd well enough take care of all the rest! It would be the end +of my career--in twenty minutes. There'd be nothing left of my +chances--there'd be nothing left of my reputation--the work of twenty +years would be undone. I'd be ruined!" + +"The work of twenty years!" whispered Aurora Lane to herself. "Twenty +years! And--ruin!" Her voice rose again. "What about us others? You're +talking about yourself, your reputation, your success--how about Don? +His _life's_ at stake. So is mine--I'd not survive it if they killed my +boy." + +"What's he to you, anyhow?" broke out Judge Henderson--"this man Brooks? +Are you in any conspiracy of his? What's under this? What's he to you? +Was he ever--has he ever----" + +"Stop!" said Aurora Lane, her voice sharp, her face cameo-cold. "Not +another word!" And even the sullen and distracted soul of the man before +her acknowledged the imperative command. "You traded him out of his +place. You're trying to trade now in your own son's life! Is that--can +that really be true of any man?" + +"Don't bait me too far!" he rejoined savagely. "Don't you go on now and +drive me into fighting these charges." + +"I don't think you would, Uncle," said the calm voice of Anne Oglesby. +"I don't think you would. + +"So this," she added softly, "is what my guardian was! _In loco +parentis!_" + +The man before her writhed in his own bitter suffering, flinging out his +hands imploringly under the lash of her words. + +"Anne! Anne!"--Aurora turned to the girl at her side--"I wish all this +might have been spared you. You're so young! But it all had to come out +some time, I suppose, and I'd rather have you learn it from me than from +Don. You've not seen him--he has not told you?" + +"No. We only had a moment--not alone--just a little while ago. They took +him away--I didn't know why, till just now. We've just heard what the +coroner's jury said. But I'll not leave him till he tells me, to, and +only then if he says he doesn't love me." + +"He could never say that!" said Aurora Lane. "But I told him he must +leave you." + +"Did he say he would?" + +"Yes, yes, of course! But when I told him that, I didn't know you; and I +did not think Don ever would know who his father was. He doesn't know +even now." + +Judge Henderson turned suddenly, catching at a thought which came to him +from Aurora's words. + +"Why should anyone _ever_ know!" he began. "If this whole matter could +be quieted down--if this case could be dismissed---- + +"Would you promise me," he turned toward Aurora--"if I could manage in +some way to get all this hushed down--if I could save the boy's +life--would you promise me, both of you, never to tell a soul in the +world--never to let anyone get a breath of this? You are the only two +that really know it at all--you said, Aurora, that even the boy doesn't +know it all. Why should he, ever? It's been hid this long, why not +longer?" + +"Anne and I, and yourself, are the only human beings in the world who +know it all," said Aurora Lane. + +"Can _you_ keep such a secret?" Judge Henderson turned more doubtfully +to Anne Oglesby, whose cold, quiet scorn had cut him even more deeply +than the bitterer words of the older woman. + +"I'd do anything for Don--anything I thought he'd be willing to have me +do. But I don't see how such a thing as this could be kept down. How can +the law be set aside?" + +"Listen here," he said, facing her, a little color of hope at last in +his face. "You don't in the least know what you've been starting here, +and you don't know anything about the remedy for it. The law? It's close +to politics, sometimes! If I fall--can't you see--I drag down plenty of +others--I drag down my own town--I drag down my whole judiciary--I've +been on the bench here myself. Oh, you two don't know all about how +things are done in politics. I'd drag down all the machinery of my own +party in this state--the thing would go even wider than that--I'd be +compromising the national administration itself. I tell you, it's ruin, +ruin, if this thing gets out. This is the very crisis of all my life--my +whole fate, my whole past and future, are in your hands now, and much +more beside--in the hands of you two women. + +"But I've got to fight the best I may," he added, walking excitedly +apart, and smiting one hand into the other. "Look here, now," and he +turned to them with a new look on his haggard face. "Your fate's _in my +hands_, too! Go beyond reason with me--threaten and goad me too far--and +I'll see what can be done to ruin you two, if you succeed in ruining +me!" + +"I've not asked that," said Aurora Lane. "I don't care about that. +What's revenge to me? And what's ruin? I've asked nothing of +you--nothing, but my boy's life, and never that till now. You gave it to +me once, unasked. I'm asking it again, now--his life--my boy's. I bore +him in grief and sorrow. It's your time of travail now. That's all." + +Judge Henderson almost wept in his own self-pity. + +"Think how horribly, how grotesquely unjust all this is," his voice +trembled--"raking up all the deeds of a man's youth. The past ought to +be _forgotten_. A man's past----" + +"Or a woman's?" said Aurora. + +"Well, yes, or a woman's. But it's men like me who have to build up +things, do things, administer things, wisely and justly. I've been a +judge on the bench here, before the world, I say. And here you two +women--why, it's ghastly, it's terrible, its _criminal_. Your dragging +me down--it--it's a hellish thing to do." + +"What? What's that?" The voice of Aurora Lane rose again. "If there's +any hell, it's for a false judge. You once sat on the bench, +yonder--yes. Oh, Judas--worse--you are ten times worse than Judas!--Drag +you down--drag all the town, all the state, all the society down? Why, +yes, I would if I could! I will, I will!" + +But, sobbing as she was, and desperate, she felt the light hand of Anne +Oglesby now swiftly patting her shoulder for silence. The girl faced her +guardian with the same light smile on her lips, cool and contemptuous. + +"Wait a minute, Uncle," she said. "A moment ago you spoke of our fate +being in your hands, too--of one ruin offset against another. Come now, +you're a trader--you have been all your life, Uncle--it seems you're +always willing to trade in the practice of the law. That's how you've +got up where you are." + +Her smile, her words, cut him beyond measure, but he clung to his idea. + +"Very well, then. Now, suppose we trade!" He spoke sneeringly, but +inwardly he was trembling, for he knew not what moment Aurora Lane might +publicly make good her threat. + +"What can he mean?" Aurora turned to Anne. But Anne, shrewder at the +time, broke in: "Leave him alone. Let him go on." + +"Well, now," said Judge Henderson, and actually half began to clear his +throat, so sweet did his new thought appear to him, "as I was +saying--there's no actual indictment yet--there's been no trial--the +coroner has only held him over. Say I'd take on this prosecution, +ostensibly--ostensibly--conditionally--ostensibly--to keep down any +suspicion; and then, later on, after several continuances and delays, +you know, and the disappearance of all the witnesses for the +state--hum!--yes, I'll say it might be done. I'm not sure it couldn't be +done more or less easily, now I come to think of it--I know Reeves, and +I know how much he'd like to be governor of this state--they have to +come downstate every once in a while for available timber. + +"So, my dear girl," he turned to Anne in virtuous triumph, "after all, +since this would do two things--save the boy's life and save my +reputation, it might not be discreditable to be what you call a +'trader'!" There really was exultation in his smile. + +"What do you want for it?" asked Anne Oglesby coldly. "Where would it +leave Don? In jail indefinitely?" + +"I could not state it more precisely! _He looks like me!_ Oh, I'll admit +that--my feeling was right, my conscience was right! He _is_ my son. +But _because_ he is and _because_ he looks like me, he's got to stay in +jail where he'll not be _seen_,--a year or two, perhaps. There can't be +any bail." + +The two white-faced women looked each into the other's face, sad-eyed. +Anne's breath came tremblingly. "It's the best we can do!" said she at +last; and Aurora, seeing how it was, nodded mutely. + +"What do you want for it, Uncle?" demanded Anne contemptuously again. + +"I want--silence!" said he harshly, at last beginning to assert himself. +"Silence! And I've got to be sure about it." + +Suddenly he pulled open a drawer in the table before him. The women +started, fearing a weapon; but it was only a book he drew out--an old, +dusty book, the edges of its leaves once gilded--a copy of the Holy +Scriptures, very old and dusty. + +Judge Henderson by accident now saw the fly leaf, for the first time in +years. It was the little Bible his own father had given him, half a +lifetime ago, when he was first starting out into the practice of the +law. On the yellowed leaf in paled ink could still be seen the +inscription his father had written there in Latin for his son: + +"_Filio meo; Crede Deo._--To my son; Believe in God!" + +"Will you swear on the Bible?" demanded Judge Henderson, "both of you, +that you'll never tell nor hint a word of this to any human being in the +world--not even to him--the boy?" + +The hand which held the dusty little volume was trembling, but Judge +Henderson was not thinking of his own father, nor of the inscription in +the little book. + +"Yes!" said Aurora Lane at once. But Anne Oglesby raised a hand for +pause. + +"I'll not swear to keep back anything from him, my husband. I'm not sure +I could." + +"Your husband----" + +"I'm going to marry him, unless he sends me away." + +"It can't be soon--it may be very long--it will be years----" Judge +Henderson was getting back a little color now, a little +self-assertiveness, a little more readiness to argue. + +"I can wait," said Anne. "But I can't buy him cheap--Don wouldn't let +me. I know who his father is, and he ought to know it, too. That's his +right." + +"Anne," said Aurora Lane, "I denied him that right. You got my secret by +accident. Can't you keep it, too? It's a heavy weight that Judge +Henderson has laid on more than one woman--a load to be borne by three +women, myself, Miss Julia, and you. But this is to save Don's life." + +"You'll swear secrecy on the Book?" broke in Judge Henderson. + +"Yes!" said Anne Oglesby at length. "If you'll swear to perjure yourself +against your oath of office as judge and as attorney--as you've said you +would--I'll swear. Is that the trade?" + +"It's the only hope he has, the only hope that you have, and the only +hope that I have. Absolute silence! Absolute secrecy! I'm going to save +him--but I'm going to save my own self, too." A slight color was in +Henderson's gray face. + +"Oh, you trader!" said Anne Oglesby, all her scorn for him now patent, +fully voiced. "You sepulcher of a man! You failure! Oh, yes, yes, I'll +swear! And I'll keep my oaths and my promises all my life, so help me +God! Lift up the Book! You, too, Aurora." + +"I swore it twenty years ago," said Aurora Lane. "I will again. You +Judas! You coward! Lift up the Book! Lift it up, so that I may see! Is +that the book they call the Bible--that tells of love and mercy, and +truth, and justice, and forgiveness of sins? Lift it up, so that I may +see!" + +They faced him, their right hands raised, and he held up the Book, his +thumb under the cover, exposing the inscription which he had not seen +for years and did not now see. + +"As you believe in God!" began Judge William Henderson. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +AURORA AND ANNE + + +When Judge Henderson passed down the office stair, and out across the +street toward the narrow little brick walk of the courthouse--which even +on that day of the week now held a certain crowd--so disturbed, so +preoccupied, was he that he gave no greeting to one or two belated +loiterers about the store fronts. + +"I reckon that young feller'll get his dose now," said old Aaron +Craybill, demi-chorus to this tragedy, following with his bleared eyes +the tall and well-groomed figure, frock-coated, top-hatted, which now +was passing toward the temple of justice. "I wouldn't like to have no +man like the Jedge after me if I'd done what that boy done. He's a-going +to get _hung_, that's what's going to happen to him. Everybody knows +Slattery ain't big enough for this case. With a 'Nited States Senator +a-prosecutin' it, though, and ten reporters from the cities--well, I +guess Spring Valley'll be heard from some!" + +"I wonder when the funer'l's goin' to be," said his neighbor, Silas +Kneebone. "Of course Rawlins is goin' to preach the sermon. He's good on +funer'ls. Seems like he's e'en--a'most as comfortin' at a funer'l as +ary minister you could get in this town--and there's quite some +ministers here, too." + +They hurried on away now presently even as Judge Henderson disappeared +in the courthouse door. A strain of music had come to their ears, the +sound of reeds and brasses. + +"Thar's the band now!" exclaimed Aaron Craybill. "Knight Templar, too! +They're goin' over to the hall to practice for the funer'l. Come on +ahead! Hurry, Silas!" + +Down the street, audible also through the open windows of Judge +Henderson's office, came the music. Jerome Westbrook had hastened from +his duties on the coroner's jury only to assume his labors as leader of +the Spring Valley Silver Cornet Band; and as it was the duty of that +band to head the procession of the Knights Templar in the funeral march +of Joel Tarbush, himself a brother of the order, it seemed that a +certain rehearsal in the infrequent effort of playing under march was +needful on this Sabbath day. + +Slow-paced, with swords reversed and even step, with eyes looking +neither to the right nor to the left, following the music of the wailing +horns, the muffled tapping of the drums, it came now into the civic +center of the town, this solemn procession. At its head walked Saunders, +master in the order, his opportunity now at hand; and behind him, in +full regalia, came many others, all the leading citizens of this +community, the pillars of the church, the props of the business +structure of this village, the leaders and formers of its customs and +its social order; all these anxious that the appearance of the secret +order in public should be in all ways above reproach, even at cost of +this quasi-public rehearsal. Joel Tarbush dead was receiving more +tribute than ever had Joel Tarbush living. + +In accordance with ritual or custom, after the actual march to the tomb, +the musicians must render that selection which has spoken for so many +hearts bowed down in weight of woe; but Jerome Westbrook knew that his +men needed practice on Pleyel's Hymn; so they gave it now tentatively, +in advance, as they passed through the public square on the way to the +hall. To the strained senses of Aurora Lane, still sitting with Anne in +the office where they had lingered, the wailing of the music seemed a +thing unbearable. She caught her hands to her ears. + +"Oh, God!" she whispered. "Oh, God! If only they would not." + +The white, sad-faced young woman at her side took her trembling hand in +her own. "It will pass," said she. "Everything passes. You have been +brave all these years. I ought to be brave too! even now--after what +you've told me." + +"And I never knew you," said Aurora Lane after a time. "Not many women +have ever said much to me." + +"Nor did I know you," rejoined Anne Oglesby. "You were a stranger to me +when I saw you now, right here--Don's mother! We were so excited, Don +and I, that I never identified you two, although--yes--I knew--something +about--about----What shall I call you--you see, maybe I'll be your +daughter yet." + +"Some call me--Mrs. Lane. Some--Miss Lane. You can't call me 'mother.' +For most part I am the village milliner, my dear--nothing more than +that. I'm nobody. But generally, I'm 'Aurora Lane.' ... Now you know it +all. I'm so sorry for you, my dear girl. You're fine--you're splendid. +You're a good girl; and you're so very beautiful. If only you belonged +with--with him--with me. It's too bad for you." + +Anne Oglesby, the more composed of the two, impulsively stroked back the +thick ruff of auburn hair from Aurora's face. "You mustn't bother about +me," she said. + +"But I must bother about you! You must give him up. My dear, my dear, it +can't be! I'm just learning now how hard that would be for him because +it's so hard for me." + +"He kissed me," said Anne Oglesby simply. "After that it was too late." + +"Why, what do you mean, my dear?" + +"He didn't have to do anything more after that," said Anne Oglesby +slowly. "He had not had time to say anything before that." + +"He should not have kissed you," said Aurora Lane. "But that was his +farewell to you." + +"It was not farewell!" said Anne Oglesby. "It was our beginning! I will +_not_ give him up. If he had not kissed me--just when he did--just as he +did--I would not have known! I'm glad!" + +Aurora Lane looked at her searchingly, slowly. + +"Poor girl!" said she. "Dear girl! He could not help loving you--I +cannot help it myself. You are the only woman in the world, I think, for +him." + +"I am not good enough," said Anne Oglesby stoutly. But then suddenly she +cast both her strong young arms about the neck of Aurora Lane and +dropped her head upon Aurora's shoulder. + +"Oh, yes I am!" she said; "oh, yes I _am_! I know I must have been meant +for him, or else--else--" + +But she did not as yet reveal the secret of the Sphinx. They both fell +silent. + +"Ah, sacrifice!" said Aurora, wearily, after a time. "Sacrifice always +for the woman. We are all so bent on that." + +"There's much more than that," said Anne Oglesby, sagely. "Besides, +sacrifice itself is not an odious thing. You sacrificed much of your +life, your happiness, your freedom. Are you sorry for that now, or +proud?" + +"Dear girl!" murmured Aurora Lane, patting her on the shoulder. "Ah, you +sweet girl! If you could only just remain always this young and +wise--and ignorant!" + +But Anne Oglesby seemed not to hear her. She was looking out of the +window musingly now, her yellow-gloved hands supported on her +tight-rolled umbrella, her hat making a half-shadow for her dark hair +and her clear, definite features. + +Now the red sun ball, having well completed its circuit over the parched +and breathless town, was sinking to yet another lurid sunset. There lay +over all a blanket of that humid heat which so often arrests activity in +communities such as this, situated in the interior, where few cooling +breezes come. The dry, dust-covered leaves of the maples hung unmoved. +Here and there, still hitched to the iron piping which served as a rail +on all sides of the courthouse fence, stood the teams of farmers still +tarrying, unwilling to face the hot ride home from town, even though the +duty of church attendance was long since past. A murder and a funeral--a +Knights Templar funeral--Spring Valley had never known the like! And +there was going to be a trial--a murder trial. Court would sit tomorrow. +What village could ask more than was the portion of Spring Valley in +these few hurrying days? And it was her boy, 'Rory Lane's; and she'd +fooled everybody--but now----! Spring Valley licked its chops as it said +"But now----" + +The two women in Judge Henderson's office sat still in the sultry heat, +looking out of the window over the sultry, sordid, solemn little town; +how long they did not know; until now there came again across the +heat-hazy spaces of the maples, over the hot tops of the two-storied +brick buildings, the sound of the wailing music--the same music which +may come from the noblest organs of the world, the same music which may +have pealed on fields of battle after heroes have fallen, speaking, as +music may, of a soul passed, of a life ended, so soon to be forgot. For +a time let the wailing of the horns, the tapping even of these unskilled +drums, record the duty of this man's fellows to give him at least a +moment's full remembrance. + +In this hot lifeless air of the somber Sabbath afternoon the burden of +sorrow, the weight of solemnity, seemed yet heavier and more oppressive. +If a soldier dies the music plays some lilting air which speaks +forgetfulness on the march home; but now, for the second time came this +reiterated mournful wailing for a passing soul. The band had learned its +lesson by now. The dirge for the dead arose in a volume well regulated +and sustained as the men marched from the hall at last for the final +trial on the street. + +To the tapping rhythm of the anthem of the dead, sometimes such a +community as this does take thought--these uniforms are justified, these +white plumes, these reversed swords are justified; for an humble man who +has passed is dignified before his fellow men; and he has had his +tribute. Sometimes at least men thus stand shoulder to shoulder, heads +bared, and forget envy, backbiting, little jealousies, forget cynicism +and ridicule. The diapason of the drums surely had its hearing. It sank +deep to the soul of Aurora Lane, striking some chord long left +unresponsive. + +"Anne!" said she, her hand lying in that of the wet-eyed girl at her +side, "it's over--for him." + +The girl nodded. But after all, Anne was young. She raised her head in +the arrogance of youth, even as there passed more and more remotely the +mournful cadence of the drums. + +"But he was old!" she said, defensively. All of youth and hope was in +her protest. + +Aurora turned upon her her own large eyes, dark-ringed today. Her mouth, +long drawn down in resolution, was wondrous sweet now as it trembled a +little in its once ripe red fulness. It became the mouth of a young +woman--not made for sorrow. "You still can hope, then?" she smiled. And +Anne nodded, bravely. So, seeing replica of her own soul, Aurora Lane +could do no more nor less than to fold her in her own arms, the two +understanding perfectly a thousand unsaid things. + +"But come!" said Anne Oglesby at last. "We must make plans. There's a +lot to be done yet, and we must start." + +"I have no money," said Aurora Lane. "I don't know what to do." + +"Money isn't everything," said Anne Oglesby, with the assurance of those +who have all the money that they need. "I suppose I have plenty of money +if my guardian will let me have it." + +"Even if your guardian allowed it," said Aurora Lane proudly, "Don would +not. He would not let you help him, nor would I, though we are +paupers--worse than that. Did you know that, Anne?" + +"I am finding out these things one by one," was the girl's reply. "But +they have come after my decision." She spoke with her own quaint +primness and certainty of her mind. + +"There's just one man could help us," said Aurora Lane, hesitating, and +coloring a trifle. "I mean Mr. Brooks, Horace Brooks. He's a good +lawyer. Some say he is the equal of Judge Henderson--I don't know. You +heard what Judge Henderson said of him. It's fear of Horace Brooks, as +much as his own conscience, that's influencing Judge Henderson." + +"And why couldn't we go to Horace Brooks then?" demanded Anne Oglesby. +"What is the objection--why can't you go to him?" + +"I'd rather not tell you," said Aurora Lane, and in spite of herself +felt the color rise yet more to her face. + +Anne Oglesby sat looking at her for some time in silence. "There are +complications sometimes, are there not?" said she. So silence fell +between them. + +The drums had passed by now. The sun had almost sunk to the edge of the +last row of dust-crowned maples. The farmers here and there below were +unhitching the sunburned horses at the courthouse rail. + +"I see," said Anne at length. "You love him--or did--Don's father. Or do +you still pity him!" + +"Who are you?" said Aurora Lane, looking at her steadfastly. "You, so +young! You talk of pity. Where have you learned so much--so soon? When +you grow older, perhaps you may find it hard _not_ to forgive. +Everything's so little after all, and it's all so soon over." + +Unsmilingly Anne Oglesby held her peace. "Why don't you want to ask Mr. +Brooks to act as our attorney?" she asked. "And who is he--I don't know +him, you see." + +Aurora did not answer the first part of her question. "I'll tell you +where Mr. Brooks' office is," said she--"you see that little stair just +across the courthouse yard? Sometimes he spends Sunday afternoon in his +office. It's--well--it's hard for me to go over there and ask him." + +"Has he--has he--ever been much to you?" asked Anne Oglesby, directly. + +"In a way, yes," said Aurora Lane, quite truthfully, but flushing red. +"Outside of my own son, he is the only man that's ever raised voice or +hand in my defense here in this town. Beyond that--don't ask me." + +Anne Oglesby did not ask her beyond that. But when she spoke, there was +decision in her tones. + +"It is no doubt your duty to go to Mr. Brooks at once. Will he too +refuse us?" + +Aurora Lane's face remained flushed in spite of herself. + +"I don't think he will refuse," said she. "But only Don's danger would +ever induce me to ask him for any help. I'll ask him--for Don and you." + +Twilight fell, and they still sat silent. There came at last the +footfalls on the office stairs, and the two arose in the dim light to +face the door. + +Judge Henderson entered slowly, hesitatingly. He half started as, +looking within the unlightened room, he saw standing silhouetted against +the window front the tall, trimly-clad figure of his ward, and at her +side, equally tall, the dim, vague outline of Aurora, clad in black. The +two stood hand in hand, and for the time made no speech. + +"I must go," said Aurora Lane, at length. + +Anne would have passed out with her, but her guardian raised a hand. "I +must ask you where you are going?" said he. + +"Not with me," said Aurora, quickly. "No, no, you must not." And so, +quickly hurrying down the stair, she herself turned into the open +street. + +"Anne," said Judge Henderson, "I am deeply distressed. This all is +terrible--it's an awful thing. Did you hear that funeral march? God! an +awful thing, right when I am in this terrible dilemma. I've just been on +the long distance 'phone trying to get Slattery--I can't find either him +or Reeves; and I've got to act before court actually opens." + +"What do you mean by a dilemma?" she asked coldly. "Does any dilemma +last long with you, Uncle, when there is any question of your own +self-interest?" + +His face flushed under the cool insolence of her tone. "It's a fine +courtesy you have learned in your schooling!" + +"Have you heard all her history now?" he asked after an icy pause. + +"Not all of it, no. Enough to admire her, yes. Enough to understand how +this town feels toward her, yes. Why don't you all burn her as a witch +in the public square?" + +"You have a bitter tongue, Anne," said he. "You are not like your +sainted mother." + +"A while ago you said I was! But my sainted mother, whom I never knew, +never found herself in a situation such as this," rejoined Anne Oglesby. +"At least, while my father lived, she had a man to fend for her. I have +none. We are women only in this case." + +"So it was your plan to marry a nameless man? You've sworn he always +shall be nameless." The man's face showed a curious mixture of eagerness +and anxiety. He wished to argue, to expound, but dared not face this +young girl with the icy smile. + +"Yes, I've sworn silence. It is a great and grave responsibility," said +she. "I'm sadder for that, that's true. But there are many things in the +world besides just being happy, don't you think? You see, I've no +dilemma at all!" + +Judge Henderson passed a hand over his forehead. He had fought hard +cases at the bar, but never had he fought a case like this. + +"Anne," said he presently, "I'm very weary. I've had a hard day. I want +you to go on up to the house now--the servants will make you comfortable +until I come. Just now I was afraid you were going on over with Aurora +Lane to her house." + +"Not yet, Uncle," said she. "Perhaps at some later time, if you cast me +out." + +He only groaned at this thrust. + +She passed, a cool picture of youth, self-possessed and calm. He heard +her foot tapping fainter as it descended the stair, listened to hear if +she might come back again. But Anne went on down the street steadily, +looking straight ahead of her. Already, it seemed to her, she had grown +old. To those who saw her she seemed a beautiful young woman. + +"That's Don Lane's girl," said one ancient to another, back of his hand. +"Lives over at Columbus. He kissed her right there on the depot +platform, this very morning. Huh!" + +"I don't blame him," rejoined the other, with a coarse laugh. "But he +ain't apt to get many more chances now. I wonder how he fooled her about +himself--and her the judge's ward, or something." + +"Nerve?" said his friend. "He's got nerve enough to a-done anything. But +I guess they got him dead to rights this time." + +"Yeh. The _town's_ got him dead to rights. No matter what the law----" +he stopped, his head up, as though sniffing at something in the air. +"Gawd!" said he. "Wasn't that music a awful thing! I can feel it in my +bones right now. It makes me feel----" + +"It makes a feller feel like doing something more'n being just sad! It +makes a feller feel like--well----" + +"Like _startin'_ something!" + +The other nodded, grimly, his mouth caved in at the corners, tight shut +now. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +THE ANGELS AND MISS JULIA + + +Anne scarcely had left the office when Judge Henderson, stepping into +the inner room, pulled open a certain door of a cabinet beneath the +washhand-stand. He drew forth a half-filled bottle of whisky, shook it +once meditatively, and poured himself an adequate drink, refreshing +himself with water at the tap. He stood for a moment, the half-emptied +glass in his hand, looking at his features in the little glass which +hung above the cabinet. + +Not an unpleasant face it seemed to him; for so slowly had the lines +come in his features, so slowly the gray in his hair, that almost he was +persuaded they were not there at all. Delayed by the mirror to the +extent of having consumed but half of his refreshing draft, yet +purposing further imbibition, Judge Henderson paused at the sound of +some person ascending the outer stair. + +It was a very halting and uncertain step that came this time, one which +seemed to double on each lift of the stair, with an accentuating +tap-tap, as of a stick used in aid. But after a time he sensed its pause +at his door. There was a rap, a faint little rap, although the door +itself was ajar. Judge Henderson discreetly returned to the cabinet his +half-finished glass of whisky and water, and stepped into the other +room. + +It was Miss Julia Delafield whom he met. + +She was standing, her hand on the knob of the door, as if seeking +support, or rather as though ready for flight. Her eyes were especially +large and luminous now, as always they were when any supreme emotion +governed her. Her cheeks were flushed in that fashion which she never +yet had learned to control. Her smooth brown hair was held tightly back +under her cool summer hat, and the hands resting on her smooth-topped +cane were well gloved. Not ill-looking she was as she stood, stooped a +trifle, bent over a bit. + +She was half a-tremble now with the excitement that she felt. To any +chance observer, even at this hour of this Sabbath day, it must have +seemed that here was only a client come with purpose of consultation +with an attorney. To the angels above who looked down on such matters as +this, it must have seemed a pathetic scene, this in which Miss Julia +figured now. To any human being knowing all the facts it must have been +apparent that this call upon Judge Henderson was Miss Julia Delafield's +great adventure. + +It _was_ her great adventure--the greatest ever known in all her life; +and she had dared it now only because of two of the strongest emotions +known to a woman's soul. These are two. They both come under a common +name. That name is love. + +It was love had brought Miss Julia hither. Love in the first place for +Dieudonne Lane--or was it, really, in the first place, love for him? For +we, who know as much as Aurora Lane knew of Miss Julia's secret--who +once saw her gazing adoringly at a certain framed portrait when she +fancied herself alone--would have known that there was more than one +mansion in the heart of the little lame librarian. + +Helpless, resigned--but yet a woman--Miss Julia loved in the first place +as every woman with any touch of normality does love in spite of all. +She had known all these years that her love was hopeless, that it was +wrong, that it was a sin--she classed it as her sin. And her sin being +her own, she hugged it to her bosom and wept over it these twenty +years--became repentant over it--became defiant for it; prayed over it +and clung to it--in short, comported herself as any woman would. And now +Miss Julia, being what she was, stood flushed, her tiding pulses rising +to her eyes, staining her fair skin deep to her very neck, as she faced +her great adventure--as she stood looking into the face she had framed +on her wall, framed on her desk, framed in her heart as well, in silver +and gold and all the brilliants and the gems of a woman's soul. + +But she was here by reason of a twofold love. Always in her heart, +since she could remember, there had been the great secondary longing for +something small to love, to hold in her arms--the desire for a child of +her own--the one thing which, as Miss Julia knew, might never be for +her. + +Indeed, this great craving had always remained unformulated, +unidentified, until that time, years and years ago, when she first saw +the baby of Aurora Lane lifting up its hands to her. So she had become +one-half a mother, at the least. + +He was half her boy, at least, he who now lay in prison. A woman is a +coward as to revealing her love for her chosen mate--she will conceal +that, deny that, to the death. But for the child her love is +different--then she becomes bold--she will defy all the world--will +force herself even into situations otherwise unthinkable. Except for her +love for Don Lane, the fatherless, Miss Julia would never have +undertaken to find a father for him. + +But that child had a father! Each must have. Ah! how must the angels +have wept over that piteous spectacle of Miss Julia in her own room, +looking smilingly at the face she saw pictured here in her own hand--the +face of one whom she held to be a great man, a noble man, a man good, +just, wise, one with love and kindness in his heart as well as brawn and +brains in his physical self. Yes, there was a father.... And he was +perfect, heroic, for her; her love being thus much blessed by that +divine blindness love works within us all. + +Now, the face which Miss Julia saw in her boudoir, the face which she +saw framed upon the wall of her library room, was the same which she saw +now close at hand! She started, flushed, trembled, finding difference +between a picture and a man. + +Judge Henderson was urbane, as always with a woman. He led her to a +seat, taking pains to turn on another clip of the electric light, which +Miss Julia suddenly wished he had not done, since now she was most +sensible of her uncontrollable blushes. + +Yes, it was a great adventure! She had never before been alone with +him--not in all her life. She had never been this close to him before. +It was somewhat cruel now; but the angels have their ways of being cruel +with us at times. + +"Miss Julia," he began with an extra unctuousness in his tones, "Miss +Julia, my dear girl, I surely am delighted to see you here. You have +never before been here, I am persuaded--this is the first time in all +our long and pleasant acquaintance. If ever in the past I have been able +to be of service to you----" + +In any conversation Judge Henderson was sure to bring the talk around to +himself, to his own deeds, his own ambitions. His was an egotism so +extreme as to be almost beyond accountability--he was a moron not in +mentality but in sense of proportion. He could not have put two square +blocks together if one of these blocks had to do with the interest of +another but himself. There are such men, and at times they go far. + +Miss Julia flushed again prettily, but she was too much the lady to +giggle or squirm or do any of those unlovable things by which the +hopeless female makes herself more hopeless. She was used to hearing +herself addressed as "Miss Julia" by all the world; but it seemed none +the less especially sweet to hear the words in these rich, full, manly +tones. (In her diary she wrote, "He addressed me in rich, full, manly +tones.") + +"Yes, I came as soon as my duties allowed me to get away today, Judge. +It was a busy day for me, although it is the Sabbath. I was classifying +some of the books. Thanks to your generosity, we have just received a +good shipment. + +"But you see, the town is all wrapped up in all these other things that +have happened--that's why I came, Judge Henderson." + +"I presume you have reference to that unfortunate young man who now lies +in prison? In what capacity then can I serve you, Miss Julia?" His tone +now was icy and reserved. + +"I came to you, Judge Henderson, because I knew I would find in you a +champion for justice. Why, all the town has come to depend on you for +almost _everything_! I suppose that is why I came--it seemed the +natural thing to do." + +Judge Henderson, regretting his half-finished glass, now impossible, +coughed behind his hand. + +"I am afraid, Miss Julia," said he, "that you don't quite know who he +is, that boy." + +"Ah, do I not! Why, he is _my_ boy, my _own_ boy!" + +"I beg pardon, but what do you mean, Miss Julia?" + +"I say he's my boy! What I say about that is privileged--it's +professional, Judge Henderson. No one else has heard me say what I am +telling you now. But he _is_ my boy--my love has gone into him, the same +as if I were his mother." + +He only stared as she rushed on. + +"I know his mother--we have been friends here since we were girls, real +friends. I'm the only friend she's got in this town--and the only fair +and kind thing this town has ever done has been to allow me to be the +friend of Aurora Lane. I suppose that's because I am only the little +lame librarian! I don't count. She doesn't count. But--well, between us +two--we've had a boy!" + +He stared, pale, as she went on: + +"Between us two, we've brought him up. We've educated him. Between us +two, we have saved our money--it wasn't much--and we've managed to give +him something of an education, something of a life more than he could +have gotten in this town. We have put him through college--we have +given him a profession--we were going to give him a start. + +"I say 'we,' and I mean that. But, it isn't the money of mine that went +into him--it's my _love_--it's the _love_ I felt for him! Why, Judge, +I've seen him grow up. I've held him in my two hands, this way, when he +was so little ... oh, very little.... So you see, he's my boy, too! + +"And so," she added inconsequently, as he made no answer, "I came to +you." (What the angels understood in Miss Julia's unspoken words then +they did not make plain to the ears of the man who heard them.) + +Judge Henderson sat astounded, looking at her steadily, unable to grasp +all the emotion which evidently she felt, unable wholly to understand an +act of clean unselfishness on the part of any human being. + +"You see," said Miss Julia tremblingly, after a time--"his father--I +never knew his father. She'd never tell me--I never asked but once. But +you see, I only _fancied_ that he had a father. I fancied I was his +mother. I fancied----" But now Miss Julia's voice failed her, and her +blushes alone spoke. + +"I see," said Judge Henderson, not unkindly, and breathing more freely, +"you fancied that you held an undivided interest in this child, this +young man." She did not see his face very plainly, did not catch his +hesitation as he engaged on this touchy theme. + +Miss Julia nodded rapidly, swallowing hard. Her face was very beautiful +indeed now. (The angels must have smiled with tears in their eyes as +they looked down upon her now and saw how pathetically beautiful she +was!) + +"And that interest is still undivided?" + +"Yes, we've not seen each other very much, Aurora and I, today, because +things have been traveling so fast, but we are--we are partners in this +trouble, as in everything else. We've got to have a lawyer, of course. +There's not much money left between us--even my next month's salary is +pledged. It cost more than we thought to get him through the graduation. +There were clothes, you know--many things." And now she flushed again +vividly. She was thinking of Don's little clothes, which once long ago +she had helped to sew; and the angels knew this, gravely. + +"He's a _splendid_ young man, our boy!" she broke out again at length. +"Can't you see that? Good in his classes--and an athlete--a splendid +one. He's such a gentleman in all his ways, Judge Henderson, a son +worthy of a father, of some good father, if only he had one! His father +died, you know, when Don was just a baby." She was not looking at him +now, not daring, as she went on. + +"But you see, we are in trouble about him. That may come to anyone. Why, +even you yourself, Judge Henderson, successful as you are--some time +even you may know such a thing as trouble. It is the common human lot. +And I have been told enough----" + +"If I were in trouble," said Judge Henderson gallantly, and with a push +of a full ounce of Monongahela back of his words, "I would go to just +some such woman as you for help. But women don't seem to see any of the +intervening obstacles that exist, do they, Miss Julia?" + +"If we did, the world would stop," said Miss Julia, simply. And spoke a +great truth. + +"None the less there are obstacles," said he, after a time. "I fear +there are insuperable ones, my dear." ("He called me 'My dear!'" wrote +Miss Julia in her diary.) + +"Why, not at all! I can't believe that, Judge. We'll manage it all in +some way, Aurora and I. And, naturally we come to you as our +champion--who should help us if not you yourself? Do I say too much, +Judge Henderson?" she inquired timidly. + +"No, not too much," said he with much modesty, "not too much, I trust. I +hope I have always had, at every stage of my own career, the confidence +of all my friends in this community." + +There was a little pause. "But also, Miss Julia," he continued, raising +a hand, "wait a minute--wait a minute. In order to deserve the +confidence of all my friends I have always been forced to adhere to that +course which to me and my own conscience seemed just and right. I will +not undertake to disguise the truth, Miss Julia, I am already retained +for the prosecution of this case. I must not listen to you coming to ask +me to act for the defense. That at least is the present status of +affairs. I shall be guided all along by my sense of right and duty. At +present I cannot take the case for the defense." + +She was feeling at the head of her stick, stumblingly, half rising. +Suddenly it seemed to her that the walls were closing in upon her, that +she must get away, get out into the open. + +"That's cruel!" she exclaimed. + +"At times it is necessary for us to be cruel," said Judge Henderson, +virtuously. "If I am cruel, I regret with all my heart that it must be +cruelty to one whom so long I have held in such esteem as I do you. We +have long known your life, how exquisitely ordered it has been. I have +never known before, of course, how much it was wrapped up with this +young man's life. I am astonished at what I have learned. It is only my +own high standard of honor, my dear--that same standard to which I have +unflinchingly adhered at whatever cost it might entail upon me--which +enables me to refuse any request that you might make me. Now I am pained +and grieved, I am indeed." + +A tear stood in the corner of Judge Henderson's eyes. It was an argument +which he always had at hand if need were--an argument which had won him +perhaps more than one case before a jury. And now he felt himself, as +always, the central figure, appealing to a jury, extenuating, +explaining, expounding. Moreover, he felt himself misjudged, an injured +man. He did not care at the time to divulge any of the plan he but now +had confided to Aurora and Anne. + +"I have hurt you!" said Miss Julia, impulsively. "Oh, I would never mean +to do that." She held out a hand swiftly, in part forgetful of her +errand. + +He took her hand in both his own--small and white it was, and veined +somewhat, ink-stained as to some of the fingers--a hand which rested +trembling in his own. (Now, what the angels saw is not for mortals to +inquire! "He took my hand in both his own!" wrote Miss Julia in her +diary.) + +Judge Henderson gallantly clasped the hand and drew it a trifle closer +to his bosom. "You believe me, do you not, my dear?" said he. "It +grieves me to give you any pain. As for me, it does not matter." He +dashed the tear from his eye. + +But now Miss Julia's courage failed her. Her double sacrifice for the +child and the child's unknown and uncreated father had failed! She +limped toward the door. Her great adventure was ended. + +But, at least, she had been alone in the presence of the great man whom +she had loved these many years. And she had found him in all ways +worthy! He was still a hero in her eyes, a great man, a noble man--yes, +she was sure of that. + +How must the angels have sighed as Miss Julia stumbled down the stair +with this thing in her heart! For, in all her heart, she knew that, had +she been young as Aurora Lane once was young, and had such a man as this +asked of her anything--anything--she would have given! She would have +yielded gladly all she had to yield--she would have given her life into +his keeping.... For of such is the kingdom of love, if not the kingdom +of heaven. And as to that last let the angels say, who watched poor Miss +Julia as she stumbled down the stair. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +HORACE BROOKS, ATTORNEY AT LAW + + +As for Aurora Lane, at about the time Miss Julia was leaving Judge +Henderson's office, she herself was in the office of another lawyer upon +the opposite side of the square--the man Henderson hated and feared more +than any other human being. + +Horace Brooks, after his usual fashion, was spending his Sunday +afternoon in his legal chambers. He lived as a bachelor, the sole +boarder of a family far out toward the edge of town--a family that had +no social standing, but that never became accustomed to the ways of Mr. +Brooks, who came and went, ate, slept, and acted, as one largely in a +trance, so occupied was he with thoughts of his business affairs. Never +was a soul less concerned with conventions or formalities than he; nor +one more absorbed, more concentrated of purpose in large things. + +He was sitting now, as often he might have been seen to sit, tilted back +in his chair, with his feet on his table, where rested in extreme +disorder many volumes of the law, some opened, face-down, others piled +in untidy masses here and there. Mr. Brooks had no clerk and no partner. +When he cited an authority in his library he left the book where last +it was used, and searched for it pellmell if later need arose. This same +system applied to every other article of use in the entire office--it +was all chance medley, and the pursuit of the desired article was short +or long in accordance with the luck of the searcher. + +Around him on the floor lay countless burned matches, a pipe or two +which scattered tobacco. The floor itself was covered layers deep with +the ruins of two Sunday papers--at which form of journalism Horace +Brooks openly scoffed, but none the less ruthlessly devoured after his +own fashion each Sabbath afternoon. + +He sat with his bearded chin sunk in his shirt bosom, his mild blue eye +seeing nothing at all, his hands idle in his lap. He was concluding his +Sabbath as usually he did, in the midst of the scenes surrounding his +daily toil throughout the week. He started at the sound of Aurora Lane's +knock on the door. + +"Come in!" he called. + +He supposed it was some young lawyer from one of the offices down the +hall, where struggling students, or clerks from the abstract offices, +sometimes brought knotty problems for him to solve. These folk still +lived in the rear of their offices--as indeed Horace Brooks but recently +had done himself. A disorderly couch still might have been found in the +room beyond, fragments of soap, a soiled towel or so, a broken comb, a +sidelong mirror--traces of his own humble and arduous beginnings in the +law. + +But he turned half about now, and dropped his feet to the floor as he +heard the rustle of a gown. He sat half leaning forward as Aurora Lane +entered. He had small training in the social usages--he did not always +rise when a woman entered the room, unless some special reason for that +act existed. So he sat for just a time, and looked at her, the fact of +her presence seeming slowly to filter into his brain. Then quickly he +stood and went forward to her, his rare smile illuminating his homely +features. + +"Come in," said he. "Will you be seated? Why have you come here?" He was +simple and direct of habit. + +Aurora Lane looked at him not only with the eyes of a client, but with +the eyes of a woman. She saw plainly the quick look of eagerness, the +swift hopefulness which came into his eyes. + +But she must forestall all that. "Mr. Brooks," said she, "I've come to +you for help--I need your professional services." + +He sat looking at her gravely for some time, the light in his face +slowly fading away. "Help?" said he. "As how?" He was of the plain +people, and at times lapsed into the colloquial inelegancies of his +early life. But he needed little divination now to know that Aurora +Lane came to him for no personal reasons that offered him any hope. + +"It's about my boy," said Aurora. "You know--Don." + +He nodded slowly. "Yes, I know--the coroner's jury has held him over." + +"But he's in jail." + +"Yes, they had that right--to hold him for the investigation of the +grand jury. And this is a grand jury matter, as you must know. Court +opens tomorrow. The grand jury sits tomorrow morning. At least the +preliminaries won't take long. But the outlook is bad, Aurora--they mean +to get him if they can." + +Aurora Lane for a third time that day produced from her shabby pocket +book the little worn bill which represented her sole worldly fortune. A +flush rose to her temples now as she held it hesitatingly between her +fingers. + +He saw it very plainly, and caught something of her meaning in the +pause. A slow red came also into his own face. + +"You'd better keep that for the present," said he slowly after a time. +He pushed her fingers back with the bill. "I know this is professional, +but I can't take money from you now--not that money--because I know very +well you've got none you can afford to spend. Aurora, there's no use +trying to have secrets from me--we know each other too well." + +"But what right do you leave me then to come to you?" + +"I don't know that you have any right to come to me at all," said he +slowly. "I've my own right to decline to deal with you at all in +business matters. And you come here on business." + +Aurora sank back into her chair. "Then what could I do?" she said +faintly. + +"Have you tried Henderson?" + +"Yes," she said, faintly, and with much reluctance, "I did." + +"Why, if you wanted me?" + +"I can't tell you that. But I did. He refused to have anything to do +with the defense for my boy." + +"Very naturally--very naturally. Didn't you know he would before you +went to ask him? Couldn't you guess that?--couldn't you have figured out +that much for your own self? Didn't you know that man? He's not with the +under dog." + +"It seems not," said Aurora Lane, wearily. "So I came to you." + +"Even after last night?" + +"Yes, after last night. At first it was hard to think of it." + +"Aurora," said he, "I reckon I'm not a very practical sort of man. If I +were--if I were a man like Judge Henderson, say, I'd clamp on the screws +right now. I'd try to get you to alter what you said to me last night." + +"It wouldn't be like you. You've never yet--in all our lives--done +anything like that." + +"No? I'm second choice--that's my fate, is it--that's as high as I get? +Yes, I reckon that's about a fair estimate of me--I'm a typical second +choice man. I suppose I'll have to accept that fact." And now he laughed +uproariously, though none too happily. + +"Well, Aurora," said he after a time, "you have broken in here, +anyway--just as I broke down your gate last night in my own clumsiness. +Suppose we call it quits. Let's not figure too close on the moving +consideration. There's nothing you can give Horace Brooks, attorney at +law, in the way of pay. And you need Horace Brooks--_only_ as attorney +at law. What can I do for you?' + +"I don't know, but all that can be done now for him you can do. I've +nowhere else to go. It wasn't easy for me to come here, but I'd make any +sacrifice for my boy." + +"Sacrifices are at a discount in a lawyer's office. I don't ask you to +reconsider your decision, as to me--as to me as your husband. But +speaking of sacrifices, I only point out to you that so far as I'm +concerned as a lawyer in this town, I might as well be your husband or +your lover as your lawyer of record in this case! Since the trial +yesterday, and my walk home with you last night, there'll be plenty +who'll think so anyway. I may be held as a man worse than I ever +was--and neither of us gain by that." + +"That may be so," said she, bending her face forward in her hands. "God! +What a trial, what a risk, what a peril I am to myself and everyone I +meet! I've brought loss, suspicion, wrong on you--you who're noble! And +after twenty years----" + +"Yes, Aurora. Twenty years outlaws a claim in the law--for men--but not +for women. Now, I take on those twenty years of yours when I take on +this case. I'm clear about that. I can see this thing straight enough. +This town will go into two camps. Ours is the hopeless one, as things +stand now. We are the under dog. If I took this case--maybe even if I +won it--I'd be hated by the men and snubbed by the women of this town. +Now, I see all that clearly. And speaking of pay----" + +"Oh, if you would," she exclaimed, leaning toward him, her hands +extended, "I'd do anything you asked me. Do you understand +that--_anything_!" + +She paused. In the silence the little clock on the mantel ticked so loud +it seemed almost to burst the walls. He sat for a long time motionless, +and she went on, leaning yet more toward him. + +"I've thought it all over again," she said desperately. "I'd--I'd begin +it again--I'd do anything--I'd do _anything_ you asked me----Why, I've +nothing--nothing--oh, so little to give! But--as to what you said last +night--I've thought of that. I'm ready--what is it that you wish?" + +He looked at her dumbly for a long time, and she thought it was in +condemnation. For almost the first time she voiced in her +life--continually on the defensive. + +"I don't understand it all," said she. "I've tried very hard since then. +I was so young. I didn't know much at first--I didn't feel that it was +all so wrong--I didn't know much of anything at all, don't you see?" + +Now he raised his great hand, his lips trembling. "Just wait a bit, my +dear," said he. "We'll take what you've said as proof of your love for +your own son. We'll let it stop right there, please. We'll forget what +happened last night at your broken gate--we'll forget what's happened +just now inside my broken gate. I told you if I ever married you I'd do +it on such a basis that I could look you in the face, and you could me. +That's the only way, Aurora. There's not any other way. I reckon I'll +always love you--but only on the square." + +"But what can we do--you refuse to help us--and the boy's innocent!" + +"Wait, my dear," said he slowly. "I've not a woman's wit, so I can't +leap on quite so fast as you do. A lawyer reads word by word. I'm still +in the preliminaries, not even into the argument of this case yet." + +"But you have refused--you have said it meant ruin to you--I know--I +mean that to everyone." + +"You've meant a great deal more than that to me, my dear," said Horace +Brooks, "and no matter what you mean--no matter what my decision may do +to my future--no matter what it may cost me in my larger ambitions, +which I entertain, or once did, the same as any other man here in +America--why, let it go." + +"But what are you going to do? I'm costing you everything, +everything--and I can give you nothing, nothing--and I'm asking still of +you everything, everything." + +"Tut, tut! Aurora," said Horace Brooks, "I'm going to take this +case--for better or for worse! Didn't I tell you I wanted to stand +between you and trouble--any trouble? A man likes to do things for a +woman--for the woman he loves." + +She sat for a long time, white, motionless, looking at him. + +"The pay----" she began stumblingly. + +"I'd rather not hear you say anything about that," he replied simply. +"You did not say anything at all. This is the _office_ of Horace Brooks, +attorney at law. As I understand it, I'm duly retained for the defense +in the case of the state against Dieudonne Lane, charged with murder." + +The blood came pouring back into Aurora Lane's face as she straightened. +"You are a good man," said she. "I always knew it. I----" + +He raised a hand once more. "These are business hours," said he, "and +believe me, no time is left for anyone to do anything but work on this +case." + +"He's innocent, of course. He couldn't have done this--who was it, do +you think?" + +"Oh, now, I don't _know_ who it was. It may have been Don himself. All +men are human. A lawyer has to look all the facts in any case square in +the face." + +"But, my God! You can't think--you don't believe----" + +"Please let me act as attorney. Now, I'm to blame in a sort of way in +this case. I started a good deal of this trouble. I gave your boy the +advice which threw him in jail--when I told him to thrash any man who +said a word against his mother--you. He's made a certain threat or two. +He's been found in very compromising circumstances indeed. The case +looks bad against him. Yes, he needs a lawyer--but he's got one! We'll +fight it through. You see," and he smiled again his wide and winning +smile, "all my life, I've had a sort of leaning for the under dog. + +"Now," said he, abruptly rising, "I'm in this case, and I'm going to +take my chances. I've lost my chances on the Senatorship of the United +States. I've kept my promise to Henderson and I've sent word to our +central committee. I'm the under dog. But before all this is over, the +people of Spring Valley are going to know there are two sides to this +fight--and all these fights! + +"Now, listen, Aurora," he went on in his careless paternal fashion, as +he walked, his great head drooped, his hands thrust into his pockets. +"Figure it over. Last night we three walked home together--before them +all. Everybody saw us. Everybody saw Tarbush. It can be proved that Don +left us and went over, following after Tarbush. It can be proved that he +was seen running away from that place--at just the wrong time--in just +the wrong way." + +"But it was someone else who killed him--it wasn't my boy----" + +"You can't convince a jury by assertions. If it was not this man, they +will ask, Who was it? Who was the other man, and why do you think so? +Now, who _was_ that other man, Aurora?" + +"I don't know." + +"Neither do I. But we've got to find him. There's no trace of him. But +as for Don, the boy, it's a trail, a plain one, and it leads----" He +threw out his hands widely, as though reluctant to name the truth. + +"But," he went on, "if he isn't guilty someone else is guilty. Under +this criminal act in all its phases there lies some cause, of +course--there is some criminal, of course. There has been crime +committed, a very beastly, brutal sort of crime, almost inhuman--and +that was done by some man. If I could put my hand on that man, why +then----" + +"It would mean life and happiness to me. It would mean satisfaction to +you?" + +"More than that," he smiled. "It would mean the life of your boy--many +years yet for you and him together--once I'd have said maybe it might +mean six years in the United States Senate for me. I don't know--I can't +tell. The chances now are rather that even if I clear the boy, it means +I'll have to close up this office and go somewhere else to hunt a law +practice. But we'll take our chances." + +"You are a great man, Horace Brooks," said Aurora Lane; and there was a +sort of reverence in her tone. "Even after what has been between us, I +can say that. Oh, I so much like--I so much admire a man who is not +afraid, and who doesn't parley and weigh and dicker with himself when it +comes to any hard decision. I like a brave man, a good man. You'll +understand." + +He raised a hand, a large hand, nervous, full-veined, gnarled, awkward, +a hand never in all his life to be freed from toil's indelible imprint. + +"Please don't," said he. + +"But how can I say what I want?" said she. "I've always wanted to pay +all my debts--that's to make up for all my faults, don't you see? I must +be scrupulous--because----" + +"Yes," said he, "I see. I've seen that for more than twenty years, ever +since I've known you. Because that's true of you, and is true of so few +women, so very few, is why I wished last night--that you were a widow! + +"Now, that's about all. When you _wish_ that you could pay this +debt--which isn't any debt so far--you've paid it, so far as I'm +concerned. It is the _wish_ to pay your debts that amounts to moral +principle--and to business success too--in this world. + +"And so," he laughed again his great resounding laugh, and thrust out +his hand toward her, "I reckon you can call yourself something of a +business success tonight after all. Now go home, and see that you +sleep." + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +AT CHURCH + + +That Sunday evening Aurora Lane sat alone in her dingy little home. The +walls seemed to her close as those of any prison. She found about her +nothing of comfort. For once the little white bedside, all her life her +shrine, failed in its ministration. There rose in her heart a great +vague hunger for gregarious worship--the sort which all these others had +freely offered every week of all their lives--that same wish for +gregarious worship on which are based all the churches, all the creeds, +of all the world. As never in her life before Aurora felt now that she +could no longer fight alone, in solitude--she needed something--she +needed the sight of other faces, the touch of other hearts; needed the +assemblage, the crowd--needed, in short, the world _en masse_, as we all +do. She had lived without association and without sympathy too long. Now +her starved nature at last rebelled. + +So, having prayed faithfully, Aurora Lane rose not wholly comforted; and +therefore she resolved to break the habit of her life, as she had lived +it more than twenty years in this little town. In all that time she had +not been within the door of any church, but now she felt that she must +go--must be at least in part like to all these others on this evening of +the Sabbath day. + +The main note of such a community as Spring Valley is that of a resigned +acceptance of life. This means a drab middle course, of small heroics, +which yet does not debar from a quiet sympathy and mutual understanding. +This in turn essentially implies some manner of religious belief, for +the most part of the passive, un-investigative sort. Without doubt the +church of this or that denomination--and in any such community there +will be many--is the club and the court alike to those who maintain its +beliefs--aye, and it is their hope and stay as well. + +Aurora chose the largest church, where there was most apt to be the +largest congregation. Passing there, she had heard the organ roll in its +moving appeal. It seemed to her that she must hear music or she must +starve, must die. The drain on her nature now had been so great that, +much as every impulse drew her to yonder other edifice, the one with +iron bars where lay her own son, a prisoner, she could not go there, +could not see him again, until she herself had had restoration of some +of the forces of her own life. She wanted music--she wanted light--she +wanted the presence, close, near to her, of other human beings. Surely +they must know--surely they too must some time have suffered, have +grieved, have yearned. + +The slow life of the little town, which the excitement of this +extraordinary Sabbath had so largely diverted from its usual channels, +now began to reassemble and to trickle toward the conventional meeting +grounds. Those who had been delinquent at the morning services were at +least tonight devout. + +There is a sort of life of affairs, a sort of business life, of any +church in any community. Thus, there may be many meetings beside that of +the Sabbath day, in each church in any community. There must fall the +practice of the choir, weekly, usually of Wednesday, sometimes of +Saturday evenings as well, if the anthem prove especially difficult of +mastery. + +As to the choir proper, there must of course be the soprano--not always +elocutionist, as was the soprano in this church of Spring Valley--but +always well-clad, most frequently with long and glossy curls of chestnut +and the most modish hat of any in the church. Most tenors are bank +clerks or cashiers. It is the function of the tenor in any such choir to +escort the soprano to her home. The contralto is for the most part +married, beginning to show _embonpoint_. She is brunette, with wide and +pleasant mouth; is able to make excellent currant jelly, of which she +gives her neighbors generously. Her attire is apt to be not quite so +well-appointed as that of the soprano, which indeed should not be +expected of the mother of three, the arrangement of those white starched +collars in a part of each Sunday's task. The basso may sometimes be a +school teacher, yet some of the best have been owners of livery barns, +no more; modest folk withal, and covetous of the back seat in the choir. + +To this essential personnel of the church choir there may be added +others, supplements or understudies for this or that musical part, young +men with large cameo pins in their cravats, young women with spectacles. +All these who sing soprano or contralto, at least all who still are +young, must be taken home after services--not only the regular services +of the church, but those of the choir practice midway of the week or at +the week's close. And thereto, one must count the weekly prayer +meetings, mostly for the old, but for the young in part. + +It is, therefore, easy to be seen that the vestibule of any Spring +Valley church of a Wednesday evening, sometimes of a Thursday evening, +quite often a Saturday evening, and always of a Sunday evening, must +hold a certain lay representation of the community. It is, or once was, +one of the proper functions of the village church to act as social +meeting ground. Practically all of the respectable marriages in Spring +Valley actually were contracted, at least as to the preliminary stages, +under the eaves of this or that church. + +The vestibule was crowded this Sunday evening, as was customary, when +Aurora Lane, quite alone, turned in from the sidewalk and ascended the +eight broad wooden steps up to the church door. Passing thence to the +inner door, she felt the silence which came upon the boys and young men +who loitered there, waiting for the entrance or the exit of those of the +opposite sex. She felt the stares which fell upon her--felt, rather than +saw, the icy disapproval which greeted her even here, even among these. +But she passed by, entered the house of worship, and sank into a seat +very far back in the long, bare, ghastly, rectangular room. + +Before or after the entry of Aurora Lane, there failed not in coming +those who sit in judgment upon the lives of their fellows--the baker, +the butcher, the school teacher, the hanger of paper, the maker of +candlesticks as well. All these were here, parts of the life of this +community. Miss Julia was not there, as Aurora Lane discovered. She +wondered dully if it had not been her duty to go around to the library +and ask for Miss Julia; but the longing for personal solitude had been +as strong in her heart as the longing for silent human companionship, so +she had come alone. In truth Miss Julia was recreant tonight. She was +alone in her own room--alone with her diary--that is to say, face to +face with the picture of the same man whom Aurora Lane had met that +afternoon. + +In the slowly filling pews there reigned now silence, broken only by the +shuffling footfalls of the arrivals, that uneasy, solemn silence which +holds those seated and waiting for the services at church. A school +teacher who was born in the East somewhere leaned her head forward on +the back of the seat before her, and with a certain ostentation prayed, +or seemed to pray. Others would have done this very fetching thing as +well, but lacked the courage, so sat coldly, stiffly, unhappily, bolt +upright, awaiting the arrival of the minister. + +The tenor came after a time, soon following the soprano, models alike of +social graces and correct attire. They passed modestly, seemingly +unregardful of the glances bent upon them. The bass singer was more +conscious of his ill-fitting clothes as he hurried up the aisle, his +Adam's apple agitated, betokening his lack of ease. The soprano by this +time was shaking out her curls, fussing among the music sheets at the +top of the organ, pushing back the stool, twirling its top about--all +the while still quite highly unmindful of the gazes of the audience. The +contralto came last, her brow furrowed with the thought that perhaps she +had not left the cold meat on the table where her husband, the doctor, +would find it when he came back from the country. + +Came also in due and proper time the minister of church, the pillar of +it all, bearing in his hand, rolled in its leather case, the sermon +which he had written last Thursday morning--and which perforce he had +been obliged wholly to rewrite since Saturday at noon! For, be sure, +this sermon must take up the issues of the day--must stand for the +weekly platform of the town's morality. The eyes of all now were bent +upon the little roll of leather in the preacher's hand. They knew what +must be there. In a way they moistened their lips. This was why the +attendance was so large and prompt tonight. + +But Aurora Lane, unskilled in any of these things, the prey to so many +conflicting emotions at this hour, a novice in the house of God, sat +silent, her hands folded, well enough aware she was not welcomed by +those who saw her there, yet craving of them, dumbly, anguished, all +their tolerance in her time of need. + +Now the organ rolled after its fashion. There were voices not too highly +skilled, perhaps, yet after all productive of a certain melody. The +music softened the ice of Aurora Lane's heart. She felt that after all +she was a human being, as these others all about her. Was not this +anthem universal in its wording? Did it not say "Come unto Me"? Did it +not say something about "All ye"?--something about "Whosoever"? And +Aurora Lane, all her life debarred from this manner of human +classification, felt her heart tremble within her bosom as she heard +these universal, all-embracing words. Those about her, righteous, +virtuous, heard them not at all, because they had been sung so oft +before. + +The text of the evening matters little. Everyone there, excepting Aurora +Lane, knew that the real text was the red-handed young criminal lying in +the prison. + +The preacher invoked the wrath of God upon him who had raised his hand +against the life of one of the town's beloved. He read large lessons as +to right living, educed all proper morals from these events, so +startling, which had come upon this peaceful town. In short, he preached +what manner of sermon he must have preached in this manner of church and +this manner of town. At times his voice was low and tense, at times his +tones grew thunderous. And every word he said he felt was true, or +thought was true, or hoped to be the truth; because he himself had +written it; and this was the Lord's day; and these were the services +wherein the Lord is worshiped regularly. + +But the music of the anthem remained in Aurora Lane's soul, so that she +was practically unconscious of all this. Her mind was vague, dazed. She +did not know her son had been tried and found guilty. The words clung in +her heart; "All ye"; "Whosoever." And presently they sang yet another +hymn, and in it again were the words, "Come unto Me!" There was great +emotional uplift in all Spring Valley this day. The minister felt the +emotion, here upon the souls of his audience. He prayed for what he +termed an awakening. + +But Aurora was not awakened. On the contrary, for a time her strained +senses seemed dull, relaxed. Only she heard the music, only the Divine +words still lingered in her consciousness. It seemed but a moment to her +before she saw all the others rising noisily, opening hymn books, for +the final hymn. She herself therefore rose and stood silently, her hands +folded before her, her eyes fixed forward. They sang a dismissal hymn. +Perhaps there were some who really praised God, from Whom all blessings +flow. The minister raised his hands in that benediction which sent them +all away full of a sense of duty done, albeit a trifle guilty as to that +moral awakening regarding which the minister righteously had upbraided +them. + +All this was but the usual and regular experience of the congregation. +To this woman, this outcast, the unconscious object of the wrath so +lately uttered from the pulpit, it had been a great and gracious +experience. Yes, she said to herself, she had been one of these others! +She was within sight and touch of other women. There were boys and +girls, young human beings, close to her, all about her. And nothing had +happened to her after all! + +Her precious words, assimilated rather from the hymns than from the +sermon, were uppermost in her consciousness as, absorbed, almost +unseeing, she stepped out once more into the vestibule. "All ye ... +_All_ ye...." + +Many passed her; none addressed her; a few drew aside their gowns as she +came near. All stared. A sort of commotion therefore existed in the back +portion of the vestibule as she emerged. The eyes of many young men +were upon her boldly, curiously, insultingly, perhaps--she did not know. + +It is a part of the formula of village life in such a community as +Spring Valley, for the young men thus lingering in the vestibule to +accost the maidens of their choice as they emerge from the body proper +of the church building. The youth steps forward--preceding any rival if +he may--removes his hat, at least in part, and having gained the +maiden's eye, speaks the unvarying phrase, "May I see you home tonight?" +Whereupon the young lady, smiling if favorably disposed to him, is +expected to take his arm in sight of all; and they thus, arm in arm, +descend the eight wooden steps to the sidewalk, and so walk away +undisturbed. Thus there gradually ensues a general pairing off of all. +The swain or the maid left alone is not rated of the social elect. This +is the selecting place of the sexes, far more than the sacred parlor +with its horsehair chairs and its album midway on the table of the +marble top. + +But now, as the little assemblage in the vestibule dissipated, there +came an added commotion, not at the rear, but at the front of the +vestibule. Someone was pushing on inside of the door--someone who +apparently did not belong there. + +It was the half-witted son of Ephraim Adamson, John, commonly called +Johnnie, the idiot! Why he had come hither, why he was allowed to come, +none might say, nor why he came unattended by any of his kin as was the +usual custom. But none molested him. A bold youth said "Hello, Johnnie," +and Johnnie respectfully took off his hat to him with an amiable grin. +They would have mocked him had they dared, but in truth none knew what +to do with him. + +When Aurora Lane had passed in part the gauntlet of the loitering +youths, and was about to step down the stair into the street, she felt a +heavy hand fall on her arm. Then a peal of laughter rose back of +her--laughter on the threshold of the church itself. For what the +half-wit did was what he had seen these others do. Sidling up to her, +his hat off, he said, "May I see--may I see you home this--this +evening?" + +This was accounted the greatest jest, the most unfailingly mirthful +thing in the recountal, ever known in the annals of Spring Valley. + +Aurora Lane started back from him in sudden shocked loathing, swiftly +resentful also of the mocking laughter that she heard from those who +still stood within the sanctuary. Sanctuary? Was there such a place as +sanctuary for her in all the world? Was there any place where she might +be safe, where she might be unmolested? + +"Go on away!" she said sharply, and would have hurried down the stair. +She looked this way and that. There was not a man to whom she might +appeal as her champion--not one! She must trust herself. + +"Go along!" said she. But actually she saw tears in the eyes of the +half-witted giant now. "No, Johnnie; but I'll walk with you with these +others as far as the corner of the square." + +"All right," said he. "I'll do--I'll do that." A wide gap opened in the +ranks of the slow procession on the sidewalk now as these two joined in. +Not too wide, however, for there were certain ones who must keep track +of all details regarding this epochal event. + +"Where is your father, Johnnie?" asked Aurora Lane, quietly and +distinctly, so that all might hear. + +"He--he--I don't--I don't know. I ain't--I ain't been home. I'm out!" +said Johnnie. + +"You've not been home? What do you mean?" + +"Wasn't there--wasn't there a funer'l for somebody today?" he asked +mysteriously. "I can whip any man in Jackson County. My pa said so. +We've--we've done it--we'd done it then if he--if he hadn't pitched on +to me. He done that." + +A sudden terror caught Aurora Lane's soul as she realized that the +addled mind of this half-wit was more than to a usual extent gone wrong. +She feared him with every fiber in her body. She stepped aside quickly +as he made a loutish thrust at her arm, as though to pinch her. + +"I'll pinch you!" said he. "You know why?" + +"No, don't! Go away!" she exclaimed, and pushed out her hand. + +"'Cause--'cause I like you!" said the half-wit. "That's why!" + +Then for a time those who crowded up at the rear heard little, until he +resumed. + +"Oh, I know a lot more I could tell you some time. I ain't--I ain't been +home at all. I'm just looking round. Ain't no one can stop me. There was +some sort of--of funer'l, wasn't there, in town today? Me and my father, +we can lick ary two men in Jackson County." + +He would have made some sort of rude approach once more. But now even +the tardy chivalry of these men of Spring Valley came back to them. Two +or three stepped in between him and Aurora Lane. "Here, you," said the +voice of one, "that'll do! Quit it now." + +Aurora Lane did not have time to thank her rescuers. The painful +situation was relieved suddenly. Just as they were turning at the corner +of the public square there hurried up a man, an oldish man, untidy even +in his Sunday garb, half running toward the group which now he saw +approaching. + +"Hello, Pa," exclaimed the half-wit, and laughed long and loud. "I +didn't come home," said he. "I'm--I'm out!" + +The sad face of Ephraim Adamson was seen by all, as he pushed in among +them and took his son by the arm. They walked away briskly now +together, Johnnie looking back over his shoulder. + +But now, to the surprise of all--to her own surprise as well, so sudden +was her resolve--Aurora Lane hurried after these two. + +"Mr. Adamson," said she, "wait, don't whip him--I'm not angry--I +understand." + +Adamson halted for just a moment. "He's been away all day," said he, his +face showing no resentment of her presence. "I didn't know they let him +out last night--he didn't come home. I began looking for him as soon as +I knew he was out--I thought he might be hiding in the fields--he does +sometimes. He always runs away whenever he gets a chance. I'm sorry if +he's done wrong--has he been bad to you?" + +"I understand everything," said Aurora Lane. Many heard her say that. +"Don't mind. Tomorrow, will you both be in town?--I might talk to you." + +"No, Ma'am," said Adamson briefly. "He can't come any more. I may be +here. What do you want of me--after what I've said--after what I've done +to you? And here you come and bring him back to me." + +His own face showed whitish blue in the flicker of the great arc light. + +"Ma'am," he went on again, "there's a lot about you--you're some woman +after all. Where have you been--at church?" + +"Yes," said Aurora Lane, "I was at church." + +"I ain't been there in years," said Eph Adamson sadly. + +"Neither have I," rejoined Aurora Lane, "twenty years, I think--perhaps +more." + +He gazed at her now out of his old, bleared, sad eyes. "I wouldn't of +been here now but for what's happened," said he. "Already I was sad--and +I was drunk before I was. And I was--well, I felt like I was a rebel, +that was all, yesterday. That boy of yours looked so fine, I couldn't +stand it. Look at mine! I done wrong, Ma'am. I said what I had no right +to say. I'm sorry, clean through--with all my heart I'm sorry for what I +done yesterday." + +She made no answer to him, and he went on. "It seems like some folks was +sort of born under a cloud, don't it? I'm one of them, I reckon. All +this has been my fault. I'm sorry as I can be. Can't you forgive me, +Miss Lane, can't you forgive me any?" + +"You didn't hear the anthem," said Aurora Lane, "because you were not in +church. It said 'Whosoever.' It said 'All ye.'" + +"In some ways," said Eph Adamson slowly--they had been for some time +quite apart from the others, walking on slowly--"it seems like you and +me was living our lives pretty much alike, don't it, Miss Lane? It's +funny, ain't it--we hadn't either of us been to church--not in twenty +years!" + +None the less, as of old, these others passed by upon the other side, +and left unattended those whose wounds were grievous. + +At the corner of her street Aurora Lane paused. "Good-by, Mr. Adamson," +said she. "Good night. I don't want to be unjust to anyone. I'm going to +try not to blame you--I'd like to forgive all the world if I could. I'm +in great trouble now." + +He broke out in a sullen rage. "Forgive? Do that if you can," said he. +"I can't. Maybe a woman can--but forgiving ain't in my line. Well, I'd +give anything I could in the world if I hadn't said what I did yesterday +right there on the public square. All this has come out of that--this +whole trouble. You're different from what I thought. You're a good +woman. I take off my hat to you." + +"I take off my hat to you," mowed the idiot also, imitating what he saw +and heard.... "May I see you home--may I see you home tonight? I'm--I'm +out--I was out all last night. They can't pitch on us. Whip any man in +Jackson County. Good night--good night, Ma'am. I'm sorry--I'm sorry, +too." + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +AT THE COUNTY JAIL + + +Neither Judge Henderson nor his ward attended church services this +Sunday evening, the former because of a certain physical reaction which +disposed him to slumber, the latter because she had other plans of her +own. The great white house, with its wide flanking grounds, where Judge +Henderson had so long lived in somewhat solitary state, was now lighted +up from top to bottom; but presently a light in an upper window +vanished. + +Anne Oglesby tiptoed down the stair side by side with the housekeeper. +She cast a glance of inquiry into the front parlor, where, prone upon a +large couch, was Judge Henderson--rendering audible tribute to Morpheus. + +"He's violating the town ordinance about the muffler cut-out," said Anne +smilingly to the housekeeper. "Oh, don't wake him--I'll be back +presently--tell him." + +She hurried through the yard and down the street toward the central part +of the town. The streets about the square now were well-nigh deserted, +since most folk were in the churches. Her own destination was a square +or two beyond the courthouse, where stood another brick building of +public interest; in short, the county jail. + +It was the duty of the sheriff to care for the tenants of his jail, and +he made his own home in a part of the brick building which served in +that capacity--a small building with iron grates on the lower windows, +arranged at about the height of a man's eyes as he would stand within on +the cement floor of a cell, so that he might look out just above the +greensward, his face visible to any who passed by. Many a boy had thus +gazed with horror on the unshaven face of some ruffian who begged him +for tobacco, or some tramp who had trifled too long with the patience of +the community, usually so generous with its alms. Many a school child +could show you the very place where the woman who killed her children +was confined before they took her away--could point out the very window +where she stood looking and weeping and wringing her hands--"Just like +this"--as any child would tell you. + +And some day perhaps children would point out this very window where now +stood looking out, motionless--"Not saying a word to nobody"--the "man +who killed the city marshal." Don Lane was standing at his grated window +and looking out when Anne Oglesby crossed the grass plot and came up the +brick sidewalk, fenced in by chains supported on little iron posts, +which led to the jail's iron-bound door. + +His heart gave a great leap. He saw her. She was coming to him--the one +faithful, his beloved! Not even Miss Julia--not even his mother--had +come, but here was Anne! + +But at the next instant he stepped back from the window, hoping that she +would not gain admission. Shame, deep and unspeakable, additional shame, +twofold shame, compassed him as soon as he reflected. The bitterest of +all was the fact that he must yield her up forever. He must tell her +why. And now she had come--to see him in a cell! It was here that he +must break his heart, and hers. + +Sheriff Cowles opened the door when Anne Oglesby rang the bell. He stood +for a moment looking out into the twilight. + +"Who is it?" he asked. Then he recognized the girl whom he had brought +down town from the railway station in his car that morning. Anne Oglesby +was not a person easily to be forgotten. + +"You know who I am, Mr. Cowles," said she--"I am Miss Oglesby, Judge +Henderson's ward. I'm--I am respectable." + +"Yes," said Cowles, "I know that, but why are you here?" + +"Because I'd not be respectable if I were not here," she said quietly. +"You probably know." + +"Does the Judge know you have come?" + +"No, he wouldn't have let me come if he had known. I want to see +him--that young man, you know." Her own color was high by this time. + +The sheriff hesitated. "Well," said he, "I don't want to do anything +that isn't right, anything that isn't fair. I reckon I know how you +feel." + +"We're engaged to be married," said Anne Oglesby simply, and looked him +directly in the face. "That gives me some rights, doesn't it?" + +"In one way, maybe, but no legal rights," replied the sheriff, who was +much perplexed, but who could not escape the compelling fact of Anne +Oglesby's presence, the compelling charm of Anne Oglesby herself. "He's +not really committed as yet, of course, only bound over by the coroner's +jury; but the grand jury meets tomorrow, and they'll indict him sure. +You know that. I can't take any chances of his getting away. I have to +be sure." + +"Your wife may come with me," said Anne Oglesby. "It's my right to talk +to him a little while, don't you think? I'm not going to try to get him +out. He hasn't had anyone to help him--he hasn't had any legal counsel." + +"Who'd he send for, anyway?" asked the sheriff. "He's a sort of a waif, +isn't he--her boy? I suppose you've heard about him fighting here around +town yesterday?" + +"I don't know why he fought, but I know that if he did he had cause. I +hope he fought well." + +"They said it was about his mother," began Sheriff Cowles. "Some word +about her was passed----" + +"You needn't say any more," said Anne Oglesby. + +"He hasn't told me to send for any lawyer for him," said Cowles. "It +don't seem like he's thought of it. He's just sort of quiet--mighty +still all the time. Ha-hum!--I don't know what to say about your seeing +him. Why didn't you ask your uncle, Judge Henderson?" + +"Don't call him my uncle," said Anne Oglesby. "He's only my guardian in +law. I've just told you he wouldn't let me come. That's why I've got to +hurry." + +"Well," hesitated the sheriff, "I'll have to warn you not to talk about +this case where I can hear it. I'll have to hear all you say." + +"Would you like to do that?" + +The sheriff flushed. "No," said he, "not special; but you see my own +duty is right clear. I can't play any favorites. If you was his lawyer, +now, it might be different." + +"I am his lawyer, the only one he's got so far as I know." + +"Yes, I reckon the judge wouldn't care to take his case." The sheriff +wagged his head. "He's no ways rich--not beyond four dollars and +seventy-five cents and a pocket knife and some keys on a ring. He's +broke, all right." + +"He's never been anything else," said Anne Oglesby, hotly. "He's never +had a chance. Do you want to keep a man from his chance all his life--do +you want to help railroad him to the gallows? That's for the courts, not +for you. Do you want to hang a man--are you anxious to begin that?" + +Cowles' face grew pale. "God knows I don't! I never done that in my +life, and I don't want to have to, neither. Don't talk about that to me, +Miss." + +"Then don't talk to me any more about those other things. I give you my +word I'll not try to get him out, but I want to see him--I must see +him--he'll want to see me. Don't you know--we've--we've just begun to be +engaged." + +"Some things I can't understand no ways," pondered Sheriff Cowles. "He's +nobody, so far as I can learn. You're the Judge's ward--why, you're +rich, they say." + +"I'd give every cent I have to see him walk out right now. I suppose you +were young once yourself. Were you ever in love, Mr. Cowles?" + +"Yes," said the sheriff, slowly. "I was--I am yet, some. I can remember +back. I don't believe I ought to let you in. But I'm afraid I'll have +to, because you are young--like we all was once--and because you're in +love. Did anyone see you coming over here?" + +"I don't know; but all the town knows about him and me. Well, let them." + +"You must promise not to help him in any way to get out--not to do +anything you hadn't ought to do, nor against the law." + +"I give you my promise," said Anne Oglesby. + +Without more speech the sheriff turned and led the way down the +stone-paved hall to the short cement stairs which made down upon the +half-floor below, at the level of the cells. He turned the switch of an +electric light, so that they might see the better in the hall. + +There was but one tenant, and from beyond his door there came no sound, +not even when Cowles unlocked the iron-shod door and stood, his revolver +easy at his belt. + +As Anne entered she saw Don Lane sitting on the edge of the narrow +pallet, looking at the door. He had not risen. He had been sitting with +his head in his hands. + +He groaned now. "My God!" said he. "Anne! What made you come?" + +[Illustration: "Anne! What made you come?"] + +The sheriff stepped within the door at the side of Anne Oglesby. "I'd +stay about ten minutes or so if I was you," said he, and tried to look +unconscious and impersonal. + +Don Lane rose now, but stood still apart. + +"Why do you say that, Don?" asked Anne, stepping closer to him. "Didn't +you know I'd come?" + +She reached out her hands to him, and he caught both of them in his. + +"I ought to have known you would," said he, "and I know you oughtn't to. +It makes it very hard. I said good-by to you--this morning--today." + +"Won't you kiss me--again, Don?" asked Anne Oglesby. + +He kissed her again, his face white. + +"It's hard to know you for so little a while," said he, his young face +drawn, his voice trembling--"awfully hard. What time there's left to +me--I'll have it all to remember you. But we must never meet after this. +It's over." + +"Don, if I thought it was all over, do you suppose I'd let you kiss me +now?" + +"It's like heaven," said he. "It's all I'll have to remember." + +"A long time, Don--a very long time!" + +"I can't tell. They are not apt to lose much time with my case. The only +crime of my life was in ever lifting my eyes to you, Anne. Oh, you know +I'd never have done that if I had known--what I found out yesterday. But +then I've said good-by to you." + +"_I_ didn't say good-by, Don!" + +He half raised a hand, shaking his head sadly. "You must forget me, no +matter what happens--no matter whether I am cleared or not. I'll never +be the coward to ask you to remember me--that wouldn't be right. I'm +beyond all hope, whichever way it goes." + +"I've come tonight, Don," said she, quietly, "to see about your lawyer." + +He half laughed. "There'll be small need for one, and if there were I've +got no funds. It will take a lot of money." + +"Well, what of that? I've got a lot of money. My guardian told me so +today. I'm worth somewhere between a quarter and a half million dollars +anyway--I'm not rich--but that would help us." + +He laughed at this harshly. "I didn't know you had any money at all. And +you think I'd be coward enough to take your money to get out of +here--after what I have learned about myself since yesterday? Do you +suppose I'd take my life from you--such a life as it's got to be now?" + +"What do you mean, Don?--you won't let me go, will you? You don't +mean----" She stepped toward him, in sudden terror of his resolution. +"Why, _Don_!" + +"Yes, yes. I spent all the afternoon here alone trying to think. Well, I +won't compromise. I never meant to pull you into this--I'll not let you +be dragged into it by your own great-heartedness. But, Anne, Anne, +dearest, dearest, surely you know that when I spoke to you yesterday I +didn't know what I know today! I thought I had a father. You _know_ I'd +not deceive you--you _do_ know that?" + +There was a shuffle on the stone floor of the cell. Sheriff Cowles, +coughing loudly, was turning away from them. A moment later the door +closed behind him. "Ha-hum!" said he to himself outside the door. "Oh, +hell! I wish't I wasn't sher'ff." + +They were alone. With the door closed the cell was dark, save for the +twilight filtering through the barred windows high up along the wall. + +Anne came closer to him and put her hands upon his shoulders. "Oh, Don," +said she, "it's hard, awfully hard, isn't it, to start with such a +handicap? But when did all the men in the world start even? And is it +always the one who starts first that finishes best? Don, you played the +game in college--so did I--we've both got to play the game now! We'll +have to take our handicap. But you mustn't talk about sending me away. I +can't stand everything. Oh, don't! I can't stand that!" Her voice was +choking now. She was sobbing, striving not to do so. + +He caught her wrists in his hands, as her hands still lay upon his +shoulders; but he did not draw her to him. + +"Anne," said he, "the time comes in every man's life for him to die. I +heard once about a man who could not swim and who saw his wife drown in +the stream by him, almost at his side. He ran along and shouted, and +said he could not swim. Well, he lived. The woman died. Suppose that +had been our case. If we both went down together, it wouldn't be so bad, +perhaps. But I'll not have my life as that sort of a gift." + +"You won't let me help you, Don?" + +"No! I won't let you have anything to do with me! I'll never allow your +name to come on my lips, and you must never think of mentioning mine! +Only--Anne, Anne--surely you don't think I had any idea before +yesterday--about my father? I wouldn't buy my own happiness at that +price. I'm no one's son. I'm dead, and doubly dead. But I never knew." + +"No," said she, "I know you did not--I know you would not." + +They both were so young, as they talked on now, wisely, soberly. + +"So you are free," he said, casting away her hands from him, and +standing back. "You never were anything but free." + +"I'll never be free again, Don," said she, shaking her head. "You kissed +me! I'm not a girl any more--I'm a woman now. I can't go back. And now +you tell me to go away! Don't you love me, Don? Why, I love you--so +much!" + +"My God, don't!" he groaned. "Don't! I can't stand everything. But I +can't take anything but the best and truest sort of love." + +"Isn't mine?" + +"No. It's pity, maybe--I can't tell. This is no place for us to talk of +that now. You must go away. I hope you will forget you ever saw me. I +don't even know my father's name--I don't know whether he is living--I +don't know anything! I have been walled in all my life--I'm walled in +now. I never ought to have touched even the hem of your garment, for I +wasn't fit. But I couldn't help it." + +"That's the trouble," said Anne. "I can't help it, either." + +"Ah!" he half groaned, "you ought to be kept from yourself." + +"Kept from myself, Don? If that were true of all the women in the world, +how much world would there be left? That's why I'm here--why, Don, I had +to come!" + +"Anne! It can't be. It's only cruel for you to tear me up by coming +here--by staying here--by standing here. I love you! Anne! Anne! I don't +see how it could be hard as this for any man to part from any woman." He +was trembling through all his strong frame now. + +"But we promised!" + +"The law says that a promise is such only when two minds meet. Our minds +never met--I didn't know the facts--you didn't know about me--we have +just found out about it now." + +"Our minds didn't meet?" said Anne Oglesby. "Our _minds_? Did not our +_hearts_ meet--don't they meet now--and isn't _that_ what it all means +between a man and a woman?" + +He stood, trembling, apart from her in the twilight. + +"Don't!" he whispered. "I love you! I will love you all my life! You +must go away. Oh, go now, go quickly!" + +A merciful footfall sounded on the stone floor of the outer hall. The +door opened, letting in a shaft of light with it. Cowles stood +hesitating, looking at the two young people, still separated, standing +wretchedly. + +"I hate to say anything," said the sheriff, "but I reckon----" + +"She must go," said Don Lane. "Take her away. Good-by--Anne! Anne! Oh, +good-by!" + +"Won't you kiss me, Don?" said Anne Oglesby--"when I love you so much?" + +There were four tears, two great, sudden drops from each eye, that +sprang now on Dan Cowles' wrinkled, sunburned cheeks. + +But Don Lane had cast himself down once more on the pallet and was +trying with all his power to be silent until after she had gone. + +"In some ways," said Dan Cowles to his wife later that night, "he's got +me guessing, that young fellow. He don't act like no murderer to me. But +since she left, and since all this here happened, he's wild--Lord! he's +wild!" + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +THE MOB + + +Anne Oglesby left the jail shortly after the time when church services +were ending. As she hurried by Aurora Lane's house in Mulberry Street +she saw a light shining from the windows, but she did not enter--she +could not have spoken to anyone now. + +She evaded any meeting with her guardian after she had made her way back +home. Judge Henderson had not known of her absence and was not aware of +her return. Anne thus by a certain period of time missed seeing what Dan +Cowles presently saw. + +It was noticeable that Sabbath day that more than the usual number of +farmers' wagons remained in town, quite past the time when the country +church members usually started back for their homes. The farmers seemed +to be in no hurry, even although they had seen a double church service. +There was something restless, something vague, disturbing, over the +town. A number of townsmen also seemed impelled to walk back toward the +public square. Some strange indefinite summons drew them thither. Little +knots of men stood here and there. Groups of women gathered at this or +that gallery front. + +No one knows the point where in vague public thought a general +resolution actually begins. The ripple in the pool spreads widely when a +stone is cast. What chance word, or what deliberate resolve, may have +started the slowly growing resolution of Spring Valley may not be known; +but now a sort of stealthy silence fell over the village as groups +gathered here and there, speaking cautiously, in low tones. + +A knot of men stood near the corner of the square looking down the +street to the light which shone red from the shaded window of Aurora +Lane. + +"I know what was done right in this here town thirty year ago," said one +high pitched voice. "It was old Eph Adamson's father that led them, too. +Them was days when----" + +"Why ain't Eph in town today?" asked another voice. "I seen considerable +of his neighbors around in town today." + +"He was, a while back," said someone. + +"That must have been about a hour ago," said some other, looking about +furtively at the faces of his neighbors. + +"Let's take a stroll over towards the open lots near the jail," +suggested someone else. + +So, following the first to start with definite purpose, little +straggling groups passed on beyond the corner of the square, beyond the +jail itself, to a sort of open space not yet encroached upon by public +or private buildings. + +There was no shouting, no loud talking. The light was dim. The crowd +itself moved vaguely, milling about, like cattle restive and ready to +stampede, but not yet determined on their course. + +"God! Did you hear that music this afternoon--they're done a-buryin' +poor old Joel Tarbush by now, but I can hear it yet, seems to me! Now, +what had poor old Joel ever done--all his life--to deserve bein' +murdered like a dog? It makes my blood sort of rise up to think of that. +Now, them that done that--them that was back of that----" + +His friend, accosted, nodded grimly, his mouth was shut tight and turned +down deep at the corners. + +There did not lack one or two willing at least to talk further. One was +a young man, rather well dressed, apparently fresh from church. He spoke +to any who would listen. + +"What I mean to say, men, is this," said he, "we've got to do something +to clean up this town. It's the _people_ that's behind the law anyhow. +Am I right?" + +"He talks like a lawyer--what he says is pretty true," said one farmer +to another. + +"That was a strong sermon our minister preached tonight," said yet +another. "He said we'd have to stamp out crime and make a warnin'. The +preacher e'en--a'most pointed out what we ought to do." + +"... We'd ought to make a clean sweep of this whole family," said the +same young man, more boldly now. "They're a bad lot--both her son and +her." + +"... We could break into the jail easy," said someone, after a time. +"Cowles couldn't keep us from it. Maybe he wouldn't want to." + +"... The trouble is," resumed the voice of the young man who had earlier +spoken, "it's hard to make a law case stick. We've seen how that worked +out in the trial yesterday--he came clear--they dropped the case, and +nothing was done. Old Eph Adamson had to take all the medicine. But we +ought to take our place as a law-abiding community--I've always said +that." + +"And God-fearin'," said a devout voice. + +"Yes, a God-fearing community! It's been twenty years now that that +woman has flaunted her vice in the face of this community." + +"Ain't a man in this town that don't know about her--it's just sort o' +quieted down, that's all," said a gray-bearded, peak-chinned man grimly; +which was more or less true, as more than one man present knew, himself +not guiltless enough of heart at least to cast the first stone at Aurora +Lane. + +"In the old times," grinned one stoutish man, chewing tobacco and +speaking to a neighbor who held a hand cupped at his ear, "the folks +wouldn't of stood it. They'd just 'a' had a little feather party. They +rid such people out of town on a rail them days--that's what they done. +And they didn't never come back after that--never in the world. As for a +murderer--they made a eend of him!" + +"And so could we make a eend of it all right now, this very night, if we +had a little sand," said another voice. + +For a time all these speakers fell silent, seeking resolve, waiting for +an order, a command. But as they became silent they grew more uneasy. +They broke ground, shifted, milled about, still like cattle. Then head +was laid to head, beard wagged to beard again. + +And then, all at once, it broke! + +"_Come on, boys!_" cried a loud voice at last--not that of the young man +who first had spoken--not that of any of these others speakers who had +hesitated, lacking courage of definite sort. "_Come on! Who's with me?_" + +The town of Spring Valley never mentioned the name of this speaker. The +report got out in a general way that he was a farmer who lived a few +miles out in the country. Indeed, sympathy for Ephraim Adamson's bad +fortune in this case was no doubt largely at the bottom of this affair +tonight--along with these other things; sympathy for Tarbush; the +sermons of the preachers; the emotional spell of the dirge music, still +lingering on these crude souls. No mob reasons. It was plain that most +of the men, though not all, were farmers. But now they all fell in +behind the leader as he started, a motley procession. Some folded +handkerchiefs and tied them about their faces. Yet others reversed their +coats, wearing them with the linings outside. Others pulled their hats +down over their eyes. + +Their feet, although not keeping time, none the less caught a ragged +unison, in a sound which could have been heard at a considerable +distance. Dan Cowles heard it now, and came to the door of the county +jail. As he saw the crowd, he drew a long breath. + +"They're coming here!" said he to himself at length. "I reckon they'll +try to get him. I'll hold him anyways, and they know that." Quickly he +darted back into the jail. + +The procession debouched at the edge of the jail yard square, halted for +a moment, then came on steadily, because someone at their head walked +steadily. Perhaps there were seventy-five or a hundred of them in all. +Most of them were neighbors, nearly every man knew who was his neighbor +here, even in the darkness. Not one of these could precisely have told +why he was here. By some process of self-persuasion, some working of +hysteria, some general acceptance of the auto-suggestion of the mob, +most had persuaded themselves that they were there to "do their duty." +It sounded well. If, indeed, they had been brought hither merely by the +excitement of it, merely under the hypnosis of it, they forgot that, or +tried to forget it, and said they were there to do their duty--their +duty to their God-fearing town.... But in the mind of each was a picture +out of the past of which we may not inquire. That night far worse than +murder might have been done. + +"We want him, Dan. Bring him out!" The voice of the leader sounded dry +and hoarse, but he did not waver, for he saw the sheriff make no move of +resistance. + +"You can't get him," said Dan Cowles. "You couldn't even if he was here. +But he ain't here." + +"What do you mean, he ain't here? We know he is!" + +"Come in and see," said Cowles, stepping back. "I just been to his cell +and he ain't there. Come in and search the whole jail." + +They did come in and search the jail, piling into the corridors, opening +every door, looking into every room even of the sheriff's living +quarters, but the jail was empty! There was no prisoner there at all. + +"We want Don Lane, that killed the city marshal," repeated the husky +voice of the leader once more. "Where is he?" + +"I don't know," said Sheriff Cowles. "If I did, I wouldn't tell you." +And indeed he spoke only truth in both these statements. + +"I know!" screamed a high voice in the middle of the man pack. "He's +maybe up at her house--'Rory Lane's. Let's go search the place--we'll +get him yet!" + +It was enough. The mob, thus resisted, disappointed, began to mutter, to +talk now, in a low, hoarse half roar of united voices. They turned away +on a new trail. Some broke into shouts as they began to hurry down the +brick walk of the jail yard. They jostled and crowded in the street, as +they came into the corner of the public square. A general outcry arose +as they caught sight of the light in the window of Aurora Lane's little +home, a half block down the street, beyond the corner of the square. + +Aurora heard the sound of their feet coming down the sidewalk. She heard +the noise at her gate--heard the crash as the gate was kicked off its +new-mended hinges--heard the men crowd up her little walk, heard their +feet clumping on the little gallery floor. Her heart stopped. She stood +white-faced, her hands clasped. What was it? What did they mean? Were +they going to kill her boy? Had they killed him? Were they going to tell +her that? Were they going to kill her, too? + +"Come on out!" she heard someone calling to her. It seemed to her that +she must go. In some strange hypnosis, her feet began to move, +unsanctioned by her volition.... She stood at the door facing them all, +her eyes large, her face showing her distress, her query, her new +terror. On her face indeed was written now the whole story of her +despair, her failure, her terrible unhappiness. She had aged by years, +these last twenty-four hours. Now sheer terror was written there also. +The mob! The lynchers! The avengers! What had they not and more than +once done in this little savage town?... A picture rose before her +mind ... a horrible picture out of the past. Wide-eyed, she caught at the +throat of her gown, caught at the covering of her bosom--and then went +at bay, as does any despairing creature that has been pressed too hard. + +She looked down at them. Those nearest to her were masked. Back of them +rose groups of shoulders, rough clad, hats pulled down.... No, she did +not know one of them; she did not recognize even a face--or was not sure +she had done so. They jostled and shifted and pushed forward. + +"No! No! Go back! Go on away!" she cried, pale, her eyes starting. And +again she called aloud, piteously, on that God who seemed to have +forsaken her. + +"Come on out!" cried a voice, thick and husky. "Come on out, and hurry +up about it. Bring him out--we know he's here. We want Don Lane, and +we're going to git him--or we'll git you. Damn you, look out, or we'll +git you both! Where's that boy, that killed the marshal?" + +"He's not here," answered Aurora, in a voice she would not have known to +be her own. "I don't know where he is. Believe me, if he's not there in +the jail, I don't know where he is. What do you want of him? He's not +here--I give you my word he's not." + +She still stood, near the door, her hands clutching at her clothing, a +mortal terror in her soul, her frail woman's body the only fence now for +her home, no longer sanctuary. + +"You lie! We know he is here--he ain't in the jail. If the sher'f let +him out, he'd come here. You've got him hid. Bring him out--it's no use +trying to get him away from us. We want him, and we've come to git him." + +The words of the leader got their support in the rumble of fourscore +throats. + +"I'm telling you the truth," quavered poor Aurora Lane. "Men, can't you +believe me? Have I ever lied to you?" + +A roar of brutish laughter greeted this. "Listen at her talk!" cried one +tall young man. "Fine, ain't it! She's been just a angel here! Oh, no, +she wouldn't lie to us about that boy--oh! no, she never has! Why, you +ain't never done nothing _but_ lie, all your life!" + +They laughed again at this, and became impatient. + +"This is her little old place," began the same voice. "I've never been +in it before. I bet they's been goings-on, right here, more'n once." + +"That's so!" said a man whose mouth corners were drawn down hard. "And +in this here God-fearin' town o' ours, that's always wanted to be +respectable." + +"Sure we did, all of us!" encored the cracking treble of the same tall, +well-dressed young man. "Whose fault if we ain't? She's his mother. This +whole business come of her bein' what she is--looser'n hell, that's all. +We stood it all for years--but this is too much--killin' the city +marshal----" + +"I didn't!" cried Aurora Lane, ghastly pale. "He never did. I've tried +to live here clean for twenty years. Not one of you can raise a voice +against me--you cowards, you liars! My boy--if he were here, not any ten +of you'd dare say that! You'd not dare to touch him. Oh, you brutes--you +low-down cowards!" + +"We'll show you if we don't dare!" rejoined the steady voice of the +leader. "Fetch him out now and we'll show you about that. We're goin' to +git him, first 'r last, and it's no use trying to stop it. We'll +reg'late this town now, in our own way. If that boy's out of jail, he's +either skipped or else he's here. Either way, the safest thing to do is +to come on through with him. If you don't, we'll see about _you_--and +we'll do it mighty soon. Bring him out." + +"Oh, hell!" shrilled a falsetto voice, "you're wastin' time with her. +Go on in after him--she's got him hid--she's kep' him hid for twenty +years and she's keepin' him hid now--and you can gamble on it! Go on in +and git him!" + +There came a shuffling of feet on the walk, on the gallery floor. Aurora +was conscious that the blur of faces was closer to her.... She saw +masks, hats, kerchiefs, stubbled chins crowding in, close up to her. A +reek of the man pack came to her, close, stifling, mingled of tobacco, +alcohol, and the worse effluvia of many men excited.... The terror, the +horror, the disgust, the repugnance of it all fell on her like a +blanket, stifling, suffocating, terrifying. She no longer reasoned--it +was only desperation, terror, which made her spread out her arms from +lintel to lintel of her little deserted door, where the last sacred +shred of her personal privacy now was periled. The last instinctive, +virginal--yes, virginal--terror at the intrusion of man, of men, of many +men, was hers now. Home--sanctuary--refuge--all, all was gone. She +stood, disheveled, her gown now half loosed at the neck as she spread +her weak arms open across her door. Her eyes were large, round, open, +staring, her face a tragic mask as she stood trying--a woman, weak and +quite alone--to beat back the passion of these who now had come to rob +her of the last--the very last--of the things dear to her; the last of +the things sacred to her, the things any woman ought to claim inviolate +and under sanctuary, no matter who or what she is or ever may have been. + +But the fever, the hysteria of these no longer left either reason or +decency to them, neither any manner of respect for the sacredness of +womanhood; a thing for the most part inherent even under the severest +strains ever brought to bear on man to make him lower than the +brute--the brute which at its basest never lacks acknowledgment of the +claims of sex. + +These men had reverted, dropped, declined as only man himself, noblest +and lowest of all animals, may do. There was no mercy in them, indeed no +comprehension, else the appeal of the outraged horror on the face of +Aurora Lane must have driven them back, or have struck them down where +they stood. + +"You git on out of the way now!" she heard the coarse voice of someone +say in her face.... + +She held her arms out across her door only for an instant longer--she +never knew by whom it was, or when, that they were swept down, and she +herself swept aside, crumpled in a corner of her room. + +The mob was in her home; she had no sanctuary! She caught glimpses of +dark shoulders, compacted by the narrowness of the little rooms, surging +on in and over everything, into every room, testing every crack and +crevice. She heard laughs, oaths, obscenity such as she had never +dreamed men used--for she knew little of the man animal--heard the +rising unison of voices recording a renewed disappointment and chagrin. + +"Damn her! She's got away with him!" called out someone. + +"Sure she has--we might of expected it," rejoined another. "She always +gets by with it somehow--she's pulled the wool over our eyes all her +life. She's fooled us now once more." + +"What'll we do, boys?" cried out the falsetto of the tall young man, +whose face was not set strong with a man's beard-roots. "Are we going to +let her get away with it like this?" + +He made some sort of answer for himself, for there came the crash of +broken glass as he flung some object across the room. + +It was enough--it was the cue. "Smash her up, boys!" cried out another +voice. "Put her out of business now! She's fooled us for the last time." + +They did not find Don Lane, not though they searched this house as they +had the jail. So now their anger caught them, resentful, unreasoning, +unfeeling, brutal anger.... + +So they wrecked the little house of Aurora Lane. They tore down the +pictures from the walls, the curtains from the windows, broke in the +windows themselves. They smashed one piece of furniture against another. +They even tore up the little white bed--at which for twenty years +nightly Aurora Lane had kneeled to pray. Someone caught up one of the +pillows, laughing loudly. "Here you are, here's plenty, I reckon! Damn +you! You're lucky we don't give you a ride. Tar'n feathers, 'n a ride on +a rail--that's the medicine for such as you." + +The thought of escape, of rescue, of resistance now had passed from the +mind of Aurora Lane. Frozen, speechless, motionless, she waited, +helpless before this blind fury. They had been after Don, and they had +not found him. Where was Don? And what would they now do to her? What +was that last coarse, terrible threat that they had meant? + +She caught her torn frock again to her throat as she saw, not a definite +movement toward her, but a cessation of movement, a pause, a silence, +which seemed more terrible and more ominous than anything yet in all +this hour of torment and terror. What would they do now? + +They had halted, paused, they stood irresolute, still a pack, a mass, a +mob, not yet resolved into units of thinking, reasoning, human beings; +when without warning suddenly, there came something to give them cause +for thought. + +There was still a rather dense crowd around the gate, on the walk, where +some score or more lingered, who either had not entered the house or who +had emerged from it. It was against the edge of this mass that a +heavily built man, heavy of face, heavy of hand, cast himself as he now +came running up. + +It was the sheriff, Dan Cowles. He thrust a revolver barrel into the +face of the nearest man, caught another by the shoulder. A halt, a +pause, whether of irresolution or of doubt, of indecision or of shame, +came like a falling and restraining hand upon all this lately demoniacal +assemblage. They did not move. It was as though a net had been sprung +above them all. + +"Halt!" called out the voice of the sheriff, high and clear. "What are +you doing here?" + +"It's the sher'f!" croaked one gray beard farther back. "God! what'll he +do to us now?" + +The feeling of apprehension gave courage to some of the bolder. Two or +three sprang upon Cowles from behind and broke him down. He fell, his +revolver pulled from his hand. He looked up into faces that he knew. + +"Make a move and you'll get it," said a hoarse, croaking voice above +him. "Shut up now and keep quiet, and keep to yourself what you seen. +We're just having a little surprise party, that's all. We're only +cleaning up this town." + +But now another figure came running--more than one. Judge Henderson +himself had heard the tumult on the streets. It was he who first hurried +up to the edge of the crowd. + +"Men!" he cried, holding up his hand. "What are you doing? Disperse, in +the name of the law! I command it!" + +They had long been used to obeying the voice of Judge Henderson. He was +their guide, their counselor, their leader. Some hesitated now. + +And then Judge Henderson pushed into the little group, looked over their +heads, their shoulders--and saw what ruin had been wrought in Aurora +Lane's little home. He saw Aurora standing there, outraged in every +fiber, desecrated in her very soul, the ruins of her lost sanctuary +lying all about her and on her face the last, last anguish of a woman +who has said farewell to all, everything--life, happiness, peace, hope, +and trust in God. + +Henderson cast his own hands to his face as he pushed back from that +sight. He stood trembling and silent, unstrung by one swift, remorseless +blow from his own soul, his own long sleeping conscience. + +Afar off, in the village, someone rang a bell--that at the engine house. +Its summons of alarm called out every townsman not already in the +streets. + +But before this time reaction had begun in the mob. Something about +Judge Henderson--the sudden change in his attitude--the blanched terror, +the awful horror which showed now in his face--seemed to bring reason to +their own inflamed and muddled minds. And now, as they hesitated, they +felt the impact of two other strong men who flung themselves against +them, shouldered their way through, up to the side of the struggling +sheriff. Those in the way looked into the barrels of two revolvers, one +held in each hand of a tall man, a giant in his rugged strength, as +those knew whom he jostled aside in his savage on-coming. + +"Hold on, men!" cried out the great voice of Horace Brooks. "I'll kill +the first man that makes a move. Law or no law, I'll kill you if you +move. What are you doing here?" + +At his side there was another, a young man--white-faced--a tall young +man whom not all of them had seen before, whom not many recognized now +in the sudden confusion as they swayed back, jostling one and another in +the attempt to get away--the young man, the prisoner they had wanted and +not found. The young man swung at one arm of Hod Brooks, tried to wrest +from him one of the revolvers--sought to gain some weapon with which he +might kill. But Hod Brooks kept him away. + +"Get back," he said, "leave it to us. God! Don't look at that! They've +smashed her place all to hell!" + +Still another man came, running, shouting--calling out--calling some of +those present by their own names. It was old Eph Adamson, and tears were +streaming down his face. + +"You men!" he called out, and he named them one after another. "You're +my neighbors, you're my friends. What are you doing here--oh, my +God!--my God! What have you done? She's a good woman--I tell you she's a +good woman." + +The three of these newcomers broke their way in to the side of the +sheriff, who by this time was up to his knees. They caught his gun away +from the man who had taken it. + +"Give it to me!" said the low, cold voice of the young man who was +fighting--and before his straight thudding blows a man dropped every now +and then as he came on, struggling desperately to get the weapon. "Give +it to me!" + +He reached out his hand for the sheriff's gun; but still they put him +away, gasping, his eyes with murder in them. + +"Get back," cried Horace Brooks. "Leave it alone. Get back. Look out, +men--he'll shoot!" + +There were five of them now who made a little group. Two others came +running to join them--Nels Jorgens, the wagon-maker and blacksmith--at +his side the spare figure of the gray-bearded minister, Rawlins, of the +Church of Christ. + +"Get into them now, Dan!" cried the great voice of Horace Brooks. "Break +through." + +So they broke through. Men fell and stumbled, whether from blows or in +the confusion of their own efforts to escape. At the edges of the crowd +men turned and ran--ran as fast as they could. After a time they of the +smaller party were almost alone. + +The sheriff turned away, picking up a coat which he found lying on the +ground. The tall young man who had fought at his side stood now leaning +against the fence, his face dropped into his hands, shaking his head +from side to side, unable to weep. Cowles stepped up to him. + +"I'm glad you come, boy," said he, "but it's no place for you here. I +must have left the door open when I went away--I plumb forgot it. +Where've you been, anyhow?" + +"You forgot--you left the door unlocked after she went away--Anne. But I +wasn't trying to escape--I wasn't going out of town." + +"Where was you, then?" + +"I was down at the bridge--I was thinking what to do. Once my mother was +going to take me there.... But I thought of her--Anne, you know, and my +mother, too. I hardly knew what was right.... I heard the noise...." + +Dan Cowles looked at him soberly. "Run on down to the jail now, son, and +tell my wife to lock you in. Tell her I'll be on down, soon's I can." + +Judge Henderson, white-faced, trembling, looked in the starlight into +the face of the one man whom he classed as his rival, his enemy in this +town--it was a wide, white face with narrow and burning eyes, a +Berserker face framed with its fringe of red. Horace Brooks himself was +still almost sobbing with sheer fighting rage. There was that in his eye +terrible to look upon. + +"Oh, my God!" said Judge Henderson again and again. "Oh, my God!--my +God!----" He supported himself against the broken posts of what had been +the little gate of Aurora Lane. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +THE IDIOT + + +At seven o'clock of Monday morning, Johnnie Adamson stood at the +roadside at the front of his father's farmhouse. He held in his hands a +wagon stake which he had found somewhere and with it smote aimlessly at +anything which came in his way. His usual amiable smile was gone. A low +scowl, like that of some angered anthropoid, had replaced it. His +mother, seeing that some unusual turn had taken place in his affliction, +stood at the window of the farmhouse looking out at him and wringing her +hands. She long ago had ceased to weep--the fountain of tears had dried +within her soul. There came to her now and then the sound of his hoarse +defiance, hurled at all who passed by on the road. + +"Son John!--Eejit!--Whip any man in Jackson County!" + +Ephraim Adamson was at the time in the field at work. His wife at length +crept out to the back porch and pulled the cord of the dinner bell. Its +sound rang out across the fields. Her husband came running, more than +half suspicious of the cause of the alarm. Long had their lives been +lived in vague dread of this very thing--a violent turn in the son's +affliction. The father's anxious face spoke the question. + +"Yes, he's bad," said the wife to him. "I'm afraid of him--he's getting +worse." + +The father walked out into the front yard. The youth came toward him, +grinning pleasantly. He fell into the position of a batsman, swinging +his club back and forth as he must some time have seen ball players do. + +"Now you--now you throw it at me--and I'll hit it," said the half-wit. +"You--you throw it at me--and I'll hit--I'll hit it." + +To humor him, his father pitched at him a broken apple that lay on the +ground near by. Johnny struck at it and by chance caught it fair, +crushing it to fragments. At this he laughed in glee. + +"Now--now--another one," said he. "I'll hit--I'll hit them all." + +His father walked up to him and reached out a hand, but for the first +time the boy resented his control. He broke away, swinging his club +menacingly, striking at everything in his way. Ephraim Adamson followed +him; but still evading, the half-wit passed out through the gate which +led into the garden patch at the rear of the house. With his club he cut +at the tops of everything green that he passed. Especially, with many +yells of glee, he fell upon the rows of cabbages, then beginning to head +out. With heavy blows of his club he cut down one after another. The +game seemed to excite him more and more. At last it seemed to enrage him +more and more. He struck with greater viciousness. + +"Eejit!" said he. "I'm out--they can't pick on me! I can hit them! I +will, too, hit them! I'll hit him!" + +His father, following him, saw the face of the club all stained +now--stained dark--black or red--stained green. He caught at the stick, +but for once found his own strength insufficient to cope with that of +his son. The latter wrestled with him. In a direct grip, one against the +other, in which both struggled for the club, the father was unable to +wrest it from him; and continually he saw a new and savage light come +into the eyes of his son. The boy threatened him, menaced him with the +club. His father drew back, for the first time afraid. He went back into +the house, to his wife, on whom he turned a gray, sad face. + +"I'm afraid," said he slowly, "I'm afraid we'll have to send him away. +He's awfully bad--he might do anything. I'd rather see him dead." + +The nod of the sad-faced woman was full assent. She gazed out of the +window blankly, barrenly. Ephraim Adamson went out again into the yard. +He passed the boy, unseen, went out into the stable yard, and caught up +his team, which soon he had harnessed to his light wagon. By this time +Johnnie had gone to the woodpile and taken up the ax. He was +endeavoring to split some cordwood, but he rarely could hit twice in the +same place, all his correlations being bad. His father now threw open +the gate and drove into the yard. + +"Want a ride, Johnnie?" he asked; and the boy docilely came and climbed +into the front seat beside him. Not even looking at his wife, Adamson +started out at good speed for the eight-mile drive into Spring Valley. +For the most part the boy was quiet now, but once in a while the return +of a paroxysm would lead him to shout and fling up his hands, to grin or +make faces at any who passed. + +In town, at the corner of the public square, Johnnie became unruly. Some +vague memory was in his mind. He pointed down the head of Mulberry +Street. + +"I want to go--I want to go there!" said he. + +Before his father could stop him he had sprung out of the wagon and run +on ahead. Adamson as quickly as possible hitched his team at the nearest +rack and followed at full speed, sudden terror now renewed in his own +soul. The boy had turned in at the gate of the little house of Aurora +Lane--that little house now scarce longer to be called a home! + +Aurora Lane was alive, within. She moved about dully, slowly, her mind +numb at the horror of all she had gone through. The feeling possessed +her that she was without help or hope in all the world, that her God +himself had forsaken her. She heard the sound of running footsteps, and, +gazing through the window, saw the idiot son of Ephraim Adamson standing +just inside the gate. She heard him come up the steps, heard him begin +to pound on the door. + +"Quick! Miss Lane," called Adamson as he came following up on the +run--he hoped that Aurora would hear him. "Don't let him in. +Telephone--get the sher'f as soon as you can." + +He walked up the steps now and took the boy by the arm as he hammered at +the door with the head of the club. + +"Come on, Johnnie," said he. "We'll go see the pictures. Come along." + +It was not better than an animal, the creature who now turned facing +him, growling. "Get out!" said Johnnie to him. "No one--no one can pick +on me! I'll hit--I'll hit you. Whip any man in Jackson County. I'm +out--I'll hit anybody touches me. I guess I know!" + +His sweeping blows about him with the club forced his father back, and +showed that any attempt to close with him would be dangerous. Adamson +retired to the gate. Johnnie went on smashing everything about him, +flower beds, chairs, a little table which stood on the front +gallery--anything left undestroyed by the more intelligent but not less +malignant visitors of the night before, who thus had set a pattern for +him. + +"I want in," he said pleasantly after a time, seating himself on the +front steps. "Eejit--best man in Jackson County. She was good to me. She +spoke to me kind. I won't hurt her." + +Aurora Lane could see him as she gazed out from behind the window +curtain. Her call on the telephone to the officer of the law had been +loud, insistent, the appeal of a woman in terror. But now, as she looked +out at Johnnie Adamson, something other than terror was in her wan +face;--something like surprise--something like conviction! The thought +brought with it no additional terror--rather it carried a swift ray of +hope! + +It was toward eight o'clock in the morning now. Few were abroad on the +streets of Spring Valley, but now and then a passer-by turned to gaze at +a man who was hurrying across from the court and turning into Mulberry +Street. It was Dan Cowles, the sheriff, and they wondered where he was +going now. + +Ephraim Adamson heard the hurrying approach as Dan Cowles came down the +street. The boy still was sitting on the steps. Suddenly he turned--and +caught sight of the face of Aurora Lane at the window. He rose, removed +his hat, and smirked. + +"May I see you home?" said he. "Eejit--the best man in Jackson County. I +can hit anybody! I'll show you." + +He was mowing, smirking, talking to her through the glass of the window +pane, jerking and twitching about, but he turned now when he heard the +steps of his father and the sheriff on the brick walk back of him. + +"He's gone bad, Dan," said Adamson in a low tone to the sheriff. "We'll +have to lock him up. He'll have to go to the asylum. He's dangerous. +Look out!" + +Suddenly the half-wit turned upon them. His eyes seemed fixed on the +star shining on the coat of Dan Cowles--identically the same star that +City Marshal Tarbush had worn, Cowles having for the time taken on the +deceased man's duties also. The sight enraged him. He brandished his +club. + +"There he is!" he cried. "I hit him once--I killed him--I'm going to +kill him again! You can't pick on me. I'm out. I'll kill you again!" + +"My God! _what's he saying, Dan_?" quavered the voice of the unhappy +man, the father of this wild creature. "What's he _saying_?" + +"Johnnie!" he himself called out aloud. "Johnnie, tell me--tell me who +it was, and I'll take you to see the pictures right away." + +"Him!" shrieked Johnnie. "Him--there's that shiny thing." + +"When was it, Johnnie--what do you mean about this man?" The sheriff now +spoke to him. + +"I hit you--that night--I'll hit you again now! Nobody going to pick on +Johnnie. Best man in Jackson County--eejit!" + +"You're going to take me away to jail again," said he cunningly. "But +you can't. I was just going to talk to her before, and you come and took +me away. But I hit him. Now I'll kill you so you'll stay dead." + +Slowly, cautiously creeping down the steps, club in hand, he followed +the two men, who backed away from him--backed out through the gate on to +the sidewalk, into the street. + +From across the street Nels Jorgens in his wagon shop saw what was going +on, and came running, a stout wagon spoke caught up in his own hand. He +passed this to Ephraim Adamson. + +"Look out, Sheriff!" he called out. "He's wild. He'll kill somebody +yet." + +Nels Jorgens and one or two others saw what then happened. The madman, +now murderously excited, stopped in his deliberate advance. His eyes +flamed green with hatred at all this before him. The lust of blood +showed on his features, usually so mild. He saw his father standing now, +this weapon in his hand; and forgetting every tie in the world, if ever +he had felt one, sprang at him with a scream of rage. Ephraim Adamson +stepped back, tripped, fell. He saw above him the face of his son, with +murder in his eyes. He closed his own eyes. + +And then Nels Jorgens and one or two others who came hurrying up saw a +puff of smoke, heard the roar of a shot Dan Cowles had fired just in +time.... + +There was no need to send poor Johnnie Adamson to the asylum. He had +gone now to a farther country. He sank, a vast bulk, at his full length +along the narrow strip of dusty grass between the curb and the walk. His +shoulders heaved once or twice, his arms fell lax. + +Dan Cowles, solemn-faced, his weapon still in his hand, turned to gaze +at the haggard man who rose slowly, turning away from that which he now +saw. + +"It was the act of committing a felony," said Dan Cowles slowly. "It was +to save human life. He resisted arrest, and he was armed. It was a +felony." + +But when old Ephraim Adamson turned his gray face to that of the officer +of the law, in his sad eyes there was no resentment. He held out his +hand. + +"Dan," said he, "thank God you done it! Thank God it's over!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +A TRUE BILL + + +Now it was nine o'clock of the Monday morning. The grand jury was in +session thus early, and it had thus early brought in a true bill against +one Dieudonne Lane for murder in the first degree. The session of the +jury had just begun. None of the jury knew of these late events at the +house of Aurora Lane. + +In his office Judge Henderson was pacing up and down all that morning. +He had failed in every attempt to stop the progress of the law. He could +not on Sunday afternoon reach by telephone or otherwise the men he +wished to see; on Sunday night had seen this horror; and now, early on +Monday, there was no way by which even he could arrest the procedure of +the grand jury, made up of men who lived here, and who before this had +made up their minds on the bill which Slattery, state's attorney, +zealous as they, had rushed through at a late session with his own +clerks on Sunday night after he had ended his Sabbath motor ride to an +adjoining town. + +Fate conspired against Judge Henderson and his shrewd plan for delay +which was to have left him secure in his ambition and saved in his own +conceit. These things now seemed shrunk, faded, unimportant. + +He had not slept at all that night. Before him now swept such a panorama +as it seemed to him would never let him sleep again. He was indeed +facing now the crisis of his life--a crisis not in his material affairs +alone, but a crisis of his moral nature. He had learned in one swift +lesson what others sometimes learn more deliberately--that the world is +not for the use of any one man alone, but for the use of all men who +dwell in it. It is the world of human beings who are partners in its +use. They stand alike on its soil, they fight there for the same end. +They are brothers, even though savage brothers, after all. + +And among these are fathers, too. It was his own son who lay in yonder +jail. Now at last some thought, a new, stirring and compelling emotion +came into his soul. It was not her boy, but his--it was his son! And now +he knew he had been indeed a Judas and a coward. + +Judge Henderson's dulled senses heard a sound, a distinct and unusual +sound. He stepped out into the hall and spoke to a neighbor who also was +looking out of his office door. + +"What was that shot?" he asked. + +"I don't know," said the other. "Where was it at--around that corner? +Oh, I reckon it was probably a tire blew out at Nels Jorgen's wagon +shop--he has automobiles there sometimes." + +Henderson turned back to his own office, his nerves twitching. He was +obliged to face the duties of this day. + +What was to happen now to William Henderson, the leading citizen of +Spring Valley? Actually, he now did not so much care. It was his +son--his own son--in yonder jail! The heart of a father began to be born +in him, thus late, thus very, very late.... He had seen her face, last +night. + +He walked slowly down his stair and across the street to the courthouse. +His course was such that he could not see into Mulberry Street. Some +persons were hurrying in that direction, but he did not join them. He +was too preoccupied to pay much attention to the sounds which came to +his ears. As for himself, he could have gone anywhere rather than near +to the house of Aurora Lane that morning. A great terror filled his +soul, a terror largely of these people among whom he had lived thus +long. They had wrecked her home. They might have done worse in their +savagery. But it was he himself who was the real cause of that. Would +she still keep her oath now, after this? Could she be silent now? + +He walked on now into the courthouse and down the long hall. He was +about to step into the county clerk's office, when he came face to face +with a tall man just stepping out. It was Horace Brooks. + +"Well, Judge," said the latter, "how is it with you today?" + +He spoke not unkindly, although his own face was haggard and gray. +Neither had he slept that night. + +"It goes badly enough," said Henderson. "Nothing could be much worse. +Well?" + +"You want to know if the grand jury has voted that bill? They have--I +have just heard. Of course you know I am counsel of record for the +defense." + +"I didn't know it." + +"Yes, Judge, there's going to be a fight on this case," said Hod Brooks +grimly. "That is, if you really want to fight. I've got nothing left to +trade--but, Judge, do you think you and I really ought to fight--over +this particular case?" + +"I can't forswear my own professional duties," began Judge Henderson, +his mouth dry in his dull dread, his heart wrenched. He wondered what +Hod Brooks knew, what he was going to do. He knew what must come, but he +was not ready for the hour. + +"Come into this room," said Horace Brooks suddenly. "I won't go to your +office, and I won't ask you to come to mine. But come in here, and let's +have a little talk." + +They stepped over to the door of the county treasurer's office, across +the hall. It was a room of the sort usual in a country courthouse, with +its high stools and desks, its map-hung walls, its scattered chairs, its +great red record books lying here and there upon the desk top. + +A young woman sat making some entry in a book. "Miss Carrie," said +Horace Brooks to her, "Judge Henderson and I want to talk a little +together privately. Please keep us from being disturbed. You run +away--we won't steal the county funds." + +Smilingly the clerk obeyed. Brooks turned to Judge Henderson abruptly. + +"Look here, Judge," said he. + +He pointed to a large framed lithograph which hung on the wall--the same +which had hung on the wall in the library at the exercises of Saturday +night. It was a portrait of the candidate for the United States +Senate--Judge Henderson himself. The latter looked at it for a moment +without comment, and turned back with an inquiring eye. + +Brooks was fumbling in the side pocket of his alpaca coat, and now he +drew out from it a good-sized photograph, which he placed face upward on +the desk beside them. It was done in half-profile, as was the portrait +upon the wall. + +"Look at this picture too, Judge, if you please," said he, "and then +look back again at the lithograph. That was taken some years ago, when +you were young, wasn't it?" + +Judge Henderson flushed lividly. "I leave all those things to the +committee," croaked he. + +"--But this one here," said Horace Brooks slowly, "was taken when you +were still younger, _say, when you were twenty-two_, wasn't it?" He +moved back so that Judge Henderson might look at the photograph. He saw +the face of the great man grow yellow pale. + +"Where did you get this?" he whispered. "How?" + +"I got it of Miss Julia Delafield, at the library, early this morning," +said Horace Brooks. "I told Miss Julia, whatever she did, to stay in the +library and not to go over to Aurora Lane's house. I--I didn't want her +to see what had happened there. She was busy, but she found this picture +for me. And we both know that really it is a photograph of the young man +against whom the grand jury have just brought a true bill--within the +last ten minutes." + +There was silence in the dusty little room. The large white hand on the +desk top was visibly trembling. Hod Brooks' voice was low as he went on: + +"Now, as to trying this case, Judge, I brought you in here to ask you +what you really want to do? I don't my own self very often try cases out +of court--although I have sometimes--sometimes. Yes, sometimes that's +the way to serve the ends of substantial justice." + +Henderson made no reply--he scarcely could have spoken. He could feel +the net tightening; he knew what he was to expect now. + +"Now, here are these two pictures," resumed Brooks. "Suppose I _were_ +trying this case _in_ court. I'm not sure, but I think I could get them +both introduced in evidence, these two pictures. I think they are both +germane to this case--don't you? You've been on the bench--we've both +read law. Do you think as a judge you could keep a good lawyer from +getting these two pictures introduced in evidence in that case?" + +"I don't see how you could," said the hoarse voice of Judge Henderson. +"It would be altogether immaterial and incompetent." + +"Perhaps, perhaps," said Hod Brooks. "That's another good reason why I'd +rather try the case here, if it suits you! But just suppose I enlarged +this photograph to the exact size of the lithograph on the wall, and +suppose I did get them both into evidence, and suppose I unveiled the +two at just the psychological moment--I presume you would trust me to do +that? + +"Now if I hadn't seen you last night just where you were, if I hadn't +hoped, from what I saw of you, that you were part man at least--_that's +how I would try this case_! What do you think about it?" + +"I think you are practising politics again, and not law," sneered +Henderson. But his face was white. + +"Yes? Well, I'll tell you, I don't want to see you go to the United +States Senate. In the first place, though I agreed not to run at all, I +never agreed to help you run. In the second place, I never did think you +were a good enough man to go there, and now I think it less than ever. +And since you ask me a direct question of political bearing, I'll say +that, if the public records--that is to say, the court records and all +the newspapers--showed the similarity of these two pictures side by +side, the effect on your political future might be very considerable! +What do you think? + +"Now, if you take you and that boy side by side today," he went on, +having had no reply, "the resemblance between you two might not be +noticed. But get the _ages_ together--get the view of the face the same +in each case--take him at his age and you at something near the same +age--and don't you think there is much truth in what I said? The boy has +red hair, like me! But in black and white he looks like you!" + +Judge Henderson, unable to make reply, had turned away. He was staring +out from the window over the courthouse yard. + +"Some excitement over there," he said. Hod Brooks did not hear him. + +"That face on the wall there, Judge Henderson," said he, "is the face of +a murderer! The face of this boy is not that of a murderer. But _you_ +murdered a woman twenty years ago--not a man, but a woman--and damn +you, you know it, absolutely well! I saw last night that at last you +realized your own crime, that crime--you had _guilt_ on your face. I am +going to charge you--just as you maybe were planning to charge that +boy--with murder, worse than murder in the first degree, if that be +possible--worse even than prosecuting your own son for murder when you +know he's innocent! + +"_You_ murdered that woman whom we two saw last night! _You_ made that +beastly mob a possible thing--not now, but years ago. Do you think the +people of this community will want to send you to the United States +Senate if they ever get a look at that act? Do you think they would +relish the thought that _you're_ the special prosecutor where _your son_ +is on trial for his life? I say it--_your son_! You know it, and I know +it. You'd jeopardize the life that you yourself gave to him and were too +cowardly to acknowledge! Do you think you'd have a chance on earth here +if those things were known--if they knew you'd refused to defend +him--that you'd denied your own son? And do you think for a moment these +things will _not_ be known if I take this case?" + +"This is blackmail!" exclaimed Judge Henderson, swinging around. "I'll +not stand for this." + +"Of course, it's blackmail, Judge. I know that. But it's justice. And +you will stand for it! I didn't take this boy's case to get him hanged, +but to get him clear. I don't care a damn how I do it, but I'm going to +do it. I'd fight a man like you with anything I could get my hands on. +This is blackmail, yes; and it's politics--but it's justice." + +"I didn't think this was possible," began Henderson, his voice shaking. +"I didn't think this of you." + +"There's a lot of things people never thought of me," smiled Hod Brooks. +"I'm something of a trader my own self. Here's where we trade again. + +"Listen. I didn't have the start that you had. I started far back beyond +the flag, and I have had to run hard to get into any place. Maybe I'll +lose all my place through this, I don't know. But I never got anywhere +in my life by shirking or sidestepping." + +"You have some hidden interest in this." + +"Yes! Now you have come to it! I'm not so much thinking of myself, not +so much thinking of you. I'm thinking of that woman." + +He could not find Henderson's eyes now, for Henderson's face was buried +in his hands. + +"I was thinking of something of the sort," Brooks went on slowly, "in +that other case, in Blackman's court last Saturday. Why didn't you try +that case, Judge? Didn't you know then he was your boy?" + +The suddenly aged man before him did not make any reply. His full eyes +seemed to protrude yet more. "I felt something--I wasn't sure. She'd +told me years ago the boy was dead. How could I believe I was his +father? Don't ask me." + +"I wish to God _I_ could have been the father of that boy!" said Hod +Brooks deliberately. + +"We seem to be talking freely enough!" said Henderson. The perspiration +was breaking out on his forehead. But Horace Brooks took no shame to +himself for what he had said. + +"The mother of that boy," he went on, "is the one woman I ever cared +for, Judge. I'll admit that to you. If there were any way in the world +so that I could take that woman's troubles on my own shoulders, I'd do +it.... So, you see, this wasn't blackmail after all, Judge. It wasn't +really politics after all. I was doing this for _her_." + +"For her?" + +"Yes. Now listen. You met her as a girl, when she didn't know much. I +never met her really to know much about her until she was a grown woman, +with a character--a splendid character whose like you'll not find +anywhere in this town, nor in many another town. You never had the +courage to come out and say that she was your wife--you never had the +courage to make her your wife. You thought you could last her out in +this town, because she was a person of no consequence--because she was a +woman. And all the time she was the grandest woman in this town. But she +didn't have any friends. Now, it seemed to me, she ought to have a +friend. + +"Do you call it blackmail now, Judge?" he asked presently. "Is this +politics?" + +But he ceased in his assault as he saw the pallor of the face of his +antagonist. + +"You've got me, Hod!" said Judge William Henderson, gasping. "I confess! +It's over. You've got me!" + +"Yes, I've got you, but I don't want you," said Hod Brooks. "I'm not +after you socially, legally, politically, or any other way. I tell you, +I'm thinking of those two women who put your son through college--who +had all they could do to keep their souls in their bodies, while you +lived the way you have lived here. They paid your debts for you--they +advanced cash and character _both_ for you--just two poor women. The +question now is, How are you going to pay any of your debts? There'll be +considerable accrued interest." + +"I didn't know it all, I tell you," broke out Judge Henderson. "She +hasn't spoken to me for years, you might say--we never met. I didn't +know the boy was alive--she told me twenty years ago that he'd died, a +baby. This has all come up in a day--I've not had time to learn, to +think, to plan, to adjust----God! don't you think it's terrible enough, +with him there in jail?" + +"She never asked you for help?" + +"No, not till yesterday." + +"She was game. I was sure. That was one reason why I went to that woman +night before last and asked her if she'd marry me." + +"What--you did that?" + +"I did that! I told her _I_ would take the boy and give him a father. I +said I'd even call him my own--I'd come that close to losing my own +self-respect in just this one case in the world. But, I told her, of +course I couldn't do that unless she was a widow. And, Judge, I +learned--from her--that she wasn't a widow. Oh, no, she didn't tell me +about you--and I never figured it out all clean till just now--that the +late District Judge of this county, and the Senatorial candidate for +this State--was the father of the boy, Don Lane. Huh? Oh, stand up to +it--you've got to take it. + +"Now, this boy of yours had no father and two mothers--it's an odd case. +But how did I learn who was the father of that boy? Not from Aurora +Lane. No, I learned that from the other mother--this morning--Miss +Julia. And as soon as I did--as soon as I was convinced I had proofs--I +started over to find you." + +"My God! man, what could you have meant?--You told her you would marry +her?" Judge Henderson's sheer astonishment overcame all other emotions. + +"I meant every word I said. If it could have been humanly possible for +me to marry her, I'd have done that. Yes--I wanted to give her her +chance. I couldn't give her her chance. It looks as though she didn't +have one, never has had, never can have. + +"Now, if I hadn't seen you last night right where I did--if I didn't +believe that somewhere inside of you there was just a trace of +manhood--it's not very much--it's damned little--I wouldn't have asked +you to come in here to talk. I'd have waited until I got you in the +courtroom. I'd have waited until I got you on the platform, and then I'd +have taken your heart out in public. I'd have broken you before the +people of this town. I'd have flayed you alive and prayed your hide to +grow so I could take it off again, and I'd have hung it on the public +fence. But, you see--last night----My God! + +"I wouldn't trade places with you now, Judge Henderson," said Hod +Brooks, after a time. "If I knew I had been responsible for what we saw +last night, as you were responsible--I'd never raise my head again. + +"As for the United States Senate, Judge, do you think you're fit to go +there? Do you think this is blackmail now? Do you think you want to try +this murder case? Do you think you want to try this case against this +boy--your son--her son? There may be men worse than you in the United +States Senate, but I will say it might be full of better. You're never +going there, Judge. And you're never going to try this case." + +"You've got me, Hod," croaked the ashy-faced man. + +"Yeh, Judge, I have! But that's not the question." + +"What do you mean?" + +"You swore the oath of justice and support of the law when you were +admitted to this bar. You've broken your oath--all your oaths. Are you +going to throw yourself on the court now and ask for forgiveness?" + +Henderson stood weakly, half supporting himself against the desk edge. +He seemed shrunken all at once, his clothing fitted him less snugly. A +roughened place showed on the side of his shining top hat--the only top +hat in Spring Valley. + +"I've tried this case," said Hod Brooks sharply. "I've tried it before +your own conscience. It took twenty years for a woman to square herself. +I'm going to ask the court to send you up for twenty years. You murdered +a good woman. That's a light sentence." + +A large fly was buzzing on the window-pane in the sunlight, and the +sound was distinctly audible in the silence that now fell in the little +room. It might indeed have been twenty years that had passed here in as +many minutes, so swift a revolution had taken place. The making over of +a soul; the cleansing of a life; the changing of an entire creed of +conduct; the surrender of a dominating inborn trait; the tearing down +and building over a vain and wholly selfish man. + +"I think she's a good woman," said Hod Brooks simply, after a time. + +"So do I!" broke out Judge Henderson at length, with a sudden gasp. "So +do I! She's a good woman. I knew it last night. I've known it all along, +in a way. It all came over me last night--I saw it all plain for the +first time in all these years. Hod! You're right. I don't deserve mercy. +I don't ask it--I'd be ashamed to." + +"Religion," said Hod Brooks, quite irrelevantly, "is not altogether +confined to churches, you know. A man's conviction may hit him +anywhere--even in the office of the county treasurer of Jackson County. +But if I was a preacher, Judge Henderson, I'd be mighty glad to hear you +say what you have said." + +In his face there showed some sort of strange emotion of his own, a sort +of yearning for the understanding of his own nature by this other man; +and some sort of rude man's sympathy for the broken man who stood before +him. + +"You both were young," said he softly and irrelevantly. "I'm not your +judge." + +"Hod," said Judge Henderson--"I'm done! I wouldn't go to the Senate +tomorrow if they'd let me. For twenty years she's taken her fate. She's +never told my name. She's never blamed me. She's paid all her debts. In +the next twenty years--can I live as well as that?" + +"Yes, she's paid her debts. We've all got to do that some time--there +doesn't seem to be any good way of getting clear of an honest debt, +does there? It costs considerable, sometimes." Hod Brooks' voice held no +wavering, but it was not unkind. + +"But now, Judge," he resumed, "we get around to my profession, which is +that of the practice of the law. There's a true bill against the boy. +State's Attorney Slattery don't amount to much--I know about a lot of +things. You're the real intended prosecutor here. Now, I don't want any +passing over of this case to another term of court--I'm not going to let +that boy lie in jail." + +"That was what I meant to do--I wasn't going to try for a conviction--I +was going to try for delay." + +"Come into court with me and openly ask the quashing of this +indictment," said Hod Brooks. "And we can beat that delay game a +thousand ways of the deck! But now, now--you _did_ have the heart of a +father, then? So, so--well, well! Say, Judge, we're not opponents--we're +partners in this case." + +"Hod----" began the other; but Hod Brooks was the master mind. "I +believe we can show, some time, somehow," said he, "that the boy didn't +do it. I know the boy's _mother_. Of course, his father wasn't so much!" +He broke out into his great laugh, but in the corners of his eyes there +was visible a dampness. + +Judge Henderson hesitated for just a moment. "Believe at least this +much, Hod," said he. "I didn't know as much at first as I do now. +She--she told me all--I saw it all--last night. I want to tell the +truth--near as I know. When I saw the boy in Blackman's court--it didn't +seem possible, and yet it did. But who gave you the notion? What made +_you_ suspect it? You didn't suspect it then, in the justice court, did +you?" + +"Only vaguely," said Hod Brooks; "not so very much. I'll tell you who +did--a woman." + +"Aurora?" + +"No--Miss Julia. Miss Julia sat there looking from the face of Don Lane +to your own face. There was something in her face--I can't tell what. +Why, hell! I don't suppose a man ever does know what's going on in a +woman's heart, least of all a crude man like me, that never had any fine +feelings in all his life. But there was something there in Miss Julia's +face--I can't tell what. In some way, in her mind, she was connecting +those two faces that she saw before her. If I hadn't seen her face, I +wouldn't ever have suspected you of being the father of that boy! + +"But something stuck in my mind. Now, this morning, getting ready to +prepare my case, defending this boy, I went over to Miss Julia's +library. I still remembered what I had seen. I found this picture +there--she had that other picture there, hanging on her wall, too. She +had them both! One was on the wall and the other on her desk. Now, she +had certainly established some connection in her own mind between those +two pictures, or else she wouldn't have had them there both right +before her." + +"Then you, too, know," interrupted Henderson, "the story of those two +women--how they brought him up from babyhood--and kept the secret? Why +did Miss Julia do that?" + +"Because she was a woman." + +"But why didn't she tell?" + +"Because she was a woman." + +"But why--what makes you suppose she ever would care in the first place +for this boy when he was a baby?" + +"Again, because she was a woman, Judge!" + +"She came and told me all about her friendship for Aurora. But she +admitted she didn't know who the father of the boy was. Then why should +she connect me with this?" + +"The same reason, Judge--because she was a woman! + +"And when you come to that," he added as he turned toward the door, +"that covers our whole talk today. That's why I got you to come here. +That's why I'm interested in this case. That's why I've made you try +this case yourself, here, now, Judge, before the court of your own +conscience. A crime worse than murder has been done here in this town to +Aurora Lane--because she was a woman! She's borne the brunt of it--paid +all her debts--carried all her awful, unspeakable, unbelievable +load--because she was a woman! + +"And," he concluded, "if you ask me why I was specially interested in +the boy's case and yours and hers--I'll tell you. I gave up--to you--all +my hope of success and honor and preferment just so as to help her all I +could; to stand between her and the world all I could; to help her and +her boy all I could. It was because she was a woman--the very best I +ever knew." + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +MISS JULIA + + +It was now ten o'clock of this eventful morning in quiet old Spring +Valley. A hush seemed to have fallen on all the town. The streets were +well-nigh deserted so far as one might see from the public square. Only +one figure seemed animated by a definite purpose. + +Miss Julia Delafield came rapidly as she might across the street from +the foot of the stair that led up to Judge Henderson's office. She had +hobbled up the stair and hobbled down again, and now was crossing the +street that led to the courthouse. She came through the little turnstile +and tap-tapped her way up the wide brick walk. Her face, turned up +eagerly, was flushed, full of great emotions. + +Miss Julia was clad in her best finery. She had on a bright new +hat--which she had had over from Aurora's shop but recently. She had +worn it at the great event of Don Lane's homecoming--worn it to make +tribute to her "son." She wore it now in search of that son's +father--and she had not the slightest idea in the world who that father +in fact might be. Miss Julia's divination was only such stuff as dreams +are made on. The father of Don, the unborn father of her unborn +beloved--was not yet caught out of chaos, not yet resolved out of +time--he was but a creature of her dreams. + +So Miss Julia walked haltingly through star dust. It whirled all about +her as she crossed the dirty street. Around her spun all the nebulae of +life yet to be. Somewhere on beyond and back of this was a soft, gray, +vague light, the light of creation itself, of the dawn, of the birth of +time. Perhaps some would have said it was the light shining down through +the courthouse hall from the farther open door. Who would deny poor +little Miss Julia her splendid dreams? + +For Miss Julia was very, very happy. She had found how the world was +made and why it was made. And mighty few wise men ever have learned so +much as that. + +She searched for the father of her first-born--a man tall and splendid +and beautiful--a man strong and just and noble. Such only might be the +father of her boy.... And she met him at the door of the county +treasurer's office, his silk hat slightly rumpled on one side. + +"Oh!" she cried, and started back. + +She had only been thinking. But here he was. This was proof to Miss +Julia's mind that God actually does engage in our daily lives. For here +he was! + +Now she could bring father and son together; and that would correlate +this world of question and doubt with that world of the star dust and +the whirling nebulae. + +"Miss Julia!" The judge stopped, suddenly embarrassed. He flushed, which +was all the better, for he had been ashen pale. + +"Oh, I'm so glad!" she exclaimed. "I was looking for you, all over. I +was at your office, but did not find you. Of course you have heard?" + +"Heard? No, what was it?" + +"Why, the death of Johnnie Adamson--it was the sheriff, just now--Dan +Cowles shot him, right in front of Aurora Lane's house. He must have +been trying to break in or something. His father was there." + +"Why, great heavens!--what are you telling me? The sheriff shot him? +Where is Cowles? I must see him." + +"He's here in the courthouse now, they say. But it's all over now. Where +have you been? I was going over to Aurora's house early this morning, +but Mr. Brooks came in. I must go over at once----" + +"Come this way, Miss Julia," he interrupted. + +He led her into the room he had just left. Racked as he was himself, he +knew it would be too cruel an unkindness to tell Miss Julia now of what +had befallen Aurora Lane the night before. + +"The reason I came to you first," said Miss Julia--"before I went to +Aurora--was about the boy--about Don. You see, he confessed--the +half-wit did--before he was killed. The sheriff and others and his own +father heard him say that he had killed Tarbush, don't you see? He'd +gone wild, don't you see--he was a maniac. It was a madman killed +Tarbush. Why, Don didn't do it--I _told_ you he couldn't have done it! +Didn't I? + +"So now it's all cleared--and I'm so glad!" she concluded, breathless. + +"What's all this you are telling me, Miss Julia? Why, this is basic +evidence--it does end the case! But you say there were witnesses to this +confession?" A vast relief came into Judge Henderson's ashen face. + +"Yes, yes, the sheriff and Eph Adamson and Nels Jorgens--they all heard +him. And the poor boy--his body's in the justice's office now. They've +sent a messenger after his mother--poor thing--oh, poor woman that she +is!" + +"Where is Adamson now--where's the sheriff?" + +"As I said, the sheriff is here in the building somewhere. Old Eph +Adamson won't speak to anyone. He seems half out of his own mind now. +But he doesn't blame the sheriff. They say he's sorry for Aurora. Why? + +"So you see," said Miss Julia, leaping over a vast sea of intervening +facts, "everything's all right now." And she sighed a great soft sigh +of complete content. "Of course Don didn't do it. I knew that all +along." + +"Where's Anne--my ward?" asked Judge Henderson suddenly. "I want to +speak to her a moment." + +"I don't know," said Miss Julia. But she smiled, and all her choicest +dimples came out in fine array. "I shouldn't wonder if she was in jail! +Now I've got to go over to Aurora's. All this news, you know----" + +But Miss Julia did not hasten away. To the contrary, she seemed not +unwilling to linger yet a time--unconsciously. The truth was that all +her heart was happy, with the one supreme happiness possible for her in +all her life. For a second time she was here, standing face to face with +her hero. So she sighed and smiled and dimpled and talked over this +thing and that--until at length she turned and caught sight of the two +pictures, the one on the wall, the other on the desk--which both men had +left there, forgotten. + +"Why, what's this?" said she. "I gave Mr. Brooks this one this morning," +she said. "He might at least have returned it to me. He said he wanted +to borrow it for a little while. Was he here?" + +"He just went away," said Judge Henderson uneasily. "He was here just +now." + +Miss Julia was taking up the little photograph and looking from it to +the lithograph with soft eyes. + +"Isn't it fine?" said she. "Fine!" But she did not say which one of the +two faces she saw before her was most in her mind.... And then in the +little room with its dusty windows and its tumbled books and map-hung +walls, Miss Julia leaped to the great fundamental conclusion of her own +life. + +She saw out far into the time of star dust and the soft vague light and +the whirling nebulae. She saw all the great truths--saw the one great +truth for any woman--saw her hero standing here--the dream father of her +own dream child.... But Miss Julia never grasped the real, the inferior, +the human truth at all. On the contrary, she made a vast and very +beautiful mistake. She had assigned a dream father to her dream son, but +no more. That Judge William Henderson was the father indeed of Dieudonne +Lane she no more suspected than she suspected herself to be his actual +mother. So, therefore, it had been only a path of dreams that Horace +Brooks had followed when he saw her look from the boy's to the father's +face. It was only a path of dreams now that again her eyes followed, as +she looked from the portrait of the youth to the man who stood before +her. Ah! Miss Julia. Poor, little, happy Miss Julia! + +"So now, Judge," said she at last, "you can clear him, after all. It +will be so fine for you to do that--so dramatic--so fitting, won't it?" + +If Judge Henderson could have spoken, perhaps he would have done so; but +she misunderstood his choking silence. She was miles away from the +actual truth; and never was to know it in all her life. + +"Don hadn't any father," said she. "His father's dead long ago, or +Aurora would have told me. He's in his grave--and she'll not open it +even for me, who have loved her so much. But if he had had a father..." +Her voice ceased wistfully. + +Judge Henderson coughed, his hands at his throat. She did not see his +face. + +"... If only he could have had a father like--this!" + +Her own little hand fell gently--ever so gently--on the lithographed +face of the great man, her hero, her champion--who always was to be such +for her. It was the boldest act of all her quiet life. Her hand was very +gentle, but as it fell, perhaps it dealt the heaviest blow to the +vanity, the egotism, the innate selfishness of the man ever he had +known, even in this swift series of blows he was now receiving. For once +remorse, regret, understanding smote him sore. He saw how little he had +earned what life had given him. He saw--himself! + +"But then," she added hastily, and flushed to the roots of her hair--"I +beg your pardon. That could not have been, of course. Don's father--the +way he was born--why, _Don's_ father couldn't have been a man like +_you_! We all know that." + +Miss Julia hobbled on away now to find her friend, Aurora Lane. She did +not know the story of the night before. Miss Julia was very, very +happy. She had her boy and his father after all--and both were above +reproach! And she never told, not in all her life--and she never knew, +not in all her life. And as she hobbled now up the walk beyond the +little gate--somewhat repentant that her own eagerness had kept her away +thus long from Aurora, she felt no remorse in her heart that she had not +told Aurora Lane the real secret of her own life. "Because," remarked +Miss Julia, to herself, like any woman, "there is one secret she has +never told me--she has never told me who was Don's father!" + +Poor little Miss Julia! Ah, very happy, very happy, little Miss Julia! +Because she was a woman. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +THE STATE VS. DIEUDONNE LANE + + +Judge Henderson, haggard, shaken, turned and walked down one of the +halls which traversed the courthouse building. In the central space, +where the two halls crossed at right angles, was a curving stair leading +up to the courtrooms and the offices of the immediate servants of +justice. As he stood here he saw again the tall figure of Horace Brooks +approaching. He walked even more stooped forward than was usually his +case, shambling, his feet turned out at wide angles. His great face in +its fringe of red beard hung forward--but it bore now nothing but +smiles. It showed nothing of triumph over the man he saw standing here +waiting, humble and broken. He himself had said that he lacked birth and +breeding. If so, whence got he this strange gentleness which marked his +face now, as he stepped up to Judge Henderson--the man who but now had +stood between him and success--who must always, so long as he lived, +stand between him and happiness--the man whom he had beaten? + +"Judge," said Horace Brooks, "I reckon about the best thing we can do is +to go right on up to the court and get this thing cleaned up. You've +heard the news by now?" + +Henderson nodded. "Yes, just now." + +"Well, that softens up a lot of things, doesn't it? It will make things +easier for everyone concerned--a whole lot easier for you and me, Judge. +Now we can ask for the quashing of this indictment and the court can't +help granting it. Cowles is there. He's just gone up. Adamson is with +him." + +So they went up before the court, and the judge listened to the story of +the sad-faced officer and the sad-faced old man with him. And presently +the clerk at his side inscribed in the records: "The State vs. Dieudonne +Lane, murder in the first degree. Indictment quashed on motion of +Assistant State's Attorney." + +"You will discharge the prisoner from custody, Mr. Sheriff," said the +judge. + +"I'd like to say, if it please the Court," said Cowles, drawing a large +and adequate handkerchief from his pocket and blowing a large and +adequate nose, "that last night, at the time of the--the disturbance +which these gentlemen here helped me to quell--this same young man +that's just been discharged--why, he helped me as much as anybody." + +"What do you mean?" demanded the judge severely. "You let him out of +your custody when he was under commitment?" + +"Yes, your Honor. I may have been short in some of my duties, your +Honor. I let a woman--a young woman--go in there last night to see him +for a few minutes. When she went out I must have forgot to lock the +door. What they said, now, it must have stirred me up some way. When the +mob formed and came to the jail the prisoner had walked out. But right +at the worst of it, there he was. And after it he went on back to jail +alone. When I got back he was in his cell. The door wasn't locked even +then. My wife wasn't there. + +"I reckon, your Honor, we've all of us sort of made a general mistake," +concluded Dan Cowles deprecatingly. "I allowed I'd tell this Court about +it." + +So, amid the frowning silence of the court, and the silence as well of +all who heard this, the two attorneys, the sheriff and Ephraim Adamson +walked on down the winding stairs. + +Adamson saw coming across the courthouse yard the figure of an angular +woman, dressed in calico, a sun-bonnet on her head, a sodden +handkerchief in her hand. He walked on hurriedly to meet her. At the +very spot where so lately he and his son had stood to challenge the +world to combat, he took this gaunt old woman in his arms, in the +sunlight before all the world. "Mother!" said he. + +And at about this same time--since after all the world and life and +swift keen joy of living must go on just the same--two young persons +stood not far distant from that scene; stood not in the full light of +the sun, stood not in the wisdom and sadness of middle age, but in +youth--in youth and the glory and splendor of the vast, ineffable, +indispensable illusion. The dim twilight which lighted them might have +been the soft, vague light of the world's own dawning--the same which +poor Miss Julia had seen that very day. + +Cowles hastened away from the door after he had thrown back the +bolts--the bolts and bars which had been laughed at by love all this +time. The young man came out into the stone-floored hall where Anne +Oglesby stood waiting for him--all beautiful and fresh and clean and +sweet--fragrant as a very flower in her worthiness for love. + +"Don!" she said, and held out her arms, running toward him. + +"Oh, Anne! Anne!" + +His arms went about her. And this time there was no one there to see. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +THE SACKCLOTH OF SPRING VALLEY + + +Number five roared eastward through the town that day on time. No one +stepped down from the train, and no one took passage on it. Spring +Valley had dropped back into its customary uneventfulness so far as the +outer world might tell. It was but a little hamlet on the long line of +fields and trees that lies along the way of Number Five. + +Hurrying on toward the vast confusion of the metropolis, Number Five +gave up its tenants to be lost in the cosmic focus of the great city, +where all about were the lights and the anxious faces. The city, with +its tall, dentated outline against the sky--wonderful, beautiful, +alluring; the city with its unceasing strife, its vast and brooding +peace, where walk side by side the ablest men, the most beautiful women +of all the world, all keyed to the highest pitch of effort, all living +at white heat of emotion and passion, of joy and of sorrow--the city and +its ways--we may not know these unless we, too, embark on Number Five. + +In the silk-lined recesses of one of the city's greatest hostelries, +where anything in the world may be bought, there sat, soon after the +arrival of Number Five at the metropolis, the traveling man, Ben McQuaid +of Spring Valley, and a little milliner from a town east of Spring +Valley which Ben McQuaid "made" in his regular travel for his "house." +He had bought for her now the most expensive viands, the most confusing +and inspiring wines that all the city could offer. Soft-footed servants +were attending them both. They were having their little fling. To the +city that was a matter of small consequence. + +Nor, when it comes to that, was all the city itself of so much +consequence. The great fact is that, while Ben McQuaid and the little +milliner were speeding east on Number Five, at midday, when the dusty +maples of Spring Valley still were motionless under the heat of the +inland summer day--old Nels Jorgens' wife was walking across the way +with a covered dish in her hands.... In the dish, you say, there was +only some crude cottage cheese for Aurora Lane? Was that all you saw? +Seek again: for you, too, are human and neither may you escape the great +things of life, nor ought you to miss its great discoveries. + +Mrs. Nels Jorgens had on no hat. Her gown was God knows what--gingham or +calico or silk or cloth of gold, who shall say? She was a woman of +fifty-eight. Her sunken stomach protruded far below her flattened and +withered bosom as she walked. Her stringy hair was gray and uncomely. +But her face--now her face--have you not seen it? Perhaps not in the +city. But the little supper in the city (not yet come to the time of +sack-cloth) was by no means so great a thing as the service of Mrs. Nels +Jorgens, the wagon-maker's wife, when she carried across to Aurora Lane +a dish of something for her luncheon. + +And others came. From the byways of this late cruel-hearted village came +women, surely not cruel-hearted after all. They seemed to have some +common errand. They were paying off the debt of years, though what they +brought was not in silver dishes and there was no bubbling wine. So far +from calling this a merciless, ignorant town, a hopeless town, at noon +of that day, had you been there and seen these women and their ways, you +would have called it charitable, kindly, beautiful; though after all it +was and had been only human. + +Over the breathless maples there seemed now to hang a stratum of another +atmosphere, as sensible, as appreciable, as though a physical thing +itself. The sympathy of Spring Valley was awake at last--after twenty +years! + +"'Rory, I just thought I'd come over and bring you a dish of this--I had +some already made. I said to myself, says I, if we can eat this all the +time, maybe you can just once"--it was the old jest, humble but kind. It +sounded wondrous sweet to Aurora Lane--after twenty years. + +After these had gone away again, a little awed by the white, sad +dignity of Aurora Lane--even nature seemed to relent. Ben McQuaid and +the little milliner were cooled by swiftly revolving electric fans +yonder in the city. But along in the evening of this summer day in +Spring Valley the leaves of the maples were stirred by softly moving +breezes done by nature's hand. + +"Aaron," said old Silas Kneebone to his crony, "seems like we're goin' +to get a change of weather. Maybe the hot spell's broke at last." + +"I'll tell you what I'll do, Silas," said his friend suddenly, +straightening up on his staff. "I'll tell you what I'll do with you, +Silas. Even if it _is_ goin' to be cool before long--I'll just take you +over to the drug store and buy you a drink of ice-cream sody at the +fountain!" + +"Time comes," he continued after a time, "when a fellow's been feelin' +kind of stirred up, some way--when he feels just like he didn't care a +hang for no expense. Ain't that the truth?" + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +BECAUSE SHE WAS A WOMAN + + +The blessed change in the weather came on apace. The sultry air softened +and became more life-giving. Folk moved into the open, sat out upon the +steps of the front galleries, rich and poor alike, willing to take the +air. There was an unusual silence, an unwonted scarcity of callings back +and forth across the fences. The people of the town did not care to +revive the memories of the last two days. + +But the narrow little porch in front of the millinery shop on Mulberry +Street held no occupant. There was a light within, but the blinds were +close drawn. None who passed could hear any sound. + +Aurora Lane had sat for hours, almost motionless, at the side of the +table where customarily she worked. She made no pretense to read in her +Bible now. Her little white bed was unrumpled by any pressure of her +body bowed at its side in prayer, although it was her hour now for these +things. + +She was trying to think. Her mind had been crushed. She sat dazed. It +seemed to her an age since these women--these strangely kind-hearted, +newly charitable women--had been here. Or, had she only dreamed that +they were here? Had it been a passage of angels she herself had +witnessed here? + +She had told Miss Julia not to let Don come to see her just yet. So, +though she had heard the great news of his release, she had not met him. +"I'll have to think, Julia," she said. "I don't know what I'll do. I +must be alone." + +The window of her shop was still unmended. The red hat which had been so +long, in one redressing or another, the sign of her wares, now was bent +and broken beyond all possibility of restoration. The walls were bare, +the furniture was broken. It was wreck and ruin that lay about her, as +dully she still was conscious. + +Twenty years of it--and this was the climax! What place was there left +for her in all the world? As she sat, hour after hour, alone, Aurora +Lane was thinking of the dark pool under the bridge, of how cool and +comforting it might be. Her bosom rose, torn now and then with deep, +slow sobs, like the ground swell of a sea moved by some vast, remote, +invisible cause. She had been sobbing thus for some twenty-four hours. + +She had not moved about very much today in her household, had not often +left her chair here at the table. The mob had destroyed most of her +pitiful store of gear, so there was small choice left her. + +Somewhere she had found, deep down in a trunk tray, an old and faded +garment, its silken sleeves so worn that the creases were now open--a +blouse which she had put away long, long ago--twenty years and more ago. +She wore it as best she might; and over the neck where the silk was gone +she had cast a white shawl, also of silk, a thing likewise come down, +treasured, from her meager girlhood days. This would serve her, so she +thought, until she could find heart to go to bed and endeavor to find +sleep.... Yes. They may have been of her own mother's wedding finery. +Yes. Perhaps she one day had planned they might be parts of her own +wedding gear.... But she had had no wedding. + +She had done her hair, with Miss Julia's weeping aid, as simply as might +be--as she had when she was younger. It lay now in long, heavy, deep +rolls, down the nape of her white neck, along the sides of her head, +covering her little ears, still shapely. Her face was white as death, +but still it held traces in its features, sharpened and refined, of what +once was a tender and joyous beauty of its own--a beauty now high and +spiritual. In her time Aurora Lane had been known far and wide as a very +beautiful girl; self-willed, yes; wild--but beautiful. She did not +remember these things now, not in the least; and there was no mirror +left unbroken in the place. + +The evening waxed on, approaching nine of the clock, at which time good +folk began to turn up the porch chairs against the wall so that the +rain might not hurt them if it came, and to draw back into the stuffy +rooms and to prepare for the use of the stuffy beds. Fathers of families +now drank deeply at the pitcher of ice water left on the center table. +One little group after another, visible here and there on the porches or +the stairs along the little street, lessened and gradually disappeared. +One by one the lights went out all over the town. By ten o'clock the +town would have settled down to slumber. It was Monday, and on Monday +night not even the most ardent swains frequent hammocks or front parlors +at an hour so late as ten o'clock in our town, Saturday night and the +Lord's day being more especially set apart for these usages. + +But the light in Aurora Lane's house still burned. She did not know how +late it was. The clock on the mantel was silent, for it had been broken +by the men who had been there the night before. She sat motionless as a +woman of stone. Not even her boy was there--not even Miss Julia was +there. She was alone--with her future, and with her past. + +It must have been toward midnight when at length Aurora Lane raised her +head, turned a little. She had heard a sound! A sharp pang of terror +caught at her--sheer, unreasoning terror. Were they coming again? But +no, it was not the sound of many footfalls, not the sound of many +voices. + +What came to her now was a single sound, not made up of others--a low, +definite sound. And it was not at her door in front--it was at the side +of the house--it was at her window! + +It was a slight sound--a sort of tapping rhythmically repeated--a +signal! + +Aurora Lane stopped breathing--her heart stopped in her bosom. The face +was icy white which she turned toward the window back of which she heard +this sound, this signal. She thought she had gone mad. She believed that +at last her mind had broken under all the trials that had been heaped +upon it. Then her eyes began to move about, startled, like those of a +wild deer, seeking which way to leap. + +It seemed to her she heard now another sound in addition, a sort of low +call, a word.... Yes, it was her name: + +"Aurora! Aurora!" + +What could it mean? It was some visitor come there in insult--it could +be no more than that. And yet what impiousness, what mockery! Because, +what she heard, she had heard before! It had been twenty years since, +and more--but she had heard it then. + +Resolved suddenly to brave the worst, whatever it might be, she rose and +swiftly stepped to the side door which made out upon the narrow yard. + +A man was standing near the door, now turning away from the window--a +tall man, slouching down like an old man. + +"Who's there?" she cried, intending to call out aloud to give the alarm, +but failing to raise her voice above a whisper, such was her fear. Yes, +it was someone come here to offer yet another insult. + +But the man came into the field of light which shone around her through +the door--came closer, reaching out his hands to her. She heard him +struggling with his own voice, trying to speak. At last: "Aurora! +Aurora! Let me in! Will you let me in?" + +She threw open the door so that the light might come. But it was late. +The town slept. No one saw the light. No one saw the man who entered her +door. + +He came on slowly, bending down, groaning, almost sobbing, it seemed to +her. He entered the room, sank down into a chair. He was that pitiable +thing, a man with his nerves set loose by cataclysm of the emotions. + +Not less than this had William Henderson met this day. It had shortened +actually his physical stature, had altered every line in his face. He +was twenty years and more older now than when she had seen him last. In +one short day William Henderson had burned down to a speck in the cosmic +plan. He had learned for himself how little is any man. And vanity torn +out by the roots--a megalomaniac egotism done away by a capital +operation--a life-long self-content, an ingrown selfishness, all +wrenched out at once--that sort of thing takes its toll in the doing. + +William Henderson was paying his debts all at once--with interest +accrued, as Hod Brooks had said to him. It was an old, old, ashen-faced +man who turned to her at last, as he came into the little lighted room. + +Neither had spoken since he came within. The door now was closed back of +him. No one without could have any inkling of what went on within this +little room.... The drawn curtains ... the low light ... the man ... the +woman ... midnight! All which had been here twenty years before for +setting, that same now was here! And if there was ruin now of what here +once was fresh and fair, if ruin lay about them now, who had wrought +that ruin? + +... Yes, it had been here. It was at this very place--when she was just +starting, struggling, young--all the vague, soft, mysterious, compelling +impulses of youth and life just now hers--so strange, so strong, so +sweet, so ineffable, so indispensable, so little understood.... + +That had been his signal! And when he had rapped before--when he was +young and comely, not old and ashen--she could no more have helped +opening the door than the white wisps from the cottonwoods could cease +to pass upon the air in their ancient seeking, blown by the spirit of +life, coming from thither, passing thence, under an impulse soft, sweet, +gentle, unsought but irresistible. + +"Will!" she said at length. "Will, what's wrong? What have you done? +What does this mean?" In some sense, swiftly, the past seemed back +again, its twenty years effaced, so that she thought in terms of other +days. + +He raised his head. "What, you speak to me? You said 'Will'? Oh, Aurie, +Aurie, don't!--I can't stand it. I'm not good enough for this." + +"What's happened?" she insisted. "Why are you here?" + +He sat, his lips loosely working now, his eyes red, his face flabby, his +gray hair tumbled on his temples. It was as though all life's excesses +and indulgences had culminated and taken full revenge on him in this one +day. + +"And you can say that to me?" he murmured. It was very difficult for him +to talk. He was broken--he was gone--he was just an old man--a shell, a +rim, a ruin of a man, now seeing himself as he actually had been all +these years--God knows, a pitiable sight, that, for many and many a man +of us all. + +"I'm--I'm afraid, Will! Last night--it broke me, someway--I don't think +much more can happen.... I can't think--I can't pull together, +someway.... I was going down to the bridge tonight.... But I thought of +Don." + +"But you couldn't think of _me_, Aurora?--Have you ever, in all these +years?" + +She made him no answer at all. + +"No. You could only hate the thought of me," he said. "What a coward +I've been, what a cur! Ah, what a coward I've been all these years!" + +"I wish you wouldn't, Will," she said. Dazed, troubled, she was trying +to think in terms of the present; trying, as she had said, to pull +together. "You are Don's father.... Well, you were a man, Will," she +added, sighing. "I was only a woman." + +She had neither sarcasm nor resentfulness in her words. It was simply +what she had learned by herself, in her own life, without any great +horizon in the world. + +"It was pretty hard sometimes," said she, after a time, slowly. "I had +to contrive so much. Putting the boy through college--it began to cost +more the last four years--so much more than we had supposed it would. +You know, sometimes I was almost----" She flushed and paused. + +"What was it, Aurie?" + +"At one time not long ago, the bills were so large that we had to +pay--it was so hard to get the money, I was almost on the point of going +to you--for him, you know--and to ask you for a little help. But that's +all over now." + +"Oh, I ought to have come through--I ought to have owned it all up!" + +"Yes, Will, you ought." + +"Why did you keep it--why didn't you name me? I always thought, for a +long time, that you would, that you must." + +"I don't know. Don't ask me anything. But at least, Don's out now. Thank +God! he's clear--he's innocent, and they all know it now. They can't +keep him down, can they? He won't have as hard a time as I've had? He'll +succeed, won't he? He must, after it all!" + +"Yes," said the man, shaking as in a palsy, "after it all, he ought to, +and I pray he may." But he could talk no more. + +"And he's such a fine boy! I don't see how you could----" + +"How I could disown him? Yesterday?" + +She nodded. "I can't understand that. I never could. I can't see how you +could hesitate. I--I wish you hadn't. I--I can't forgive that." Her +voice rose slightly at last, a spot of color came into her pallid cheek. + +"I didn't have the courage to come through square, and that's the truth +about it. I've never had, all along. Maybe a man doesn't have the same +feeling that a woman does about a child--I don't know. But I was worse +than the average man--more selfish. I got caught up in politics, in +business. Success?--well, I saw how hard it is. I thought I had to keep +down the past. Well, it's over now. But as for you----" + +"I lived it down for a good many years. Don's twenty-two now." + +"But how could you keep that secret--what made you? Why didn't you go +into court and force me to do my duty to my own flesh and blood--and to +you?" + +"I don't know," she answered. "I told you, I don't know. Maybe I was +proud. Maybe I thought I'd wait till you shamed your own self into +coming. I'm glad you've come now, at last. I don't know--maybe I thought +some day you would." + +"I'm not Judge Henderson!" he broke out bitterly. "I'm Arthur +Dimmesdale! I ought to be in the pillory, on the gallows, before this +town. I'm a thief and a coward, and I deserve no pity, neither of man +nor of God himself. You've carried all the blame, when I was the one to +blame. And I can't see why you didn't tell, Aurie--what made you keep it +all a secret?" + +"I don't know," said she simply again. "I don't know. It seemed--it +seemed somehow to me--_sacred_--what was between us! It was--Don! I have +never told anyone. I was waiting, hoping you'd come--for your own sake. +Why should I rob you of your chance?" + +"Thank God that you did keep the secret!" he broke out at length. "It's +all the chance I have left to be a man. At least I'll confess the +truth." + +"Why, Will, what do you mean? I'll never tell. I told you I wouldn't--I +swore I wouldn't. + +"I'll be going away before long, Will," she added. "I can't stay here +now. I suppose Don and I will go away somewhere. I'm glad he's found a +good girl. Ah!--Anne, she's splendid.... I'm not going to make any +objections to his marrying _her_. And, you see, I'll know that you came +here. And some time he will know--who was his father. He doesn't, yet. +In justice, some time he will. God will attend to that, not any of us." + +"All the world shall know it, Aurora!" said the man at her side. "I saw +them a little while ago, walking together. He was listening to the +drums. He was looking at the Flag--and so was she. They are up at my +house now. They're happy. God bless them." + +"But they don't know--you've not told?" + +"No, I've been walking out in the country--all evening. I was up +there--on the road to the Calvary Cemetery. I'm going to tell Don the +truth tomorrow. + +"But look at your house--your poor little home." He cast about him a +gaze which took in the ruin that had been made of all her belongings. +"Oh, my God, Aurora! It was my own fault. It was _I_ who made that mob a +possible thing. And you were a good woman. You've been a good woman all +the time. I never knew before what a splendid thing a woman can be. +Why--strong!... And you called me 'Will' just now. What made you do +that?" + +"I don't know," said Aurora Lane. "I suppose a woman never does quite +forget the--the first man of--of her life." + +"But how sweet it all was," he broke out, "in spite of it all, in spite +of everything! Oh, Aurie, don't you remember when I'd come and tap there +on the window--and you'd come and let me in? I don't deserve even that +memory ... a woman like you--and a man like me. But I can't forget it. +And you let me come in now--that's my one last joy left for all my life. +Why, it's the one thing I can never think of again without a shudder. +Yes, I've come without your asking--and you--you've let me in. + +"Aurie," he went on, "that's what leaves me so helpless. I know what I +deserve--but I don't want to be despised.... I want more than I deserve! +I've always had more than I deserved. It's about all any man can say. +It's life itself, I suppose. I don't know what it is. But, Aurie, Aurie, +I do see a thousand things now I never saw before." + +She still sat, white, dumb. Only, now, her head began to move, slowly, +from side to side. He caught the evidence of negative, and a new +resolution came to him at last. + +"Let it all go!" he said at length--and now indeed he was on his knees +at her side. "What I have lost is nothing. I'll never ask for office +until I have lived here twenty years, openly, as you have. I must have +loved you! I did--I do! I do! I wish I were fit to love you now. +Because, in twenty years more.... The years pass, Aurie. Won't they +pass? My sentence----" + +His gray head was bent down low in her lap now, as her son's had been at +this very place but a day before. Her hands--hands stained with needle +work, rough on the finger ends, the taper gone there into a little +square--were the same long shapely hands that had touched his hair at +another time. The eyes that looked down at him now under long, soft, +dark lashes were the same. But they were more brooding--tender, yes, but +more sad, more wise. There was no passion in her gaze, in her touch. +What was hatred or revenge to her? + +His face was hid deep in his hands as he knelt. It lay there in that +haven, the lap of woman, the place of forgiveness--and of hope, as some +vague memory seemed to say to him. Indeed, all the wisdom and all the +mercy and all the hope of a world or of a universe of worlds were in the +low voice of Aurora Lane as she stroked back his hair--the gray hair of +an old man, who knelt beside her. It was the ancient pitying instinct of +woman that was in her touch. Hardly she knew she touched him, so +impersonal was it all to her. + +"Will, you poor boy, you poor boy! Oh, poor boy!" He heard her voice +once more. Suddenly he raised his head, he sprang up, he stood before +her. + +"You do forgive me!" A sort of triumph was in the eager note of his +voice. "You say 'poor boy!' You do forgive me!" He advanced toward her. + +But Aurora also had risen quickly. Now, suddenly, some shock came to +her, vivifying, clarifying. The needle of her heart swung on the dial of +Today. + +"Forgive you!" she exclaimed, her color suddenly gone high. "Forgive +you--what do you mean?--what do you _mean_?" + +"You said you pitied me----" + +"Pity you, yes, I do. I'm sorry for you from the bottom of my heart. I'd +be sorry to see any man go through what you've got to face. Yes, _pity_ +you--but--love you? What do you mean? Is that what you mean? _Respect_ +you--is that what you mean? Oh, no! Oh, no! Use for you, in any way in +the world?--Oh, no! Oh, no! Don't mistake. _Pity_--that's all! Don't I +know what it means to descend into hell? And that's what you must do." + +"But, Aurie--Aurie--you just said----" + +"I said I was sorry for you, and so I am, in all my heart. But he's our +boy. I've paid my share in anguish. So must you." + +"Haven't I? Haven't I?" + +"Not yet! You're only beginning. It takes twenty years.--Oh, not of +hidden and secret repentance--but _open_ repentance, before all the +world! And square living. And your prayer to God each night for twenty +years for understanding and forgiveness! + +"Go out and earn it," she said, walking to the door and opening it. +"Pity?--yes. Love? No--no--_no_! I've no use for you. I don't need you +now. My boy doesn't need you--we're able to stand alone. We've +_succeeded_! You? You're a failure--you're a broken-down, used-up, +hopeless failure--so much, I'm sorry for you, sorry. + +"You didn't really think I'd ever take you back, did you, Will?" she +went on, eager to be fair even now. "I was only _sorry_ for you, that's +all. God knows, I'm sorry for any human being, woman or man, that has to +go through hell as I have. Twenty years? That'll leave you old, Will. +But--go serve it, in this town, as I have! And God have mercy on your +soul!" + +She flung the door yet wider, and stumbling, he began to grope toward +it. The black wall of the night lay beyond. + +Slowly the color faded from the cheeks of the woman now left alone yet +again. She sank down, crumpling, white, her face marble clear, her eyes +staring straight ahead at what picture none may ask. Then, as the white +column of her throat fluttered again, she beat one hand slightly +against the other, ere she crushed them both together in her lap, ere +she flung them wide above her. + +"God! God!" cried Aurora Lane. "If it wasn't right, why did He say, +'Suffer little children'? It was in the Book ... little ... little +children ... the Kingdom of Heaven!" + +It was more than an hour before she, too, rose and, stepping toward the +door, looked out again into the night. A red light showed here or there. +Homes--the homes of our town. + + + + +By Emerson Hough + + The Broken Gate + The Man Next Door + The Magnificent Adventure + Let Us Go Afield + Out of Doors + The Story of the Cowboy + The Girl at the Halfway House + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Broken Gate, by Emerson Hough + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BROKEN GATE *** + +***** This file should be named 33475.txt or 33475.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/3/4/7/33475/ + +Produced by David Edwards, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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