CHAPTER XXXIA FEAST OF MINGLED CUPS
Brantwas lying down when he heard the heavy step of the turnkey in the corridor; heard the heavy step and a lighter one, and the rustle of a woman’s dress. He made sure it was another of the cut-flower faddists who had lately been making his prison life a hot bath of vicarious shame, and sprang up with a muttered malediction comprehensive enough to include the entire procession of the sentimentalists. A moment later the key grated in the lock, the bolts clanked, and the door swung back. He stood transfixed for an instant, hardly daring to believe his eyes. Then the clamour and crash of the closing door brought him to his senses and he turned away and hid his face.
Dorothy stood still, abashed at her own boldness and waiting timidly for some sign of recognition. When it was overlong in coming she plucked up courage and went to him.
“Haven’t you a word of welcome for me, Mr. Brant?” she asked softly.
“Don’t ask me. What can I say? Why did you come?”
“Because you made me,” she said simply. “You wouldn’t listen to any of the others, you know; and—and—but you will listen to me. You must.”
He turned to face her, and even in the dim half-lightof the cell she could see that he was nerving himself for a struggle.
“Please sit down,” he said, pointing to the single chair. “I think I know what you have come to say, but it isn’t any use—indeed, it is not.”
She ignored the pointing and the invitation, and leaned against the wall within arm’s reach of him.
“Please don’t say that—not to me. None of the others had my right. It was I who sent you.”
He flinched at that and gave ground a little. “You have a good right, Miss Langford, though it isn’t builded upon your little cry for help. What would you have me do?”
“Whatever papa wants you to do,” she rejoined quickly, deeming it best not to go too deeply into particulars.
“I am sorry to have to refuse you anything; but this that you ask is altogether impossible.”
“Why is it impossible?”
“Because—God in heaven!—none of you know what you are asking!”
“Then tell me, so I may know.”
“I can’t do that, either.”
“Won’t you tell me if I guess it?”
The pleading eyes unsteadied him, and he receded yet another step. “Perhaps,” he said, hesitating.
“Are you afraid that if you defend yourself my brother will be in danger?”
Is there something in the washing of tears that gives insight to sympathetic eyes? She saw deep into him at that moment; saw that to deny her accusation would be to lie; saw also that he could not look into her eyes and find words to frame the falsehood. So she was prepared for the evasion.
“And if that were true, what then?”
“You would be making a terrible and utterly uselessmistake. Don’t you know—haven’t they told you? It has been proved that my brother could not have done it.”
He did not ask how it had been proved. It was enough that she believed it, and it was the final drop of bitterness in the cup of expiation that he had thought to drain bravely to the dregs. To her, as to all others, save only Antrim, he was a murderer. It was more than he could bear unmoved, and he turned from her lest she should see the anguish in his face and be moved by it to say the thing which was not true. When he did not reply she spoke again:
“That was the reason, wasn’t it?”
“It was—itis.” The words said themselves because there was no strength left in him wherewith to hold them back.
She gave him no time to draw again the sheathed sword of denial. “I was sure of it. But you won’t hesitate any longer now, will you?—not after what I have told you.”
“Hesitate—to tell them I am guilty? No, I shall not hesitate; I’ll confess to you—here—now, if you wish.” He faced her suddenly, but again the tear-brightened eyes and their pleading unmanned him. “No, I can’t say it to you,” he went on, softening and becoming as the clay on the potter’s wheel in spite of himself. “In the eye of the law—in the eyes of the whole world—I am a murderer, taken in the very act. But I can not go to my death with the thought that the only woman I have ever loved believes me guilty of such a cowardly crime. I did not kill James Harding.”
Dorothy forgot her errand, forgot the papers, forgot everything in the horror of a great doubt and the ecstasy of an unchartered joy still greater than the doubt which suddenly threatened to suffocate her.Nevertheless, a misunderstanding, rooted and grounded as hers was, dies hard.
“You mean that I should—that you want me to—to tell my sister,” she faltered; and she could no longer look him in the face.
“Your sister!” Brant fought a good fight for self-control and won it. “No, Dorothy; it is not Isabel’s belief that troubles me; it is yours. How could you have misunderstood?”
Dorothy felt her lips growing cold, and the solid floor of the cell swayed under her feet until she clung to the wall for support.
“How could I? But she told me—” She broke off in pitiable confusion, and Brant gave her the helping hand of a question:
“What was it she told you? I have given you the right to say anything you please to me now.”
She saw instantly that she must go on or leave Isabel under an imputation too dreadful to be contemplated. “She told me that—that she sent you away.”
“Sent me away? But she didn’t send me away; that couldn’t be, you know. It is all a mistake, Dorothy—an awful mistake. It was not I whom she sent away; it was Harry.”
“Harry!” said Dorothy faintly. “Oh, dear, what have I done? Tell me one thing, please. Whom did you meet the last evening you came to see us?”
It was Brant’s turn to be confused and tongue-tied, and he answered her with his eyes on the floor.
“I met—your mother. I went over that evening to tell you that—I—loved you, my darling; to tell you what I had been, and what I hoped to be, and to ask you to wait until I could make my promises good. Your mother met me, and— But no matter about that. It was she who sent me away—for good reasons, youwill say now. None the less, bad as I am, and good as you are, I love you—you and no other, my dear one; how truly and passionately you may know some day.”
“Some day!” She knew at that sublime moment, and the keen joy of the knowledge made her lose sight of everything save the heart-quelling fact. “Thank God, I know it now!—know that you are here in prison because you thought it was the only way to save my brother. Oh, how could I——”
“Be so faithless,” she would have said; but he caught her in his arms and his kisses put the remorseful exclamation to death.
“Say but two words, my darling,” he whispered. “Tell me that you love me, and that you believe me innocent of this last horrible thing, and I shall die happier than most men live.”
But, after all, he had to take the first of the two words for granted. His saying that he should die happy brought her back to the peril of the moment.
“Oh, please don’t say that! I know you are innocent; but so is brother!”
He shook his head gravely and drew her closer. “I wish I could believe that, but I can’t, Dorothy, dear,” he said sorrowfully. “I should not have been weak enough to betray him, even to you; but now you must keep my secret and help me to save him. Try to think of it as I have. You remember what the Man of Nazareth said: ‘They that take the sword shall perish with the sword.’ I have lived a life of violence, and it is only just that I should pay the penalty.”
But her sense of right and wrong was keener and truer than his. “No, you must not say that. Two wrongs never make a right. Can’t you see that your blood will be upon the head of the judge and the jury, and every one who has anything to do with punishingyou for a crime you did not commit? Oh, you mustn’t, you must not!”
“I have thought of all that, dear,” he said, “and at times it has shaken me. But there is no other way. It is my life or your brother’s. He is young; the lesson will be a terrible one, and he may live to profit by it.”
His words carried such deep conviction of William’s guilt that she gasped and gave a little cry of anguish.
“Oh, are you sure? Did you see him do it?”
“No, dear; it was done in the moment of darkness. But when they turned the lights on from without he had the pistol in his hand, and I saw him throw it upon the floor. Will you tell me why they say he couldn’t have done it?”
“I don’t know well enough to make it clear; but Harry and one of Mr. Forsyth’s young men made some measurements, and they both say that the shot couldn’t have been fired from where Will was sitting; that it must have been fired from the direction of the door.”
“From the door?” A great desire to live and love and be loved came quickly to Brant, and he made haste to put it away before it should possess him. “I wish I had known that sooner, but it is too late now. I wasn’t near the door; I was trying to get between them when the shot was fired.”
“It must not be too late!” cried Dorothy eagerly. “Oh, why didn’t they tell you? Why——”
She broke off abruptly and struggled out of his arms at the sound of a footstep in the corridor. It was the turnkey coming to release her, and there was time for no more than a breathless question.
“May I tell—” she began; and he bent over her till his lips touched her forehead.
“I am yours in life or in death,” he said gently. “Do with me what seems best to you, my darling.”
A moment later she had rejoined Antrim in thecorridor, but neither spoke until they were out of the building. It was in the half-light between day and dusk when they reached the street, and the chief clerk curbed his impatience until they were hurrying to catch the North Denver car. Then it slipped the leash.
“What luck?” he demanded, as they threaded the crowded sidewalk in Larimer Street. “Did you find out anything? Would he talk to you?”
Dorothy blushed hotly and drew down her veil.
“Ye-yes, he talked very freely, and I found out a great many things. Wait till we get out of the crowd and I will tell you.”
They missed the car, as a matter of course, and had to wait on the street corner. Whereupon Antrim drew his companion into a sheltered doorway and refused to be kept longer in ignorance and suspense.
“For pity’s sake, tell me, Dorothy, what did he say? I’m on tenter-hooks, and it seemed as if you would never come out.”
“He didn’t do it, Harry. He is innocent,” she began triumphantly, and Antrim could see her eyes shining behind the veil.
“I have known that all along,” he interrupted impatiently. “What then? What about the papers?”
“Oh, dear, I forgot all about them! I can’t talk about it, Harry; not here in the street. But there is one thing I must tell you”—the hot blush came again and its attendant emotion threatened to stop her, but she went on bravely—“it is about—Mr. Brant and—and Isabel. I was just dreadfully, horridly, stupidly mistaken. Isabel meant—that is, it’s not Mr. Brant; it is somebody else. There is nothing at all between them, and there never has been. I——”
Antrim waited to hear no more. There was an idle carriage standing at the curb, and before she knew what he meant to do he had put her into it, slammedthe door, and swung himself up to a seat beside the driver.
“To Judge Langford’s house, over in the Highlands. I’ll show you the way if you don’t know it,” he said briefly; and then, “The quicker you make it the more money you’ll earn.”
In an incredibly short time he was helping Dorothy out at the Hollywood gate. “Fix it some way so that I can have ten minutes alone with Isabel,” he begged as they hurried up the walk, “and then I’ll be ready to hear all about Brant. You will do that much for me, won’t you, Dorothy?”
Fortunately, it needed not to be arranged. Isabel met them in the hall, and Dorothy had but to dart quickly into the library and so leave them alone together. Two weeks of utter neglect had humbled Isabel rather more than she would admit even to herself, but they had also made her affectionately vindictive. Hence she gave him no more than a cool little “Good evening, Harry. Won’t you come in?”
“I am in; and I’ll stay to dinner if you will ask me,” he retorted promptly, penning her into the corner between the door and the stairfoot. “But first I want to say something that I am going to repeat every time we meet, regardless of time, place, or present company. I love you, Isabel, I have always loved you, and I am always going to.”
“Indeed!” said Isabel with sweet sarcasm.
“Yes, in deed, and in thought, and in word. More than that, I know now that you love me—oh, don’t take the trouble to deny it; it’s wrong to tell fibs. You told Dorothy you did, and she gave it away without meaning to. So you see it is no use, and you may as well give me that kiss I asked for the last time you told me the biggest fib of all the——”
“Not now—or ever!” she retorted, slipping underhis arm and darting down the hall to the drawing-room door. He caught at her as she eluded him, and then ran after her. She paused with her hand on the doorknob.
“Keep your distance, or I vanish!” she threatened. “Stand right there where you are and tell me why you went off in a dudgeon that night; and why you froze me out two weeks ago; and why you haven’t been back since; and why——”
But the catechism was never finished. With a most lamentable want of vigilance she took her hand from the doorknob, and Antrim— But sufficient unto the day of youth are the small triumphs thereof.
Twenty minutes later Kate Hobart, coming down to dinner, stumbled over two young persons sitting on the lowest step of the stair. She recognised them even in the darkness, and being but a Sabbath-day’s journey beyond her own love affair, understood at once why the hall was not yet lighted.
Antrim sprang quickly to his feet and made the explanation which does not explain; and Kate benevolently helped him out by asking if there were anything new in Brant’s affair.
“No—yes, there is, too, by Jove! And we have been sitting here talking—that is, ah—er——”
“Spooning, Harry, dear,” cut in Isabel with refreshing frankness; “tell the truth and shame——”
But he went on without a break—“while Dorothy is waiting to tell us about Brant. Let’s go in and hear her story.”
Isabel tapped at the library door, and they all saw within when the judge opened to her. Dorothy was sitting on the lounge, her hat and gloves still on, her face pale and tear-stained. The judge waved them back.
“In a moment,” he said; and then he crossed theroom to bend over the still little figure on the lounge and to whisper a word of encouragement.
“It is hard to win and lose in the same moment, but you must be brave, my child—for your own sake and mine. I shall keep your secret; your mother mustn’t suspect—now or ever.”
She nodded, and the tears came afresh.
“Go you up to your room,” he added, seeing that there was no present balm for the hurt. “I’ll make your excuses at the table.”
Then he joined the trio in the hall. “Dorothy brought astounding news,” he explained, leading the way to the dining room, “but it comes too late. From what she tells me there seems to be a reasonable doubt of the young man’s guilt; but there is nothing that can be used in evidence, and his conviction is none the less certain.”
There was manifestly nothing to be said, and a sympathetic silence followed the announcement. While they were taking their places at table the telephone rang, and the judge excused himself to answer it.
“Don’t wait on me,” he said. “Harry, lad, take my place and carve, will you?” and he went out and carefully closed the door behind him. And inasmuch as the hall was not yet lighted, he failed to see a shadowy little figure on the stair. It was Dorothy, and she paused and leaned over the balustrade when her father answered the call.