She leaped out of her car. Amid the wreckage of the motorcycle the clock stared up at her like a little white face. The world seemed to have become silent; her feet beating on the cement as she ran made the only sound. The man lay motionless. He was bent together and strangely twisted like a boneless scarecrow thrown down by the winds. An arm was under him, his eyes were closed, blood was oozing from his mouth. She stooped over him, trying to lift his body into a more natural position; but he was a large man, and she could do nothing with him. She looked up from the struggle and found to her astonishment that she was no longer alone. People seemed to have sprung from the earth, the air was full of screams and explanations. A large touring car had come to a standstill near by. She vaguely remembered having passed it. A flivver was panting across the road. Everyone was asking questions, which she did not stop to answer. The important thing was to get the man into the touring car and take him to the hospital.
She was so absorbed in all his that her own connection with the situation did not enter her mind. As she sat in the back of the car supporting his body, the blood stiffening on her own dark clothes, she thought only of her victim. She was not the type of egotist who thinks always, "How terrible that this should have happened to me!"
She said to herself: "He probably has a wife and children. It would have been better if I had been the one to be killed."
Arrived at the hospital, she followed him into the ward where the stretcher carried him, and waited outside the screen while the nurses cut his clothes off. It seemed to her hours before the young house surgeon emerged, shaking his head.
"Fracture of the base," he said. "If he gets through the next twenty-four hours he'll have a 60 per cent chance," and he hurried away to telephone the details to his chief.
As she sat there she realized that her own body was sore and stiff. She must have wrenched herself, or struck the steering wheel in the sudden turn of the car. She felt suddenly exhausted. There seemed no point in waiting. They could telephone her the result of the night. She left her name and address and went home by train.
She made a vow to herself that she would never drive a car again. She would not explain it or discuss it, but nothing should ever induce her to touch a steering wheel. It was an inadequate expiation. Every time she shut her eyes she saw that heap of blood and steel at the foot of the telegraph pole. Oh, if time could only be turned back so that she could be starting a second time from Eleanor's door! It never crossed her mind that this terrible personal misfortune which had befallen her made her seriously amenable to the law.
Drummond died late in the evening. An account of the accident was in the headlines of the morning papers. Unfortunately for Lydia, he was a conspicuous local figure. He had had the early popularity of a good-looking, dissipated boy, and then he had been one of the men who had not waited for the draft but had volunteered and gone into the Regular Army, and had come home from France unwounded, with a heroic record. Moreover, there had been a long boy-and-girl love affair between him and Alma Wooley, the daughter of the hardware merchant. Mr. Wooley, who was a native Long Islander, hard and wise, had been opposed to the engagement until, after the war, the return of Drummond as a hero made opposition impossible. It was at this point that O'Bannon had come to the rescue, securing the position of traffic policeman for the young man. The marriage was to have taken place in June.
Before Drummond died he recovered consciousness long enough to recognize the pale girl at his beside and to make an ante-mortem statement as to the circumstances of the accident.
Eleanor heard of the accident in the evening, but did not know of Drummond's death until early the following morning. She called up O'Bannon, but he had already left his house. At the office she was asked if Mr. Foster would do. Mr. Foster would not do. With her clear mind and recently acquired knowledge of criminal law, she knew the situation was serious. She called up Fanny Piers and found she was spending the day in town. Noel came to the telephone. He was very casual.
"Yes, poor Lydia," he said; "uncomfortable sort of thing to have happened to you."
"Rather more than uncomfortable," answered Eleanor. "Do you know if she's been arrested?"
Piers laughed over the telephone. Of course she hadn't been. Really, his tone seemed to say, Eleanor allowed her socialistic ideas to run away with her judgment. Poor Lydia hadn't meant any harm—it was the sort of thing that might happen to anyone. Oh, they might try her—as a matter of form. But what could they do to her?
"Well," said Eleanor, "people have been known to go to prison for killing someone on the highway."
Piers agreed as if her point was irrelevant.
"Oh, yes, some of those careless chauffeurs. But a thing like this is always arranged. You'll see. You couldn't get a grand jury to indict a girl like Lydia. It will be arranged."
"Arranged," thought Eleanor as she hung up the receiver, "only at the expense of Dan O'Bannon's honor or career."
She did not want that, and yet she did want to help Lydia. She felt deeply concerned for the girl, more aware than usual of her warm, honest affection for her. She often thought of Lydia as she had appeared on her first day at school. The head mistress had brought her into the study and introduced her to the teacher in charge. All the girls had looked up and stared at the small, black-eyed new pupil with the bobbed hair and slim legs in black silk stockings, one of which she was cleverly twisting about the other. She was shy and monosyllabic, utterly unused to children of her own age; and yet even then she had shown a certain capacity for comradeship, for under the elbows of the two tall teachers she had directed a slow, shy smile at the girls as much as to say, "Wait till we get together! We'll fix them!"
She was very well turned out, for Miss Bennett had just taken charge, but not so well equipped mentally, the long succession of her governesses having each spent more time in destroying the teachings of her predecessors than in making progress on her own account. Much to Lydia's chagrin, she was put in a class of children younger than she.
This was shortly before Christmas. Before the second term she had managed to get herself transferred into a class of her contemporaries. She had never studied before, because in old times it had seemed to her the highest achievement lay in thwarting her governesses. But the instant it became desirable to attain knowledge she found no difficulty in attaining it. It had amused her studying late into the night when Miss Bennett thought she was asleep.
In the same way she had decided to make a friend of Eleanor, who was a class above her and prominent in school life. There had been nothing sentimental about the friendship. She had admired Eleanor's clear mind and moral courage then, just as she admired them now.
It was of that little girl twisting one leg about the other that Eleanor thought now with a warm affection that the later Lydia had not destroyed. She ordered her car and drove into town to the Thorne house. At the door Morson betrayed just the proper solemnity—the proper additional solemnity—for he was never gay.
Yes, Miss Thorne was in, but he could not be sure that she could see Miss Bellington at the moment. Mr. Wiley was in the drawing-room.
"Mr. Wiley?" said Eleanor, trying to remember.
"The lawyer, madam."
Eleanor hesitated.
"Tell her I'm here," she said, and presently Morson came back and conducted her to the drawing-room.
Lydia's drawing-room was brilliant with vermilion lacquer, jade, rock crystal, a Chinese painting or two and huge cushioned armchairs and sofas. Here she and Miss Bennett and Mr. Wiley were sitting—at least Mr. Wiley and Miss Bennett were sitting, and Lydia was standing, playing with a jade dog from the mantelpiece, pressing its cold surface against her cheek.
As Eleanor entered, Lydia, with hardly a sound, did a thing she had occasionally seen her do before—she suddenly seemed to radiate greeting and love and gratitude. Miss Bennett introduced Mr. Wiley.
Wiley had established his position early in life—early for a lawyer; so now at fifty-eight he had thirty years of crowded practice behind him. In the nineties, a young man of thirty, his slim frock-coated figure, his narrow, fine features and dark, heavy mustache were familiar in most important court cases, and in the published accounts of them his name always had a prominent place. His enemies at one time had been contemptuous of his legal profundity and had said that he was more of an actor than a lawyer; but if so juries seemed to be more swayed by art than law, for Wiley had a wonderful record of successes. He was a man of scrupulous financial integrity—universally desired as a trustee—an honorable gentleman, a leader at the bar. It was hard to see how Lydia could be in better hands. He might not have been willing to undertake her case but for the fact that he had been her father's lawyer and was her trustee. He had a thorough familiarity, attained through years of conflict over finances, with all the problems of his client's disposition. He knew, for instance, that she would be absolutely truthful with him, a knowledge a lawyer so rarely has in regard to his clients. He knew, too, that she might carry this quality into the witness chair and might ruin her own case with the jury. He was a man accustomed to being listened to, and he was being listened to now.
Eleanor sat down, saying she was sorry if she interrupted them. She didn't. Wiley drew her in and made her feel one of the conference.
"I had really finished what I was saying," he added.
"I only wanted to know if the situation were serious," said Eleanor.
"Serious, Miss Bellington?" Wiley looked at her seriously. "To kill a human being while violating the law?"
"Mr. Wiley considers it entirely a question of how the case is managed," said Lydia. There was not a trace of amusement in her tone or her expression.
"To be absolutely candid," Wiley continued, "and Lydia tells me she wants the facts, I should say that if juries were normal, impartial, unemotional people Lydia would be found guilty of manslaughter in the second degree—on her own story. Fortunately, however, the collective intelligence of a jury is low; and skillfully managed, the case of a beautiful young orphan may be made very appealing, very pathetic."
"Pathos has never been my strong point," observed Lydia.
"The great danger is her own attitude," said Miss Bennett to Eleanor. "She doesn't seem to care whether she's convicted or not."
Lydia moved her shoulders with a gesture that confirmed Miss Bennett's impression, and then suddenly turned.
"I don't believe you want me for a few minutes, Mr. Wiley. I want to speak to Eleanor."
She dragged her friend away with her to her own little sitting room upstairs. Here her calm disappeared.
"Aren't lawyers terrible, Eleanor? Here I am—I've killed a man! Why shouldn't I go to prison? I'm not quixotic. I didn't want to be convicted, but Wiley shocks me, assuming that I can't be because I'm a woman and rich and he can play on the jury."
"I should not say that he assumed that you were safe, Lydia."
"Oh, yes, he does! Don't be like Benny. She sees me in stripes at once. What Wiley means is that as long as I am fortunate enough to have the benefit of his services I'm perfectly safe, not because I did not mean to kill Drummond, but because he, Wiley, will make the jury cry over me. Isn't that disgusting?"
"Yes, it is," said Eleanor.
"Oh, Eleanor, you are such a comfort!" said Lydia, and began to cry. Eleanor had never seen her cry before. She did it very gently, without sobs, and after a few minutes controlled herself again, and tucked away her handkerchief and said, "Do you think everyone would hate to have a car that had killed someone! I shall never drive again, and yet I couldn't sell it—couldn't take money for it. Will you accept it, Eleanor? You wouldn't have to drive the way I did, you know."
Eleanor, pleading the shortness of her sight, declined the car.
"You ought to go back and talk to Mr. Wiley, my dear."
Lydia shrugged her shoulders.
"I don't care much what happens to me," she said.
Eleanor hesitated. She saw suddenly that what she was about to say was the principal object of her visit.
"Lydia, I hope that you will come out all right, but you don't know Dan O'Bannon as I do, and——"
"You think he will want to convict me?"
"Not you personally, of course. But he believes in the law. He wants to believe in its honesty and equality. He suffered last month, I know, in convicting a delivery-wagon driver, and his offense wasn't half as flagrant as yours. Oh, Lydia, have some imagination! Don't you see that his own honor and democracy will make him feel it more his duty to convict you than all the less conspicuous criminals put together?"
A strange change had taken place in Lydia during this speech. At the beginning of it she had been shrunk into a corner of a deep chair; but as Eleanor spoke life seemed to be breathed into her, until she sat erect, grew tense, and finally rose to her feet.
"You mean there would be publicity, political advantage, in sending a person in my position to prison?"
"Don't be perverse, Lydia. I mean that, more than most men, he will see his duty is to treat you as he would any criminal. You make it difficult for me to tell you something that I must tell you. Mr. O'Bannon feels, I'm afraid, a certain amount of antagonism toward you."
A staring, insolent silence was Lydia's answer.
Eleanor went on: "Do you remember after dinner at the Piers' you told me about the policeman you had bribed? You asked me not to tell, but I'm sorry—I can't tell you how sorry—that I did tell. I told Dan. I would give a good deal if I hadn't, but——"
"My dear," Lydia laughed, but without friendliness, "don't distress yourself. What difference does it make? I nearly told him myself."
"It makes a great deal of difference. It made him furious against you. He felt you were debauching a young man trying to do his duty."
"What a prig you make that man out, Eleanor! But what of it?"
"I got an impression, Lydia—I don't know how—that it turned him against you; that he will be less inclined to be pitiful."
"Pitiful!" cried Lydia. "Since when have I asked Dan O'Bannon for pity? Let him do his duty, and my lawyers will do theirs; and let me tell you, Eleanor, you and he will be disappointed in the results."
Eleanor said firmly, "I think you must take back that 'you,' Lydia."
Lydia shrugged her shoulders.
"Well, you say your friend wants to convict me, and you want your friend to succeed, I suppose. That is success for him, getting people to prison, isn't it?" She began this in one of her most irritating tones; and then she suddenly repented and, putting her hand on Eleanor's shoulder, she added, "Eleanor, I'm all on edge. Thank you a lot for coming. I think I will go back and tell what you've said to old Wiley."
Eleanor waited to telephone to Fanny Piers and Mrs. Pulsifer, knowing it would be wise to create a little favorable public opinion. As she went downstairs the drawing-room door opened and Miss Bennett came softly out, shutting the door carefully behind her.
"Thank heaven for you, Eleanor!" she said. "You have certainly worked a miracle." Eleanor looked uncomprehending, and she went on: "At first she was so naughty to poor Mr. Wiley—would hardly discuss the case at all; but now since you've talked to her she is quite different. She has even consented to send for Governor Albee—the obvious thing, with his friendship and political power."
Eleanor's shoulders were rather high anyhow, and when she drew them together she looked like a wooden soldier. She did it now as she said with distaste, "But is this a question of politics?"
"My dear, you know the district attorney is a political officer, and they say this young man is extremely ambitious. Certainly he would listen—he'd have to—to a man at the head of the party like Albee. I feel much easier in my mind. The governor can do anything, and now that Lydia has come to her senses she is determined to go into court with the best case possible, and you know how clever she is. Thank you, Eleanor, for all you have done for us."
Like many workers of miracles, Eleanor went away surprised at her own powers. The idea of O'Bannon being coerced or rewarded into letting Lydia off gave her exquisite pain. She felt like warning him to do his duty, even if it meant Lydia's being found guilty. Yet she sincerely wanted Lydia saved—meant to go as far as she could to save her. She knew with what a perfect surface of honesty such things could be done; how a district attorney, while from the public's point of view prosecuting a case with the utmost vigor, might leave open some wonderful technical escape for the defense. It could be done without O'Bannon losing an atom of public respect. But she, Eleanor, would know; would know as she saw him conducting the case; would know when a year or so later, after everyone else had forgotten, he would receive his reward—some political appointment or perhaps a financial chairmanship. Albee had great powers in business as well as politics. In her own mind she formulated the words, "I have the utmost confidence in O'Bannon." But she knew, too, how all people of passionate, quick temperaments are sometimes swept by their own desires, and how easily most lawyers could find rational grounds for taking the position they desired to take. It would be so natural for any man under the plea of pity for a young woman like Lydia to allow himself to be subtly corrupted into letting her off.
Eleanor's own position was not simple. She faced it clearly. She was for Lydia, whatever happened, as far as her conduct went; but in spite of herself her sympathies swung to and fro. When women like Fanny Piers and May Swayne said, with a certain relish they couldn't keep out of their tones and reluctant dimples at the corners of their mouths, "Isn't this too dreadful about poor Lydia?" then she was whole-heartedly Lydia's. But when she detected in all her friends—except Bobby, who was frankly frightened—the belief that they were beyond the law, that nothing could happen to any member of their protected group, then she felt she would enjoy nothing so much as seeing one of them prove an exception to the general immunity.
The coroner held Lydia for the grand jury in ten thousand dollars' bail. This had been considered a foregone conclusion and did not particularly distress or alarm Eleanor. What did alarm her was her inability to get in touch with O'Bannon. In all the months of their quick, intimate friendship this had never happened before. Press of business had never kept him entirely away. Now she could not even get him to come to the telephone.
She was not the only person who was attempting to see him on Lydia's behalf. Bobby Dorset had made several efforts, and finally caught him between the courthouse and his office. Bobby took the tone that the whole thing was fantastic; that O'Bannon was too much of a gentleman to send any girl to prison, irritating the man he had come to placate by something frivolous and unreal in his manner—the only manner Bobby knew.
And then as Lydia's case grew darker Albee came. O'Bannon was in his study at home, the low-ceilinged room opening off the dining room. It had a great flat baize-covered desk, and low open shelves running round the walls, containing not only law books, but novels and early favorites—Henty and Lorna Doone and many records of travel and adventure.
Here he was sitting, supposed to be at work on the Thorne case, about nine o'clock in the evening. Certainly his mind was occupied with it and the papers were laid out before him. He was going over and over, the same treadmill that his mind had been chained to ever since he had stood by Drummond's bedside with Alma Wooley clinging, weeping, to his hand.
Lydia Thorne had committed a crime, and his duty was to present the case against the criminal. Sometimes of course a district attorney was justified in taking into consideration extenuating circumstances which could not always be brought out in court. But in this case there were no extenuating circumstances. Every circumstance he knew was against her. Her character was harsh and arrogant. She had already violated the law in bribing Drummond. First she had corrupted the poor boy, and then she had killed him. She deserved punishment more than most of the criminals who came into his court, and his duty was to present the case against her. He repeated it over and over to himself. Why, he was half a crook to consider this case as different from any other case—and if she did get off she wouldn't be grateful. She'd just assume that there had not been and never could be any question of convicting a woman like herself. He remembered her bending to look at him under the candle shades of the Piers' dinner table and announcing her disbelief in the equal administration of the laws. But yet, if she should come to him—if she would only come to him, pleading for herself as she had once for a few minutes pleaded for Evans——He could almost see her there in the circle of his reading light, close to him—could almost smell the perfume of violets.
"I hope to God she doesn't come," he said to himself, and desired it more than anything in life.
At that very moment the doorbell rang. O'Bannon's heart began to beat till it hurt him. If she were there he must see her, and if he saw her he must again take her in his arms, and if—it was his duty to present the case against her.
There was a knock on his door, and his mother entered ushering in Governor Albee. Great and wise men came from East and West to see her son, her manner seemed to say.
"Well, O'Bannon," said the governor, "I haven't seen you since—let me see—the 1916 convention, wasn't it?"
The younger man pulled himself together. He was not a politician for nothing, and he had control, almost automatically, of a simple, friendly manner.
"But I've seen you, governor," he answered. "I went in the other day to hear your cross-examination on that privileged-communication point. I learned a lot. We're all infants compared with you when it comes to that sort of thing."
"Oh"—Albee gave one of his straight-armed waves of the band—"everyone tells me you have your own method of getting the facts. I hear very fine things of you, O'Bannon. There's an impression that Princess County will soon be looking for another district attorney."
Mrs. O'Bannon stole reluctantly away, closing the door behind her. The two men went on flattering each other, as each might have flattered a woman. Both were now aware that a serious situation was before them. They began to talk of the great party to which they belonged. The governor mentioned his personal responsibility—by which he meant his personal power—as a national committeeman. He spoke of an interview with the leader of the party in New York—the purveyor of great positions.
"He's going to put the chairmanship of this new commission up to me. It's not so much financially—seventy-five hundred—but the opportunity, the reputation a fellow might make. It needs a big man, and yet a young one. I'm for putting in a young man."
That was all. The governor began after that to speak of his coming campaign for the Senate, but O'Bannon knew now exactly why he had come. He had come to offer him a bribe. It was not the first time he had been offered a bribe. He remembered a family of Italians who had come to him frankly with all their savings in a sincere belief that that was the only way to save a son and brother. They had gone away utterly unable to understand why their offering had been rejected, but with a confused impression that district attorneys in America came too high for them. He had not felt any anger against their simple effort at corruption—only pity; but a sudden furious anger swept him against Albee, so smooth, so self-satisfied. Unanalytic, like most hot-blooded people—who in the tumult of their emotions are too much occupied to analyze and when the tumult ceases are unable to believe it ever existed—O'Bannon did not understand the sequence of his emotions. For an instant he was angry, and then he felt a sort of desperate relief. At least the question of his attitude in the case was settled. Now he must prosecute to the utmost of his ability. One couldn't let a sleek, crooked old politician go through the world thinking that he had bribed you—one couldn't be bribed.
He leaned his brow on his hand, shielding his whole face from the light, while he drew patterns on the blotting paper with a dry pen. The governor broke off with an appearance of spontaneity.
"But I mustn't run on like this about my own affairs," he said. "I came, as perhaps you guessed, about this unfortunate affair of poor Miss Thorne. I don't know if you know her personally——"
He paused. He really could not remember. He believed Lydia had mentioned having seen the man somewhere.
"I've met her once or twice," said O'Bannon.
"Well, if you've seen her you know that she's a rare and beautiful creature; but if you don't know her you don't know how sensitive she is; sheltered and proud; doesn't show her deep, human feelings."
A slight movement of the district attorney's hand brought his mouth and chin into the area of illumination. Their expression was not agreeable.
"No," he said, "I must own I did not get all that."
"This whole thing is almost killing her," Albee went on. "Really I believe that if she has to go into court—well, of course she must go into court, poor child, and hear it all gone over and over before a jury. Imagine how anyone—you or I would feel if we had killed a man, and then add a young woman's natural sensitiveness and pity. You can guess what she is going through. I've sat with her for hours. It's pitiful—simply pitiful. Anything you can do, O'Bannon, that will make it easier for her I shall take as a personal favor to me, a favor I shall never forget, believe me."
The governor smiled his human, all-embracing smile, almost like a priest. There was a moment's silence. Albee's experience was that there usually was a moment while the idea sank in.
Then the younger man asked with great deliberation, "Just what is your interest in this case, Governor Albee?"
Perfectly calm himself, Albee noted with some amusement the strain in the other's tone. He had expected the question—a natural one. It was natural the fellow should wish to be assured that the favor he was about to do was a real one, a substantial one, something that would be remembered. He would be taking a certain chance, considering the newspaper interest and all the local resentment over the case. Reëlection might be rendered impossible. Albee thought to himself that Lydia would forgive a slight exaggeration of the bond between them if that exaggeration served to set her free.
"Well, that's rather an intimate question, Mister District Attorney," he said. "To most people I should answer that she is a lady whom I esteem and admire; but to you—in strictest confidence—I don't mind saying that I have every hope and expectation of making her my wife." And he added less solemnly, "What are you young fellows thinking of to let an old man like me get ahead of you, eh?" Bending forward he slapped the other man on the shoulder.
O'Bannon stood up as if a mighty hand had reached from the ceiling and pulled him upright. The action was all that was left of the primitive impulse to wring Albee's neck.
"There is nothing I can do to help Miss Thorne," he said. "You know enough about criminal procedure to know that. The case against her is very strong."
"Oh, very strong—in the newspapers," said the governor with another of his waves of his hand. "But you mustn't let your cases be tried in the newspapers. I always made it a rule never to let the newspapers influence me in a case."
"I have a better rule than that," said the other. "I don't let anything influence me except the facts in the case." He was still standing, and Albee now rose too.
"I see," he said, not quite so suavely as before. "You mean you go ahead your own way and don't mind making enemies."
"I sometimes like it," answered O'Bannon.
"Making them is all right." Albee looked right at him. "Taking the consequences of doing so isn't always so enjoyable. Good night."
When the sound of the governor's motor had died away O'Bannon went back to his desk. His mother had long ago gone upstairs, and the house was quiet. Disgust and anger were like a poison in his veins. So that vile, sleek old man was to have her? Love was out of the question? She did not even have the excuse of needing money! What a loathsome bargain! What a loathsome woman! To think he had allowed himself to be stirred by her beauty? He wouldn't touch her with his little finger now if she were the last woman in the world. Albee? Good God! There must be thirty-five years between them. Someone ought to stop it. She would be better in prison than giving herself to an old man like that. She was no ignorant child. She knew what she was doing. If he were the girl's brother or father he'd rather see her dead.
It was after midnight when he set to work on the papers in the case. He worked all night. The old servant bringing Mrs. O'Bannon her breakfast in the early morning reported Mr. Dan as being up and away. He had come into the kitchen at six for a cup of coffee, his face as white as that sheet and his eyes nearly out of his head.
This was the afternoon that Eleanor selected to take the matter into her own hands and come to his office. She came late in the afternoon. It was after six. She saw his car standing in the street and she knew he was still there. She went in past the side entrance to Mr. Wooley's shop, up the worn wooden stairs, through the glass door with its gold letters, "Office of the District Attorney of Princess County." The stenographers and secretaries had gone. Their desks were empty, their typewriters hooded. O'Bannon was standing alone in the middle of the room with his hat and overcoat on, as if he had been caught by some disagreeable thought just in the moment of departure.
Eleanor's step made no sound on the stairs. He looked up in surprise as she opened the door, and as their eyes met she knew clearly that he did not want to see her. There was something almost brutal in the way that he looked at her and then looked away again, as if he hoped she might be gone when he looked back. If she had come on her own business she would have gone. As it was, she couldn't. She came in, and closing the door behind her she leaned against the handle.
"I'm sorry to bother you, Dan," she said, "but I must talk to you about Lydia Thorne."
"Miss Thorne's friends are doing everything they can to prevent the preparation of a case against her. They take all my time in interviews," he answered.
"Who else has been here?" asked Eleanor with a sinking heart.
"Oh, Bobby Dorset has been here. That interview was brief."
"And Governor Albee?"
O'Bannon looked at her with eyes that suddenly flared up like torches.
"Yes, the old fox," he said.
There was a pause during which Eleanor did not say a word, but her whole being, body and mind, was a question; and O'Bannon, though he had become this strange, hostile creature, was yet enough her old friend to answer it.
"If you have any influence with Miss Thorne tell her to keep politics out of it—to get a good lawyer and to prepare a good case."
Eleanor saw that Albee's mission had failed. She would have rejoiced at this, except that the hostility of O'Bannon's manner hurt her beyond the power of rejoicing. She was not like Lydia—stimulated by enmity. She felt wounded and chilled by it. She told herself, as women always do in these circumstances, that there was nothing personal about his attitude, but there was something terribly personal in her not being able to change his black mood.
"She has a good lawyer—Wiley. Who can be better than Wiley?" she asked.
"He's often successful, I believe."
He began snapping out the light over the desk—a hint not too subtle. Eleanor started twice to say that most people believed that no jury would convict a girl like Lydia, but every phrase she thought of sounded like a challenge. They went downstairs. Ordinarily he would have offered to drive her home, although her own car was waiting for her. Now he took off his soft hat and was actually turning away when she caught him by the sleeve. His arm remained limp, almost humanly sulky, in her grasp.
"I've never known you like this before, Dan," she said.
"You must do me the justice to say," he answered, "that lately I have done my best to keep out of your way."
Eleanor dropped his arm and he started to move away.
"Tell me one thing," she said. "The grand jury will indict her?"
"It will."
She nodded.
"That is what Mr. Wiley thinks."
"And he also thinks, I suppose," said O'Bannon, "that no jury will convict her?"
"And what do you think?"
"I think," he answered, so slowly that each word fell clearly, "that a conviction can be had and that I shall get it."
Eleanor did not answer. The chauffeur was holding open the door of her car, and she walked forward and got into it. She had learned the thing she had come to learn—a knowledge that the stand he took was an honorable one. She was glad that his hands were clean, but in her left side her heart ached like a tooth. He seemed a stranger to her—unfriendly, remote, remote as a man struggling in a whirlpool would be remote from even the friendliest spectator on the bank.
A few days later the grand jury found a true bill against Lydia. That was no surprise even to her friends. Wiley and Albee had both prepared her for that. The crime for which she was indicted, however, came as a shock. It was manslaughter in the first degree. Albee was, or affected to be, pleased. It proved they were bluffing, he said.
"It may cost you a little more on Wiley's bill," he said. "It costs a little more, I suppose, to be acquitted of manslaughter than of criminal negligence; but on the other hand it may save you a thousand-dollar fine. A jury might conceivably find you guilty of a crime for which you could be fined, but not of one for which the only punishment is imprisonment."
Bobby thought the indictment showed conclusively that there was some crooked work going on, and wanted the district attorney's office investigated. Most of Lydia's friends began to feel that this was really carrying the thing too far.
Thus New York.
In the neighborhood of Wide Plains it was generally known that O'Bannon and Foster were working early and late, and that the district attorney's office was out to get a conviction in the Thorne case.
"Isaac Herrick."
"Here."
"William P. McCaw—I beg your pardon—McCann."
"Here."
"Royal B. Fisher. Mr. Fisher, you were not in court yesterday. Well, you did not answer the roll. Gentlemen, if you do not answer when your names are called I shall give your names to the court officer. Grover C. Wilbur."
"Here."
The county court room with its faded red carpet and shabby woodwork had the dignity of proportion which marks rooms built a hundred years ago under the solemn Georgian tradition.
Miss Bennett and Eleanor, guided by Judge Homans' secretary, came in through a side door, and passing the large American flag which hung above the judge's empty chair, they sat down in some cross seats on the left. Beyond the railing the room was already well filled with the new panel of jurors, the witnesses, the reporters and many of Lydia's friends, who were already jostling for places.
The clerk of the court, immediately in front of the judge's bench, but on a lower level, having finished calling the roll, was busily writing, writing, his well-brushed red-and-silver head bent so low over his great sheets that the small bare spot on top was presented to the court room. For one moment he and a tall attendant had become human and friendly over the fact that the counsel table was not on all fours, and the day before had rocked under the thundering fist of the lawyer in the last case. But as soon as it was stabilized with little wads of paper both men returned to their accustomed solemnity, the clerk to his lists and the attendant, standing erect at the railing, to viewing the unusual crowd and exclaiming at intervals "Find seats—sit down—find seats," which was, of course, just what everybody was trying to do.
Foster came in hurriedly with a stack of large manila envelopes in his hand. He bowed nervously to Miss Bennett and sat down just in front of her with his eyes fixed on the door.
The court stenographer came in and took his place, laid his neatly sharpened pencils beside his open book, yawned and threw his arm over the back of his chair. He seemed indifferent as to what story of human frailty was by means of his incredible facility about to be transferred to the records.
Yet he was not wholly without human curiosity, for presently he leaned over to the clerk and whispered, "What did the jury find in that abduction case?"
"Acquitted."
"Well, well!"
The two men exchanged a glance that betrayed that in their opinion jurors and criminals were pretty much on the same level.
A faint stir in the court, an anticipatory cry from the attendant of "Order, order," and Lydia and Wiley came in and sat down side by side at the corner of the long table—now perfectly steady. Lydia looked pale and severe. She had devoted a great deal of thought to her dress, not through vanity, but because dress was an element in winning her case. She was dressed as simply as possible, without being theatrically simple. She wore a dark serge and a black-winged hat. She nodded to Foster, smiled at Miss Bennett and Eleanor. She began looking coolly about her. She had never been in court, and the setting interested her. It was a good deal like a theater, she thought—the railed-off space represented the stage where all action was to take place, the judge's raised bench occupying the dominating position back center, the jury box on her right with its two tiers of seats, the witness chair on its high platform and between the judge and the jury. Close to the railing and at right angles to the jury box, the eight-foot-long counsel table, where she and Wiley had taken their places with their backs to the spectators outside the railing, were so exactly like a theatrical audience. Then a gavel beat sharply. Everyone stood up almost before being directed to do so, and Judge Homans came into court. He came slowly through the side door, his hands folded in front of him, his robes flowing about him, as a priest comes from the sacristy.
The judge, like the clerk, immediately became absorbed in writing. Foster sprang up and stood at his desk talking to him, but he never raised his head. Foster kept glancing over his shoulder at the door. Lydia knew for whom he was watching—like a puppy for its supper, she thought.
A voice rang out:
"The case of the People against Lydia Thorne. Lydia Thorne to the bar."
To Lydia the words suggested an elaborate game. She glanced at Miss Bennett, suppressing a smile, and saw that her companion's nerves were shaken by the sinister sound of them. Wiley rose.
"Ready—for the defense," he said.
Foster, with his eyes still on the door, murmured with less conviction, "Ready—for the people."
The clerk, laying aside his pen, had begun to take the names of the jurors out of the box at his elbow.
"Josiah Howell."
"Seat Number 1," echoed the attendant antiphonally.
"Thomas Peck."
"Seat Number 2."
Wiley, bending to Lydia's ear, whispered, "I want you to challenge freely—anyone you feel might be antagonistic. I trust to your woman's intuition. The jury is the important——"
She ceased to hear him, for she saw Foster's face light up and she knew that at last the district attorney was in court. She recognized his step behind her, and almost immediately his tall figure came within range of her vision. He sat down on the left next to Foster, crossed his arms, fixed his eyes on each juror who entered the box. It was to Lydia like the rising of the curtain on a great play.
"William McCann."
"Seat Number 12."
The jury was complete.
O'Bannon unfolded his long person and rose. Crossing the space in front of Lydia, he came and stood in front of the jury, looking from one to another, asking routine questions, but with a grave attention that made them seem spontaneous. Did any of them know the defendant or her counsel? Had any of them ever been arrested for speeding? Had anyone of them ever injured anyone with an automobile?
To Lydia his whole personality seemed different—more aggressive, more hostile. When, in speaking, he put out his fist she noticed the powerful bulk of his hand, the strength of his wrist. She could not see his face, for he stood with shoulder turned to her, but she could see the upturned faces of the jurors.
Number 10 was in the automobile business, and was excused. Number 2 admitted a slight acquaintance with the defendant, though Lydia couldn't remember him and was inclined to think he was merely escaping duty. Number 5, in the midst of the interrogation, suddenly volunteered the information that he was conscientiously opposed to capital punishment.
At this the judge looked up from his writing and said loudly, "But this isn't a capital-punishment case."
"No, no, I know," said Number 5 apologetically. "I just thought I'd mention it."
"Don't mention anything that has no bearing on the case," said the judge, and went back to his writing.
At noon, when the court adjourned, the jury was not yet satisfactory to the prosecution.
Lydia, Miss Bennett and Wiley drove over to Eleanor's for luncheon. Of the three women Lydia was the gayest.
"He really does—that man really does expect to put me behind bars," she said.
"The prospect apparently puts you in the highest spirits," said Eleanor.
Lydia laughed, showing her bright, regular little teeth.
"I do like a good fight," she answered.
That was the way she thought of it—as a personal struggle between the district attorney and herself. Since that first interview Wiley had no indifference to complain of. On the contrary, he complimented her on her grasp of the case—she ought to have been a lawyer. She had put every fact at his disposal—every fact that had any bearing on the case. She did not consider the exact nature of her former acquaintance with O'Bannon among these; that is to say, she mentioned that she had once met him at the Piers' and played bridge with him. She added that Eleanor felt he had taken a dislike to her. Wiley said nothing, but imagined that she might have played queen to a country attorney—irritating, of course.
About everything else, however, she went into details—especially about the bribing of Drummond, over which she apparently felt no shame at all. Both Albee and Wiley, who were often together in consultation with her, were horrified—not so much at her having done it as at her feeling no remorse. Wiley spoke as her lawyer. Albee, more human, more amused, shook his head.
"Really, my dear young lady, bribery of a police officer——"
"Oh, come, governor," said Lydia. "This from you!"
"I don't know what you mean. I never offered a man a bribe in all my life," said the governor earnestly.
"And exactly what did you say to Mr. O'Bannon in your recent interview?"
Wiley and Albee protested, more as if she were breaking the rules of a game than as if she were saying anything contrary to fact. Albee explained at some length that when a man was behaving wrongly through self-interest—which was, of course, what the district attorney was doing—it was perfectly permissible to show him that self-interest might lie along opposite lines. Lydia, unconvinced by this explanation, would do nothing but laugh annoyingly. At this both men turned on her, explaining that if the bracelet could be got in evidence, if it could be shown that she had bribed the man whom she later killed, the case would go against her.
"Oh, but they can't get it in," said Albee, "not unless you fall asleep, counselor, or the district attorney is an out-and-out crook."
Wiley, more cautious, wasn't so sure. If Lydia herself took the stand——
"Of course I shall testify in my own behalf," said Lydia.
"Yes," said Albee. "Exhibit A—a beautiful woman. Verdict—not guilty."
So the discussion always came back to the sympathy of the jury—the necessity of selecting the right twelve men. Nothing else was talked of during luncheon at Eleanor's that first day. Was Number 6 hostile? Did all farmers own automobiles nowadays? Number 1 was susceptible, Miss Bennett felt sure. He hadn't taken his eyes off Lydia. Number 7, on the contrary, was hypnotized, according to Lydia, by "that man."
By three o'clock the jury was declared satisfactory to the prosecution. It was Wiley's turn. His manner was very different from O'Bannon's—more conciliating. He seemed to woo the jury with what Lydia described in her own mind as a perfumed voice.
Number 2, in answer to Wiley's questions, admitted a prejudice against automobiles, since it was now impossible to drive his cows home along the highroad. He was excused.
Number 7, who had once owned a flourishing poultry farm, had been obliged to give it up.
"On account of motors?"
"Yes, and because it didn't pay."
Did he feel his prejudice was such as to prevent his rendering an impartial verdict in this case?
Number 7 looked blank and sulky, like a little boy stumped in class, and at last said it wouldn't.
"Excused," said Wiley.
"But I said it wouldn't," Number 7 protested.
"Excused," said Wiley, fluttering his hand.
Lydia had tapped twice on the table—the agreed signal.
By four o'clock the jury was satisfactory to both sides; and then, just as Lydia's nerves were tightened for the beginning of the great game, the court adjourned until ten o'clock the next morning. The judge, looking up from his writing, admonished the jury not to discuss the case with anyone, not even among themselves. The jurors produced unexpected hats and coats like a conjuring trick. The court attendant began shouting "Keep your seats until the jury has passed out," and the whole picture of the court dissolved.
Wiley was whispering to Lydia, "A very nice jury—a very intelligent, reasonable group of men." He rubbed his hands.
Lydia's eyes followed O'Bannon's back as he left the court with Foster trotting by his side.
"I wonder if the district attorney is equally pleased with them," she said.
Bobby Dorset drove back with them and stayed to dinner. Miss Bennett, who had a headache from the hot air and the effort of concentrating her mind, would have been glad to forget the trial, but Lydia and Bobby talked of nothing else. She kept a pad and pencil at hand to note down points that occurred to her. Bobby, with a mind at once acute and trivial, had collected odd bits of information—that the judge was hostile, that the door man said the verdict would be not guilty, and he had never been wrong in twenty-seven years.
Proceedings began the next morning by O'Bannon's opening for the prosecution. Lydia saw a new weapon directed against her that her advisers did not seem to appreciate—O'Bannon's terrible sincerity. His voice had not an artificial note in it. Meaning what he said, he was able to convince the jury.
"Gentlemen of the jury," he began, "the indictment in this case is manslaughter in the first degree. That is homicide without intent to effect death by a person committing or attempting to commit a misdemeanor. The People will show that on the eleventh day of March of this year the defendant, while operating an automobile on the highways of this county in a reckless and lawless manner, killed John Drummond, a traffic policeman, who was attempting to arrest her. Drummond, whose ante-mortem statement will be put in evidence——"
Suddenly Lydia's attention lapsed. This man who was trying to send her to prison had held her in his arms. She saw again the moon and the mist, and felt his firm hand on her shoulder. Memory seemed more real than this incredible reality. Then, just as steel doors shut on the red fire of a furnace, so her mind shut out this aspect of the situation, and she found she was listening—after how long a pause she did not know—to O'Bannon's words.
"——at the entrance to the village the road divides, the right fork turning back at an angle something less than a right angle. Round this corner the defendant attempted to go by a device known as skidding a car; that is to say, still going at a high rate of speed, she turned her wheels sharply to the right and put on her brakes hard enough to lock the back wheels."
"Yes, my friend," thought Lydia, "that's the way it's done. I wonder how many times you've skidded your own car to know so much about it."
"This procedure," O'Bannon's voice continued, "which is always a somewhat reckless performance, was in this case criminal. With the officer known to be overlapping her car on the left, she might as well have picked up her car and struck him with it. Her car did so strike him, smashing his motorcycle to bits and causing the hideous injuries of which he died within a few hours."
Lydia closed her eyes. She saw that mass of bloodstained khaki and steel lying in the road and heard her own footsteps beating on the macadam.
"The People will prove that the defendant was committing a misdemeanor at the time. By Section 1950 of the Penal Law it is a misdemeanor to render the highways dangerous or to render a considerable number of persons insecure in life. The defendant in approaching the village of Wide Plains along a highway on which there were buildings and people at a rate of forty miles an hour was so endangering life. Gentlemen, there never was a simpler case as to law and fact than this one."
Lydia glanced at Wiley under her lashes. It seemed to her that O'Bannon's manner was almost perfect. She believed he had already captured the jury, but she could read nothing of Wiley's opinion in his expression. He rose more leisurely, more conversational in manner. The defense would show, he said—and his tone seemed to add "without the least difficulty"—that the motorcycle of the unfortunate young policeman had skidded and struck the automobile of the defendant, causing, to the deep chagrin of the defendant, the death of that gallant young hero. They would show that the defendant was not committing a misdemeanor at the time, for to attain a speed of twenty-five or thirty miles on a lonely road was not even violating the speed law, as everyone who owned a car knew very well. As for the indictment of manslaughter in the first degree, really—Wiley's manner seemed to say that he knew a joke was a joke, and that he had as much sense of humor as most men, but when it came to manslaughter in the first degree—"a crime, gentlemen, for which a prison sentence of twenty years may be imposed—twenty years, gentlemen." He had never in a long experience at the bar heard of a bill being found at once so spectacular and so completely at variance with the law. The defense would show them that if they followed the recommendation of his learned young friend, the district attorney, to consider the facts and the law——
His manner to O'Bannon was more paternal than patronizing. He seemed to sketch him as an eager, emotional boy intoxicated by headlines in the New York papers. Wiley radiated wisdom, pity for his client, grief for the loss of Drummond and an encouraging hope that a young man like O'Bannon would learn enough in the course of a few years to prevent his making a humiliating sort of mistake like this again. He did not say a word of this, but Lydia could see the atmosphere of his speech seeping into the jurors' minds.
Yes, she thought, it was an able opening—not the sort of ability that she would have connected with legal talent in the days when she knew less of the law; but it seemed to be the kind of magic that worked. She was pleased with her counsel, directed a flattering look at him and began to assume the air he wanted her to assume—the dovelike.
The prosecution began at once to call their witnesses—first the doctors and nurses from the hospital, establishing the cause of death. Then the exact time was established by the clock on the motorcycle—3:12, confirmed by the testimony of many witnesses. Then the ante-mortem statement was put in evidence. A long technical argument took place between the lawyers over this. It occupied all the rest of the morning session. The statement was finally admitted, but the discussion had served to impress on the jury the fact that the testimony of a witness whose credibility cannot be judged of by personal inspection, and who is saved by death from the cross-examination of the lawyer of the other side, is evidence which the law admits only under protest.
Wiley scored his first tangible success in his cross-examination of the two men who had come to Lydia's assistance. On direct examination they had testified to the high rate of speed at which Lydia had been going. Wiley, when they were turned over to him, contrived to put them in a position where they were forced either to confess that they had no knowledge of high rates of speed or else that they themselves frequently broke the law. Wiley was polite, almost kind; but he made them look foolish, and the jury enjoyed the spectacle.
This success was overshadowed by a small reverse that followed it. The prosecution had a long line of witnesses who had passed or been passed by Lydia just before the accident. One of these was a young man who was a washer in a garage about a mile away from the fatal corner. He testified in direct examination that Lydia was going forty-five miles an hour when she passed the garage.
Wiley stood up, severe and cold, his manner seeming to say, "of all things in this world, I hate a liar most!"
"And where were you at the time?"
"Standing outside the garage."
"What were you doing there?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing?"
"Smoking a pipe."
"At three o'clock in the afternoon—during working hours?" Wiley made it sound like a crime. "And during this little siesta, or holiday, you saw the defendant's car going at forty-five miles an hour—is that the idea?"
"Yes, sir."
"And will you tell the jury how it was you were able to judge so exactly of the speed of a car approaching you head-on?"
The obvious answer was that he guessed at it, but the young man did not make it.
"I do it by means of telegraph poles and counting seconds."
It then appeared that the young man was accustomed to timing automobile and motorcycle races.
Lydia saw Foster faintly smile as he glanced at his chief. Evidently the defense had fallen into a neatly laid little trap. She glanced at Wiley and saw that he was pretending to be delighted.
"Exactly, exactly!" he was saying, pointing an accusing finger at the witness; "You and Drummond used to go to motorcycle races together."
He did it very well, but it did not succeed. The jury were left with the impression that the People's witness on speed was one to be believed.
Strangely enough, the days of her trial were among the happiest and the most interesting that Lydia had ever known. They had a continuity of interest that kept her calm and equable. Usually when she woke in the softest of beds and lifted her cheek from the smoothest of pillows she asked herself what she should do that day. Choice was open to her—innumerable choices—all unsatisfactory, because her own satisfaction was the only element to be considered.
But during her trial she did not ask this question. She had an occupation and an object for living, not so much to save herself as to humiliate O'Bannon. The steady, strong interest gave shape and pattern to her days, like the thread of a string of beads.
As soon as each session was over she and Wiley, on the lawn of the courthouse or at her house if she could detain him, or she and Albee or Bobby or Miss Bennett, as the case might be, would go over each point made by the prosecution's witnesses or brought out by Wiley's cross-examination of them. The district attorney seemed to be reserving no surprises. He had a strong, straight case with Drummond's ante-mortem statement, and a great many witnesses as to Lydia's speed. The bracelet had not been admitted in evidence so far, nor had Drummond's statement referred to it, and Wiley grew more confident that it would not be allowed. The defense had felt some anxiety over the exactitude with which the hour of the accident had been established, but as Lydia did not honestly know the hour at which she had left Eleanor's nor had Eleanor or any of her servants been subpœnaed, there did not seem any danger from this point after all.
Lydia, who was to be the first witness for the defense, had thought over every point, every implication of her own testimony, until she felt sure that "that man" would not be able to catch her wrong in a single item. She did not dread the moment—she longed for it. Wiley had advised her of the danger of remembering too much—a candid "I'm afraid I don't remember that" would often convince a jury better than a too exact memory.
"And," Wiley added soothingly, "don't be frightened if the district attorney tries to browbeat you. The court will protect you, and if I seem to let it go on it will be because I see it's prejudicing the jury in your favor."
Lydia's nostrils fluttered with a long indrawn breath.
"I don't think he will frighten me," she said.
But most of all, Wiley advised her as to her bearing. She must be gentle, feminine, appealing, as if she would not voluntarily injure a fly. No matter what happened, she mustn't set her jaw and tap her foot and flash back contemptuous answers.
Lydia moved her head, looking exactly as Wiley did not want her to look.
"I cannot be appealing," she said.
"Then the district attorney will win his case," said Wiley.
There was a pause, and then Lydia said in her good-little-girl manner:
"I'll do my best."
Everybody knew that her best would be good.
The People were to close their case that morning. A witness as to Lydia's speed just before the accident was on the stand. He testified that, following her as fast as his car would go—he had no speedometer—he had not been able to keep her in sight. His name was Yakob Ussolof, and he had great difficulty with the English language. His statements were, however, clear and damaging.
The jury was almost purely Anglo-Saxon, and as Wiley rose to cross-examine the very effort he made to get the name right—"Mr.—er—Mr.—U—Ussolof"—was an appeal to their Americanism.
"Mr. Ussolof, you have driven an automobile for some years?"
"Yare, yare," said Mr. Ussolof eagerly, "for ten years now."
"How long had you owned the car you were driving on March eleventh?"
"Since fall now."
"Ah, a new car. And what was its make?"
"Flivver."
The magic word worked its accustomed miracle. Everyone smiled, and Wiley, seeing before him a jury of flivver owners, went on:
"And do you mean to tell me, Mr. Ussolof, that in the speediest car built in America you could not keep a foreign-built car going at thirty miles an hour in sight? Oh, Mr. Ussolof, you don't do us justice. We build better cars than that!"
The jury smiled, the spectators laughed, the gavel fell for order, and Mr. Wiley sat down. He had told Lydia that a jury, like an audience, loves those who make them laugh, and he sat down with an air of success. But Lydia, watching them more closely, was not so sure. As O'Bannon rose she noted the extreme gravity of his manner, his look at the jury, which seemed to say, "A man's life—a woman's liberty at stake, and you allow a mountebank to make you laugh!" It was only a look, but Lydia saw that they regained their seriousness like a lot of schoolboys when the head master enters.
"Call Alma Wooley," said O'Bannon.
Alma Wooley, the last witness for the People, was the girl to whom Drummond had been engaged. A little figure in the deepest mourning mounted the stand, so pale that she looked as if a strong ray would shine clear through her, and though her eyes were dry, her voice had the liquid sound that comes with much crying. Many of the jury had known her when she worked in her father's shop. She testified that her name was Alma Wooley, her age nineteen, that she lived with her father.
"Miss Wooley," said O'Bannon, "you were sent for to go to the hospital on the eleventh of this March, were you not?"
An almost inaudible "Yes, sir," was the answer.
"You saw Drummond before he died?"
She bent her head.
"How long were you with him?"
She just breathed the answer, "About an hour."
Juror Number 6 spoke up and said that he could not hear. The judge in a loud roar—offered as an example—said, "You must speak louder. You must speak so that the last juror can hear you. No, don't look at me. Look at the jury."
Thus admonished, Miss Wooley raised her faint, liquid voice and testified that she had been present while Drummond was making his statement.
"Tell the jury, what took place."
"I said——"
Her voice sank out of bearing. Wiley sprang up.
"Your Honor, I must protest. I cannot hear the witness. It is impossible for me to protect my client's interests if I cannot hear."
The stenographer was directed to read his notes aloud, and he read rapidly and without the least expression:
"Question: 'Tell the jury what took place.' Answer: 'I said, "Oh, Jack, darling, what did they do to you?" And he said, "It was her, dear. She got me after all."'"
Wiley was on his feet again, protesting in a voice that drowned all other sounds. A bitter argument between the lawyers took place. They argued with each other, they went and breathed their arguments into the ear of the judge. In the end Miss Wooley's testimony was not allowed to contain anything in reference to any previous meeting between Drummond and Lydia, but was limited to a bare confirmation of the details of Drummond's own statement. Technically the defense had won its point, but the emotional impression the girl had left was not easily effaced, nor the suspicion that the defense had something to conceal. Wiley did not cross-examine, knowing that the sooner the pathetic little figure left the stand the better. But he managed to convey that it was his sympathy with the sufferer that made him waive cross-examination.
The People's case rested.
Lydia was called. As she rose and walked behind the jury box toward the waiting Bible she realized exactly why it was that O'Bannon had put Alma on the stand the last of all his witnesses. It was to counteract with tragedy any appeal that youth and wealth and beauty might make to the emotions of the jury. Such a trick, it seemed to her, deserved a counter trick, and reconciled her to falsehood, even as she was swearing that her testimony would be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help her God.
Surely it was persecution for the law to stoop to such methods. She felt as hard as steel. Women do not get fair play, she thought. Here she was, wanting to fight like a tigress, and her only chance of winning was to appear as gentle and innocuous as the dove. She testified that her name was Lydia Janetta Thorne, her age twenty-four, her residence New York.
"Miss Thorne," said Wiley, very businesslike in manner, "for how many years have you driven a car?"
"For eight years."
"As often as three or four times a week?"
"Much oftener—constantly—every day."
"Have you ever been arrested for speeding?"
"Only once—about seven years ago in New Jersey."
"Were you fined or imprisoned?"
"No, the case was dismissed."
"Have you ever, before March eleventh, had an accident in which you injured yourself or anyone else?"
"No."
"Now tell the jury as nearly as you can remember just what took place from the time you left your house on the morning of March eleventh until the accident that afternoon."
Lydia turned to the jury—not dovelike, but with a modified beam of candid friendliness that was very winning. She described her day. She had left her house about half past eleven and had run down to Miss Bellington's, a distance of thirty miles, in an hour and a half. She had expected to spend the afternoon there, but finding that her friend had an engagement she had left earlier than she expected. No, she had no motive whatsoever for getting to town quickly. On the contrary, she had extra time on her hands. No, she had not noticed the hour at which she left Miss Bellington's, but it was soon after luncheon; about twenty-five minutes before three, she should imagine.
Was she conscious of driving fast at any time?
Yes, just after leaving Miss Bellington's. There was a good piece of road and no traffic. She had run very fast—probably thirty-five miles an hour.
Did she call that fast?
Yes, she did. She achieved a very-good-little-girl manner as she said this.
For how long had she maintained this high rate of speed?
She was afraid she couldn't remember exactly, but for two or three miles. On approaching the village of Wide Plains she had slowed down to her regular rate of twenty-five miles an hour—slower as she actually entered the village. She could not say how long Drummond had been following her—she had not noticed him. She had seen him as she was entering the village—saw him reflected in her mirror. It was difficult to judge distances exactly from such a reflection. She had not been noticing him just at the moment of the accident. Yes, her decision to take the right-hand turn had been a sudden one. She had felt the impact. She believed that the policeman ran into her. She was on her own side of the road and turning to the right.
Why did she take the right-hand road, which was longer than the left?
Because it was more agreeable, and as she was in no hurry to get home she did not mind the extra distance.
After the accident she had remained and rendered every assistance in her power, going to the hospital and remaining there until the preliminary report of Drummond's condition. She had left her address and telephone number, so that the hospital could telephone her when the X-ray examination was finished.
Her friends drew a sigh of relief when her direct testimony was over. It was true, she was not an appealing figure like Alma Wooley; but she was clear, audible, direct, and her straight glance under her dark level brows was convincingly honest.
As she finished her direct testimony she looked down at her hands clasped in her lap. The important moment had come. She heard Wiley's smooth voice saying "Your witness" as if he were making the People a magnificent present. As she became aware that O'Bannon was standing up, looking at her, she raised her eyes as far as the top button of his waistcoat, and then slowly lifting both head and eyes together she stared him straight in the face.
He held her eyes for several seconds, trying, she thought, in the silence to take possession of her mind as he had taken possession of the jury's.