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.
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,thatwoman...."
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 goodnight, 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 thehabeas chorusproceedings 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.
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 compromisingyou—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, youmustn'ttalk 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. Butyou'dhave 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 allhascome 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'smy 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 therightto 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 awidow, 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—yourlife—yourchancein 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.
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."
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 weeklyClarion, 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 theClarionwas, 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 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.
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'sbad, 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."