Nels Jorgens, one of the jury, now spoke up. "That's true," said he. "I saw the three of them walking along the front of the square, and saw them turn in at Mulberry Street. Across from where I live I saw two people at the gate. It was a man—a tall man—and her—Aurora Lane."
"You yourself were not at the gate then?"
"No," said Don, "I had left just at the corner of the square."
"Why did you leave them?"
"Well, I wanted to have a little run before I went to bed. I'm used to taking exercise every night—I always did at college, to keep up my training."
"Where did you go when you were running?"
"I may be mistaken in the directions, but it was across the square, opposite from Mulberry Street. I turned to the right. I must have run perhaps four or five blocks, I don't know just how far it was. It was quite warm."
"Did you come into this street?"
"I don't really know."
"You didn't see anybody?"
"Not a soul. I didn't hear a sound."
"What time was that?"
"I heard the clock strike one before I turned back."
"Gentlemen of the jury," said the coroner, "it was just about that time that Joel Tarbush was killed, right here."
"That's true," said Don Lane. "It's terrible to think of—but why——"
"You heard Judge Henderson's testimony, gentlemen," went on the coroner. "He told of seeing these three people pass by on the square in front of his office stair. Just before that he had said good night to Tarbush himself. He saw Tarbush start right over this way for his home. Now, just in time to catch him before he got into his home—if a man was running fast—a mandidrun from the square over in this direction!"
The members of the jury remained silent. Their faces were extremely grave.
"And, gentlemen, you have heard the testimony of other witnesses here before now, stating that this witness was heard to make threats to Tarbush yesterday afternoon, right after he was dismissed from my own court upstairs. Mr. Jorgens, I believe you were there. What did this young man say after he had for the second time assaulted Ephraim Adamson—twice in one day, and entirely regardless of the rebuke of the law?"
"He said, Mr. Coroner," replied Nels Jorgens gravely, even with sadness in his face, "just when he came out of the crowd where he had left Adamson laying on the ground already—he said to Tarbush, 'You'll come next'—or I'll get you next'—something of that kind."
"Was he angry at that time?"
"Yes, Mr. Coroner, he was," said Nels Jorgens, against his will.
Ben McQuaid leaned over to whisper to Jerome Westbrook. "It seems like this young fellow comes in here with his college education and undertakes to run this whole town. Pretty coarse work, it looks like to me."
Jerome Westbrook nodded slowly. He recalled Sally Lester's look.
Of all the six faces turned toward him from the scattered little group of the coroner's jury, not more than two showed the least compassion or sympathy. Don Lane's hot temper smarted under the renewed sense of the injustice which had assailed him yet again.
"What's the game?" he demanded. "Why am I brought here? What's the matter with you people? Do you mean to charge me with killing this man? What have I done to any of you? Damn your town, anyhow—the rotten, lying, hypocritical lot of you all!"
"The less you say the better," said the coroner; and the sheriff's steady gaze cautioned Don Lane yet more.
"Now, gentlemen," went on Blackman, "we have heard a number of witnesses here, and we have not found any man here that could bring forward any sight or sound of any suspicious character in this town. There hasn't been a tramp or outsider seen here, unless we except this young man now testifying here. The man on whose body we now are a-setting hadn't a enemy in this town, so far as has been shown here—no, nor so far as anyone of us knows. There has been no motive proved up here which would lead us to suspect anyone else of this crime."
Ben McQuaid once more leaned over to whisper to his seat-mate: "It's a likely thing a man would be running for his health, a night like last night, when he didn't have to! Ain't that the truth?"
The coroner rapped with his pencil on the table top. He was well filled with the sense of his own importance. In his mind he was procureur-general for Spring Valley. And in his mind still rankled the thought of the fiasco in his courtroom but the day before, in which he had made so small a figure.
"I want to ask you, Mr. Cowles," he said, turning to the sheriff, "if you ever have seen this young man before."
"Only once," said the sheriff, standing up. "Last night or this morning, just after the clock had struck one—say, two or three minutes or so after one o'clock—I was going out of my office and going over to the east side of the square. I met this young man then. As he says, he was running—that is, he was coming back from this direction, and running toward the southeast corner of the square, the direction of his own home."
"Was he in a hurry—did he seem excited?"
"He was panting a little bit. He was running. He didn't seem to see me."
"Oh, yes, I did," said Don. "I remember you perfectly—that is, I remember perfectly passing some man in the half darkness under the trees as I came along that side of the square. As I said, it was warm."
"Now, gentlemen, we have thought it over for a long time," said the coroner, after a solemn pause. "We must bring in our verdict before long. It must either be 'party or parties unknown,' or we must hold someone we do suspect.
"We have had no one here that we could suspect until now. Take this young man—he is practically a stranger. He proves himself to be of violent and ungovernable temper. Allowed to go once from the justice of the law, he forgets that and goes violent again. He assaults a second time one of our citizens, Mr. Adamson. He resists arrest once by a officer of the law, and in the same afternoon he threatens that officer. He says, 'I'll get you.'
"This young man is seen just before one o'clock running over in this direction. Just a little ahead of him the victim of this crime was seen walking. He was killed, as his daughter testifies, somewhere just about one o'clock—it was at that time that he staggered into the house here.
"Just after one o'clock this young man is seen running—one of the hottest nights we have had this summer—running away from the scene of the crime, and toward his own home.
"I don't want to lead your own convictions in any way. I am willing to say, however, that if we have not found a man to hold for this crime, then we ain't apt to find him!"
"But, gentlemen, you don't mean"—poor Don began, his face pale for the first time, a sudden terror in his soul—"youcan'tmean thatIdid this!"
But he gazed into the faces of six men, upon whom rested the duty of vengeance for the wrong done to the society which they represented. Of these six all but two were openly hostile to him, and those two were sad. Rawlins, minister of the Church of Christ; Nels Jorgens, the blacksmith—they two were sad. But they two also were citizens.
"This witness," went on Coroner Blackman, "has in a way both abused us and defied us. He said he was not on trial. That is true. We can't try him. All we can do is to hold any man on whom a reas'nable suspicion of this crime may be fixed. We could hold several suspects here, if there was that many. All we do is to pass the whole question on to the grand jury when it meets here. That's tomorrow morning. Before the grand jury any man accused can have his own counsel and the case can be taken up more conclusive. So the question for us now is, Shall we call it 'party or parties unknown,' or shall we——"
Don Lane dropped into a seat, his face in his hands, in his heart the bitter cry that all the world and all the powers of justice governing the world had now utterly forsaken him. The sheriff rose, and taking him by the arm, led him into another room.
In ten minutes a half-dozen reporters, trooping up from the train and waiting impatiently at the outer door, knew the nature of the verdict: "We the jury sitting upon the body of Joel Tarbush, deceased by violence, find that deceased came to his death by a blow from a blunt instrument held in the hands of Dieudonné Lane."
Judge William Henderson was sitting alone in the front room of his cool and spacious office, before him his long table with its clean glass top, so different from the work-bench of the average country lawyer. Everything about him was modern and perfect in his office equipment, for the judge had reached the period in his development in which he brought in most of his own personal ideas from an outer and a wider world—that same world which now occupied him as a field proper for one of his ambitions.
As he sat he was a not unpleasing figure of middle-aged success. His gray hair was swept back smoothly from his temples; his red cheeks, fresh reaped, bore the tinge of health. The large white hand before him on the glass-topped table betokened prosperity and success in every faint and fat-hid line.
Judge Henderson now was absorbed in the contemplation of a bit of paper which lay in his hand. It was a message from the telephone company, and it came from Slattery, county prosecutor. Something in it was of disturbing nature. Judge Henderson's brow was furrowed, his face was troubled. He seemed, thus alone and not stimulated by an audience, years older than he had been but now.
He had been looking at this bit of paper for some time so intently that now he did not hear his hall door open—did not see one who paused there and then came, lightfooted, swiftly, across the space, to catch him and blindfold him as he sat. He heard the rustle of her skirts, and knew at once the deep counterfeit of her voice.
"Who is it?" she demanded, her hand over his eyes.
"Anne!" he exclaimed, catching at her hand. "You are here—when did you come?"
She went round and kissed him. "Just now," said she, "on the train from the city. You were not expecting me?"
"No, not at all."
"Well, here I am, Nunkie,"—she sometimes called her guardian by this pet name, although really they were not akin—"I'm finished and turned out complete—I'm done my college work now and ready for what we graduates call the Battle of Life. Do you think I'll do?"
She drew back and made him a pretty curtsey, spreading out her skirts. Indeed, she was very fair to look upon and he smiled at her admiringly.
"You are beautiful, Anne," said he. "You are very beautiful—you are fine."
"Do I please you in every way?" said she.
"Perfectly, my dear. You cannot do otherwise."
She looked at him demurely. "I'm not so sure," said she. "Wait until you have heard all I have to tell you."
"What's wrong? Are you in debt?"
"Worse than that, Nunkie dear—I'm engaged!"
Now indeed he looked at her with sudden consternation in his face. "What's that? You haven't told me anything of the sort."
"I never knew it until just now—at the station." She came now and sat down upon the arm of his chair. "It just happened yesterday—and today."
She put up a finger to her lips and rubbed them, fearing that he might see there the flame of the kiss they but now had borne.
"Who is the young man—if you are really in earnest about all this? Where did you meet him? Whoever he is, you've hardly done your duty by me. I'm your guardian—I standin loco parentisfor you. When did all this happen?"
"Yesterday, on the train. I didn't expect it myself. But I promised. He's promised me. We were going to tell you about it at once."
She was the very picture of happy and contented young womanhood as she spoke. Not so happy was the man whom she addressed.
"I can't guess at all whom you mean," said he. "Is he anybody—is he a man of station—has he any business—has he any means? How old is he—who is he?"
"I can't answer so many questions all at once, Nunkie," said she. "But I'm going to be very happy, I know that. Perhaps you can answer some of the questions for yourself—perhaps you know him. Well, it's Dieudonné Lane!—he's in town right now—a schoolmate of mine for four years. Surely, I know all about him."
Judge Henderson swiftly turned and looked at her steadily, cold consternation on his face. "Anne!" he exclaimed. "That can't be! It's absurd."
"Oh, I expected that," said she easily. "That's because he hasn't any money. I knew that. As for his family—he told me long ago that he was an orphan, that his father died when he was very young, and left only enough for his education, and that he would have to make his own way. Very well, some men have had to do that—you have had to yourself, Nunkie, isn't it true? And Don was born here in this very town——"
He put out his hand over hers as it lay upon the table-top. "Anne!" said he. "My child! You're but a child—an impulsive, foolish child. What have you done? You have not pledged your word—tohim?"
"Oh, yes, I have. I'm promised—my promise is given. More——"
"It's folly and worse than folly. It can't be—I won't have it—you hear me?" He broke out savagely now.
"I heard you—yes, but I'll jolly well not pay too much attention to you, even when you roar at me that way. As I understand it, I'm of age. I've been studying for four years to get ready to be able to know my own mind—and I do! My own heart also. And I know what's due me."
Her voice was low and very sweet, but the man who heard her winced at its cutting calm.
"You would marry a man like that, of no family, of no place, of no name?"
"Yes, I've just said that. I know all about it. We'll have to start at the bottom; and I ask you, didn't you start that way?"
"That's an entirely different proposition, my dear girl," said her guardian. "Times were different then. You are an heiress—you are a woman of family and place—and you don't have to go back to the old days—you don't need to ruin your own life through such terrible beginnings.
"But now, do you know who this young man's people are?" He asked this last after a considerable pause, during which his ward sat silent, looking at him steadily.
"Oh, yes. He told me he is an orphan—his father's dead long ago. And his mother——"
"You know his mother?"
"Yes, a milliner—I believe. But a good woman."
"Ah!"
She still looked at him, smiling. "I am 'advanced,' you see, Nunkie! In college we studied things. I don't care for the social rank—I want to marry aman. I love Don. I love—well, that kind of man. I'm so happy!"
She squeezed him tight in a sudden warm embrace. "I love all the world, I believe, Nunkie—even you, and you are an old bear, as everybody knows! And I thank you for all those papers in the long envelopes—with the lines and the crosses on them, and the pencil mark 'Sign here'—powers of attorney and receipts, and bonds and shares and mortgages and certificates—all that sort of thing. Am I very rich, Nunkie?"
"Not very, as heiresses go these days," said he. "You're worth maybe four or five hundred thousand dollars, not very much. But that's not the question. That's not really everything there is at stake in this—although I'm well enough satisfied that's all this young man cares for."
"Thank you!" said she proudly. "I had not known that."
"A good many things you have not known, my dear. Now listen here. Do you know what this marriage would mean to me? I want to be United States Senator from this state—and everything bids fair to see my ambition gratified. But politics is a ticklish game."
"Well, what on earth has that to do with me and Don?"
"It has everything to do! I'mnot'advanced,' I'm old fashioned enough to know that social rank does count in my business at least. In politics every little thing counts; so I tell you, for every reason in the world you must dismiss this young man from your thoughts. You are quixotic, I know—you are stubborn, like your mother—a good woman, but stubborn."
He was arguing with her, but Anne could not read his face, although she sought to do so—there seemed some veil hiding his real thoughts. And his face was troubled. She thought he had aged very much.
"In one particular matter," said she slowly, at last. "It seems to me a woman should be stubborn. She should have her own say about the man she is to marry."
"How much time have you had to decide on this?"
"Plenty. Twenty-four hours, or a little less—no, I'll say twenty minutes. Plenty. Uncle—he kissed me—before the world. I can't take it back—we have given—I have promised. Uncle, I have promised—well, all through me."
"Stop where you are!" said he. "Have you disgraced us all so soon? Has it gone so far? However that is, you shall go no further."
He rose, his fingers on the table-top, rapping in emphasis.
"My dear," he said, "I am older than you, and I have seen the world more than you have. I recognize fully enough the dynamic quality of what you call love—what I call merely sex in younger human beings. It is a thing of extreme seriousness, that's true. But the surest thing about all that sort of thing is that it changes, it passes. You will forget all this."
"You do me much honor!" said Anne Oglesby, coloring. "You speak with much delicacy. But love me, love my lover."
The swift resistance of a strong nature seemed suddenly to flash out at Judge Henderson from her gray eyes. Suddenly he turned and took her arm. He escorted her to the inner room, which served as his own study and consultation chambers.
"Come here," said he. "Well have to talk this thing over quietly. This is a terrible matter—you don't know how terrible. There's a lot under this that you don't know at all. Anne, my dear girl, what can I say to you to alter you in this foolish resolve?"
"Nothing! I'm going to see his mother this very afternoon. He told me to come, so I could meet his mother——"
"You're going to do nothing of the kind!" said Judge Henderson in sudden anger. "You're going to stay here and listen to reason, that's what you're going to do! You undertake to go into a situation which reaches wider than this town, wider than this state, do you? It is your duty, then, to prevent me frommyduty? Are you so selfish, so egotistic as all that?"
She smiled at him amusedly, cynically, a wide and frank smile, which irritated him unspeakably. He frowned.
"It is time now for you to reflect. First—as you say—this young man has no father. His mother——"
He paused suddenly, his pallid face working strangely now. The shrill summons of the telephone close at his hand as he sat had caused him to start, but it was with relief. He took down the receiver and placed his hand for the moment over the mouthpiece.
"Aurora Lane—you don't know about her?" he began.
Then she saw a sudden change of expression which passed over his face. "Yes—yes," he said, into the telephone. "The jury has brought in its verdict?What's that?——"
The phone dropped clattering from his hand on the desk, so shaking and uncertain was his grasp. He turned to his ward slowly.
"You don't know!" said he. "You don't know what that was I have just heard this moment! Well, I'll tell you. Dieudonné Lane has been held to the grand jury—while we've been sitting here. They've charged him with the murder of Tarbush, the city marshal. My God! Anne——"
It seemed an hour to both before she spoke. Her face, first flushed, then pale, became set and cold as she looked toward the man who brought this news. Once she flinched; then pulled together. But yesterday a girl, this hour a young woman, now she was all at once mature, resolved.
"You heard me, did you not?" he went on, his voice rising. "Charged—with murder! No one in the world knew he was alive—no one but you, and you never told me of him—no one ever dreamed of him till the last twenty-four hours, when he came blundering in here—out of his grave, I say! And in twenty-four hours he has made his record here—andthisis his record. Do you know what this means? He may not come through—I want to say the chances look bad for him, very bad indeed." Judge Henderson's smooth face showed more agitation than ever it had in all his life before.
"Uncle," she said, after a long time, reaching out a hand to him, "now is your opportunity!"
"What do you mean?Myopportunity? It's—it's a terrible thing—you don't know."
"Yes, yes. But you say you have been in the place of a parent to me. That's true—I owe you much—you have been good—you have been kind. Be good, be kind now! Oh, don't you see what is your duty? Now you can use your learning, your wisdom, your oratory. You can save Don—for me. You're my parent—can't you be his, too? We're both orphans—can't you be a father for us both? Ofcourseyou will defend him. He hasn't much. He couldn't pay you now. But I have money—you've just told me that I have.
"Oh, no, I don't mean that, about the money—but listen," she went on, since he made no reply. "Do you thinkI'ddesert him now that he's in trouble? Do you think any woman of my family would do that? We're not so low, I trust, either of us, either side. You are not so low as that, I trust, yourself. Why, you'd not desert anyone, surely not an orphan boy, just starting out—you'd never in the world do that, I know."
In answer he smoothed out before her on the desk top the crumpled paper he had held in his hand.
"This," said he, "was brought to me just before you came in yourself. Before you told me of this affair, I was retained by the state's attorney to assist in the prosecution of the perpetrator of this crime,whoever he might be. I must say it is one of the most terrible crimes ever known in this community. The man who did it must pass from among his fellow men forever. It is my duty to accept this retainer for the prosecution, as I have done——"
"What—as youhavedone?—You'd help prosecute him—you'd help send him to the gallows, if you could—as innocent as he is? You—you—and he has no one to counsel with—only a poor woman, a widow, who's never had a chance—he an orphan, without a friend! You'd dothat?"
His large white hand was raised restrainingly. "We must both be calm," said he. "I've got to think."
"Why, where will Don go—where will they put him?"
"He will go to jail, and be there until the grand jury meets—longer than that, perhaps—and yet longer, if the trial judge and jury bring a verdict against him!"
"But that's taking him away from me—right now—that's not right!—Can't he get out?"
"He might perhaps be released on bail if the bail were large enough, but the crime is the maximum crime, and the suspicion is most severe. I don't know what means he can command, but he needs counsel now.
"But one thing, Anne," he added, "I forbid you. You must have nothing to do with him. Keep away from him. Go home, and don't meddle in this case. It must take its course."
"I would follow him to the foot of the gallows, if need be, Judge Henderson!" broke out Anne Oglesby in a sudden flare of passionate anger. "Ah, fine!—to give your word, your promise—to give your love, and then within an hour forget it all—to leave the one you love when the trouble comes! Is that all one gains—is that all one may expect—is that all a woman ought to do for the man she loves? Is that all she ought to expect from a man? Suppose it were I in trouble—wouldheforget me? Wouldheforsake me? Then shall I? You don't know me if you think that of me!
"You don't know me at all," she blazed on at him, as he turned away. "I've tried to reason. Whatever my success at that, the answer's in my own heart now." (Her heart, now beating so fast under the heaving bosom on which both her hands were clasped.)
"And you forget me? I—I'm in trouble now—it's awful—it's a terrible trouble that I'm in now." Judge Henderson's voice was trembling, his face was pale.
"You—in what way am I bound to you? Trouble—what do you mean? Why, listen!—All your life you have lived with just one aim and purpose and ambition in your heart—and that was yourself! Your own ambition—your own pleasure, your own comfort—those were the things that have controlled you always—don't I know, haven't I heard? You've been a very leech in this town—you have takenallthe success in it—allthe success of everybody, fromallits people—and used it for yourself! It has been so common to you—you are so used to it—that you can't think of anything else—you can't visualize anything else. You think of yourself as the source and center of all good—you can't help that—that's your nature. So I suppose you think you are altogether within your rights when you tell me that I must wreck and ruin my own life to save you and your ambition! Why, you are—you're asponge—that's what you are—you are just soaking inallthe happiness of others—allthe success of others, I tell you—taking itallfor yourself. 'Our most prominent citizen!' Great God! But what has it cost this community to produce you—what are you asking it to cost me and those I love? Drops in the same bucket? Food for you and your ambition? Do you think I am going to stand that, when it comes to me—me and him—the man I have promised—the man I love? You don't know me! You don't know him! We'll fight!"
He sat, so astounded at this sudden outburst—the first thing of the kind he had ever heard from any human being in all his life—that for the time he could make no reply at all. She went on bitterly now:
"Men like you, sponges like yourself, have made what they call success in all the ages of the world—yes, that's true. Great kings, great cardinals, great politicians, great business men, great thieves have made that kind of a success, that's true enough—I've read about them, yes. Men of that sort—Judge Henderson—sometimes they stop at nothing. They'd betray their very own. I'm not your blood, but if I were, I'd not trust you! Men like you are so absorbed with their own vanity, their own selfishness—they're so used to having everything given to them without exertion, without cost, they grow regardless of what that cost may be to the ones that do the giving. In time they begin to think themselves apart from the rest of the world—don't you think that about yourself now? Oh, are you better than the world? Or are you just a man, like the rest of them? Didn't you ever know—didn't you ever kiss a woman in all your life and know what that meant?"
He had sat, his shocked face turned toward her, too stunned for answer. But she saw him start as though under the blow of a dagger at her last words.
"Don't think this hasn't hurt," said she, more composedly now. "It's the truth as far as I know it. With your power, your influence, you could get him free—soon—very soon—perhaps. You could make us both happy. But, so you say, that would makeyouunhappy! I know you well enough to know what the decision will be in a case like that, Judge Henderson!
"As for me—" she was closer to him now, utterly fearless, as a woman is who loves and sees the object of her love threatened—"our paths part here, now! I'm of age and my own mistress. I know my own mind, as I've told you. I'm going to stay—I'm going to stick—do you hear? I'm going to love him long as he lives. I'm going tomarryhim, if it's in a jail!"
Judge Henderson only began to wag his head now from side to side. His face had gone ghastly.
"Why, Uncle dear"—she came over to him now—"forgive me if I've been too outspoken—it's only because I'm so strained."
"Myself also," he groaned. "Strain? Why, yes. You don't know—you don't know!"
Suddenly she changed once more, still the woman, still the young girl, as yet half ignorant of life, her hands still on her heaving bosom now, the faint flush back in her cheeks.
"Hekissedme, Uncle!" said she. "I don't know much, but it seems to me if a man kisses a woman—in that way—it'slifefor her and him! They can't help it after that. After that, a woman's got to do just all she can in the game of life—and he's got to do the best he knows. They can't help it. Hekissedme.... And I told you I'll not desert him. It wouldn't be right. And, right or wrong, I can't—Ican't!"
Panting, the tears now almost ready to drop from her moist eyes, she stood, a beautiful picture of young womanhood, so soft, so fully fitted for love and love's caresses; and now so wronged out of her love by sudden fate. But in her there was no sign of weakness or of yielding. The man who faced her felt the truth of that. His own face now was far the more irresolute of the two—far the more agitated.
Suddenly, haggard, frowning, he rose, at a sound which he heard in the outer room. Someone had entered.
As he stepped to the door between the two rooms, Judge Henderson turned, his finger on his lips, and made signs that Anne should remain where she was, undiscovered. The door hung just a trifle, wedged open by the corner of a fallen rug. Judge Henderson had not time, or did not think, to close it wholly. He stood face to face with the newcomer.
It was Aurora Lane!
Aurora Lane and Judge Henderson both started back as they faced one another. For the moment neither spoke.
Aurora was pale, quite beyond her wont, haggard-looking about the eyes. She had come direct from her home, without alteration of her usual daily costume. In spite of all, she was very far from uncomely as she stood now, about her the old indefinable stamp of class which always had clung to her. Certainly she was quite the equal in appearance of this tall man, soft from easy living, who faced her now, a trifle pasty of skin, a trifle soft about the jaws, a trifle indefinite about the waist—a man with a face as pale and haggard as her own.
Tense as she was, her long schooling in repression stood her in such stead as to leave her in the better possession of self-control.
"My dear—my dear Madam——" began Judge Henderson.
The hearer in the room beyond must have caught the pause in his voice, its agitation—and must have heard the even tones of the woman as she spoke at last, after a long silence.
"I have come to your office, as you know, for the first time," said Aurora Lane. She gave him no title, no formal address. "It is the first time in twenty years."
"You have lived a somewhat secluded life, yes, my dear Madam." His voice, his manner, his attitude, all were labored. He at least knew or suspected that he was talking to two women, and not one; for there was no way for Anne to escape and no way in which he could be sure she did not hear.
"You know about him—about the boy? Of course, everyone in town does. He didn't die. He's been away—in college. I never wanted him to see this place. But now he's come back—you know all about it. He's in jail. We've been thinking perhaps you could do something—that you would help us."
Her high, clear, staccato voice, easily audible far, now showed her own keyed-up condition.
Judge Henderson raised a large white hand. "My dear Madam," said he, himself very far from calm, "let us be calm! Let us above all things be calm and practical."
Aurora Lane's face froze into a sudden icy mask of wonder, of astonishment. She gulped a little. "I'm trying to be calm. I'm desperate, or I'd never have come here. You know that."
He was mumbling and clucking in his throat, gesturing imploringly, trying to stop her swift speech, which might be overheard, but she went on, not understanding.
"Until just now I was so happy. He was done with his schooling—ready to go out at his work. The expenses were very heavy for us, but we've managed. Look!"
She drew from her worn pocketbook the single bill that she had left in all the world, a tight-creased, worn thing. "In some way I've managed to hold on to this," said she. "It's all I've got left in all the world. That's my twenty-odd years of savings—except what I've spent to bring up my boy. I've got no more."
"My dear Madam," said Judge Henderson again, sighing, "life certainly has its trials at times." A remark sufficiently banal to pass muster with both his hearers, Aurora Lane here and Anne Oglesby in the room beyond. But, still ignorant of any other auditor, Aurora went on as though she had not heard him:
"I thought I'd come and talk to you—at last. If only Don could get out, I'd be willing to leave with him. We'd never trouble anybody any more." Her face was turned to him beseechingly.
"I know, of course, that you could save him if you liked.... I've had a pretty hard time of it. Don't you want to do this for him—for us—how can youhelpwanting to? You, of all men! My God! Oh, my God!"
"Hush! Hush! Don't speak so loud! Pray compose yourself, my dear Madam," exclaimed Judge Henderson, himself so far from composed. His own face was ghastly in its open apprehension. "He's ruined himself, that's all, that boy," he concluded lamely.
She stood before him, stony cold, for a time, growing whiter and whiter.
"And what about my own ruin? What does it leave to me, if they take my boy—all I have in the world? I didn't think you could hesitate a moment—not even you!" Her voice, icy cold, was that of another woman.
He turned from her, flinging out his hands. "He has disgraced you——" he began, still weakly; for he at least knew he was doubly on the defensive now, before these two women, terrible in their love.
"No, he has not!" flared Aurora Lane at last. "If I've had disgrace it's not through any fault of his. If he raised a hand in my defense, it was the first man's hand that has been raised for me in all this town—in all my life!"
She held before him again the tight-folded little bill, seeking with trembling fingers to unfold it so that he might see its pitifully small denomination. She shook it in his face in sudden rage. "That's my life savings! If there was such a thing as justice in the world, would I be helpless as this—so helpless that I could find it possible to come here to talk to you? Justice? Justice! Ah, my God in heaven!"
Aurora Lane's voice was slightly rising. She was fronting him in the last courage of despair. "You'd see that boy perish—you'd let him die? If I thought that was true, I'd be willing to do everything I could to ruin this town. I'd pull the roof down on it if I were strong enough. I'd throw myself away, indeed. I'd curse God—I'd die. Above all, I'd curse you, with my last breath."
Anne, in the next room, rooted in the horror of her silence, could not have heard his reply, but almost she might have pictured him, standing white, ghastly, trembling, as he was when he heard these words.
"But you can't do it—you can't deny him—he's a human being like yourself—he's part of——Ah, you'll get him free, I know!" Aurora's voice was pleading now. Judge Henderson's own voice was hoarse, unnatural, when at last he got it.
"Look at this message," he croaked, in a half whisper; and showed her the crumpled bit of paper which he had held in his own hand. He beckoned to her—yet again—for silence, but she did not understand.
"What is it?" asked Aurora. "What do you mean?"
"From the state's attorney! I have accepted this retainer. I'm of the prosecution! You have come too late. What can I do?"
"Prosecution—what do you mean? Prosecute him—Don? Too late—my God! Am I always too late—is it always in all the world for me—too late! Prosecutehim? What do youmean?"
The sudden, wailing cry broke from her. Then her voice trailed off into a whisper—a whisper which might have been heard very far—which was heard through the half-closed door which led to the inner room. "Too late!" And at length the long-tried soul of Aurora Lane broke out in a final and uncontrolled rebellion, all bounds down, all restraint forgotten, every instinct at last released of its long fettering:
"You disown him—you'd disown your own flesh and blood—you'd let him die! Why, you'd betray your own Master for the price of office and of honor! Oh, I know, I know! The limelight! Publicity! Oh, you Judas!—Ah, Judas! Judas! You, his father!Your own son!"
Then sobs, deep, convulsive.
Came sudden rustling of garments in the adjoining room. The intervening door was flung wide. Anne Oglesby, her face pale, tense, came out into the room where stood these two.
"What is this?" she demanded of Judge Henderson. "This is Mrs. Lane?Don's your son?"
She turned to Aurora inquiringly.
"I have heard—I could not help hearing. His father! Don told me his father was dead. What's all this? Tell me!"
For a moment they stood apart, three individuals only. Then, slowly, with subtle affiliation of sex, the women drew together, allied against the man.
It was Anne who again was first to speak. Her voice was high, clear, cold as ice, with a patrician note which came from somewhere out of the past.
"Let me have all this quite plain," said she. "Mrs. Lane said 'flesh and blood!' Mrs. Lane said 'your own son!' I heard her. What does it mean?"
"This is what it means!" said Aurora Lane, suddenly drawing Anne to her closely, after her one swift glance. "My boy's in jail. This—this man—Judge Henderson—is his father. He says he's hired to murder him—and he's our child."
"I didn't know!" broke out Judge Henderson, now facing both his hearers. "I never knew! You said he was dead—you told me so. It's all half a lifetime ago. I've had nothing to do with you, nor you with me, since we broke off more than twenty years ago. That was as you wished. God! I was only a man. Yousaidthe child died."
"Yes," said Aurora Lane, turning to Anne; "that's true—I did. I told that one lie to protect the boy. I sent him away when he was a baby to protect him. I said he was dead—to protect him—to keep him from ever knowing. But you know—you saw him—youfeltit—you must have known, yesterday." She confronted the trembling man once more.
"Yesterday?" said Anne Oglesby.
"Yes. There was another trial then—and Judge Henderson prosecuted then also!" She turned again to him for his answer.
"I dropped the case."
"You dropped it because you were paid to drop it! You traded another man out of his own life's ambition—a better man than you are—that's what you did when you dropped the case. There's nothing more to trade—we've nothing more to pay—but how can you prosecute him—now—when his very life's at stake—when he's charged with murder? The punishment's death! You'd send him to the gallows now—my boy—and yours? You didn't know him then! Is it likely? Don't lie about it—if you didn't know him,whydidn't you? Were you so busy looking at your own picture on the wall—so wrapped up in your own ambitions, that you couldn't see anything else? Couldn't you see your own flesh and blood—and mine? What's twenty years? Haven't I lived them, and wouldn't I know him—didn't I—when I saw him? You Judas!"
Motionless, she stood looking at the speechless man before her, until she felt the closer drawing to her of the tall young beauty at her side.
"And you're Anne?" she said, turning to the girl, her own large dark eyes now soft. "I know. He loves you, Don. Has he said good-by to you? Has he said he wasn't worthy of you, because he had—no father?Thisis his father—Don's father—Judge William Henderson. He'll not deny it. I told Don he mustn't think of you—of all women in the world—just because you are so close to Judge Henderson—Don's father.
"Now you see why I told my boy that lie—I didn't want him ever to know his father—yes, I'd told him his father was dead. And I don't want to seem a worse liar to my own boy—I've been bad enough, the way it is."
She felt Anne Oglesby's arm draw her closer yet, felt the soft warm body of the girl against her own.
"I make only trouble," said Aurora, murmuring. "And you—you're so beautiful. I don't blame him."
"I love him, too!" said Anne Oglesby steadily. "I'm not going to give him up."
Aurora Lane's tears came then.
"You—you two women—" gasped Judge Henderson—"do you know what you're doing here? Do you think I don't suffer, too?" Then Anne saw that every accusation Aurora Lane had made was true and more than true.
"About that trial yesterday"—he turned to Aurora—"Ididhave some sort of superstitious feeling—I own that—I couldn't account for it—I couldn't explain it. But you had assured me that your—our—er—the child—had died in infancy. I thought—I hoped it was only my own guilty conscience making me see things. I—Ihavehad a conscience. But I knew nothing—we'd not met for years."
"That's all true," said Aurora to Anne, nodding toward Judge Henderson. "I've scarce spoken more than twenty words to him in twenty years. I've kept the secret, and carried the blame. Until yesterday Don never knew about himself—about his having no father. He hasn't a guess even now who his father was—or is—at least he'll never make the right guess. No one has, no one ever will. They may wrong another man, but they'll not suspect the right one."
She felt the strong young arm of Anne still about her, and so went on, nodding again toward Judge Henderson—"I asked him to defend his own son—you heard me, then? And he's told me he's hired to hang his son! And I called him 'Judas.' And I pray God to sink him in hell if he does this work. After all, there must be a hell somewhere—I think there must be. This is not right—it's not right! I've stood it all till now, but I can't stand this."
"Wait!" exclaimed Judge Henderson. "Give me time to think, I tell you! My whole life's up on this, as well as yours. You've had twenty years to think about this, and I've not had that many minutes. You and I've not met, I say—our paths have lain totally apart. It was in the past—we'd lived it down."
"Wehad lived it down!" Aurora Lane's laugh was bitter enough, and she made no other comment.
Still she felt, closer and closer, the warm young body of the girl who stood by her as the two women faced the man in the ancient and undying battle of sex.
"Well, I dropped that case," resumed Judge Henderson, "name or claim the reason as you like. Butthiscase is different——"
"Why?" asked Anne Oglesby. "What's the difference between the two cases? You say you didn't know, then. Now you know."
"But I've my reputation to keep clean, Anne! The higher you climb, the riskier the ladder. I could drop that little case yesterday, but let me dropthiscase, with all the whole town back of it—and all my whole political party back of it, too—that's another matter!"
"Is it, indeed!"
"Yes!" he rasped. "I put Judge Reeves on the bench here. It's a big case. If I withdrew a second time—if things got stirred up and people began to talk—why, that would be enough to put Old Hod Brooks on the scent. He'd well enough take care of all the rest! It would be the end of my career—in twenty minutes. There'd be nothing left of my chances—there'd be nothing left of my reputation—the work of twenty years would be undone. I'd be ruined!"
"The work of twenty years!" whispered Aurora Lane to herself. "Twenty years! And—ruin!" Her voice rose again. "What about us others? You're talking about yourself, your reputation, your success—how about Don? Hislife'sat stake. So is mine—I'd not survive it if they killed my boy."
"What's he to you, anyhow?" broke out Judge Henderson—"this man Brooks? Are you in any conspiracy of his? What's under this? What's he to you? Was he ever—has he ever——"
"Stop!" said Aurora Lane, her voice sharp, her face cameo-cold. "Not another word!" And even the sullen and distracted soul of the man before her acknowledged the imperative command. "You traded him out of his place. You're trying to trade now in your own son's life! Is that—can that really be true of any man?"
"Don't bait me too far!" he rejoined savagely. "Don't you go on now and drive me into fighting these charges."
"I don't think you would, Uncle," said the calm voice of Anne Oglesby. "I don't think you would.
"So this," she added softly, "is what my guardian was!In loco parentis!"
The man before her writhed in his own bitter suffering, flinging out his hands imploringly under the lash of her words.
"Anne! Anne!"—Aurora turned to the girl at her side—"I wish all this might have been spared you. You're so young! But it all had to come out some time, I suppose, and I'd rather have you learn it from me than from Don. You've not seen him—he has not told you?"
"No. We only had a moment—not alone—just a little while ago. They took him away—I didn't know why, till just now. We've just heard what the coroner's jury said. But I'll not leave him till he tells me, to, and only then if he says he doesn't love me."
"He could never say that!" said Aurora Lane. "But I told him he must leave you."
"Did he say he would?"
"Yes, yes, of course! But when I told him that, I didn't know you; and I did not think Don ever would know who his father was. He doesn't know even now."
Judge Henderson turned suddenly, catching at a thought which came to him from Aurora's words.
"Why should anyoneeverknow!" he began. "If this whole matter could be quieted down—if this case could be dismissed——
"Would you promise me," he turned toward Aurora—"if I could manage in some way to get all this hushed down—if I could save the boy's life—would you promise me, both of you, never to tell a soul in the world—never to let anyone get a breath of this? You are the only two that really know it at all—you said, Aurora, that even the boy doesn't know it all. Why should he, ever? It's been hid this long, why not longer?"
"Anne and I, and yourself, are the only human beings in the world who know it all," said Aurora Lane.
"Canyoukeep such a secret?" Judge Henderson turned more doubtfully to Anne Oglesby, whose cold, quiet scorn had cut him even more deeply than the bitterer words of the older woman.
"I'd do anything for Don—anything I thought he'd be willing to have me do. But I don't see how such a thing as this could be kept down. How can the law be set aside?"
"Listen here," he said, facing her, a little color of hope at last in his face. "You don't in the least know what you've been starting here, and you don't know anything about the remedy for it. The law? It's close to politics, sometimes! If I fall—can't you see—I drag down plenty of others—I drag down my own town—I drag down my whole judiciary—I've been on the bench here myself. Oh, you two don't know all about how things are done in politics. I'd drag down all the machinery of my own party in this state—the thing would go even wider than that—I'd be compromising the national administration itself. I tell you, it's ruin, ruin, if this thing gets out. This is the very crisis of all my life—my whole fate, my whole past and future, are in your hands now, and much more beside—in the hands of you two women.
"But I've got to fight the best I may," he added, walking excitedly apart, and smiting one hand into the other. "Look here, now," and he turned to them with a new look on his haggard face. "Your fate'sin my hands, too! Go beyond reason with me—threaten and goad me too far—and I'll see what can be done to ruin you two, if you succeed in ruining me!"
"I've not asked that," said Aurora Lane. "I don't care about that. What's revenge to me? And what's ruin? I've asked nothing of you—nothing, but my boy's life, and never that till now. You gave it to me once, unasked. I'm asking it again, now—his life—my boy's. I bore him in grief and sorrow. It's your time of travail now. That's all."
Judge Henderson almost wept in his own self-pity.
"Think how horribly, how grotesquely unjust all this is," his voice trembled—"raking up all the deeds of a man's youth. The past ought to beforgotten. A man's past——"
"Or a woman's?" said Aurora.
"Well, yes, or a woman's. But it's men like me who have to build up things, do things, administer things, wisely and justly. I've been a judge on the bench here, before the world, I say. And here you two women—why, it's ghastly, it's terrible, itscriminal. Your dragging me down—it—it's a hellish thing to do."
"What? What's that?" The voice of Aurora Lane rose again. "If there's any hell, it's for a false judge. You once sat on the bench, yonder—yes. Oh, Judas—worse—you are ten times worse than Judas!—Drag you down—drag all the town, all the state, all the society down? Why, yes, I would if I could! I will, I will!"
But, sobbing as she was, and desperate, she felt the light hand of Anne Oglesby now swiftly patting her shoulder for silence. The girl faced her guardian with the same light smile on her lips, cool and contemptuous.
"Wait a minute, Uncle," she said. "A moment ago you spoke of our fate being in your hands, too—of one ruin offset against another. Come now, you're a trader—you have been all your life, Uncle—it seems you're always willing to trade in the practice of the law. That's how you've got up where you are."
Her smile, her words, cut him beyond measure, but he clung to his idea.
"Very well, then. Now, suppose we trade!" He spoke sneeringly, but inwardly he was trembling, for he knew not what moment Aurora Lane might publicly make good her threat.
"What can he mean?" Aurora turned to Anne. But Anne, shrewder at the time, broke in: "Leave him alone. Let him go on."
"Well, now," said Judge Henderson, and actually half began to clear his throat, so sweet did his new thought appear to him, "as I was saying—there's no actual indictment yet—there's been no trial—the coroner has only held him over. Say I'd take on this prosecution, ostensibly—ostensibly—conditionally—ostensibly—to keep down any suspicion; and then, later on, after several continuances and delays, you know, and the disappearance of all the witnesses for the state—hum!—yes, I'll say it might be done. I'm not sure it couldn't be done more or less easily, now I come to think of it—I know Reeves, and I know how much he'd like to be governor of this state—they have to come downstate every once in a while for available timber.
"So, my dear girl," he turned to Anne in virtuous triumph, "after all, since this would do two things—save the boy's life and save my reputation, it might not be discreditable to be what you call a 'trader'!" There really was exultation in his smile.
"What do you want for it?" asked Anne Oglesby coldly. "Where would it leave Don? In jail indefinitely?"
"I could not state it more precisely!He looks like me!Oh, I'll admit that—my feeling was right, my conscience was right! Heismy son. Butbecausehe is andbecausehe looks like me, he's got to stay in jail where he'll not beseen,—a year or two, perhaps. There can't be any bail."
The two white-faced women looked each into the other's face, sad-eyed. Anne's breath came tremblingly. "It's the best we can do!" said she at last; and Aurora, seeing how it was, nodded mutely.
"What do you want for it, Uncle?" demanded Anne contemptuously again.
"I want—silence!" said he harshly, at last beginning to assert himself. "Silence! And I've got to be sure about it."
Suddenly he pulled open a drawer in the table before him. The women started, fearing a weapon; but it was only a book he drew out—an old, dusty book, the edges of its leaves once gilded—a copy of the Holy Scriptures, very old and dusty.
Judge Henderson by accident now saw the fly leaf, for the first time in years. It was the little Bible his own father had given him, half a lifetime ago, when he was first starting out into the practice of the law. On the yellowed leaf in paled ink could still be seen the inscription his father had written there in Latin for his son:
"Filio meo; Crede Deo.—To my son; Believe in God!"
"Will you swear on the Bible?" demanded Judge Henderson, "both of you, that you'll never tell nor hint a word of this to any human being in the world—not even to him—the boy?"
The hand which held the dusty little volume was trembling, but Judge Henderson was not thinking of his own father, nor of the inscription in the little book.
"Yes!" said Aurora Lane at once. But Anne Oglesby raised a hand for pause.
"I'll not swear to keep back anything from him, my husband. I'm not sure I could."
"Your husband——"
"I'm going to marry him, unless he sends me away."
"It can't be soon—it may be very long—it will be years——" Judge Henderson was getting back a little color now, a little self-assertiveness, a little more readiness to argue.
"I can wait," said Anne. "But I can't buy him cheap—Don wouldn't let me. I know who his father is, and he ought to know it, too. That's his right."
"Anne," said Aurora Lane, "I denied him that right. You got my secret by accident. Can't you keep it, too? It's a heavy weight that Judge Henderson has laid on more than one woman—a load to be borne by three women, myself, Miss Julia, and you. But this is to save Don's life."
"You'll swear secrecy on the Book?" broke in Judge Henderson.
"Yes!" said Anne Oglesby at length. "If you'll swear to perjure yourself against your oath of office as judge and as attorney—as you've said you would—I'll swear. Is that the trade?"
"It's the only hope he has, the only hope that you have, and the only hope that I have. Absolute silence! Absolute secrecy! I'm going to save him—but I'm going to save my own self, too." A slight color was in Henderson's gray face.
"Oh, you trader!" said Anne Oglesby, all her scorn for him now patent, fully voiced. "You sepulcher of a man! You failure! Oh, yes, yes, I'll swear! And I'll keep my oaths and my promises all my life, so help me God! Lift up the Book! You, too, Aurora."
"I swore it twenty years ago," said Aurora Lane. "I will again. You Judas! You coward! Lift up the Book! Lift it up, so that I may see! Is that the book they call the Bible—that tells of love and mercy, and truth, and justice, and forgiveness of sins? Lift it up, so that I may see!"
They faced him, their right hands raised, and he held up the Book, his thumb under the cover, exposing the inscription which he had not seen for years and did not now see.
"As you believe in God!" began Judge William Henderson.
When Judge Henderson passed down the office stair, and out across the street toward the narrow little brick walk of the courthouse—which even on that day of the week now held a certain crowd—so disturbed, so preoccupied, was he that he gave no greeting to one or two belated loiterers about the store fronts.
"I reckon that young feller'll get his dose now," said old Aaron Craybill, demi-chorus to this tragedy, following with his bleared eyes the tall and well-groomed figure, frock-coated, top-hatted, which now was passing toward the temple of justice. "I wouldn't like to have no man like the Jedge after me if I'd done what that boy done. He's a-going to gethung, that's what's going to happen to him. Everybody knows Slattery ain't big enough for this case. With a 'Nited States Senator a-prosecutin' it, though, and ten reporters from the cities—well, I guess Spring Valley'll be heard from some!"
"I wonder when the funer'l's goin' to be," said his neighbor, Silas Kneebone. "Of course Rawlins is goin' to preach the sermon. He's good on funer'ls. Seems like he's e'en—a'most as comfortin' at a funer'l as ary minister you could get in this town—and there's quite some ministers here, too."
They hurried on away now presently even as Judge Henderson disappeared in the courthouse door. A strain of music had come to their ears, the sound of reeds and brasses.
"Thar's the band now!" exclaimed Aaron Craybill. "Knight Templar, too! They're goin' over to the hall to practice for the funer'l. Come on ahead! Hurry, Silas!"
Down the street, audible also through the open windows of Judge Henderson's office, came the music. Jerome Westbrook had hastened from his duties on the coroner's jury only to assume his labors as leader of the Spring Valley Silver Cornet Band; and as it was the duty of that band to head the procession of the Knights Templar in the funeral march of Joel Tarbush, himself a brother of the order, it seemed that a certain rehearsal in the infrequent effort of playing under march was needful on this Sabbath day.
Slow-paced, with swords reversed and even step, with eyes looking neither to the right nor to the left, following the music of the wailing horns, the muffled tapping of the drums, it came now into the civic center of the town, this solemn procession. At its head walked Saunders, master in the order, his opportunity now at hand; and behind him, in full regalia, came many others, all the leading citizens of this community, the pillars of the church, the props of the business structure of this village, the leaders and formers of its customs and its social order; all these anxious that the appearance of the secret order in public should be in all ways above reproach, even at cost of this quasi-public rehearsal. Joel Tarbush dead was receiving more tribute than ever had Joel Tarbush living.
In accordance with ritual or custom, after the actual march to the tomb, the musicians must render that selection which has spoken for so many hearts bowed down in weight of woe; but Jerome Westbrook knew that his men needed practice on Pleyel's Hymn; so they gave it now tentatively, in advance, as they passed through the public square on the way to the hall. To the strained senses of Aurora Lane, still sitting with Anne in the office where they had lingered, the wailing of the music seemed a thing unbearable. She caught her hands to her ears.
"Oh, God!" she whispered. "Oh, God! If only they would not."
The white, sad-faced young woman at her side took her trembling hand in her own. "It will pass," said she. "Everything passes. You have been brave all these years. I ought to be brave too! even now—after what you've told me."
"And I never knew you," said Aurora Lane after a time. "Not many women have ever said much to me."
"Nor did I know you," rejoined Anne Oglesby. "You were a stranger to me when I saw you now, right here—Don's mother! We were so excited, Don and I, that I never identified you two, although—yes—I knew—something about—about——What shall I call you—you see, maybe I'll be your daughter yet."
"Some call me—Mrs. Lane. Some—Miss Lane. You can't call me 'mother.' For most part I am the village milliner, my dear—nothing more than that. I'm nobody. But generally, I'm 'Aurora Lane.' ... Now you know it all. I'm so sorry for you, my dear girl. You're fine—you're splendid. You're a good girl; and you're so very beautiful. If only you belonged with—with him—with me. It's too bad for you."
Anne Oglesby, the more composed of the two, impulsively stroked back the thick ruff of auburn hair from Aurora's face. "You mustn't bother about me," she said.
"But I must bother about you! You must give him up. My dear, my dear, it can't be! I'm just learning now how hard that would be for him because it's so hard for me."
"He kissed me," said Anne Oglesby simply. "After that it was too late."
"Why, what do you mean, my dear?"
"He didn't have to do anything more after that," said Anne Oglesby slowly. "He had not had time to say anything before that."
"He should not have kissed you," said Aurora Lane. "But that was his farewell to you."
"It was not farewell!" said Anne Oglesby. "It was our beginning! I willnotgive him up. If he had not kissed me—just when he did—just as he did—I would not have known! I'm glad!"
Aurora Lane looked at her searchingly, slowly.
"Poor girl!" said she. "Dear girl! He could not help loving you—I cannot help it myself. You are the only woman in the world, I think, for him."
"I am not good enough," said Anne Oglesby stoutly. But then suddenly she cast both her strong young arms about the neck of Aurora Lane and dropped her head upon Aurora's shoulder.
"Oh, yes I am!" she said; "oh, yes Iam! I know I must have been meant for him, or else—else—"
But she did not as yet reveal the secret of the Sphinx. They both fell silent.
"Ah, sacrifice!" said Aurora, wearily, after a time. "Sacrifice always for the woman. We are all so bent on that."
"There's much more than that," said Anne Oglesby, sagely. "Besides, sacrifice itself is not an odious thing. You sacrificed much of your life, your happiness, your freedom. Are you sorry for that now, or proud?"
"Dear girl!" murmured Aurora Lane, patting her on the shoulder. "Ah, you sweet girl! If you could only just remain always this young and wise—and ignorant!"
But Anne Oglesby seemed not to hear her. She was looking out of the window musingly now, her yellow-gloved hands supported on her tight-rolled umbrella, her hat making a half-shadow for her dark hair and her clear, definite features.
Now the red sun ball, having well completed its circuit over the parched and breathless town, was sinking to yet another lurid sunset. There lay over all a blanket of that humid heat which so often arrests activity in communities such as this, situated in the interior, where few cooling breezes come. The dry, dust-covered leaves of the maples hung unmoved. Here and there, still hitched to the iron piping which served as a rail on all sides of the courthouse fence, stood the teams of farmers still tarrying, unwilling to face the hot ride home from town, even though the duty of church attendance was long since past. A murder and a funeral—a Knights Templar funeral—Spring Valley had never known the like! And there was going to be a trial—a murder trial. Court would sit tomorrow. What village could ask more than was the portion of Spring Valley in these few hurrying days? And it was her boy, 'Rory Lane's; and she'd fooled everybody—but now——! Spring Valley licked its chops as it said "But now——"
The two women in Judge Henderson's office sat still in the sultry heat, looking out of the window over the sultry, sordid, solemn little town; how long they did not know; until now there came again across the heat-hazy spaces of the maples, over the hot tops of the two-storied brick buildings, the sound of the wailing music—the same music which may come from the noblest organs of the world, the same music which may have pealed on fields of battle after heroes have fallen, speaking, as music may, of a soul passed, of a life ended, so soon to be forgot. For a time let the wailing of the horns, the tapping even of these unskilled drums, record the duty of this man's fellows to give him at least a moment's full remembrance.
In this hot lifeless air of the somber Sabbath afternoon the burden of sorrow, the weight of solemnity, seemed yet heavier and more oppressive. If a soldier dies the music plays some lilting air which speaks forgetfulness on the march home; but now, for the second time came this reiterated mournful wailing for a passing soul. The band had learned its lesson by now. The dirge for the dead arose in a volume well regulated and sustained as the men marched from the hall at last for the final trial on the street.
To the tapping rhythm of the anthem of the dead, sometimes such a community as this does take thought—these uniforms are justified, these white plumes, these reversed swords are justified; for an humble man who has passed is dignified before his fellow men; and he has had his tribute. Sometimes at least men thus stand shoulder to shoulder, heads bared, and forget envy, backbiting, little jealousies, forget cynicism and ridicule. The diapason of the drums surely had its hearing. It sank deep to the soul of Aurora Lane, striking some chord long left unresponsive.
"Anne!" said she, her hand lying in that of the wet-eyed girl at her side, "it's over—for him."
The girl nodded. But after all, Anne was young. She raised her head in the arrogance of youth, even as there passed more and more remotely the mournful cadence of the drums.
"But he was old!" she said, defensively. All of youth and hope was in her protest.
Aurora turned upon her her own large eyes, dark-ringed today. Her mouth, long drawn down in resolution, was wondrous sweet now as it trembled a little in its once ripe red fulness. It became the mouth of a young woman—not made for sorrow. "You still can hope, then?" she smiled. And Anne nodded, bravely. So, seeing replica of her own soul, Aurora Lane could do no more nor less than to fold her in her own arms, the two understanding perfectly a thousand unsaid things.
"But come!" said Anne Oglesby at last. "We must make plans. There's a lot to be done yet, and we must start."
"I have no money," said Aurora Lane. "I don't know what to do."
"Money isn't everything," said Anne Oglesby, with the assurance of those who have all the money that they need. "I suppose I have plenty of money if my guardian will let me have it."
"Even if your guardian allowed it," said Aurora Lane proudly, "Don would not. He would not let you help him, nor would I, though we are paupers—worse than that. Did you know that, Anne?"
"I am finding out these things one by one," was the girl's reply. "But they have come after my decision." She spoke with her own quaint primness and certainty of her mind.
"There's just one man could help us," said Aurora Lane, hesitating, and coloring a trifle. "I mean Mr. Brooks, Horace Brooks. He's a good lawyer. Some say he is the equal of Judge Henderson—I don't know. You heard what Judge Henderson said of him. It's fear of Horace Brooks, as much as his own conscience, that's influencing Judge Henderson."
"And why couldn't we go to Horace Brooks then?" demanded Anne Oglesby. "What is the objection—why can't you go to him?"
"I'd rather not tell you," said Aurora Lane, and in spite of herself felt the color rise yet more to her face.
Anne Oglesby sat looking at her for some time in silence. "There are complications sometimes, are there not?" said she. So silence fell between them.
The drums had passed by now. The sun had almost sunk to the edge of the last row of dust-crowned maples. The farmers here and there below were unhitching the sunburned horses at the courthouse rail.
"I see," said Anne at length. "You love him—or did—Don's father. Or do you still pity him!"
"Who are you?" said Aurora Lane, looking at her steadfastly. "You, so young! You talk of pity. Where have you learned so much—so soon? When you grow older, perhaps you may find it hardnotto forgive. Everything's so little after all, and it's all so soon over."
Unsmilingly Anne Oglesby held her peace. "Why don't you want to ask Mr. Brooks to act as our attorney?" she asked. "And who is he—I don't know him, you see."
Aurora did not answer the first part of her question. "I'll tell you where Mr. Brooks' office is," said she—"you see that little stair just across the courthouse yard? Sometimes he spends Sunday afternoon in his office. It's—well—it's hard for me to go over there and ask him."