After Steve Judson had gone rapidly down the hill to where his horse was hitched and his companion was about to follow, Sally quickly put forth a detaining hand, and lightly touched him. "Milt!" she whispered.
Twice before, on this same night, he had heard that familiar voice calling to him through the darkness, and there seemed something strange and uncanny in its mysterious repetition. Was it a trick of his lively imagination, or could there be something at fault with his brain? Yet the touch reassured him. The presence must be something tangible.
"Sally!" he breathed in a low tone, filled with wonder.
"Yes, I'm here," she hastened to reply, at the same moment emerging from the dark angle of the wall and stepping to his side, while he stood rooted to the path in utter amazement at her presence.
"Sally," he again said, taking her into his arms and softly kissing her lips. "Is it really you? What brought you to this lonely spot?"
"The fear that harm might come to you," she answered, simply.
"But how did you know I was here? How came you to find this secret place?" he asked, still sorely puzzled.
"I'll tell you as you go back," she answered hurriedly. "There's no time now. It's a long story. Let's leave this place as quickly as possible. It is a dangerous spot, and each moment we tarry increases the danger."
"But how in the world did you get here?" he persisted, as they started down the hill.
"I rode old Joe. He's hidden in the willow thicket down by the branch. He will carry double," she continued. "Let's go to where he's hitched, an' I'll take you as far as the New Pike Gate, then you can ride him to the station, and take the first early train. Just turn Joe loose. He'll find his way back home."
"Then it was you who called to me as I lay in the quarry, gagged and bound," said Milton, as they hurried onward through the darkness, Sally directing the way to the clump ofwillows, and as they went along she told him something of what transpired during the eventful day.
"I was half tempted to believe I had heard a spirit voice," continued her companion, tenderly, speaking of his own unhappy experiences at the quarry. "It seemed as if you had really spoken, yet, as I lay and listened, I could not imagine how you could be so near me at that hour and place. It must be a dream, I reasoned, a blessed dream, born of the darkness to cheer and comfort me in my last moments on earth, for such I believed them to be. You cannot understand what a solace it was to me, even to feel that your spirit was near me."
"I did not intend that harm should come to you if I could prevent it," said the girl, earnestly. "If worse had come to worst, I had a bullet for Jade Beddow's heart, and one for Steve's, too," she added, with emphasis.
"Then you heard them go through the farce of trying me?"
"Every word of it. I was looking down into the quarry all the while. Once I drew a bead on that villain, Jade Beddow, but something prompted me to wait yet a little longer. Howglad I am that I did so. For you are now free, and, thank heaven! there's no bloodstain upon my hands."
Soon Joe was gratefully turning his head toward home, though his burden was a double one.
"And so Steve is the real traitor?" said Milt, as Sally gave an account of the interview she had overheard between the Captain and Steve in the ravine near the latter's home.
"Yes, Jade Beddow worked on Steve's fears in order to make him lay the deed at your door."
"It seems that Steve is not altogether bad. He still has a spark of gratitude in his bosom, but was forced to make charges against me in order to shield himself."
"Jade Beddow is at the bottom of it all," insisted Sally, "either he or your uncle. They both want you out of the way, and will stop at nothing to carry out their plans. I don't know which is the greater villain of the two."
"Perhaps I'd better stay around here a day or two longer, and settle some old scores before I go," said Milt, thoughtfully.
"No! no!" the girl interposed, hastily. "Youmust leave here to-night. There are far too many dangers threatening you here, besides, your staying would bring speedy vengeance on Steve Judson. Both his safety and yours depends on your getting away as quickly and secretly as possible. No one must see you go, no one must suspect you have gone."
"And if I go far away?" questioned Milton, with a deep touch of tenderness creeping into his voice, "if I find a home elsewhere, and can get steady employment, will you come to me when I shall send for you?"
"Yes," was the exultant answer that quickly arose to her lips, but suddenly she remembered her promise to the Squire, and this bitter recollection brought with it a sickening sense of the binding obligation she was under for the sake of another's safety, and the unhappy knowledge stifled the one small word that was trembling for eager utterance on her very lips.
"Will you come, sweetheart?" persisted the young man, in tones of persuasive tenderness, mistaking her silence for maidenly reserve, "or shall I come back for you when the time is at hand to claim you for my own?"
"No! no! Milt, you must not think of comingback, when once you are safely away!" she cried impetuously.
"Then you will come to me?"
"Wait until you see what the future has in store," she answered evasively.
"There's only one thing I care for it to have in store for me, and that isyou. You will come to me?" he persisted.
"If nothing prevents, I will come," she stammered. "But one cannot always tell what lies before."
"What is there to prevent?" he demanded, sharply, a ring of jealousy creeping into his tones. "What could there be?"
"A hundred things might arise that we know nothing of now," she answered hurriedly, understanding full well that she stood on most dangerous ground, that to confess to her lover the one thing that stood in the way of her going, would be to shatter all the plans she had laid for his own safety.
She knew that rather than have her keep faith with the Squire, the nephew would deliberately give himself up to the officers of the law, and loudly proclaim the ownership of the hat which was about to cost Sally so great aprice. No hope could she have to get her sweetheart away did he but suspect the sacrifice she was about to make for his sake. Neither prayers nor entreaties could avail in the face of such knowledge.
For one brief moment a thought of escape came to her. She was sorely tempted to break her promise with the Squire, to delay her marriage with him, finding one excuse and another until she could hear from the absent one, and make her preparations to join him. Then all might yet end well.
But there was her mother to be considered. She was about to forget this very important item in such an arrangement. What would become of her mother, should Sally do such a thing? She could not be left to the Squire's wrath, nor could she go along with her daughter. It seemed the meshes of fate were drawing tighter and tighter around the girl. All avenues of escape appeared closed to her.
"To-day and to-night have been too trying for me!" cried Sally, wearily. "We both know what the past has been, we neither can tell about the future, so let us talk only of the present. That concerns us most."
"But I don't understand," began Milton. "This seems a new mood. It isn't like you, Sally. You don't mean that you are beginning to care less for me?"
"Have I acted to-night as if I was?" she asked sharply; his words had stung her into sudden resentment. "Did my going to the old deserted quarry for your sake, look as if I was caring less?"
"No! no! forgive me!" he cried, humbly, abashed by the reproof of her words. "I did not mean that. I know your heart is mine, else you would not have been the brave and fearless girl you were to-night. God bless you!"
To Sally the next few days were more full of disturbing thoughts than events.
So far as Milton Derr's safety was concerned, her mind was at ease, for he had succeeded in getting away, and no one was the wiser regarding his going—no one but herself and Steve.
The horse that Milt had ridden on the night of his mysterious disappearance, and which had been turned loose by the raiders, had gone back to Mr. Peppers', and the general impression seemed to be that its rider had left that part of the country on account of the toll-gate troubles, with which his name was now being connected.
Sally had arisen even earlier than usual the morning following her night journey to the old quarry, and, as she had expected, she found Joe waiting patiently at the lot gate to be let in. This she managed to do before her motherwas up; therefore, no explanations were necessary, save to explain that she had not stayed overnight with Sophronia, and had quietly let herself in by means of the back door, so as not to disturb her mother, who had gone to bed.
With each day slipping stealthily by, like the waters of a deep stream, whose surface seems almost stagnant, the time was drawing near to hand when the girl had promised to purchase her sweetheart's liberty with her own bondage.
Now that Milton Derr was spirited safely away, quite beyond the reach of the Squire's hatred and vengeance, the temptation fell heavily upon the pretty toll-taker to repudiate her part of the bargain, given under such stress of anxiety. Such a promise should not be held inviolable. The Squire had deliberately forced her into it by his threats against his nephew.
Yet the promise had been given in good earnest at the time, and accepted in good faith. The Squire had abided by his promise, she must now do likewise.
Apart from all this—independent of the right or wrong, justice or injustice of the matter,the fact was self-evident, that though the nephew might be beyond the reach of the Squire's anger, she and her mother were not.
His rage must of necessity fall on the defenseless heads of both, and the girl felt far more helpless now than before her champion had gone, for, in losing him, she had lost the only knight who might valiantly fight her battles.
Looking at her helpless condition, there seemed but one thing left her—a marriage to the Squire. What though it should be a loveless one? Such marriages took place day after day, and some of them appeared to even bear the seal of contentment, if not of happiness. Not that this could ever prove true in her case. It were a thing impossible, with the memory of one she really loved ever enshrined in her heart.
Fate, however, seemed determined to require a sacrifice of her, so why not make it and end the unequal struggle?
Milton Derr was now not only a fugitive from justice, but debarred from ever returning, by the edict of the band, which had believed itself betrayed by him. To its membershe was literally dead. For his own sake, as well as for Judson's safety, he could not hope to come back. There was still less hope that she could ever go to him, with her mother also to be provided for, and so—what did it matter if she paid the debt she had incurred? There was no one to suffer but herself.
The Squire had confided to her mother the girl's promise to marry him, and Mrs. Brown was diligently spreading the news daily, despite her daughter's wishes to the contrary. Soon the announcement of the wedding was made in the town paper, to the girl's great disgust and indignation. Both the Squire and Mrs. Brown had conspired in this public notice of the approaching marriage, and the hapless girl began to feel, as they had intended, that matters had gone too far for her to rue the bargain.
Every allusion to the affair made her heartsick and miserable. Mrs. Brown, who was filled with plans regarding the event, strongly urged a church wedding in town—it would have proven a morsel of supreme delight to her, but Sally steadfastly refused to consider the matter even for a single moment. Shewould be married at the toll-house, and at no other place. No one should witness the marriage but her mother, not even Sophronia was to be invited.
This decision was a great grief to the mother. She had hoped and planned for far more elaborate things. In vain she reasoned and expostulated. It was all to little purpose—the girl was determined and obdurate. Arguments and entreaties were of no avail, not even inducements, for the Squire had given Mrs. Brown a sum of money quite sufficient to purchase the prospective bride a handsome wedding outfit.
Sally was also firm and immovable in her rejection of this proposed expenditure. She would not receive any wedding finery from the Squire, nor would she marry in any that his money had purchased.
"He must take me as I am, or not at all," she said.
"Sally, I don't know what to make of you!" cried her mother, in dismay. "Refusin' a bran'-new weddin' dress that's offered you."
"He can buy me dresses after he's bought me," answered Sally, bitterly. "I won't accept them now."
"Sally, I don't know what to make of you," cried her mother."Sally, I don't know what to make of you," cried her mother.
Themoments sped like birds of evil passage. Nearer and nearer drew the hour of sacrifice. Each day that might have been so full of joy, under other circumstances, was one of prolonged unhappiness, and she scarcely knew whether to rejoice or grieve when it was ended, for the morrow would be but a repetition of the day that had passed, and one day nearer the goal of her misery.
The Squire would have proven a most ardent suitor had Sally consented, but she would have none of it. He hovered about the toll house, with the persistency of a youthful swain, fired by his first grand passion; but the bride elect very promptly sent him about his business, whenever he came spooning around, and curtly announced that she was busy getting ready to marry him, and, therefore, had no time for sentimental dallying.
If, notwithstanding these repeated rebuffs, he chose to linger, it fell to Mrs. Brown to entertain him, which she generally did by finding excuses for Sally's brusque manners andstrange words. "Skittish colts make the tamest ones in harness," said she.
"When they're properly broke," thought the Squire, with a quiet chuckle of satisfaction.
On the evening before the wedding the prospective groom presented himself at the New Pike Gate. His efforts at rejuvenation, in dress and manner, would have struck Sally as comically grotesque but for the part she was to play in the tragic comedy.
"I thought I'd drop in to see if there's anything you wished done before to-morrow," said he, in a half apologetic way, as he readily interpreted the look on Sally's face to mean disapproval of his presence.
The girl's heart gave a sudden leap of terror. To-morrow! Was it possible that her marriage was this near? She had tried to put away the thought of it, day by day, as if this could lengthen time, or stay the unhappy event, and now the hour was almost at hand. She might no longer forget, or put the fact aside. The shadow of its actual presence overshadowed her and chilled her very heart.
A wild impulse flooded her brain, like a tidal wave from the sea of her despair. Shewould appeal to the Squire for a release from her promise—humbly petition his better self to spare her the misery of a marriage, loveless at least on her part. It could only bring sorrow to her, and doubtless unhappiness to him; since he could not wish to wed a wife, who brought him no love, and only deep aversion.
Yes, she would appeal to him—it was the one final hope left her. He must not, could not refuse to release her after such a confession. When at last he started to go, the girl quickly caught up her hat, and said, "I will ride with you along the road a little way."
"And after to-morrow, it will be all the way in life together, eh?" asked the old man jocosely, chucking her under the chin with one of his clumsy fingers. She instinctively shrank from his touch, but followed him into the night.
Without, the elements seemed as foreboding as the girl's own unhappy thoughts. An ominous sky brooded in gloom. In the north a huge pile of clouds, sullen and heavy, lay banked high above the horizon, threatening hills of blackness that seemed to hem in her little world of woe. Gusts of wind from timeto time came sweeping by, boisterous heralds, precursors of threatening storm.
As the girl and the old man stood on the platform, after the door was shut behind them, he was the first to speak, as she unconsciously drew a little nearer to his side before a passing gust.
"I must have a kiss, my dear—one little kiss, on this, our marriage eve."
Her first impulse was to push him rudely from her, to deny him flatly such a request, though surely a lover's prerogative on the eve of marriage. Then, remembering the purpose for which she had followed him into the night, and the appeal she was about to make, she quickly realized that she must touch his compassion, not arouse his prejudice, if she would hope to win. Perhaps a submissive acquiescence on her part at this important moment might help to gain her cause.
She paused a brief moment, nerving herself for the trying ordeal, then resolutely putting aside her aversion, holding in check all mutinous thoughts, she hastily put up her lips and lightly touched his red, coarse cheek.
As she did so, a sudden flash from the mutteringsky, like a reproof from heaven itself, for the act, made day of the night for one brief instant, and the clearly defined scene was enveloped in darkness again.
The Squire's back was partly turned toward the road, but Sally, looking out full upon it, saw in that brief flash of vivid light, clearly defined against the white background of the pike, Milton Derr standing in the road not ten paces away.
A pall of swiftly enveloping blackness closed about the toll-house and its surroundings, which had been revealed for one short space.
The girl started back with a sharp cry, wrung from her in surprise and consternation at the sudden apparition she had beheld, while the Squire, naturally mistook her perturbation for fear of the storm.
"Come! don't be afraid, my dear, you are quite safe," he said, soothingly, striving clumsily at the words to slip his arm about her waist. But she adroitly avoided the movement and retreated toward the door of the toll-house.
"Hurry home!" she cried anxiously, thinking rather of ridding herself of his presence, than of entertaining a fear for his safety. "The storm is near at hand."
"It's a good deal bluster," answered theSquire calmly, after a critical glance heavenward, "It may not rain at all. I hope it may not, as to-morrow's our wedding—only think of that, chickie, our wedding day!"
"Hurry home!" repeated Sally, faintly, scarcely knowing what she was saying, and only desirous of hastening his departure, and ridding herself of his hateful presence—doubly hateful at this moment. There was a touch of very entreaty in her voice.
"I thought you were going to ride with me a little way," remonstrated the Squire in disappointed tones. "You said you were."
"No! no!" answered the girl hastily, "it's dangerous—besides, it's growing late."
"That's scarcely treating me fair," protested the Squire, but he good-naturedly shambled along the platform, and went to get his buggy. "We won't begin to quarrel this early," he added with a laugh, "so—good night, my dear! and pleasant dreams to you!"
"Good night!" echoed Sally, mechanically. She stood motionless until the sound of the vehicle grew faint in the distance, then, with quaking frame, she hurriedly jumped off the platform into the road, and groped her way tothe spot where she had seen the dark, solitary figure standing fully revealed in that brief, intense light.
She had heard no sound, save the Squire's clumsy movements, and later the rumble of his buggy along the pike, and as she eagerly started forward, the thought came to her that perhaps she was the dupe of her own vivid imagination—that the motionless figure imprinted on the retina of her eye, as it had been etched on the background of the night, was the creature of her excited brain, and had no part in the darkness without.
"Milt!" she called out softly, inquiringly.
She strained her ear attentively to the silence. The sound of labored breathing near at hand betrayed the presence she sought, and putting forth her hand fearlessly she touched the substance of the shadow she had seen.
"Milt!" she once more called aloud.
With a gesture of impatience, or anger, she knew not which, he roughly shook off the hand laid lightly upon him, with the impatient mumbling of a fierce oath.
"So, it's true," he said at last; but his voice sounded strange and harsh, and totally unlike the familiar caressing tones she had so longed to hear once more.
"So it's true," he said, but his voice sounded strange and harsh."So it's true," he said, but his voice sounded strange and harsh.
Adeep silence fell between them, and in its strained quiet she could hear her heart beating loudly in her bosom, as if it were the pendulum of some muffled clock ticking off the dreary moments of a life.
"Yes," she answered, finally breaking the intense silence, her voice scarcely more than a faint whisper. It seemed that an age had passed since the question was asked.
"Sally!" he cried sharply, as if her reply had been a keen knife thrust. "You don't mean it!"
"It is true," she said, simply.
"And I would not believe it, even though I read it by chance in one of the papers from here. I said it was a lie. I really thought it was one—a wicked lie—a damnable one—I didn't know women," he added, with a bitter laugh.
"Don't blame me, Milt," she faltered. "I did it for the best."
"For the best?" he echoed, scornfully, swift anger following close upon his words. "Is itfor the best to wreck my life—my faith in you?"
"It need not wreck your life, it must not," answered Sally, earnestly. "I'm not worth it. Oh! why did you come back?" she asked sorrowfully.
"I came back to convince myself that it was a lie. I was a fool for coming, I'll admit that; but women have made fools of men ever since the days of Eve."
The two walked on up the road, further away from the toll-house.
"You should not have come back," persisted the girl. "I hoped you never would. I beg you to go away again, this very night. It is best for us both. Some day you will find a true woman who is worthy of your love," she added with a sob rising in her throat, but Milt in his anger and resentment failed to rightly interpret its meaning.
"Then you have been fooling me all the while!" he cried, hot with indignation. "You have made me believe that you cared nothing for him—that you loathed him, even—well, perhaps you did, but you loved his money—you've sold yourself for that."
"No! no! Milt, don't say that!" cried the girl imploringly. "I may have sold myself to him, but not for money—don't think that of me!"
"If not for money—for what?" demanded Derr, sternly. "For what else but his houses and lands?"
Once again the impulse was strong upon her to confess the truth, yet swift to follow the impulse came the unhappy knowledge that to do this would be to seal Milt's fate. If she would save him, she must sacrifice herself. For his sake her lips must remain mute now, and perhaps forever.
"Itisa sale, an outright sale!" persisted Derr. "You really don't care for him, you never did. It is only his money you are after—money, not love has won the day, it always will. I might have known as much, but I was simple, and had a simple faith. I didn't understand the falseness of women's hearts."
"Would I have risked my life, as I did, to get you out of the clutches of the raiders that night, if I had cared nothing for you?" asked Sally in sharp earnestness, unable longer to bear his reproaches in silence.
"And to what purpose?" demanded her companion. "Why didn't you let them kill me, as they proposed doing? It would have been kinder to have let them put me out of the way," he added bitterly.
"Oh, why didn't you stay away, when once you had gone?" she asked. "It would have been far kinder to me."
"I begin to understand now why you were so anxious to have me go," he said. "Probably you feared I would make trouble. Did you think I might attempt to harm your youthful, handsome lover?" he asked, sneeringly. "No wonder you only cared to talk of the present, not of the future that night we parted. No wonder you parried my questions when I asked if you would some day come to me. I marveled then at your strange silence, but the reason is now as clear as day. All the while you were urging me to go away, you were expecting to marry him after I had gone! Confess now—wasn't your word given to him before I went away?"
"Yes," acknowledged Sally, "but let me explain a few things you do not understand, I"—
"It is unnecessary," quickly interruptedMilt. "Those things Idounderstand are all-sufficient for me. You wanted me away from here, and you succeeded in getting me to go—you preferred the Squire's money to my poverty, and you are on the eve of getting his money, too. Perhaps you are in league with those rascals who may have meant only to frighten me, and cause me to run away, like a cowardly cur. They might not have harmed me—I doubt now if they intended to.
"It is not too late, though, to thwart your plans and his," continued the speaker with increasing anger. "You are not yet married to that brute, and, by heaven! you shall not be! I swear it! I will kill him first—the scoundrel! the hound!" he cried passionately, overswept by the rage that swayed him, like a tree twisted by the storm.
"Milt, Milt, don't talk that way! You mustn't harm him! You shall not!" cried the girl, terror-stricken by the passionate utterances of her companion.
Her words were but fuel to the flame. They goaded him into a sort of frenzy.
"So you beg for him, do you? You don't want him hurt—your lover, your husband thatis soon to be. By heaven! I'll wring his wrinkled, villainous neck like I would a chicken's, d—n him. He's driven me from his roof, he's taken you from me, but I'll even up old scores at last."
As the maddened man started up the road, Sally frantically caught hold of him, striving to pacify his anger, to reason with him, to make him understand his unjustness toward her, but he roughly shook himself free, and moved the faster.
"Milt! Milt! come back!" she cried entreatingly, but he made no answer, and hurried on.
"Milt, listen to me! It's all my fault. I, alone, am to blame. Come back! For God's sake, don't do anything rash!"
Again she tried to overtake him, to lay hold of him, but he broke into a run, and left her far behind, crying entreatingly to him through the darkness.
The darkness enveloped the hurrying man as it had done once before this night, when he stood silent and motionless in the middle of the road, near the toll-house, yet the girl still followed his retreating figure persistently through the gloom, beseeching him to return, to relinquish his fell purpose.
She stopped at last, understanding that it was futile to follow further, that he was deaf to her entreaties to turn back, and that she could no longer hope to overtake him. As she stood still and listened, she heard his retreating footsteps growing fainter and fainter far up the road.
Some minutes later, a second vivid band of light revealed his tall, dark figure sharply silhouetted against the sky, from the brow of the hill he had climbed, then darkness came again, like a black curtain, and blotted him from sight.
The girl stood for some time in the middle of the road, with hands clasped tightly together, and tear-stained face, striving to think connectedly, to reason calmly in the face of a new trouble.
What must she do? Which way to turn?
She well knew Milt's disposition—a veritable powder magazine it was, readily ignited by an angry spark, yet soon over with, a flash in the pan, one might say, without a bullet behind to be sped on its mission of evil.
Such dire threats as he had just uttered, were but the violent outburst of a sudden passion, and signified no durability of purpose, no fixed resolve. Long before he could reach the Squire's place, his better judgment would surely prevail—the calm after a spent storm. Probably he was already beginning to repent his hot temper, and regret his hasty speech.
That it was without cause Sally could not aver. From Milton's standpoint, at least, he must feel that he had been most shamefully used, not so much at the hands of the Squire, in the present instance, as by the girl herself. How meanly he must think of her—heartless, mercenary, hypocritical! And yet she darednot defend her actions by telling him the truth.
As she stood thus, uncertain and confused, looking anxiously toward the hill where she had last seen the solitary figure crowning it, a reassuring thought came to her. Even should Milt go as far as the Squire's, he would not be able to gain entrance to the house, for his uncle had doubtless reached home before this, and he would be little likely to admit any one into his house at that hour of the night, especially an avowed enemy, such as he knew his nephew to be.
If Milt attempted to make any trouble at all, he would wait until the morrow—her wedding day. How hateful the thought of this event now seemed to her! She felt at the moment that if Milt would only come back and tempt her to flight, this unhappy marriage would never take place. She would risk anything, everything, and marry the younger man despite all else. Why had she not thought of this sooner? Oh! yes, she remembered, it was on her mother's account. What would become of her?
As the unhappy girl recalled her lover's angry words, she felt that she deserved themall—each word of harsh reproach, of fierce anger, and just scorn. It was a very wonder he had not offered to strike her dead as she stood before him. To think he had even been a witness to her kiss, and had moreover heard from her very own lips the confession that she was about to wed his hated kinsman. It was little wonder that Milt was half crazed by jealousy and rage.
If he did but know the terrible sacrifice she was about to make for his sake, he must surely pity her, and no longer taunt her for her seeming perfidy and falseness of heart.
The girl found herself wondering that her lover's anger had not centered on herself rather than the Squire. She was the one on whom the younger man should have avenged himself. Perhaps it was a fortunate thing, after all, that she had not followed him further into the night. He might have been tempted, in his ungovernable rage, to wreak his vengeance on her as well as on his hated kinsman. A strange, unusual timidity suddenly took possession of her—a feeling that was near akin, to dread of the younger man, irresponsible in his jealous rage, though scarcely a fear of the manhimself, so much as of the demon of jealousy she had aroused in him.
Beset with this new sensation, she peered cautiously into the night, as though one might be lurking in hiding near by, ready to spring forth upon her, then realizing that nothing but darkness lay around her, she abruptly turned her steps toward the toll-house.
Alas! the bitter disappointment of life. Thus had come to naught all the efforts in Milton Derr's behalf, her own sacrifice a useless thing, since, instead of averting the dangers that threatened him, she had unwittingly been the cause of involving him in yet greater perils.
Even though his threats against the Squire were but idle ones—blasted buds of evil without promise of fruition, as she believed them to be, still, if Milt persisted in tarrying longer in the locality, he was not only putting his own life in jeopardy, but would also bring on Steve Judson swift retribution as well.
She had tried to impress these facts on Milt's mind before he had gone away. Why had he not remained away as she had entreated him to do, on parting?
Then she remembered that he would not have returned—that he would probably have known nothing of her marriage until it was too late, if he had not read an announcement of it in the papers. Her mother was really at the bottom of it all, she was chiefly to blame for Milt's return; for many things, in fact, now bearing the bitter fruit of sorrow.
Mrs. Brown had caused the notice of the marriage to be put in the paper without her daughter's knowledge or consent. Sally had begged her mother to say as little about the wedding as possible, and if that obdurate person had only heeded the request, all this present trouble might easily have been avoided.
Beset with anxious doubts, intangible fears, disquieting thoughts, feeling the while most bitterly toward her mother for the officious part she had persistently played in all this unhappy affair, Sally retraced her steps slowly to the toll-house.
Poor girl! Truly her marriage eve was not a propitious one.
The first objects on which the girl's eyes rested the next morning, when she awoke after a troubled sleep, were the simple weddinggarments spread out carefully on some chairs near her bed, and as she lay and looked at them in bitterness of heart and spirit, she heard her mother astir in the kitchen preparing breakfast.
Sally half rose in bed. Her very heart seemed faint within her as she gazed on all this hateful reminder of what the day held in store, and with a quick sob she buried her face in her hands.
As she sat thus—a tearful, sobbing figure—surely a strange posture for a prospective bride on her bridal morn, she heard a horse galloping swiftly along the road, and as the sound came nearer, she found her attention gradually absorbed by it. There seemed something of undue haste in the rider's speed.
A moment later the winded animal stopped at the toll-house gate, while a loud knock quickly summoned Mrs. Brown to the door. Sally's alert ear caught the sound of a negro's voice without, speaking rapidly and excitedly, then a sharp exclamation from the toll-taker followed.
The listening bride-elect could not distinguish the negro's hurried words, nor guess theimport of his message, but finally she caught one single word that her mother uttered, and that word was—"murdered."
Scarcely had it reached the girl's strained attention, when she sprang hurriedly out of bed, and catching up her wedding dress threw it hastily over her shoulders. Then her strength seemed suddenly to go, and she stood trembling and white, her eyes fixed on the door of her room in a vacant stare, her mind a blank to all surroundings.
Her mother found her thus when she came into the room a few moments later, visibly agitated.
"You heard it then?" she said huskily, looking into Sally's terror-stricken face.
"He could not have done it!" gasped Sally, brokenly. "It was only an idle threat," she added, her voice sinking to a whisper.
"Of course he didn't do it!" exclaimed her mother, catching only her daughter's first words. "He was murdered—murdered in cold blood!"
The girl opened her mouth as if to speak again, but the sound crumbled to unintelligible murmurs, as the fear of uttering words noear must ever hear flashed through her bewildered mind, so she stood looking blankly at her mother, with wide-open eyes of horror, while the color fled from her face, leaving a ghastly pallor instead.
All the dreadful interval she was thinking of Milton Derr rather than his victim, and she started like a guilty thing at her mother's next words:
"There's but one person in the whole wide world who could have done this, to my thinkin', an' that's Milt Derr!"
Throughout the day there seemed an interminable passing the New Pike gate. Many stopped to condole with its inmates, a few through genuine sympathy, a greater number urged by a secret desire to see how the bride-elect bore up under the dire misfortune that had come almost with the suddenness of the lightning's stroke. The curiosity of these was baffled, for the girl shut herself closely in her own room, and denied herself to all.
When the news of the tragedy reached town the coroner came out to the Squire's place to hold an inquest, while numerous others followed in his wake, drawn thither by the morbid interest that attracts many to the scene of similar crimes.
Mrs. Brown waited on the gate, eager to know all that was thought or said of the deplorable affair, and though her daughter asked not a single word, the mother, who pliedwith voluble questioning almost every soul that passed through the gate, told her from time to time of the rumors that were afloat. Thus the girl learned of the verdict on the coroner's return—that Squire Bixler had met his death in his own room the night before, by a knife-thrust at the hand of some person or persons unknown. The victim had evidently been dead several hours when his body was found by one of the servants who came to see why the Squire was so tardy on his wedding morn.
Robbery may have been a cause, for the Squire's pocket-book was found lying open and empty at his side, and a small drawer in the tall clock had been pulled out and searched yet the victim's heavy gold watch had not been taken, and nothing else in the room seemed to have been disturbed or molested.
The murderer had not broken into the house, evidently, for the front door was found to be unlocked, and an entrance and exit had doubtless been effected through that. Considering this fact, it seemed a highly plausible theory that the murderer must have been admitted to the house by the Squire himself, andthat it was doubtless some one whom the Squire well knew, else the door had not been unlocked to this one in the late hours of the night.
The Squire was dressed, with the exception of his coat and shoes, and had evidently not gone to bed, therefore the murder must have been committed along in the early part of the night, before his usual bedtime. The body lay on the floor near a candle-stand before the fire. The candle had burned entirely down in its socket, and the melted tallow had afterward hardened into a cake round the bowl of the stick. Amid the embers in the fireplace, under the charred end of a log that had burned in two and fallen to one side, was found the remnant of a gray felt hat.
From the position and range of the cut in the body, the blow had probably been given while the victim was standing up facing his assailant. His murderer had not stolen upon him unawares. The blow had been a true one, and had gone straight to the heart. The one thrust had been sufficient, and the victim had dropped at the feet of his slayer.
When all these various facts had beenlearned, active minds began to cast about for some clue as to the identity of the murderer, and for some motive besides robbery.
While the Squire had never been a very popular man, in a general way, he was not known to have a single enemy who would be likely to do so dastardly a deed. Neither was the Squire in the habit of keeping money about the house, so that if the murderer knew the ways of his victim, he could not hope to gain a rich reward, therefore some motive besides robbery must have actuated the crime. What this motive was, had yet to be discovered, provided the adage came true that "murder will out."
Of those who were unfriendly to the Squire, none was so prominent to mind as his nephew, Milton Derr, no one would be more profited by the Squire's death than he, for he was next of kin, and, his uncle being unmarried, the property would revert to him. This point was especially emphasized—the uncle being unmarried, and the fact was strongly commented upon, that it was on the very eve of the Squire's marriage that he was murdered. Could the motive have been jealousy? Thecause of the open rupture between the two men was generally known—that a woman was at the bottom of it and this woman was the one to whom the Squire was to have been wedded. The whole story was told and retold with many variations.
The neighbors spoke of these things in guarded undertones and with grave shakings of the head, and although no outspoken accusations were made, there was an undercurrent of suspicion, deepening into belief, and growing hourly, like a stream that rapidly swells beyond its banks when fed by countless minor tributaries. Public opinion was slowly and surely fastening the deed on the nephew's shoulders.
These vague rumors and surmises were conveyed from time to time by Mrs. Brown to her daughter's ears, and while the girl steadfastly and persistently asserted Milton Derr's innocence, there was, nevertheless, a horrible and slowly strengthening conviction at work in her own bosom which she could neither silence nor subdue—a conviction that warned her she was building on false hopes, which might at any moment crumble at the touch of circumstantialevidence, and reveal her lover not only to the world, but to her own prejudiced eyes, as a murderer whose soul was stained with a dark crime.
Closely allied to this harassing fear was a far different feeling that she could neither still nor repress, though it seemed a heartless and even cruel one—a feeling of great thankfulness that the Squire's untimely death had relieved her of a sacrifice that would have been but a living death to her.
How could she be sorry that he was no longer alive to claim this sacrifice? To pretend to a grief she did not feel was but base hypocrisy. Within her heart of hearts she was glad that she was free. Her only sorrow lay in the tragic manner of his death, and in the secret fear that Milton Derr, half crazed with a passionate jealousy, was responsible for it. Had it been possible to recall the Squire to life again, and so blot out the fearful act of the past night, she would most gladly have done so, and accepted her fate without a murmur, if its reward had been Milton's safety and innocence.
Possibly she was the only one who knew ofDerr's presence in the neighborhood the night before. If such was the case, and he had succeeded in getting away without being seen by others, she would keep the dreadful secret securely locked in her own bosom, and no one should ever suspect its presence. She centered all hope of his safety on this supposition.
Along toward noon, some one passing the New Pike gate on the way from town, brought the latest news bearing on the tragedy.
As Mrs. Brown sought her daughter's presence, as soon as the informant had gone, her tone was almost jubilant, as she said:
"Well, they've caught the murderer."
The girl looked up at her mother mutely, almost piteously, as if she would be spared the unhappy tidings, of whose evil import some subtle intuition had already reached her brain.
"It's just as I expected," continued Mrs. Brown, full of the news she had brought. "They caught Milt Derr as he was gettin' on the cars at Grigg's Station, fifteen miles from here. The sheriff had telephoned to all the places around to be on the lookout for him. He had sold his watch, and was about to buya ticket somewheres out West when they arrested him. They've brought him to town, an' he's safe in jail there now, thank goodness! There'll soon be a first-class hanging in this neighborhood. I hope," she added, with fervor.
The next day the Squire was buried.
The funeral seemed one of especial sadness, shadowed as it was with the stain and mystery of a dark crime, and with neither kith nor kin present to mourn, for Milton Derr was behind iron bars, and the girl flatly refused to attend the funeral, despite her mother's urging.
"I won't add a hypocrite's tears to my other shortcomings, and neither will I be a show to some folks who will go more out of idle curiosity than sympathy," said the girl, decisively, and so her mother went alone.
The toll gate was thrown open to the public during the funeral, which was no more than a proper mark of respect to the Squire's memory, for he had long been president of the road, and was a large stockholder, besides.
The day itself was one of gloom and dreariness, with low-hanging clouds surcharged with sullen rain, while at each frequent blastof wind there was a skurrying of fallen leaves, seeking, like sentient things, to find shelter from the pitiless rain.
The interment was in the family burying ground, where the first wife lay at rest, and the tall weeds and grasses of the enclosure were trampled by many eager feet.
During the services, which were held in the house, the women and children huddled together in the "best room," looking about them with awed, half-frightened faces, as if a ghostly visitant might suddenly stalk forth out some gloomy corner, while the men stood in little groups in the hall, or the Squire's "living room," and when they spoke in low tones, it was mostly of the man within the prison cell, and little of the one within his coffin.
The coming of Mrs. Brown, unaccompanied by her daughter, gave new food for comment, and for a time following her arrival, the victim and the accused were both forgotten in the fact of the strange absence of one who might almost be called a "widowed bride."
Early that morning, on looking from the toll-house window, the first sight to greet the unhappy girl had been the hearse containingthe casket for the Squire coming along the road from the town, and the sight had so unnerved her that she once more shut herself in her room, a prey to harrowing thoughts.
Long after the mother had gone to the funeral she sat motionless and dazed, listening in a sort of hopeless apathy to the sound of vehicles rolling by, carrying those to pay their last tribute of respect to the dead; then, after ages, it seemed, she heard the sound of their return, and understood that "earth had been given to earth," and still no widow's weeds were necessary for her, no blinding tears need be shed—in truth, they would have been but a cruel mockery.
She felt a profound pity for the one whose life had gone out so quickly, and in so tragic a manner, yet there was a deeper pity, and—God forgive her!—a changeless love in her heart for the poor, unfortunate being, whose insane jealousy had brought him to his present strait. Yet why blame him? She, herself, was the cause of it all. She could not help but remember this; indeed, she did not wish to forget it. It was his great love for her, and her own seeming unworthiness that hadwrought his ruin. She was the guilty one in the eye of God, not Milton Derr.
A day or two after the funeral, Billy West came by the gate one afternoon on his way from town, and brought word to the unhappy girl that Milton had asked to see her, and begged that she would come to the jail. He had something of importance to say to her.
"How does he look? How does he seem to bear up under the strain?" asked Sally, anxiously.
"He's broken down considerable," admitted Billy. "He looks ten years older, to my thinkin'. Of course, I said what I could to cheer him up, but I'm afraid he's got himself into a pretty bad box."
"I don't believe he did it," affirmed Sally, faintly, but she turned her eyes away as she made the denial.
"It don't look possible," agreed Billy. "It really don't. I never would have thought it of him. I hope he can prove himself clear of the deed."
"Won't you ask Sophronia to come by to-morrow and go with me?" asked Sally, thoughtfully, "I hate to go alone."
"Yes, to be sure," answered Billy, "I'll ride over to-night an' see her."
On the morrow Sophronia came. Mrs. Brown at once suspected Sally's motives in going to town, and when she put the question point-blank to her daughter, Sally frankly confessed that she was going to see Milton.
"Sally Brown!" cried her mother, with her hands upraised. "The idea of your standin' there, an' tellin' me you air goin' to see that miserable murderer, that's not only cheated you out of a good husband, but out of a lot o' property besides. He ought to be hung, an' you know it!"
"He sent for me, and I'm going," answered Sally, simply.
"Well, go!" cried her mother, wrathfully, "go! an' soon folks will be sayin' that, like as not, you also had a hand in gettin' the Squire put out of the way. It seems a hard thing to say about your own child, but I declare it begins to look like it," added Mrs. Brown, bitterly.
Quick upon the words the girl's eyes flashed forth something of the indignation she felt at their cruel significance, and an angry torrentof denial rose to her lips, and yet it was suddenly stayed by an inner voice that seemed to say—"Who but you has brought it all about?"
She did, indeed, have a hand in it, but not in the way her mother suggested. Sally turned away and made no answer.
When she was brought face to face with the prisoner, the gloom of the place, the grated cell, the dismal air of confinement, burst upon her in startling reality, and forced on her lively imagination the full significance of her lover's peril.
Milt looking pale and careworn, while in his dark eyes lingered the look of the hunted, supplanting the frank, free gaze they had worn in his careless freedom. He was a prisoner, and the sweet freedom of the hills was no longer his portion. It was some moments before the girl could trust herself to speak, and in Milt's eyes there also lingered a suspicious moisture.
The jailer and Sophronia had discreetly withdrawn to the further end of the dim corridor, and were talking over Milton's case in low voices of deep concern.
"Sally," said the prisoner, in an undertonethat reached only her ears, "I have sent for you to put myself right in your eyes. After what happened the other night, and what I had said to you in my ungovernable jealousy, there's only one thing you could think of me in connection with this miserable affair, and I can't blame you in the least for thinking it. You, of all others, have the best right to call me a murderer, but as God in heaven is my judge, I swear to you, by the sacred memory of my dead mother, that I did not commit that crime!"
"I couldn't bring myself to believe you would do so dreadful a thing," said the girl, tearfully, looking into his dark eyes with the mists of doubt clearing her own, despite all the damaging circumstances.
"I didn't do it!" asserted Milt, vehemently. "I know that everything points to me as the guilty man, in your eyes, at least, but I am not guilty. It is true that I was in a frenzy, and quite beside myself with anger when I made those foolish threats. If I could have met my uncle, then and there, I think I could have throttled him and been glad of the chance.
"Before I had gone half the distance to hishouse, I began to understand what a fool I had been, and I was half tempted to turn back and beg your forgiveness, but pride would not let me, and I walked on almost to my uncle's gate that leads into the avenue.
"As I walked along, I began to reason more calmly with myself. Why should I burden my soul with a crime on account of a woman that had treated me thus falsely? What good could come of it? I was a fool for ever coming back. I should have stayed when once I had gotten safely away.
"To be seen in this locality was only courting death, not only for myself, but for Steve Judson, who had befriended me. After the risk he had run to save my life, it would be perfidy to bring vengeance on his head by my return. I truly hope he has left this part of the country since they have caught me," added Milton, earnestly.
"While I was thinking over all these things," he continued, "I heard a horseman coming along the road, and fearing that a flash of lightning might reveal my presence to some one I knew, I hastily climbed a fence opposite my uncle's place, and started off across thecountry in the direction of Grigg's Station, fully determined that I would take the first train possible, and forever leave this spot.
"Imagine my consternation when I was arrested the next morning, charged with the very crime I had threatened to commit the night before in my blind passion.
"I could scarcely believe that it was not some hideous joke that was being played on me, as a just punishment for my wicked thoughts, and when they told me my uncle was dead—murdered—and that I was accused of the crime, my own actions must have led them to believe me guilty. I almost began to wonder, if, in some insane moment of self-forgetfulness, I could really have committed the deed. Then calmer judgment came to my rescue and proclaimed my innocence. This is the truth, the whole truth, of that wretched night, Sally!" cried Milt.
"I believe you, every word" said the girl simply.
"That is why I sent for you. I wanted you to know the full facts in the case. If you believe me innocent, I can stand the censure of the whole world."
"And now that the Squire is dead, and can no longer harm you, I too, have something to confess," admitted the girl. "I am now free to tell why I promised to marry him. I did it for your sake, Milt."
"For my sake!" he echoed.
"Yes, the night the New Pike gate was attacked, your hat was found near the toll-house, in the dusty road. Don't you remember you had written both our names under the lining the day of the picnic last September? Squire Bixler had that hat in his possession, and was taking it to town to give it to the officers. I knew if they closely examined the hat, they would find our names, and I knew you would be arrested and sent to prison. So I promised to marry the Squire if he would give me that hat, and let you go free."
"And you did this for my sake?" asked Milton Derr, falteringly. "Sally! Sally! can you ever forgive me?" he cried penitently.
But even as he looked, pleadingly, anxiously, into her upturned face, the light of forgiveness had already illumined the gentle, tear dimmed eyes.
The fall term of court was now in session, and Milton Derr was put on trial for his life.
The case, deeply tinged with romance and mystery, aroused a lively and unusual interest, both in the town and county, and during the progress of the trial the courtroom was crowded with interested spectators.
While the prisoner had seemed at first both careless and indifferent regarding his fate, now, since his interview with his former sweetheart, he began to feel a strong and urgent desire to prove his innocence, and to do what he could to help clear the mystery of the murder.
The girl had given him a point to unravel.
"Do you remember telling me that a horseman came down the road the night you were near the Squire's gate?" she asked of Derr on her second visit to the jail.
"Yes, it was the fear of meeting this horseman,and perhaps being recognized by him in the lightning's sudden glare, that led me to quit the highway and take to the fields."
"Well, that horseman never passed me, and I feel sure he never passed through the New Pike gate," said Sally, thoughtfully. "I waited in the road some little time, hoping you would turn back, and even after I had gone to bed it was a long time before I fell asleep. I heard no sound of passing. Whoever that rider was, he stopped at, or near Squire Bixler's place, and came no further. If we could manage to find out who this person was, the mystery of the murder might be solved."
There was little evidence to be introduced on either side during the progress of the trial, and what little there was helped to weigh against the prisoner. His movements at Grigg's Station were those of a man striving to avoid notice, indeed, his whole bearing before and after his arrest was that of a guilty person seeking to make good his escape.
The accused offered no explanation of his presence at the station, where he was on the point of buying a ticket to the West when arrested. To have done so he would have hadto disclose his connection with the raiders, the cause of his flight and return, and his presence in the immediate neighborhood of his uncle's farm on that fatal night.
He was in an unfortunate position, it seemed, when everything appeared to work to his disadvantage, and help throw suspicion on his movements, and yet he dared not turn the needed light on them. He knew he was safe, so far as Sally was concerned, in regard to meeting her at the toll-gate, and the idle threats he had uttered against the Squire in the first heat of passion and jealousy.
His enmity toward his uncle was too well known, however, to escape comment, and was easily proven, along with sundry angry words he had uttered against his kinsman when first he had left his uncle's roof, words that had lost nothing of their sharpness by the lapse of time, and were now repeated with such embellishments that even the speaker had difficulty in recalling or recognizing the original form in which they had been first uttered.
Moreover, the great benefits that the nephew would derive from his uncle's death, should it occur before a marriage could takeplace, were clearly brought forth, and a strong incentive shown for the commission of such a deed, at the especial time it occurred—the eve of the Squire's wedding.
When the evidence had been gathered—it was scant enough at best, and sadly damaging,—the case was presented to the jury by the speakers on each side, with facts so skilfully juggled, now and then, that an impartial listener would scarcely know how to place them aright.
Sometimes flowery rhetorical effects were used where facts were few, that words might count instead, until there seemed never to have lived so just, upright and beloved a man as the squire, or so damnable and blood-thirsty a villain as his nephew.
Sally came to court each day, along with Sophronia and her father. The three sat anxiously throughout the trial, hopeful and despondent by turns, as the prisoner was upheld or denounced, one hearer, at least, never wavering in the belief of his innocence from beginning to end.
Late one afternoon the case was finished and submitted to the jury, but scarcely a soulquitted the courtroom, so deep an interest was felt, each one remaining, impatiently waiting for the verdict, which might come early or late, no man knew.
When the doors had closed upon the retiring jury, the Judge picked up a newspaper on his desk, and leaning back in his chair began to read, while Sally, noting the act, wondered within herself how one could seem so calm and indifferent, when a man's very life hung trembling in the scales of justice. Her own brain was in a whirl of excitement and anxiety. She was scarcely able to think connectedly, and to her narrowed range of thought it seemed the very world must pause in anxiety while so weighty a matter was in the balance.
The afternoon grew on apace. The dull gray shadows within the corners of the courtroom deepened and spread until the rows of expectant faces became a blurred and indistinct mass, except where the bands of light, falling through the windows, gave them a certain ashen pallor.
Once or twice Mr. Saunders moved uneasily in his seat. He knew it was growing late, with many things at home demanding hisattention—the stock to be fed, the horses watered, the night's chores to be done—yet he felt he could not pull himself away until he had heard some message from the jury room, either of good or evil.
The others waited, too. A vague hum of voices talking in low undertones gradually overcame the quiet that had fallen on the waiting crowd, and from time to time anxious and impatient glances were shot toward the closed doors, through which the jury were to come.
The gray evening shadows without, presaging the approach of night, perhaps the prisoner's doom, silently crept into the room, mingling with the gloomier shadows within the building. Presently the janitor came and lighted some ill-smelling lamps, one upon the Judge's desk, the others clinging to the grimy walls, and soon these lights began to struggle through the smoky chimneys, striving against the deepening shadows in unequal battle, as the good frequently combats with the evil in our natures.
At last, after interminable hours of suspense, it seemed to the waiting girl, the slow tramp—tramp—of the jury down the stairwayfrom the room above, struck her expectant ear like the doleful tread of a funeral procession. Nearer and nearer came the sound, then the courtroom doors were thrown open, and the twelve men entered, two by two, and quietly took their places in the jury box.
The Judge had laid aside his paper, and was leaning attentively on the desk, while every neck was craned forward in eager expectancy. A profound hush fell, and each ear was bent to hear the verdict, whose grave import many already guessed. Those in the rear of the room were tiptoeing and peering anxiously over the heads of the ones in front, while a few who had been waiting on the outside of the building now hurried in and pressed quickly forward.
Sally sat immovable, her hands clenched tightly in an agony of cruel suspense, her heart-throbs sounding in her ears like funeral bells, her face immobile as stone. She had given one swift, piercing look toward the jury as they entered, as if to read in advance the verdict they had brought, and the grave, stern faces she saw froze her very heart with the dire import of that verdict. From the jury her eyeshad centered on the prisoner, who had lifted his head, and was calmly awaiting the words that were to give him freedom, or—he dared not think further—life had suddenly grown very sweet to him.
The clear voice of the judge broke in upon the profound silence that had fallen on the entrance of the jury:
"Gentlemen, have you found a verdict?"
"We have," the foreman answered.
"The Court is ready to hear it."
The foreman stepped forward, and, clearing his throat, began to speak: "Your Honor we, the jury, find the prisoner is"—
A slight commotion made itself manifest at the door of the courtroom. The judge cast an inquiring glance in its direction, and rapping sharply on his desk cried out:
"Silence in Court!"
The noise increased. A voice was heard calling, "Hold! Hold!"
At the sound, Sophronia turned quickly and looked in the direction whence it came. Billy West was calling out, and pressing through the crowd, holding aloft a legal-looking documentwhich he waved excitedly toward the judge.