Hallie's facts dashed so coldly and so suddenly upon the warm fancies which had been taking possession of my mind, that for the moment I could only stupidly gaze at her. Then, without any reason that I could account for, I burst into tears.
I cried all the while father carried me upstairs. I cried convulsively while Abby was getting me to bed, and, wound up in the sheets with my face hidden in the pillow, I cried inconsolably for a long time. That aching sensation in my throat would not wash away with tears. Vaguely I heard the doctor explaining to father how my present condition was due "to severe nervous strain, and the subconscious effort of the constitution to combat it." I knew it was nothing of the sort, but just the plain fact that Johnny Montgomery, seen once dancing at a ball, and ever after to me the model of all romantic heroes, was a murderer. It was dreadful to think that it was through me he had been taken, because I had remembered so well his beautiful black eyebrows, and the little white scar near his mouth; but nothing that had followed had been so terrible as that first sight of him, when he rushed out of the door, with all the horror of what had just happened, in his face; or so cruel as the thought that he could have done such a thing. But why did his look, both then and later, come back to me accusing and reproachful? How could I help what I had done? I had had to tell the truth, and surely he must know that nothing but good ever comes of that, no matter how hard it seems. I agonized through the early evening hours, and fell asleep not with a sense of being drifted deliciously away, but of sinking down under deep exhaustion.
When I awakened the next morning I was astonished to find myself feeling quite differently—a little tired and languid—but the aching misery, the black hopelessness, that had fallen on me the night before had quite evaporated, left perhaps in that bottomless pit of sleep into which I had sunk.
It seemed now, in the broad daylight, as if I had made too much of everything that had happened; as if Hallie must be mistaken. It could not have been Johnny Montgomery who had shot a man, or, if he had, it must have been an accident. And, even suppose he had meant to kill him, what possible difference could it make to me?
Here Abby knocked at the door, and, showing a rather forbidding face around it, said that Hallie was down-stairs; but that if I was going to have any more conniption fits I would better stay where I was. She left a glass of milk and a clean tucker and sleeves on my chair. I swallowed the milk, and hurried into my clothes, but I descended rather slowly to the hall. I had always confided in Hallie, and I knew she would probably expect to hear all about it from the moment I had seen him. I hated to think of the questions I would have to answer; yet I would have to face them sometime, and it was better to get it over at once.
When I reached the sitting-room door I was decidedly dashed at sight of Estrella Mendez's red pelisse behind Hallie's blue hat ribbons. Two of them were a little too much for me, and I was all ready for flight when Hallie pounced upon me. She is such an imposing person, wears so many tucks and ruffles in her clothes, such bows on her hats, and can spread her skirts about and rustle so, that I always feel like the merest child beside her.
"You poor little Ellie," she began, "how pale you look still! I am afraid I frightened you to death yesterday."
I murmured something about being much upset.
"Yes, your father said you were not at all well. He gave me such a scolding for pouncing out on you like that!" She laughed her deep throaty chuckle. "But I supposed of course you had heard, it happened so close to you. Didn't you even hear the shot?"
I must have gaped at her. Could it be she didn't know that I had seen it? Didn't know what I had been through? I recalled confusedly the warning of the Chief of Police and father not to say anything of what I had seen. This was what they meant; this was the meaning of the carriage, the alley and the back door of the prison; all my part in the business had been kept secret. I wondered what in the world Hallie could have thought of my behavior last night, but I was greatly relieved to think of the fusillade of questions I had escaped. I managed to get out something about father's having heard a shot.
"Of course I know that," Hallie said, pulling me down on the sofa beside her. She was too full of her subject to notice how oddly I must have looked. "It's all in the paper, how they found him—Mr. Rood, I mean."
"It's here," Estrella said, sitting down on the other side of me, and unfolding the crumpled sheet she had been carrying rolled up in her hand. She and Hallie held it stretched out in front of me.
The sight of Johnny Montgomery's name staring at me from the page made my heart beat a little. But when I began reading down the column I couldn't seem to make sense of it. The only thing that stood out in the jumble was a name nearly at the bottom of the sheet, Carlotta Valencia. It gave me a queer little stir of feeling, merely seeing that name under his. Keeping my finger on it, "Who is that?" I asked.
"Oh, don't you know?" Hallie demanded, looking surprised, but delighted at the chance of giving more information. "That is the Spanish Woman." Estrella crossed her arms on her waist, and drew herself up, exactly as her mother does when she thinks some one is beneath her. "You see," Hallie went on, explaining a little more to me, "she was—well, a sort of friend of Mr. Rood's, and the paper says she feels dreadfully about him!" Estrella sniffed.
"But," I cried, "you said last night that the shooting had been over her."
"Yes, I know!" Hallie leaned forward impressively and seized a hand of each of us. "It's perfectly true—at least it's what my father said when the news came. He said, 'That confounded Valencia woman is at the bottom of this, depend upon it.' But your father was very angry that I had spoken of it, so of course I'm telling you this in strictest confidence. The paper," Hallie went on, we both listening with open eyes, "doesn't say the Spanish Woman had anything to do with the shooting. So you see, no one does know exactly what it's about. It's really the most mysterious thing! They found Mr. Rood lying there quite dead," she continued breathlessly, "and they went to Johnny Montgomery's house, but he wasn't there. Then some one told Mr. Dingley they had seen a man run down Washington Street, so they followed that trail, and finally they got him in a house down on the water front, in a bad part of the city. My father said it would have made things better for him if he had given himself up quietly; but he barricaded the house, and almost escaped out of a back window. They had a dreadful fight before they got him even then. He is so strong, father says, that he just threw the men right and left as if he had been a madman."
Hallie is wonderful when she is telling news. She never says unkind things about anybody, and she is always so excited over what has happened that she makes it sound like a romance. But now I was too anxious to enjoy it. I felt I had to ask one question more, though every word that came out of my mouth was a possible slip or lie. "But, if they found Mr. Rood in the street with nobody near him, what makes them think it was Mr. Montgomery who shot him?"
"That is the very queerest part of it," Hallie declared, nodding until her green feathers nodded again, "but he was suspected immediately. What they say is—" she lowered her voice impressively—"that some one saw him do it."
I fairly cowered in my chair. "But he can't have meant to kill him," I urged. "Why, his family was one of the best in the city. Just think, Hallie, your mother knew his mother well, and he used to play with Estrella's brothers."
Estrella flushed. "He hasn't been in our house since he was a little boy," she said angrily. "I wouldn't think of bowing to him on the street. He hasn't been received in good society for a long time."
Hallie sagely shook her head. "Yes, but I guess it's because he didn't care to go, and lots of very nice girls have always been in love with Johnny Montgomery. Lily West kept his picture in a satin case hidden among her party clothes for ever so long. And do you know, when Laura Burnet heard about Johnny's arrest last night, she fainted flat on the floor."
Hallie's bolt upright impressiveness seemed to demand some comment, but I could not manage a sound; for at her words there rushed back to me, with humiliating clearness, my own hysterics of the night before. Was it possible that Hallie thought I was in love with him, too? My cheeks burned and burned.
"Were you ever introduced to him, Ellie?" Estrella asked, looking at me curiously.
"No, she has never met him," Hallie promptly took the response out of my mouth; "but she saw him once—don't you remember, Ellie, at my sister Adelaide's coming-out ball?"
I said, yes, I remembered it.
"He danced most of that evening with Laura Burnet," Hallie pursued, "and she was perfectly wild about him. My brother Tom saw him kiss her in the conservatory," Hallie chuckled at that memory, "and for a while it was said that they were engaged, though she was three years older than he was. But he was terribly in debt then, and of course she had lots of money." Hallie sighed, and added, "Isn't it awful he should have ended in this way? Adelaide always said there was no one who could put your shawl around you so beautifully as he."
It seemed terrible to me that they could sit there talking of how badly he had been thought of by society, and how beautifully he had put women's shawls around them, when he was in prison waiting to be tried for his life. I was glad when the girls went and I could think about it by myself.
I felt sick and bruised. All suggestions that Hallie had innocently let fall put such an ugly face upon his actions. I didn't want to believe that hateful gossip. His smile had been so charming and kind. There was something about him that made him seem of so much greater importance than any one else I had known; that made every little look and motion of his memorable and eloquent. And when he had looked straight into my eyes I had felt the warm flowing of the blood in my veins. Had it been these strange qualities of his that had made nice girls fall in love with him? I peeped into my mirror to see if my face looked as queer as my feelings felt. I whispered the words again, "To fall in love." What could that be like? To make Laura Burnet faint away at just the news of his arrest—what a great and terrible feeling it must be! When I thought of him as a person who could inspire such emotions he gathered a halo of mystery and power; but when I remembered Hallie's saying how he had been engaged to Laura for the sake of her money, he seemed to me the merest wretch. I told myself there was no need of my worrying about it, as he was in prison and my part was done. It couldn't possibly interest me any further. All the same I couldn't get it out of my head.
Father came home to luncheon that day, bringing Señora Mendez with him. He looked worried and tired, but I had never seen her so sweet, and so very gay.
She said I had been in the house too much, looked pale, and that she was going to take me shopping. As we got up from the table she lingered a moment, saying something to father about taking some one's mind off something. And father said, yes until we can tell which way it will go. So I supposed they were talking business.
Señora Mendez is such a great grand sort of lady that usually one is a little in awe of her; but to-day she made me feel very much at home, as we drove down the street in her big open carriage. She never once mentioned the shooting, and I didn't have courage to speak of it myself. But we heard of it all around us. In the first shop we went into a woman just behind me said in a loud voice, "Do the rebels think they can shoot us all down as Wilkes Booth shot the president?" And then, again, at another shop where we were looking at lace, the clerk said, "This is a terrible thing for the city, Madam, the loss of such a valuable citizen." But Señora Mendez seemed not to hear him, and went on explaining to me the difference between honiton and thread, and showing me how beautiful embroidered net looked over pale blue silk, until I felt quite cheerful just through listening to her and looking at the pretty things. She wound up by buying me a lovely pair of thread lace sleeves, and swept me out in the wake of her train feeling almost happy again.
Just as we had got into the carriage two gentlemen with silk hats, very elegant indeed, came up and talked over the carriage door with her. The one with yellow gloves said, "This is a bad business. It's a good thing poor old lady Montgomery never lived to see this day." And the other said, "I wonder what the effect on the city will be?"
Señora Mendez said she hoped the effect would be a law requiring our young men to settle disputes with their fists instead of firearms, and that it was a shame nice boys would brawl in gambling-houses. She smiled and looked most easy and pleasant over it, and all the way up the street she chatted right along as if nothing serious had ever happened. But when we stopped at the house, just as I was leaving the carriage, she quickly took my face between her hands and kissed me hard on the forehead. "You poor little motherless duck," she said, and left me with the impression there had been tears in her eyes.
I wondered why she should feel so suddenly sorry for me; nevertheless I felt cheered and consoled—hadn't she spoken kindly of Johnny Montgomery as a nice boy? But it was the last good word I was to hear of him for a week. I needed the memory of that cheer and consolation through the next hard days.
For now that I was recovered from the shock of the first day I began to realize that the shooting of Martin Rood was not at all an ordinary shooting. It had stirred up great excitement. Only one month had passed since the president's assassination; the feeling against the Southerners was still very bitter, and not only were all the Montgomerys dyed-in-the-wool Alabamians, but some of the relatives had fought on the Southern side. Rumors flew about the city of a mob attacking the prison. There was a guard of soldiers around it the first night, and when they took him from there to the jail on Broadway, it was in the middle of an armed escort. All sorts of stories as to what had caused the shooting were abroad, but the one thing the reports agreed upon was the fact that the quarrel had been of long standing. This was very exciting to hear about, yet I didn't enjoy talking of it as the other girls did.
Only when I was alone, with hot cheeks and anxious eyes, I read through the long accounts that filled the papers, hoping to find some word in his favor. It seemed to me that the whole city was against Johnny Montgomery. TheBulletinhad stories of another shooting down South, though it appeared that that time he had been the one who was shot at; and of how he had lost his money in land speculations of a doubtful character. TheAlta Californiacalled him a rebel, and said that his career had been "a demoralizing influence to the youth of the city." Though, on the other hand, it called Mr. Rood our esteemed and lamented citizen, which was puzzling to me, for he was only a gambling-house keeper whom none of the best men in town was friendly with. But the papers spoke very warmly of him; called Mrs. Rood, Senior, his sorrowing mother, and then they mentioned the Spanish Woman. They said she had been in love with Rood, and that he had expected to marry her. That recalled a memory of what father had told me when I first asked him about the Spanish Woman—that she had money, and influence in high places—and I wondered what that influence could do to Johnny Montgomery's case. Altogether I was much disturbed. I hated to ask questions of father, he had been so distressed over my part in the affair; and besides he had been very busy that week, so many men interviewing him when he was at home—Mr. Dingley, and others who were not elegant, but very businesslike—that I hardly saw him except at meals. Once or twice I had caught him, when he thought I wasn't looking, watching me with an anxious and harassed expression; but most of the time he was preoccupied.
On the morning of the fourth day after the shooting, as I sat at breakfast, I took up the paper and read that the trial of the People Versus John Montgomery was set for the last week of May. I glanced down the column and a sentence caught my eye. "It is said the prosecution is in possession of sensational evidence which will materially affect the aspect of the case." I sat for some minutes with the paper in my hand, listening to it rustle, gathering my courage.
"Father," I finally said, "do you think that Mr. Montgomery is really wicked?"
He looked over at me with that smile of his which is most serious. "My dear child, I am not Almighty God."
"But you know what I mean," I protested. "The papers have been saying such nice things about Mr. Rood, but you yourself once said he was an 'insidious and pernicious influence in the community'; and the papers are printing such dreadful things about Johnny Montgomery! They are telling all sorts of stories about him—that he has been in shooting scrapes and dishonorable business deals, and—and horrible things," I ended rather uncertainly.
"Oh, no doubt he hasn't been such a bad fellow," father said, passing his cup for coffee. "As far as his land operations are concerned, I know for a fact that the 'dishonorable dealing' theBulletintalks about was all on the side of the men who got his money. But you see he would go into the deal in spite of the advice of the executor of the estate, antagonized all his father's friends—plucked the Roman senators by the beards, as it were;—so of course they were ready to believe the worst of him. Then he went badly into debt, and accumulated too many creditors to be popular. But Rood, you see, always had money, always kept his escapades quiet, and was very liberal to the city. He has given a deal to different public institutions. They can't do otherwise than praise him."
He took up his letters and began to open them with a paper-knife.
"But," I said, "they say Mr. Montgomery has been engaged to a girl for her money."
Father threw back his head and laughed—I can never tell when I am going to amuse him.
"Engaged to a girl for her money? That's the worst thing on his list, I suppose, eh, Ellie?" Before he finished the sentence he was almost grave again. "I know where you got that information." He shook the paper-knife at me. "Women's gossip is an invention of the devil! Don't listen to it! The poor fellow has enough real counts to be accused on, God knows!"
He said the last words with such an emphasis as did away with all the comfort his explanation had brought me. I did not dare to press him further; I was afraid I might hear worse.
He sat a moment frowning down at the tablecloth; then, "How would you like to go down to the ranch for a week or so?" he inquired.
"Alone?" I asked.
"Well, I will go down with you, and stay as long as I can. Abby, of course, will be there all the while. The colts are to be broken in next week—that will be worth seeing; and no doubt the flowers will be beautiful."
I said I would like to—though indeed I did not at all care. I was not thinking of flowers. After father had left the house I went up-stairs to my room; and, first locking the door and drawing the curtains close because I did not want even my climbing white rose to see me, I took out my new bracelet, and clasped it—one gold band around each wrist with its chain swinging between—and closed my eyes and, holding my wrists out, drew them apart until the chain jerked and stopped them—to see just how it felt!
As father had said, the breaking of the colts was well worth seeing. The first day I arrived at the ranch, clinging to the top rail of the corral, I watched the glossy huddled flanks and shoulders and tossing heads of the youngsters crowding together in the middle of the inclosure, quivering with apprehension of the man approaching with his rope; until, the man being unendurably near, one and another would break and wheel, and trot with high head, whinnying, around the corral close to the fence. Then, when Perez had one fast, one end of his rope around the glossy neck, and slowly working toward him, hand over hand, finally touched the velvety head, how the creature started, swerved, tried to back, and felt the jerk of the halter. It made me think of the way the prisoner had started when the policeman touched his arm. At first their nervous, proud, restive airs reminded me constantly of that strange person; and not only the colts, but some times it was some drifting shadow of cloud, some color or some sound, that inexplicably brought him up to mind; and I would plague myself with wondering what was going on in the city, and what was to become of him. But as the days passed and no newspapers came from the city—at least I saw none—and no letters to remind me of what was happening there, I recalled him less and less distinctly. He remained in my mind but as a sort of dream; things about me reminded me only of themselves, and I became absorbed in picking out a new saddle-horse, and searching the meadows over to see if the Mariposa lilies were coming up this year in their accustomed places.
Splendid fields, in early spring filled with wild flowers, stretched down toward the bay, but close around the house were the somber and, to me, more beautiful groves of oaks. To wander away until I had lost sight of the house in their olive glooms and saw nothing around me but dark trunks, crooked elbows of boughs and sweeping leaves, was my delight. I loved to crown myself with their white beards of moss, and fancy I was walking through a cathedral aisle, a princess going to be married. But, whereas I had never needed to imagine a bride-groom before—myself and the crown had been enough—now my imagination insistently placed a figure walking beside me, or coming to meet me under the solemn roof of branches. I had to abandon my crown, and run races with myself before I could leave the figure behind.
On the whole it was safer, I found, just now not to imagine too much, but instead, while father was there, to take long rides with him into the San Mateo Hills; and, after he had gone, shorter excursions in the vicinity of the town. Or else to walk with Abby in the morning down the broad Embarcadero Road to the little wharf on the bay. It was charming enough there when all was idle, with white adobe huts, and dark faces sleeping in the sun, and the lap of the tide on the breakwater. But when a ship was coming in, or was loading to get out, the Embarcadero filled the eye,—carts backing up with vegetables; casks being rolled out on the wharf with a hollow and reverberating sound; hallooings from the boat; and then round she would swing, with a tremendous snapping of canvas, while the shadow of her brown sails, patched with red, floated over all.
The country, and especially the country in spring, seems to have a way of making the place where one has lived before very unreal and far distant. Two weeks of such dreamy living drifted the city, and the violent things that had been done there, so far behind me that I could think of them without a tremor. I could even think of my own part in them as if it had happened in a play.
Then one evening, just before dark, a boy on a heavily lathered horse rode up to the piazza steps, and, like the messenger in a novel, handed me a letter. It was from father. "Have everything in readiness to start to-morrow morning," he wrote. "I shall expect you at the house at six-thirty to-morrow night without fail." This letter threw me into a flutter of excitement. I was accustomed to short-notice orders from father, orders that carried no explanations; but they had always been sent through the mails. A messenger meant great need of haste. I recognized him as father's office-boy. Was my father ill, I asked.
No, he was in excellent health.
I thought, "Perhaps he has been suddenly called out of the city and wants to see me before he leaves home." It surely couldn't be that this summons had anything to do with Johnny Montgomery's case. Having to rush off at such short notice I was luckily too busy to have time to worry about it; coming up through the valley Perez let me drive a good deal, and the horses were so spirited I needed all my wits to keep them from running away. But when we began to wind in and out among the tall round hills to the south of the city a nervousness came upon me, and I kept wondering what could be wanted of me. By the time we reached the house on Washington Street I could scarcely sit still.
Father was standing in the door to welcome me. I fairly flew up the steps. "What is the matter?" I asked, almost before I hugged him.
"By, and by we will talk about that," he said. "Now, come in and see what a fine host I am." But as I passed him, I heard him saying to Perez, "Before you put up the horses I want you to take this note out to Mr. James Dingley, at his house, and wait for an answer."
It was a charming table, lit with candles, and there was a delicious dinner, but I was too excited to eat. The glass of wine that father made me drink only seemed to make my thoughts spin faster, wondering what could be going on since by father's manner, and the message he had given Perez I felt sure it must be something unusual. When dessert had been put on, and Lee had gone out, leaving us alone there opposite each other, I thought, "Now it's coming."
Father had set down his coffee-cup untasted. "I have had to send for you, Ellie," he said, "because of a matter connected with the trial."
My heart was beating quickly, and in spite of myself my voice trembled.
"When does it begin?" I asked.
"It began last week," father answered, "but there has been no evidence of any consequence yet."
He was silent for a moment, looking thoughtfully at the dancing flames of the candles. "I suppose you know," he went on, "that, in trials there is usually plenty of circumstantial evidence, but eye witnesses are rare and their testimony most valuable?"
I nodded. This feeling of suspense was intolerable.
"I very much hoped that yours would not be necessary. Mr. Dingley was of that opinion. But a new development has suddenly arisen, and now I am afraid you will have to be state's witness—the most important one they will have."
There are no words to tell of the panic I was in. Father's face, wrinkled with anxiety, was watching me. "I would give anything to keep you out of it," he said.
I tried to make my voice steady. "And will I have to tell them whether or not I think him guilty?"
He put his hand over mine. "God bless the child, no! You will have to tell them only exactly what you saw, all that you saw, and just how you saw it."
I could breathe again. After that one awful moment, when the whole weight of the trial seemed on my shoulders, anything was a relief. "But, father," I said; "do you really think that he is guilty?"
Father gave me an odd look. "Aren't you the one person in this city best qualified to answer that question?"
I stared at him. I felt as if I had been suddenly set up in a high tower, above all other people in the world, and that I was going to fall. I had known in a blind sort of way what I had seen, and, also, that no one else had seen it; but I had not realized the terrible isolation, the responsibility of such knowledge. "Oh," I cried, "I only wish I had never gone near Dupont Street. I am so sorry I have made you unhappy!"
"Well, my dear child, this is no time for regretting what has been done. We must think of ourselves only as two citizens of the state, and be ready to do all we can in that cause. You know it will not be easy, it will be made as difficult as possible for you to answer straightly." He had hold of both my hands now, was looking hard into my face. "And a young good-looking prisoner will make it harder yet." His eyes seemed to go straight to my thoughts. "Ellie, I can depend upon you, can't I?"
I was glad I could say, in quite a steady voice, "Oh, yes, yes!"
He smiled. "Of course I should have known without asking. Now don't fret about it. To bed, to bed, to bed! We shall have to be up early to-morrow if we are to be in court by nine o'clock."
He was smiling, as he said this, with his old gaiety, but I suspected he was only putting it on to cheer me, as I now understand Señora Mendez had done when she had taken me shopping.
After I got up-stairs I couldn't sleep. At about ten o'clock I heard the door-bell ring, then long heavy steps going down the hall, and the shutting of a door which I guessed to be the door of the study. That was odd; father seldom had visitors so late. I tossed and tossed. I kept trying to picture the court room. I saw it as a vast place, with a cold chilly light, like the hall of the prison, filled with a surging mob of people; serried rows of lawyers all in white wigs—the memory of some English pictures—and a terrible judge in a black gown, calling out my name. Suppose, even with the best I could do, I should make a mistake; forget something, or, what would be much worse, remember something wrongly!
I realized that I was hearing voices with remarkable clearness. I was able to recognize father's and Mr. Dingley's, and they seemed to be talking just beneath my window. Then it occurred to me that, since the evening was mild, the window of the study, which was just beneath my room, must be open. The sound of those voices worried me; Mr. Dingley's was louder than common, and there were times when both seemed to speak at once. I got up softly and going to my window very noiselessly closed it. Then, so that I should not be quite stifled for air, I set the door into the hall wide. It opened outward, so that I had to step out on the landing. Just as I did so, I heard the study door flung open, quick steps in the hall, and there, from that part of the hall directly beneath the landing, Mr. Dingley's voice:
"Oh, that's just your supersensitive conscience! There was no need of bringing the child up to town. There's enough circumstantial evidence to convict ten men of whatever guilt there is."
Then father—"Yes, and I thought you had enough to convict one—that is I did last week. But this new development,—this Valencia woman, puts another face on the business."
"Come, now, Fred, the poor woman is really mighty upset over Rood's death! All she says is that she doesn't really believe the boy did it."
"And for that reason, and that reason alone," father broke in, "she is going to throw all her influence with the defense—thousands of dollars spent, and Lord knows what wires pulled, to get him off. Man, you can't believe it! Don't you know she's going to fight us every inch of the way? You'll need every scrap of testimony you can dig up! And such an important piece as—" They were advancing up the hall. I shrank back and closed the door.
Faintly I heard the voices in the hall going on a few moments longer, then the front door shut with a deep sound, and the house was still. I got back into bed but it was not to sleep.
It seemed that since I had been away from the city this strange thing had happened: the Spanish Woman, whom the papers had described as mourning for Rood, had taken up the defense of Montgomery. I couldn't understand it. It would seem that I ought to have been glad—I, who had been so anxious to find a champion for him—but queerly enough the only feeling that came was one of fear, as if, instead of saving, she had been dragging him into worse danger. I lay, staring now at the ceiling, now at the window, where, toward dawn, a paling light began to shine. I no longer felt the nervous anxieties that had kept me awake through the earlier part of the night. I was calmed by one great dread,—the thought of the Spanish Woman! Her presence rose up and possessed my imaginary court room, obliterating the figures of the judge and the lawyers, until it seemed that she and I and the prisoner were the only persons in the room, and that the one person she was fighting in all the city was myself.
The next morning when I came in to breakfast father laid his hand on my cheek, which felt very burning, and said, "You are not fit to answer one question." My throat was dry, and it was hard work to swallow things, but he stood over me and made me eat a good breakfast. After that he had me go over the story of what I had seen on the morning I had been coming home with my basket of mushrooms. When that was done, "Now remember," he said, "all you will have to do will be to tell that same story, and to answer to the best of your recollection all questions put to you. If you are careful to do that they can't confuse you." Abby had fetched my turban, with a dark veil, which I had to put over my face before I went into the street. There a carriage was waiting.
As we drove it seemed to me there were more people in the street than usual; and when we reached the jail there was a dense crowd in front of it, and policemen were striking with their clubs to make a passage through. But our carriage drove, as Mr. Dingley's had done before, around the building and through the little alley to the back entrance. Even here some people were gathered; and as I stepped to the pavement a woman called out in a shrill voice, "Ain't that Carlotta Valencia?" Father seized me, and almost lifted me up the steps and into the high, coldly lit hall.
To-day, however, it was not empty. A continuous stream of men, some of them escorting ladies, were hurrying in the front door, and across the echoing flags, and up the stairs. Following them, we were upon the first balcony and in front of the door which was kept a-swing by the people going in. Father stopped and said something to a policeman who seemed to be on guard in the hall. He pointed at a door next to the one which was so constantly opening and shutting.
"This way," father said, and I found myself, much to my surprise, not in a crowded court room, but in a small box of a place, hardly large enough to hold the six chairs that furnished it, and with only one other person in it besides ourselves. "This is the witness room," father explained. "We await our summons here."
I took one of the six chairs. The room was a dreary little place, with a high, dingy ceiling, one small window, placed far up the wall, and a small air-tight stove with no fire in it. I looked at the one other occupant with a greater interest, now that I knew that he must be a witness. He was a dark, slick, Mexican-looking man, who dangled his hat nervously from his fingers, and kept glancing at the door. Presently it opened, a policeman put his head in And said, "Witness Manuel Gora." The Mexican jumped and shuffled hastily out. Father took theAlta Californiafrom his coat pocket, and I sat trying to make out the pattern in the old carpet at my feet.
I had distinguished a dead-looking rose and some faded out sunflowers when I heard the click of the door, and a waft of perfume touched the stale air, and made it like a garden. I looked up. There she stood in the doorway, the Spanish Woman.
She was all in black, her face wax-white, a little black hat on her wonderful golden-red hair, and in her breast a tuberose. It was the intoxicating sweetness of that which had breathed upon me first, and now kept on breathing upon me, while she watched me through her eyelashes. From sheer fright I kept looking at her—I couldn't help it—until I felt father's hand touch mine. That seemed to break the spell. I looked down at the carpet again and felt the color rushing to my face. I heard the rustle of her dress, a soft, silky, indefinite sound. She had come forward into the room, had taken one of the chairs, I knew—I heard the subsiding of her draperies—and then I felt her watching me. Her presence was like a great light in a closet. It was oppressive. I began to breathe quickly, and the odor of her flower was making my head ache.
I heard the crackle of father's paper as he rolled it; then his voice, low and speaking close to me, "Mr. Dingley said you were to be called after Gora. We would better go into the court now, so as not to be hurried."
Somehow I had a fancy he would not have suggested our going into court so soon if the Spanish Woman had not come into the witness room. I followed him down the hall, not daring to turn my head, though I thought I heard the door open again after we had closed it, and then the rustle of her dress; but it did not seem to be following us, but to grow fainter, as if she had turned in another direction.
We joined the crowd of people hastening toward the swinging door. As we came up to it I heard from within a high-lifted resonant voice that I thought I recognized as Mr. Dingley's speaking with pauses and rising inflections, as if addressing an audience. It ceased just as we entered the court.
The room was large, though not nearly so large as I had imagined, and quite cheerful in color. I had an impression of yellowish pine walls and plenty of light, a continuous though not loud murmur of voices and the incessant flutter of the movement of a crowd. There were no serried ranks of judges and barristers in black gowns, indeed at first sight my confused eyes saw nothing but the crowd. And such a well-dressed, holiday-looking gathering! I saw girls whom I knew, their gowns making bright spots of color among the men's dark coats. It looked more like an afternoon concert than a trial. Every place seemed to be taken, and men and women, standing up, lined the walls. But a police officer said seats had been reserved for us, and led us to two on the side aisle near the front, and quite under the shadow of the balcony. Once I had sat down among the crowd I ceased to notice it, and began to take in what was directly before me.
At that end of the room which we were facing was a platform, railed off, and on it a great high desk, at which a rather undersized man sat, leaning his head on a beautiful white plump hand, and looking up at the ceiling as if he were thinking. His face was round, fair and unlined, and had it not been for his mop of grizzled hair I would have thought him quite young.
"That is Judge Kelland, who tries the case," father whispered.
I felt a wonder that he should seem so uninterested in what was going on. In front of his desk, but below the platform, a man was writing at a little table covered with papers; and in front of this again was another table, larger and quite long, at which a number of men were sitting. Nearest us Mr. Dingley sat with another gentleman, small, slim and very calm looking. They had their heads together, evidently talking; and next to them was a young man who seemed to be making jottings in a note-book. Beyond him I could make out no more than vague heads and elbows, on account of the movement of the crowd. To the right of this long table and on a line with our places was something I recognized as the jury box, the heads of some of the men in it showing quaintly over the high side.
From one thing to another my eyes traveled hastily, taking them in unconsciously, for the one figure I was looking for—that I had expected to see before all others, standing up in the prisoner's dock, the centering point for all eyes—I could not find. The only thing that might have been a prisoner's dock, a small railed inclosure on the right hand of the judge's desk, was empty. But presently there was a shift in the restless gathering, some people, who had been standing up, sat down; and I saw a little more of the long table, first a space, where no one was sitting, and then the broad back of a man, who had shifted in his chair as if to face the person next to him. In a moment he had turned back again, and leaned forward, and there, in the little space through the crowd,—a profile like a picture in a frame,—I saw Johnny Montgomery's face.
The start it gave me may have been pure astonishment, I saw it so suddenly and it looked so different. All the dishevelment, the defiance and anger were gone. His black hair was brushed down, smooth and burnished as a crow's breast. The stock and the great black satin bow beneath his chin were as immaculate and as perfectly arranged as father's, and his face itself was calm, almost sweet in expression.
I had been expecting to find a prisoner in a dock, and here he was, dressed like any other distinguished young gentleman in the court room, and sitting among the lawyers. All at once he put up his hand to push back his hair, and I saw that his hands were free. I felt a sense of unspeakable relief, as if he had already been acquitted. The only thing that seemed to set him apart from others was that expression of his, which was troubling in its very sweetness, as if he were not trying to combat or oppose anything; as if he had foreseen to the end what would happen, and had given himself up from the first.
Then a voice, high and sing-song, seeming to come from nowhere, began calling out something which I couldn't understand, and the Mexican I had seen in the witness room rose from the crowd and shuffled up into the little railed inclosure. The gentleman who was sitting with Mr. Dingley got up and began asking questions in a weary monotonous voice, to which the Mexican replied that his name was Manuel Gora, that he was a Mexican by birth, and by occupation a barkeeper; that at present he was without employment, but that previous to the seventh of May he had for ten years been in the employment of Martin Rood.
I could hear the stir all over the court room, and my own heart began to beat.
"Ah!" The gentleman who was on his feet seemed to shake off his apathy and grew very, emphatic, "Now, Mr. Gora—on the night of May the sixth where were you?"
The man answered in a low voice that all that night he had been in Mr. Rood's gambling-hall.
"Go on, tell us and the gentlemen of the jury all that you remember of the occurrences of that night and of the morning of the seventh until six-thirty o'clock."
When the Mexican began speaking all the rustle died out in the court, and in the deep silence his precise, mincing utterance made every word distinct. He had gone on duty at six-thirty o'clock, he said; the hall had closed at eleven, it being Sunday night, and at that hour Mr. Rood had not yet come home. He had locked the doors and sat up until two. Then Mr. Rood came, and went immediately to bed.
Here the lawyer interrupted, "Do I understand you that Mr. Rood lived at the gambling-hall?"
No, the man said, but he had rooms upstairs which he often used. After Mr. Rood had retired he had himself gone to his own room, which was also up-stairs, but in the back of the house. He was not yet asleep when he heard the bell at the side door ring. "And then," the Mexican said, "I went to Mr. Rood's door and asked if I should go down-stairs. Mr. Rood said, 'No,' and then he said, 'Curse him, no, I won't let him in.' But after the bell had rung three times more, he called me and said, 'Go down, Manuel, let him in. I will come down in a few minutes.'
"After that I went down and let in Mr. Montgomery."
"One moment, Mr. Gora." The lawyer who was standing had raised his hand. "Was there anything in Mr. Rood's manner which led you to suppose he had feared a visit from Mr. Montgomery?"
The man who had been sitting next the prisoner was on his feet. "Object, your Honor, to the form of the question, as being—" He mumbled the rest, I couldn't get a word of it.
The judge brought his eyes down from the ceiling, looked at the big man who was calling out to him; then said in a conversational voice: "Objection sustained." Then looking at the other man, "Change the form of the question."
"Father," I whispered, "that man who just now objected, isn't he Mr. Jackson? Hasn't he been at the house to dinner?"
"Yes, and one of the best lawyers in the city; but he is defending Montgomery, I am sorry!"
"Did Mr. Rood," the first lawyer began again, "show surprise when you told him there was some one at the door?"
"No, sir." The man hesitated. "He was angry."
Mr. Dingley's lawyer looked triumphantly at the lawyer for the defense; then he again turned to the witness. "Had you ever seen the person you let in before?"
"Very often. He came a great deal to play."
"Can you point him out?"
The Mexican peered at the crowd. "He is sitting the third from the end at that table."
There was a sigh that seemed to come from the whole court room. I tried to get a glimpse of Johnny Montgomery's face, but too many people were standing up, and moving chairs, and when the flutter subsided a little I was able to catch the witness' voice going on.
"Then I brought them some drinks, and Mr. Rood told me to go to bed. They were left alone down there when I had gone up-stairs. I went to sleep. I was waked up in the very early morning by quarreling voices, and before I was wide-awake I heard a pistol shot. I ran down the stairs and out into the back of the house, as I do when there is trouble, and wait until I think it is over. Then, after listening a while, everything perfectly quiet, I go out into the bar where I left them and it was empty; but on the floor I see a pistol; I look at it and it is discharged; then I go into the other rooms, no one. Then I hear the crowd crying, I look out the door—there I see him!"
It seemed to me I couldn't bear to hear any more, and I stopped my ears until I saw the lawyer for the prosecution sit down. But as soon as he was down the lawyer for the defense was on his feet, and had begun asking a lot of questions that seemed to me very foolish, and very little concerned with Johnny Montgomery. Then, without seeming to have made any point at all, Mr. Jackson sat down; the Mexican came down from the witness-stand, the judge left his place and went out through a door at the back, and a man who had been hovering on the outskirts of the lawyers' table, hurried to Mr. Dingley, and whispered something to him. Instead of coming over to speak with us, as I had expected, Mr. Dingley went hastily out of the room. Father left me to speak with a man on the other side of the court; and, among all the standing and walking and going out, Johnny Montgomery and I were the only ones who sat quite still.
As yet I saw him in profile. He was leaning forward, his elbows on the table; now and then he ran his fingers through his hair. Once I thought he was going to drop his head in his hands; but after an instant's drooping he threw it up sharply with a sort of shake that tossed the long locks out of his eyes, and faced around in his chair and saw me. He didn't seem surprised at finding me there. I couldn't be sure that he had not known just where I was all the while; but though he looked at me so steadily it was not, somehow, like a stare. He did not look, at me quite as if I were a human being, but as if I were a statue or a picture. He was the one who turned away. Then I sat looking at the back of his head.
There was a murmur of talk all through the room, but above it I heard two men behind me greeting each other.
One said, "Well, what's the game? Is she a stricken widow or a hopeful fiancée?"
"A little of both, I guess," the other answered. "She's been pretty good to Rood—ten years—but he was getting gray and fat, and the fair Carlotta herself is nearing the age when a woman begins to yearn for beauty and youth. There's one thing I will say for her, though, she seems, to be hard hit. I never saw the man Carlotta would turn her little finger over for before, and she's going in for acquittal with all she's got."
"It's scandalous, that's what it is!" I heard the first speaker bring down his fist on his open palm.
"Oh, I don't know," the other said. "I think it's pretty decent of her, and she may manage it. Great is Carlotta!'"
They moved away, and I sat still, staring stupidly at the back of Johnny Montgomery's head. The cool callous tones of the men knocked on my heart like blows. I was amazed at the familiar way they spoke of the Spanish Woman, in spite of all her dignity, and commanding beauty; but to hear them speaking of Johnny Montgomery as if he belonged too her was intolerable. It was ridiculous! Of course it might be that she was interested in his case, might even be in love with him; but that he should care for her—
I was so unnerved that I didn't notice father's reappearance until he leaned over and touched my arm.
"You will probably be called next," he said. Then, he must have felt me trembling and supposed it to be nervousness. "Remember, for the honor of the family," he whispered, smiling.
The lawyers and the men who had been writing were all coming back to their places; and then Mr. Dingley hurried in, and down the aisle to where we were.
"My dear Fred," he began; and then I couldn't hear any more, because he pulled father by the arm until they stood a little farther off from me, where they talked very earnestly for some moments. Father looked perfectly disgusted.
"Next time, be very sure before you order our presence in court," he said as he came back to his chair. "I am capable of great disagreeableness, as you know."
Mr. Dingley smiled and rubbed his hands, and said these little unexpected things would turn up. Then, as the judge was coming into the room, he hastened back into his place. Father threw his coat over his arm and said, "Come along, Ellie."
"What is the matter?" I asked.
"Oh, one of their infernal technical hitches. After insisting on your presence this morning, your testimony is not required."
I got up very slowly. I couldn't resist sending one glance toward where Johnny Montgomery was sitting, and as I did so he turned his head. It was the same quiet gaze he had given me before. It must have been only my fancy that saw something wistful in it; but I hated to go. I felt as if I were leaving him alone in the hands of his enemies. It seemed impossible for me to remember that of all those enemies he had I was the very worst.