When Rush arrived at the sitting-room of the jail's private suite he
found Mrs. Balfame, not in tears as he had nervously anticipated, but
distraught, pacing the room, her hands in her disordered hair.
"I am done for! done for!" she cried as Rush hastily closed the door.
"It would have been better if I had told the truth in the
beginning--that I _had_ gone out that night. It was not such a bad
excuse,--that I thought I saw a burglar down there,--and it was God's
truth. Or I could have said I was walking about the grounds because I
had a headache--"
"It never would have gone down. If I could have discovered who the other
person in the grove was--found him and his forty-one-calibre revolver,
well and good. Failing that, our line of defence is the best possible. I
will admit, though," he too was pacing the room,--"it looks bad to-day,
pretty bad. There isn't the ghost of a chance to prove Mott was the man.
Gore has the time to the minute he left Susie Lacke's; you must have
gone out some time before--"
"Oh, he didn't do it. I've not thought it for a moment. No such luck. It
was some enemy who went straight to New York--in that car. But
I--I--Auburn--the electric chair--they all believed--Oh, my God! God!"
She had tossed her arms above her head then flung herself down before
the table, her face upon them, rocking her body back and forth. Her
voice was deep with horror and despair, her abandonment far more
complete than on the day of her arrest; and wrought up himself, Rush was
stirred with the echo of all he had felt that day. In the semi-intimacy
of these past ten weeks, when he had talked with her for hours at a
time, she had disillusioned him in many ways, bored him, forced him to
admit that her lovely shell concealed an uninteresting mind, and that
the only depths in her personality that he was permitted to glimpse were
such as to make him shrink, by no means to excite that fascination even
in repulsion peculiar to the faults of a more passionate nature. He
still thought her the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, however,
and if it was beauty which now left him cold, his admiration of her had
been renewed these last three days when her manner and appearance in
court had been beyond all praise. He had excoriated himself for his
fickleness, his contemptible failure as a lover; and the more he hated
himself the more grimly determined he was to behave precisely as if he
still loved and revered her as he had when ready to sacrifice life
itself for her sake. He was in such an _impasse_ that he cared little
what became of himself.
He leaned over the table and pressed his hands hard on her arms.
"Listen!" he said peremptorily. "You never will go to Auburn. You will
leave this jail not later than the middle of next week, a free woman. If
I cannot get you off by my address to the jury,--and it will be the
supreme effort of my life,--I'll take the stand and swear that I
committed the murder myself."
"What?" She lifted her head and stared up at him. His face was set, but
his eyes glowed like blue coals.
"Yes. I can put it over, all right. You remember I went to your house
from the Club that day. Nobody saw me go; no one saw me leave. From the
moment I left you, until the following morning, no one--no one that I
know of--saw me that night, except Dr. Anna. We met out on the road
leading to Houston's farm, and she drove me in. She believes I did it.
So does Cummack, and if necessary he will manage to get an affidavit
from her--"
Mrs. Balfame had sprung to her feet. "Did you do it? Did you?"
"Aha! I can make even you believe it. No, I did not, but I couldn't
prove an alibi if my life depended upon it. I can make the Judge and the
jury believe--"
"And do you think I would permit--"
"They will believe me. And Dr. Anna--who would doubt her testimony that
my appearance and conduct were highly suspicious that night on the marsh
road? And what could you disprove? There was a man in that grove, was
there not?"
"Yes, but not you; I don't know why, but I could swear to that. I
shall--if you do anything so mad--tell the whole truth about myself."
"What good would that do? Balfame was killed with a forty-one revolver.
Yours was a thirty-eight."
"How do you know that?"
"I found it the night I spent in your house--the night of your arrest. I
knew that you never would have gone out to head off a burglar without a
revolver--any more than the jury would have believed it. I found the
pistol. Never mind the long and many details of the search. It is in my
safe. I kept it on the off chance that it might be necessary to produce
it after all."
"But I fired at him. I hardly knew that I was firing, until I felt the
revolver in my hand go off. Perhaps it was a suggestion from that tense
figure so close to me, intent upon murder. Perhaps I merely felt I
must--must--I have never been able to analyse what I did feel in those
terrible seconds. It doesn't matter. I did. And you? You know I fired
with intent to kill. Did you guess at once?"
"Oh, yes. But it doesn't matter. You were not yourself, of course. You
had what is called an inhibition--as maddened people have when fighting
their way out of a burning theatre. I only wish you had told me. I--that
is to say, it is never fair to keep your counsel in the dark."
"You mean you wish I had not lied!" She caught him up with swift
intuition. "Well, to-day I would not, but then--well, I was full of
pettiness, it seems to me now. But although I am far even yet from being
a fine woman,--I know that!--I am not a poor enough creature to let you
die for me. Oh, you are far too good for me. I never dreamed that a man
would go as far as that for a woman in these days. I thought it was only
in books--"
"The veriest trash is inspired by the actual occurrences of life--which
is pretty much the same in books as out. And I guess men haven't changed
much since the world began, so far as making fools of themselves about a
woman is concerned."
As she stood with one hand pressed hard against the table she was far
more deeply moved than a few moments since by fear, although outwardly
calm. She had climbed far out of her old self within these prison walls,
but she saw steeper heights before her, and she welcomed them.
"Then," she said deliberately, "I must cure you. Before I went out, I
had prepared that glass of lemonade and put poison in it. I had planned
for several weeks to kill him when a favourable opportunity arrived. I
had stolen a secret poison from Anna--out of that chimney cupboard
Cassie described. You see that I am a potential murderer,--and a
cold-blooded one,--even if by a curious irony of fate some one else
committed the deed. Now do you think I am worth giving up your life
for--going to the electric chair--"
"Suppose we postpone further argument until the necessity arises--if it
ever does. I fully expect you to be triumphantly acquitted. Tell me"--he
looked at her curiously, for he divined something of her inner
revolutions and hated himself the more that he was interested only as
every good lawyer must be in human nature,--"could you do that in cold
blood again?"
"No--not that way--never. I might let a pistol go off under the same
provocation--that is bad enough."
"Oh, no. Remove the restraints of a lifetime--or perhaps it is merely a
matter of vibration and striking the right key."
"And do you mean that--you still want to marry me?"
"Yes," he answered steadily. "Certainly I do."
"Ah!" Once more she wondered if he still loved her. But she had been too
sure of him and of herself to harbour doubt for more than a passing
moment. She had come to the conclusion that he had merely taken her at
her word, and she knew the specialising instinct of the busy American.
She had, indeed, wondered if it were not the strongest instinct he
possessed. And in spite of her new humility, she had suffered no loss of
confidence in herself as a woman. She vaguely felt that she had lost
something of this man's esteem, but trusted to time and her own charm to
dim the impression. For she had made up her mind to marry him. Not only
would it be the wisest possible move after acquittal,--a decent time
after,--but during sleepless hours she had come to the conclusion that
she loved this brilliant knightly young man as deeply as it was in her
power to love any one. And after this terrible experience and the many
changes it had wrought within her, she wanted to be happy.
He had taken up his hat. She crossed the room swiftly and laid her hand
on his arm. "I could not stand one word of love-making in jail," she
said, smiling up at him graciously, although her eyes were serious. "But
it is only fair to tell you now that if I am acquitted I will marry
you."
And stabbed with a pang of bitter regret that he felt not the least
impulse to scout her authority and seize her in his arms, he bent over
her hand and kissed it with cold lips, but with an air of complete
gallantry.
"Thank you," he said, and went out.