A LACE HANDKERCHIEF
The next morning the lulls between the gusts of wind grew longer
and the wind-waves shorter. The snow ceased to fall and the shadows
on the clouds began to brighten with the glow of the sun behind
them.
The city stirred and shook off its white robe of death. The woman
looked at the wounded man with a stifled moan.
"It's no use, Ruth," he said, feebly. "I can't escape. I've got to
face it."
"What will they do to you, Frank?" she asked, in misery.
"I don't know," he answered, brokenly. "I killed him in the heat
of passion in a fight. But I'll be tried for murder."
The officers came and read the warrant of arrest. The dark, tense
figure, erect, with defiant face wreathed in midnight hair, stood
by his bedside and held his hand.
Her great eyes glowed and gleamed as though a young lioness stood
guard over a wounded cub.
Behind the bars in murderers' row the weeks and months were dragging
slowly to the day of trial. The rush and roar and fever of the city
were now a memory as he sat in brooding silence.
The press was hostile, and reporters worked daily with an army of
detectives to find every scrap of evidence against him, and as the
day fixed for his arraignment drew near, story after story appeared
in the more sensational journals, written with the clearest purpose
of influencing the mind of every possible juryman.
Ruth's heart sank with anguish as she read these stories, but
they stirred her to more vigorous action. She read every newspaper
carefully and followed every clue of reporter and detective to
anticipate its influence.
Not a day passed but that she carried to the man behind the bars
a message of courage and cheer.
Gordon would sit and watch for that one face whose light was hope
until it became the only reality in a universe of silence and
darkness. His whole life seemed to focus now on the little face with
its dimpled chin and shy, tremulous lips smiling into his cell.
The soft contralto voice, even when it sank to the lowest notes of
melancholy, was full of tenderness and caressing feeling. As he
touched her tapering fingers on the steel bars and watched the red
blood mount until her delicate ears shone like transparent shells
in the dark mass of her hair, visions of their life together would
rise until the past few years seemed the memory of a delirium.
He studied her with increasing fascination. The illuminating
power of restraint had developed new forces in his sensitive mind.
How marvelous she seemed, walking toward his cell with gentle yet
triumphant footfall, her face aglow with tenderness and love, and
how his soul leaped those bars and embraced her!
Many friends on whom he had counted had failed. She had never
failed. Her resources were endless, her energy infinite. She would
have fought all earth combined without a tremor. And yet those who
came in contact with her felt a gentleness that touched with the
softness of a caress.
The day before the trial her face glowed with hope.
"Frank, our lawyers are sure we will win!" she cried, with joy.
"Barringer has determined to rest the case on the charge of wilful
murder. And if he does the jury will acquit you. There is only one
shadow of uncertainty."
The dark eyes clouded and a gleam of fire flashed from their depths.
"I know," he said, sorrowfully.
"We can't find whether that woman is going on the witness stand
against you. I've tried in vain to get one word from her lips."
She brushed a tear from her eyes with a lace handkerchief. The man
saw it was the mate to the one she had given him stained with her
blood the day he had deserted her.
When, she turned to go, he felt for the cot behind him as though
blind, fell on his face and burst into sobs.