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 blast of 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 containing the
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 had wrought 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 torrent
of 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 undertone that 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 his house, 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 the country 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.