Joyce cast a helpless look around at the busy little figures behind
their desks. She glanced at the clock. It was only half past nine.
There was a train to the city in three-quarters of an hour. She must
make it. She would have to go home for money, too, and to change some
of her things. She must get some one to take her place, and she must
manage it so that no one would ask her any questions. Her brain seemed
fairly burning up with the rapidity of her thoughts.
Miss Beatty was a retired teacher who lived not far away and who
sometimes substituted when a teacher was ill. Would she be at home now,
and free? And how could she get out to telephone her?
With fingers that trembled so that she could hardly move her pencil she
wrote a little note to the teacher of the senior high school class and
sent it by one of the children. It read:
“Dear Miss Clayton: Can you let me have Mary Grover to keep order for a
little while? I am obliged to be out of the room.”
Mary Grover appeared in three or four minutes. Meantime Joyce had
summoned her senses and picked up everything she did not want to leave
in her desk, and slipped out to the telephone booth in the hall. She
dared not take the time to run across the street to the drug store for
more privacy. While she waited for her number she prayed that the Lord
would arrange the way before her. Her head was throbbing so that she
could scarcely see, and her heart beating wildly. She did not dare to
think except just about getting to the train. It seemed if she did,
that she would have to cry out and shout the horror of her soul at what
had happened.
Queer that at such a time our breathless minds will pick out
trivialities and dwell upon them. During that tense moment while she
waited for her answer it came to Joyce how Professor Harrington would
smile in his cynical way if he knew what she was doing, and ask her,
didn’t she think Miss Beatty would be at home just the same if she
didn’t pray? Then Miss Beatty’s precise voice echoed reassuringly over
the wire. “Yes? Ellen Beatty at the phone!” and Joyce, with a thrill of
triumph, spoke in her trembling voice:
“Oh, Miss Beatty, I’m so glad you are there! I hope you aren’t busy.
This is Miss Radway at the school. I’ve had bad news from home and I
must catch this next train. _Could_ you take my place?”
“Why, yes, I think so,” answered the kindly voice. “I’m very sorry----”
But Joyce cut her off quickly:
“Oh, thank you, then. Will you come over at once? I’m leaving
directions on the desk, and Mary Grover is with the class till you get
here. I haven’t a minute. Good-bye.”
She wrote a hurried note to Harrington there in the telephone booth:
“I have had bad news from home and must go at once. Miss Beatty is
taking my place. Did not want to disturb your class, and had not
a minute to wait. Will telegraph if I cannot get back tomorrow.
Sincerely, Joyce Radway.”
She slipped back to her own room and despatched this note by another
delighted child, got her hat from the dressing room and got away before
Harrington had had time to even open her note. She ran all the way
home, hastily changed her dress, put a few things into her little brief
case that she had bought at a bargain counter to carry her papers in
back and forth to school, and arrived at the station with three or four
minutes to spare and a tumult in her heart that demanded an opportunity
to cry.
Those three or four minutes seemed longer than the whole preceding
three-quarters of an hour, and she walked to the far end of the
platform and kept her eye out toward the street. She somehow had a
feeling that Harrington would not like it that she had not consulted
him before going, and she was almost sure if he could make it that
he would come down to the train. But it had happened that Harrington
was busy with three guests from another school, committeemen sent out
to size him up, and Joyce’s note lay harmlessly on his desk for half
an hour before he even had an opportunity to read it. Even then his
mind was so filled with wondering if he had made the right impression
that he scarcely took it in except to be annoyed, for he had purposed
taking the guests in to Joyce’s room to show it off, intending later,
if matters developed sufficiently to whisper a suggestion that she
might be the future Mrs. Harrington. It was very annoying of Joyce not
to consult him. He would punish her for that by coldness for a few
days. She was altogether too prone to take matters into her own hands.
That’s what came of having an independent religion that taught one to
think in unconventional lines. He had no thought of her trouble. He
didn’t take that in. But Joyce was riding away into the morning and
facing the awful facts that had called her from her work. Facing the
possibilities that might be ahead of her.
Suppose they had found Darcy and had the trial! There had been time
enough for that she supposed. Supposing they had convicted him! But
how could they when it was all false? Still, if such things could be
published in the paper when they were not true, what might not happen?
Law was a strange thing. Would they have hung him? Or electrocuted
him? Did they do those things so soon after the trial? The paper had
spoken of eye-witnesses. False witnesses of course. How could they be
true since the thing never happened? And what was Gene doing in it all?
The paper had spoken of Gene. She hardly dared to get it out again and
read it over lest some one should read it over her shoulder. It seemed
so terrible to see Darcy’s name in such connection. Darcy who had just
given himself to Christ, who had made over his life. And this to meet
him at the outset. It was enough to make some lose their faith. Not
Darcy. Oh, not Darcy! She cradled the thought of him like a child in
her prayers as the miles crept by and the morning went on.
By and by the train stopped suddenly with a jerk and a groan and after
one or two attempts to creep a few steps, lay there for a long time.
She remembered dimly that some such thing had happened on her way
up. She wondered idly if it were a part of every day’s journey? Her
impatience leaped ahead anxiously. Oh, if she were only there!
At last the train started on again and suddenly she realized that she
must plan what she would do when she got there. Should she go home and
send for the police, or should she go and try to find Darcy? She had
no idea where he lived now, and if he were at home he would probably
be in jail unless he had been able to prove that he was innocent. Then
suddenly she thought of Judge Peterson. He would know what to do. He
was a judge. She would go straight to his house. Afterward she would
have to go home and explain her absence and what she was doing, she
supposed, but that could take care of itself. She had Darcy now to
think about.
She had hoped to get the noon train from the city out to Meadow Brook,
but when she reached her home city her train was so late that there was
no Meadow Brook train till quarter of two. Then her impatience could
wait no longer and she called up Judge Peterson’s house.
At first she could get no answer, but just as she was about to give up
in despair a gruff voice said: “Hello! Dan Peterson at the phone?”
“Oh,” said Joyce in a relieved little voice. “Then is the Judge there?
I would like to speak to him a moment please.”
“No. He isn’t here. He’s over at the court house. Everybody’s over
there. I just happened to run home for some papers. Who is this?”
“This is Joyce Radway,” Joyce’s voice was all of a tremble. What if she
should be too late after all. What if the trial was days ago?
“What! Joyce! Oh, _Glory_! Is that really you, Joyce? Where are you? In
town? Say, take the ‘L’ and I’ll meet you at Sixty-third Street with
the car. You’re wanted here, you certainly are. And say, you there yet?
Say, don’t talk to anybody on the way out! Mind that! What’s that? In
time? Oh, sure, the nick of time. Couldn’t be better. All right. Get a
hustle on. I’ll meet you.”
Joyce hung up the receiver and hurried out to the elevated train, her
heart beating high with hope.
Dan dashed out to his car and rattled over to the court house, sent a
note up to the Judge’s desk and waited by the door. The message came up.
“Say, Dad: The dead has come to life. Have her here in half an hour.
Where do you want me to bring her? Here or over home?
Dan.”
The message came back with one word written across the back:
“Here.”
But a light flashed from the eye of father to son as Dan turned to dash
out again.
Dan almost upset a small, forlorn figure pressed close to the swinging,
leathern doors, with woebegone look and white, tear-stained cheeks.
“Hello there, Kid, did I hurt you?” He paused in his wild rush to set
her on her feet again. “Why, little Lib Knox, is this you?” he said
tenderly, discovering her identity and the tear streaks on her cheeks.
“This is no place for you, child. Come on, take a ride with me.”
But Lib drew a sigh of sobbing and held back.
“No, I gotta stay here,” she said. “I gotta stay here an’ help my Uncle
Darcy.”
“Come on, then an’ we’ll help him.” He swept her under one arm and
marched away, she wearily resisting. “Listen, Kid, I’ve got glad news.
Wait till we sail an’ I’ll tell you who we’re goin’ after.”
Lib suddenly relaxed and looked in his face. There was no mistaking the
light in Dan’s eye. He had really some glad news. Lib climbed into the
machine and sat back wearily, a poor little sinner with all her spirit
gone, and allowed herself to be led away from the scene of her sorrow.
Things had been going hard in there where Uncle Darcy was with the bad
red-haired man. She knew it by the stern look on his face when the door
swung back and she got a glimpse. She knew it by the leer on Tyke’s
evil face, and by the smug exclamations of the ladies who sat in the
back seat and the knowing winks of rough men near the door. She knew it
by the hard set of the old Judge’s mouth as he eyed the witnesses, and
by the way he worried them with questions now and then like a cat with
a mouse. If anything could be glad now, Lib was ready to believe it.
When they had swung the second corner beyond the court house Dan leaned
down and whispered:
“Now, Lib, do you know who we’re going after? Guess?”
“God, I guess,” said Lib drearily. “I guess that’s all’s could help my
Uncle Darcy any. I heard the men say he was as good as hung now!” She
caught a sob with a gulp and let the big tears roll down her worried
little face.
“Well, I guess God had something to do with it,” allowed Dan
comfortably. “He generally does. Cut out that weeping, Lib. That’s not
like you!”
“But it’s all my fault!” she sobbed out, utterly broken at last. “It’s
’cause I went and took that ride with that nasty red-haired man in his
motor cycle. He--he--he made me tell where Uncle Darcy was.”
“Why, how did you know where he was?”
“I--I--I _didunt_!” wept Lib. “I made it up. I told a _lie_. I said he
was in Canada. And I told God it was a lie, huh-huh-huh!” she sobbed.
“But it didunt do any good. God didn’t like it.” Dan put one arm around
her gently.
“There now, Lib, that’s all nonsense. You did a brave thing and it
didn’t have a thing to do with your uncle’s trouble. It probably only
held the man off a little longer. Besides, there’s no need for you
to worry any more. Listen. Who do you think we’re going after? Joyce
Radway. She’s down at Sixty-third Street Station waiting for us now. I
just talked to her over the phone.”
Lib Knox sat up as straight as a pipe stem and her eyes got round and
great behind their tears:
“Then He _did_ hear!” she said in an awestruck tone.
“Who heard?”
“God heard, away up in heaven like they said in Sunday School. I didn’t
believe it but now I do. But I tried it anyway, and He heard. I ast Him
would He please bring her back to life again and He’s done it!”
Dan pressed the little hand he held and said huskily:
“Yes, Kid, He’s done it. I guess there was more than one asking for
that same thing. Well, here we are, and--There she is!”