damp and clammy. He was living that unspeakable moment over again, with
all its madness and horror. He saw himself as he had walked scowling
toward the front of the store; he had paused irresolutely with his hand
on the door-knob and then had turned back. The old merchant was standing
close by the scales, a tall gaunt figure in the waning light of day.
"Why do you tell me you can't do it?" he had demanded with dull anger.
"You have the money, I know that!"
"I didn't tell you I couldn't do it, Mr. Langham, I merely intimated
that I wouldn't," the old man had rejoined dryly.
"You have the money in your safe!"
"What if I have? It's mine to do with as I think proper."
"A larger sum than I want--than I need!"
"Quite likely."
A furious gust of passion had laid hold of him, the consciousness of his
necessity, all-compelling and relentless, swept through his brain. Money
he must have!--his success, his happiness, everything depended on it,
and what could money mean to this feeble old man whose days were almost
spent?
"I want you to let me have two thousand dollars!" he had insisted, as he
placed his hand on the old merchant's shoulder. "Get it for me; I swear
I'll pay it back. I'll give you such security as I can--my note--"
McBride had laughed dryly at this, and he turned on his heel as though
to reënter the office. Langham shot a quick glance about him; the store
was empty, the street before it deserted; he saw through the dingy
windows the swirling scarfs of white that the wind sent flying across
the Square. Now was his time if ever! Bitter resentment urged him on--it
was a monstrous thing that those who could, would not help him!
Near the scales was an anvil, and leaning against the anvil-block was a
heavy sledge. As the old merchant turned from him, he had caught up the
sledge and had struck him a savage blow on the head. McBride had dropped
to the floor without cry or groan.
Langham passed his hand before his eyes to blot out the vision of that
still figure on the floor, and a dry sob burst from his lips.
"Eh, did you speak, Marsh?" asked Gilmore.
"No," said Langham in a whisper.
Gilmore laughed.
"You are seeing just how it all happened, Marsh. There was a sledge by
the anvil that stood near those scales, and when the old fellow wouldn't
come to time, my man lost all restraint and snatched it up, and a second
later McBride was dead. After that my man had things all his own way. He
went through the safe and took what was useful to him,--and those damn
bonds of North's which weren't useful,--and skipped by the side door and
out over the shed roof and down the alley, just as Joe said."
Gilmore paused, and flicked away a bit of cigar ash that had lodged in a
crease of his coat.
"That's the whole story of the McBride murder. Now what do you think of
my theorizing, Marsh; how does it strike you?"
But Langham did not answer him. The gambler's words had brought it all
back; he was living again the agony of that first conscious moment when
he realized the thing he had done. He remembered his hurried search for
the money, and his flight through the side door; he remembered crossing
the shed roof and the panic that had seized him as he dropped into the
alley beyond, unseen, safe as he supposed. A debilitating reaction, such
as follows some tremendous physical effort, had quickly succeeded. He
had wandered through the deserted streets seeking control of himself in
vain. Finally he had gone home. Evelyn was at his father's and the
servant absent for the day. He had let himself in with his latchkey and
had gone at once to the library. There he fell to pacing to and fro;
ten--twenty minutes had passed, when the sudden noisy clamor of the town
bell had taken him, cowering, to the window; but the world beyond was a
vaguely curtained white.
He raised his heavy bloodshot eyes and looked into the gambler's smiling
face. He realized the futility of his act, since it had placed him
irrevocably in Gilmore's power. He had endured unspeakable anguish all
to no purpose, since Gilmore knew; knew with the certitude of an
eye-witness. And there the gambler sat smiling and at ease, torturing
him with his cunning speech.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
LOVE THAT ENDURES
A melancholy wind raked the bare hills which rose beyond the flats, and
found its way across half the housetops in Mount Hope to the solitary
window that gave light and air to John North's narrow cell. For seven
long days, over the intervening housetops, he had been observing those
undulating hills, gazing at them until they seemed like some great live
thing continually crawling along the horizon's rim, and continually
disappearing in the distance. Now he was watching their misted shapes
sink deep into the twilight.
North, by his counsel, had waved the usual preliminary hearing before
the mayor, his case had gone at once to the grand jury, he had been
indicted and his trial was set for the February term of court. Watt
Harbison had warned him that he might expect only this, yet his first
feeling of astonished horror remained with him.
As he stood by his window he was recalling the separate events of the
day. The court room had been crowded to the verge of suffocation; when
he entered it a sudden hush and a mighty craning of necks had been his
welcome, and he had felt his cheeks redden and pale with a sense of
shame at his hapless plight. Those many pairs of eyes that were fixed on
him seemed to lay bare his inmost thoughts; he had known no refuge from
their pitiless insistence.
In that close overheated room the vitiated air had slowly mounted to the
brain; soon a third of the spectators nodded in their chairs scarcely
able to keep awake; others moved restlessly with a dull sense of
physical discomfort, while the law, expressing itself in archaic terms,
wound its way through a labyrinth of technicalities, and reached out
hungrily for his very life.
He knew that he would be given every opportunity to establish his
innocence, but he could not rid himself of the ugly disconcerting belief
that a man hunt was on, and that he, the hunted creature, was to be
driven from cover to cover while the state drew its threads of testimony
about him strand by strand, until they finally reached his very throat,
choking, strangling, killing!
He thought of Elizabeth and was infinitely sorry. She must forget him,
she must go her way and leave him to go his--or the law's. He could face
the ruin of his own life, but it must stop there! He wondered what they
were saying and doing at Idle Hour; he wondered what the whole free
world was doing, while he stood there gazing from behind his bars at the
empurpled hills in the distance.
He fell to pacing the narrow limits of his room; four steps took him to
the door, then he turned and four steps took him back to his
starting-point, the barred window. Presently a footfall sounded in the
corridor, a key was fitted in the heavy lock, and the door was opened by
Brockett, the sheriff's deputy, a round-faced, jolly, little man with a
shiny bald head and a closely cropped gray mustache.
"You've got visitors, John!" said Brockett cheerfully, pausing in the
doorway.
North turned on him swiftly.
"The general and Miss Herbert,--you see your friends ain't forgot you!
You'll want to see them, I suppose, and you'd rather go down in the
office, wouldn't you?"
"I should much prefer it!" said North.
His first emotion had been one of keen delight, but as he followed
Brockett down the corridor the memory of what he was, and where he was,
came back to him. He had no right to demand anything of love or
friendship,--guilty or innocent mattered not at all! They were nearing
the door now beyond which stood Elizabeth and her father, and North
paused, placing a hand on the deputy's arm. The spirit of his
renunciation had been strong within him, but another feeling was
stronger still, he found; an ennobling pride in her devotion and trust.
What a pity the finer things of life were so often the impractical! He
pushed past the deputy and entered the office.
Elizabeth came toward him with hands extended. Her cheeks were quite
colorless but the smile that parted her lips was infinitely tender and
compassionate.
"You should not have come here!" North said, almost reproachfully, as
his hands closed about hers.
General Herbert stood gravely regarding the two, and his glance when it
rested on North was troubled and uncertain. The difficulties which beset
this luckless fellow were only beginning, and what would the end be?
"Father!"
Elizabeth had turned toward him, and he advanced with as brave a show of
cordiality as he could command; but North read and understood the look
of pain in his frank gray eyes.
"You agree with me that she should never have come here," North said
quietly. "But you couldn't refuse her!" he added, and his glance went
back to Elizabeth.
"Under the circumstances it was right for her to come!" said the
general. But in his heart he was none too sure.
"I couldn't remain away after to-day; I had been waiting for that stupid
jury to act--" She ended abruptly with a little laugh that became a sob,
and her father rested a large and gentle hand upon her shoulder.
"There, dear, I told you all along it wouldn't do to count on any jury!"
"My affairs are worth considering only as they affect you, Elizabeth!"
said North. "I was thinking of you when Brockett came to tell me you
were here. Won't you go away from Mount Hope? I want you to
forget,--no--" for she was about to speak; "wait until I have
finished;--even if I am acquitted this will always be something
discreditable in the eyes of the world, it's going to follow me through
life! It is going to be hard for me to bear, it will be doubly hard for
you, dear. I want your father to take you away and keep you away until
this thing is settled. I don't want your name linked with mine; that's
why I am sorry you came here, that's why you must never come here
again."
"You mustn't ask me to go away from Mount Hope, John!" said Elizabeth.
"I am ready and willing to face the future with you; I was never more
willing than now!"
"You don't understand, Elizabeth!" said North. "We are just at the
beginning. The trial, and all that, is still before us--long days of
agony--"
"And you would send me away when you will most need me!" she said, with
gentle reproach.
"I wish to spare you--"
"But wherever I am, it will be the same!"
"No, no,--you must forget--!"
"If I can't,--what then?" she asked, looking up into his face.
"I want you to try!" he urged.
She shook her head.
"Dear, I have lived through all this; I have asked myself if I really
cared so much that nothing counted against the little comfort I might be
to you; so much that the thought of what I am to you would outweigh
every other consideration, and I am sure of myself. If I were not, I
should probably wish to escape from it all. I am as much afraid of
public opinion as any one, and as easily hurt, but my love has carried
me beyond the point where such things matter!"
"My dear! My dear! I am not worthy of such love."
"You must let me be the judge of that."
"Suppose the verdict is--guilty?" he asked.
"No,--no, it will never be that!" But the color left her cheeks.
"I don't suppose it will be," agreed North hastily.
It was a cruel thing to force this doubt on her.
"You won't send me away, John?" she entreated. "If I were to leave Mount
Hope now it would break my heart! I--we--my father and I, wish every one
to know that our confidence in you is unshaken."
North turned to the general with a look of inquiry, of appeal. Something
very like a sigh escaped the older man's lips, but he squared his
shoulders manfully for the burdens they must bear. He said quietly:
"Let us consider a phase of the situation that Elizabeth and I have been
discussing this afternoon. Watt Harbison is no doubt doing all he can
for you; but he was at Idle Hour last night, and said he would,
himself, urge on you the retention of some experienced criminal lawyer.
He suggested Ex-judge Belknap; I approve of this suggestion--"
But North shook his head.
"Oh, yes, John, it must be Judge Belknap!" cried Elizabeth. "Watt says
it must be, and father agrees with him!"
"But I haven't the money, dear. His retainer would probably swallow up
all I have left."
"Leave Belknap to me, North!" interposed the general.
North's face reddened.
"You are very kind, and I--I appreciate it all,--but don't you see I
can't do that?" he faltered.
"Don't be foolish, John. You must reconsider this determination; as a
matter of fact I have taken the liberty of communicating with Belknap by
wire; he will reach Mount Hope in the morning. We are vitally concerned,
North, and you must accept help--money--whatever is necessary!"
The expression on North's face softened, and tears stood in his eyes.
"I knew you would prove reasonable," continued the general, and he
glanced at Elizabeth.
She was everything to him. He could have wished that North was almost
any one else than North; and in spite of himself this feeling gave its
color to their interview, something of his wonted frankness was lacking.
It was his unconscious protest.
"Very well, then, I will see Judge Belknap, and some day--when I can--"
said North, still struggling with his emotion and his pride.
"Oh, don't speak of that!" exclaimed General Herbert hastily.
"This miserable business could not have happened at a worse time for
me!" said the young fellow with bitterness.
"Don't say that, John!" pleaded Elizabeth. "For your friends--"
"You and your father, you mean!" interrupted North.
"It is hard enough to think of you here alone, without--" Her voice
faltered, and this time her eyes filled with tears.
"I'll not object again, Elizabeth; that you should suffer is much the
worst part of the whole affair!"
Brockett had entered the room and General Herbert had drawn him aside.
"I am coming every day, John!" said Elizabeth.
"Will your father agree to that?" asked North.
"Yes, can't you see how good and kind he is!"
"Indeed I can, it is far beyond what I should be in his place, I'm
afraid."
"It has been so horrible,--such nights of agony--" she whispered.
"I know, dear,--I know!" he said tenderly.
"They are not looking for other clues and yet the man who killed poor
old man McBride may be somewhere in Mount Hope at this very minute!"
"Until I am proved innocent, I suppose they see nothing to do," said
North.
"But, John, you are not afraid of the outcome?" And she rested a hand on
his arm.
"No, I don't suppose I really am,--I shall be able to clear myself, of
course; the law doesn't often punish innocent men, and I am innocent."
He spoke with quiet confidence, and her face became radiant with the
hope that was in his words.
"You have taken to yourself more than your share of my evil fortunes,
Elizabeth, dear--I shall be a poor sort of a fellow if my gratitude does
not last to the end of my days!" said North.
The general had shaken hands with the deputy and now crossed the room to
Elizabeth and North.
"We shall have to say good night, North. Can we do anything before we
go?" he asked.
"We will come again to-morrow, John,--won't we, father?" said Elizabeth,
as she gave North her hands. "And Judge Belknap will be here in the
morning!" She spoke with fresh courage and looked her lover straight in
the eyes. Then she turned to the general.
North watched them as they passed out into the night, and even after the
door had closed on them he stood where she had left him. It was only
when the little deputy spoke that he roused himself from his reverie.
"Well, John, are you ready now?"
"Yes," said North.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
AT HIS OWN DOOR
Judge Langham sat in his library before a brisk wood fire with the day's
papers in a heap on the floor beside him. In repose, the one dominant
expression of the judge's face was pride, an austere pride, which
manifested itself even in the most casual intercourse. Yet no man in
Mount Hope combined fewer intimacies with a wider confidence, and his
many years of public life had but augmented the universal respect in
which he was held.
Now in the ruddy light of his own hearth, but quite divorced from any
sentiment or sympathy, the judge was considering the case of John North.
His mind in all its operations was singularly clear and dispassionate; a
judicial calm, as though born to the bench, was habitual to him. It was
nothing that his acquaintance with John North dated back to the day John
North first donned knee-breeches.
He shaded his face with his hand. In the long procession of evil-doers
who had gone their devious ways through the swinging baize doors of his
court, North stalked as the one great criminal. Unconsciously his glance
fixed itself on the hand he had raised to shield his eyes from the
light of the blazing logs, and it occurred to him that that hand might
yet be called on to sign away a man's life.
The ringing of his door-bell caused him to start expectantly, and a
moment later a maid entered to say that a man and a woman wished to see
him.
"Show them in!" said the judge.
And Mr. Shrimplin with all that modesty of demeanor which one of his
sensitive nature might be expected to feel in the presence of greatness,
promptly insinuated himself into the room.
The little lamplighter was dressed in those respectable garments which
in the Shrimplin household were adequately described as his "other
suit," and as if to remove any doubt from the mind of the beholder that
he had failed to prepare himself for the occasion, he wore a clean paper
collar, but no tie, this latter being an adornment Mr. Shrimplin had not
attempted in years. Close on Shrimplin's heels came a jaded unkempt
woman in a black dress, worn and mended. On seeing her the judge's cold
scrutiny somewhat relaxed.
"So it's you, Nellie?" he said, and motioned her to a chair opposite his
own.
Not knowing exactly what was expected of him, Mr. Shrimplin remained
standing in the middle of the room, hat in hand.
"Be seated, Shrimplin," said the judge, sensing something of the
lamplighter's embarrassment in his presence and rather liking him for
it.
"Thank you, Judge," replied Shrimplin, selecting a straight-backed chair
in a shadowy corner of the room, on the very edge of which he humbly
established himself.
"Better draw nearer the fire, Shrimplin!" advised the judge.
"Thank you, Judge, I ain't cold," rejoined Mr. Shrimplin in his best
manner.
The judge turned to the woman. She had once been a servant in his
household, but had quitted his employ to marry Joe Montgomery, and to
become by that same act Mr. Shrimplin's sister-in-law. The judge knew
that her domestic life had been filled with every known variety of
trouble, since from time to time she had appealed to him for help or
advice, and on more than one occasion at her urgent request he had
interviewed the bibulous Joe.
"I hope you are not in trouble, Nellie," he said, not unkindly.
"Yes I am, Judge!" cried his visitor in a voice worn thin by weariness.
"It's that disgustin' Joe!" interjected Mr. Shrimplin from his corner,
advancing his hooked nose from the shadows. "Don't take up the judge's
time, Nellie; time's money, and money's as infrequent as a white crow."
And then suddenly and painfully conscious of his verbal forwardness, the
little lamplighter sank back into the grateful gloom of his corner and
was mute.
"It's my man, Judge--" said Nellie.
And the judge nodded comprehendingly.
"I don't know how me and my children are to live through the winter, I
declare I don't, Judge, unless he gives me a little help!"
"And the winter ain't fairly here yet, and it's got a long belly when it
does come!" said Mr. Shrimplin.
Immediately the little man was conscious of the impropriety of his
language. He realized that the happy and forcefully expressed philosophy
with which he sought to open Custer's mind to the practical truths of
life, was a jarring note in the judge's library.
"Joe's acting scandalous, Judge, just scandalous!" said Nellie with
sudden shrill energy. "That man would take the soul out of a saint with
his carryings-on!"
"It seems to me there is nothing new in this," observed the judge a
little impatiently. "Is he under arrest?"
"No, Judge, he ain't under arrest--" began Nellie.
"Which ain't saying he hadn't ought to be!" the little lamplighter
snorted savagely. He suddenly remembered he was there to give his moral
support to his sister-in-law.
"That man's got a new streak into him, Judge. I thought he'd about done
everything he could do that he shouldn't, but he's broke out in a fresh
spot!"
"What has he been doing, Nellie?" asked the judge, who felt that his
callers had so far lacked in directness and definiteness.
"What ain't he been doing, you'd better say, Judge!" cried Nellie
miserably.
"Is he abusing you or the children?"
"I don't see him from one week's end to another!"
"Am I to understand that he has deserted you?" questioned the judge.
"No, I can't say that, for he sends his clothes home for me to wash and
mend."
"Ain't that the human sufferin' limit?" gasped Mr. Shrimplin.
"I suppose you wash and mend them?" And the judge smiled faintly.
"Of course," admitted Mrs. Montgomery simply.
"Does he contribute anything toward your support?" asked the judge.
The woman laughed sarcastically at this.
"It takes a barkeeper to pry Joe loose from his coin," interjected Mr.
Shrimplin. "Get down to details, Nellie, and tell the judge what kind of
a critter you're hitched up to."
"He told Arthur, that's my oldest boy, if I didn't stop bothering him,
that he was just man enough to pay five dollars for the fun of knocking
the front off my face!"
"That was a choice one to hand out to an eldest son, wasn't it, your
Honor?" said the little lamplighter, tugging at his flaxen mustache.
"I just manage to keep a roof over our heads," went on Nellie, "and
without any thanks to him; but he has plenty of money, and where it
comes from I'd like to know, for he ain't done a lick of work in weeks!"
"Fact, Judge!" remarked Mr. Shrimplin. "I've made it my business lately
to keep one eye on Joe. He spends half his time loafin' at Andy
Gilmore's rooms, and the other half gettin' pickled."
"What do you wish me to do?" asked the judge, addressing himself to Mrs.
Montgomery.
"I wish, Judge, that you'd send word to him that you want to see him!"
"And toss a good healthy scare into him!" added Mr. Shrimplin
aggressively.
"But he might not care to respect the summons; there is no reason why he
should," explained the judge.
"If he knows you want to see him, he'll come here fast enough!" said
Nellie.
The judge turned to Shrimplin.
"Will you tell him this, Shrimplin, the first time you see him?"
"Won't I!" said the little lamplighter. "Certainly, Judge--certainly!"
and his agile fancy had already clothed the message in verbiage that
should terrify the delinquent Joe.
"Very well, then; but beyond giving him a word of advice and warning; I
can do nothing."
A night or two later, as the judge, who had spent the evening at
Colonel Harbison's, came to his own gate, he saw a slouching figure
detach itself from the shadows near his front door and advance to meet
him midway of the graveled path that led to the street. It was Joe
Montgomery.
"Well, my man!" said the judge, with some little show of sternness. "I
suppose you received my message?"
Montgomery uncovered his shock of red hair, while his bulk of bone and
muscle actually trembled in the presence of the small but awesome figure
confronting him. He might have crushed the judge with a blow of his huge
fist, but no possible provocation could have induced him to lay hands on
Nellie's powerful ally.
"That skunk Shrimplin says my old woman's been here," he faltered,
"poisonin' your mind agin me!" A sickly grin relaxed his heavy jaws.
"The Lord only knows what she expects of a man--I dunno! The more I try,
the worse she gets; nothin' satisfies her!"
His breath, reeking of whisky, reached the judge.
"This is all very well, Montgomery, but I have a word or two to say to
you--come into the house."
He led his disreputable visitor into the library, turned up the gas, and
intrenched himself on the hearth-rug with his back to the fire. The
handy-man had kept near the door leading into the hall.
"Come closer!" commanded the judge, and Montgomery, hat in hand,
advanced a step. "I wish to warn you, Montgomery, that if you persist
in your present course, it is certain to bring its own consequences,"
began the judge.
"Sure, boss!" Joe faltered abjectly.