see you up and about quite as if nothing had happened."
"Come--I want to know the truth! Do you think I'm hurt internally, is
that it?" He sought to raise himself on his elbow but slipped back
groaning.
"You have sustained a very severe shock, still--" began the doctor.
"Will I recover?" insisted Langham impatiently.
"Oh, _please_, Marshall!" cried Evelyn.
"I want to know the truth! If you don't think you can stand it, go out
into the hail while I thresh this matter out with Taylor!" But Evelyn
did not leave her place at his bedside.
"You must not excite yourself!" said Taylor.
"Humph--if you won't tell me what I wish to know, I'll tell you my
opinion; it is that I am not going to recover. I must see Moxlow. Who is
down-stairs?"
"Colonel Harbison and his nephew."
"Ask Watt to find Moxlow and bring him here. He's probably at his
boarding-house."
He spoke with painful effort, and the doctor glanced uncertainly at
Evelyn, who by a slight inclination of the head indicated that she
wished her husband's request complied with. Taylor quitted the room.
"Why do you wish to see Moxlow?" Evelyn asked the moment they were
alone.
"I want him here; I may wish to tell him something--and I may not, it
all depends," he said slowly, as his heavy lids closed over his tired
eyes.
It was daylight without, and there was the occasional sound of wheels in
the street. Evelyn realized with a sudden sense of shock that unless
Marshall's bloodless lips opened to tell his secret, but a few hours of
life remained to John North.
A struggle was going on within her, it was a struggle that had never
ceased from the instant she first entered the room. One moment she found
she could pray that Marshall might speak; and the next terror shook her
lest he would, and declare North's innocence and his own guilt. She
slipped from his bedside and stealing to the window parted the long
curtains with trembling hands. She felt widely separated in spirit from
her husband; he seemed strangely indifferent to her; only his bitter
sense of injury and hurt remained, his love had become a dead thing,
since his very weakness carried him beyond the need of her. She belonged
to his full life and there was nothing of tenderness and sympathy that
survived. A slight noise caused her to turn from the window. Marshall
was endeavoring to draw himself higher on his pillow.
"Here--lift me up--" he gasped, as she ran to his side.
She passed an arm about him and did as he desired.
"That's better--" he panted.
"Shall I call the doctor?"
He shook his head and, as she withdrew her arm, lay back weak and
shaken.
"I tell you I am hurt internally!" he said.
"Let me call the doctor!" she entreated.
"What can he do?"
"Marsh, if you believe this--" she began.
"You're thinking of him!" he snarled.
"I am thinking of you, Marsh!"
"He threw you over for the Herbert girl!" he said with an evil ghastly
smile. "Do you want to save him for her?"
"You don't need to tell all, Marsh--" she said eagerly.
"That's you!" and he laughed under his breath. "I can't imagine you
advocating anything absolutely right! If I tell, I'll make a clean
breast of it; if I don't I'll lie with my last breath!"
He was thinking of Joe Montgomery now, as he had thought of him many
times since he drew himself up out of that merciless yellow flood into
which the handy-man had flung him. Evelyn looked at him wonderingly. His
virtues, as well as his vices, were things beyond her comprehension.
The door opened, and Moxlow came into the room. At sight of him,
Langham's dull eyes grew brilliant.
"I thought you would never get here!" he said.
"This _is_ too bad, Marsh!" said his law partner sympathizingly, as
Evelyn yielded him her place and withdrew to the window again.
"Where's Taylor?" asked Langham abruptly.
"He's had to go to the jail, he was leaving the house as I got here,"
replied Moxlow.
There was the noise of voices in the hail, one of which was the
colonel's, evidently raised in protest, then a clumsy hand was heard
fumbling with the knob and the door was thrown open, and Joe Montgomery
slouched into the room.
"Boss, you got to see me now!" he cried.
The prosecuting attorney sprang to his feet with an angry exclamation.
"Let him alone--" said Langham weakly.
Montgomery stole to the foot of the bed and stared down on Langham.
"You tell him, boss," nodding his head toward Moxlow. "I put it up to
you!" he said.
Langham's glance dwelt for an instant on the handy-man, then it shifted
back to Moxlow.
"Stop the execution!" he said, and Moxlow thought his mind wandered.
"North didn't kill McBride," Langham went on. "Do you understand me--he
is not the guilty man!"
A gray pallor was overspreading his face. It was called there by another
presence in that room; an invisible but most potent presence.
"Do you understand me?" he repeated, for he saw that his words had made
no impression on Moxlow.
"Go on, boss!" cried Montgomery, in a fever of impatience.
"Do you understand what I am telling you? John North did not kill
McBride!" Langham spoke with painful effort. "Joe knows who did--so do
I--so did my father--he knew an innocent man had been convicted!"
At mention of the judge, Moxlow started. He bent above Langham.
"Marsh, if John North didn't kill McBride, who did?"
But Langham made no reply. Weak, pallid, and racked by suffering, he lay
back on his pillow. Joe leaned forward over the foot of the bed.
"Tell him, boss; it's no odds to you now--tell him quick for God's sake,
or it will be too late!" he urged in a fearful voice.
There was a tense silence while they waited for Langham to speak. Moxlow
heard the ticking of the clock on the mantel.
"If you have anything to say, Marsh--"
Langham raised himself on his elbows and his lips moved convulsively,
but only a dry gasping sound issued from them; he seemed to have lost
the power of speech.
"If North didn't kill McBride, who did?" repeated Moxlow.
A mighty effort wrenched Langham, again his lips came together
convulsively, and then in a whisper he said:
"I did," and fell back on his pillow.
There was a moment of stillness, and then from behind the long curtains
at the window came the sound of hysterical weeping.
Moxlow, utterly dazed by his partner's confession, looked again at the
clock on the mantel. Fifteen minutes had passed. It was a quarter after
eight. His brows contracted as if he were trying to recall some half
forgotten engagement. Suddenly he turned, comprehendingly, to
Montgomery.
"My God!--North!" he exclaimed and rushed unceremoniously from the room.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
THE LAST NIGHT IN JAIL
Whether John North slept during his last night in jail the deputy
sheriff did not know, for that kindly little man kept his arms folded
across his breast and his face to the wall. The night wore itself out,
and at last pale indications of the dawn crept into the room. There was
the song of the birds and a little later the rumble of an occasional
wagon over the paved streets. North stirred and opened his eyes.
"Is it light?" he asked.
"Yes," said the deputy.
The day began with the familiar things that make up the round of life,
but North was conscious that he was thus occupying himself for the last
time. Then he seated himself and began a letter he had told Brockett he
wished to write. Once he paused.
"I will have time for this?" he asked.
"All the time you want, John," said Brockett hastily, as he slipped from
the room.
The sun's level rays lifted and slanted into the cell, while North,
remote from everything but the memory of Elizabeth's faith and courage,
labored to express himself. There was the sound of voices in the yard,
but their significance meant nothing to him now. He wrote on without
lifting his head. At last the letter was finished and inclosed with a
brief note to the general.
The pen dropped from North's fingers and he stood erect, he was aware
that men were still speaking below his window, then he heard footfalls
in the corridor, and turned toward the door. It was the sheriff and his
deputy. Conklin seemed on the verge of collapse, and Brockett's face was
drawn and ghastly.
There was a grim pause, and then Conklin, in a voice that was but a
shadow of itself, read the death-warrant. When he had finished, North
cast a last glance about his cell and passed out of the door between the
two men. They walked the length of the corridor, descended the stairs,
and entered the jail office. North turned to Conklin.
"I wish to thank you and Brockett for your kindness to me, and if you do
not mind I should like to shake hands with you both and say good-by
here," for through the office windows he had caught sight of the group
of men in the yard.
The sheriff, silent, held out his hand. He dared not trust himself to
speak. North looked into his face.
"I am sorry for you," he said.
"My God, you may well be!" gasped Conklin.
North shook hands with Brockett and walked toward the door; but as he
neared it, Brockett stepped in front of him and threw it open. As North
passed out into the graveled yard, out into the full light of the warm
spring day, the sheriff mechanically looked at his watch. It was twenty
minutes after eight.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
AT IDLE HOUR
From her window Elizabeth saw the gray dawn which ushered in that June
day steal over the valley below Idle Hour. Swiftly out of the darkness
of the long night grew the accustomed shape of things. Wooded pastures
and plowed fields came mysteriously into existence as the light spread,
then the sun burst through the curtain of mist which lay along the
eastern horizon, and it was day--the day of _his_ death.
Their many failures trooped up out of the past and mocked at her;
because of them he must die. They had gone with feverish haste from hope
to hope to this dread end! Perhaps she had never really believed before
that the day and hour would overtake them; when effort would promise
nothing. But now the very sense of tragedy filled that silent morning,
and her soul was in fearful companionship with it. A flood of wild
imaginings swept her forward, across the little space of time that was
left to her lover. Gasping for breath, she struggled with the grim
horror that was growing up about him. His awful solitude came to her as
a reproach; she should have remained with him to the end! Was there yet
time to go back, or would she be too late? When? When? And she asked
herself the question she had not dared to ask of her father.
The day showed her the distant roofs of Mount Hope; the day showed her
the square brick tower of the court-house--living or dead, John North
was in its very shadow. She crouched by the window, her arms resting on
the ledge and her eyes fixed on the distant tower. How had the night
passed for him--had he slept? And the pity of those lonely hours brought
the tears to her burning eyes. She heard her father come slowly down the
hall; he paused before her door.
"Elizabeth--dear!" his voice was very gentle.
"Yes, father?"
But she did not change her position at the window.
"Won't you come down-stairs, dear?" he said.
"I can not--" and then she felt the selfishness of her refusal, and
added: "I will be down in a moment, I--I have not quite finished
dressing--yet!"
John North had thought always of others. In the moment of his supremest
agony, he had spoken not at all of himself; by word or look he had added
nothing to the sorrow that was crushing her. This had been genuine
courage.
"I must remember it always!" she told herself, as she turned away from
the window. "I must not be selfish--he would not understand it--"
Her father was waiting for her at the foot of the stairs, and the glance
he bent on her was keen with anxiety. Perfect understanding existed
between them no less now than formerly, but the anguish which had left
its impress on that white face removed her beyond any attempted
expression of sympathy from him.
At the end of the hail the open door gave a wide vista of well-kept
lawns. Elizabeth turned swiftly to this doorway. Her father kept his
place at her side, and together they passed from the house out into the
warm day. Suddenly the girl paused, and her eager gaze was directed
toward Mount Hope--toward _him_.
"Would it be too late to go to him now?" she asked in a feverish
whisper.
A spasm of pain contracted the old general's haggard face, but the
question found him mute.
"Would it be too late?" she repeated.
"He would not desire it, Elizabeth," replied her father.
"But would it be too late?" and she rested a shaking hand on his arm.
"You must not ask me that--I don't know."
He tried to meet her glance, which seemed to read his very soul, then
her hand dropped at her side and she took a step forward, her head bowed
and her face averted.
Again came the thought of North's awful isolation; the thought of that
lonely death where love and tenderness had no place; all the ghastly
terror of that last moment when he was hurried from this living
breathing world! It was a monstrous thing! A thing beyond
belief--incredible, unspeakable!
"We can believe in his courage," said her father, "as certainly as we
can believe in his innocence."
"Yes--" she gasped.
"That is something. And the day will surely come when the world will
think as we think. The truth seems lost now, but not for always!"
"But when he is gone--when he is no longer here--"
The general was silent. North had compelled his respect and faith; for
after all, no guilty man could have faced death with so fine a courage.
There was more to him than he had ever been willing to admit in his
judgment of the man. Whatever his faults, they had been the faults of
youth; had the opportunity been given him he would have redeemed
himself, would have purged himself of folly. "Some day," the general was
thinking, "I will tell her just what my feelings for North have been,
how out of disapproval and doubt has come a deep and sincere regard."
The sun swept higher in the heavens, and the gray old man with the
strong haggard face, and the girl in whom the girl had died and the
woman had been born, walked on; now with dragging steps, when the stupor
of despair seized her, now swiftly as her thoughts rushed from horror to
horror.
The world, basking in the warmth of that June sun, seemed very peaceful
as they looked out across the long reaches of the flat valley, and on to
the distant town, with the lazy smoke of its factory chimneys floated
above the spires and housetops. But the peace that was breathed out of
the great calm heart of nature was not for these two! The girl's sense
was only one of fierce rebellion at the injustice which was taking--had
taken, perhaps, the life of the man she loved; an injustice that could
never make amends--so implacable in its exactions, so impotent in its
atonements!
They were nearing the limits of the grounds; back of them, among its
trees, loomed the gray stone front of Idle Hour. Her father rested a
hand upon Elizabeth's shoulder.
"I will try to be brave, too--as he was always--" she said pausing.
She stood there, a tragic figure, and then turned to her father with
pathetic courage. She would take up what was left for her. She had her
memories. They were of happiness no less than sorrow, for she had loved
much and suffered much.
With a final lingering glance townward, she turned away. Then a startled
cry escaped her, and her father looked up.
John North was coming toward them across the lawn.