THE TEMPTATION
Jessica's eyes met Harry's in a look he could not translate, save that
it held both yearning and anguish.
The accusation of Prendergast had stunned her faculties. As in an evil
dream, with the low breeze murmuring by and the fitful moon overhead,
she had seen the sheriff rise to his feet and methodically put the
fragment of paper into his pocket-book. A moment later she was running
up the dark path, her thoughts a confusion in which only one coherent
purpose stood distinct--to warn him. They would know no need to hasten.
If the man she loved had reached the cabin, she would be before them.
Not that she believed him guilty; in his lost past there could be no
stain so dark as that! She recalled the look of personal hatred she had
once surprised on Prendergast's face. He hated Hugh, and dying, had left
this black lie behind to do him a mischief. He was innocent, innocent!
But would the charge not be believed? They would arrest him, drag him
down to the town, to the brick jail on the court-house square. The
community was prejudiced. Innocent men had been convicted before of
crimes they never committed. In those breathless minutes she did not
reason further; she knew only that a vital danger threatened him, and
that he must fly from it. The lighted pane had told her the occupant of
the cabin had returned.
She stood before the door, her hands clasped tightly, her eyes on
Harry's face, even in this crucial moment drinking in thirstily what she
saw there; for in this crisis, hanging on the narrow verge of
catastrophe, when he had need to summon all his store of poise and
contained strength, his look melted over her in a mist of tenderness.
"What has happened?" he asked.
He did not offer to touch or to kiss her, but this she did not remember
till afterward. In what words could she tell him? Would he think she
believed him guilty when she besought him to fly? She answered simply,
directly, with only a deep appeal in her eyes:
"Men will be here soon--men from the town. I overheard them. I wanted to
let you know!" she hesitated; it had grown all at once difficult to put
into words.
"Coming here? Why?"
"To arrest a man who is accused of murder."
If her eyes could have pierced the bolted door a few feet away! If she
could have seen that listening face behind it, as her clear tones fell,
grow instinct with recognition, amazement, and evil suspicion--a look
that her last word swept into a sickly gray terror! If she could have
heard the groan from the wretched man beyond!
"Whose murder?"
"Doctor Moreau's."
In all Harry Sanderson's life was to be never such a moment of
revealment. He knew that she meant himself. The murderer of Doctor
Moreau--Hugh's one-time crony and loose associate, who had shared in the
plunder of the forged draft, and had then abandoned his cat's-paw to
discovery! The man Hugh had promised to "pay off for it some time!" Had
Moreau also made this his stamping-ground? A swift memory swept him of
Hugh's hang-dog look, his nervous dread when he had begged in the chapel
study for money with which to leave the country. It did not need the
smothered gasp from behind the bolted door to point the way to the swift
conclusion Harry's mind was racing to. A dull flush spread to his
forehead.
Jessica waited with caught breath, searching his countenance. It was
told now, but he must know that she had not credited it--that "for
better, for worse," she must believe in him now. "I knew, oh, I knew!"
she cried. "You need not tell me!"
The hell of two passions that were struggling within him--a savage
exultation and a submerging wave of pity for her utter ignorance, her
blind faith, for the painful denouement that was rushing upon her--died,
and left him cold and still. "No," he said gravely, "I am not the man
they want. It has all come back to me--the past that I had lost. Such a
crime has no part in it."
At another time the abrupt news of this retrieval must have affected her
strangely, for she had wondered much concerning the return of that
memory that held alike their early love and his own tragedy and shame.
Now, however, a greater contingency absorbed her. He must go, and
without delay. Her lips were opened to speak when he closed the door
behind him and stepped quickly down toward her. At all odds, he was
thinking, she must not see the man in that inner room! If she remained
he could not guess what shock might result.
"Jessica," he said, "you have tried to save me from danger to-night. I
need a greater service of you now; it is to ask no questions, but to go
at once. I can not explain why, but you must not stay here a moment."
"Oh," she cried bitterly, "you don't intend to leave! You choose to face
it, and you want to spare me. If you really want to spare me, you will
go! Why, you would have no chance where they have hated you so.
Prendergast was killed robbing the sluice to-night, and he
lied--lied--lied! He swore you did it, and they will believe it!"
He put back her beseeching hands. How could he explain? Only to get her
away--to gain time--_to think_!
"Listen!" she went on wildly. "They will wait to carry him to the town.
I can go and bring my horse here for you. There is time! You have only
to send me word, and I will follow you to the end of the world! Only say
you will go!"
He caught at the straw. The expedient might serve.
"Very well," he said; "bring him to the upper trail, and wait there for
me."
She gave a sob of relief at his acquiescence. "I will hurry, hurry!" she
cried, and was gone, swift as a swallow-flight, into the darkness.
As he reentered the cabin, the calmness fell from Harry Sanderson as a
mask drops, and the latent passion sprang in its place. He crossed the
room and drew the bolt for the wretched man who, after one swift glance
at his face, grovelled on his knees before him, sobered and shivering.
"For God's sake, Harry, you won't give me up?" Hugh cried. "You can't
mean to do that! Why, we were in college together! I'd been drinking
to-night, or I wouldn't have talked to you as I did. I'm sober enough
now, Harry! You can have the claim. I'll give it to you and all you've
got out of it. Only let me go before they come to take me!"
Harry drew his feet from the frantic hands that clasped them. "Did you
kill Moreau?" he asked shortly.
"It was an accident," moaned Hugh. "I never intended to--I swear to
Heaven I didn't! He hounded me, and he tried to bleed me. I only meant
to frighten him off! Then--then--I was afraid, and I ran for it. That
was when I came to you at Aniston and--we played." Hugh's breath came in
gasps and drops of sweat stood on his forehead.
A weird, crowding clamor was sweeping through Harry's brain. When, at
the sound of Jessica's voice, he had thrust Hugh into the inner room, it
had been only to gain time, to push further back, if by but a moment,
the shock which was inevitable. Then, in the twinkling of an eye, Fate
had swept the board. Hugh's worthless life was forfeit. He would stand
no longer between him and Jessica! The enginery of the law would be
their savior.
Neither crime nor penalty was of his making. He owed Hugh nothing--the
very money he had taken from the ground, save a bare living, had gone to
pay his thievery. He could surrender him to the law, then take Jessica
far away where the truth would come mercifully softened by distance and
lightened by future happiness. It was not his to intervene, to cozen
Justice, to compound a felony and defeat a righteous Providence! He owed
mercy to Jessica. He owed none to this cringing, lying thing before him,
who now reminded him of that chapel game that had ruined the Reverend
Henry Sanderson!
"When we played!" he echoed. "How have you settled your debt--the 'debt
of honor' you once counted so highly? How have you lived since then?
Have you paid me those days of decent living you staked, and lost?"
Hugh looked past him with hollow, hunted gaze. There was no escape, no
weapon to his hand, and those eyes were on him like unwavering sparks of
iron.
"But I will!" he exclaimed desperately. "If you'll only help me out of
this, I'll live straight to my dying day! You don't know how I've
suffered, Harry, or you'd have some mercy on me now! I can never get
away from it! That's why I was drunk to-day. Night and day I see
him--Moreau, as I saw him lying here that night on the hillside. He
haunts me! You don't know what it means to be always afraid, to wake up
in the night with the feel of handcuffs on your wrists, to know that
such a thing is behind you, following you, following you, never letting
you rest, never forgetting!" A choking sob burst from his lips. "Let me
go, Harry," he pleaded; "for my father's sake!"
"Your father is dead," said Harry.
"Then for old-time's sake!" He tried to clasp Harry's knees. "They may
be here at any minute! I must have been seen as I crossed the mountain!
I thought it would never come out, or I wouldn't have come! I'll go far
enough away. I'll go to South America, and you will never see me alive
again, neither you nor Jessica! I knew her voice just now--I know she's
here. I don't care how or why! You don't need to give me up to get her!
I'll give her to you! For God's sake, Harry, listen! Jessica wouldn't
want to see me hung! For _her_ sake!"
Harry caught his breath sharply. The thrust had gone deep; it had
sheared through the specious arguments he had been weaving. The
commandment that an hour before had etched itself in letters of fire
upon his eyelids hung again before him. He had coveted his neighbor's
wife. This man, felon as he was--pitiful hound to whom the news of his
father's death brought no flicker of sorrow or remorse, who now offered
to barter Jessica for his own safety!--he himself, however unwittingly,
had irreparably wronged. Between them stood the accusing wraith of one
immortal hour, when the heart of love had beat against his own. If he
delivered Hugh to the hangman, would it be for justice's sake?
The scales fell from his eyes. For him, loving Jessica, it could be only
a dastard act. Yet if he aided the real Hugh to escape, he, the
supposititious Hugh who had played his role, must continue it. He must
second the villainy, and in so doing play the cheaply tragic part. He
must pose as an accused murderer before the town whose good opinion he
had longed to gain--before Jessica!--until Hugh had had time to win safe
away! He might do even more. The real Hugh would stand small chance;
even were the evidence not flawless, the old record would condemn him.
But he himself had lightened that record. He had gained liking and
sympathy; there might be a chance for him of acquittal.
If this might only be! The truth then need never be known and Hugh
Stires, to all belief having been put once in jeopardy, need fear no
more. Life would be before him again, to pay the days of righteous
living he had played for in the chapel game, to reverse the record of
his selfish and remorseless career. If the trial went against him--Hugh
would have had his chance, would be far away. He, Harry Sanderson, would
not have betrayed him. A hundred people, if he chose to summon them,
would establish his own identity. It would be cheating justice, making a
mock of law, but he was in a position where human statute must yield to
a higher rule of action. The law might punish, but he would have been
true to his own soul. Jessica would understand. The truth held pain and
shame for her, but he would have tried to save her from a greater. And
he would have cancelled his debt to Hugh!
It was the Harry Sanderson of St. James parish, of the scrupulous
conscience--whose college career as Satan Sanderson had come to be a
fiery sore in his breast--who now spoke:
"Get up!" he said. "Have you any money?"
Hugh rose, trembling and ashen. "Hardly ten dollars," he answered.
Harry considered hastily. He was almost penniless; nearly all his share
of the strike had gone to repay the forged draft. "I have no ready
cash," he said, "but the night we played in the chapel, I left a
thousand dollars in my study safe. I have not been there since." He
took pencil and paper from his pocket and wrote down some figures
hastily. "Here is the combination. You must try to get that money."
"Wait," he added, as Hugh's hand was on the latch. He must risk nothing;
he could make assurance doubly sure. "A half-mile from the foot of the
mountain, where the road comes in from Funeral Hollow, wait for me. I
will bring a horse there for you."
Hugh crushed the paper into his pocket and opened the door. "I'll wait,"
he said. He darted out, slipped around the corner of the cabin, and
stealthily disappeared.
Harry sat down upon the doorstep. The strain had been great; in the
reaction, he was faint, and a mist was before his eyes. The die was
cast. Hugh could easily escape; until he himself spoke, he would not
even be hunted. He, Harry Sanderson, was the scapegoat, left to play his
part.
How long he sat there he did not know. He sprang up at a muffled sound.
He had still a work to do before they came--for Hugh! He saw in an
instant, however, that it was Jessica, leading her horse by the bridle.
"I could not wait," she breathed. "You did not come, and I was afraid!"
Mounting, he leaned from the saddle and took both her hands in
his--still he did not kiss her.
"Jessica, you believe I am innocent?" he asked anxiously.
"Yes--yes!"
"Will you believe what I am doing is for the best?"
"Always, always!" she whispered, her voice vibrating. "Only go!"
"Whatever happens?"
"Whatever happens!"
He released her hands and rode quickly up the grassy path.
As she stood looking after him, a dog's whine came from the cabin. She
ran and released the spaniel and took him up in her arms.
As she did so a sparkle caught her eye. It came from the tiny gold cross
lying where Hugh had flung it, near the lighted doorway. She picked it
up, looked at it a moment abstractedly and thrust it into her
pocket--scarce consciously, for her heart was keeping time to the
silenced hoof-beat that was bearing the man she loved from danger.
Where the way opened into the gloomy cut of Funeral Hollow, Harry
dismounted and went forward slowly afoot, leading the horse, till a
figure stepped from a clump of bushes to meet him with an exclamation of
relief. Hugh had waited at the rendezvous in shivering apprehension and
dismal suspicion of Harry's intentions, and had not approached till he
had convinced himself that the other came alone. He wrung Harry's hand
as he said:
"If I get out of this, I'll do better the rest of my life, I will, upon
my soul, Harry!"
"You may not be able to get into the chapel," said Harry; "my rooms"--he
felt his cheek burn as he spoke--"may be occupied. On the chance that
you fail, take this." He took off the ruby ring, whose interlaced
initials had once fortified him in his error of identity. "The stone is
worth a good deal. It should be enough to take you anywhere."
Hugh nodded, slipped the ring on his finger, and rode quickly off. Then
Harry turned and walked rapidly back toward the town.