When they reached the county buildings, the court-house and the jail,
in New Salem, the old race-horse was still not nearly spent, although
he breathed somewhat hard. When Madelon sprang out to blanket and tie
him he seemed to vibrate to her touch like electric steel, and showed
that the old fire had not yet died out of his nerves and muscles.
Poor Dorothy Fair's knees were weak under her as she got out of the
sleigh. Her pretty face was pitiful, her sweet mouth drooping at the
corners like a troubled child's.
Madelon looked at her sharply when they stood before the jail door
waiting for admittance. "I have seen you wear a curl each side of
your face outside your hood," said she.
"I didn't think of it to-day," Dorothy replied, with forlorn
surprise.
Madelon went close to the other girl peremptorily, as if she had been
her mother, pulled forward two soft curls from under her hood, and
arranged them becomingly against the pale cheeks; and Dorothy
submitted.
Alvin Mead opened the jail door, and his great face took on a
forbidding scowl when he saw Madelon Hautville.
"Can't let ye in," he said, gruffly. "Ain't a visitin' day." He
would have shut the door in their faces had not Madelon made a quick
spring against it.
"I don't want to come in!" she cried. "I don't want to see him
to-day. It's this lady who wants to see him."
"Can't see nobody," said Alvin Mead, filling up the door like a surly
living wedge.
"You must let us see him," persisted Madelon. "She's Parson Fair's
daughter. She is going to marry Burr Gordon--she must see him."
Alvin Mead shook his head stubbornly. Then Dorothy spoke, thrusting
her fair face forward, and looking up at him with terrified, innocent
pleading, like a child, and yet speaking with a gentle lady's
authority. "I beg you to let me come in, only for a few moments,"
said she. "I will not make you any trouble. I will come out directly
when you bid me to."
Alvin Mead looked at her a second, then at Madelon with rough
inquiry. "Who did ye say she was?" he growled.
"Parson Fair's daughter, the lady that's going to marry Burr Gordon."
"I can't let but one of ye see him, and she can't stay more'n ten
minutes," said Alvin Mead, and moved aside, and Madelon and Dorothy
entered.
They followed Alvin Mead down the icy, dark corridor to Burr's cell
door. He unlocked it, and bade Dorothy enter. He cast a forbidding
look at Madelon. "I will stand here," she said with a strange
meekness, almost as if her heart were broken; but when the jailer
prepared to follow Dorothy into Burr's cell she caught him by the arm
and tried to force him back, and cried out sharply that he should let
her see him alone. "She is the girl he is going to marry, I tell
you!" she said. "Let them see each other alone. You cannot come
between two like that when they are in such trouble."
Alvin Mead looked at her a second irresolutely. Then he stepped back
in the corridor and locked the cell door. "That the gal? Thought ye
was the one," he said, with a half-chuckle, with coarse, sharp eyes
upon her face.
"He is going to marry her," Madelon repeated. She stood stiff and
straight like a statue, and waited. Once, when Alvin made an
impatient motion as though to open the door, she restrained him with
such despairing eagerness that he drew back and looked at her
wonderingly, and stood in surly silence awhile longer.
"She's got to come out now," he said, at last. "I've got other things
to tend to. Can't stay here no longer, nohow." He unlocked the door
and threw it open with a jerk. "Time's up!" he shouted, and Dorothy
came out directly, almost as if she were running away. Alvin Mead
clapped to the door with a great jar and locked it. Madelon, had she
tried, could not have got a glimpse of Burr; but she did not try. She
sprang at Dorothy Fair, and took her by the shoulders, and looked
into her scared face with agonized questioning.
"Did--he confess?" she gasped out. "Did--he tell you, did he--tell
you, Dorothy Fair?"
Dorothy shook her head in a mute terror that was almost horror. It
seemed as if she would sink to the floor under Madelon's heavy hands.
Alvin Mead stood staring at them.
"Didn't he--tell you--I was the one who--stabbed Lot? Didn't he--tell
you?"
"She's at it again," muttered Alvin Mead.
Dorothy shook her head. "He wouldn't speak," she said, faintly. "He
would say nothing about it."
Madelon fairly shook her. "Couldn't you make him speak? _You!_"
"I couldn't, I couldn't, Madelon!"
"Did you tell him your heart would break if he didn't--that you
couldn't marry him if he didn't?"
"Yes--don't, don't--look at me so, Madelon."
Alvin Mead stepped forward. "Look at here--you're scarin' of that gal
to death," he interfered. "You'd better take your hands off her."
Then Madelon turned to him, and grasped at the keys in his hands, as
if she would wrest them from him. "Unlock the door and let me in, and
let Burr Gordon out!" she demanded, wildly.
The jailer wrested his keys away with a contemptuous jerk, and took
the skin from Madelon's hands with them. "You're crazy," he said.
"I am not crazy! You've got an innocent man locked up in there, and
I, who am guilty and tell you so, you will not arrest. It is you who
are crazy. Let me in!"
Alvin Mead laid a rough hand on Madelon's shoulder. "Now you look at
here, gal," said he. "I've had about all this darned nonsense I'm
a-goin' to stan'. That chap is in jail for murder, an' in jail he's
a-goin' to stay till I git orders from somebody besides you to let
him out. An' what's more, don't you come here on no sich tom-fool
arrant agin. If you do you won't git in. I ain't no objection to gals
he was goin' to marry ef he hadn't broke the laws comin' to see him a
leetle spell, if they'll go away peaceable when they're bid, but as
for havin' sech highstericky work as this, I'll be darned if I will.
Now I can't stan' here foolin' no longer; you'd better be gittin'
right along home, an' don't you break this other gal's neck with that
old stepper you've got out there."
Madelon Hautville said not another word. She went out of the jail
quickly, and she and Dorothy were soon in the sleigh and flying down
the road. The old racer was not so old nor so weary that the impetus
of the homeward stretch failed to stir him--for a mile or so, at
least. After that his pace slackened, and then Madelon turned to the
other girl, who looked up at her with a kind of piteous defiance.
"What did you say to him?" she demanded.
"I--begged him--if he--did not kill Lot to--say so," replied Dorothy,
faintly; then she shrank and quivered before the other girl, who
started wrathfully, half as if she would fling her from the sleigh.
"_If_ he did not kill Lot to say so!" repeated Madelon. "_If_ he did
not! You know he did not."
"He would not tell me so," said Dorothy, with her stubbornness of
meekness, and her blue eyes met Madelon's, although there were tears
welling up in them.
"Tell you so!" cried Madelon. "What are you made of, Dorothy Fair?"
"He would not," repeated Dorothy. "If he _was_ innocent, why should
he not have told me if he loved me?"
Madelon looked at her. "You don't love him!" she cried out, sharply.
"You don't love him, and that's why. You don't love him, Dorothy
Fair!"
Dorothy flushed red and drew herself up with gentle stiffness. "You
cannot expect me to unveil my heart to you," said she.
"You have betrayed it," persisted Madelon. "You don't love him,
Dorothy Fair! Shame on you, after all!"
"What right have you to say that?" demanded Dorothy, and this time
with some show of anger.
"The right of another woman who does love him, and would save his
life," Madelon answered, fiercely. "The right of a woman who can love
more in an hour than such as you in a lifetime!"
"You--don't know--"
"I do know. You don't love him or you would not have distrusted him.
You would have made him tell you the truth. You would have flung your
arms around him, and you would not have let him go until he told you.
Did you do that? Answer me: did you do that?"
A great wave of red crept over Dorothy's face, but she replied, with
cold dignity: "I throw my arms around no man unbidden!"
"Unbidden!" repeated Madelon, and scorn seemed to sound in her voice
like the lash of a whip. She flung out the reins over the horse's
back, and they slipped along swiftly over the icy crust, and not
another word did she speak to Dorothy Fair all the way home.