CAPTAIN ALLEN HAS AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR
Dr. Cary had hardly been laid away, when the County had to face another
sorrow.
The trial of Captain Allen was set for the next day, and the county
seat was in a fever of expectation and apprehension. It was the final
struggle between the old residents and the new invaders, and it seemed
that the latter must triumph. There was no hope. It was the beginning
of the complete subjugation of the people. All thoughts were centred
on the little village where the battle was to be joined and fought. A
dark cloud seemed to have settled like a pall over the place which even
the soft afterglow of a summer evening could not lighten. The breath
of flowers was on the breeze that came from the shrubbery-filled yards
and rustled the trees. Yet the sounds were subdued, and the faces of
the people were gloomy and grim. The Judge had arrived, and had taken
his room in the old Hotel. Leech, solemn and once more self-assertive,
with a face still pale from his recent attack, but a gleam of joy in
his pale blue eyes, was quartered with Judge Bail in the hotel. Some
said he was afraid to go to his house; some that he wanted to be near
the Judge, and keep his mind filled with his insinuations. It was
hinted that he was afraid Bail would offer to sell out. McRaffle had
quarrelled with Leech and had made such an offer. He had also said that
the Judge could be reached, if the sum tendered were large enough. At
least, such was the rumor about the village. The jury was assembled
and kept together. The witnesses had been brought to town and were
also keeping together. The lawyers, with grave faces, were consulting
behind locked doors and closely shut windows—those who represented the
Government in a room adjoining Leech’s, and not far from the Judge’s
chamber; and those who were for the prisoner, among them some of the
ablest lawyers in the State, in Steve’s old office. Mr. Bagby and
General Legaie were the leading counsel, and Jerry lounged about the
door like a Bashi-Bazouk. The crowd in the village was larger than it
had been in a good while. Men were assembled in groups in the suburbs
or on the verandas, sullen and almost awe-struck, discussing the points
in the case with the intelligence of those trained by sharp experience
to know the gravity of such an occasion and to weigh the chances. It
was known that the principal evidence against Captain Allen was his
own confession. This was his chief danger. Leech (it was noticeable
that, when Leech was there, it was not the Government, whose soldiers
were still quartered in the village, but Leech that was spoken of as
representing the prosecution)—Leech could not prove any act of his
without that. The lawyers could break down all the witnesses except
one—the one to whom Captain Allen had been fool enough to talk; her
testimony they could not get around. Mr. Bagby and General Legaie had
said so. Mr. Bagby said that a man’s own confession was the hardest
thing in the world to overcome; that one was a fool ever to confess
anything. Such were the observations of a group assembled on one of the
street corners, out of hearing of the sentries.
This idea gave the discussion another turn. “Was Captain Allen really
in love with Miss Welch?” someone questioned. He had been in love with
her beyond a doubt, but he had stopped visiting her. Some thought she
had led him on, to get all out of him she could; others that he had
stopped, and that she was taking her revenge. One element considered
that it served him right. Why should he have to go off after a Yankee
girl, whose people were all against them, when there were plenty of
their own girls just as pretty and more attractive? Others took
Steve’s part. If a man fell in love he fell in love, that was all; and
if he was in love, he had a right to do as he chose—there was no Mason
and Dixon line in love. Even these, however, thought that Miss Welch
was taking her revenge.
Andy Stamper, who had come up and was grimly listening with unwonted
silence, broke forth with a strong denunciation of such nonsense. He
did not believe a word of it. Miss Welch had been to see Miss Blair
Cary and Miss Thomasia, old Mr. Langstaff and Mr. Bagby, and had done
all she could to keep from testifying. She was “cut up as the mischief
about it,” declared Andy. She had wanted to go away, but Leech was too
sharp for her; he had had her recognized to appear. He knew he could
not convict the Captain without her. Her father, too, was awfully
troubled about it, and had been to Washington to see what he could do.
He could not bear Leech. Was he not getting ready to sue him about that
railroad steal? He had just come back from the North. They had not come
to the court-house. Perhaps he had been able to do something?
The crowd did not accept Andy’s views. Some of them thought the
attitude of Major Welch was all a sham; that his anger with Leech was
just a pretence, and that he was really in collusion with him. Had he
not objected to Captain Allen’s visiting at his house, and hadn’t he
done all he could to trace up Leech when the Captain had him hidden. He
had made a big show of giving up when Captain Steve and Mr. Gray proved
Hiram Still’s rascality; but he had bided his time, and he was getting
a pretty sweet revenge. He had been North; but the speakers believed it
was to push the case against the Captain, not to stop it. He could have
stopped it easy enough, if he had chosen. He was “in with the biggest
of ’em.”
Little Andy chewed in glum silence. Suddenly he burst out:
“Well, I say that man don’t pretend to nothin’. Whether he likes the
Captain or whether he don’t, or whether you like him or whether you
don’t, is one thing. But what he is, he is; and he don’t pretend to
nothin’. If all Yankees was like him, I wouldn’t care how many they
was—unless I had to fight ’em.”
This sententious speech had its effect on the crowd, and the sergeant
was proceeding to expound further his opinion. But just then the sound
of wheels was heard; and the next moment a close carriage, with a
good pair of horses, drove quickly by them in a cloud of dust. It was
recognized as Major Welch’s carriage, and, though the curtains were
half-drawn, the group recognized the occupants as Major and Mrs. Welch
and their daughter, and one other person, who was leaning back. One man
thought it looked like old Mr. Langstaff; but, of course, it was not
he. A number of groans followed the carriage as it passed on down the
street toward the hotel. Andy’s countenance and stock both fell.
To a man like Steve Allen the sentence which appeared to wait for
him on the morrow was worse than death. He had faced death scores of
times, and would readily have done so again, on any occasion. But he
had never apprehended that a shameful sentence, however undeserved,
would be passed on him. Better, a thousand times, that he had died in
battle and lain with his comrades, who had left honorable names. He
summoned to his aid all his fortitude, and tried to soothe himself
with the knowledge that he had never committed a dishonorable act;
that the cause of his present situation was the desire to act a noble
part and save others. But do what he might, he could not keep from his
mind the feeling that, deserved or not, a conviction and sentence to
the penitentiary placed a stigma on him never to be erased. All his
high hopes would be blighted, his future ruined; he would have brought
disgrace on his family; he could never more face men as he had done
heretofore; he would not be fit to speak to a lady.
He was aware at intervals that this was a weakness, for he had moments
when he recognized that an undeserved sentence could not degrade; but
do what he might, the horror of it would come back to him. With it
was another wound. The blow had been struck by her whom he loved. The
girl whom he had given his whole heart to and whom he had thought the
truest, bravest, highest woman in all the world, to whom he had spoken
as he would not have spoken to any other man or woman, and who, he had
hoped, cared for him, had turned and betrayed him. But for her he would
be free to-morrow. He knew it himself, and his lawyers, in their last
interview with him, just over, had told him so. They would do what they
could; but the fact remained that he had confessed his part in the act
for which the prosecution was brought, and they did not see how they
could get around it. Some of them had suggested that they had a single
chance. The witness was in a condition of high excitement; and they
might, by severe cross-examination, confuse her and destroy the force
of her evidence. This Steve promptly vetoed. He would not have it done.
The lawyers gazed at him in dismay.
“My dear sir, it is your only chance.”
“I do not care, I will not have it,” said Steve, firmly. “I said it,
and I will have no cross-examination on that point.”
“That is Quixotic.”
“Then I’ll be Quixotic. I’ve been so before. Don Quixote was a
gentleman.” General Legaie’s eyes sparkled suddenly as they rested on
him.
They had left him, saying good-by with that solemnity which showed
how forlorn their hope was. As they reached the outer door and passed
across the court-green, old Mr. Bagby said, “That is really a most
extraordinary young man, and to think that such a man should be in
prison under indictment.”
The little General breathed a deep and fervent oath.
“What a pity that he could not have married that nice young lady, Miss
Welch—such a nice young lady!” proceeded Mr. Bagby, half in soliloquy.
“Marry her! Marry that woman! The viper!” exploded the General. “I’d
rather die!”
“Oh, a very nice young lady,” pursued Mr. Bagby to himself, as he
walked on, feeling his way in the darkness. He did not tell the General
that he had lately had an interview which had raised Miss Ruth Welch
in his esteem and changed her, in his mind, from the viper which the
General conceived her to be, to the nice young lady of whom he muttered
in the dusk of the summer night.
This interview with his lawyers had been over an hour ago. Steve was
still in the room in which the interview had been held; but the high
stand which he had taken with his counsel had now lost some of its
loftiness as the hardness of his position stood nakedly before him.
After all, had not this girl betrayed him? Why should he sacrifice
himself for her? This thought flitted before Steve, only for an
instant. He put it away from him with a gesture of bitterness. At least
he would be a gentleman, whatever befell. He took from his pocket a
pistol which he wore when he surrendered, and which had not been taken
from him, and examined it attentively, with a curious expression on his
face. He was thinking deeply. Suddenly his expression changed. “Never!
Cowardice!” He flung the pistol over on the cot by the window. The
reflection had come to him that it would be taken as a proof of fear
as well as of guilt. And, moreover, the thought had come that he might
still be of use.
The triumph of Leech recurred to him. He very often thought of
Leech—of Leech, who had hounded him down, and not only him, but others
a thousand times better: Dr. Cary, the high-minded, noble gentleman,
the faithful Christian. Leech, the vampire, sucking the life-blood of
the people; the harpy, battening on the writhing body of the prostrate
State, had broken Dr. Cary’s heart. Jacquelin had told Steve how
the Doctor looked as he lay in his coffin, murdered; his face full
of scars, but calm with the stamp of immortal courage—like an old
knight, paladin of a lost cause, stricken through the heart in a final
charge, before the light of victory could fade from his brow. Steve,
thinking of this, was leaning against the bars of his open window,
looking away into space through the dusk. The window was in the rear
of the jail, and looked down on a vacant, weed-grown lot, back of the
court-green. Steve became conscious of the presence of two men in the
open space beneath. They had just moved, so as to be in the shadow of
the building, and were right below his window, conversing earnestly.
Suddenly their voices rose, and Steve was almost startled to recognize
Leech and McRaffle. He could not help hearing what they were saying.
McRaffle was insisting on something, and Leech was refusing. McRaffle
broke out in a passion. He was evidently under the influence of liquor.
“You owe it to me. You said you would pay me $1,000 for him, alive or
dead,” he asserted. “I kept my part of the bargain; now, blank you!
stand up to yours.”
“If you had brought him dead, I might have paid; but you did not
capture him,” said Leech, with a harsh laugh. “He gave himself up.”
“Well, it was in consequence of the report I circulated,” insisted
McRaffle. “Do you suppose he’d have given himself up, if he had not
heard that if he did so the others would be released?”
Leech laughed incredulously. “More fool he!”
“And whose idea was that?”
“My friend, there’s no use to try that game on me. What good would that
have done, if I had not induced Miss Welch to tell what your friend was
fool enough to confide to her? Where would we have been but for her
testimony? If anyone is entitled to claim the reward I offered, I am
the man. I must protect the Government.” He spoke unctuously.
“You think you are entitled to everything. I know how you’ll protect
the Government!” sneered McRaffle. “Suppose your important witness
won’t testify?” he asked.
“She’ll sleep in jail. I’ll make Bail give her the apartment next her
friend,” said Leech, scornfully. “They’ll enjoy that.”
Leech never knew how close Death brushed by him that instant. Steve’s
pistol was lying on the bed, within a foot of him. He seized it. He
would rid the country of that cursed presence, and pay his own debt at
the same time. He had cocked the pistol involuntarily, when he came to
himself. Oh! if he only had him face to face, in an open field, both
armed, he could settle the final score! He uncocked the pistol and
flung it away from him.
“Miss Welch won’t refuse,” Leech went on, “I am smart enough to know
how to deal with women as well as men.” He laughed arrogantly.
“You think so? You are sometimes too blanked smart for your own good,”
said McRaffle.
Leech, stung by the speech, turned on him.
“I’ll put you on the stand,” he threatened.
“Not much, you won’t. I won’t testify.”
“You’re getting pretty squeamish all of a sudden,” sneered Leech.
McRaffle wheeled on him in a rage.
“Don’t you dare sneer at me that way,” he said. “If you do, I’ll——”
He seized Leech by the shoulder.
“I’ll tell how you deal with women—for instance, with Miss Bush, the
school-teacher, _alias_ Mrs. Jonadab Leech!” he hissed.
Leech seemed suddenly to shrink up.
“What do you know about—about her?”
“Put me on the stand, and I’ll tell you all you want to know,” said
McRaffle, tauntingly. “Perhaps, you don’t want me as a witness now?
Well, I’ll tell you what I’ll do. Pay me the thousand dollars, or—I
tell you—endorse my note for a thousand, and I’ll keep quiet.
Otherwise, I’ll have to get Dr. Still to endorse it, or maybe even the
Governor,” he said, meaningly.
“Well, if I do, will you swear that you will never open your mouth
again about this to a single soul on earth?”
“Make it twelve hundred,” said McRaffle. “The Governor’d give twice
that to know of Mrs. Leech. I reckon it would be some time before you’d
dine with Miss Krafton again.”
Leech seized him to stop him.
The rest of the conversation was in a lower key, and they soon
moved off together, leaving Steve still in darkness, literally and
figuratively. But he had conquered a great temptation. This reflection,
after a time, brought a feeling almost of peacefulness. He threw
himself on the bed, and began to go over his life. Presently he began
in humility to look to a Higher Power.
At that moment his door was opened, and a voice said:
“A visitor to see you, Capt’n. Will you come to the parlor?” The
messenger was the old Sergeant, O’Meara, whom Thurston had placed in
charge of the prison.
Steve, after a moment, left his cell and walked slowly through the
corridor to the apartment adjoining the jailer’s quarters, which was
dignified by the name of parlor. It was lighted by a small lamp, the
rays of which hardly reached the walls. The room was empty. But Steve
could hear from the voices that there were two persons in the next
room. He walked to the open window and waited, with his head resting
on his arm against the bars. The same reverie from which he had been
aroused returned.
The door behind him opened and closed softly.
“Captain Allen!” said a faint voice. Steve turned.
“Miss Welch!” He stood dumbfounded. Before him, with her veil only half
thrown back, was Ruth Welch. She stood just inside the door, motionless
as though planted on the spot; and, as Steve did not move, the whole
space of the room was between them. Her eyes, which she lifted for a
second to Steve’s face, fell.
“Captain Allen,” she began, and then faltered. After a second, however,
with an effort she began again.
“I have come to see you; to see—to see if there is nothing I can do
to—to help you?”
At the words, Steve’s heart hardened.
“No, thank you, there is nothing,” he said. His voice was hard and
unnatural. She made a movement, almost as if she shrank back. But she
began again, speaking very slowly and painfully:
“I do not know what to say. But I want—I want to see if there is
nothing——?” She broke off, but began again: “You don’t know how
deeply—how terribly—I——” Her voice failed her. She stopped and
wrung her hands. “Is there nothing—nothing I can do?”
Steve stood like stone. “No, nothing.”
She broke the silence that fell.
“I thought there was—there might be. I hoped—there might be. You do
not know how terribly I feel. I hoped there might be some way for me to
help you, to atone for my wicked folly. I did not know——”
Her voice failed again, and she put her handkerchief quickly to her
eyes.
Steve, up to this time, had not volunteered a word or stirred from
where he stood. His heart began to relent, and he felt that he must say
something.
“You need not reproach yourself,” he said. “I have not done so. It was
my folly, not yours.”
“Oh, no, no! I will not let you say that,” she broke out, vehemently.
“You trusted me. You have been only brave and noble. But I did not
know! I thought, when I told it, it would help you. You will believe
that, will you not?”
She came a step or two nearer in her intensity, and gazed at him
earnestly.
“Yes, if you say so,” said Steve.
“I do,” she declared, earnestly. “I thought, when they were prosecuting
you, that it would set you in the right light; and it seems that
dreadful man knew how to distort it and knew— Oh! it all seems like a
dreadful nightmare! I have done everything I could. And my father has,
too. Is there no way? Do you not know of one way in which my testimony
could not be taken?” Her voice faltered, so that Steve could scarcely
catch the words.
“No, none whatsoever.”
“Yes. There is one way. I have heard—I have been told there is one,”
she persisted, faintly.
“And what is that?” asked Steve, coldly. Suddenly she broke down.
“How can you be so hard on me—so cruel?” she sobbed.
Steve watched her, at first almost grimly; but her weeping softened him.
“Miss Welch, do not distress yourself,” he said, quietly. “There is no
way to help me; but it is not your fault. I believe what you have told
me.”
“There is one way,” she said.
“And that is?”
“To marry me.”
“What!” Steve almost tottered.
“To marry me. If you marry me, I could not be made to testify against
you. I have been told so.” She had recovered her composure and was
speaking quite calmly.
“I could not let you do that,” said Steve, firmly.
“I have come to ask you to do it,” she went on, speaking quite as
if she were but finishing her first sentence. “And afterward, you
could—get—a—a—divorce. I would go away and hide myself, and never,
never trouble you again.” Her composure deserted her, and she buried
her face in her hands. If she could have seen Steve’s face at that
moment—the sudden flame which lit it up—and the gesture which he
made, as though he would have caught her in his arms, and that with
which he restrained himself and reasserted his self-control, she might
not have wept. But she did not see it, and Steve was able to master
himself, though when he spoke his voice had wholly changed.
“I could not do that,” he said, gently, and with a new tone. “I could
not allow you to sacrifice yourself.”
“It would not be— Yes, you can,” she pleaded.
“No,” said Steve, almost sternly. “Do not, I beg you.” He lifted his
hand as though to put her from him; but suddenly clutched at his heart.
She stopped sobbing. He turned half-away.
“Go,” he said. “Leave me, please.”
His voice could scarcely be heard, and he put his hand to his forehead.
She turned without a word, and moved slowly toward the door. As she put
out her hand to open it, she suddenly sank in a heap on the floor. In a
second Steve was at her side. He stooped and lifted her, as though she
were a child.
“Ruth,” he said; and, as she opened her eyes, “forgive me.” He caught
the hem of her dress and crushed it against his lips. “I could not let
you do that. I could not let you sacrifice yourself.”
“It is no sacrifice. Do you not see? Oh! Can you not see
that—I—love——?” She could not complete the sentence. Her head
drooped.
“What! Ruth!” Steve stood her up on her feet and held her at arm’s
length. “Ruth Welch, for God’s sake do not tell me that unless it is
true.” His eyes were burning, and were fastened on her face with a gaze
that seemed almost to scorch her.
“It is true,” she said, in a low voice, and tried to turn her face
away. Steve did not stir.
“Wait,” he said, hoarsely. “Does your mother know of this?”
“Yes.” She was looking in his eyes now quite calmly.
“Where is she?”
“In the next room.”
Steve suddenly caught her in his arms.
[Illustration: AND THERE, IN THE LITTLE PARLOR, STEVE AND RUTH WERE
MARRIED.]
A little later Mrs. Welch and Steve had an interview. Steve told her
that while he had loved her daughter better than his life, ever since
the day he had met her, and while the knowledge that she cared for
him had changed the world for him, that very fact would not permit
him to let her take the step she proposed. He would not allow her
to sacrifice herself by marrying him when under a criminal charge,
and with a sentence staring him in the face. Mrs. Welch adroitly met
this objection with the plausible argument that it was as much on her
daughter’s account as on his that she desired it. She spoke for her
husband as well as for herself. It would prevent the horror of her
daughter’s having to appear, and give testimony against him, in open
court. She did not believe Ruth could stand the ordeal. She knew she
would not testify, even though she should be sent to jail and kept
there. This Ruth stoutly confirmed. She would die before she would
answer a question.
Mrs. Welch, having come over to Steve’s side, was a powerful ally; and
as Ruth resolutely maintained her position that she would die in prison
before she would utter one word, there was nothing else for Steve to do
but yield to their proposal. He raised the point that it was too late,
as it was now midnight, and no license could be secured or clergyman
be found. But Mrs. Welch was prepared to meet this objection. Captain
Thurston had authority under the law to issue the license, and a
preacher could be secured. Indeed, Mr. Langstaff had come down to the
county seat with them.
So in a short time these preliminaries were settled. A few friends were
brought in quietly: General Legaie, who knelt on one knee and lifting
Ruth’s hand kissed it reverently; Mr. Bagby, whose eyes twinkled with
deep satisfaction over a double victory; Reely Thurston and Jacquelin
Gray, and Andy Stamper who had got wind of the matter and asked
permission to come. And there in the little dingy room, in the presence
of these and of Major and Mrs. Welch, Steve Allen and Ruth Welch were
married at midnight by old Mr. Langstaff.