Then sobs, deep, convulsive.
Came sudden rustling of garments in the adjoining room. The intervening door was flung wide. Anne Oglesby, her face pale, tense, came out into the room where stood these two.
"What is this?" she demanded of Judge Henderson. "This is Mrs. Lane?
_Don"s your son?_"
She turned to Aurora inquiringly.
"I have heard--I could not help hearing. His father! Don told me his father was dead. What"s all this? Tell me!"
For a moment they stood apart, three individuals only. Then, slowly, with subtle affiliation of s.e.x, the women drew together, allied against the man.
It was Anne who again was first to speak. Her voice was high, clear, cold as ice, with a patrician note which came from somewhere out of the past.
"Let me have all this quite plain," said she. "Mrs. Lane said "flesh and blood!" Mrs. Lane said "_your own son!_" I heard her. What does it mean?"
"This is what it means!" said Aurora Lane, suddenly drawing Anne to her closely, after her one swift glance. "My boy"s in jail. This--this man--Judge Henderson--is his father. He says he"s hired to murder him--and he"s our child."
"I didn"t know!" broke out Judge Henderson, now facing both his hearers.
"I never knew! You said he was dead--you told me so. It"s all half a lifetime ago. I"ve had nothing to do with you, nor you with me, since we broke off more than twenty years ago. That was as you wished. G.o.d! I was only a man. You _said_ the child died."
"Yes," said Aurora Lane, turning to Anne; "that"s true--I did. I told that one lie to protect the boy. I sent him away when he was a baby to protect him. I said he was dead--to protect him--to keep him from ever knowing. But you know--you saw him--you _felt_ it--you must have known, yesterday." She confronted the trembling man once more.
"Yesterday?" said Anne Oglesby.
"Yes. There was another trial then--and Judge Henderson prosecuted then also!" She turned again to him for his answer.
"I dropped the case."
"You dropped it because you were paid to drop it! You traded another man out of his own life"s ambition--a better man than you are--that"s what you did when you dropped the case. There"s nothing more to trade--we"ve nothing more to pay--but how can you prosecute him--now--when his very life"s at stake--when he"s charged with murder? The punishment"s death!
You"d send him to the gallows now--my boy--and yours? You didn"t know him then! Is it likely? Don"t lie about it--if you didn"t know him, _why_ didn"t you? Were you so busy looking at your own picture on the wall--so wrapped up in your own ambitions, that you couldn"t see anything else? Couldn"t you see your own flesh and blood--and mine?
What"s twenty years? Haven"t I lived them, and wouldn"t I know him--didn"t I--when I saw him? You Judas!"
Motionless, she stood looking at the speechless man before her, until she felt the closer drawing to her of the tall young beauty at her side.
"And you"re Anne?" she said, turning to the girl, her own large dark eyes now soft. "I know. He loves you, Don. Has he said good-by to you?
Has he said he wasn"t worthy of you, because he had--no father? _This_ is his father--Don"s father--Judge William Henderson. He"ll not deny it.
I told Don he mustn"t think of you--of all women in the world--just because you are so close to Judge Henderson--Don"s father.
"Now you see why I told my boy that lie--I didn"t want him ever to know his father--yes, I"d told him his father was dead. And I don"t want to seem a worse liar to my own boy--I"ve been bad enough, the way it is."
She felt Anne Oglesby"s arm draw her closer yet, felt the soft warm body of the girl against her own.
"I make only trouble," said Aurora, murmuring. "And you--you"re so beautiful. I don"t blame him."
"I love him, too!" said Anne Oglesby steadily. "I"m not going to give him up."
Aurora Lane"s tears came then.
"You--you two women--" gasped Judge Henderson--"do you know what you"re doing here? Do you think I don"t suffer, too?" Then Anne saw that every accusation Aurora Lane had made was true and more than true.
"About that trial yesterday"--he turned to Aurora--"I _did_ have some sort of superst.i.tious feeling--I own that--I couldn"t account for it--I couldn"t explain it. But you had a.s.sured me that your--our--er--the child--had died in infancy. I thought--I hoped it was only my own guilty conscience making me see things. I--I _have_ had a conscience. But I knew nothing--we"d not met for years."
"That"s all true," said Aurora to Anne, nodding toward Judge Henderson.
"I"ve scarce spoken more than twenty words to him in twenty years. I"ve kept the secret, and carried the blame. Until yesterday Don never knew about himself--about his having no father. He hasn"t a guess even now who his father was--or is--at least he"ll never make the right guess. No one has, no one ever will. They may wrong another man, but they"ll not suspect the right one."
She felt the strong young arm of Anne still about her, and so went on, nodding again toward Judge Henderson--"I asked him to defend his own son--you heard me, then? And he"s told me he"s hired to hang his son!
And I called him "Judas." And I pray G.o.d to sink him in h.e.l.l if he does this work. After all, there must be a h.e.l.l somewhere--I think there must be. This is not right--it"s not right! I"ve stood it all till now, but I can"t stand this."
"Wait!" exclaimed Judge Henderson. "Give me time to think, I tell you!
My whole life"s up on this, as well as yours. You"ve had twenty years to think about this, and I"ve not had that many minutes. You and I"ve not met, I say--our paths have lain totally apart. It was in the past--we"d lived it down."
"_We_ had lived it down!" Aurora Lane"s laugh was bitter enough, and she made no other comment.
Still she felt, closer and closer, the warm young body of the girl who stood by her as the two women faced the man in the ancient and undying battle of s.e.x.
"Well, I dropped that case," resumed Judge Henderson, "name or claim the reason as you like. But _this_ case is different----"
"Why?" asked Anne Oglesby. "What"s the difference between the two cases?
You say you didn"t know, then. Now you know."
"But I"ve my reputation to keep clean, Anne! The higher you climb, the riskier the ladder. I could drop that little case yesterday, but let me drop _this_ case, with all the whole town back of it--and all my whole political party back of it, too--that"s another matter!"
"Is it, indeed!"
"Yes!" he rasped. "I put Judge Reeves on the bench here. It"s a big case. If I withdrew a second time--if things got stirred up and people began to talk--why, that would be enough to put Old Hod Brooks on the scent. He"d well enough take care of all the rest! It would be the end of my career--in twenty minutes. There"d be nothing left of my chances--there"d be nothing left of my reputation--the work of twenty years would be undone. I"d be ruined!"
"The work of twenty years!" whispered Aurora Lane to herself. "Twenty years! And--ruin!" Her voice rose again. "What about us others? You"re talking about yourself, your reputation, your success--how about Don?
His _life"s_ at stake. So is mine--I"d not survive it if they killed my boy."
"What"s he to you, anyhow?" broke out Judge Henderson--"this man Brooks?
Are you in any conspiracy of his? What"s under this? What"s he to you?
Was he ever--has he ever----"
"Stop!" said Aurora Lane, her voice sharp, her face cameo-cold. "Not another word!" And even the sullen and distracted soul of the man before her acknowledged the imperative command. "You traded him out of his place. You"re trying to trade now in your own son"s life! Is that--can that really be true of any man?"
"Don"t bait me too far!" he rejoined savagely. "Don"t you go on now and drive me into fighting these charges."
"I don"t think you would, Uncle," said the calm voice of Anne Oglesby.
"I don"t think you would.
"So this," she added softly, "is what my guardian was! _In loco parentis!_"
The man before her writhed in his own bitter suffering, flinging out his hands imploringly under the lash of her words.
"Anne! Anne!"--Aurora turned to the girl at her side--"I wish all this might have been spared you. You"re so young! But it all had to come out some time, I suppose, and I"d rather have you learn it from me than from Don. You"ve not seen him--he has not told you?"
"No. We only had a moment--not alone--just a little while ago. They took him away--I didn"t know why, till just now. We"ve just heard what the coroner"s jury said. But I"ll not leave him till he tells me, to, and only then if he says he doesn"t love me."