"In one particular matter," said she slowly, at last. "It seems to me a woman should be stubborn. She should have her own say about the man she is to marry."
"How much time have you had to decide on this?"
"Plenty. Twenty-four hours, or a little less--no, I"ll say twenty minutes. Plenty. Uncle--he kissed me--before the world. I can"t take it back--we have given--I have promised. Uncle, I have promised--well, all through me."
"Stop where you are!" said he. "Have you disgraced us all so soon? Has it gone so far? However that is, you shall go no further."
He rose, his fingers on the table-top, rapping in emphasis.
"My dear," he said, "I am older than you, and I have seen the world more than you have. I recognize fully enough the dynamic quality of what you call love--what I call merely s.e.x in younger human beings. It is a thing of extreme seriousness, that"s true. But the surest thing about all that sort of thing is that it changes, it pa.s.ses. You will forget all this."
"You do me much honor!" said Anne Oglesby, coloring. "You speak with much delicacy. But love me, love my lover."
The swift resistance of a strong nature seemed suddenly to flash out at Judge Henderson from her gray eyes. Suddenly he turned and took her arm.
He escorted her to the inner room, which served as his own study and consultation chambers.
"Come here," said he. "Well have to talk this thing over quietly. This is a terrible matter--you don"t know how terrible. There"s a lot under this that you don"t know at all. Anne, my dear girl, what can I say to you to alter you in this foolish resolve?"
"Nothing! I"m going to see his mother this very afternoon. He told me to come, so I could meet his mother----"
"You"re going to do nothing of the kind!" said Judge Henderson in sudden anger. "You"re going to stay here and listen to reason, that"s what you"re going to do! You undertake to go into a situation which reaches wider than this town, wider than this state, do you? It is your duty, then, to prevent me from _my_ duty? Are you so selfish, so egotistic as all that?"
She smiled at him amusedly, cynically, a wide and frank smile, which irritated him unspeakably. He frowned.
"It is time now for you to reflect. First--as you say--this young man has no father. His mother----"
He paused suddenly, his pallid face working strangely now. The shrill summons of the telephone close at his hand as he sat had caused him to start, but it was with relief. He took down the receiver and placed his hand for the moment over the mouthpiece.
"Aurora Lane--you don"t know about her?" he began.
Then she saw a sudden change of expression which pa.s.sed over his face.
"Yes--yes," he said, into the telephone. "The jury has brought in its verdict? _What"s that?_----"
The phone dropped clattering from his hand on the desk, so shaking and uncertain was his grasp. He turned to his ward slowly.
"You don"t know!" said he. "You don"t know what that was I have just heard this moment! Well, I"ll tell you. Dieudonne Lane has been held to the grand jury--while we"ve been sitting here. They"ve charged him with the murder of Tarbush, the city marshal. My G.o.d! Anne----"
It seemed an hour to both before she spoke. Her face, first flushed, then pale, became set and cold as she looked toward the man who brought this news. Once she flinched; then pulled together. But yesterday a girl, this hour a young woman, now she was all at once mature, resolved.
"You heard me, did you not?" he went on, his voice rising.
"Charged--with murder! No one in the world knew he was alive--no one but you, and you never told me of him--no one ever dreamed of him till the last twenty-four hours, when he came blundering in here--out of his grave, I say! And in twenty-four hours he has made his record here--and _this_ is his record. Do you know what this means? He may not come through--I want to say the chances look bad for him, very bad indeed."
Judge Henderson"s smooth face showed more agitation than ever it had in all his life before.
"Uncle," she said, after a long time, reaching out a hand to him, "now is your opportunity!"
"What do you mean? _My_ opportunity? It"s--it"s a terrible thing--you don"t know."
"Yes, yes. But you say you have been in the place of a parent to me.
That"s true--I owe you much--you have been good--you have been kind. Be good, be kind now! Oh, don"t you see what is your duty? Now you can use your learning, your wisdom, your oratory. You can save Don--for me.
You"re my parent--can"t you be his, too? We"re both orphans--can"t you be a father for us both? Of _course_ you will defend him. He hasn"t much. He couldn"t pay you now. But I have money--you"ve just told me that I have.
"Oh, no, I don"t mean that, about the money--but listen," she went on, since he made no reply. "Do you think _I"d_ desert him now that he"s in trouble? Do you think any woman of my family would do that? We"re not so low, I trust, either of us, either side. You are not so low as that, I trust, yourself. Why, you"d not desert anyone, surely not an orphan boy, just starting out--you"d never in the world do that, I know."
In answer he smoothed out before her on the desk top the crumpled paper he had held in his hand.
"This," said he, "was brought to me just before you came in yourself.
Before you told me of this affair, I was retained by the state"s attorney to a.s.sist in the prosecution of the perpetrator of this crime, _whoever he might be_. I must say it is one of the most terrible crimes ever known in this community. The man who did it must pa.s.s from among his fellow men forever. It is my duty to accept this retainer for the prosecution, as I have done----"
"What--as you _have_ done?--You"d help prosecute him--you"d help send him to the gallows, if you could--as innocent as he is? You--you--and he has no one to counsel with--only a poor woman, a widow, who"s never had a chance--he an orphan, without a friend! You"d do _that_?"
His large white hand was raised restrainingly. "We must both be calm,"
said he. "I"ve got to think."
"Why, where will Don go--where will they put him?"
"He will go to jail, and be there until the grand jury meets--longer than that, perhaps--and yet longer, if the trial judge and jury bring a verdict against him!"
"But that"s taking him away from me--right now--that"s not right!--Can"t he get out?"
"He might perhaps be released on bail if the bail were large enough, but the crime is the maximum crime, and the suspicion is most severe. I don"t know what means he can command, but he needs counsel now.
"But one thing, Anne," he added, "I forbid you. You must have nothing to do with him. Keep away from him. Go home, and don"t meddle in this case.
It must take its course."
"I would follow him to the foot of the gallows, if need be, Judge Henderson!" broke out Anne Oglesby in a sudden flare of pa.s.sionate anger. "Ah, fine!--to give your word, your promise--to give your love, and then within an hour forget it all--to leave the one you love when the trouble comes! Is that all one gains--is that all one may expect--is that all a woman ought to do for the man she loves? Is that all she ought to expect from a man? Suppose it were I in trouble--would _he_ forget me? Would _he_ forsake me? Then shall I? You don"t know me if you think that of me!
"You don"t know me at all," she blazed on at him, as he turned away.
"I"ve tried to reason. Whatever my success at that, the answer"s in my own heart now." (Her heart, now beating so fast under the heaving bosom on which both her hands were clasped.)
"And you forget me? I--I"m in trouble now--it"s awful--it"s a terrible trouble that I"m in now." Judge Henderson"s voice was trembling, his face was pale.
"You--in what way am I bound to you? Trouble--what do you mean? Why, listen!--All your life you have lived with just one aim and purpose and ambition in your heart--and that was yourself! Your own ambition--your own pleasure, your own comfort--those were the things that have controlled you always--don"t I know, haven"t I heard? You"ve been a very leech in this town--you have taken _all_ the success in it--_all_ the success of everybody, from _all_ its people--and used it for yourself!
It has been so common to you--you are so used to it--that you can"t think of anything else--you can"t visualize anything else. You think of yourself as the source and center of all good--you can"t help that--that"s your nature. So I suppose you think you are altogether within your rights when you tell me that I must wreck and ruin my own life to save you and your ambition! Why, you are--you"re a _sponge_--that"s what you are--you are just soaking in _all_ the happiness of others--_all_ the success of others, I tell you--taking it _all_ for yourself. "Our most prominent citizen!" Great G.o.d! But what has it cost this community to produce you--what are you asking it to cost me and those I love? Drops in the same bucket? Food for you and your ambition? Do you think I am going to stand that, when it comes to me--me and him--the man I have promised--the man I love? You don"t know me! You don"t know him! We"ll fight!"
He sat, so astounded at this sudden outburst--the first thing of the kind he had ever heard from any human being in all his life--that for the time he could make no reply at all. She went on bitterly now:
"Men like you, sponges like yourself, have made what they call success in all the ages of the world--yes, that"s true. Great kings, great cardinals, great politicians, great business men, great thieves have made that kind of a success, that"s true enough--I"ve read about them, yes. Men of that sort--Judge Henderson--sometimes they stop at nothing.
They"d betray their very own. I"m not your blood, but if I were, I"d not trust you! Men like you are so absorbed with their own vanity, their own selfishness--they"re so used to having everything given to them without exertion, without cost, they grow regardless of what that cost may be to the ones that do the giving. In time they begin to think themselves apart from the rest of the world--don"t you think that about yourself now? Oh, are you better than the world? Or are you just a man, like the rest of them? Didn"t you ever know--didn"t you ever kiss a woman in all your life and know what that meant?"
He had sat, his shocked face turned toward her, too stunned for answer.
But she saw him start as though under the blow of a dagger at her last words.
"Don"t think this hasn"t hurt," said she, more composedly now. "It"s the truth as far as I know it. With your power, your influence, you could get him free--soon--very soon--perhaps. You could make us both happy.
But, so you say, that would make _you_ unhappy! I know you well enough to know what the decision will be in a case like that, Judge Henderson!
"As for me--" she was closer to him now, utterly fearless, as a woman is who loves and sees the object of her love threatened--"our paths part here, now! I"m of age and my own mistress. I know my own mind, as I"ve told you. I"m going to stay--I"m going to stick--do you hear? I"m going to love him long as he lives. I"m going to _marry_ him, if it"s in a jail!"
Judge Henderson only began to wag his head now from side to side. His face had gone ghastly.