"I don"t know, but all that can be done now for him you can do. I"ve nowhere else to go. It wasn"t easy for me to come here, but I"d make any sacrifice for my boy."
"Sacrifices are at a discount in a lawyer"s office. I don"t ask you to reconsider your decision, as to me--as to me as your husband. But speaking of sacrifices, I only point out to you that so far as I"m concerned as a lawyer in this town, I might as well be your husband or your lover as your lawyer of record in this case! Since the trial yesterday, and my walk home with you last night, there"ll be plenty who"ll think so anyway. I may be held as a man worse than I ever was--and neither of us gain by that."
"That may be so," said she, bending her face forward in her hands. "G.o.d!
What a trial, what a risk, what a peril I am to myself and everyone I meet! I"ve brought loss, suspicion, wrong on you--you who"re n.o.ble! And after twenty years----"
"Yes, Aurora. Twenty years outlaws a claim in the law--for men--but not for women. Now, I take on those twenty years of yours when I take on this case. I"m clear about that. I can see this thing straight enough.
This town will go into two camps. Ours is the hopeless one, as things stand now. We are the under dog. If I took this case--maybe even if I won it--I"d be hated by the men and snubbed by the women of this town.
Now, I see all that clearly. And speaking of pay----"
"Oh, if you would," she exclaimed, leaning toward him, her hands extended, "I"d do anything you asked me. Do you understand that--_anything_!"
She paused. In the silence the little clock on the mantel ticked so loud it seemed almost to burst the walls. He sat for a long time motionless, and she went on, leaning yet more toward him.
"I"ve thought it all over again," she said desperately. "I"d--I"d begin it again--I"d do anything--I"d do _anything_ you asked me----Why, I"ve nothing--nothing--oh, so little to give! But--as to what you said last night--I"ve thought of that. I"m ready--what is it that you wish?"
He looked at her dumbly for a long time, and she thought it was in condemnation. For almost the first time she voiced in her life--continually on the defensive.
"I don"t understand it all," said she. "I"ve tried very hard since then.
I was so young. I didn"t know much at first--I didn"t feel that it was all so wrong--I didn"t know much of anything at all, don"t you see?"
Now he raised his great hand, his lips trembling. "Just wait a bit, my dear," said he. "We"ll take what you"ve said as proof of your love for your own son. We"ll let it stop right there, please. We"ll forget what happened last night at your broken gate--we"ll forget what"s happened just now inside my broken gate. I told you if I ever married you I"d do it on such a basis that I could look you in the face, and you could me.
That"s the only way, Aurora. There"s not any other way. I reckon I"ll always love you--but only on the square."
"But what can we do--you refuse to help us--and the boy"s innocent!"
"Wait, my dear," said he slowly. "I"ve not a woman"s wit, so I can"t leap on quite so fast as you do. A lawyer reads word by word. I"m still in the preliminaries, not even into the argument of this case yet."
"But you have refused--you have said it meant ruin to you--I know--I mean that to everyone."
"You"ve meant a great deal more than that to me, my dear," said Horace Brooks, "and no matter what you mean--no matter what my decision may do to my future--no matter what it may cost me in my larger ambitions, which I entertain, or once did, the same as any other man here in America--why, let it go."
"But what are you going to do? I"m costing you everything, everything--and I can give you nothing, nothing--and I"m asking still of you everything, everything."
"Tut, tut! Aurora," said Horace Brooks, "I"m going to take this case--for better or for worse! Didn"t I tell you I wanted to stand between you and trouble--any trouble? A man likes to do things for a woman--for the woman he loves."
She sat for a long time, white, motionless, looking at him.
"The pay----" she began stumblingly.
"I"d rather not hear you say anything about that," he replied simply.
"You did not say anything at all. This is the _office_ of Horace Brooks, attorney at law. As I understand it, I"m duly retained for the defense in the case of the state against Dieudonne Lane, charged with murder."
The blood came pouring back into Aurora Lane"s face as she straightened.
"You are a good man," said she. "I always knew it. I----"
He raised a hand once more. "These are business hours," said he, "and believe me, no time is left for anyone to do anything but work on this case."
"He"s innocent, of course. He couldn"t have done this--who was it, do you think?"
"Oh, now, I don"t _know_ who it was. It may have been Don himself. All men are human. A lawyer has to look all the facts in any case square in the face."
"But, my G.o.d! You can"t think--you don"t believe----"
"Please let me act as attorney. Now, I"m to blame in a sort of way in this case. I started a good deal of this trouble. I gave your boy the advice which threw him in jail--when I told him to thrash any man who said a word against his mother--you. He"s made a certain threat or two.
He"s been found in very compromising circ.u.mstances indeed. The case looks bad against him. Yes, he needs a lawyer--but he"s got one! We"ll fight it through. You see," and he smiled again his wide and winning smile, "all my life, I"ve had a sort of leaning for the under dog.
"Now," said he, abruptly rising, "I"m in this case, and I"m going to take my chances. I"ve lost my chances on the Senatorship of the United States. I"ve kept my promise to Henderson and I"ve sent word to our central committee. I"m the under dog. But before all this is over, the people of Spring Valley are going to know there are two sides to this fight--and all these fights!
"Now, listen, Aurora," he went on in his careless paternal fashion, as he walked, his great head drooped, his hands thrust into his pockets.
"Figure it over. Last night we three walked home together--before them all. Everybody saw us. Everybody saw Tarbush. It can be proved that Don left us and went over, following after Tarbush. It can be proved that he was seen running away from that place--at just the wrong time--in just the wrong way."
"But it was someone else who killed him--it wasn"t my boy----"
"You can"t convince a jury by a.s.sertions. If it was not this man, they will ask, Who was it? Who was the other man, and why do you think so?
Now, who _was_ that other man, Aurora?"
"I don"t know."
"Neither do I. But we"ve got to find him. There"s no trace of him. But as for Don, the boy, it"s a trail, a plain one, and it leads----" He threw out his hands widely, as though reluctant to name the truth.
"But," he went on, "if he isn"t guilty someone else is guilty. Under this criminal act in all its phases there lies some cause, of course--there is some criminal, of course. There has been crime committed, a very beastly, brutal sort of crime, almost inhuman--and that was done by some man. If I could put my hand on that man, why then----"
"It would mean life and happiness to me. It would mean satisfaction to you?"
"More than that," he smiled. "It would mean the life of your boy--many years yet for you and him together--once I"d have said maybe it might mean six years in the United States Senate for me. I don"t know--I can"t tell. The chances now are rather that even if I clear the boy, it means I"ll have to close up this office and go somewhere else to hunt a law practice. But we"ll take our chances."
"You are a great man, Horace Brooks," said Aurora Lane; and there was a sort of reverence in her tone. "Even after what has been between us, I can say that. Oh, I so much like--I so much admire a man who is not afraid, and who doesn"t parley and weigh and d.i.c.ker with himself when it comes to any hard decision. I like a brave man, a good man. You"ll understand."
He raised a hand, a large hand, nervous, full-veined, gnarled, awkward, a hand never in all his life to be freed from toil"s indelible imprint.
"Please don"t," said he.
"But how can I say what I want?" said she. "I"ve always wanted to pay all my debts--that"s to make up for all my faults, don"t you see? I must be scrupulous--because----"
"Yes," said he, "I see. I"ve seen that for more than twenty years, ever since I"ve known you. Because that"s true of you, and is true of so few women, so very few, is why I wished last night--that you were a widow!
"Now, that"s about all. When you _wish_ that you could pay this debt--which isn"t any debt so far--you"ve paid it, so far as I"m concerned. It is the _wish_ to pay your debts that amounts to moral principle--and to business success too--in this world.
"And so," he laughed again his great resounding laugh, and thrust out his hand toward her, "I reckon you can call yourself something of a business success tonight after all. Now go home, and see that you sleep."
CHAPTER XVII
AT CHURCH