The Broken Gate: A Novel

"Anne! What made you come?"

The sheriff stepped within the door at the side of Anne Oglesby. "I'd stay about ten minutes or so if I was you," said he, and tried to look unconscious and impersonal.

Don Lane rose now, but stood still apart.

"Why do you say that, Don?" asked Anne, stepping closer to him. "Didn't you know I'd come?"

She reached out her hands to him, and he caught both of them in his.

"I ought to have known you would," said he, "and I know you oughtn't to. It makes it very hard. I said good-by to you—this morning—today."

"Won't you kiss me—again, Don?" asked Anne Oglesby.

He kissed her again, his face white.

"It's hard to know you for so little a while," said he, his young face drawn, his voice trembling—"awfully hard. What time there's left to me—I'll have it all to remember you. But we must never meet after this. It's over."

"Don, if I thought it was all over, do you suppose I'd let you kiss me now?"

"It's like heaven," said he. "It's all I'll have to remember."

"A long time, Don—a very long time!"

"I can't tell. They are not apt to lose much time with my case. The only crime of my life was in ever lifting my eyes to you, Anne. Oh, you know I'd never have done that if I had known—what I found out yesterday. But then I've said good-by to you."

"I didn't say good-by, Don!"

He half raised a hand, shaking his head sadly. "You must forget me, no matter what happens—no matter whether I am cleared or not. I'll never be the coward to ask you to remember me—that wouldn't be right. I'm beyond all hope, whichever way it goes."

"I've come tonight, Don," said she, quietly, "to see about your lawyer."

He half laughed. "There'll be small need for one, and if there were I've got no funds. It will take a lot of money."

"Well, what of that? I've got a lot of money. My guardian told me so today. I'm worth somewhere between a quarter and a half million dollars anyway—I'm not rich—but that would help us."

He laughed at this harshly. "I didn't know you had any money at all. And you think I'd be coward enough to take your money to get out of here—after what I have learned about myself since yesterday? Do you suppose I'd take my life from you—such a life as it's got to be now?"

"What do you mean, Don?—you won't let me go, will you? You don't mean——" She stepped toward him, in sudden terror of his resolution. "Why, Don!"

"Yes, yes. I spent all the afternoon here alone trying to think. Well, I won't compromise. I never meant to pull you into this—I'll not let you be dragged into it by your own great-heartedness. But, Anne, Anne, dearest, dearest, surely you know that when I spoke to you yesterday I didn't know what I know today! I thought I had a father. You know I'd not deceive you—you do know that?"

There was a shuffle on the stone floor of the cell. Sheriff Cowles, coughing loudly, was turning away from them. A moment later the door closed behind him. "Ha-hum!" said he to himself outside the door. "Oh, hell! I wish't I wasn't sher'ff."

They were alone. With the door closed the cell was dark, save for the twilight filtering through the barred windows high up along the wall.

Anne came closer to him and put her hands upon his shoulders. "Oh, Don," said she, "it's hard, awfully hard, isn't it, to start with such a handicap? But when did all the men in the world start even? And is it always the one who starts first that finishes best? Don, you played the game in college—so did I—we've both got to play the game now! We'll have to take our handicap. But you mustn't talk about sending me away. I can't stand everything. Oh, don't! I can't stand that!" Her voice was choking now. She was sobbing, striving not to do so.

He caught her wrists in his hands, as her hands still lay upon his shoulders; but he did not draw her to him.

"Anne," said he, "the time comes in every man's life for him to die. I heard once about a man who could not swim and who saw his wife drown in the stream by him, almost at his side. He ran along and shouted, and said he could not swim. Well, he lived. The woman died. Suppose that had been our case. If we both went down together, it wouldn't be so bad, perhaps. But I'll not have my life as that sort of a gift."

"You won't let me help you, Don?"

"No! I won't let you have anything to do with me! I'll never allow your name to come on my lips, and you must never think of mentioning mine! Only—Anne, Anne—surely you don't think I had any idea before yesterday—about my father? I wouldn't buy my own happiness at that price. I'm no one's son. I'm dead, and doubly dead. But I never knew."

"No," said she, "I know you did not—I know you would not."

They both were so young, as they talked on now, wisely, soberly.

"So you are free," he said, casting away her hands from him, and standing back. "You never were anything but free."

"I'll never be free again, Don," said she, shaking her head. "You kissed me! I'm not a girl any more—I'm a woman now. I can't go back. And now you tell me to go away! Don't you love me, Don? Why, I love you—so much!"

"My God, don't!" he groaned. "Don't! I can't stand everything. But I can't take anything but the best and truest sort of love."

"Isn't mine?"

"No. It's pity, maybe—I can't tell. This is no place for us to talk of that now. You must go away. I hope you will forget you ever saw me. I don't even know my father's name—I don't know whether he is living—I don't know anything! I have been walled in all my life—I'm walled in now. I never ought to have touched even the hem of your garment, for I wasn't fit. But I couldn't help it."

"That's the trouble," said Anne. "I can't help it, either."

"Ah!" he half groaned, "you ought to be kept from yourself."

"Kept from myself, Don? If that were true of all the women in the world, how much world would there be left? That's why I'm here—why, Don, I had to come!"

"Anne! It can't be. It's only cruel for you to tear me up by coming here—by staying here—by standing here. I love you! Anne! Anne! I don't see how it could be hard as this for any man to part from any woman." He was trembling through all his strong frame now.

"But we promised!"

"The law says that a promise is such only when two minds meet. Our minds never met—I didn't know the facts—you didn't know about me—we have just found out about it now."

"Our minds didn't meet?" said Anne Oglesby. "Our minds? Did not our hearts meet—don't they meet now—and isn't that what it all means between a man and a woman?"

He stood, trembling, apart from her in the twilight.

"Don't!" he whispered. "I love you! I will love you all my life! You must go away. Oh, go now, go quickly!"

A merciful footfall sounded on the stone floor of the outer hall. The door opened, letting in a shaft of light with it. Cowles stood hesitating, looking at the two young people, still separated, standing wretchedly.

"I hate to say anything," said the sheriff, "but I reckon——"

"She must go," said Don Lane. "Take her away. Good-by—Anne! Anne! Oh, good-by!"

"Won't you kiss me, Don?" said Anne Oglesby—"when I love you so much?"

There were four tears, two great, sudden drops from each eye, that sprang now on Dan Cowles' wrinkled, sunburned cheeks.

But Don Lane had cast himself down once more on the pallet and was trying with all his power to be silent until after she had gone.

"In some ways," said Dan Cowles to his wife later that night, "he's got me guessing, that young fellow. He don't act like no murderer to me. But since she left, and since all this here happened, he's wild—Lord! he's wild!"

THE MOB

Anne Oglesby left the jail shortly after the time when church services were ending. As she hurried by Aurora Lane's house in Mulberry Street she saw a light shining from the windows, but she did not enter—she could not have spoken to anyone now.

She evaded any meeting with her guardian after she had made her way back home. Judge Henderson had not known of her absence and was not aware of her return. Anne thus by a certain period of time missed seeing what Dan Cowles presently saw.

It was noticeable that Sabbath day that more than the usual number of farmers' wagons remained in town, quite past the time when the country church members usually started back for their homes. The farmers seemed to be in no hurry, even although they had seen a double church service. There was something restless, something vague, disturbing, over the town. A number of townsmen also seemed impelled to walk back toward the public square. Some strange indefinite summons drew them thither. Little knots of men stood here and there. Groups of women gathered at this or that gallery front.

No one knows the point where in vague public thought a general resolution actually begins. The ripple in the pool spreads widely when a stone is cast. What chance word, or what deliberate resolve, may have started the slowly growing resolution of Spring Valley may not be known; but now a sort of stealthy silence fell over the village as groups gathered here and there, speaking cautiously, in low tones.

A knot of men stood near the corner of the square looking down the street to the light which shone red from the shaded window of Aurora Lane.

"I know what was done right in this here town thirty year ago," said one high pitched voice. "It was old Eph Adamson's father that led them, too. Them was days when——"

"Why ain't Eph in town today?" asked another voice. "I seen considerable of his neighbors around in town today."

"He was, a while back," said someone.

"That must have been about a hour ago," said some other, looking about furtively at the faces of his neighbors.

"Let's take a stroll over towards the open lots near the jail," suggested someone else.

So, following the first to start with definite purpose, little straggling groups passed on beyond the corner of the square, beyond the jail itself, to a sort of open space not yet encroached upon by public or private buildings.

There was no shouting, no loud talking. The light was dim. The crowd itself moved vaguely, milling about, like cattle restive and ready to stampede, but not yet determined on their course.

"God! Did you hear that music this afternoon—they're done a-buryin' poor old Joel Tarbush by now, but I can hear it yet, seems to me! Now, what had poor old Joel ever done—all his life—to deserve bein' murdered like a dog? It makes my blood sort of rise up to think of that. Now, them that done that—them that was back of that——"

His friend, accosted, nodded grimly, his mouth was shut tight and turned down deep at the corners.

There did not lack one or two willing at least to talk further. One was a young man, rather well dressed, apparently fresh from church. He spoke to any who would listen.

"What I mean to say, men, is this," said he, "we've got to do something to clean up this town. It's the people that's behind the law anyhow. Am I right?"

"He talks like a lawyer—what he says is pretty true," said one farmer to another.

"That was a strong sermon our minister preached tonight," said yet another. "He said we'd have to stamp out crime and make a warnin'. The preacher e'en—a'most pointed out what we ought to do."

"... We'd ought to make a clean sweep of this whole family," said the same young man, more boldly now. "They're a bad lot—both her son and her."

"... We could break into the jail easy," said someone, after a time. "Cowles couldn't keep us from it. Maybe he wouldn't want to."

"... The trouble is," resumed the voice of the young man who had earlier spoken, "it's hard to make a law case stick. We've seen how that worked out in the trial yesterday—he came clear—they dropped the case, and nothing was done. Old Eph Adamson had to take all the medicine. But we ought to take our place as a law-abiding community—I've always said that."

"And God-fearin'," said a devout voice.

"Yes, a God-fearing community! It's been twenty years now that that woman has flaunted her vice in the face of this community."

"Ain't a man in this town that don't know about her—it's just sort o' quieted down, that's all," said a gray-bearded, peak-chinned man grimly; which was more or less true, as more than one man present knew, himself not guiltless enough of heart at least to cast the first stone at Aurora Lane.

"In the old times," grinned one stoutish man, chewing tobacco and speaking to a neighbor who held a hand cupped at his ear, "the folks wouldn't of stood it. They'd just 'a' had a little feather party. They rid such people out of town on a rail them days—that's what they done. And they didn't never come back after that—never in the world. As for a murderer—they made a eend of him!"

"And so could we make a eend of it all right now, this very night, if we had a little sand," said another voice.

For a time all these speakers fell silent, seeking resolve, waiting for an order, a command. But as they became silent they grew more uneasy. They broke ground, shifted, milled about, still like cattle. Then head was laid to head, beard wagged to beard again.

And then, all at once, it broke!

"Come on, boys!" cried a loud voice at last—not that of the young man who first had spoken—not that of any of these others speakers who had hesitated, lacking courage of definite sort. "Come on! Who's with me?"

The town of Spring Valley never mentioned the name of this speaker. The report got out in a general way that he was a farmer who lived a few miles out in the country. Indeed, sympathy for Ephraim Adamson's bad fortune in this case was no doubt largely at the bottom of this affair tonight—along with these other things; sympathy for Tarbush; the sermons of the preachers; the emotional spell of the dirge music, still lingering on these crude souls. No mob reasons. It was plain that most of the men, though not all, were farmers. But now they all fell in behind the leader as he started, a motley procession. Some folded handkerchiefs and tied them about their faces. Yet others reversed their coats, wearing them with the linings outside. Others pulled their hats down over their eyes.

Their feet, although not keeping time, none the less caught a ragged unison, in a sound which could have been heard at a considerable distance. Dan Cowles heard it now, and came to the door of the county jail. As he saw the crowd, he drew a long breath.

"They're coming here!" said he to himself at length. "I reckon they'll try to get him. I'll hold him anyways, and they know that." Quickly he darted back into the jail.

The procession debouched at the edge of the jail yard square, halted for a moment, then came on steadily, because someone at their head walked steadily. Perhaps there were seventy-five or a hundred of them in all. Most of them were neighbors, nearly every man knew who was his neighbor here, even in the darkness. Not one of these could precisely have told why he was here. By some process of self-persuasion, some working of hysteria, some general acceptance of the auto-suggestion of the mob, most had persuaded themselves that they were there to "do their duty." It sounded well. If, indeed, they had been brought hither merely by the excitement of it, merely under the hypnosis of it, they forgot that, or tried to forget it, and said they were there to do their duty—their duty to their God-fearing town.... But in the mind of each was a picture out of the past of which we may not inquire. That night far worse than murder might have been done.

"We want him, Dan. Bring him out!" The voice of the leader sounded dry and hoarse, but he did not waver, for he saw the sheriff make no move of resistance.

"You can't get him," said Dan Cowles. "You couldn't even if he was here. But he ain't here."

"What do you mean, he ain't here? We know he is!"

"Come in and see," said Cowles, stepping back. "I just been to his cell and he ain't there. Come in and search the whole jail."

They did come in and search the jail, piling into the corridors, opening every door, looking into every room even of the sheriff's living quarters, but the jail was empty! There was no prisoner there at all.

"We want Don Lane, that killed the city marshal," repeated the husky voice of the leader once more. "Where is he?"

"I don't know," said Sheriff Cowles. "If I did, I wouldn't tell you." And indeed he spoke only truth in both these statements.

"I know!" screamed a high voice in the middle of the man pack. "He's maybe up at her house—'Rory Lane's. Let's go search the place—we'll get him yet!"

It was enough. The mob, thus resisted, disappointed, began to mutter, to talk now, in a low, hoarse half roar of united voices. They turned away on a new trail. Some broke into shouts as they began to hurry down the brick walk of the jail yard. They jostled and crowded in the street, as they came into the corner of the public square. A general outcry arose as they caught sight of the light in the window of Aurora Lane's little home, a half block down the street, beyond the corner of the square.

Aurora heard the sound of their feet coming down the sidewalk. She heard the noise at her gate—heard the crash as the gate was kicked off its new-mended hinges—heard the men crowd up her little walk, heard their feet clumping on the little gallery floor. Her heart stopped. She stood white-faced, her hands clasped. What was it? What did they mean? Were they going to kill her boy? Had they killed him? Were they going to tell her that? Were they going to kill her, too?

"Come on out!" she heard someone calling to her. It seemed to her that she must go. In some strange hypnosis, her feet began to move, unsanctioned by her volition.... She stood at the door facing them all, her eyes large, her face showing her distress, her query, her new terror. On her face indeed was written now the whole story of her despair, her failure, her terrible unhappiness. She had aged by years, these last twenty-four hours. Now sheer terror was written there also. The mob! The lynchers! The avengers! What had they not and more than once done in this little savage town?... A picture rose before her mind ... a horrible picture out of the past. Wide-eyed, she caught at the throat of her gown, caught at the covering of her bosom—and then went at bay, as does any despairing creature that has been pressed too hard.

She looked down at them. Those nearest to her were masked. Back of them rose groups of shoulders, rough clad, hats pulled down.... No, she did not know one of them; she did not recognize even a face—or was not sure she had done so. They jostled and shifted and pushed forward.

"No! No! Go back! Go on away!" she cried, pale, her eyes starting. And again she called aloud, piteously, on that God who seemed to have forsaken her.

"Come on out!" cried a voice, thick and husky. "Come on out, and hurry up about it. Bring him out—we know he's here. We want Don Lane, and we're going to git him—or we'll git you. Damn you, look out, or we'll git you both! Where's that boy, that killed the marshal?"

"He's not here," answered Aurora, in a voice she would not have known to be her own. "I don't know where he is. Believe me, if he's not there in the jail, I don't know where he is. What do you want of him? He's not here—I give you my word he's not."

She still stood, near the door, her hands clutching at her clothing, a mortal terror in her soul, her frail woman's body the only fence now for her home, no longer sanctuary.

"You lie! We know he is here—he ain't in the jail. If the sher'f let him out, he'd come here. You've got him hid. Bring him out—it's no use trying to get him away from us. We want him, and we've come to git him."

The words of the leader got their support in the rumble of fourscore throats.

"I'm telling you the truth," quavered poor Aurora Lane. "Men, can't you believe me? Have I ever lied to you?"

A roar of brutish laughter greeted this. "Listen at her talk!" cried one tall young man. "Fine, ain't it! She's been just a angel here! Oh, no, she wouldn't lie to us about that boy—oh! no, she never has! Why, you ain't never done nothing but lie, all your life!"

They laughed again at this, and became impatient.

"This is her little old place," began the same voice. "I've never been in it before. I bet they's been goings-on, right here, more'n once."

"That's so!" said a man whose mouth corners were drawn down hard. "And in this here God-fearin' town o' ours, that's always wanted to be respectable."

"Sure we did, all of us!" encored the cracking treble of the same tall, well-dressed young man. "Whose fault if we ain't? She's his mother. This whole business come of her bein' what she is—looser'n hell, that's all. We stood it all for years—but this is too much—killin' the city marshal——"

"I didn't!" cried Aurora Lane, ghastly pale. "He never did. I've tried to live here clean for twenty years. Not one of you can raise a voice against me—you cowards, you liars! My boy—if he were here, not any ten of you'd dare say that! You'd not dare to touch him. Oh, you brutes—you low-down cowards!"

"We'll show you if we don't dare!" rejoined the steady voice of the leader. "Fetch him out now and we'll show you about that. We're goin' to git him, first 'r last, and it's no use trying to stop it. We'll reg'late this town now, in our own way. If that boy's out of jail, he's either skipped or else he's here. Either way, the safest thing to do is to come on through with him. If you don't, we'll see about you—and we'll do it mighty soon. Bring him out."

"Oh, hell!" shrilled a falsetto voice, "you're wastin' time with her. Go on in after him—she's got him hid—she's kep' him hid for twenty years and she's keepin' him hid now—and you can gamble on it! Go on in and git him!"

There came a shuffling of feet on the walk, on the gallery floor. Aurora was conscious that the blur of faces was closer to her.... She saw masks, hats, kerchiefs, stubbled chins crowding in, close up to her. A reek of the man pack came to her, close, stifling, mingled of tobacco, alcohol, and the worse effluvia of many men excited.... The terror, the horror, the disgust, the repugnance of it all fell on her like a blanket, stifling, suffocating, terrifying. She no longer reasoned—it was only desperation, terror, which made her spread out her arms from lintel to lintel of her little deserted door, where the last sacred shred of her personal privacy now was periled. The last instinctive, virginal—yes, virginal—terror at the intrusion of man, of men, of many men, was hers now. Home—sanctuary—refuge—all, all was gone. She stood, disheveled, her gown now half loosed at the neck as she spread her weak arms open across her door. Her eyes were large, round, open, staring, her face a tragic mask as she stood trying—a woman, weak and quite alone—to beat back the passion of these who now had come to rob her of the last—the very last—of the things dear to her; the last of the things sacred to her, the things any woman ought to claim inviolate and under sanctuary, no matter who or what she is or ever may have been.

But the fever, the hysteria of these no longer left either reason or decency to them, neither any manner of respect for the sacredness of womanhood; a thing for the most part inherent even under the severest strains ever brought to bear on man to make him lower than the brute—the brute which at its basest never lacks acknowledgment of the claims of sex.

These men had reverted, dropped, declined as only man himself, noblest and lowest of all animals, may do. There was no mercy in them, indeed no comprehension, else the appeal of the outraged horror on the face of Aurora Lane must have driven them back, or have struck them down where they stood.

"You git on out of the way now!" she heard the coarse voice of someone say in her face....

She held her arms out across her door only for an instant longer—she never knew by whom it was, or when, that they were swept down, and she herself swept aside, crumpled in a corner of her room.

The mob was in her home; she had no sanctuary! She caught glimpses of dark shoulders, compacted by the narrowness of the little rooms, surging on in and over everything, into every room, testing every crack and crevice. She heard laughs, oaths, obscenity such as she had never dreamed men used—for she knew little of the man animal—heard the rising unison of voices recording a renewed disappointment and chagrin.

"Damn her! She's got away with him!" called out someone.

"Sure she has—we might of expected it," rejoined another. "She always gets by with it somehow—she's pulled the wool over our eyes all her life. She's fooled us now once more."

"What'll we do, boys?" cried out the falsetto of the tall young man, whose face was not set strong with a man's beard-roots. "Are we going to let her get away with it like this?"

He made some sort of answer for himself, for there came the crash of broken glass as he flung some object across the room.

It was enough—it was the cue. "Smash her up, boys!" cried out another voice. "Put her out of business now! She's fooled us for the last time."

They did not find Don Lane, not though they searched this house as they had the jail. So now their anger caught them, resentful, unreasoning, unfeeling, brutal anger....

So they wrecked the little house of Aurora Lane. They tore down the pictures from the walls, the curtains from the windows, broke in the windows themselves. They smashed one piece of furniture against another. They even tore up the little white bed—at which for twenty years nightly Aurora Lane had kneeled to pray. Someone caught up one of the pillows, laughing loudly. "Here you are, here's plenty, I reckon! Damn you! You're lucky we don't give you a ride. Tar'n feathers, 'n a ride on a rail—that's the medicine for such as you."

The thought of escape, of rescue, of resistance now had passed from the mind of Aurora Lane. Frozen, speechless, motionless, she waited, helpless before this blind fury. They had been after Don, and they had not found him. Where was Don? And what would they now do to her? What was that last coarse, terrible threat that they had meant?

She caught her torn frock again to her throat as she saw, not a definite movement toward her, but a cessation of movement, a pause, a silence, which seemed more terrible and more ominous than anything yet in all this hour of torment and terror. What would they do now?

They had halted, paused, they stood irresolute, still a pack, a mass, a mob, not yet resolved into units of thinking, reasoning, human beings; when without warning suddenly, there came something to give them cause for thought.

There was still a rather dense crowd around the gate, on the walk, where some score or more lingered, who either had not entered the house or who had emerged from it. It was against the edge of this mass that a heavily built man, heavy of face, heavy of hand, cast himself as he now came running up.

It was the sheriff, Dan Cowles. He thrust a revolver barrel into the face of the nearest man, caught another by the shoulder. A halt, a pause, whether of irresolution or of doubt, of indecision or of shame, came like a falling and restraining hand upon all this lately demoniacal assemblage. They did not move. It was as though a net had been sprung above them all.

"Halt!" called out the voice of the sheriff, high and clear. "What are you doing here?"

"It's the sher'f!" croaked one gray beard farther back. "God! what'll he do to us now?"

The feeling of apprehension gave courage to some of the bolder. Two or three sprang upon Cowles from behind and broke him down. He fell, his revolver pulled from his hand. He looked up into faces that he knew.

"Make a move and you'll get it," said a hoarse, croaking voice above him. "Shut up now and keep quiet, and keep to yourself what you seen. We're just having a little surprise party, that's all. We're only cleaning up this town."

But now another figure came running—more than one. Judge Henderson himself had heard the tumult on the streets. It was he who first hurried up to the edge of the crowd.

"Men!" he cried, holding up his hand. "What are you doing? Disperse, in the name of the law! I command it!"

They had long been used to obeying the voice of Judge Henderson. He was their guide, their counselor, their leader. Some hesitated now.

And then Judge Henderson pushed into the little group, looked over their heads, their shoulders—and saw what ruin had been wrought in Aurora Lane's little home. He saw Aurora standing there, outraged in every fiber, desecrated in her very soul, the ruins of her lost sanctuary lying all about her and on her face the last, last anguish of a woman who has said farewell to all, everything—life, happiness, peace, hope, and trust in God.

Henderson cast his own hands to his face as he pushed back from that sight. He stood trembling and silent, unstrung by one swift, remorseless blow from his own soul, his own long sleeping conscience.

Afar off, in the village, someone rang a bell—that at the engine house. Its summons of alarm called out every townsman not already in the streets.

But before this time reaction had begun in the mob. Something about Judge Henderson—the sudden change in his attitude—the blanched terror, the awful horror which showed now in his face—seemed to bring reason to their own inflamed and muddled minds. And now, as they hesitated, they felt the impact of two other strong men who flung themselves against them, shouldered their way through, up to the side of the struggling sheriff. Those in the way looked into the barrels of two revolvers, one held in each hand of a tall man, a giant in his rugged strength, as those knew whom he jostled aside in his savage on-coming.

"Hold on, men!" cried out the great voice of Horace Brooks. "I'll kill the first man that makes a move. Law or no law, I'll kill you if you move. What are you doing here?"

At his side there was another, a young man—white-faced—a tall young man whom not all of them had seen before, whom not many recognized now in the sudden confusion as they swayed back, jostling one and another in the attempt to get away—the young man, the prisoner they had wanted and not found. The young man swung at one arm of Hod Brooks, tried to wrest from him one of the revolvers—sought to gain some weapon with which he might kill. But Hod Brooks kept him away.

"Get back," he said, "leave it to us. God! Don't look at that! They've smashed her place all to hell!"

Still another man came, running, shouting—calling out—calling some of those present by their own names. It was old Eph Adamson, and tears were streaming down his face.

"You men!" he called out, and he named them one after another. "You're my neighbors, you're my friends. What are you doing here—oh, my God!—my God! What have you done? She's a good woman—I tell you she's a good woman."

The three of these newcomers broke their way in to the side of the sheriff, who by this time was up to his knees. They caught his gun away from the man who had taken it.

"Give it to me!" said the low, cold voice of the young man who was fighting—and before his straight thudding blows a man dropped every now and then as he came on, struggling desperately to get the weapon. "Give it to me!"

He reached out his hand for the sheriff's gun; but still they put him away, gasping, his eyes with murder in them.

"Get back," cried Horace Brooks. "Leave it alone. Get back. Look out, men—he'll shoot!"

There were five of them now who made a little group. Two others came running to join them—Nels Jorgens, the wagon-maker and blacksmith—at his side the spare figure of the gray-bearded minister, Rawlins, of the Church of Christ.

"Get into them now, Dan!" cried the great voice of Horace Brooks. "Break through."

So they broke through. Men fell and stumbled, whether from blows or in the confusion of their own efforts to escape. At the edges of the crowd men turned and ran—ran as fast as they could. After a time they of the smaller party were almost alone.

The sheriff turned away, picking up a coat which he found lying on the ground. The tall young man who had fought at his side stood now leaning against the fence, his face dropped into his hands, shaking his head from side to side, unable to weep. Cowles stepped up to him.

"I'm glad you come, boy," said he, "but it's no place for you here. I must have left the door open when I went away—I plumb forgot it. Where've you been, anyhow?"

"You forgot—you left the door unlocked after she went away—Anne. But I wasn't trying to escape—I wasn't going out of town."

"Where was you, then?"

"I was down at the bridge—I was thinking what to do. Once my mother was going to take me there.... But I thought of her—Anne, you know, and my mother, too. I hardly knew what was right.... I heard the noise...."

Dan Cowles looked at him soberly. "Run on down to the jail now, son, and tell my wife to lock you in. Tell her I'll be on down, soon's I can."

Judge Henderson, white-faced, trembling, looked in the starlight into the face of the one man whom he classed as his rival, his enemy in this town—it was a wide, white face with narrow and burning eyes, a Berserker face framed with its fringe of red. Horace Brooks himself was still almost sobbing with sheer fighting rage. There was that in his eye terrible to look upon.

"Oh, my God!" said Judge Henderson again and again. "Oh, my God!—my God!—--" He supported himself against the broken posts of what had been the little gate of Aurora Lane.

THE IDIOT

At seven o'clock of Monday morning, Johnnie Adamson stood at the roadside at the front of his father's farmhouse. He held in his hands a wagon stake which he had found somewhere and with it smote aimlessly at anything which came in his way. His usual amiable smile was gone. A low scowl, like that of some angered anthropoid, had replaced it. His mother, seeing that some unusual turn had taken place in his affliction, stood at the window of the farmhouse looking out at him and wringing her hands. She long ago had ceased to weep—the fountain of tears had dried within her soul. There came to her now and then the sound of his hoarse defiance, hurled at all who passed by on the road.

"Son John!—Eejit!—Whip any man in Jackson County!"

Ephraim Adamson was at the time in the field at work. His wife at length crept out to the back porch and pulled the cord of the dinner bell. Its sound rang out across the fields. Her husband came running, more than half suspicious of the cause of the alarm. Long had their lives been lived in vague dread of this very thing—a violent turn in the son's affliction. The father's anxious face spoke the question.

"Yes, he's bad," said the wife to him. "I'm afraid of him—he's getting worse."

The father walked out into the front yard. The youth came toward him, grinning pleasantly. He fell into the position of a batsman, swinging his club back and forth as he must some time have seen ball players do.

"Now you—now you throw it at me—and I'll hit it," said the half-wit. "You—you throw it at me—and I'll hit—I'll hit it."

To humor him, his father pitched at him a broken apple that lay on the ground near by. Johnny struck at it and by chance caught it fair, crushing it to fragments. At this he laughed in glee.

"Now—now—another one," said he. "I'll hit—I'll hit them all."

His father walked up to him and reached out a hand, but for the first time the boy resented his control. He broke away, swinging his club menacingly, striking at everything in his way. Ephraim Adamson followed him; but still evading, the half-wit passed out through the gate which led into the garden patch at the rear of the house. With his club he cut at the tops of everything green that he passed. Especially, with many yells of glee, he fell upon the rows of cabbages, then beginning to head out. With heavy blows of his club he cut down one after another. The game seemed to excite him more and more. At last it seemed to enrage him more and more. He struck with greater viciousness.

"Eejit!" said he. "I'm out—they can't pick on me! I can hit them! I will, too, hit them! I'll hit him!"

His father, following him, saw the face of the club all stained now—stained dark—black or red—stained green. He caught at the stick, but for once found his own strength insufficient to cope with that of his son. The latter wrestled with him. In a direct grip, one against the other, in which both struggled for the club, the father was unable to wrest it from him; and continually he saw a new and savage light come into the eyes of his son. The boy threatened him, menaced him with the club. His father drew back, for the first time afraid. He went back into the house, to his wife, on whom he turned a gray, sad face.

"I'm afraid," said he slowly, "I'm afraid we'll have to send him away. He's awfully bad—he might do anything. I'd rather see him dead."

The nod of the sad-faced woman was full assent. She gazed out of the window blankly, barrenly. Ephraim Adamson went out again into the yard. He passed the boy, unseen, went out into the stable yard, and caught up his team, which soon he had harnessed to his light wagon. By this time Johnnie had gone to the woodpile and taken up the ax. He was endeavoring to split some cordwood, but he rarely could hit twice in the same place, all his correlations being bad. His father now threw open the gate and drove into the yard.

"Want a ride, Johnnie?" he asked; and the boy docilely came and climbed into the front seat beside him. Not even looking at his wife, Adamson started out at good speed for the eight-mile drive into Spring Valley. For the most part the boy was quiet now, but once in a while the return of a paroxysm would lead him to shout and fling up his hands, to grin or make faces at any who passed.

In town, at the corner of the public square, Johnnie became unruly. Some vague memory was in his mind. He pointed down the head of Mulberry Street.

"I want to go—I want to go there!" said he.

Before his father could stop him he had sprung out of the wagon and run on ahead. Adamson as quickly as possible hitched his team at the nearest rack and followed at full speed, sudden terror now renewed in his own soul. The boy had turned in at the gate of the little house of Aurora Lane—that little house now scarce longer to be called a home!

Aurora Lane was alive, within. She moved about dully, slowly, her mind numb at the horror of all she had gone through. The feeling possessed her that she was without help or hope in all the world, that her God himself had forsaken her. She heard the sound of running footsteps, and, gazing through the window, saw the idiot son of Ephraim Adamson standing just inside the gate. She heard him come up the steps, heard him begin to pound on the door.

"Quick! Miss Lane," called Adamson as he came following up on the run—he hoped that Aurora would hear him. "Don't let him in. Telephone—get the sher'f as soon as you can."

He walked up the steps now and took the boy by the arm as he hammered at the door with the head of the club.

"Come on, Johnnie," said he. "We'll go see the pictures. Come along."

It was not better than an animal, the creature who now turned facing him, growling. "Get out!" said Johnnie to him. "No one—no one can pick on me! I'll hit—I'll hit you. Whip any man in Jackson County. I'm out—I'll hit anybody touches me. I guess I know!"

His sweeping blows about him with the club forced his father back, and showed that any attempt to close with him would be dangerous. Adamson retired to the gate. Johnnie went on smashing everything about him, flower beds, chairs, a little table which stood on the front gallery—anything left undestroyed by the more intelligent but not less malignant visitors of the night before, who thus had set a pattern for him.

"I want in," he said pleasantly after a time, seating himself on the front steps. "Eejit—best man in Jackson County. She was good to me. She spoke to me kind. I won't hurt her."

Aurora Lane could see him as she gazed out from behind the window curtain. Her call on the telephone to the officer of the law had been loud, insistent, the appeal of a woman in terror. But now, as she looked out at Johnnie Adamson, something other than terror was in her wan face;—something like surprise—something like conviction! The thought brought with it no additional terror—rather it carried a swift ray of hope!

It was toward eight o'clock in the morning now. Few were abroad on the streets of Spring Valley, but now and then a passer-by turned to gaze at a man who was hurrying across from the court and turning into Mulberry Street. It was Dan Cowles, the sheriff, and they wondered where he was going now.

Ephraim Adamson heard the hurrying approach as Dan Cowles came down the street. The boy still was sitting on the steps. Suddenly he turned—and caught sight of the face of Aurora Lane at the window. He rose, removed his hat, and smirked.

"May I see you home?" said he. "Eejit—the best man in Jackson County. I can hit anybody! I'll show you."

He was mowing, smirking, talking to her through the glass of the window pane, jerking and twitching about, but he turned now when he heard the steps of his father and the sheriff on the brick walk back of him.

"He's gone bad, Dan," said Adamson in a low tone to the sheriff. "We'll have to lock him up. He'll have to go to the asylum. He's dangerous. Look out!"

Suddenly the half-wit turned upon them. His eyes seemed fixed on the star shining on the coat of Dan Cowles—identically the same star that City Marshal Tarbush had worn, Cowles having for the time taken on the deceased man's duties also. The sight enraged him. He brandished his club.

"There he is!" he cried. "I hit him once—I killed him—I'm going to kill him again! You can't pick on me. I'm out. I'll kill you again!"

"My God! what's he saying, Dan?" quavered the voice of the unhappy man, the father of this wild creature. "What's he saying?"

"Johnnie!" he himself called out aloud. "Johnnie, tell me—tell me who it was, and I'll take you to see the pictures right away."

"Him!" shrieked Johnnie. "Him—there's that shiny thing."

"When was it, Johnnie—what do you mean about this man?" The sheriff now spoke to him.

"I hit you—that night—I'll hit you again now! Nobody going to pick on Johnnie. Best man in Jackson County—eejit!"

"You're going to take me away to jail again," said he cunningly. "But you can't. I was just going to talk to her before, and you come and took me away. But I hit him. Now I'll kill you so you'll stay dead."

Slowly, cautiously creeping down the steps, club in hand, he followed the two men, who backed away from him—backed out through the gate on to the sidewalk, into the street.

From across the street Nels Jorgens in his wagon shop saw what was going on, and came running, a stout wagon spoke caught up in his own hand. He passed this to Ephraim Adamson.

"Look out, Sheriff!" he called out. "He's wild. He'll kill somebody yet."

Nels Jorgens and one or two others saw what then happened. The madman, now murderously excited, stopped in his deliberate advance. His eyes flamed green with hatred at all this before him. The lust of blood showed on his features, usually so mild. He saw his father standing now, this weapon in his hand; and forgetting every tie in the world, if ever he had felt one, sprang at him with a scream of rage. Ephraim Adamson stepped back, tripped, fell. He saw above him the face of his son, with murder in his eyes. He closed his own eyes.

And then Nels Jorgens and one or two others who came hurrying up saw a puff of smoke, heard the roar of a shot Dan Cowles had fired just in time....

There was no need to send poor Johnnie Adamson to the asylum. He had gone now to a farther country. He sank, a vast bulk, at his full length along the narrow strip of dusty grass between the curb and the walk. His shoulders heaved once or twice, his arms fell lax.

Dan Cowles, solemn-faced, his weapon still in his hand, turned to gaze at the haggard man who rose slowly, turning away from that which he now saw.

"It was the act of committing a felony," said Dan Cowles slowly. "It was to save human life. He resisted arrest, and he was armed. It was a felony."

But when old Ephraim Adamson turned his gray face to that of the officer of the law, in his sad eyes there was no resentment. He held out his hand.

"Dan," said he, "thank God you done it! Thank God it's over!"

A TRUE BILL

Now it was nine o'clock of the Monday morning. The grand jury was in session thus early, and it had thus early brought in a true bill against one Dieudonné Lane for murder in the first degree. The session of the jury had just begun. None of the jury knew of these late events at the house of Aurora Lane.

In his office Judge Henderson was pacing up and down all that morning. He had failed in every attempt to stop the progress of the law. He could not on Sunday afternoon reach by telephone or otherwise the men he wished to see; on Sunday night had seen this horror; and now, early on Monday, there was no way by which even he could arrest the procedure of the grand jury, made up of men who lived here, and who before this had made up their minds on the bill which Slattery, state's attorney, zealous as they, had rushed through at a late session with his own clerks on Sunday night after he had ended his Sabbath motor ride to an adjoining town.

Fate conspired against Judge Henderson and his shrewd plan for delay which was to have left him secure in his ambition and saved in his own conceit. These things now seemed shrunk, faded, unimportant.

He had not slept at all that night. Before him now swept such a panorama as it seemed to him would never let him sleep again. He was indeed facing now the crisis of his life—a crisis not in his material affairs alone, but a crisis of his moral nature. He had learned in one swift lesson what others sometimes learn more deliberately—that the world is not for the use of any one man alone, but for the use of all men who dwell in it. It is the world of human beings who are partners in its use. They stand alike on its soil, they fight there for the same end. They are brothers, even though savage brothers, after all.

And among these are fathers, too. It was his own son who lay in yonder jail. Now at last some thought, a new, stirring and compelling emotion came into his soul. It was not her boy, but his—it was his son! And now he knew he had been indeed a Judas and a coward.

Judge Henderson's dulled senses heard a sound, a distinct and unusual sound. He stepped out into the hall and spoke to a neighbor who also was looking out of his office door.

"What was that shot?" he asked.

"I don't know," said the other. "Where was it at—around that corner? Oh, I reckon it was probably a tire blew out at Nels Jorgen's wagon shop—he has automobiles there sometimes."

Henderson turned back to his own office, his nerves twitching. He was obliged to face the duties of this day.

What was to happen now to William Henderson, the leading citizen of Spring Valley? Actually, he now did not so much care. It was his son—his own son—in yonder jail! The heart of a father began to be born in him, thus late, thus very, very late.... He had seen her face, last night.

He walked slowly down his stair and across the street to the courthouse. His course was such that he could not see into Mulberry Street. Some persons were hurrying in that direction, but he did not join them. He was too preoccupied to pay much attention to the sounds which came to his ears. As for himself, he could have gone anywhere rather than near to the house of Aurora Lane that morning. A great terror filled his soul, a terror largely of these people among whom he had lived thus long. They had wrecked her home. They might have done worse in their savagery. But it was he himself who was the real cause of that. Would she still keep her oath now, after this? Could she be silent now?

He walked on now into the courthouse and down the long hall. He was about to step into the county clerk's office, when he came face to face with a tall man just stepping out. It was Horace Brooks.

"Well, Judge," said the latter, "how is it with you today?"

He spoke not unkindly, although his own face was haggard and gray. Neither had he slept that night.

"It goes badly enough," said Henderson. "Nothing could be much worse. Well?"

"You want to know if the grand jury has voted that bill? They have—I have just heard. Of course you know I am counsel of record for the defense."

"I didn't know it."

"Yes, Judge, there's going to be a fight on this case," said Hod Brooks grimly. "That is, if you really want to fight. I've got nothing left to trade—but, Judge, do you think you and I really ought to fight—over this particular case?"

"I can't forswear my own professional duties," began Judge Henderson, his mouth dry in his dull dread, his heart wrenched. He wondered what Hod Brooks knew, what he was going to do. He knew what must come, but he was not ready for the hour.

"Come into this room," said Horace Brooks suddenly. "I won't go to your office, and I won't ask you to come to mine. But come in here, and let's have a little talk."

They stepped over to the door of the county treasurer's office, across the hall. It was a room of the sort usual in a country courthouse, with its high stools and desks, its map-hung walls, its scattered chairs, its great red record books lying here and there upon the desk top.

A young woman sat making some entry in a book. "Miss Carrie," said Horace Brooks to her, "Judge Henderson and I want to talk a little together privately. Please keep us from being disturbed. You run away—we won't steal the county funds."

Smilingly the clerk obeyed. Brooks turned to Judge Henderson abruptly.

"Look here, Judge," said he.

He pointed to a large framed lithograph which hung on the wall—the same which had hung on the wall in the library at the exercises of Saturday night. It was a portrait of the candidate for the United States Senate—Judge Henderson himself. The latter looked at it for a moment without comment, and turned back with an inquiring eye.

Brooks was fumbling in the side pocket of his alpaca coat, and now he drew out from it a good-sized photograph, which he placed face upward on the desk beside them. It was done in half-profile, as was the portrait upon the wall.

"Look at this picture too, Judge, if you please," said he, "and then look back again at the lithograph. That was taken some years ago, when you were young, wasn't it?"

Judge Henderson flushed lividly. "I leave all those things to the committee," croaked he.

"—But this one here," said Horace Brooks slowly, "was taken when you were still younger, say, when you were twenty-two, wasn't it?" He moved back so that Judge Henderson might look at the photograph. He saw the face of the great man grow yellow pale.

"Where did you get this?" he whispered. "How?"

"I got it of Miss Julia Delafield, at the library, early this morning," said Horace Brooks. "I told Miss Julia, whatever she did, to stay in the library and not to go over to Aurora Lane's house. I—I didn't want her to see what had happened there. She was busy, but she found this picture for me. And we both know that really it is a photograph of the young man against whom the grand jury have just brought a true bill—within the last ten minutes."

There was silence in the dusty little room. The large white hand on the desk top was visibly trembling. Hod Brooks' voice was low as he went on:

"Now, as to trying this case, Judge, I brought you in here to ask you what you really want to do? I don't my own self very often try cases out of court—although I have sometimes—sometimes. Yes, sometimes that's the way to serve the ends of substantial justice."

Henderson made no reply—he scarcely could have spoken. He could feel the net tightening; he knew what he was to expect now.

"Now, here are these two pictures," resumed Brooks. "Suppose I were trying this case in court. I'm not sure, but I think I could get them both introduced in evidence, these two pictures. I think they are both germane to this case—don't you? You've been on the bench—we've both read law. Do you think as a judge you could keep a good lawyer from getting these two pictures introduced in evidence in that case?"

"I don't see how you could," said the hoarse voice of Judge Henderson. "It would be altogether immaterial and incompetent."

"Perhaps, perhaps," said Hod Brooks. "That's another good reason why I'd rather try the case here, if it suits you! But just suppose I enlarged this photograph to the exact size of the lithograph on the wall, and suppose I did get them both into evidence, and suppose I unveiled the two at just the psychological moment—I presume you would trust me to do that?

"Now if I hadn't seen you last night just where you were, if I hadn't hoped, from what I saw of you, that you were part man at least—that's how I would try this case! What do you think about it?"

"I think you are practising politics again, and not law," sneered Henderson. But his face was white.

"Yes? Well, I'll tell you, I don't want to see you go to the United States Senate. In the first place, though I agreed not to run at all, I never agreed to help you run. In the second place, I never did think you were a good enough man to go there, and now I think it less than ever. And since you ask me a direct question of political bearing, I'll say that, if the public records—that is to say, the court records and all the newspapers—showed the similarity of these two pictures side by side, the effect on your political future might be very considerable! What do you think?

"Now, if you take you and that boy side by side today," he went on, having had no reply, "the resemblance between you two might not be noticed. But get the ages together—get the view of the face the same in each case—take him at his age and you at something near the same age—and don't you think there is much truth in what I said? The boy has red hair, like me! But in black and white he looks like you!"

Judge Henderson, unable to make reply, had turned away. He was staring out from the window over the courthouse yard.

"Some excitement over there," he said. Hod Brooks did not hear him.

"That face on the wall there, Judge Henderson," said he, "is the face of a murderer! The face of this boy is not that of a murderer. But you murdered a woman twenty years ago—not a man, but a woman—and damn you, you know it, absolutely well! I saw last night that at last you realized your own crime, that crime—you had guilt on your face. I am going to charge you—just as you maybe were planning to charge that boy—with murder, worse than murder in the first degree, if that be possible—worse even than prosecuting your own son for murder when you know he's innocent!

"You murdered that woman whom we two saw last night! You made that beastly mob a possible thing—not now, but years ago. Do you think the people of this community will want to send you to the United States Senate if they ever get a look at that act? Do you think they would relish the thought that you're the special prosecutor where your son is on trial for his life? I say it—your son! You know it, and I know it. You'd jeopardize the life that you yourself gave to him and were too cowardly to acknowledge! Do you think you'd have a chance on earth here if those things were known—if they knew you'd refused to defend him—that you'd denied your own son? And do you think for a moment these things will not be known if I take this case?"

"This is blackmail!" exclaimed Judge Henderson, swinging around. "I'll not stand for this."

"Of course, it's blackmail, Judge. I know that. But it's justice. And you will stand for it! I didn't take this boy's case to get him hanged, but to get him clear. I don't care a damn how I do it, but I'm going to do it. I'd fight a man like you with anything I could get my hands on. This is blackmail, yes; and it's politics—but it's justice."

"I didn't think this was possible," began Henderson, his voice shaking. "I didn't think this of you."

"There's a lot of things people never thought of me," smiled Hod Brooks. "I'm something of a trader my own self. Here's where we trade again.

"Listen. I didn't have the start that you had. I started far back beyond the flag, and I have had to run hard to get into any place. Maybe I'll lose all my place through this, I don't know. But I never got anywhere in my life by shirking or sidestepping."

"You have some hidden interest in this."

"Yes! Now you have come to it! I'm not so much thinking of myself, not so much thinking of you. I'm thinking of that woman."

He could not find Henderson's eyes now, for Henderson's face was buried in his hands.

"I was thinking of something of the sort," Brooks went on slowly, "in that other case, in Blackman's court last Saturday. Why didn't you try that case, Judge? Didn't you know then he was your boy?"

The suddenly aged man before him did not make any reply. His full eyes seemed to protrude yet more. "I felt something—I wasn't sure. She'd told me years ago the boy was dead. How could I believe I was his father? Don't ask me."

"I wish to God I could have been the father of that boy!" said Hod Brooks deliberately.

"We seem to be talking freely enough!" said Henderson. The perspiration was breaking out on his forehead. But Horace Brooks took no shame to himself for what he had said.

"The mother of that boy," he went on, "is the one woman I ever cared for, Judge. I'll admit that to you. If there were any way in the world so that I could take that woman's troubles on my own shoulders, I'd do it.... So, you see, this wasn't blackmail after all, Judge. It wasn't really politics after all. I was doing this for her."

"For her?"

"Yes. Now listen. You met her as a girl, when she didn't know much. I never met her really to know much about her until she was a grown woman, with a character—a splendid character whose like you'll not find anywhere in this town, nor in many another town. You never had the courage to come out and say that she was your wife—you never had the courage to make her your wife. You thought you could last her out in this town, because she was a person of no consequence—because she was a woman. And all the time she was the grandest woman in this town. But she didn't have any friends. Now, it seemed to me, she ought to have a friend.

"Do you call it blackmail now, Judge?" he asked presently. "Is this politics?"

But he ceased in his assault as he saw the pallor of the face of his antagonist.

"You've got me, Hod!" said Judge William Henderson, gasping. "I confess! It's over. You've got me!"

"Yes, I've got you, but I don't want you," said Hod Brooks. "I'm not after you socially, legally, politically, or any other way. I tell you, I'm thinking of those two women who put your son through college—who had all they could do to keep their souls in their bodies, while you lived the way you have lived here. They paid your debts for you—they advanced cash and character both for you—just two poor women. The question now is, How are you going to pay any of your debts? There'll be considerable accrued interest."

"I didn't know it all, I tell you," broke out Judge Henderson. "She hasn't spoken to me for years, you might say—we never met. I didn't know the boy was alive—she told me twenty years ago that he'd died, a baby. This has all come up in a day—I've not had time to learn, to think, to plan, to adjust——God! don't you think it's terrible enough, with him there in jail?"

"She never asked you for help?"

"No, not till yesterday."

"She was game. I was sure. That was one reason why I went to that woman night before last and asked her if she'd marry me."

"What—you did that?"

"I did that! I told her I would take the boy and give him a father. I said I'd even call him my own—I'd come that close to losing my own self-respect in just this one case in the world. But, I told her, of course I couldn't do that unless she was a widow. And, Judge, I learned—from her—that she wasn't a widow. Oh, no, she didn't tell me about you—and I never figured it out all clean till just now—that the late District Judge of this county, and the Senatorial candidate for this State—was the father of the boy, Don Lane. Huh? Oh, stand up to it—you've got to take it.

"Now, this boy of yours had no father and two mothers—it's an odd case. But how did I learn who was the father of that boy? Not from Aurora Lane. No, I learned that from the other mother—this morning—Miss Julia. And as soon as I did—as soon as I was convinced I had proofs—I started over to find you."

"My God! man, what could you have meant?—You told her you would marry her?" Judge Henderson's sheer astonishment overcame all other emotions.

"I meant every word I said. If it could have been humanly possible for me to marry her, I'd have done that. Yes—I wanted to give her her chance. I couldn't give her her chance. It looks as though she didn't have one, never has had, never can have.

"Now, if I hadn't seen you last night right where I did—if I didn't believe that somewhere inside of you there was just a trace of manhood—it's not very much—it's damned little—I wouldn't have asked you to come in here to talk. I'd have waited until I got you in the courtroom. I'd have waited until I got you on the platform, and then I'd have taken your heart out in public. I'd have broken you before the people of this town. I'd have flayed you alive and prayed your hide to grow so I could take it off again, and I'd have hung it on the public fence. But, you see—last night——My God!

"I wouldn't trade places with you now, Judge Henderson," said Hod Brooks, after a time. "If I knew I had been responsible for what we saw last night, as you were responsible—I'd never raise my head again.

"As for the United States Senate, Judge, do you think you're fit to go there? Do you think this is blackmail now? Do you think you want to try this murder case? Do you think you want to try this case against this boy—your son—her son? There may be men worse than you in the United States Senate, but I will say it might be full of better. You're never going there, Judge. And you're never going to try this case."

"You've got me, Hod," croaked the ashy-faced man.

"Yeh, Judge, I have! But that's not the question."

"What do you mean?"

"You swore the oath of justice and support of the law when you were admitted to this bar. You've broken your oath—all your oaths. Are you going to throw yourself on the court now and ask for forgiveness?"

Henderson stood weakly, half supporting himself against the desk edge. He seemed shrunken all at once, his clothing fitted him less snugly. A roughened place showed on the side of his shining top hat—the only top hat in Spring Valley.

"I've tried this case," said Hod Brooks sharply. "I've tried it before your own conscience. It took twenty years for a woman to square herself. I'm going to ask the court to send you up for twenty years. You murdered a good woman. That's a light sentence."

A large fly was buzzing on the window-pane in the sunlight, and the sound was distinctly audible in the silence that now fell in the little room. It might indeed have been twenty years that had passed here in as many minutes, so swift a revolution had taken place. The making over of a soul; the cleansing of a life; the changing of an entire creed of conduct; the surrender of a dominating inborn trait; the tearing down and building over a vain and wholly selfish man.

"I think she's a good woman," said Hod Brooks simply, after a time.

"So do I!" broke out Judge Henderson at length, with a sudden gasp. "So do I! She's a good woman. I knew it last night. I've known it all along, in a way. It all came over me last night—I saw it all plain for the first time in all these years. Hod! You're right. I don't deserve mercy. I don't ask it—I'd be ashamed to."

"Religion," said Hod Brooks, quite irrelevantly, "is not altogether confined to churches, you know. A man's conviction may hit him anywhere—even in the office of the county treasurer of Jackson County. But if I was a preacher, Judge Henderson, I'd be mighty glad to hear you say what you have said."

In his face there showed some sort of strange emotion of his own, a sort of yearning for the understanding of his own nature by this other man; and some sort of rude man's sympathy for the broken man who stood before him.

"You both were young," said he softly and irrelevantly. "I'm not your judge."

"Hod," said Judge Henderson—"I'm done! I wouldn't go to the Senate tomorrow if they'd let me. For twenty years she's taken her fate. She's never told my name. She's never blamed me. She's paid all her debts. In the next twenty years—can I live as well as that?"

"Yes, she's paid her debts. We've all got to do that some time—there doesn't seem to be any good way of getting clear of an honest debt, does there? It costs considerable, sometimes." Hod Brooks' voice held no wavering, but it was not unkind.

"But now, Judge," he resumed, "we get around to my profession, which is that of the practice of the law. There's a true bill against the boy. State's Attorney Slattery don't amount to much—I know about a lot of things. You're the real intended prosecutor here. Now, I don't want any passing over of this case to another term of court—I'm not going to let that boy lie in jail."

"That was what I meant to do—I wasn't going to try for a conviction—I was going to try for delay."

"Come into court with me and openly ask the quashing of this indictment," said Hod Brooks. "And we can beat that delay game a thousand ways of the deck! But now, now—you did have the heart of a father, then? So, so—well, well! Say, Judge, we're not opponents—we're partners in this case."

"Hod——" began the other; but Hod Brooks was the master mind. "I believe we can show, some time, somehow," said he, "that the boy didn't do it. I know the boy's mother. Of course, his father wasn't so much!" He broke out into his great laugh, but in the corners of his eyes there was visible a dampness.

Judge Henderson hesitated for just a moment. "Believe at least this much, Hod," said he. "I didn't know as much at first as I do now. She—she told me all—I saw it all—last night. I want to tell the truth—near as I know. When I saw the boy in Blackman's court—it didn't seem possible, and yet it did. But who gave you the notion? What made you suspect it? You didn't suspect it then, in the justice court, did you?"

"Only vaguely," said Hod Brooks; "not so very much. I'll tell you who did—a woman."

"Aurora?"

"No—Miss Julia. Miss Julia sat there looking from the face of Don Lane to your own face. There was something in her face—I can't tell what. Why, hell! I don't suppose a man ever does know what's going on in a woman's heart, least of all a crude man like me, that never had any fine feelings in all his life. But there was something there in Miss Julia's face—I can't tell what. In some way, in her mind, she was connecting those two faces that she saw before her. If I hadn't seen her face, I wouldn't ever have suspected you of being the father of that boy!