The Just and the Unjust

THE CAT AND THE MOUSE

Mr. Gilmore, having yielded once again to temptation, found himself at Marshall Langham's door. He asked for the lawyer, but was informed he was not at home, a fact of which Mr. Gilmore was perfectly well aware, since he had parted from him not twenty minutes before at the court-house steps. Mrs. Langham was at home, however, and at this welcome information the gambler, smiling, strode into the hall.

From the parlor, Evelyn heard his voice. She had found him amusing in the first days of their acquaintance, and possibly she might again find him diverting, but this afternoon he had chosen ill for his call. She was quite sure she detested him. For the first time she measured him by standards of which he could know nothing, and found no good thing in him. What had Marsh meant when he forced this most undesirable acquaintance on her!

"You wanted to see Marsh?" she asked, as she gave him her hand.

"That will keep," said Gilmore cheerfully. "May I stay?" he added.

"If you wish," she answered indifferently.

She felt a sense of shame at his presence there. Everything about her seemed to sink to his level, which was a very low level, she was sure. These afternoon calls were a recent feature of their intimacy. Before Gilmore came, she had been thinking for the hundredth time of John North—the man she had once loved and now hated, but in whose honor she had such confidence that she knew he would face death rather than compromise her. In spite of the fact that he had scorned her, had thrown her aside for another, she had had on his account many a soul-rending struggle with her conscience, with her better self. She knew that a word from her, and his prison doors would open to a free world. Time and again this word had trembled on her lips unuttered. She knew also that it was not hate of North that kept her silent. It was an intangible, unformed, unthoughtout fear of what might follow after. North, she knew, was innocent; who then was guilty? She closed her eyes and shut her lips. That North would ultimately clear himself she never seriously doubted, and yet the burden of her secret was intolerable. In her present mood, she was accessible to every passing influence, and to-day it was Gilmore's fate to find her both penitent and rebellious, but he could not know this, he only knew that she was quieter than usual.

He seated himself at her side, and his eyes, eager and animated, fed on her beauty. He had come to the belief that only the lightest barriers stood between himself and Evelyn Langham, and it was a question in his mind of just how much he would be willing to sacrifice for her sake. He boasted nothing in the way of position or reputation, and no act of his could possibly add to the disfavor in which he was already held; but to leave Mount Hope meant certain definite financial losses; this had served as a check on his ardor, for where money was concerned Gilmore was cautious. But his passion was coming to be the supreme thing in his life; a fortunate chance had placed him where he now stood in relation to her, and chance again, as unkind as it had been kind, might separate them. The set of Gilmore's heavy jaws became tense with this thought and with the ruthless strength of his purpose. He would shake down one sensation for Mount Hope before he got away,—and he would not go alone.

"I suppose you were at the trial to-day?" Evelyn said.

"Yes, I was there for a little while this afternoon," he answered. "It's rather tame yet, they're still fussing over the jury."

"How is Jack bearing it?" she asked.

Her question seemed to depress Gilmore.

"Why do you care about how he takes it? I don't suppose he sees any fun in it,—he didn't look to me as if he did," he said slowly.

"But how did he seem to you?"

"Oh, he's got nerve enough, if that's what you mean!"

"Poor Jack!" she murmured softly.

"If you're curious, why don't you go take a look at poor Jack? He'll be there all right for the next few weeks," said the gambler, watching her narrowly.

"I'm afraid Marsh might object."

At this Gilmore threw back his head and laughed.

"Excuse me!" he said; and in explanation of his sudden mirth, he added: "The idea of your trotting out Marsh to me!"

"I'm not trotting him out to you,—as you call it," Evelyn said quietly, but her small foot tapped the floor. She intended presently to rid herself of Gilmore for all time.

"Yes, but I was afraid you were going to."

"You mustn't speak to me as you do; I have done nothing to give you the privilege."

Gilmore did not seem at all abashed at this reproof.

"If you want to go to the trial I'll take you, and I'll agree to make it all right with Marsh afterward; what do you say?" he asked.

Evelyn smiled brightly, but she did not explain to him the utter impossibility of their appearing in public together either at the North trial or anywhere else for the matter of that; there were bounds set even to her reckless disregard of what Mount Hope held to be right and proper.

"Oh, no, you're very kind, but I don't think I should care to see poor Jack now."

She gave a little shiver of horror as if at the mere idea. This was for the gambler, but her real feeling was far deeper than he, suspicious as he was, could possibly know.

"Why do you 'poor Jack' him to me?" said Gilmore sullenly.

Evelyn opened her fine eyes in apparent astonishment.

"He is one of my oldest friends. I have known him all my life!" she said.

"Well, one's friends should keep out of the sort of trouble he's made for himself," observed Gilmore in surly tones.

"Yes,—perhaps—" answered Evelyn absently.

"Look here, I don't want to talk to you about North anyhow; can't we hit on some other topic?" asked Gilmore.

It maddened him even to think of the part the accused man had played in her life.

"Why have you and Marsh turned against him?" she asked.

The gambler considered for an instant.

"Do you really want to know? Well, you see he wasn't square; that does a man up quicker than anything else."

"I don't believe it!" she cried.

"It's so,—ask Marsh; we found him to be an all-right crook; then's when we quit him," he said, nodding and smiling grimly.

There was something in his manner which warned her that his real meaning was intentionally obscured. She remembered that Marsh had once boasted of having proof that she was in North's rooms the afternoon of the murder and it flashed across her mind that if any one really knew of her presence there it was Gilmore himself. She studied him furtively, and she observed that his black waxed mustache shaded a pair of lips that wore a mirthless smile, and what had at first been no more than an undefined suspicion grew into a certainty. Gilmore shifted uneasily in his chair. He felt that since their last meeting he had lost ground with her.

"What's the matter,—why do you keep me at arm's length; what have I done, anyhow?" he asked impatiently.

"Do I keep you at arm's length? Well, perhaps you need to be kept there," she said.

"You should know what brings me here,—why it is I can't keep away—"

"How should I know, unless you tell me?" she said softly.

Gilmore bent toward her, his eyes lustrous with suppressed feeling.

"Isn't that another of your little jokes, Evelyn? Do you really want me to tell you?"

"I am dying with curiosity!"

Voice and manner seemed to encourage, and the gambler felt his heart leap within him.

"Well, I guess it's principally to see you!" he muttered, but his lips quivered with emotion.

She laughed.

"Just see how mistaken one may be, Andy; I thought all along it was Marsh!"

At her use of his Christian name his heavy face became radiant. His purposes were usually allied to an admirable directness of speech that never left one long in doubt as to his full meaning.

"Look here, aren't you about sick of Marsh?" he asked. "How long are you going to stand for this sort of thing? You have a right to expect something better than he has to offer you!"

She met the glance of his burning black eyes with undisturbed serenity, but a cruel smile had come again to the corners of her mouth. She was preparing to settle her score with Gilmore in a fashion he would not soon forget. One of her hands rested on the arm of her chair, and the gambler's ringed fingers closed about it; but apparently she was unaware of this; at least she did not seek to withdraw it.

"By God, you're pretty!" he cried.

"What do you mean?" she asked quietly.

"Mean,—don't you know that I love you? Have I got to make it plain that I care for you,—that you are everything to me?" he asked, bending toward her.

"So you care a great deal about me, do you, Andy?" she asked slowly.

"I like to hear you call me that!" he said with a deep breath.

"What is it, Andy—what do you want?" she continued.

"You—you!" he said hoarsely; his face was white, he had come to the end of long days of hope and doubt; he had battered down every obstacle that stood in his path and he was telling her of his love, nor did she seem unwilling to hear him. "You are the whole thing to me! I have loved you always—ever since I first saw you! Tell me you'll quit this place with me—I swear I'll make you happy—"

His face was very close to hers, and guessing his purpose she snatched away her hand. Then she laughed.

As the sound of her merriment fell on Gilmore's startled ears, there swiftly came to him the consciousness that something was wrong.

"You and your love-making are very funny, Mr. Gilmore; but there is one thing you don't seem to understand. There is such a thing as taste in selection even when it has ceased to be a matter of morals. I don't like you, Mr. Gilmore. You amused me, but you are merely tiresome now."

She spoke with deliberate contempt, and his face turned white and then scarlet, as if under the sting of a lash.

"If you were a man—" he began, infuriated by the insolence of her speech.

"If I were a man I should be quite able to take care of myself. Understand, I am seeing you for the last time—"

"Yes, by God, you are!" he cried.

His face was ashen. He had come to his feet, shaken and uncertain. It was as if each word of hers had been a stab.

"I am glad we can agree so perfectly on that point. Will you kindly close the hail door as you go out?"

She turned from him and took up a book from the table at her elbow. Gilmore moved toward the door, but paused irresolutely. His first feeling of furious rage was now tempered by a sense of coming loss. This was to be the end; he was never to see her again! He swung about on his heel. She was already turning the leaves of her book, apparently oblivious of his presence.

"Am I to believe you—" he faltered.

She looked up and her eyes met his. There was nothing in her glance to indicate that she comprehended the depth of his suffering.

"Yes," she said, with a drawing in of her full lips.

"When I leave you—if you really mean that—it will be to leave Mount Hope!" said he appealingly.

The savage vigor that was normally his had deserted him, his very pride was gone; a sudden mistrust of himself was humbling him; he felt wretchedly out of place; he was even dimly conscious of his own baseness while he was for the moment blinded to the cruelty of her conduct. Under his breath he cursed himself. By his too great haste, by a too great frankness he had fooled away his chances with her.

"That is more than I dared hope," Evelyn rejoined composedly.

"If I've offended you—" began Gilmore.

"Your presence offends me," she interrupted and looked past him to the door.

"You don't mean what you say—Evelyn—" he said earnestly.

"My cook might have been flattered by your proposal; but why you should have thought I would be, is utterly incomprehensible."

Gilmore's face became livid on the instant. A storm of abuse rushed to his lips but he held himself in check. Then without a word or a glance he passed from the room.

THE HOUSE OF CARDS

The long day had been devoted to the choosing of the twelve men who should say whether John North was innocent or guilty, but at last court adjourned and Marshall Langham, pushing through the crowd that was emptying itself into the street, turned away in the direction of his home.

For no single instant during the day had he been able to take his eyes from his father's face. He had heard almost nothing of what was said, it was only when the coldly impersonal tones of the judge's voice reached him out of, what was to him silence, that he was stung to a full comprehension of what was going on about him. The faces of the crowd had blended until they were as indistinguishable as the face of humanity itself. For him there had been but the one tragic presence in that dingy room; and now—as the dull gray winter twilight enveloped him,—wherever he turned his eyes, on the snow-covered pavement, in the bare branches of the trees,—there he saw, endlessly repeated, the white drawn face of his father.

His capacity for endurance seemed to measure itself against the slow days. A week—two weeks—and the trial would end, but how? If the verdict was guilty, North's friends would still continue their fight for his life. He must sustain himself beyond what he felt to be the utmost limit of his powers; and always, day after day, there would be that face with its sunken eyes and bloodless lips, to summon him into its presence.

He found himself at his own door, and paused uncertainly. He passed a tremulous hand before his eyes. Was he sure of Gilmore,—was he sure of Evelyn, who must know that North was innocent? The thought of her roused in him all his bitter sense of hurt and injury. North had trampled on his confidence and friendship! The lines of his face grew hard. This was to be his revenge,—his by every right, and his fears should rob him of no part of it!

He pushed open the door and entered the unlighted hail, then with a grumbled oath because of the darkness, passed on into the sitting-room. Except for such light as a bed of soft coal in the grate gave out, the room was clothed in uncertainty. He stumbled against a chair and swore again savagely. He was answered by a soft laugh, and then he saw Evelyn seated in the big arm-chair at one side of the fireplace.

"Did you hurt yourself, Marsh?" she asked.

Langham growled an unintelligible reply and dropped heavily into a chair. He brought with him the fumes of whisky and stale tobacco, and as these reached her across the intervening space Evelyn made a little grimace in the half light.

"I declare, Marsh, you are hardly fit to enter a respectable house!" she said.

In spite of his doubt of her, they were not on the worst of terms, there were still times when he resumed his old role of the lover, when he held her drifting fancy in something of the potent spell he had once been able to weave about her. Whatever their life together, it was far from commonplace, with its poverty and extravagance, its quarrelings and its reconciliations, while back of it all, deep-rooted in the very dregs of existence, was his passionate love. Even his brutal indifference was but one of the many phases of his love; it was a manifestation of his revolt against his sense of dependence, a dependence which made it possible for him to love where his faith was destroyed and his trust gone absolutely. Evelyn was vaguely conscious of this and she was not sure but that she required just such a life as theirs had become, but that she would have been infinitely bored with a man far more worth while than Marshall Langham. From his seat by the fire Langham scowled across at her, but the scowl was lost in the darkness.

"Your father was here last evening, Marsh," Evelyn said at length, remembering she had not seen him the night before, and that he had breakfasted and gone before she was up that morning.

"What did he come for?" her husband asked.

"I think to see you. Poor man, he doesn't seem able to get the run of the hours you keep; I told him he could always find you here between four and eight in the morning. I must say this little insight into your domestic habits appeared to distress him, but I tried to comfort him,—I told him you would probably outlive us all." She laughed softly. "Andy was here this afternoon, Marsh," she went on.

"What the devil did he want?"

"I don't know."

"Is he coming back?"

"He didn't mention it, if he is." And again she laughed.

Langham moved impatiently; her low full-throated mirth jarred on his somber mood.

"Were you in court to-day, Marsh?" she inquired, after a short silence.

"Yes," he answered briefly.

"Were there many there?"

"Yes."

"Any ladies, Marsh?" she questioned, with sudden eagerness.

"If you can call them that," he growled.

"Do you know, Marsh, I had a strong impulse to go, too. Would you have been astonished to see me there?" she asked tentatively.

"We won't have any of that,—do you understand?" he said with fierce authority.

"Why not? It's as right for me as it is for any one else, isn't it?"

"I won't have it!" he said, lifting his voice slightly.

She had risen and now stood leaning against the arm of his chair.

"Marsh, he didn't kill McBride; he couldn't,—he wouldn't harm a mouse!"

Her words set him raging.

"Keep quiet, will you,—what do you know about it, anyhow?" he cried with sullen ferocity.

"Don't be rude, Marsh! So you don't want me to come to the trial,—you tell me I can't?"

"Did my father say anything about this matter,—the trial, I mean?" asked Langham haltingly.

"Yes, I think he spoke of it, but I really wasn't interested because you see I am so sure John North is innocent!"

He caught one of her hands in his and drew her down on the arm of his chair where he could look into her eyes.

"There is just one question I want to ask you, Evelyn, but I expect you'll answer it as you choose," he said, with his face close to hers.

"Then why ask it?" she said.

"Why,—because I want to know. Where were you on the day of the murder,—between five and six o'clock?"

"I wish you'd let me go, Marsh; you're hurting me—" she complained.

She struggled for a moment to release herself from his grasp, then realizing that her effort was of no avail, she quietly resumed her former position on the arm of his chair.

"You must answer my question, come—where were you?" Langham commanded.

He brought his face close to hers and she saw that his eyes burnt with an unhealthy light.

"How silly of you, Marsh, you know it was Thanksgiving day,—that we dined with your father."

"I am not asking you about that,—that was later!"

"I suppose I was on my way there at the hour you mention."

"No, you weren't; you were in North's rooms!"

"If you were not drunk, I should be angry with you, Marsh,—you are insulting—"

He quitted his hold on her and staggered to his feet.

"You were with North—" he roared.

"Do you want the servants to hear you?" she asked in an angry whisper.

"Hell!"

He made a step toward her, his hand raised.

"Don't do that, Marsh. I should never forgive you!"

Evelyn faced him, meeting his wild glance with unshaken composure. The clenched hand fell at his side.

"My God, I ought to kill you!" he muttered.

She made him no answer, but kept her eyes fixed steadily on his face.

"You were with North!" Langham repeated.

"Well, since you wish me to say it, I was with John North, but what of that?"

"In his rooms—" he jerked out.

"No,—now you are asking too much of me!"

"I have proof,—proof, that you went to his rooms that day!" he stormed.

"I did nothing of the sort, and I am not going to quarrel with you while you are drunk!"

Drunk he was, but not as she understood drunkenness. In the terrible extremity to which his crime had brought him he was having recourse to drugs.

"You say you have proof,—don't be absurd, Marsh, you know you haven't!" she added uneasily.

"You were with North in his rooms—" he insisted.

He was conscious of a strange wonder at himself that he could believe this, and yet aside from such gusts of rage as these, his doubt of her made no difference in their life together. Surely this was the measure of his degradation.

"I am not going to discuss this matter with you!" Evelyn said.

"Aren't you? Well, I guess you will. Do you know you may be summoned into court?"

"Why?" she demanded, with a nervous start.

"North may want to prove that he was in his rooms at the hour the murder is supposed to have been committed; all he needs is your testimony,—it would make a nice scandal, wouldn't it?"

"Has he asked this?" Evelyn questioned.

"Not yet!"

"Then I don't think he ever will," she said quietly.

"Do you suppose he will be fool enough to go to the penitentiary, or hang, to save your reputation?" Langham asked harshly.

"I think Jack North would be almost fool enough for that," she answered with conviction.

"Well, I don't,—you were too easy,—men don't risk their necks for your sort!" he mocked. "Look here, you had an infatuation for North,—you admitted it,—only this time it went too far! What was the trouble, did he get sick of the business and throw you over?"

"How coarse you are, Marsh!" and she colored angrily, not at his words, however, but at the memory of that last meeting with North.

"It's a damn rotten business, and I'll call it by what name I please! If you are summoned, it will be your word against his; you have told me you were not in his rooms—"

"I was not there—" she said, and as she said it she wondered why she did not tell the truth, admit the whole thing and have it over with. She was tired of the wrangling, and her hatred of North had given way to pity, yet when Langham replied:

"All right. You are my wife, and North can hang, but he shan't save himself by ruining you if I can help it!"

She answered: "I have told you that I wasn't there, Marsh."

"Would you swear that you weren't there?" Langham asked eagerly.

"Yes—"

"Even if it sent him to the penitentiary?" he persisted.

"Yes."

He took her by the shoulders and drew her near to him that he might look deep into her eyes.

"Even if it hanged him?" he rasped out.

She felt his hot breath on her cheek; she looked into his face, fierce, cruel, with the insane selfishness of his one great fear.

"Answer me,—would you let him hang?" and he shook her roughly.

"Would I let him hang—" she repeated.

"Yes—"

"I—I don't know!" she said in a frightened whisper.

"No, damn you, I can't trust you!" and he flung her from him.

There was a brief silence. The intangible, unformed, unthoughtout fear that had kept her silent was crystallizing into a very tangible conviction. Marshall had expressed more than the mere desire to be revenged on North, she saw that he was swayed by the mastering emotion of fear, rather than by his blazing hate of the suspected man. Slowly but surely there came to her an understanding of his swift descent during the last months.

"Marsh—" she began, and hesitated.

A scarcely articulate snarl from Langham seemed to encourage her to go on.

"Marsh, where does the money come from that you—that we—have been spending so lavishly this winter?"

"From my practice," he said, but his face was averted.

She gave a frightened laugh.

"Oh, no, Marsh, I know better than that!"

He swung about on her.

"Well," he stormed, "what do you know?"

"Hush, Marsh!" she implored, in sudden terror of him.

He gave her a sullen glare.

"Oh, very well, bring the whole damn thing rattling down about our ears!" he cried.

"Marsh,—what do you mean? Do you know that John North is innocent?" She spoke with terrifying deliberation.

For a moment they stood staring into each other's eyes. The delicate pallor deepened on her face, and she sank half fainting into a chair, but her accusing gaze was still fixed on Langham.

He strode to her side, and his hand gripped hers with a cruel force.

"Let him prove that he is innocent if he can, but without help from you! You keep still no matter what happens, do you hear? Or God knows where this thing will end—or how!"

"Marsh, what am I to think!"

"You can think what you like so long as you keep still—"

There was a hesitating step in the hall, the door was pushed open, and Judge Langham paused on the threshold.

"May I come in?" he said.

Neither spoke, and his uneasy glance shifted back and forth from husband to wife. In that wordless instant their common knowledge manifested itself to each one of the three.

GOOD MEN AND TRUE

The North trial was Mount Hope's one vital sensation. Day after day the courtroom was filled with eager perspiring humanity, while in their homes, on the streets, and in the stores men talked of little else. As for North himself, he was conscious of a curious sense of long acquaintance with the courtroom; its staring white walls and crowded benches seemed his accustomed surroundings, and here, with a feeling that was something between fear and weariness, he followed each stage of the elaborate game Judge Belknap, for the defense, and Moxlow, for the prosecution, were playing, the game that had his life for its stake.

When court adjourned, always in the twilight of those mid-winter afternoons, there were his brief comforting interviews with Elizabeth; and then the long solitary evenings in his cell; and the longer nights, restless and disturbed. The strain told fearfully on his vigor of body and mind, his face under imprisonment's pallid mask, became gaunt and heavily lined, while his eyes sunk deep in their sockets.

At first he had not believed that an innocent man could be punished for a crime of which he had no knowledge; he was not so sure of this now, for the days slipped past and the prosecution remained firmly intrenched behind certain facts which were in their way, conclusive. He told himself with grim humor that the single weak strand in the rope Moxlow was seeking to fit about his neck was this, that after all was said and proved, the fact remained, he had not killed Archibald McBride!

When the last witness for the state had been examined, North took the stand in his own behalf. His cross-examination was concluded one dull February day, and there came a brief halt in the rapid progress of the trial; the jury was sent from the room while Moxlow and Belknap prepared instructions and submitted them to the court. The judge listened wearily, his sunken cheek resting against the palm of his thin hand, and his gaze fixed on vacancy; when he spoke his voice was scarcely audible. Once he paused in the middle of a sentence as his glance fell on the heavy upturned face of his son, for he saw fear and entreaty written on the close-drawn lips and in the bloodshot eyes.

A little later in the twilight North, with the sheriff at his elbow, walked down the long corridor on his way to the jail. The end was close at hand, a day or two more and his fate would be decided. The hopelessness of the situation appalled him, stupified him. The evidence of his guilt seemed overwhelming; he wondered how Elizabeth retained her faith in him. He always came back to his thought of her, and that which had once been his greatest joy now only filled him with despair. Why had he ever spoken of his love,—what if this grim farce in which he was a hapless actor blundered on to a tragic close! He would have made any sacrifice had it been possible for him to face the situation alone, but another life was bound up with him; he would drag her down in the ruin that had overtaken him, and when it was all past and forgotten, she would remember,—the horror of it would fill her days!

On that night, as on many another, North retraced step by step the ugly path that wound its tortuous way from McBride's back office to the cell in which he—John North—faced the gallows. But the oftener he trod this path the more maze-like it became, until now he was hopelessly lost in its intricacies; discouraged, dazed, confused, almost convinced that in some blank moment of lost identity it was his hand that had sent the old man on his long last journey. As Evelyn Langham had questioned, so now did John North: "If not I, then who did murder Archibald McBride?"

In a vain search for the missing handy-man, General Herbert had opened his purse wider than North or even Evelyn realized. There seemed three possibilities in the instance of Montgomery. Either he knew McBride's murderer and testified falsely to shield him; or else he knew nothing and had been hired by some unknown enemy to swear North into the penitentiary; or—and the third possibility seemed not unlikely—it was he himself that had clambered over the shed roof after killing and robbing the old merchant.

North turned on his cot and his thoughts turned with him from Montgomery to Gilmore, who also, with uncharacteristic cowardliness had fled the scene of his illegal activities and the indictment that threatened him anew. "What was the gambler's part in the tragedy?" He hated North; he loved Marshall Langham's wife. But neither of these passions shaped themselves into murderous motives. Langham himself furnished food for reflection and speculation. Evidently in the most dire financial difficulties; evidently under Gilmore's domination; evidently burdened with some guilty knowledge,—but there was no evidence against him, he had credibly accounted for himself on that Thanksgiving afternoon, and North for the hundredth time dismissed him with the exclamation: "Marsh Langham a murderer? Impossible!"

The first cold rays of light, announcing the belated winter's dawn, touched with gray fingers the still grayer face of the sleepless prisoner. Out of the shadows that they coined came a vision of Evelyn Langham. And again for the hundredth time, North was torn between the belief that she, by her testimony, might save him and the unconquerable determination to keep from Elizabeth Herbert the knowledge of his affair with Langham's wife. Better end his worthless existence than touch her fair life with this scandal. But of what was Evelyn Langham thinking during the days of his trial? What if she should voluntarily break her silence! Should he not send for her—there was a sound at his door. North started to his feet only to see the fat round face of the deputy sheriff as he came bringing the morning's hot coffee and thick buttered bread.

The town bell was ringing for nine o'clock when the deputy sheriff again appeared to escort him into court, and as they entered the room North saw that it was packed to the doors. His appearance won a moment of oppressive silence, then came the shuffling of feet and the hum of whispered conversation.

At the back of the room sat Marshall Langham. He was huddled up in a splint-bottomed chair a deputy had placed for him at one end of the last row of benches. Absorbed and aloof, he spoke with no one, he rarely moved except to mop his face with his handkerchief. His eyes were fixed on the pale shrunken figure that bent above the judge's desk. His father's face with its weary dignity, its unsoftened pride, possessed a terrible fascination for him; the very memory of it, when he had quitted the court room, haunted him! Pallid, bloodless as a bit of yellow parchment, and tortured by suffering, it stole into his dreams at night.

But at last the end was in sight! If Moxlow had the brains he credited him with, North would be convicted, the law satisfied, and his case cease to be of vital interest to any one. Then of a sudden his fears would go from him, he would be born afresh into a heritage of new hopes and new aspirations! He had suffered to the very limit of his capacity; there was such a thing as expiation, and surely he had expiated his crime.

Now Moxlow, lank and awkward, with long black locks sweeping the collar of his rusty coat, slipped from his chair and stood before the judge's desk. For an instant Langham's glance shifted from his father to the accused man. He felt intense hatred of him; to his warped and twisted consciousness, half mad as he was with drink and drugs, North's life seemed the one thing that stood between himself and safety,—and clearly North had forfeited the right to live!

When Moxlow's even tones fell on the expectant hush, Langham writhed in his seat. Each word, he felt, had a dreadful significance; the big linen handkerchief went back and forth across his face as he sought to mop away the sweat that oozed from every pore. He had gone as deep in the prosecutor's counsels as he dared go, he knew the man's power of invective, and his sledge-hammer force in argument; he wanted him to cut loose and overwhelm North all in a breath! The blood in him leaped and tingled with suppressed excitement, his twitching lips shaped themselves with Moxlow's words. He felt that Moxlow was letting his opportunity pass him by, that after all he was not equal to the task before him, that it was one thing to plan and quite another to perform. Men, such as those jurors, must be powerfully moved or they would shrink from a verdict of guilty!

But Moxlow persevered in his level tones, he was not to be hurried. He felt the case as good as won, and there was the taste of triumph in his mouth, for he was going to convict his man in spite of the best criminal lawyer in the state! Yet presently the level tones became more and more incisive, and Moxlow would walk toward North, his long finger extended, to loose a perfect storm of words that cut and stung and insulted. He went deep into North's past, and stripped him bare; shabby, mean, and profligate, he pictured those few short years of his manhood until he became the broken spendthrift, desperately in need of money and rendered daring by the ruin that had overtaken him.

Moxlow's speech lasted three hours, and when he ended a burning mist was before North's eyes. He saw vaguely the tall figure of the prosecuting attorney sink into a chair, and he gave a great sigh of relief. Perhaps North expected Belknap to perform some miracle of vindication in his behalf, certainly when his counsel advanced to the rail that guarded the bench there were both authority and confidence in his manner, and soon the dingy court room was echoing to the strident tones of the old criminal lawyer's voice. As the minutes passed, however, it became a certainty with North that no miracle would happen.

Belknap concluded his plea shortly before six o'clock. And this was the end,—this was the last move in the game where his life was the stake! In spite of his exhaustion of mind and body North had followed the speech with the closest attention. He told himself now, that the state's case was unshaken, that the facts, stubborn and damning, were not to be brushed aside.

Moxlow's answer to Belknap's plea was brief, occupying little more than half an hour, and the trial was ended. It rested with the jury 'to say whether John North was innocent or guilty. As the jury filed from the room North realized this with a feeling of relief in that that at last the miserable ordeal was over. He had never been quite bereft of hope, the consciousness of his own innocence had measurably sustained him in his darkest hours. And now once more his imagination swept him beyond the present into the future; again he could believe that he was to pass from that room a free man to take his place in the world from which he had these many weary months been excluded. There was no bitterness in his heart toward any one, even Moxlow's harsh denunciation of him was forgotten; the law through its bungling agents had laid its savage hands on him, that was all, and these agents had merely done what they conceived to be their duty.

He glanced toward the big clock on the wall above the judge's desk and saw that thirty minutes had already gone by since the jury retired. Another half-hour passed while he studied the face of the clock, but the door of the jury room, near which Deputy-sheriff Brockett had taken up his station, still remained closed and no sound came from beyond it. At his back he heard one man whisper to another that the jurymen's dinner had just been brought in from the hotel.

"That means another three quarters of an hour,—it's their last chance to get a square meal at the county's expense!" the speaker added, which earned him a neighboring ripple of laughter.

Judge Langham and Moxlow had withdrawn to the former's private room. Sheriff Conklin touched North on the shoulder.

"I guess we'd better go back, John!" he said. "If they want us to-night they can send for us."

Morbid and determined, the spectators settled down to wait for the verdict. The buzz of conversation was on every hand, and the air grew thick and heavy with tobacco smoke, while relaxed and at ease the crowd with its many pairs of eyes kept eager watch on the door before which Brockett kept guard. No man in the room was wholly unaffected by the sinister significance of the deputy's presence there, and the fat little man with his shiny bald head and stubby gray mustache, silent, preoccupied, taking no part in what was passing about him, became as the figure of fate.

The clock on the wall back of the judges desk ticked off the seconds; now it made itself heard in the hush that stole over the room, again its message was lost in the confusion of sounds, the scraping of feet or the hum of idle talk. But whether the crowd was silent or noisy the clock performed its appointed task until its big gilt hands told whoever cared to look that the jury in the John North case had devoted three hours to its verdict and its dinner.

The atmosphere of the place had become more and more oppressive. Men nodded sleepily in their chairs, conversation had almost ceased, when suddenly and without any apparent reason Brockett swung about on his heel and faced the locked door. His whole expression betokened a feverish interest. The effect of this was immediate. A wave of suppressed excitement passed over the crowd; absolute silence followed; and then from beyond the door, and distinctly audible in the stillness, came the sound of a quick step on the uncarpeted floor. The clock ticked twice, then a hand dealt the door a measured blow.

The moment of silence that followed this ominous signal was only broken when a deputy who had been nodding half asleep in his chair, sprang erect and hurried from the room. As the swinging baize doors banged at his heels, the crowd seemed to breathe again.

Moxlow was the first to arrive. The deputy had found him munching a sandwich on the court-house steps. His entrance was unhurried and his manner quietly confident; he put aside his well-worn overcoat and took his seat at the counsel table. A little ripple of respectful comment had greeted his appearance; this died away when the baize doors at the back of the room swung open again to admit North and the sheriff.

North's face was white, but he wore a look of high courage. He understood to the full the dreadful hazard of the next few moments. With never a glance to the right or to the left, he crossed the room and took his seat; as he settled himself in his chair, Belknap hurried into court.

Judge Langham had not yet appeared, and the crowd focused its attention on the shut door leading into his private office. Presently this door was seen to open slowly, and the judge's spare erect figure paused on the threshold. His eyes, sunken, yet brilliant with a strange light, shifted from side to side as he glanced over the room.

Marshall Langham had not quitted his seat. There in his remote corner under the gallery, his blanched face framed by shadows, his father's glance found him. With his hand resting tremulously on the jamb of the door as if to steady himself, the judge advanced a step. Once more his eyes strayed in the direction of his son, and from the gloom of that dull corner which Marshall had made his own, despair and terror called aloud to him. His shaking hand dropped to his side, and then like some pale ghost, he passed slowly before the eager eyes that were following his every movement to his place behind the flat-topped desk on the raised dais.

As he sank into his chair he turned to the clerk of the court and there was a movement of his thin lips, but no sound passed them. Brockett guessed the order he had wished to give, and the big key slid around in the old-fashioned lock of the jury-room door. Heavy-visaged and hesitating, the twelve men filed into court, and at sight of them John North's heart seemed to die within his breast. He no longer hoped nor doubted, he knew their verdict,—he was caught in some intricate web of circumstance! A monstrous injustice was about to be done him, and in the very name of justice itself!

The jurors, awkward in their self-consciousness, crossed the room and, as intangible as it was potent, a wave of horror went with them. There was a noisy scraping of chairs as they took their seats, and then a deathlike silence.

The clerk glanced up inquiringly into the white face that was bent on him. A scarcely perceptible inclination of the head answered him, and he turned to the jury.

"Gentlemen, have you arrived at a true verdict, and chosen one of your number to speak for you?" he asked.

Martin Howe, the first man in the front row of the two solemn lines of jurors, came awkwardly to his feet and said almost in a whisper:

"We have. We find the defendant guilty as charged in the indictment."

"Mr. Howe, do you find this man guilty as charged in the indictment?" asked the clerk.

"I do," responded the juror.

Twelve times the clerk of the court, calling each man by name, asked this question, and one by one the jurors stood up and answered:

"I do."

THE LAST APPEAL

One raw morning late in April, Mark Leanard, who worked at Kirby's lumber-yard, drove his team of big grade Percherons up to Kirby's office by the railroad tracks.

"What's doing?" he asked of Kirby's clerk.

The clerk handed him a slip of paper.

"Go round and tell Mitchell to get you out this load!" he said.

Leanard went off whistling, with the order slip tucked back of his hatband. In the yard, Mitchell the foreman, gave him a load "of sixteen-foot" pine boards and "two by fours".

"Where to?" the driver asked, as he took his seat on top the load.

"To the jail, they're going to fence the yard."

"You mean young John North?"

"That's what,—did you think you'd get a day off and take the old woman and the kids?" asked Mitchell.

It was a little past eight when the teamster entered the alley back of the jail and began to unload. The fall of the first heavy plank took John North to his cell window. For a long breathless moment he stood there peering down into the alley, then he turned away.

All that day the teams from Kirby's continued to bring lumber for the fence, and at intervals North heard the thud of the heavy planks as they were thrown from the wagons, or the voices of the drivers as they urged their horses up the steep grade from the street. Darkness came at last and with it unbroken quiet, but in his troubled slumbers that night the condemned man saw the teams come and go, and heard the fall of the planks. It was only when the dawn's first uncertain light stole into the cell that a dreamless sleep gave him complete forgetfulness.

From this he was presently roused by hearing the sound of voices in the yard, and then the sharp ringing blows of a hammer. He quitted his bed and slipped to the window; two carpenters had already begun building the frame work that was to carry the temporary fence which would inclose the place of execution. It was his fence; it would surround his gallows that his death should not become a public spectacle.

As they went about their task, the two carpenters stole covert glances up in the direction of his window, but North stood well back in the gloom of his cell and was unseen. Horror could add nothing to the prison pallor, which had driven every particle of color from his cheeks. Out of these commonplace details was to come the final tragedy. Those men in faded overalls were preparing for his death,—a limit had been fixed to the very hours that he might live. On the morning of the tenth of June he would see earth and sky from that window for the last time!

Chance passers-by with no very urgent affairs of their own on hand, drifted up from the street, and soon a little group had assembled in the alley to watch the two carpenters at their work, or to stare up at North's strongly barred window. Now and again a man would point out this window to some new-corner not so well informed as himself.

Whenever North looked down into the alley that morning, there was the human grouping with its changing personnel. Men sprawled on the piles of boards, or lounged about the yard, while the murmur of their idle talk reached him in his cell. The visible excuse which served to bring them there was commonplace enough, but it was invested with the interest of a coming tragedy, and North's own thoughts went forward to the time when the fence should be finished, when somewhere within the space it inclosed would stand his gallows.

Shortly before the noon whistles blew, two little girls came into the alley with the carpenters' dinner pails. They made their way timidly through the crowd, casting shy glances to the right and left; at a word from one of the men they placed the dinner pails beside the pile of lumber and hurried away; but at the street corner they paused, and with wide eyes stared up in the direction of North's window.

A moment later the whistles sounded and the idlers dispersed, while the two mechanics threw down their hammers and took possession of the lumber pile. After they had eaten, they lighted their pipes and smoked in silent contentment; but before their pipes were finished the crowd began to reassemble, and all that afternoon the shifting changing groups stood about in the alley, watching the building of the fence. At no time were the two carpenters without an audience. This continued from day to day until the structure was completed, then for a week there was no work done within the inclosure. It remained empty and deserted, with its litter of chips, of blocks and of board ends.

On the morning of the first Monday in May, North was standing before his window when the two mechanics entered the yard from the jail; they brought tools, and one carried a roll of blue paper under his arm; this he spread out on a board and both men examined it carefully. Next they crossed to the lumber pile and looked it over. They were evidently making some sort of calculation. Then they pulled on their overalls and went to work, and in one corner of the yard—the corner opposite North's window—they began to build his scaffold. The thing took shape before his very eyes, a monstrous anachronism.

General Herbert had not been idle while the unhurried preparations for John North's execution were going forward; whatever his secret feeling was, neither his words nor his manner conceded defeat. Belknap had tried every expedient known to criminal practice to secure a new trial but had failed, and it was now evident that without the intervention of the governor, North's doom was fixed unalterably. Belknap quitted Mount Hope for Columbus, and there followed daily letters and almost hourly telegrams, but General Herbert felt from the first that the lawyer was not sanguine of success. Then on the eighth of June, two days before the execution, came a long message from the lawyer. His wife was ill, her recovery was doubtful; the governor was fully possessed of the facts in North's case and was considering them, would the general come at once to Columbus?

This telegram reached Idle Hour late at night, and the next morning father and daughter were driven into Mount Hope. The pleasant life with its agreeable ordering which the general had known for ten peaceful years had resolved itself into a mad race with time. The fearful, the monstrous, seemed to reach out and grip him with skeleton fingers. Like the pale silent girl at his side, he was knowing the horror of death, and a horror that was beyond death.

They stopped at the jail to say good-by to North, and were then driven rapidly to the station. The journey of about two hours seemed interminable, but they rarely spoke. Elizabeth did not change the position she had assumed when they took their seats. She leaned lightly against her father's broad shoulder and her hands were clasped in her lap.

For weeks the situation had been absolutely pitiless. Their wrecked efforts were at the door of every hope, and if this mission failed—but it would not fail! All they had come to ask was the life of an innocent man, and surely the governor, unaffected by local prejudice, must realize John North's innocence.

It was two o'clock when they reached their destination, and as they left the car the general said:

"We will go to the hotel first. Either Judge Belknap will be there, or there will be some word for us."

At the hotel they found, not Belknap, but a letter which he had left. The governor was suffering from a slight indisposition and was confined to the house. Belknap had made an appointment for him, and he would be expected. The general crushed the sheet of paper between his fingers with weary impatience.

"We'll see the governor at once. I'll call a carriage," he said briefly.

Five minutes later, when they had left the hotel, Elizabeth asked:

"What did Judge Belknap say?"

"Nothing, dear, nothing—the matter remains just as it was. The governor is expecting us."

"What do you think, father? This is our last hope. Oh, do you realize that?"

She rested her hand on his arm.

"It's going to be all right!" her father assured her.

Then there was silence between them until they drew up before the governor's house.

Side by side they mounted the steps. The general's ring was answered by a man-servant, who took their cards after showing them into a small reception-room. He returned after a moment to say that the governor was occupied and could not possibly see them until the afternoon. The general's face was blank. He had never considered it possible that the governor would refuse to see him at his convenience. Certainly there had been a time when no politician of his party in the state nor in the nation would have ventured this; but it was evident the last ten years had made a difference in his position. Elizabeth gazed up fearfully into her father's face. What did this mean; was it merely a subterfuge on the governor's part to avoid a painful interview? Perhaps, after all, it would have been better had she remained at the hotel. Her father read her thoughts.

"It's all right—be brave!" he whispered. He turned to the servant. "Will you kindly learn for me at what hour the governor will be at liberty?" he said stiffly.

"Oh, he must see us!" cried Elizabeth, the moment they were alone.

"Of course he must, and he will," the general said.

But the governor's refusal to see them at once rankled within him. His sunburnt cheeks were a brick red and there was an angry light in his gray eyes. The servant did not return, but in his stead came a dapper young fellow, the governor's private secretary.

"General Herbert?" he asked inquiringly, as he entered the room.

The general acknowledged his identity by an inclination of the head.

"The governor will be most happy to see you at any time after three o'clock. May I tell him you will call then?" asked the secretary, and he glanced, not without sympathy and understanding, at Elizabeth.

"We will return at three," the general said.

"He regrets his inability to see you now," murmured the secretary, and again he permitted his glance to dwell on the girl's pale beauty.

He bowed them from the room and from the house. When the door closed on them, Elizabeth turned swiftly to her father.

"He is cruel, heartless, to keep us in suspense. A word, a moment—might have meant so much to us—" she sobbed.

A spasm of pain contracted her father's rugged features.

"He will see us; he is a busy man with unceasing demands on his time, but we have this appointment. Be brave, dear, just a little longer!" he said tenderly.

"I'll try to be, but there is only to-day—and to-morrow—" she faltered.

"Hush, you must not think of that!"

"I can think of nothing else!"

How they lived through the long hours the general never knew, but at last three o'clock came and they were again at the governor's door. It was opened by the servant who had admitted them earlier in the day.

"We have an appointment with the governor," said General Herbert briefly, pushing past him.

"Yes, sir; I will tell him you are here as soon as he comes in," said the man.

"He's out, then?" and General Herbert wheeled on the man.

"Yes, but he's expected back any moment, sir."

"It will be all right," her father again assured Elizabeth, speaking with forced cheerfulness when they were alone.

Ten—twenty minutes slipped by; minutes that were infinitely precious, then a step sounded in the hall. It was the servant who entered the room, however. He came to say that a message had that moment been received from the governor; he was detained at the capitol, and probably would not reach home before five o'clock.

"Does he say he will see us there?" asked the general.

"He didn't mention you, sir; perhaps he has forgotten, but I thought you'd wish to know."

"Thank you." The general turned to his daughter. "I think we'd better go to the capitol."

The carriage was still at the door and they hurried out to it and were whirled across town. As they came to a stand before the capitol, General Herbert, without waiting for Elizabeth, sprang out and strode into the building and up the familiar stairs to the executive chambers. The door of the outer office stood open. A colored janitor was sweeping the room.

"Who you want, boss?" he asked, stopping his work and leaning on the handle of his broom.

"The governor—where is he?" demanded the general.

"You's too late, boss, he's done gone out."

A sense of futility and defeat almost overwhelmed the old general. He was silent for a moment since he dared not trust himself to speak, then he asked:

"Is the governor's secretary here?"

The man shook his head.

"Him and the governor left together. There ain't no one here now, they've done for the day."

"Then the governor has gone home?"

"I expect that's where he went, yes, sir."

General Herbert swung about and hurried from the room. In the hall he met Elizabeth.

"Did you see him?" she asked eagerly.

"Not here," he answered huskily.

Her eyes grew wide with terror, and she swayed as if about to fall, but her father put out a sunburnt hand for her support.

"We must go back!" he said, mastering himself at sight of her suffering. "We have missed him here, he's gone home, that is all—it means nothing."

They drove in silence through the streets. Pallid, fearful, and speechless in her suffering, Elizabeth leaned back in her seat. The hope that had sustained her was lost in the realization of defeat. There was nothing beyond; this was failure, complete and final; the very end of effort! Suddenly her father's big hand closed about the small one which rested in her lap.

"You must not give up; I tell you it will be all right!" he insisted.

"He is avoiding us!" she cried chokingly. "Oh, what can we do when he will not even see us!"

"Yes, he will. We have been unfortunate, that is all."

"Wretchedly unfortunate!" she moaned.

They had reached their destination, and this time slowly and uncertainly they ascended the steps. With his hand upon the bell, the general hesitated for an instant; so much was at stake! Then a bell sounded in some distant part of the house, and after a brief interval the door was opened to them.

"I am sorry, sir, but the governor has not returned."

The general thrust a bill into the man's hand, saying:

"The moment he comes in, see that he gets my card."

Again there was delay. General Herbert, consumed by impatience, crossed and recrossed the room. Elizabeth stood by the window, one hand parting the heavy curtains. It was already late afternoon. The day had been wasted, and the hours that remained to them were perilously few. But more than the thought of North's death, the death itself filled her mind with unspeakable imaginings. The power to control her thoughts was lost, and her terrors took her where they would, until North's very death struggles became a blinding horror. Somewhere in the silent house, a door opened and closed.

"At last!" said the general, under his breath.

But it was only the governor's secretary who entered the room. He halted in the doorway and glanced from father to daughter. There was no mistaking the look on his face.

"How much longer are we to be kept in doubt?" asked General Herbert, in a voice that indicated both his dread and his sense of insult.