Mrs. Balfame Part 32

"Aha! I can make even you believe it. No, I did not, but I couldn't prove an alibi if my life depended upon it. I can make the Judge and the jury believe--"

"And do you think I would permit--"

"They will believe me. And Dr. Anna--who would doubt her testimony that my appearance and conduct were highly suspicious that night on the marsh road? And what could you disprove? There was a man in that grove, was there not?"

"Yes, but not you; I don't know why, but I could swear to that. I shall--if you do anything so mad--tell the whole truth about myself."

"What good would that do? Balfame was killed with a forty-one revolver.

Yours was a thirty-eight."

"How do you know that?"

"I found it the night I spent in your house--the night of your arrest. I knew that you never would have gone out to head off a burglar without a revolver--any more than the jury would have believed it. I found the pistol. Never mind the long and many details of the search. It is in my safe. I kept it on the off chance that it might be necessary to produce it after all."

"But I fired at him. I hardly knew that I was firing, until I felt the revolver in my hand go off. Perhaps it was a suggestion from that tense figure so close to me, intent upon murder. Perhaps I merely felt I must--must--I have never been able to a.n.a.lyse what I did feel in those terrible seconds. It doesn't matter. I did. And you? You know I fired with intent to kill. Did you guess at once?"

"Oh, yes. But it doesn't matter. You were not yourself, of course. You had what is called an inhibition--as maddened people have when fighting their way out of a burning theatre. I only wish you had told me. I--that is to say, it is never fair to keep your counsel in the dark."

"You mean you wish I had not lied!" She caught him up with swift intuition. "Well, to-day I would not, but then--well, I was full of pettiness, it seems to me now. But although I am far even yet from being a fine woman,--I know that!--I am not a poor enough creature to let you die for me. Oh, you are far too good for me. I never dreamed that a man would go as far as that for a woman in these days. I thought it was only in books--"

"The veriest trash is inspired by the actual occurrences of life--which is pretty much the same in books as out. And I guess men haven't changed much since the world began, so far as making fools of themselves about a woman is concerned."

As she stood with one hand pressed hard against the table she was far more deeply moved than a few moments since by fear, although outwardly calm. She had climbed far out of her old self within these prison walls, but she saw steeper heights before her, and she welcomed them.

"Then," she said deliberately, "I must cure you. Before I went out, I had prepared that gla.s.s of lemonade and put poison in it. I had planned for several weeks to kill him when a favourable opportunity arrived. I had stolen a secret poison from Anna--out of that chimney cupboard Ca.s.sie described. You see that I am a potential murderer,--and a cold-blooded one,--even if by a curious irony of fate some one else committed the deed. Now do you think I am worth giving up your life for--going to the electric chair--"

"Suppose we postpone further argument until the necessity arises--if it ever does. I fully expect you to be triumphantly acquitted. Tell me"--he looked at her curiously, for he divined something of her inner revolutions and hated himself the more that he was interested only as every good lawyer must be in human nature,--"could you do that in cold blood again?"

"No--not that way--never. I might let a pistol go off under the same provocation--that is bad enough."

"Oh, no. Remove the restraints of a lifetime--or perhaps it is merely a matter of vibration and striking the right key."

"And do you mean that--you still want to marry me?"

"Yes," he answered steadily. "Certainly I do."

"Ah!" Once more she wondered if he still loved her. But she had been too sure of him and of herself to harbour doubt for more than a pa.s.sing moment. She had come to the conclusion that he had merely taken her at her word, and she knew the specialising instinct of the busy American.

She had, indeed, wondered if it were not the strongest instinct he possessed. And in spite of her new humility, she had suffered no loss of confidence in herself as a woman. She vaguely felt that she had lost something of this man's esteem, but trusted to time and her own charm to dim the impression. For she had made up her mind to marry him. Not only would it be the wisest possible move after acquittal,--a decent time after,--but during sleepless hours she had come to the conclusion that she loved this brilliant knightly young man as deeply as it was in her power to love any one. And after this terrible experience and the many changes it had wrought within her, she wanted to be happy.

He had taken up his hat. She crossed the room swiftly and laid her hand on his arm. "I could not stand one word of love-making in jail," she said, smiling up at him graciously, although her eyes were serious. "But it is only fair to tell you now that if I am acquitted I will marry you."

And stabbed with a pang of bitter regret that he felt not the least impulse to scout her authority and seize her in his arms, he bent over her hand and kissed it with cold lips, but with an air of complete gallantry.

"Thank you," he said, and went out.

CHAPTER x.x.xIV

Rush slept until two o'clock the next day, after a night pa.s.sed at the Paradise City Hotel in consultation with two of his future partners; they had spent Sat.u.r.day in the courtroom at Dobton. He had also discovered that the jury enjoyed themselves in the winter garden after dinner, and by no means in close formation. Although nominally under guard, it would have been a simple matter to pa.s.s a note to any one of them. Two, he further discovered, had been allowed to telephone and to enter the booth alone. He had been told nothing further of the intention of c.u.mmack and other friends of his client to "fix" the jury--had, indeed, discouraged such confidences promptly; but he saw that if the enemy desired to employ the methods of corruption they need be no more intricate than those of the men that had so much more to lose if detected.

The night had been devoted to discussion of the case; he even enjoyed a friendly hour with the district attorney, who notably relaxed on Sat.u.r.days after five o'clock; and when Rush awoke on the following afternoon he immediately resolved to dismiss the whole affair from his own mind until Monday morning. He would go into the woods and think his own thoughts. They would be dreary thoughts and imbued no doubt with cynicism, himself the target; and they had pa.s.sed that problematical stage in which the mind, no matter how harrowed, sips lingeringly at the varied banquet of the ego; in fact, Rush's personal problems were almost invariably settled in his subconsciousness, and rose automatically to confront the reasoning faculties without an instant's warning. He was too impatient for self-a.n.a.lysis; and he was the sum of his acts and of the clear mental processes of his conscious life.

The bright winter sun struck down through the close tree-tops and upon the brilliant surfaces of a recent fall of snow. The ground was hard and white; the branches of the trees were heavy laden. Not a sound broke the winter stillness but his footsteps on the winter snow. He had put on a heavy white sweater and cap, as he intended to walk for hours, and his nervous hands were in his pockets. He believed he should have the woods to himself, for in winter it was the Country Club and the roadhouses that were patronised on Sundays; and the trolley-car which pa.s.sed the wood on the line about a quarter of a mile away had, save for himself, been empty.

His face remained grim and set until he was deep in the woods, and then it relaxed to a wave of fury and disgust, finally settled into an expression of profound despair. He was but thirty-two, and the prizes of life were for such as he, and a week later he would either be in Sing Sing or bound without hope to a woman for whom his brief sentimentalised pa.s.sion was dust.

It was not execution he feared, for any clever lawyer could persuade a jury into a certain degree of leniency, but long years in prison for the sake of a dead ideal. In spite of his hard common sense and severely practical life he would almost have welcomed the exaltation of soul which must accompany a great sacrifice impelled by perfect love. But to turn one's back on life for ever and walk deliberately into a dungeon, change one's name for a number and become a thing, for the sake of barren honour, to drag out his years with a dead soul, to despise himself for a fool, too old and too tired to console himself with a memory of a duty well done,--he felt such a sudden disgust for life and for that ill-regulated product, human nature, that he struck a heavy blow at a tree and brought a shower of snow about his head.

If he could but have continued to love the woman and accept the grim and bitter fate with joy in his soul! And if only that were the worst! If he could turn his back on life with no regret save for its lost opportunities for power and fame.

He paused in his rapid irregular walk and pushed his cap up from his ear. He half swung on his heel; then, his face settling into its familiar lines, he walked slowly toward a faint crackling that had arrested his attention.

He came presently upon the glade Alys Crumley had painted in its summer mood; the little picture hung facing his bed. The scene was white to-day; all the lovely shades of green and gold had been rubbed out and replaced with the bright sparkle of snow, and the brook was frozen. But although Rush loved the winter woods and responded to their white appeal as keenly as to their yearly renewal of verdant youth and gorgeous maturity, they left him quite unmoved at this moment. Alys Crumley, as he had half expected, stood in the little dell.

Her face was more like old ivory than ever against the dazzling whiteness of the snow and under her low fur turban. It looked both pinched and nervous, but she kept her hands in her m.u.f.f. Nor did Rush remove his from his pockets, although his determination not to betray himself was subconscious. At the moment, his mind, conquering a tendency to race, informed itself merely that even in heavy winter clothes, with but a deep pink rose in her stole for colour, she managed to look dainty and alluring. It recalled visions of her on summer nights clad in the soft transparencies of lawn, with ribbons somewhere that always brought out the strange olive tints of her eyes and hair....

"I followed you," she said.

"Did you?"

"When I saw you pa.s.s in the trolley, I guessed. The Gifnings had invited me to go out to the Club with them. I asked them to put me down at a path near here."

He made no reply but continued to stare at her, recalling other pictures,--in the studio, in the green living-room,--marvelling at her endless variety, and not only of effect. Yet she was always the same, surcharged with the magnetism of youth and young womanhood.

"I--that is--I had made up my mind I must have a talk with you about certain things. You said you might go out to the Club to-day for an hour or two of hand-ball, and I had hoped to induce you to come home with me for supper. But Jack Battle told me that you had telephoned off--and when I saw you in the trolley, and caught a glimpse of your face, I guessed--"

"Yes?"

"You make it rather hard."

"What does it all matter? You are here, and I am glad that you are."

"Are you? But you intended to avoid me to-day!"

"I never intended to see you alone again if I could help it."

"I guessed that too. I met Polly c.u.mmack this morning, and she told me she spent last evening at the jail and Mrs. Balfame confided to her that she had just definitely promised to marry you ... that you had proposed to her on the day of her arrest, and although you had faithfully obeyed her orders and not alluded to the subject since, she had thought it only kind to put you out of suspense yesterday. She navely added that the subject had not interested her when you first brought it up; but that you had been so wonderful and devoted since.... She means to settle quietly in New York, instead of travelling, so that she can be quite near you, and she will marry you as soon as the case has been forgotten by the public. Of course, Polly could not keep anything so interesting, and no doubt it is all over town by now."

Alys spoke steadily, with a faint ironic inflection, and she held her head very high. But her face grew more pinched, and the delicate pink of her lips faded.

"Yes?" He had turned as white as chalk, but there was neither dismay nor sarcasm in the hard stare of his eyes. His lips were folded so closely that the word barely escaped.

"I am going to say everything I have to say, if you never speak to me again. I feel as if I were standing on the point of a high rock and every side led sheer down into an abyss. It doesn't matter in the least down which side I fall. There is a certain satisfaction in that. But you shall listen."

"There is nothing you cannot say to me."