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The Broken Gate: A Novel

by Emerson Hough · English · Gutenberg #33475 · 459,183 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Broken Gate: A Novel

Author: Emerson Hough

Illustrator: M. Leone Bracker


        
Release date: August 20, 2010 [eBook #33475]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/33475

Credits: Produced by David Edwards, Mary Meehan and the Online
        Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
        file was produced from images generously made available
        by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BROKEN GATE: A NOVEL ***




Produced by David Edwards, Mary Meehan and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)









                          The BROKEN GATE

                             _A NOVEL_

                          BY EMERSON HOUGH

AUTHOR OF "THE MAN NEXT DOOR," "THE MAGNIFICENT ADVENTURE," "54 deg. 40' OR
FIGHT," "THE MISSISSIPPI BUBBLE," ETC.


ILLUSTRATED BY
M. LEONE BRACKER

D. APPLETON and COMPANY
NEW YORK  LONDON
1917

COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY EMERSON HOUGH

COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY THE PICTORIAL REVIEW COMPANY

Printed in the United States of America


             TO
       ARTHUR T. VANCE
FAITHFUL AND KINDLY COUNSELOR


[Illustration: He felt her hands resting on his head as though in
shelter.]




CONTENTS


I. THE HOMECOMING OF DIEUDONNE LANE

II. AURORA LANE

III. TWO MOTHERS

IV. IN OPEN COURT

V. CLOSED DOORS

VI. THE DIVIDING LINE

VII. AT MIDNIGHT

VIII. THE EXTRAORDINARY HORACE BROOKS

IX. THE OTHER WOMAN CONCERNED

X. THE MURDER

XI. IN THE NAME OF THE LAW

XII. ANNE OGLESBY

XIII. "AS YOU BELIEVE IN GOD!"

XIV. AURORA AND ANNE

XV. THE ANGELS AND MISS JULIA

XVI. HORACE BROOKS, ATTORNEY AT LAW

XVII. AT CHURCH

XVIII. AT THE COUNTY JAIL

XIX. THE MOB

XX. THE IDIOT

XXI. A TRUE BILL

XXII. MISS JULIA

XXIII. THE STATE _VS._ DIEUDONNE LANE

XXIV. THE SACKCLOTH OF SPRING VALLEY

XXV. BECAUSE SHE WAS A WOMAN




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS


He felt her hands resting on his head as though in Shelter.

"Your Honor," said he, "I presume I am the defendant in this case."

"I was kissing you and saying good-by ... when Miss Julia came in----"

"Anne! What made you come?"




The BROKEN GATE




CHAPTER I

THE HOMECOMING OF DIEUDONNE LANE


"Eejit! My son John! Whip ary man in Jackson County! Whoop! Come along!
Who'll fight old Eph Adamson?"

The populace of Spring Valley, largely assembled in the shade of the
awnings which served as shelter against an ardent June sun, remained
cold to the foregoing challenge. It had been repeated more than once by
a stout, middle-aged man in shirt sleeves and a bent straw hat, who
still turned a truculent gaze this side and that, taking in the
straggling buildings which lined the public square--a quadrangle which
had for its center the brick courthouse, surrounded by a plat of
scorched and faded greensward. At his side walked a taller though
younger man, grinning amiably.

The audience remained indifferent, although the challenger now shifted
his position to the next path leading out to a street entrance; and
repeated this until he had quite traversed the square. Only, at the
farther corner back of him, a woman paused as she entered the courthouse
inclosure--paused and turned back as she caught sight of the challenger
and heard his raucous summons, although evidently she had been hurrying
upon some errand.

Ephraim Adamson walked hither and thither, his muscular arms now bared
to the elbows; and at his side stalked his stalwart son, who now and
then beat his fists together, and cracked his knuckles with a vehemence
like that of pistol shots. But none paid great attention to either of
the Adamsons. Indeed, the eyes of most now were following the comely
figure of this woman, as usually was the case when she appeared.

"Take her now, right how she is," said one of the sidewalk philosophers,
"and you got to admit yonder's the handsomest woman in this town, and
has been for twenty years." He nodded to where she stood, hesitating.

That she was a tallish woman, of less than middle age and of good
figure, was perceptible even at some distance as she finally advanced.
She was well clad enough, and with a certain grace and trimness in her
appointings--indeed seemed smart in a quiet and unobtrusive way--very
neat as to hands and feet, and trim as to the small turban which served
now as her only defense against the heat of the summer sun.

"'Rory Lane," said one languid citizen to another, as they sat on
comfortable boxes in front of the leading grocery store. "Wonder where
_she's_ goin', this time of day? Anyhow, she runs into Old Man Adamson
on his regular weekly spree. He wants to fight, as usual, him and his
half-wit boy. It's a shame."

"But they kin do it," responded the other ruminatingly. "It's got so
lately, every Saturday afternoon regular, him and his half-wit yonder
stands off the whole town. No man wants to fight a eejit--it ain't
proper."

"Some has," remarked the first citizen thoughtfully.

"Well, anyways, old Joel Tarbush, the town marshal, had ought to look
after such things. There he sets now, over yonder under the awnings in
front of the Golden Eagle, and he sees them two plain enough."

His crony only chuckled. "Reckon Old Man Tarbush knows when he's well
off," was his sententious reply.

The first speaker again pointed a thumb toward the courthouse grounds,
where the woman now was crossing toward the street. She was walking
rapidly, apparently anxious to escape the notice of the two men in the
yard, and intent on her purpose, as though she feared being late at some
appointment. The younger and taller was hastening toward her, but
shrinking from him she hurried on across through the turnstile, and out
into the street. She advanced with a nod here and there to those whom
she met along the street front, but she showed no effusiveness, and did
not pause to talk with anyone, although all seemed to know her. Some
women smiled at her faintly. Some men smiled at her also--after she had
passed. All talked of her, sometimes nodding, head to head.

The woman so frankly discussed presently disappeared around the corner
of the street which led down to the railway station, a half-mile
distant. And now could be heard the rumble of the town "bus," bringing
in its tribute from the train to the solitary hotel.

"Huh!" said one of these twain, "'Rory was too late, like enough, if she
was plannin' to meet Number Four, fer any reason. Here comes the bus
a'ready."

Aurora Lane had indeed been too late to meet the train, but not too late
to attain the purpose of her hurried walk. A moment later the two
watchers on the sidewalk, and all the other Saturday loafers, saw her
emerge again from the street that led up from the railway station.

She was not alone now. A young man had spied her from his place in the
hotel bus, and, whether in answer to a signal from her, or wholly of his
own notion--regarding which there was later discussion by the two
gossips above mentioned--had sprung out to join her on the street.

He walked by her side now, holding her by the arm, patting her shoulder,
talking to her volubly, excitedly, all the time--a tall young man in
modern garb; a young man with good shoulders and a strong and easy
stride. His face seemed flushed with eagerness and happiness. His hat,
pushed back on his brow, showed the short curling auburn hair, strong
and dense above the brown cheeks. Those who were close might have seen
the kindly, frank and direct gaze of his open blue eyes.

A certain aloof distinction seemed to cling about the young man also as
he advanced now, laughing and bubbling over with very joy of life and
eagerness at greeting this woman at his side--this woman whose face
suddenly was glorified with a light none ever had seen it bear before.
Why not? It was his mother--Aurora Lane, the best known woman of Spring
Valley, and the woman with least reputation.

The two passed directly into the center of the town's affairs, and yet
they seemed apart in some strange way. They met greetings, but the
greetings were vague, curious. No one knew this young man.

"Huh!" exclaimed one of the two town critics once more. "There they go.
Pretty sight, ain't it! Who's he?"

Old Silas Kneebone leaned to his friend, Aaron Craybill, on the adjacent
store box. "Taller'n she is, and got red hair, too, like hers. I
wonder--but law!--No, good law! No! It kain't be. She ain't nobody's
wife, and never was."

"But there they go, walking through the streets in broad daylight, as
bold as you please," commented his crony.

"I dunno as I'd call her bold, neither," rejoined Silas. "'Rory Lane,
she's kept up her head all these years, and I must say she's minded her
own business. Everybody knows, these twenty years, she had a baby, and
that the baby died; but that's about all anybody ever did know. The
baby's dad, if it had one, has hid damned well--the man nor the woman
neither don't live in this town that can even guess who he was. But
who's this young feller? Some relative o' hern from somewheres, like
enough--reckon she must 'a' been goin' down to the train to meet him.
Never told nobody, and just like her not to. She sure is close-mouthed.
They're going on over towards her place, seems like," he continued.
"Say, don't she look proud? Seems like she's glad over something. But
why--that's what I want to know--why?"

The two persons thus in the public eye of Spring Valley by this time had
come again to the corner of the courthouse inclosure, and apparently
purposed to pass diagonally through the courthouse yard. Now and again
the young man turned in friendly fashion to the onlookers, none of whom
he knew, but whom he fancied to be acquaintances of his companion. He
himself was altogether a stranger in the town. He felt a chill at the
curious stares, the silent half smiles he encountered, but attributed
that to bucolic reticence, so shrugged his shoulders and turned to
Aurora Lane. Had any at that time heard his speech, they surely must
have felt yet more surprise.

"Mom!" said he. "Mother! I've got a mother, after all--and such a
splendid one! I can't believe it at all--it must all be a dream. To be
an orphan all my life--and then to get word that I'm not--that I've a
mother, after all--and you! Why, I'd have known you anyhow, I'm sure, if
I'd never seen you, even from the picture I had. It was when you were a
girl. But you've not changed--you couldn't. And it's you who've been my
mother all the time. It's fine to be home with you at last. So this is
the town where you have lived--that I've never seen. And here are all
your friends?"

"Yes, Don," said she, "all I have, pretty much." Aurora Lane's speaking
voice was of extraordinary sweetness.

"Well, you have lived here all your life."

"Yes," she smiled.

"And they all know you."

"Oh, yes," noncommittally. "It was too bad you had to be away from me,
Don, boy. You seem like a stranger to me--I can't realize you are here,
that you are my own boy, Dieudonne! I'm afraid of you--I don't know
you--and I'm so proud and frightened, so surprised, so _glad_--why, I
don't know what to do. But I'd have known you anywhere--I _did_ know
you. You're just as I've always dreamed of you--and I'm glad--I'm so
very glad!"

"Mom! I loved your little picture, but I never knew how much I loved
_you_ till now--why--you're my _mother_! My mother! And I've never seen
you--I've never known you--till right now. You're a ripper, that's what
you are!

"And is that where you live, over yonder?" he added quickly, to conceal
the catch in his throat, the quick moisture in his eyes. His mother! And
never in all his life had he seen her face--this sweet, strange,
wistful, wonderful face. His mother! He had not even known she was
alive. And now, so overwhelmed was he, he did not as yet even think of
unraveling the veil of ignorance or deceit--call it what one
might--which had left him in orphanage all his life till now.

"Yes, over yonder," said Aurora, and pointed across the square. "That
little house under the shade trees, just at the corner. That's home and
workshop for me, Don."

She spoke softly, her eyes still fixed on him, the color of her cheeks
deepening.

"Not so much of a house, is it?" laughed the boy, tears on his face,
born of his new emotion, so sudden, so tremendous and so strange.

"Not so very much," she assented, laughing gayly also, and also in
tears, which gave him sudden grief--"but it has served."

"Well, never mind. We're going to do better out West, Mom. We're going
to have you with us right away, as soon as I can get started."

"What--what do you say--with _us_! With _us_?"

She spoke in swift dismay, halting in her walk. "What do you mean,
Don--_us_?"

"I didn't tell you the news," said he, "for I've just got it myself.

"What a week! I heard of you--that you were alive, that you were living
here--though why you never told me I can't dream--and now, today, Anne!
Two such women--and for me. I can call God kind to me. As if I deserved
it!"

He did not see her face as he went on rapidly:

"We didn't know it ourselves much more than an hour or so ago--Anne and
I. She came out on the same train with me--we finished school together,
don't you see! Anne lives in Columbus, fifty miles west. She's fine! I
haven't had time to tell you."

He didn't have time now--did not have time to note even yet the sudden
pallor which came upon his mother's face. "Anne?" she began.

"Huh!" said Silas Kneebone again from his place under the awning, "there
she goes--'Rory Lane. Wonder who that kin be with her! And I wonder
what old Eph Adamson's goin' to say to them! Watch at them now."

The young man and his mother by this time were within the courthouse
fence and coming face to face with the two public challengers, who had
so fervently notified all mankind of their wish to engage in personal
combat.

Those beneath the awnings now saw the tall figure of the half-wit boy,
Johnnie Adamson, advance toward Aurora Lane. They saw her and the tall
young stranger halt suddenly--saw the young man gently push the woman
back of him and stand full front, frowning, questioning, almost directly
against the half-wit. He reached out a hand and thrust him back,
sternly, fearlessly, half contemptuously.

"Wait, Don! Come back!" called out Aurora Lane. "Don't get into trouble
here--come--come away!"

She plucked at the sleeve of his coat to draw him back. It was too late.
The half-wit, cracking his knuckles now yet more loudly, and knocking
his fists together, had wholly lost his amiable smile. Something
primordial was going on, deep down in his rudimentary brain.

As for Eph Adamson, he also stood scowling and silent, a sudden wave of
resentment filling his soul at seeing the happiness of these two.

"No, you don't--just you leave him be!" called out Eph Adamson, as the
young man pushed the half-wit back from him, his own blue eyes now
beginning to glint. "Leave him alone, unless you want to fight. He can
lick you anyways, whoever you are. Do you want to fight?"

"No, why should I? I don't know you."

Don Lane turned toward the stranger, still frowning and somewhat
wondering, but in no terror whatever.

"I don't know you neither, nor what you're doin' here, but you've got to
fight or 'pologize," said Eph Adamson, arriving at this conclusion
through certain mental processes of his own not apparent. "You got to
have our consent to cross this here courtyard. This is my son John, and
you shan't insult him."

"Get on away--step back," said Don Lane. "I guess it's all right, but
let my mother and myself alone--we're just going home."

A sudden wave of rage and wonder, mingled, filled the soul of drunken
Eph Adamson as his venom rose to the boiling point.

"Mother!" he half screamed, "your _mother_? Who're you? You're a pretty
pair, you two, ain't you? She said her baby died twenty years ago. Did
she have some more? Who're you? _Mother?_--Say, after all, are _you_ the
town's boy--coming pushing past my son with her--your _mother_! What do
you mean? If you're her son, you ain't _got_ no mother, nor no father
neither."

And now there came a pause, an icy pause--icy it was, out there in the
glare of the hot summer sun. These four who stood in view of all the
village might have been statues for the time, so motionless, so tense
was each.

Not many actually heard the words of old Eph Adamson--words wrung out of
the bitterness of his own soul perhaps, but words intolerable none the
less. None had heard the words of Aurora Lane and the young man as they
had spoken previous to this. None guessed who the stranger was or might
be--none but drunken Eph Adamson. But all could see what now happened.

For one instant the young man stood almost like a statue. Then with one
sudden thrust of his fist he smote the old man full in the mouth, so
swift and hard a blow that Adamson dropped prostrate, and for the time
motionless.

A sudden, instantaneous, electric buzz, a murmur, ran all around the
square. A sound of shuffling feet and falling boxes might have been
heard as men here and there rose eagerly, their necks craned out toward
this swiftly made arena.

They saw the half-wit boy now advance upon Don Lane with a roar or bawl
of rage, his arms swinging flail-like. All expected to see the newcomer
turn and run. Not so. He simply stood for a half instant, sidestepped,
and again swung in close upon his foe. Old Silas Kneebone described the
affair many a time afterwards, at a time when Spring Valley knew more
about Don Lane.

"You see, the eejit, he gets up again, hollering, and he goes in again
at Dewdonny, bound for to knock his head off. But Dewdonny, he ducks
down like a regular prize-fighter--I hear tell, at colleges, them
athaletes they have to learn all them sort of things--and he put up a
fight like a regular old hand. But all the time he keeps hollering to
the crowd, 'Take him away! Take him away! Keep him off, I say! I don't
want to hit him!'

"Well, folks begun to laugh at Dewdonny then--before they knowed who he
was--thinking he was afraid of that eejit; yet it didn't seem like he
was, neither, for he didn't run away. At last he hits the eejit fair a
second time, and he knocks him down flat. Folks then begun to allow he
could hit him whenever he wanted to, and knock him down whenever he
pleased.

"Now, the eejit, he gets up and begins to beller like a calf. He puts
his hand on his face where Dewdonny Lane had done hit him the last time
or two and he hollers out, 'Pa, he hit me!'

"But his pa could only set up on the grass and shake his head. I reckon
old Eph was soberer then than he had been five minutes sooner. Say, that
boy had a punch like the kick of a full growed mule!

"Of course, you all know what happened then. It was then that old Man
Tarbush come in, seeing the boy had both of them two licked. He got up
his own nerve after that. So now he goes over there to the courthouse
ground, through the gate where they all was, and he lays his hand on
Dewdonny Lane and then on the eejit.

"'I arrest you both for disturbing of the peace,' says he then. 'Come on
now, in the name of the law.'

"'The law be damned!' says Dewdonny Lane then. 'Go take this man to
jail. Are you crazy--what do you mean by arresting me when I'm just
walking home with my mother? This wasn't my fault. I didn't want to hit
him.

"'Come on, Mom!' says he, and before Tarbush could help hisself he'd
took 'Rory Lane by the arm again and off they went, and right soon they
was in their house--them two, the milliner and her boy.

"And Joel Tarbush he heard him call her 'Mom' right there--that's how it
all begun to git out.

"That's right--this was the town milliner and the boy she sent away,
that never died none at all nohow.--'Rory Lane, and her boy we all
thought was dead. And we'd never knowed it nor dreamed it till he spoke,
right there in the public square! 'My mother!' says he. Can you beat
that?

"Then 'Rory Lane turns around and fronts the whole lot of them. Says
she: 'Yes, it's true! This is my son, Dewdonny Lane,' says she. She said
it cold.

"That was before we knowed all about how she had put him through
college, and that this was his first visit home, and the first time he'd
ever seen her--his own mother! I heard as how he'd thought all his life
he was a orphan, and someone on the inside that very week--just when
he'd finished in college--had wrote him that he wasn't no orphan, but
had a mother living right here! So here he comes, hot foot--and didn't
he spill the beans!

"She'd tried her durnedest to keep it all covered up--and you must say
she'd made one big fight of it, fer it's hard fer a woman to keep her
eyes and her hands off of her own flesh and blood, even if it ain't
legal. But, somehow, it's hard to keep that sort of thing covered up,
for a woman. It all comes out, time'n again--ain't it the truth? How she
done it for twenty years is a miracle. But law! What's twenty years,
come to forgettin' things like what she done?"




CHAPTER II

AURORA LANE


While the doughty town marshal, endowed now with a courage long foreign
to his nature, was leading away his sobbing prisoner, followed by the
prisoner's dazed yet angered parent, these other two, mother and son,
continued rapidly on their way toward the home of Aurora Lane. The young
man walked in silence, his enthusiasm stilled, although he held his
mother's hand tight and close as it lay upon his arm. His face, frowning
and stern, seemed suddenly grown strangely older.

They arrived at the corner of the tawny grassplot of the courthouse
yard, crossed the street once more, and turned in at the long shady lane
of maples which made off from that corner of the square. Here, just in
the neutral strip between business and residence property, opposite a
wagon-making and blacksmith shop, and adjoining the humble abode of a
day-laborer, they came to a little gate which swung upon a decrepit
hinge. It made in upon a strip of narrow brick walk, swept scrupulously
clean, lined with well-kept tulips; a walk which in turn arrived at the
foot of a short and narrow stair leading up to the porch of the
green-shuttered house itself.

It was a small place of some half-dozen rooms, and it served now, as it
had for these twenty years, as home and workshop alike for its tenant.
Aurora Lane had lived here so long that most folk thought she owned the
place. As a matter of fact, she owned only a vast sheaf of receipted
bills for rent paid to Nels Jorgens, the wagon-maker across the street.
In all these twenty years her rent had been paid promptly, as were all
her other bills.

Aurora Lane was a milliner, who sometimes did dress-making as well--the
only milliner in Spring Valley--and had held that honor for many years.
A tiny sign above the door announced her calling. A certain hat, red of
brim and pronounced of plume, which for unknown years had reposed in the
front window of the place--the sort of hat which proved bread-winning
among farmers' wives and in the families of villagers of moderate
income--likewise announced that here one might find millinery.

When she first had moved into these quarters so many years ago, scarce
more than a young girl, endeavoring to make a living in the world, the
maples had not been quite so wide, the grass along the sidewalk not
quite so dusty.

It was here that for twenty years Aurora Lane had made her fight
against the world. It had been the dream, the fierce, flaming ambition
of all her life, that her son, her son beloved, her son born out of holy
wedlock, might after all have some chance in life.

It was for this that she aided in his disappearance in his infancy,
studiously giving out to all--without doubt even to the unknown father
of the boy--the word that the child had died, still in its infancy, in a
distant state, among relatives of her own. She herself, caught in the
shallows of poverty and unable to travel, had not seen him in all these
years--had not dared to see him--had in all the dulled but not dead
agony of a mother's yearning postponed her sweet dream of a mother's
love, and with unmeasurable bravery held her secret all these awful
years. Schooling here and there, at length the long term in college, had
kept the boy altogether a stranger to his native town, a stranger even
to his own mother. He did not know his own past, nor hers. He did not
dream how life had been made smooth for him, nor at what fearful cost.
Shielded about always by a mother's love, he had not known he had a
mother.

This was as his mother had wished. As for him, in some way he received
the requisite funds. He wondered only that he knew so little of his own
people, half orphan though he was. He had been told that his father,
long since dead, had left a certain sum for the purpose of his
education, although further of his own history he knew nothing. That he
was not of honorable birth he never once had dreamed. And now he had
heard this charge for the first time--heard it made publicly, openly,
before all the world, on this which was to have been the happiest day in
all his life.

But if Don Lane knew little about himself, there lacked not knowledge of
his story, actual or potential, here in Spring Valley, once his presence
called up the past to Spring Valley's languid mind. There had not yet
been excitement enough for one day. Everyone, male and female, surging
here and there in swift gossiping, now called up the bitter story so
long hid in Aurora Lane's bosom.

As for Aurora, she had before this well won her fight of all these
years. She was known as the town milliner, a woman honorable in her
business transactions and prompt with all her bills. Socially she had no
place. She was not invited to any home, any table. The best people of
the town, the banker's wife, the families of the leading merchants,
bought bonnets of her. Ministers--while yet new in their pulpits--had
been known to call upon her sometimes--one had even offered to kneel and
pray with her in her workroom, promising her salvation even yet, and
telling her the story of the thief upon the cross. Once Aurora Lane went
to church and sat far back, unseen, but she did so no longer now, had
not for many years, feeling that she dared not appear in the
church--the church which had not ratified her nuptial night!

She had her place, definite and yet indefinite, accepted and yet
rejected, here in this village. But gradually, dumbly, doggedly she had
fought on; and she had won. Long since, Spring Valley had ceased openly
to call up her story. If once she had been wearer of the scarlet letter,
the color thereof had faded these years back. She was the town milliner,
a young woman under suspicion always, but no man could bring true word
against her character. She had sinned--once--no more. If she had known
opportunity for other sins than her first one, she held her peace. Human
nature were here as it is elsewhere--women as keen; men as lewd. But the
triumph of Aurora Lane might now have been called complete. She had
"lived it down."

This long and terrible battle of one woman against so many strangely
enough had not wholly embittered her life, so strong and sweet and true
and normal had it originally been. She still could smile--smile in two
fashions. One was a pleasant, sunny and open smile for those who came in
the surface affairs of life. The other was deeper, a slow, wry smile,
very wise, and yet perhaps charitable, after all. Aurora Lane knew!

But all these years she had worked on with but one purpose--to bring up
her boy and to keep her boy in ignorance of his birth. He had never
known--not in all these years! It had been her dream, her prayer, that
he might never know.

And now he knew--he must know.

They stepped through the little picket gate, up the tiny brick walk and
across the little narrow porch together, into the tiny apartments which
had been the arena for Aurora Lane--in which she had fought for her own
life, her own soul, and for the life of her son, her tribute to the
scheme of life itself. Here lay the _penetralia_ of this domicile, this
weak fortification against the world.

In this room were odds and ends of furniture, a few pictures not
ill-chosen--pictures not in crude colors, but good blacks and whites.
Woman or girl, Aurora Lane had had her own longings for the great
things, the beautiful things of life, for the wide world which she never
was to see. Her taste for good things was instinctive, perhaps
hereditary. Had she herself not been an orphan, perhaps she had not
dared the attempt to orphan her own son. There were books and magazines
upon the table, mixed in with odds and ends of scraps of work sometimes
brought hither; the margin between her personal and her professional
life being a very vague matter.

Back of this central room, through the open door, showed the small white
bed in the tiny sleeping room. At the side of this was the yet more tiny
kitchen where Aurora Lane all these years had cooked for herself and
washed for herself and drawn wood and water for herself. She had no
servant, or at least usually had not. Daily she wrought a woman's
miracles in economy. Year by year she had, in some inscrutable fashion,
been able to keep up appearances, and to pay her bills, and to send
money to her son--her son whom she had not seen in twenty years--her son
for whom her eyes and her heart ached every hour of every day. She
sewed. She made hats. What wonder if the scarlet of the hat in the
window had faded somewhat--and what wonder if the scarlet of the letter
on her bosom had faded even more?... Because it had all been for him,
her son, her first-born. And he must never, never know! He must have his
chance in the world. Though the woman should fail, at least the man must
not.

So it was thus that, heavy-hearted enough now, she brought him to see
the place where his mother had lived these twenty years. And now he knew
about it, must know. It took all her courage--the last drop of her
splendid, unflinching woman-courage.

"Come in, Don," she said. "Welcome home!"

He looked about him, still frowning with what was on his mind.

"Home?" said he.

"Don!" she said softly.

"Tough work, wasn't it, waiting for me to get through, dear Mom? For I
know you did wait. I know you meant that some day----"

He laid a hand on her head, his lips trembling. He knew he was
postponing, evading. She shrank back in some conviction also of
postponing, evading. All her soul was honest. She hated deceit--though
all her life she had been engaged in this glorious deceit which now was
about to end.

"Tough sometimes, yes," she said, smiling up at him. "But don't you like
it?"

"If my dad had lived," said Don, "or if he had had very much to give
either of us, you'd never have lived this way at all. Too bad he died,
wasn't it, Mom?"

He smiled also, or tried to smile, yet restraint was upon them both,
neither dared ask why.

She caught up his hand suddenly, spying upon it a strand of blood.

"Don!" she exclaimed, wiping it with her kerchief, "you are hurt!"

He laughed at this. "Surely you don't know much of boxing or football,"
said he.

"You ought not to fight," she reproved him. "On your first day--and all
the town saw it, Don! You and I--we ought not to fight. What--on the
first day I've seen you in all these years--the first day you're out of
college--the first day I could ever in all my life claim you for my very
own? I believe I _would_ have claimed you--yes, I do! But you
came--when you knew you had a mother, why you came to her, didn't you,
Don? Even me. But you mustn't fight."

"Why?" He turned upon her quickly, his voice suddenly harsh, his eyes
narrowing under drawn brows. "Why shouldn't I fight?"

He seemed suddenly grown graver, more mature, strong, masterful, his eye
threatening. She almost smiled as she looked at him, goodly as he was,
her pride that she had borne him overpowering all, her exultation that
she had brought a man into the world, a strong man, one fit to prevail,
scornful of hurt--one who had fought for her! For the first time in her
life a man had fought for her, and not against her.

But on the soul of Aurora Lane still sat the ancient dread. She saw the
issue coming now.

"Mother----" said he, throwing his hat upon the table and walking toward
her quickly.

"Yes, Don." (She had named her son Dieudonne--"God-given." Those who did
not know what this might mean later called him "Dewdonny," and hence
"Don.")

"I didn't thrash them half enough, those fellows, just now."

"Don't say that, Don. It was too bad--it was terrible that it had to be
today, right when you were first coming here. I had been waiting for you
so long, and I wanted----"

"Well, I tell you what I want--I want you just to come away with me. I
want to get you away from this town, right away, at once, as quick as I
can. I'm beginning to see some things and to wonder about others. I am
ashamed I have cost you so much--in spite of what Dad left, you had to
live close--I can see that now--although I never knew a thing about it
until right now. I feel like a big loafer, spending all the money I
have, while you have lived like this. Where did you get it, Mom?"

She swept a gesture about her with both hands. "I got it here," said she
suddenly. "It _all_ came from--here. You father sent you--nothing! I've
not let you know all the truth--you've known almost nothing of the
truth."

Then her native instinct forced her to amend. "At least half of it came
from here. It was honest money, Don, you know it was that, don't
you--you believe it was honest?"

"Money that would have burned my fingers if I had known how it came. But
I didn't. What's up here? Have you fooled me, tricked me--made a loafer
of me? I supposed my father set aside enough for my education--and
enough for you, too. What's been wrong here? What's under all this? Tell
me, now!"

His mother's eyes were turned away from him. "At least we have done it,
Don," said she, with her shrewd, crooked smile. "We've not to do it
over again. You can't forget what you have learned--you can't get away
from your college education now, can you? You've got it--your diploma,
your degree in engineering. You're a college man, Don, the only one in
Spring Valley. And I'm so proud, and I'm so glad. Oh! Don--Don----"

She laid a hand on his breast shyly, almost afraid of him now--the first
hand she had ever laid upon the heart of any man these twenty years. It
was her son, a man finished, a gentleman, she hoped.... Could he not be
a gentleman? So many things of that sort happened here in America. Poor
boys had come up and come through--had they not? And even a poor boy
might grow up to be a gentleman--was not that true--oh, might it not
after all be true?

He laid his own hand over hers now, the hand on which the blood was not
yet dried.

"Mom," said he, "I ought to go back and thrash the life out of that man
yet. I ought to wring the neck of that doddering old fool marshal. I
ought to whip every drunken loafer on those streets. Whose business was
it? Couldn't we cross the square without all that?"

He stopped suddenly, the fatal thought ever recurring to his mind. But
he lacked courage. Why should he not? Was this not far worse than facing
death for both of them? Their eyes no longer sought one another.

"Mom----" said he, with effort now.

"Yes, my boy."

"_Where's my dad?_"

A long silence fell. Could she lie to him now?

"The truth now!" he said after a time.

"You have none, Don!" said she gaspingly at last. "He's gone. Isn't that
enough? He's dead--yes--call him dead--for he's gone."

He pushed back roughly and looked at her straight.

"Did he really leave any money for my education?"

She looked at him, her throat fluttering. "I wish I could lie," said
she. "I do wish I could lie to you. I have almost forgot how. I have
been trying so long to live on the square--I don't believe, Don, I know
how to do any different. I've been trying to live so that--so that----"

"So what, mother?"

"So I could be worthy of _you_, Don! That's been about all my life."

"_I have no father?_"

She could not reply.

"Then was what--what that man said--was _that the truth_?"

After what seemed to both of them an age of agony she looked up.

She nodded mutely.

Then her hand gripped fiercely at his coat lapel. A great dread filled
her. Must she lose also her boy, for whom she had lived, for whom she
had denied herself all these years--the boy who was more than life
itself to her? Her face was white. She looked up into another face, a
strange face, that of her son; and it was white as her own.

"I didn't know it," said he simply at length. "Of course, if I had
known, I wouldn't have done what I did. I would have worked."

"No, no! Now you are just fitted to work. It's over--it's done--we have
put you through."

"You told me my father was dead. Where is he--who is he?"

"I will never tell you, Don," said she steadily, "not so long as you
live will I tell you. I have never told anyone on earth, and I never
will."

"Then how do they know--then why should that man say what he did?"

"They know--about you--that--that you happened--that's all. They thought
you died as a child, a baby--we sent you away. They don't know who it
was--your father--I couldn't have lived here if anyone had known--that
was my secret--my one secret--and I will keep it all my life. But here
are you, my boy! I will not say I am sorry--I will never say that again!
I am glad--I'm glad for anything that's given me _you_! And you fought
for me--the first time anyone ever did, Don."

He was turning away from her now slowly, and she followed after him,
agonized.

"It wasn't _your_ fault, Don!" said she. "Try to remember that always.
Haven't I taken it up with God--there on my knees?" She pointed to the
little room where the corner of the white bed showed. "On my knees!"

She followed him as he still walked away. "Oh, Don," she cried, "what do
you mean, and what are you going to do?"

"I'm going to try to forget everything of all my life. God! if I could
undo it--if I could forget how I got my education," said he. "Tell me,
didn't he help at all--did you, all alone, bring me up, far away, never
seeing me, educating me, keeping me--taking care of me--didn't he, my
father, do anything at all--for you?"

"No, I did it--or at least half of it."

"And who the other half?"

"Never mind, Don, never mind." She patted eagerly on the lapel of his
coat, which once more she had caught and was fingering. "Oh, this was to
have been my very happiest day--I have been living and working for this
all these long, long years--for the day when I'd see you. Let me have a
little of it, can't you, Don? If you should forsake me now, I will know
that God has; and then I'll know I never had a chance."

Quickly he laid a hand upon her shoulder. "No, I'll wait."

"What do you mean?" she asked. "What is it that you will do?"

"Find out who he was," said he, his face haggard.

"You will never do that, Don."

"Oh, yes. And when I do----"

"What then?"

"I'll kill him, probably. At least I'll choke this lie or this truth,
whichever it is, down the throats of this town. God! I'm _filius
nullius_! I'm the son of no man! I'm worse. I'm a loafer. I've been
supported by a woman--my own mother, who had so little, who was left
alone--oh, God! God!"

"Don," she cried out now. "Don, I'd died if I could have kept it from
you. Oh, my son--my son!"




CHAPTER III

TWO MOTHERS


The young man stood motionless, facing the white-faced woman who had
pronounced his fate for him. Happily it chanced that there came
interruption, for a moment relieving both of the necessity of speech.

The click of the little crippled gate as it swung to brought Aurora Lane
to her senses now. She hastened to the door, toward the outer stair. She
met someone at the door.

"Julia!" she exclaimed. "Come in. Oh, I'm so glad. Come! He's here--he's
come--he's right here now!"

There entered now the figure of a youngish-looking woman, her hair just
tinged with gray here and there upon the temples; a woman perhaps the
junior of Aurora Lane by a year or so. Of middle stature, she was of
dark hair, and of brown eyes singularly luminous and soft. Not uncomely,
one would have called her at first sight. The second glance would have
shown the limp with which Julia Delafield walked, the bent-top cane
which was her constant companion. She was one of those handicapped in
the race of life, a cripple from her childhood, but a cripple in body
only. One might not look in her face without the feeling that here was a
nature of much charm.

Miss Julia likewise was owner of two smiles. The one was sad, pathetic,
the smile of the hopeless soul. The other, and that usually seen by
those about her, was wide and winning beyond words--the smile which had
given her her place in the hearts of all Spring Valley. These many years
"Miss Julia," as she was known to all, had held her place as "city
librarian," in which quasi-public capacity she was known of all, and
loved of all as well.

She came in now smiling, and kissed Aurora Lane before she allowed
herself to see, standing in the inner room, the tall young man, who
seemed to fill up the little apartment. A swift color came into her face
as, with a sort of summoning up of her courage, she went up to him,
holding out her hands. Even she put up her cheek to be kissed by him. It
was her peculiarity when feeling any emotion, any eagerness, to flush
brightly. She did so now.

"Oh, Miss Julia!" exclaimed Don. "I'm glad to see you. Why, I know you
too--I feel as though I've always known you just as you are! So--you're
my fairy godmother, who's got a real mother for me! All these
years--till I was a man grown--how could you?--but I'd know you
anywhere, because you're just the image of the picture you sent me with
that of her. I mean when you wrote me last week for the first time--that
wonderful letter--and told me I had a mother, and she was here, but that
I mustn't ever come to see her. Of course, I wired at once I _was_
coming! See now----"

"You are tall, Don," said Miss Julia softly. "You are very tall. You
are--you are fine! I'm so glad you grew up tall. All the heroes in my
books are tall, you know." She laughed aloud now, a rippling, joyous
little laugh, and hooking her cane across the chair arm, sank back into
Aurora Lane's largest rocker, her tender, wistful face very much
suffused.

Don fetched his mother also a chair, and seated himself, still regarding
Miss Julia curiously. He saw the two women look at one another, and
could not quite tell what lay in the look.

As for Miss Julia, she was still in ignorance of the late events in the
public square, because she had come directly across to Aurora Lane's
house after the closing of her own duties at the library this Saturday
afternoon, when most of her own patrons were disposed for the open than
for books.

"Yes, Don," said she again, "you are fine!" Her eyes were all alight
with genuine pride in him. "I'm so glad after all you came to see us
before you went on West--even when I told you you mustn't! Oh, believe
me, your mother scolded me! But I presume you are in a hurry to get
away? And you've grown up! After all, twenty years is only a little
time. Must you be in a hurry to leave us?"

"I ought not to be," said he, smiling pleasantly after all. "Surely I
ought to come and see you two good partners first--I could not go away
without that. Oh, mother has told me about you--or at least I'm sure she
was just going to when you came in. Strange--I've got to get acquainted
with my mother--and you. But I know you--you're two good partners,
that's what you are--two good scouts together--isn't it true?"

Miss Julia flushed brightly. His chance word had gone passing close to
the truth, but he did not know the truth. Don Lane did not know that
here sat almost the only woman friend Aurora Lane could claim in all
Spring Valley. Miss Julia in fact was silent partner in this very
millinery shop--and silent partner in yet other affairs of which Don
Lane was yet to learn.

This was a great day for Miss Julia as well as for Don's mother. Time
and again these two women had sat in this very room and planned for this
homecoming of the boy--this boy--time and again planned, and then agreed
he must not come--their son. For--yes--they _both_ called him son! If
Don Lane, Dieudonne Lane, was _filius nullius_, at least he might boast
two mothers.

How came this to pass? One would need to go back into the story of Miss
Julia's life as well as that of Aurora Lane. She had been lame from
birth, hopelessly so, disfiguringly so. Yet callous nature had been kind
to her, had been compassionate. It gave to her a face of wondrous
sweetness, a heart of wondrous softness thereto. Hopeless and resigned,
yet never pathetic and never seeking pity, no living soul had ever heard
an unkind or impatient word from Julia Delafield's lips, not in all her
life, even when she was a child. She had suffered, yes. The story of
that was written on her face--she knew she might not hope--and yet she
hoped.

She knew all the great romances of the world, and knew likewise more
than the greatest romancer ever wrote of women. For her--even with her
wistful smile, the sudden flashing of her wistful eyes--there could be
no romance, and she knew that well. Not for her was to be ever the love
of man. She was of those cruelly defective in body, who may not hope for
any love worth having. Surrounded daily by her friends, her books, Miss
Julia was an eager reader, and an eager lover. She knew more of life's
philosophy perhaps than any soul in all her town, and yet she might
enjoy less of life's rewards than any other. A woman to the heart,
feminine in every item, flaming with generous instincts, and yet denied
all hope of motherhood; a woman steeped in philosophy and yet trained in
emotion--what must she do--what could she do--she, one of the denied?

What Miss Julia had done long years ago was to select as her best
friend the girl who of all in that heartless little town most needed a
friend--Aurora Lane. She knew Aurora's secret--in part. In full she
never yet had asked to know, so large was she herself of heart. All
Spring Valley had scorned Aurora Lane, for that she had no father for
her child. And--with what logic or lack of logic, who shall say?--Julia
Delafield had taken Aurora Lane close to her own heart--_because_ she
had the child!

It is not too much to say that these two hopeless women, the one outcast
of society, the other outcast of God, had brought up that child between
them. Those who say women have no secrets they can keep should have
noted this strange partnership in business, in life, in maternity! This
had gone on for twenty years, and not a soul in Spring Valley could have
told the truth of it. Don Lane did not know of it even now.

"Why, Aurora," said Miss Julia more than once in those early years to
her friend, "you must not grieve. See what God has given you--a
son!--and such a son! How glad, how proud, how contented you ought to
be. You have a son! Look at me!"

So Aurora Lane did look at Julia Delafield. They comforted one another.
It was from Miss Julia that year by year, falteringly, she learned to
hope, learned to hold up her head. Thus gradually, by the aid of the
love of another woman--a rare and beautiful thing, a wondrous thing--a
thing so very rare in that world of jealousy in which by fate women so
largely live--she got back some hold on life--she, mother of the son of
no man, at the urge of a woman who could never have a son!

"Oh, we will plan, Aurora!" said Miss Julia in those piteous earlier
times. "We will plan--we will get on. We'll fight it out together." And
so they had, shoulder to shoulder, unnoted, unpraised and unadvised,
year by year; and because they knew she had at least one friend, those
who sat in judgment on Aurora Lane came little by little to forgive or
to forget her sin, as it once was called of all the pulpits there.

And now a drunken tongue had recalled sharply, unforgivably,
unescapably, that past which had so long lain buried--a past to which
neither of them ever referred.

In all these years time had been doing what it could to repair what had
been. Time wreathes the broken tree with vines to bind up its wounds. It
covers the scarred earth with grasses presently. In all these years some
men had died, others had left the village. Certain old women, poisonous
of heart, also had died, and so the better for all concerned. Other
women mayhap had their sacrifices--and their secrets. But as for Aurora
Lane, at least she had won and held one friend. And so they two had had
between them a child, a son, a man. One had gathered of the philosophy
of life, of the world's great minds. The other had brought into the
partnership the great equipment with which Nature forever defies all law
and all philosophy save her own.

Now, product of their twenty years of friendship, here he stood, tall
and strong--Don Lane, their boy, blood on his hand because of that truth
which he swiftly--too swiftly--had declared to be a lie; and which was
no lie but the very truth.

But Don Lane still was ignorant of the closeness of truth of his last
remark. He only put such face now on all this as he might.

"Miss Julia," said he lamely, and giving her instinctively the title
which the town gave her, "I know you have been good to my mother."

"Why, no, I haven't, Don," said she, "not at all. I've been so busy I
have hardly seen your mother for a month or so. But we have kept track
of you--why, Don, I've got your class records, every one. You don't know
how I got them? Isn't it true, Aurie?"

"I don't know what I would ever have done without her," said Aurora Lane
slowly.

Don Lane laughed suddenly. "Why," said he, "it's almost as if I had
_two_ mothers, isn't it?"

Both women grew red now, and poor Don, knowing little as he did, grew
red as well.

"But what's the matter with your hand, Don--you've cut yourself! I've
told your mother she ought to fix that gate-latch."

Don looked once more at his wounded hand, and sought to cover the
blood-stain with his kerchief. He saw that Miss Julia had heard nothing
of the affair of a few moments earlier in the public square.

"Why, that's nothing," he mumbled.

This was too much for the straightforward nature of Aurora Lane, and
rapidly as she might she gave some account to Miss Julia of these late
events. She told all--except the basic and essential truth. A sad shame
held her back from talking even before Miss Julia of the fact that her
boy now knew he was the child of shame itself.

"That's too bad," said Julia Delafield slowly, gravely, as she heard the
half news. "I'm awfully sorry--I'm awfully sorry for your mother, Don.
You fought? My! I wish I had been there to see it."

Miss Julia's face flushed once more, indicative of the heroic soul which
lay in her own misshapen body.

"I didn't want to hit that fellow," said Don. "Of course, they had no
chance, either of them, with a man who could box a bit."

"And you learned that--in college, Don?"

He only grinned in reply, and thrust the wounded hand into his pocket,
out of sight.

"I'll warrant you, Don," said Miss Julia, "that if it hadn't been for
you old Tarbush, the town marshal, never would have taken Johnnie
Adamson to jail. Those two were a public nuisance every Saturday
afternoon. I'm glad you have ended it. But tell me, what made them pick
on you?"

Don Lane struggled for a time, not daring to look at his mother, before
he spoke. "The half-wit wouldn't let us pass, and then his father called
me a name--if that man or any other ever calls me that again, I'm going
to beat him up till his own people won't know him. I can't tell you," he
went on, flushing.

He did not catch the sudden look which now passed between the two women.
A sudden paleness replaced the flush on Miss Julia's cheek. A horror sat
in her eye. "What does he know?" was the question she asked of Aurora
Lane, eye only speaking the query.

"At least, Miss Julia," said poor Don, "you somehow certainly must know
about me. I'll get all my debts squared around some time. As soon as I
can get settled down in my new place West--I've got a fine engineering
job out in Wyoming already--I'm going to have my mother come. And if
ever I get on in the world, there are some other things I'm not going to
forget. Any friend of hers----" His big hand, waved toward his mother,
told the rest of what he could not speak.

They sat on, uncomfortable, for a time, neither of the three knowing
how much the others knew, nor how much each ought to know. Of the three,
Aurora Lane was most prepared. For twenty years she had been learning to
be prepared. For twenty years she had been praying that her boy never
would know what now he did know.

Don Lane looked at his mother's face, but could not fathom it. Life to
him thus far had been more or less made up of small things--sports,
books, joys, small things, no great ponderings, no problems, no
introspections, no self-communings--and until but very recently no love,
no great emotion, no passion to unsettle him. This shadow which now fell
over him--he could not have suspected that. But his mother all these
years had known that perhaps at any unforeseen time this very hour might
come--had prayed against it, but known always in her heart that it might
come, nay, indeed one day must come.

"Damn the place, anyhow!" he broke out at length. "You've lived here
long enough, both of you. It's nothing but a little gossiping hell,
that's all. I'll take you away from here, both of you, that's what I'll
do!" He stretched out a hand suddenly to his mother, who took it,
stroking it softly.

"Don, boy," said she, "I didn't run away. Why should we run away now? If
we did, we'd take ourselves with us wherever we went, wouldn't we? This
is as good a place to live out life as any I could have found. You
can't really evade things, you know."

"As though I asked to! I'd rather fight things than evade them."

"I think so," said his mother mournfully. "I suppose that's true."

"But you've got to be happy, mother," said he, again taking her hand in
his. "I'll _make_ you happy. I'm ready to work for you now--I'll pay you
back."

"And Miss Julia?" smiled his mother. "It was she who told you the news,
you know, and you didn't obey her--you came against orders."

"Why, yes, of course. She's been so awfully good to you. I know what
she's been, be sure of that." (As though he did know!)

"Don't be too bitter, Don," said Miss Julia Delafield, slowly now,
hoping only to salve a wound she felt he might have, yet not sure
herself what the wound might be. "Don't be unrelenting. Why, it seems to
me, as we grow older and begin to read and think, we find out the best
of life is just being--well, being charitable--just forgetting. Nothing
matters so very much, Don. That's doctrine, isn't it?"

Don Lane never finished what reply he might have made. There came yet
another interruption, yet another footfall on the little walk without,
following the clash of the crippled gate as it swung to. It was a man's
footfall which they heard on the gallery. They all rose now as Aurora
threw open the door.

It was the solemn visage of Joel Tarbush, the town marshal, which met
Aurora Lane.

"How do you do, Mr. Tarbush?" asked she. "Won't you come in?"

The gentleman accosted gave a quick glance up the street and down.

"I'm a married man," said he, with something of a vile grin on his face
as he looked at her.

She answered him only with the level gaze of her own eyes, and pushed
open the door. He followed her in, hesitatingly, and then saw the others
in the little room.

"Ma'am," said he, "I come to summons you to the justice court this
afternoon."

"Yes," said Aurora Lane. "Why?"

"It's that Adamson case," said he--"he knows." He turned now to the tall
figure of Dieudonne Lane, instinctively stepping back as he did so.

"In what way do you want us?" asked Don Lane now. "As witnesses? My
mother----?"

"I want your--your _ma_ as a witness, yes," said Tarbush, grinning,
"since you've said it. For you, you'll have to come along on charge of
resisting a officer; likewise for assault and battery, charge brought by
Ephraim Adamson; likewise for disturbing the peace. Likewise we're
going to test the case of _habeas chorus_. Old Man Adamson's got money.
He's sober now, and he's got a lawyer--the best lawyer in town. They're
going to get the eejit out of jail, and Old Man Adamson's going to make
trouble for you."

How much longer Tarbush might have prattled on in his double capacity of
officer and gossip remained uncertain. Miss Julia turned upon him, her
large dark eyes flashing:

"Why do you bring her into it? She's just told me--they were only
crossing the square--she was only trying to go home--she wasn't
troubling anyone in all the world! Leave her out of it."

"I ain't got no choice in it," said Tarbush. "I'm serving the papers
now. Miss Lane and the boy both comes. Not that I got any feeling in the
matter."

"Why should you have?" asked Don Lane, with a cynical smile. "You've
been letting that ruffian run this town every Saturday for years, they
tell me, and you didn't dare call his bluff till you saw he was whipped.
All right, we'll go. I'll see this thing through--but I want to tell
you, you've started something that will be almighty hard to stop. You
needn't think I'm going to let this thing drop here."

"Oh, now," began the man of authority, "I wish't you wouldn't feel
thataway. I done my duty as I seen it. Didn't I take him to jail?"

"Yes, you did, after I had turned him over to you. But you took the
wrong man at that."

"Who should I of took?"

"I don't know," laughed Don Lane bitterly. "All the town, I think. We'll
see."

This was too cryptic for Joel Tarbush. Weakly he felt in his pocket for
tobacco.

"Well," said he at length, "I done summonsed you."

"We have no choice," said Aurora Lane, after a time. "We'll get ready.
Miss Julia, can't you go with me?"

"Of course," said Julia Delafield quietly.




CHAPTER IV

IN OPEN COURT


In his narrow little room upstairs in one of the two-story brick
buildings which framed the public square of Spring Valley sat J. B.
Blackman, Justice of the Peace, upholder of the majesty of the law. His
throne was a knock-kneed, broken chair. In front of him stood a large
scarred table, whereon rested the equipment of well-thumbed tomes which
bolstered him in his administration of justice. In the room beyond stood
a few scattered chairs, a long bench or two. On one wall, by way of
ornament, was a steel engraving of Daniel Webster. On the opposite wall
hung certain lithographs of political candidates of like party
persuasion with Blackman himself, for this was a presidential year, and
certain crises of political sort existed, among others the choosing of a
Senator of the United States. Among lesser likenesses on Blackman's
grimy wall loomed large the portrait of his party's candidate, to wit:
the Honorable William Henderson, late County Attorney, late District
Judge, late member of the Legislature, late candidate for Governor, late
Chairman of the State Republican Committee; and by virtue of the death
of the late incumbent in the office of United States senator, himself
now present candidate for that lofty honor. Otherwise than as to these
purposeful decorations the room had small adornment and appeared
judicially austere.

The hour was mid-afternoon, but so swiftly had the news of recent events
spread abroad in the little village that already the room of Justice of
Peace Blackman was packed. Aurora Lane's baby--why, she had fooled
everybody--her boy never had died at all--here he was--he had been
through college--he'd been somewhere all the time and now he had come to
life all at once, and had fought Eph Adamson and the eejit, and had been
arrested and was going to be tried. Naturally, the stair leading to the
Justice's office was lined, and sundry citizens were grouped about the
bottom or under the adjacent awnings.

Much speculation existed as to the exact issue of the legal proceedings
which, it seemed, had been instituted by old Eph Adamson. When that
worthy appeared, escorted by the clerk of Judge Henderson's law office,
room respectfully was made for the two, it being taken for granted that
Judge Henderson would appear for Adamson, as he always had in earlier
embroglios. Much greater excitement prevailed when presently there came
none less than Tarbush, city marshal, followed by Don Lane and the two
women. Then indeed all Spring Valley well-nigh choked of its own unsated
curiosity.

They walked steadily, these three, staring ahead, following close after
the marshal, who now officiously ordered room for himself and his
charges. When they entered Blackman's court that worthy looked up,
coughed solemnly, and resumed his occupation of poring over the legal
authorities spread before him on the table. Don Lane made room for his
mother and Miss Julia, and took his own place at the side of the
marshal. The latter laid his hand upon his arm, as if to show the
assembled multitude that he had no fear of his prisoner. Don shook off
the hand impatiently.

Outside, unable to restrain themselves sufficiently to be seated within
the room, old Kneebone and his friend Craybill walked up and down in the
narrow hall--lined with signs of attorneys, real estate men, and
insurance agents--from which made off the door of Blackman's office.

"They'll bind him over," said old Silas to his friend. "They'll do that
shore."

"Bind who over, Silas," said Craybill. "You mean Old Man Adamson and his
eejit, don't you? The eejit's arrested, anyhow. But what's it all about?
You don't believe it's true this here _is_ 'Rory's son, now do you? How
can that come?"

"Well, I ain't saying," replied old Silas cryptically, and nodding only
in the general direction of the door, "but you'll see."

Old Aaron helped himself to a chew of tobacco thoughtfully. "They say
Old Eph has got his dander up now, and's going to make plenty of trouble
all along the line. Reckon he's ashamed of his son being licked thataway
by just a kid like this. Come to think of it, it looks like Eph ain't
got much glory out of it so far, has he?"

"No, and I'll bet he had to dig up some money--the Judge, he likely
wouldn't think of it for less'n fifteen dollars anyways. That's the
price of a good shoat these days. If the case was appealed, or if it got
into a court of _nisy prisus_, or maybe got over into another county on
a change of _venoo_, you can bet Judge Henderson wouldn't be doing none
of them things for nothing, neither. The law's all right for them that
has plenty of money. Sometimes I think there's other ways."

"Huh," said his companion, "old Adamson tried the other way, didn't he?
Now look at him! If I was Old Man Adamson, or if I was his eejit son
either, the best thing we could do, seems to me, would be to get out of
town. This here boy's a fighter, if I'm any judge. Wonder if it is her
boy! If it is, whoever was his father, huh? And how was he kep' hid for
more'n twenty year?"

"He looks sort of changed since a couple of hours ago," said his friend
judicially. "He's quieter now--why, when he come into town he was just
laughing and talking like a kid. Of course, he must have knew--he knows
who his father is all right. Now, come to think of it, if this here boy
had any money he could sue them Adamsons for deefamation of character."

"How comes it he could? I hear say that all Old Man Adamson said was to
call him nobody's son, and that's true enough, if he's her boy. If you
call the truth to a man, that ain't no deefamation of character. As to
'Rory Lane, everybody knows the truth about her. You can't deefame a
woman nohow, least of all her. We all know she had a baby when she was a
girl, and it was sent away, and it died. Leastways, we _thought_ we
knew. I ain't right shore what we've knew. It looks like that woman had
put up some sort of game on this town. What right had she to do that?"

"She was right white," said the other, somewhat irrelevantly. "Never
seen no one no whiter than she was when she went in that door right
now."

"I don't reckon we can get no seats any more--the room's plumb full."

They both were looking wistfully in at the packed assembly, when they
had occasion to make room for the dignified figure of a man who now
pushed his way through the throng.

"How do, Judge Henderson," said old Silas Kneebone, who knew everybody.

The newcomer nodded somewhat coldly. He nodded also, none too warmly,
to another man who stood near the door--a tall man, of loose and bulky
figure, with a fringe of red beard under his chin, a wide and smiling
mouth, blue eyes, and a broad face which showed shrewdness and humor
alike.

"How are you, Hod?" said Henderson carelessly; thus accosting the only
man at the Spring Valley bar for whom really he had much respect or
fear--Horace Brooks, popularly known in Spring Valley as "old Hod
Brooks," perhaps the most carelessly dressed man physically and the most
exactly appointed man mentally then practising before that bar. A little
sign far down the narrow hall betokened that the office of Horace Brooks
might thereabouts be found by any in search of counsel in the law.

"Oh, are you retained in this case, Hod?" Judge Hendenson spoke over his
shoulder.

"Not at all, Judge, not at all," said the other. None the less he
himself followed on into the crowded little room.

As Judge Henderson entered all eyes were turned upon him. Conscious of
the fact that he honored this assemblage, he comported himself with
dignity proper for a candidate. He was a man well used to success in any
undertaking, and he looked his part now. The full, florid face, the
broad brow, sloping back to a ridge of iron-gray hair, the full blue
eyes, the loose, easy lips, the curved chin, the large, white hands,
the full chest, the soft body, the reddening skin of the face--all of
these offered good index to the character of William Henderson. Lawyer,
judge, politician and leading citizen--he was the type of these things,
the village Caesar, and knew well enough the tribute due to Caesar.

A few eyes turned from the adequate figure of Judge Henderson to the
loose and shambling form of the man who edged in to the front of the
table. Rumor had it that in the early times, twenty years or more ago,
Judge Henderson had come to that city with a single law book under his
arm as his sole capital in his profession. Old Hod Brooks had made his
own advent in precisely similar fashion, belated much in life by reason
of his having to work his way through school. Since then his life had
been one steady combat, mostly arrayed against Henderson himself.
Perhaps it might have been said that they two from the first were rivals
for the leading place at the local bar, little as Henderson himself now
cared for that. He was well intrenched, and all opponents, such as this
shambling giant with the red beard and nondescript carriage, must attack
in the open.

Judge Blackman coughed ominously once more. "Order in the court!" he
intoned, pounding on the table in front of him.

There was a general shuffling and scraping of chairs. Those standing
seated themselves so far as was possible. Judge Henderson alone stood
for a time in front of the table of Justice Blackman. The afternoon was
very warm, but he represented the full traditions of his profession, for
he appeared in long black coat, white waistcoat, and folded collar, tied
with a narrow white tie. In some way he had the appearance of always
being freshly laundered. His fresh pink cheeks were smooth and clean,
his hands were immaculate as his linen. One might have said that at one
time in his life he had been a handsome man, a fine young man in his
earlier days, and that he still was "well preserved."

Not so much might have been said of old Hod Brooks, who had slumped into
a seat close to Tarbush and his prisoner. That worthy wore an alpaca
coat, a pair of trousers which shrieked of the Golden Eagle Clothing
Store, no waistcoat at all, and it must be confessed, no collar at all,
beyond a limp strip of wilted linen decorated by no cravat whatever.

As he sat now Brooks suddenly cast a keen, curious gaze upon the face of
the young defendant who sat at the left of the city marshal--a gaze
which, passing at length, rested steadily, intently, on the face of
Aurora Lane, who sat, icy pale, staring straight in front of her. Her
left hand lay in that of Miss Julia Delafield. The eyes of the
latter--whose face was flushed, as was usual with her in any time of
mental emotion--remained fixed upon the man who was to prosecute this
boy, whose life was linked so closely with her own.

The great lawyer seemed not to see these women at all, and at first cast
no glance whatever at the defendant. The whole thing was rather trivial
for him; for although his fee really had been five hundred dollars--in
form of a note from Ephraim Adamson secured by a certain mortgage on
certain live stock--he knew well enough he honored Adamson and this
court by appearing here in a mere Justice trial.

"Order in the court!" said Blackman once more. "The case coming on for
trial is City of Spring Valley on the complaint of Ephraim Adamson
against Dewdonny Lane." At this bold declaration of what had been a half
credited secret to Spring Valley, all Spring Valley now straightened and
sat up, expectant. A sort of sigh, half a murmur of intense curiosity
went over the audience. It was indeed a great day for Spring Valley.
"Lane--Dewdonny Lane." So he _was_ the son of Aurora Lane--and had no
family name for his own!

Justice Blackman paused and looked inquiringly at the battered visage of
old Eph Adamson. He coughed hesitatingly. "I understand this case is one
of assault and battery. I believe, Judge Henderson, that you represent
the plaintiff in this case?"

"Yes, your Honor," said Judge Henderson slowly, turning his full eye
upon the court from its late resting place upon the campaign portrait of
himself as it appeared on the wall. "I have consented to be of such
service as I may in the case. Mr. Ephraim Adamson, our well-known friend
here, is ready for the trial of the cause now, as I understand. I may
say further, your Honor, that there will be a writ of _habeas corpus_
sued out in due course demanding the body of the son of Ephraim Adamson,
who is wrongfully restrained of his liberty at present in our city jail.

"As for this defendant----" Judge Henderson turned and cast an
insolently inquiring eye upon the young man at the side of the town
marshal.

"Who appears for the defendant?" demanded Judge Blackman austerely,
casting a glance upon the prisoner at the bar.

Don Lane arose, half hesitatingly. "Your Honor," said he, "I presume I
am the defendant in this case, although I hardly know what it's all
about. I haven't any lawyer--I don't know anybody here--I'm just in
town. All this has come on me very suddenly, and I haven't had time to
look around. I don't see how I am guilty of anything----"

[Illustration: "Your Honor," said he, "I presume I am the defendant in
this case."]

Just then arose the soft and kindly tones of a large voice which easily
filled all the room. Old Hod Brooks half rose.

"Your Honor," said he, "it isn't customary for a member of the bar to
offer his services unsolicited. I would say, however, that if the Court
desires to appoint me as counsel for this young man I will do the best I
can for him, since he seems a stranger here and unprepared for a defense
at law. If there were any other younger lawyer here I would not suggest
this course to your Honor--indeed, I have no right to do so now. I
trust, however,"--and he smiled at Judge Henderson at the other end of
the table--"that my learned brother will not accuse me of champerty,
maintenance, or any other offense against my office as a servant of
justice in this community. Of course, I may add, your Honor"--he turned
to Justice Blackman again--"that in such circumstances my own services,
such as they are, would be rendered entirely free of charge."

People wondered, turning curious looks on the big, gaunt speaker thus
suddenly offering himself as champion in a role evidently unpopular.

Justice Blackman hesitated, and cast again a glance of query at Judge
Henderson, on whom he much relied in all decisions. The latter waved a
hand of impatient assent, and began to whisper with his clerk.

"The Court will allow this procedure," said Justice Blackman. "Does the
defendant accept Mr. Brooks as counsel?"

Don Lane, embarrassed and somewhat red of face, half rose again, meeting
full the fascinated, absorbed look on the face of Hod Brooks--a look
which the keen eye of Henderson also saw. He puckered a lip and frowned
estimatingly. Rumor said that Old Hod Brooks was going to come out as
candidate for U. S. Senator on the opposing ticket. Henderson began now
to speculate as to what he could do with Hod Brooks, if ever they should
meet on the hustings. He studied him now as a boxer, none too certain of
himself, studies his antagonist when he strips and goes to his corner
opposite in the ring.

"Your Honor," said Don, "I don't know this gentleman, but what he says
seems to me most kind. I surely shall be glad to have his assistance
now." He did not look at his mother's face, did not see the quick look
with which Hod Brooks turned from him to her.

"Does my learned brother require time for preparation of his case?"
inquired Judge Henderson sarcastically. "I will agree to a brief recess
of the Court in such case."

"Oh, not at all, not at all," said Old Hod Brooks. "I know all about
this case, better than my learned brother does. Not having any special
interest in anything but this case--that is to say, not any alien
interest, political or otherwise--I am ready to go to trial right now to
defend this young man. If Judge Henderson will move his chair so he can
get a better look at his own picture on the wall, I don't see but what
we might as well begin the trial."

Certain smiles passed over the faces of a few in the audience as they
saw the quick flush spring to the face of Judge Henderson. The chief
delight in life of Old Hod Brooks was to bait his learned brother by
some such jibes as this, whenever the fortunes of the law brought them
together on opposing sides.

Judge Henderson coughed. "Your Honor," said he hastily, "I am glad that
in the course of justice this young man has secured counsel--even
counsel such as that of my learned brother--who also, I am informed, is
not beyond aspirations of a political nature. I have no time for idle
jests. If the defense is ready I may perhaps state briefly what we
propose to prove."

"By criminy!" whispered Silas to Aaron at the hall door, peering in. "By
criminy! I believe Old Hod's got him rattled right now!"

But Judge Henderson pulled himself together. He now assumed his regular
oratorical position, an eye upon his audience.

"Your Honor," he said, "this case is very plain and simple. The quiet of
our city has been violated by this young man, who has publicly assaulted
one of our best-known citizens."

"Which one do you mean?" interrupted Hod Brooks, most unethically, and
smiling behind his hand. "Which do you mean, the old drunkard or the
young idiot?"

"Order in the court!" rapped Blackman, as still further smiles and
shufflings became apparent at the rear of the room. Judge Henderson went
on, flushing yet more.

"My client, your Honor," he said, "was standing peacefully in the public
square, accompanied by his son. They were beaten up, both of them, by
this young man who has been brought into this court by our properly
constituted officer of the law. Without any provocation whatever, this
defendant inflicted great personal injury upon my client."

"We will make Eph's face 'Exhibit A,' and let it go into evidence,"
smiled Hod Brooks amicably; and the audience smiled and shuffled yet
more.

"As to the unlawful detention of the son of my client," resumed Judge
Henderson, beet-red now, "we have chosen the remedy of _habeas corpus_
rather than a simple discharge, because we wish to bring before our
people the full enormity of the offense which has been committed here in
the public view, actually upon the grounds of our temple of justice. We
shall show----"

"Your Honor," interrupted old Hod Brooks at this point, half rising, "if
this were a political gathering indeed, and not the trial of a cause in
a justice court, I would rise to a point of order. As it is, I rise to a
point of law."

"State your point," said Justice Blackman.

"We are trying, as I understand it, the case of this defendant,
Dewdonny Lane, accused by this plaintiff, Ephraim Adamson, of assault
and battery?"

Justice Blackman nodded gravely.

"Then why does my learned brother speak of _habeas corpus_ in this case,
and what is the case which he is trying, or thinks he is trying? What is
his evidence going to be? And why does he not get on?"

"Your Honor," blazed Henderson, "I shall not endure this sort of thing."

"Oh, yes, you will, my learned brother," said Hod Brooks, still smiling
gently. If Henderson had other resources, he needed them now, for keenly
enough he sensed himself as slipping in this battle of wits before
assembled electors; and it really was politics alone that had brought
him here--he scented a crowd afar off. He now lost his temper utterly.

"If the Court will excuse us for a brief moment of recess," said he
savagely, "I should like to ask the privilege of a brief personal
consultation with the attorney for the defense. If he will retire with
me for just a moment I'll make him eat his words! After that we can
better shape these proceedings."

The blue eye that Hod Brooks turned upon his opponent was calmly
inquiring, but wholly fearless. On the other hand, some sudden idea
seemed to strike him now. He resolved to change his tactics. He was
shrewd enough to know that, irritated beyond a certain point, Henderson
would fight his case hard; and Hod Brooks did not want to lose this
case.

Henderson, with a little wave of the hand, his face livid in anger,
edged away from the table of the Justice of the Peace. Hod Brooks
followed him out into the hall.

"Order in the court!" intoned the Justice yet again. There was a rush
toward the door. "There now, go back, men," said Hod Brooks, raising a
hand. "There's not going to be any fight. Let us two alone--we want to
talk, that's all."

Don Lane looked steadily at the face of Justice Blackman. Aurora Lane
stared ahead, still icy pale, her hand clasped in that of Miss Julia's.
She felt, rather than saw, the gazes of all these others boring into her
very soul. Here were her enemies--here in what had been her home. It
seemed an hour to her before at length those standing about the door
shuffled apart to allow the two forensic enemies to reenter, though
really it had not been above ten minutes. Neither man bore any traces of
personal combat. The face of Judge Henderson was a shade
triumphant--strangely enough, since now he was to admit his own defeat.

       *       *       *       *       *

"I tell you, I heard the whole business," said old Silas later on to his
crony, who owned to a certain defect in one ear in hot weather such as
this. "I heard the whole business. There wasn't no fight at all--not
that neither of them seemed a bit a-scared. Hod, he raises a hand, and
that made the Judge slow down.

"'It's what you might expect, Judge,' says Hod, for appearing in a
measly little justice court case.' He's got a mighty nasty way of
smiling, Hod has. But scared? No. Not none.

"'I'll fight this case as long as you like,' says the Judge, 'and I'll
win it, too.'

"'Maybe, maybe, Judge,' says Hod. 'But they's more ways than one of
skinning a cat. Suppose you do win it, what've you won? It's all plumb
wrong anyhow, and it orto be stopped. These people all orto go on home.'

"'So you want to try the case here, huh?' says the Judge; and says Hod:

"'That's just what I do. I mean I don't want to try it none at all. I've
got various reasons, beside, why I don't want to try this case, or have
it tried. Are you a good guesser?' I didn't know what he meant by that.

"'What're you getting at?' says the Judge. 'I know you've got something
hid. There's a sleeper in here somewheres.'

"'Well, let it stay hid,' says Hod. 'But one thing is sure, you ain't
hiding it none that you're out for Senator?'

"'Why should I? I'll win it, too,' says the Judge.

"'Maybe, maybe,' says Hod. 'All I was going to say was, maybe you'd like
to have me help you, say left-handed, thataway? Even left-handed help is
some good.'

"'What do you mean, Hod?' says he. 'They tell me you're mentioned strong
for the other ticket and are out after the place your own self?' He
takes a kind of look-over at Hod, no collar nor nothing, and that sleazy
coat of his'n.

"'That's so,' says Hod. 'I've got a chance anyhow. Even every bad-chance
candidate out of your way is so much to the candy for you, Judge, ain't
it so?' says he.

"'Say now, you don't mean you'd talk of withdrawing?' Judge Henderson he
was all lit up when he says this. 'On what terms?' says he. 'Of course,
there's terms of some sort.'

"'Easiest terms in the world,' says Hod--though I don't think it was
easy for him to say it, for he's got as good a chance as the Judge, like
enough. But he says, 'Easiest sort of terms,' and laughs.

"'Talk fast,' says the Judge.

"'Dismiss this suit--withdraw from this case--and I'll withdraw from all
candidacy on any ticket! That goes!' He said it savage.

"'Do you mean it?' says the Judge, and Hod he says he does. 'I've got
reasons for not wanting this case to go on,' says he. 'It's politics
brought you here, Judge, and I know that, but it's mighty good politics
you'll be playing not never to try this case at all. Drop it, Judge.
Politics against politics; you win. Lawyer against lawyer, _I_ win. But
I pay the biggest price, and you know it mighty well, even if you're a
poor guesser why I'm doing this. Since you're getting all the best of
the bargain, is it a bargain, then?'

"Henderson he thinks for a while, and says he at last, 'Anyhow, I never
knew you to break your word,' says he.

"'No,' says Hod, simple, 'I don't do that,'

"'I'll go you!' says the Judge, sudden, and he sticks out his hand. 'I
shake politically, Judge,' says Hod. 'No more; but it's enough. We don't
neither of us need explain no more,' And _damn me_! If they didn't quit
right there, where it seemed to me a whole lot of explaining what they
meant 'd a-ben a right good thing for me anyways, for I couldn't gether
what it was all about.

"But I heard the whole business--and there wasn't no fight, nor nothing,
just only that talk like I said, and I don't know nothing of _why_ they
done it, I only know what they done. _That's_ why there wasn't no fight,
no trial after all--and us setting there that long! I want to say, some
things is beginning to look mighty mysterious to me. But I ain't saying
what I think. You'll see."

       *       *       *       *       *

Hod Brooks was first to address the court. He stood, a tall and hulking
figure, one hand upon the shoulder of Dieudonne Lane--stood in such
fashion as in part to shield Don's mother from the gaze alike of court
and audience.

"Your Honor," said he, and his face now was very grave; "I assume the
Court has been in recess. After conference with my learned brother I
believe that he has some statement to make to the Court."

He turned now toward Henderson, who straightened up.

"May it please the Court," he began, "I find it incumbent upon me to
withdraw as counsel in this case. My learned brother has lived up to the
full traditions of courtesy in our profession, but I will only say that
I have learned certain facts which render it impossible for me to
represent this client properly in this cause. There would seem to have
been certain justifying circumstances, not at first put before me, which
leave me more reluctant to prosecute this defendant. I shall counsel my
client to withdraw his suit."

Blackman in his surprise scarcely heard the deep voice of Don Lane's
attorney as he spoke in turn.

"May it please the Court," said he gently, "it is the best function of
an attorney to counsel restraint and moderation; it is most honorable of
any great counsel to decline any case which does not enlist his full
convictions. It is the duty of all of us to uphold the actual peace and
actual dignity of this community. I have never entertained a fuller
respect for my learned brother than I have at this moment. I withdraw
what I said about his portrait yonder--and may say I do not blame any
man for being well content even in the offer of an honor which I cannot
and do not contemplate for myself--the great honor of the candidacy for
the Senate of the United States. It is my own function, none the less,
to state that there is no cause why my client should be longer detained.
He and others, these witnesses, are virtually restrained of their
liberty. I therefore move the dismissal of this case. I think these
people all ought to go home. I further suggest that this court
adjourn--if this latter suggestion be fully within my own province."

He turned an inquiring gaze upon Tarbush, city marshal, who by this time
had fairly sunken down into the depths of his coat collar.

"How about the plaintiff?" said Blackman, turning a hesitating glance
upon Judge Henderson, who seemed much relieved by what his opponent in
fact and in _posse_ had said.

"There is other counsel for him," said Judge Henderson, "but if he will
take my own advice, he will drop the case now and at this point."

"What does the plaintiff say?" Blackman bent an inquiring gaze on the
battered visage of Ephraim Adamson. The latter lifted up a swollen
eyelid with thumb and finger, and turned a still confused gaze upon
court and counsel. His reply, crestfallen though it was, brought a
titter from the audience.

"I guess I'm satisfied," said he.

Blackman looked from one to the other, and then back to the faces of the
disappointed audience of the citizens of Spring Valley.

"Order in the court!" exclaimed Blackman, J. P., fiercely. "This court
is adjourned!" He spoke with a certain disgust, as of one aware of
participation in a fiasco.

With a rush and a surge the room began to empty. Judge Henderson
departed, well in advance, looking straight ahead, and acknowledging
none of the greetings which met him. He evidently was above such work,
even disgusted with the whole affair. Hod Brooks remained, his curious
glance still riveted on Don Lane.

Don stood hesitating before the table of justice. He had not known
before that his burly counsel had any acquaintance with his mother, but
he saw plainly the glance of recognition which passed between them.

Aurora Lane and Miss Julia waited until the stair was clear, but as Don
would have followed them, Hod Brooks beckoned to him, in his blue eyes a
sort of puzzled wonderment, a surprise that seemed half conviction.

"I thank you, Mr. Brooks," said Don Lane, turning to his counsel. He
wondered curiously why the big man should seem so red of face and so
perturbed. "What can I do for you--I have not much----"

The great face of Hod Brooks flushed yet more. "Don't talk to me about
pay, my boy," said he--"don't talk to me about anything. Wait till
things straighten out a little. The prosecution's dropped. That's
all--or that's enough. Now, listen. I knew you when I saw you come in
here! They told me you were dead, but I knew you when first my eyes fell
on you. You're like your mother. I've known your mother for years--I
think a lot of her and her friend Miss Julia, don't you see? It's
strange news to me you are alive, but you are, and that's enough. I must
be going now. I'll see you and your mother both. But before I do, just
come with me, for I've a little more counsel to give you--it won't cost
you anything, and I think it will do some good."

He beckoned Don to join him once more in the hall, and what he said
required but a moment. An instant later, and old Brooks had hurried down
the stair. A part of his words to Don had been overheard by old Silas,
but the latter could only wonder what it all might mean.

"Aaron," said he, "I ain't no detecative, and don't claim to be, but
now, some day if anything should happen--well, I ain't sayin', but I
know what I know, and some day, some day, Aaron, I may have to tell."

Brooks joined Aurora Lane and Miss Julia and walked with them along the
shady street. They walked in silence, Aurora Lane still staring straight
ahead, icy cold. It was not until they three halted at her little gate
that she could find voice.

"How can we thank you?" said she. "How can we pay?"

The deep color came into the big man's moody face once more. He waved a
hand. "You mustn't talk of that," said he. "I reckon I owe you that much
and more--a lot more. I'm not done yet. I've done what I thought was
right. But as for the case, I didn't fight it, and I didn't win it--the
Judge and I, we just didn't make any fight at all, that's all. We
settled it out of court, on terms that suited him, anyhow. I'm sorry for
Blackman,--he was just honing to soak that boy the limit! _Your_ boy,
Aurora--that ought to have stayed dead, I'm afraid, but didn't.

"But peace and dignity," he added--"listen to me--we'll make a Sabbath
school out of this town yet! I can't talk very much more now."

With a great uproarious laugh, somewhat nervous, very much perturbed, he
raised his hat clumsily, turned upon his heel clumsily, and would have
walked off clumsily. An exclamation from Miss Julia stopped him.

"Where's Don?" asked she. "And what's that over yonder--what does the
crowd mean?" She pointed down to the corner of the courthouse square,
where indeed a closely packed group was thrusting this way and that,
apparently about some center of interest.

"Oh, that?" said Hod Brooks, carelessly, turning his gaze thither;
"that's nothing. Pray don't be excited--it's only my--my client,
carrying out the last of my legal instructions to him."

"But what does it mean?" demanded Aurora Lane in sudden terror--"what's
going on there? Is there more trouble?"

Hod Brooks broke off a spear of grass from its place between the
sidewalk and the fence, and meditatively began to chew it.

"Oh, no, I think not," said he gently. "I don't think the boy will have
much trouble. He's doing what I counseled him to do."

"What have you told him--what is he doing--what does it all mean?"
demanded Aurora Lane.

"Nothing," said the big man, still gazing ruminatingly at the scene
beyond. "As a member of the bar I was bound to give him such counsel as
should be of most practical benefit to him--I swore that in my oath of
admission to the bar. So I told him that as soon as court was adjourned
he ought to take old Eph Adamson and thrash him this time good and
proper. I told him nothing would come of it if he did. I told him it was
his plain duty to do it, and if he didn't do it I'd do it myself,
because the dogs have got to be put to sleep again now in this town....
I must say," he added, "I am inclined to believe that my client is
following his instructions to the letter!" After which Hod Brooks
strolled on away.

The crowd at the farther corner of the square broke apart before long.

"By jinks! Silas," said old Aaron to his friend, "who'd a thought it?
I've seen some fights, but that was the shortest I ever did see. And he
made old Eph Adamson holler 'enough!' By criminy! he done that very
thing. Looks to me, safest thing right is not to talk too much about
'Rory Lane!"

Don Lane emerged from the thick of the crowd, his coat over his arm, his
face pale in anger, his eye seeking any other champion who might oppose
him.

"Listen to me now, you people!" he said. "If there's another one of you
that ever does what that man there has done, or says what he said, he'll
get the same he did, or worse. You hear me, now--I'll thrash the life
out of any man that raises his voice against anyone of my family. You
hear me, now?"

He cast a straight and steady gaze upon Old Man Tarbush, who stood
irresolute.

"No, you'll not arrest me again," said he. "You know you won't. You'll
leave me alone. If you don't, you'll be the next. I don't love you any
too well the way it is.

"Get out now, all of you--you most of all," he added, and gave Marshal
Tarbush a contemptuous shove as he elbowed his own way on out of the
crowd.

Old Hod Brooks passed on down the street and took the opposite side of
the public square, paying no attention to all this. He ambled on until
he found his own office at length. A half hour later he might have been
seen in his customary attitude, slouched deep down into his chair, his
head sunk between his shoulders, his feet propped up on the table, and
his eyes bent on the pages of a volume of the law.

He had in his lap now no less an authority than "Chitty on Pleadings."
He had sat there for some moments--and he had not seen a word on all the
page.




CHAPTER V

CLOSED DOORS


By the time Don Lane had reached his mother's house he partially had
pulled himself together, but his face was still pale and sullen, not yet
recovered from the late encounter.

He cast himself down in a chair, his chin in his hand, looking
everywhere but at his mother. His wounds, poor lad, were of the soul,
slow to heal. The white-faced woman who sat looking at him had also her
wounds, scarred though they were, these years. Her features seemed
sharpened, her eyes larger for the dark shadows now about them. But she
was first to speak.

"Wasn't it enough, Don," said she--"didn't I have enough without all
this? And on the very day I have looked forward to so long--so long! You
don't know how I have worked and waited for this very day. Why, it's the
first time I've ever seen you, since you were a baby. You're a stranger
to me--I don't know you yet. And then all this comes--now, on my one
happy day."

"Well, how about it, then?" he demanded brusquely. "You know what
they've been saying--I couldn't let it go. I _had_ to fight!"

"Yes, yes, you have--and in a few hours you've undone twenty years of
work for me. The sleeping dogs were lying. Why waken them this late?"

"_Who was my father?_" demanded the young man, now, sternly. "Come, it's
time for me to know. I couldn't help loving you--no one could. But--him!
Tell me--was it that man who defended me? Is my name Don Brooks?"

She made him no answer, though her throat throbbed and she half started
as though at a blow.

"Oh, no, oh, no! What am I saying! Of course you understand, mother," he
went on after a long, long silence, "I don't believe anything of this,
not even what you have said to me about my being--well, _filius
nullius_. There was a quick divorce--a hidden decree--you separated, you
two--he was poor--that often happens. Women never like to talk about it.
I can't blame you for calling me 'nobody's son,' for that sort of thing
does happen--secret and suppressed divorces, you know. But as to that
other----"

For a long time Aurora Lane sat facing a temptation to accept this
loophole of escape which thus crudely her boy offered her--escape from
the bitter truth. He would fight! He--and Hod Brooks--those two might
defy all the town--might cow them all to silence even now. But--once
more her inborn honesty and courage, her years-old resolution
triumphed.

"I cannot tell you who your father was, Don," said she quietly, at
length, ash pale, trembling.

"When were you married--when--where?"

"I was _never_ married, Don! What I told you was true! Oh, you make me
say a thing to you I ought never to have been asked to say, but it is
the truth. You may believe it--you must believe it--it's--it's no good
keeping on evading--for it's true, all of it." She was gasping, choking,
now. "This is a ghastly thing to have to do," she cried at last. "Ah, it
oughtn't ever to have been asked of me."

The boy's breath also came in a quick sob now.

"Mother, that's not true--it _can't_ be! Why, where does that leave
you--where does it leave _me_?"

Her voice rose as she looked at him, so young and strong, so fine, so
manly.

"But I'm not sorry," she exclaimed, "I'm not--I'm _not_!"

"So what they told me--what I made them all take back--_it was true_?"
He sank back in his chair.

"Yes, Don. We can't fight. We are ruined."

"Born out of wedlock!--But my father only ran away--you told me he was
dead."

"Regard him so, Don."

"Where is he--who was he? Why did that man tell me to fight them all?"

"I will never tell you, Don, never."

Her dark eyes were turned upon him now, eyes unspeakably sad.

"But you must! You wouldn't deny me my own chance in the world?"

"You will have to make your own chance, Don, as I did. We all must. I
have my secret. The door is closed. There is no power ever can open that
door--not even my love for you, my boy. Besides, the knowledge could be
of no use to you."

"Yes? Is that indeed so? You would debar me from the one great right of
all my life? Tell me, is my guess right? I'll make that man marry you."

"Ah, you mean revenge?"

He nodded, savagely, his jaws shut tight. But his brow grew troubled.
"But not if he came out and stood by me and you, even this late. I
suppose----"

"There is no revenge for a woman, Don. They only dream there is--once I
dreamed there might be for me. I don't want it now. I am content.
There's more pity than revenge about me now. I only want to be fair now,
if I can, and now I'm glad--this is my one glorious day. For you're
mine. You are my boy--and I'll never say that I am sorry. Because I've
got you. They can't help that, can they, Don?"

"He got us out of worse trouble, didn't he? Why did he do that, Mother?
What made him look at us the way he did? And what made the other lawyer,
Henderson, drop the case? How did they settle it out of court? Lucky
for us--but _why_?" He spoke sharply, abruptly.

A trifle of color came to Aurora Lane's cheeks. "It was his way," she
said. "He's a good lawyer--advancing right along, more and more every
year, they say. He's always had a hard time getting a start. He's like
me."

Don Lane sat silent for a time, but what he thought he held. He cast a
discontented glance about him at the meager surroundings of his mother's
home, with which he could claim no familiarity.

"How did you manage it, Mother?" he asked, at length. "How did you get
me through--big, ignorant loafer that I've been all my life. You say he
never helped any. Was he so poor as all that?"

"I couldn't have done it alone," said Aurora Lane, slowly. Mechanically
she smoothed down the folds of her gown in her lap as she spoke.

"I have told you you had two mothers, if no father," said she at last,
suddenly. "That's almost true. You don't know how much you owe to Miss
Julia. She helped me put you through school! It was her little salary
and my little earnings--well, they have proved enough."

"Go on!" said he, bitterly. "Tell me more! Humiliate me all you can!
Tell me more of what I ought to know. Good God!" He squared his
shoulders as if to throw off some weight which he felt upon them.

His mother looked at him in silence for some time. "Shall I tell you all
about it, Don?" she said. "All that I may?"

He nodded, frowning. "Let's have it over and done with."

"When I came here I was young," said Aurora Lane, slowly, after a long
time. "Julia was young, too, just a girl. We both had to make our way.
Then--then--it happened."

"You didn't love me, Mother? You hated me?"

"Oh, yes, I loved you--you don't know what you say--you don't know how I
loved you. But everything was very hard and cruel.... Well, one night I
had made up my mind what I must do....

"I washed you all clean that night. I dressed you the best I could--I
didn't have much for you. But you were a sweet baby, and strong. I was
kissing you and saying good-by to you then, when Miss Julia came in,
right at the door."

[Illustration: "I was kissing you and saying good-bye ... when Miss
Julia came in--"]

"You were going to put me in a home--in some institution?"

"No!" She spoke now in short, quick, sobbing breaths.... "Don, do you
know the little stream that runs through the edge of the town? Do you
know the deep pool beneath the bridge where the water turns around?
Well, I had washed you and dressed you.... I was going to put you
_there_.... It was then that Julia came."

He turned upon her a face which it seemed to her never again could be
happy and free from care.

"I didn't know all this, Mother," said he, quietly, whitely. "I ask your
pardon. I ask you to forgive me."

"No, I have told you I wanted to spare you all this--I wanted that door
to remain closed forever. But now it is open--you have opened it. I will
have to tell you what there is behind."

It seemed many moments before she could summon self-control to go on.

"...So we two sat here in this little room, Julia and I. You were in my
lap, holding up your hands and kicking up your feet, and we two wept
over you--we prayed over you, too--she, that little crippled girl,
hopeless, who could never have a boy of her own! I told her what I was
going to do with you. She fought me and took you away from me.... And
she saved you ... and she saved me.

"So now you have it." He heard her voice trailing on somewhere at a
distance which seemed immeasurable. "You owe your life not to one woman,
but to two, after all. Now you know why I called you Dieudonne. God sent
you to me. As I have known how, I have resolved to pay my debt to
God--for you. I want to pity, not hate. I want to be grateful. I want to
be fair, if I can learn how."

Aurora spoke no more for some moments, nor did her son.

"We two talked it all over between us," said she after a time. "She
asked me then, once, who was your father--Julia did. I said he was poor.
I told her never to ask me again. She never has. Oh, a good woman, Julia
Delafield--fine, fine as the Lord ever made!

"But she knew--we both knew--that I did not have the means of bringing
you up. We put our hearts together--to own you. We put our little purses
together--to bring you up. She took you away from me, pretty soon. She
sent you to some of her people, very distant relatives. They were poor,
too, but they took you in and they never knew--they died, both of them,
who took you in.

"Then for a time we sent you to an institution for orphans. But we told
everybody here that you had died. I told him so--your--your father--and
I forbade him ever to speak to me again. I told you he was dead. I told
him you were dead. He _is_ dead. So are _you_ dead. But all the dead
have come to life. The lost is found. Oh, Don, Don, the lost is found!
I've found so much today--so much, so much. You're my boy, my own boy. A
man!"

He sat mute. At length she went on.

"We schemed and saved and contrived, all the little ways that we could
to save our money--we have both done that all our lives for you. We
wanted to educate you, your mothers did. And oh! above all things we
wanted the secret kept. I did the best I knew. They all thought you
died. I didn't want you to come here--it was Miss Julia. I didn't know
you were coming till you wired. I was going to tell you not to come
up--even from the depot. But you got in the bus. I was delayed there in
the square by those men. And then all this happened. And after twenty
years!"

She sat silent, using all her splendid command of her own soul to still
the stubborn fluttering in her throat.

Dieudonne Lane looked everywhere but at her.

"Mother," said he at length, "did you--did you ever--love him?"

His own face flushed at the cruelty of this question, too late, after
the words were gone. He saw her wince.

"I don't know, Don," said she, simply. "It happened. It couldn't again.
You don't know about women. Seal your lips now, as mine are sealed.
Never again a question such as that to me."

The sight of her suffering at his own words stirred the elemental rage
in his heart.

"Tell me," he demanded again and again. "Who was he? Is that the man? I
begin to see--I'd kill him if I knew for sure."

She only shook her head.

"But you must!" said he at last. "You are cruel. You don't know."

"What is that, Don? What do you mean? Oh, I see--_it is because of her_.
It's Anne! There's someone else you love, more than you do me."

"Yes!" he confessed, "more than I do life. _That's_ the reason I must
know all about myself. Can't you see I've got to play fair? There's
Anne!"

"Who is she, Don--you've never told me very much yet."

"Anne Oglesby--her family lived at Columbus before she was left alone.
You know her--why, she's the ward of Judge Henderson, here in town. I
believe she was left a considerable estate, and he handles it for her.
She's been here. She's told me about this place--she's seen you,
maybe--before I ever did. Yes--it's Anne! I've got to think of her. I
don't dare drag her into trouble--my hands are tied."

He rose now, and in his excitement walked away from his mother, so that
he did not note her face at the moment.

"You see, we met from time to time back East in our college town. I
never told her much about myself, because I didn't know much about
myself, really, when it comes to that. I said I was an orphan,
and poor. But--I'd made all the teams--and I've studied, too. I was
valedictorian, in spite of all, Mother. They don't amount to much,
usually--valedictorians--but I was sure I would--when I knew that
Anne----

"I didn't know about our caring for one another until we found we had to
part--just now, today, this morning on the train before I got off here.
Then we couldn't part, you know. So just before we passed through this
town, right on the train--today, in less than half an hour before I met
you--this morning, this very day, I--we--well----"

"Yes, Don," she said, "I know!" Her eyes were very large, her face very
pale.

He choked.

"But now we've got to part," said he. "If I am nobody, or worse, I've
got to be fair with her."

A look of pride came into his mother's face at his words. "I'm glad,
Don," said she. "You've got honor in you. But in no case could I see you
marry that girl."

He turned upon her in sudden astonishment. "Isn't she as good as we are?
Isn't her family--don't you know the Oglesbys of Columbus--who they are
and what they stand for--where they came from? Can we say as much?"

"They are better than we can claim to be, Don, yes," said she, ignoring
his brutal frankness. "I know her, yes. I knew her years ago--the ward
of Judge Henderson. Sometimes she has been here and kept his household
for him--some day she'll live with Judge Henderson even if she marries.
He's very fond of her. But as to your marrying Anne Oglesby, you must
not think of it."

"What on earth!" he began. "What have you against her?"

"It is enough that I feel as I do about any girl who has been here and
who knows about--about the way--the way I've lived. Will she know who I
am when she knows who _you_ are--and what you are not? Has she
identified us two--have you really been fair with her?" Now the color
began to rise in her paled cheeks.

"I've not had time yet! I told you it all happened just a moment ago."
Then, still brutally, he went on. "Why, what do you know of love? What
do you know about the way I feel toward Anne?"

"Be as cruel as you like," said she, flushing now under such words. "I
presume you feel as all men think they feel sometimes. They see that
woman for that moment--they think that they believe what they say--they
think they must do what they do. You are a man, yes, Don, or you could
not have said to me what you have."

He flung out his arms, impatient. "I am having a fine start, am I not?
I'm a beggar, a pauper, and worse than that. I've got to pay you and
Miss Julia. I've got to go on through life, with that secret on my mind.
I can't confront that man and tell him. You and I--just today
meeting--why, we begin to argue. And now I've got to face Anne Oglesby
with that secret. It can't be a secret from her. I'd never ask her to
join her life to one like mine. And--God! a woman like her.... I can't
tell you.... Death--why, I believe this is worse."

"Don't tell me, Don, don't try." She turned to him, her voice hoarse and
low. "It's a wrong thing for you to talk to me about things of that
sort. Birds out of the nest begin all over again--this must begin again,
I suppose--but it's too awful--too terrible. I don't want to hear any
more talk about love. But rather than see you live with her, rather than
see you talk that way of her, it seems to me I'd rather die. Because,
she knows all about _me_--or will. What made you come? Why didn't you
stay away? Why couldn't you find some other girl to love, away from
here?"

"Which shows how much you really care for my happiness! I suppose, like
many women, you are stubborn. Is that it, mother?"

She winced under this, wringing her hands. "If I could only lie--if I
only could!"

"And if I only could, also!" he repeated after her. "But she's coming
tomorrow, Mother--I've made her promise she'd come to see you. She said
she'd make some excuse to come down and see her guardian. I'm going to
meet her tomorrow. And when I do, I've got to tell her what I've learned
today--every word of it--all--all! And I'll be helpless. I'll not be
able to fight. I'll have to take it."

"That's right, Don, that's right. Even if I loved her as you do, even if
it were the best thing in the world for you if you could marry her, I'd
say that you should not. Don, whatever you do, don't ever be crooked
with a woman. She's a woman, too. No matter what it cost, I couldn't see
her suffer by finding out anything after it was too late."

"It won't take long," said he, simply. "We'll part tomorrow. But oh! Why
did you save me--why did Miss Julia come that night? My place was under
the water--there! Then the door would have been closed indeed. But now
all the doors are closed on ahead, and none behind. I'll never be happy
again. And I'm making her unhappy, too, who's not to blame. It runs far,
doesn't it?--far and long."

"As you grow older, Don," said she, "you will find it doesn't so much
matter whether or not you are happy."

He shook his head. "I'm done. It's over. There's nothing ahead for me. I
never had a chance. Mother, you and Miss Julia made a bad mistake."

It seemed that she scarcely heard him, or as though his words, brutal,
cruel though they were, no longer impinged upon her consciousness. She
spoke faintly, as though almost breathless, yet addressed herself to
him.

"Why, Don, it was here in this very room ... and you lay in my arms and
looked up at me and laughed. You were so sweet.... But what shall I do?
I love you, and I want you to love me, and you can't. What have I done
to you? Oh, wasn't the world cruel enough to me, Don? Oh, yes, yes, it
runs far--far and long, a woman's sin! You are my sin. And oh! I love
you, and I will not repent! God do so to me--I'll not repent!"

He looked at her, still frowning, but with tenderness under the pain of
his own brow. At last he flung himself on his knees before her and
dropped his head into her lap.

He felt her hands resting on his head as though in shelter--hands that
lay side by side, hands long and shapely once, but bruised and worn now
with labor could he but have seen them--Aurora's hands--he could not
have helped but realize her long years of toil. He heard her faint,
steady sobbing now.

After a time she bent lower above his head as he knelt there, silent and
motionless. Slowly her hand began once more to stroke his hair.




CHAPTER VI

THE DIVIDING LINE


The commonplace sound of the telephone's ring broke the silence in the
little room. Aurora Lane arose and passed into the adjoining room to
answer it. Her son regarded her with lackluster eyes when she returned.

"It was Miss Julia," said she, "at the library. She wanted to know if
you were here. She says we must be sure to come out tonight."

"Come out--to what?"

"It's her annual jubilee, when she reports progress to the town. She is
very proud of her new books and rugs and pictures. Everybody will be
there. You see, Don, we don't have much in a town like this to entertain
us. Why, if I could see a real theater once--I don't know how happy I
would be. We've had movies, and now and then a lecture--and Miss Julia."

"I don't want to go, mother."

"Neither do I, Don; so I'm going."

"Why should we go? It's nothing to us."

"It's everything to Miss Julia--and it's everything to us, Don. Stop to
think and you will realize what I mean. We can't run away under fire."

"There's something in that," he rejoined after a time, slowly. "Besides,
what Miss Julia wishes we both ought to do."

Hands in pockets, he began once more gloomily to pace up and down the
narrow room. "I can't stand this much longer, mother," said he. "I've
got to get out--I've got to get hold of some money somehow."

"Yes," said she. "As for me, I have collected the last money due me--it
went for your graduation suit. I don't know how you saved your railway
fare home. I didn't want you to know these things, of course, but as
things have happened, you had to know. A great many things today--well,
they've gotten away from me."

"It's I who have spoiled everything, too. But how could I help it--I
just couldn't submit."

"It's hard to submit, Don," said she slowly. "Perhaps a man ought not to
learn it. A woman has to learn it."

He turned to look at her wonderingly, and at length went over and put a
hand on her shoulder.

"Dear Mom!" said he gently. "You're wonderful. You are fine--splendid!
I'm just getting acquainted with you, am I not? You're a good woman,
mother; I'm so glad."

She looked at him now with eyes suddenly wet, her face working
strangely, and turned away.

"Come, Don," said she after a time. "We must get ready for our little
supper. Spring Valley, you see," she added, gaily, "dines at six and
goes to the movies at seven."

Presently she left him to his own devices for a time, before calling him
out into the little kitchen which served her also as a dining-room.

"It's not much," said she, shrugging and spreading out her hands, "but
it's all I'd have had--bread and milk and cereal. I don't use much sugar
or butter." Then, hurriedly, seeing the pain she had caused him, she
went on.

"You soon get used to such things. Why, I have only two gowns to my
name, and I put on my best one to meet you, when you wired you were
coming, and I saw I'd have to meet you. This hat has been fixed over I
don't know how many times--once more, for you. You will see, I'll not be
at much trouble to dress for the entertainment tonight."

She opened upon the table cover her little pocket book and showed its
contents--one small, tightly-folded, much-creased bill, which still lay
within its depths.

"My last!" said she, grimacing. "That's our capital in life, Don! And we
have all the world against us now. We must fight, whether or not we want
to fight."

"But now," she added, "I can't talk any more. Let us go. It may do us
good. Miss Julia at least will be glad to see us, if no one else is."

Early as they were, they were not the first arrivals at the library
room where Miss Julia Delafield had devised her entertainment. She had
borrowed certain benches from the public school, certain chairs as well.
Already a goodly portion of Spring Valley's best people filled these.
The seats made back from the little raised platform which usually served
as the librarian's desk place. This now was enlarged by the removal of
all the desks.

Back of this narrow dais was draped a large flag of our Union, and in
the center of its folds was the campaign portrait of Judge Henderson,
chief speaker of the evening.

Aurora Lane and her son entered unnoticed for the time, and quietly took
seats in the last row of benches at the rear, near to some awkward
youths who had straggled in and seemed uncomfortable in their
surroundings. Not even Miss Julia noted them, for presently it became
her flushing duty to escort Judge Henderson, and several of her other
speakers, to the edge of the little platform, where they took their
places back of the conventional table and pitcher of water.

The leader in the town's affairs bent over affably to speak with his
associates--three ministers of the gospel, Reverend Augustus Wilson, of
the U. P. Church, Reverend Henry Fullerton, of the Congregationalist
Church, and Reverend William B. Burnham, of the Methodists. There were
many other ministers of the gospel in Spring Valley, which rejoiced
exceedingly in the multiplicity of its churches; but to these, in the
belief of Miss Julia, had more specially been given the gift of tongues.

There came presently and seated himself on the bench next to Aurora Lane
yet another minister of the gospel, old Mr. Rawlins, of the Church of
Christ, the least important denomination of the village, so few of
numbers and so scant of means that its house of worship must needs be
located just at the edge of town, where land was very cheap. A kindly
man, Parson Rawlins, and of mysterious life, for none might say whence
came his raven-brought revenue. Questioned, Brother Rawlins admitted
that he was not in the least sure whether or not he had a definite
creed. He held out his hand smilingly to Aurora Lane.... An old man he
was, with white hair and a thin face, his chin shaven smooth and shining
between his bushy white side whiskers. His eyes were very mild.

"How do you do, Aurora?" said he. "Now, don't say a word to me--I know
this boy." And he shook hands with Don also. "I know him," said he, "and
I know all he has done today--we all know all about it, Aurora, so don't
talk to me. Tut, tut, my son! But had I been in your place very likely I
should have done the same thing--I might have whipped old Eph Adamson.
You know, sometimes even a minister asks, 'Lord, shall we smite with the
sword?'"

The face of the old man grew grave as he looked from one to the other.
Some presentiment told him that a change had come across Aurora Lane's
manner of life. Could it be possible that she had grown defiant--was she
restive under the weight of the years? Had this sudden and sensational
resurrection of her past brought rebellion to her heart, all these years
so patient, so gentle?

He waved a hand towards the backs of the assemblage. "I suppose you
recognize some of your own handicraft, don't you, 'Rory?" said he,
laughing.

Aurora laughed, also. "A good many," said she frankly. "But the mail
order business in ready-trimmed hats has cut into my trade a great deal
of late. Then there are excursions into Columbus. Still, I see some of
my bonnets here and there--even now and then a gown."

They both laughed yet again, cheerily, both knowing the philosophy of
the poor. Further conversation at the time was cut off by the entrance
of the musicians of the evening, an organization known as the Spring
Valley Cornet Band. These young men, a dozen in number, made their way
solemnly to a place adjacent to the platform, where presently they
busied themselves with certain mild tapping of drums and soft moanings
of alto horns and subdued tootlings of cornets.

The leader of the band was the chief clerk in the First National Bank,
Mr. Jerome Westbrook by name, himself Spring Valley's glass of fashion
and mold of form, and not unconscious of the public attention attracted
to himself in his present capacity. Now and again he looked out over the
audience to see if he could locate a certain young lady, none less than
Sallie Lester, the daughter of the president of his bank, upon whom he
had bestowed the honor of his affections. He was willing to add thereto
eke the honor of his hand.

It was as Aurora Lane had said--this annual gathering of Miss Julia's
was the social clearing house of the community. And this typical
attendance, representative of the little city at its best, offered that
strange contrast of the sexes so notable in any American assemblage. The
men were ordinary of look and garb, astonishingly ordinary, if one might
use the term; stalwart enough, but slouchy, shapeless, and ill-clad. Not
so the women, who seemed as though of another and superior social world.
If here and there the face of a man seemed stolid, cloddish,
peasant-like, not so any of the half dozen faces of the women next
adjoining him. Type, class--call what you like that which is owned by
the average American woman, even of middle class--that distinction was
as obvious as is usual in all such gatherings. Scattered here and there
through this audience, as in any audience of even the humblest sort in
America, were a half dozen faces of young women, any of whom must have
been called very beautiful, strikingly beautiful--beautiful as Aurora
Lane must once have been.

The apparel of the men was nondescript. That of the women, however or
wherever secured, made them creatures apart. The men, too, sat
uncommunicative, silent; whereas their daughters or spouses turned,
chattering, laughing, waving a hand to this or that friend. In short,
the women availed themselves fully, as women will, of this opportunity
of social intercourse. And always, as head turned to head, there was a
look, a whispered word, of woman to woman. Little by little, in the
mysterious way of such assemblages, every woman in the house came to
know that Aurora Lane and her boy--who had only been hid, and not dead,
all these years--were seated on the back seat, next to Old Man Rawlins.
Did anyone ever hear the like of _that_? In reality Spring Valley was
out to hear the rest of the news about Aurora Lane and her unfathered
boy as soon as possible. Gossip covers all the nuances, the shades, the
inner and hidden things of information, especially when information may
be classified as scandal. This is the real news. It never needs wings.
It needed no wings now.

Naturally, it was incumbent upon Judge Henderson to introduce a minister
of the gospel to open the meeting with prayer--we Americans apologize to
Providence at all public occasions, even our political conventions.
Naturally thereafter Judge Henderson rose once more, took a drink of
water, and signaled to the leader of the Spring Valley Silver Cornet
Band; whereupon Mr. Jerome Westbrook, wiping all previous trace of
German silver from below his mustache, essayed once more the leadership
in concord of sweet sounds. This brought Judge Henderson up to his
introductory remarks, properly so-called.

He made no ill figure as he stood, immaculately clad as was his custom,
his costume still being the long black coat, his white waistcoat, the
white tie, which he had worn that afternoon in court. It was charged
against him, by certain of his enemies, that Judge Henderson had been
known to change his shirt twice in one day, but this was not commonly
believed. That he changed it at least once every day had, however, come
to be accepted in common credence, although this also was held as his
sheer eccentricity.

His face was smooth-shaven, for really he was shaved daily, and not
merely on Saturday nights. His wide, easy, good-humored mouth, his large
features, his well-defined brows, his full eye, his commanding figure,
gave him a presence good enough for almost any stage. He stood easily
now, accepting as his right the applause which greeted him, and smiled
as he placed on the table beside him the inevitable glass of water at
which he had sipped. Some said that in his own office Judge Henderson
did not confine himself to water--but any leading citizen must have his
enemies.

The worthy Judge made precisely what manner of address must be made on
precisely such occasions. To him his audience was made up of fellow
citizens, ladies and gentlemen. He accosted them with the deference and
yet the confidence of some statesman of old. Indeed, he might have been
scarce less a figure than Senator Thomas Hart Benton himself, so
profuse--and so inaccurate--were the classical quotations which he saw
fit to employ. It had grown his custom to do this with care-free mind.
Indeed, there was but one here in this audience tonight who perhaps
might have chided him for his Greek--a young man who sat far back in the
rear, in a place near the door--a young man who none the less, it must
be confessed, paid small attention to the Hendersonian allusions which
had to do with literature, with history, the gentle arts, the culture,
the progress of our proud republic, and of this particular American
community.

So now it came on to the time of Reverend Henry B. Fullerton, who
likewise spoke of literature and culture, patriotism and the glories of
our republic. The other ministers also in due course, after certain
uneasy consultation of the clock upon the opposite wall, spoke much in
similar fashion.

After these formidable preliminaries, it was time for Judge Henderson to
give the real address of the evening--this latter now delivered with
frequent consultations of the large watch which he placed beside him on
the table. So presently he came to such portion of his speech as
requires the orator to say, "But, my friends, the hour grows late."
Whereafter presently, figuratively, he dismissed the audience with his
blessing, well satisfied from the applause that his campaign was doing
well. He had but casually and incidentally allowed it to be known that
his own annual check to the city library was for a thousand dollars--no
more than would cover the librarian's salary.

By this time, it was a half-hour past midnight, and none present might
say that he had not had full worth of all the moneys expended for this
entertainment. It had been a great evening for the candidate. Moreover,
most of the old ladies present had enjoyed themselves in social
conversation regarding the absorbing news of the day. As for the half
dozen young village beauties present, there was not one who did not know
precisely where Don Lane sat--not even Sally Lester, who irritated
Jerome Westbrook beyond measure when he saw her pretending to look at
the clock at the back of the hall to see what time it was. Really, as
Jerome Westbrook knew very well, she was only trying to see Don Lane,
the newest young man in town--wholly impossible socially, but one who
had made sudden history of interest in feminine eyes.

Moody and intent upon his own thoughts, Don Lane himself by no means
realized the importance of the occasion so far as he himself and his
mother were concerned. He did not know that he was on trial here, that
they two were on inspection. His ears were deaf to the impassioned words
of all and several of the orators of the evening. Before his eyes
appeared only one face. It was that of a young girl with a face
clean-cut and high-browed, with sweet and kindly eyes--the girl he was
to meet tomorrow, to whom he was to say good-by--Anne Oglesby. "Anne!
Anne!" his heart was exclaiming all the time. For now he knew that he in
turn must bruise yet another human heart, because of what had been, and
in his brain was room now for no other thought, no other scene, no other
face. There swept down upon him, if he thought of it at all now and
then, only a feeling of the insufficiency, the narrowness, the
unworthiness, the tawdriness, of all this which lay about him. And yet
it was this to which he must come back--this was his world--this at
least was the world in which his mother had made her own battle--had won
for a time, and now had lost.

After midnight, when the assembly was dismissed, Spring Valley felt it
had done its duty--it had come out to see Miss Julia's library. Everyone
who passed Miss Julia, as she stood near the door, flushed and pleased,
congratulated her on the progress she had made, on the neatness of her
desks and shelves. Some said a word about the great work she was doing.
Others shook hands with the elevated elbow, smiled sweetly, and
repeated, parrot-like, "So glad!" and "Thanks so much!" In any case,
little by little the room was cleared. There remained only the
unspeakable desolation of any room lately occupied by a crowd--the
litter of paper and odds and ends, the dulled lights, the heavy and
oppressive air.

In her place, back of the dividing line which fenced off the socially
elect, stood Aurora Lane, pale, weary, and yet composed, her hands
folded low before her. She looked straight ahead, nor asked any of these
people passing out for that recognition which she knew they would not
give her. Don himself, speaking now and then to the kindly old man who
retained his place at their side, found himself now and again in spite
of himself wondering that of all these who passed, and of these many who
turned and gazed their way, none ventured a greeting. His own face grew
hard. All life to him had been a sweet, happy, sunny thing till now. He
never had known any contest but that of sport, and there, even in
defeat, he had met sportsmanship. He had not learned that in human life
as we live it, honor and fair play and generosity and justice are things
not in any great demand, nor sportsmanship in any general practice.

"Come, we must go," said Aurora at length.

They were the last to leave the room, although they might have been the
first. In a brief lesson Don Lane's mother had taught him much.




CHAPTER VII

AT MIDNIGHT


Miss Julia, late mistress of ceremonies, passed here and there, turning
out the lights. The bonnets and blouses all had departed, the coughs and
shufflings had subsided. She might give way now to the weariness, the
reaction, attendant upon long hours of eager enterprise.

Strange, she did not look about to find her friend, Aurora Lane, did not
even hasten to take the hand of Don Lane before he had left the room.

The little group at the door--Aurora, Don and the old minister, now was
increased in the entry way by the addition of none less than the tall
and awkward figure of Horace Brooks, who came forward, smiling
uncertainly as the other three finally emerged from the door. Aurora,
quickly divining his purpose, made some hesitating excuse, and darted
back into the hall, where now Miss Julia had well accomplished the
purpose of extinguishing the lights. But what Aurora saw caused her to
withdraw softly, and not to speak to Miss Julia at all that evening!

One by one the switches had cut off the side lights, the desk lights,
those of the ceiling. Two lights remained burning at the back of the
little platform where the speakers had sat, one electrolier on each side
of the portrait over which still hung the draped flag of the Union--the
portrait of the Honorable William Henderson, lawyer, judge, politician
and leading citizen.

Before this portrait stood Julia Delafield, her smooth-topped stick
resting on the little table against which she supported herself now. She
stood, both her hands clasped at her bosom. She was looking up directly
at the lighted features of this portrait, and on her face was so rapt a
look, her gaze was so much that of one adoring a being of another
world--so much ardor was in her face, pale as it was--that Aurora Lane,
seeing and knowing much, all with a sudden wrench of her own heart,
withdrew silently, thankful that Miss Julia had not known.

"Miss Julia's tired," said she to her companions, who still stood
waiting at the entry way. "We'll not disturb her tonight, Don, after
all. I know she wants to see you. You can imagine she has a thousand
things to talk about--books, pictures, everything. But tonight we'll
just go on home. We'll come again tomorrow."

The people of Spring Valley scattered this way and that from the
classical front of the Carnegie Library. They passed away in long
streams in each direction on the street, which, arched across in places
by the wide branches of the soft maples, lay half lighted by the moon,
and yet more by the flickering arc light sputtering at the top of its
mast at the corner of the public square, which made the shadows sheer
black. So close did the trees stand to the street that the summer wind
could not get through them to lighten the pall of the night's
sultriness.

In Spring Valley the climate in the summer time was at times so
balefully hot that common folk were forced to take the mattress from the
bed and spread it on the floor at the front door in order to get a
partial breath of air. The atmosphere was close and heavy under the
trees tonight, and some commented on the fact as they passed on toward
the public square where yet further separations of the scattered groups
must ensue.

They passed along a street lined by residence houses, some small, others
large, all hedged about with shrubs or trees, all with little flower
beds; a certain conformity to accepted canons in good taste being
exacted of all who dwelt in the village. Each one of this dispersing
assemblage knew his neighbor, and all the other neighbors of the town.
This was general plebiscite. Moreover, it seemed to have a certain
purpose--an ultimate purpose of justice.

This was the actual jury of peers--this long stream of halting,
hesitating figures who at midnight strolled on across the patch-work
shadows of the maples. And before it had come on for trial the case of
Aurora Lane and her unfathered boy.

"Look at them go!" said Old Hod Brooks, chuckling bitterly to himself as
he and his companions turned toward the public square, this same thought
occurring to him. "For instance, there's an even dozen just ahead of us
now, if we cared to poll them."

Had this jury been polled it might have been found in some part
resembling the original concourse which filled Noah's ark, since for the
most part they walked two and two. Ben McQuaid, traveling salesman--the
deadly rival of Jerome Westbrook in matters of fashion--who traveled out
of Chicago but had his home in Spring Valley, because it was cheaper
living there--walked now arm in arm with Newman, the clothing merchant
of the Golden Eagle. He inquired solicitously as to the condition of
business. Newman said he "gouldn't gomplaim, though gollections mide be
better." But that was not in the least what both were thinking of at
that time.

"Seems like there was a little rukus on the square today," said McQuaid
casually. "I just heard of it--Number Four come in a little late today."

"Vell, yes," said Newman, looking around to see that he might not be
heard. "I ain't saying a vord about it--but listen, that kid has the
punch in either hand--the last time you should have seen it--you see,
they got at it twice now already----"

They drew apart, because they now saw approaching them too closely at
the rear two of the ministers of the gospel. These found themselves none
too happily assorted.

"I enjoyed your remarks very much indeed, Brother Burnham," said
Reverend Fullerton, with a mendacity for which no doubt the recording
angel dropped a suitable tear. "I agree with you that the tendency
towards looseness of living in modern life----"

Reverend Fullerton coughed ominously. Anyone very close to him might
have heard half-whispered words of "brazen exhibition" and "necessity of
public measures."

But these did not speak freely, because close behind them came yet
two--Dr. Arthur Bowling, the homeopathic physician, who somewhat against
his will had fallen into the company of Miss Elvira Sonsteby. Now, Miss
Elvira Sonsteby was the town's professional invalid. She tried regularly
all the doctors in turn as they arrived. It was well known of all that
she had suffered all the diseases ever known to man, as well as many of
which no man ever had known. Just now, with much eagerness, she was
explaining to Dr. Bowling that she feared her neuritis had become
complicated with valvular heart trouble, and that she suspected gall
stones as well. As to her rheumatism, of course she had long since given
up all hope of that--but this trouble in her arm----; and much other
conversation extremely painful to Dr. Bowling at that time, because he
was much possessed of the inclination to step forward a few paces and
walk with Sally Lester, the banker's daughter. But even they hit common
ground of converse when Miss Sonsteby voiced her belief that it was an
outrage for a public personage like a certain milliner she could name if
she cared to say, to appear in public on an occasion such as this, when
only the most refined personages of the town should have been invited.

"I am sure," said she in tense tones to the young doctor, "that although
alone in the world myself--not so old as some would try to make me out,
either--I would die rather than have anyone voice the slightest
suspicion of blame against me--the slightest blemish on my name. Now,
_that_ woman...."

Back of these two came yet others. Old Mr. Rawlins had gently said his
farewells to Aurora and her son when they emerged upon the open street,
and as he advanced passed certain of these groups, until presently he
fell in with none less than Miss Hattie Clarkson, soprano and
elocutionist of Spring Valley, who had favored the assemblage that
evening with two selections, but who, it seemed, was not wholly
satisfied.

"It seemed to me, Mr. Rawlins," said she, throwing about her shoulders
the light scarf of tulle which she always wore when entertaining
professionally--"that the exercises rather dragged tonight. Of course,
we know what to expect when Judge Henderson speaks--he's very
entertaining, to be sure. But it seemed to me that had there been a
selection or two more of elocutionary sort it might have lightened up
the evening----Who is that coming just back of us?" she whispered,
looking back over her shoulder.

"That's Aurora Lane, my dear," said Mr. Rawlins, quietly. "Her son is
with her."

"Indeed!"

"Yes, indeed! There's one of the best women I ever knew, my dear."

Miss Clarkson drew herself up proudly, and bent upon him an icy glance.
By now they had approached the corner of public square. "I think I must
say good _night_, Mr. Rawlins!" said she, with icy emphasis.

"Good night, my dear," said the old minister, sighing.

Not far ahead of Ben McQuaid and merchant Newman walked two other
citizens, J.B. Saunders, leading grocer and prominent Knight Templar,
and Nels Jorgens, village blacksmith--the same whose shop was across the
way from the home of Aurora Lane. It was said of Mr. Saunders that it
would have been difficult to surprise him at any hour of the day or
night when he was not in his uniform of a Knight Templar, or carrying
his sword case and hat. For some reasons best known to himself, and
anticipating all possible surprises, he had taken with him to the
meeting this evening the two latter accessories of his wardrobe, which
now he carried as he walked on in conversation.

His neighbor wore an alpaca coat and no necktie whatever--a reticent,
gray-whiskered man, whose bank account had a goodliness perhaps not to
be suspected from first look at its owner. The two talked of many
things, but naturally came around to the only topic which was in the
mind of all.

"What'll he do--old Eph Adamson," asked Saunders. "It looks like he
couldn't stand for what's been handed to him. That young fellow has
pounded him up a couple of times. If I was Adamson I certainly would
have the law on him good and plenty."

"Well," said Old Man Jorgens, comfortably, "I don't know much about it
anyway, but it looks to me Adamson has got pretty near enough already.
He pays a lawyer to get him clear, and when he gets out of that court
already he gets licked once more again. And he knows the boy can lick
him."

"You think he'll like enough lick him again?"

"Yeh, that's like enough, yeh. I heard things have been said of his
mother by Adamson. Oh, yes, the news is out now--she couldn't hide it no
more now--there is the boy she said was dead. But, you know, after all,
my friend, a mother is a mother, and men is men. When they say things of
how we was born, you would fought, I hope? Me, I hope too. No man likes
to hear his mother called of names. And she is his mother. Too bad it
is--a bad business all around."

"But then--why, Nels, we know----"

"Yes, we all know," said Jorgens stolidly. "I know and you know, and we
all know. And what I know is this:--For twenty years she lives across
the street from me, as straight and as good a woman as anyone in this
town--each first day of the month right in my hand here she pays the
rent, not a month missed in twenty years. I rather rent a house to her
as to any business man in this town, and I say she is straight as any
woman in this town! No man goes there, not any more now in twenty years.
The man who meets her on the public street he takes his hat off--now.
Her boy--well, he looks citified to me, but at least he can fight. Yeh,
I vote he was in the right. Tomorrow my wife shall take some more eggs
to Aurora Lane in her house; yeh, and coffee."

There were two other members of the unpolled jury, and they paused now
in the full light which came from the mast at the corner of the public
square. Judge Henderson, wearied by the exertions of the evening, was
disposed to ascend the stair to his own office in search of a manner of
refreshment which he well knew he would find there. Turning in this
laudable enterprise he met face to face the city marshal, Old Man
Tarbush, who halted him for a moment's speech, drawing him apart to the
edge of the sidewalk.

"I just thought I'd ask you, Judge, since I see you," said Tarbush,
"whether you think I done right or not."

"What do you mean, Mr. Marshal," inquired the judge, none too happy at
being interrupted.

"You know how it was. He licked Old Man Adamson again right at the foot
of the stair, before the record of his trial was hardly dry on the
books. It was unlawful, of course. I didn't arrest him no more, because
I seen what had happened in the other trial. You pulled out of that. I
didn't want to make no needless expense for the county. But I been sort
of uneasy in my mind about it, and I just thought I'd ask you."

"Exactly, exactly," rejoined Judge Henderson. "Well, now, Tarbush, come
to think it over, that matter came up for trial, and we concluded the
best thing to do was to sort of let things take their course--you see,
the young man in all likelihood will leave town very soon. In the
conduct of my own affairs I sometimes have seen that it is well enough
not to stir things up. Leave them alone, and sometimes they will smooth
themselves down."

"Then you wouldn't run him in if you was me?"

"No, I think not, I think not. Let it go for the time. Perhaps there may
be further developments, but with such information as I have at hand
now, I would be disposed to approve your conduct. There's nothing like
letting bygones be bygones in this world--isn't that the truth?"

"But now, about the eejit, Johnnie," resumed the city marshal once more,
reaching out his hand still to detain the other, "I don't know as I done
right about him, neither."

"What have you done then, Tarbush?"

"Well, I let him go. You see, I don't know but maybe the _habeas chorus_
proceedings would be squashed like the rest. Besides, the eejit boy has
been raising all kinds of hell down at the jail, raving and shouting and
threatening me. About a hour ago or less I concluded to let him loose,
so as to get shut of him."

"You did let him go? And he was not discharged?"

"Well, now, what's the difference, Judge," said the old man. "We
couldn't really get no sleep down there, he was making so much fuss, so
I just let him out. He lit out upon the street right thataway, towards
home--not so very long ago."

Judge Henderson gazed moodily in the direction to which Tarbush pointed.

"Well," said he, "maybe you did right, and in any case this isn't the
time and place to discuss it. My professional hours"--and he turned away
and walked slowly up the stairs to his own office, intent upon the
purpose already prominent in his mind.

The arc light illumined fully the great town clock in the cupola of the
courthouse. The hands pointed to a quarter of one, after midnight.

The deliberations of the jury of Spring Valley might have been said to
have concluded at the time when Aurora Lane, her son Don, and old Hod
Brooks--the last group of the slow procession--themselves turned the
corner and emerged upon the public square. The matter of bringing in the
verdict was another affair.




CHAPTER VIII

THE EXTRAORDINARY HORACE BROOKS


Something made Aurora Lane uneasy. She turned now and extended her hand
to the tall man who walked at her side. "Good night, Mr. Brooks," said
she.

But old Hod Brooks only put his hands deeper in his pockets and slouched
on alongside. "I'll just go on along with you to the gate. It's hot
tonight, isn't it? I don't know when we've had such a spell."

She could not well dismiss him now, so indeed the three walked yet a
while together.

Don Lane still was silent, moody. There was little of the Jesuit in his
own frank soul. He knew nothing of dissembling, and had no art of
putting a good face upon a bad matter. All these complications which so
swiftly had come into his life seemed to him only a terrible and
overwhelming thing in the total. The morrow was coming for him--nay, it
already was at hand, and he knew what that must bring of additional
grief. Anne! Anne! He must tell her. He must leave her. Never in all his
care-free life had he been so wretched, so miserable, as he was now.
Moreover, for reasons he could not stifle he did not like the presence
of Brooks here, even though he and his mother must acknowledge the debt
under which he had laid them that day.

"I'll tell you, Mother," said he after a time, when he had turned off
the square into their own street. "Just excuse me for a few minutes,
won't you? It's so hot and stuffy that I don't feel that I can sleep.
I'll just take a little run down the street, if you don't mind."

"But why, Don?" she inquired.

"You see, I've always been used to keeping fit, and I don't like to
break my training--we always had to exercise in college, on the teams. I
don't feel good when I don't. I'm used to doing my half mile or so every
night just before I go to sleep."

"Huh!" said Old Hod Brooks, looking at the young man appraisingly. "So
that's how you keep in training, eh? Well, it seems to work all right!"
His sudden gusty laughter sounded loud in the night, but it lacked the
note of ease.

"Go on, go on," he added--"as you get older maybe you'll find it takes
all your gimp to take care of your mind and your money, and you'll let
your body just about take care of itself. But go ahead--I'll just walk
on down with your mother."

"Don't be long, Don," said Aurora Lane; and she meant it, for she felt
uneasy at thus being accompanied to her own gate, a thing unknown in her
history. She was glad that old Nels Jorgens, on ahead, had just turned
in at his own gate.

Don Lane trotted off slowly, with long elastic stride, up on his toes,
with his elbows tucked in and his chin high, filling his lungs as best
he might with the hot and lifeless air. The sound of his footfalls
passed down the street, and was lost as he turned at the further corner
of the square.

"Good night, now," said Aurora Lane once more, as she and her companion
approached her little gate.

But Hod Brooks did not turn away, although he made no attempt to enter.
Instead he reached out a large hand impulsively and arrested hers as it
would have pulled together the little crippled gate behind her. Still
she did close the gate--until the sudden impact of his own weight
snapped off its last remaining hinge. He picked it up carelessly and set
it within the fence, himself leaning against the post, filling the gap,
his hands back in his pockets.

"Aurora," said he, with a strange softness in his voice, "this seems to
me almost like Providence."

"What do you mean?" she said. "I must go----"

"Please, not yet," said he. "Just think--how else could it have been
possible for me to talk with you?"

"Without compromising yourself?" She smiled slowly and bitterly, but did
not see the hot blood rise to his face.

"That's not right!" said he. "Without compromising _you_--that's what I
meant. I only meant that there is no place where we well could meet. And
I wanted to say something to you, at last--what sometime has got to be
said between us."

"We both know everything now, so why talk?" said she. "It was fine of
you today in the trial. We owe so much--we'll pay when we can."

The dull red in his face deepened. "You may stop that, if you please,"
said he. "It's not right between us. The showdown has come. Why not
settle up, at last?"

She turned, not knowing what to do, unwilling to leave him standing
there.

"It's been years, Aurora. Now, listen--I'm going on up in the world
myself, at last. I want to take you with me. I didn't want to say
anything till the right time. It's been a long, hard pull for me, too,
here in this town. It's hard for men like me to talk."

"You mustn't talk," said she. "You mustn't say a word--you mustn't be
seen here even."

He looked at her slowly. "I'm here deliberately," said he. "Listen
now--I must tell you some things, Aurora. I've loved you from the first
day I saw you. Can't you credit me at least a little? You're
splendid--you're beautiful--and you're good."

She choked a bit, raised a hand in swift protest.

"You're still young, Aurora," said he, not paying attention to what she
said. "Of course I'm older, but there's a lot of time left yet for you
and me--a lot of living. You've had mighty little out of life, here by
yourself. Now I've stood it as long as I can. Since the whole truth
about the boy has broken out today and can't ever be covered up again,
it seemed to me I just had to tell you that you needed me to take care
of you--someone more than just yourself. Things may go harder for you
now. They've been hard enough already. You need help. Who more natural
to help you than myself, feeling as I have, as I do?"

"Oh, you _mustn't_ talk that way!" Her voice trembled. "You must go on
away. I'm not--good----"

"You're good enough for me--good as I am, surely--and I want to get into
this game with you now. You need me. That means we've got to be married.
Oh, the boy's fine, yes, but he'll be going away. You need a man--a
husband--someone you can depend on, Aurora. Isn't there anything welcome
in that thought for you? Aurora, I want to marry you--at once, right
away. I say that right now and here."

Aurora Lane looked this way and that, every way. Her gaze happened to go
down the long vista beneath the maples, to fall upon the face of the
town clock on the courthouse. The hour hand with a short jerk moved
forward and the deep note of the bell boomed out--it was one o'clock of
the night; and all was not well.

She turned as she felt the tense grasp of his great knotted hands still
upon her own.

"You say that--to me----" she managed to say at last. "Why, everybody
knows--all the town knows----" Her voice shook. "I suppose I'll have to
leave here now after what's happened. But _you'd_ have to leave if you
took up with such as me--even this late, it would ruin you. Don't you
think of your own prospects? Why, I couldn't marry you, no matter how
much I loved you."

"You don't love me at all?"

"How could I?"

"That's true," said he simply. "How could you?"

"I don't mean that," she corrected herself hastily.

"It's just what I said," he rejoined. "This seems providential to me. I
can't allow these people to murder you a dozen times a week the way they
will do now. You can't make this fight alone any more, Aurora--I can't
any longer bear to see you try it. It's all out now. It's going to be
harder for you after this."

She did not make any answer to him at all, but she heard his big voice
murmuring on.

"I reckon it's love, after all, Aurora--I don't know. I don't know much
about women. I just feel as though I had to take care of you--I feel as
though you ought to depend on me. Can't you believe that?"

"I ought not to believe that of any man," she broke out.

"Like enough, like enough," he nodded, "but you've known only one
man--that's your full horizon. Now, having had so hard a fight in
business, I have put marrying to one side. Let's not say that we're both
young--for we're not. But let's remember what I told you--there's a lot
of life left for you and me yet if you'll only say the word. Don't you
want to make anybody happy?"

"Oh, you mustn't say that to me!" said Aurora Lane. "But you would want
me to be honest, wouldn't you? You wouldn't want me to lie? Somehow,
I've never learned to lie very much."

"No," said he simply; "no, I reckon not. You never have."

"No matter what----"

"No matter what."

"Then tell me, how could I say I loved you now? For twenty years--all my
life--I have put that thought away from me. I'm old and cold now. My
heart's ashes, that part, can't you understand? And you're a man."

"Yes," he nodded, "I'm a man. That's so, Aurora. But now you're just
troubled. You've not had time to think. I've held my secret, too. I've
never spoken out to you before. I tell you, you're too good a woman to
be lost--that isn't right."

"You pity me!"

"Maybe. But I want to marry you, Aurora."

"What could I do--what could be done--where would you have any pay in
that?"

"Don't trouble about the pay. How much have the past twenty years paid
you?"

"Little enough," said she bitterly, "little enough. About all they've
given me--about all I've got left--is the boy. But I want to play fair."

"That's it," said he. "So do I. That's why I tell you you're too good
for me, when it comes to that, after all."

"Why, it would all have to come out--one way or the other. It all _has_
come out, as you say. We couldn't evade that now--it's too late. Here's
the proof--Dieudonne--and I can't deny him."

He nodded gravely. She went on:

"Everyone knows about the boy now--everybody knows he's--got no father.
_That's_ my boy. Too late now to explain--he's ruined all that by coming
here. And yet you ask me to marry you. If I did, one of two things
surely would be said, and either of them would make you wretched all
your life."

He turned to her and looked at her steadily.

"They might say I was the father?"

She nodded, flushing painfully. "They might guess. And a few might think
that after all these years----"

"Maybe," said he slowly. "But you see, after all, it's only a
theoretical hurt I'm taking if I stand between you and these damned
harpies here. They're going to torture you, Aurora, going to flay and
burn you alive. I'd like to do about anything I could for you, anything
a man can in such a case as ours. As for sacrifice--why, whatever you
think I think of you, I believe we can both call it sure that I want to
stand between you and the world. I want to have the _right_ to take care
of you. It's what I want to do--must do. I've waited too long. But it's
what I always have intended. You'd never let me. I never seemed to get
around to it before. But now----"

"Impossible!" she whispered, white, her great eyes somber. "There is no
way. Love of man has gone by for me. It knocked once. It has gone by."

"Wait now, let us go on with the argument just a little further, my
dear!" said he gently.

"We have argued too long already," she said faintly. "You must go.
Please go--please don't talk to me. You must not."

"I wish I could agree with you," said he, disturbed and frowning,
"because I don't want to make you any more unhappy. But listen, it just
seemed to me that this was providential--I had to come to you and tell
you what I have told you tonight. Why, widows remarry--time and again
widows marry."

"Yes, _widows_!" He could barely hear the sob which she stifled in her
throat.

"Well, then," said he, "how about you and me? I don't think it's a fair
argument, but I ought to point out to you that perhaps I've got a chance
in the world. They wanted me, for instance, to make the run for the
senatorship--against Judge Henderson. Today I agreed with him not to
accept the candidacy. In return he agreed to drop that case against Don.
Well, you've traded me out of the United States Senate, Aurora. But I
made that trade--for you and the boy."

She looked up at him in sudden astonishment. She could not evade the
feeling of shelter in his great presence as he stood there, speaking
calmly, absolutely in hand, a grotesque and yet a great soul--yes, a
great soul as it seemed to her, so used to littler souls. After all, she
never really had known this man. Sacrifice? Had he not given freely, as
a sacrifice, the greatest gift a man has--his hope for power and
preferment? And he spoke of it as though it were a little thing. Aurora
Lane was large enough to know a large act, belittled though it were by
the doer of the deed.

"You see," he began, "we're old enough perhaps to talk plainly, plainer
than young folks can--mostly I presume they don't talk at all--but I may
talk plainly?"

"Oh, yes," said she, sighing. "I suppose we've made that certain."

"Now, now, don't say that--nothing of the sort, my dear. Your past is
out of this question altogether. You're a _widow_, that's all. Your
unknown husband is dead--he is unknown, but he is dead. That's the
record, and accepted here. And isn't that our solution--the only one in
all the world possible for us?"

She did not answer at all.

"The boy and I--I reckon the two of us could keep most of the people in
this town or in this world attending to their own business, and not
bothering about ours. Don't you believe that, Aurora? We've made a
start--a sort of preliminary demonstration already."

But still she did not answer, and, agonized now, he went on:

"I'm a plain man, Aurora, pretty ignorant, I expect. I didn't come from
anywhere--there's no family much back of me--I have had really very
little schooling, and I've had to fight my own way. I can't play
bridge--I don't know one card from another. I don't dance--there's no
human being could ever teach a dance step to me. I've never been in
society, because I don't belong there. But, as I said, I've got some
standards of a man and some feelings of a man. I love you a lot more
than you can tell from what I've said, or what I've done. It'll be a
great deal more to you than you can believe now. I'll do a great deal
more for you than you can realize. I'll give you at last--later than I
ought to have done it--something you've never had--your _life_--your
_chance_ in the world--your chance at real love and real affection and
real loyalty. You've never had that, Aurora. I couldn't offer it, for I
had my own secret to keep, and my own fight to make. But love and
loyalty--they'd be sweet, wouldn't they?"

She bent her head down upon her hands, which lay folded at the top of
the pickets of the little fence.

"Sweet--sweet--yes, yes!" he heard her murmur.

"Well, then, why not end the argument?" he said. "Why, I've seen you
here, all these years. I know every hair of your head. I have come
really to love you, all of you, as a man ought to love his wife. I can't
resist it--it's an awful thing. I don't think I'll forget--it's too late
in life for me to begin over again, it's you or nothing for me. There's
never been any other woman for me--and that ought at least to speak for
me. There's been no other man for you. So why not end it? The world's
been cruel enough for you as it is. I'll not say it hasn't been cruel to
me, too. I've sat tight and eaten my heart. I've had to fight, too. But
don't I understand you, your fight, what it means to buck a game where
all the cards are stacked? Don't I know?"

"It has been cruel, yes," said she at length, finding herself able to
speak, "but it seems it has not been quite so cruel as it could be
until--until now."

"Why, what do you mean? Am I cruel? Why?"

"You said--you said something about my being a widow."

He nodded. "Yes. I pick you up now--it's as though I find you new--I
know you now at a later stage altogether in your life. You've grown. I
see you as new and fresh as though you were just risen from the sea....
And all the past is nothing to me."

"You must not talk," said she, "because it only is to make us both the
more unhappy. You are quixotic enough, or great enough--I don't know
which--I can't tell which it is--to say you'd take the shame on your own
shoulders in order to take it off of mine! You can't mean that! No! no!
One life ruined is enough--you've ruined yours enough now, today, by
what you've done for Don and me."

He seemed not to hear her.

"I've watched you all these years, and you've lived like a recluse, like
a widow. I can't reproach you. God! Which of us may first cast a stone?"

Aurora Lane turned to him now a brave face, the same brave face she had
turned to the world all these years.

"Oh," said she, "if only I had learned to lie! Maybe some women could
lie to you. And women get so tired--so awfully tired sometimes--I
couldn't blame them. I might marry you, yes--I believe I could. But I
would never lie to you--I won't lie to you now."

"What are you going to say to me, Aurie?"

"What I'm going to say to all the world! I've never been
married to anyone and can't be now. It would be more horrible to
me than--that other. It's too late. It--it means too much to
me--marriage--marriage--marriage! Don't--don't--you mustn't say some
things to a woman. Oh, if all this had happened twenty years ago, when I
was young, I might have been weak enough to listen to what you say. I
was weak and frightened then--I didn't know how I'd ever get on--all
life was a terror to me. But that was twenty years ago. I've made my
fight now, and I've learned that after a fashion at least I could get
on--I did--I have. I can go on through alone the rest of the way, and
it's right that I should. That's what I'm going to do!"

She saw the great hand clutch the more tightly on two picket tops. They
broke under the closing grip of his great hand.

"That's right hard," said he simply. "We can't be married now? But--tell
me, can't I help you?"

"Oh, no, no, don't--don't talk of that!" she said. She was weeping now.
"Don't try to help me," she sobbed bitterly. "You can't help me--nobody
can help me--there's no help in the world--not even God can help me!
You've been cruel--all the world has been nothing but cruel to me all my
life. I've nothing to hope--there's nothing that can help me, nothing.
I'm one of the lost, that's all. Until today, I'd hoped. I never will
hope again."

Now she felt the great hand closing once more on top of hers above the
broken pickets.

"Listen, Aurora," said he, "if it doesn't seem that you and I can be
married, there's nothing in the world which makes it wrong for me to
help you all I can--you mustn't think I didn't love you. You don't think
that, do you?"

"I don't know what I think!" said she, rubbing at the ceaseless tears,
so new to her. "All these matters have been out of my life--forever, as
I thought. But sometimes--I've been so lonesome, you know, and so
helpless--I'm tempted. It's hard for a woman to live all alone--it's
almost a thing impossible--she's so lonesome--sometimes I almost think I
could depend on you, even now."

"That's fine!" said he, choking up; "that's fine. I expect that's about
all I had coming to me after all. So I oughtn't to be sorry--I ought to
be very happy. That's about the finest thing I ever heard in all my
life."

"And about the sweetest words I ever heard in all my life were what you
said just now--after knowing all you do about me."

"But you won't tell me that you'll marry me now?" He bent and picked up
her hand in both his great ones. "I know you will not." He kissed her
hand reverently.

"Good night," said he gently. And presently she was sensible that his
shambling figure was passing away down the street under the checkered
shadows of the maples.

Aurora Lane stood yet for just a moment, how long she did not know.
There came to her ear the sound of running footsteps. Her boy came down
the street, passing Horace Brooks with a wave of his hand. He reached
her side now as she still stood at the gate. He was panting, perspiring
a trifle.

"Fine!" said he. "Let's go in. Maybe I can sleep--I'd like to sleep."

"What kept you so late?" asked Aurora Lane. She hurried in ahead of
him.




CHAPTER IX

THE OTHER WOMAN CONCERNED


The sultry night at last was broken by a breathless dawn, the sun rising
a red ball over the farm lands beyond the massed maple trees of the
town. Not much refreshed by the attempt at sleep in the stuffy little
rooms, Don and his mother met once more in the little kitchen
dining-room where she had prepared the simple breakfast.

He did not know, as he picked at the crisp bacon strips, that bacon, or
even eggs, made an unusual breakfast in his mother's household. He
trifled with his cereal and his coffee, happily too considerate to
mention the lack of butter and cream, but grumblingly sensible all the
time that the bread was no longer fresh. He was living in a new world,
the world of the very poor. His time had not yet been sufficient therein
to give him much understanding.

He looked about him at the scantily furnished rooms, and in spite of
himself there rose before his mind pictures he had known these last few
years--wide green parks, with oaks and elms, stately buildings draped
with ivy, flowers about, and everywhere the air of quiet ease. He
recalled the fellowship of fresh-cheeked roistering youths like himself,
full of the zest of life, youth well-clad, with the stamp of having
known the good things of life; young women well-clad, well-appointed,
also. Books, art, the touch of the wide world of thought, the quiet, the
comfort, the beauty, the physical well-being of everything about
him--these had been a daily experience for him for years. He
unthinkingly had supposed that all life, all the world, must continue
much like this. He had supposed, had he given it any thought at all,
that the last meager bill in his pockets when he started home would in
some magic way always remain unneeded, always unspent. He had
opportunity waiting for him in his profession, and he knew he would get
on. Never before in all his life had he known the widow's cruse.

So this was life, then--this little room, this tawdry, sullen town, this
hot and lifeless air, this hopelessly banal and uninteresting place that
had been his mother's home all these years--this was his beginning of
actual life! The first lesson he had had yesterday; the next, yet more
bitter, he must have today. The uninviting little kitchen seemed to him
the center of a drab and dismal world, in which could never be aught of
happiness for him or his.

"It's not much, Don," said his mother, smiling bravely as her eyes noted
his abstraction. "I live so simply--I'm afraid a big man like you won't
get enough to eat with me."

She did not mention her special preparations for his arrival. He did not
know that the half-dozen new serviettes had been bought for his coming.
He did not know that a new chair also had been purchased, and that he
himself was sitting in it at that very time. In short, he knew nothing
of the many sacrifices needful even for these inexpensive things about
him. He did not know that marvel of the widow's cruse, filled against
dire need by the hand of merciful Providence.

"It's all right, Mother," said he, toying with his fork; "fine, fine."

"Coffee strong enough, Don?" She looked at him anxiously. Usually she
made it weak for herself.

"Oh, they never let us have it at all when we're training, mother," said
he, "and not strong at any time. I know the simple life." He smiled as
best he might.

"I have lived it here, too, Don," said she slowly, "because I couldn't
well help it. I don't suppose anybody likes it when it's too simple. I
like things nice, so much. I've always longed to travel. You know, Don,
I hear of people going over to Europe, and I'm guilty of the sin of
envy. I live right here in this little place all the time--I've done so
all my life. I've scarcely been out of this town in twenty years. If I
could see pictures--if I could go to see the great actors--if I could
see a real theater--just once, Don--you don't know how happy I'd be. And
I'm sure there must be more beautiful countries than this. Still"--and
here she sighed--"Miss Julia and I have lived quite a life together--in
the books, the magazines--pictures too, sometimes."

He looked at her dumbly now, trying to understand the steady heroism of
a life such as hers. The real character of his own mother never yet
fully had impressed itself upon him. Don Lane was a college graduate,
but now for the first time in his life he was beginning to think.

"One thing," she added, "I'd never do. I'd never pretend to be what I
was not--I didn't ever pretend to have what I didn't have. You see me,
Don, and my life, pretty much as we are."

"And all this has been for me?"

"Yes," simply. "But although we grew up apart, I don't think I could
endure it if I thought we really were to part--if you would leave me
now.

"I was half hoping," she went on musingly, "that you could find it in
your heart to stay here in this town."

He shook his head. "Impossible! That's one thing you really mustn't ask
of me."

"Yes, I feared you would think of it in that way! But, as for me, this
is my place--I've made my bed here, and I must lie in it. I know the
people of this town--I know what they'll all do to me now. You see, you
don't know these things yet."

"No," said he, "but you and Miss Julia both will be paid back--the money
part of it--some time. As for me, I'm not going to have any home."

She sat silent for quite a time, the meager breakfast now being ended
for both.

"Oh, can't you forget her, Don? Can't you give her up?" she said
finally.

"I can't forget her, Mother, but I'll have to give her up. It all
happened there on the car--just at once--in public."

"I'm glad you never kissed her, Don," said she. "You're both so young."

She shook her head slowly as she went on. "Love has to be loved in any
case. That means--I suppose it means--that for the very young, if it be
not one, it may later be another."

He only smiled bitterly at this. "It all comes to the same thing in any
case," said he. "I'll have to tell her what I know, and we'll have to
part. It would be the same with any other woman, if there could be any
other. There can't be."

"I've been frank with you, Don, and I don't know whether to be glad or
sorry for that. I'd love nothing so much in the world as to see you
happily married--but nothing in the world could so much hurt me as to
see you marry Anne Oglesby."

"No fear of it!"

"You'll tell her?"

"Yes. Today."




CHAPTER X

THE MURDER


Once more the strident call of the telephone broke in, and Aurora Lane
stepped aside.

"It's Miss Julia," said she excitedly, turning upon her son eyes
suddenly grown large. "Why, it's something awful! Don--a terrible thing
has happened--last night."

"What's wrong--what's happened?" he demanded.

"Mr. Tarbush--the city marshal--why, you know--he was
killed--murdered--last night--found this morning! It was about one
o'clock, as near as they can tell, Miss Julia says. It's all over town."

An exclamation left the young man's lips. "What's that? Murdered?"

"Yes, yes--wait----" She spoke on into the telephone. "Yes, Julia, Don
and I were just at breakfast--no, we've not been on the street yet--one
o'clock, you said? That was when we were just coming home from the
library!"

"Mother," said Don, "that's right! It must have been just about one
o'clock, wasn't it?"

She looked at him steadily for a time, as she dropped the receiver, her
own face a trifle pale. "Yes--we hadn't gone to sleep at the time it
happened. He was killed right in front of his own house, Miss Julia
says."

"And where is that?--you see, I don't know much about the town."

"Beyond the square, about three blocks from the farther corner--the
little house with the low fence in front, and the deep front yard."

"We didn't pass that when we came up from the station?"

"No, we came another street. But, Don----"

"Yes?"

"When you were running last night, you must have passed right close to
there! You didn't see anything strange?"

"Of course not! I'd have looked into it. I don't recall that particular
house.

"Well," he added, after a moment's silence, "in spite of all that
happened yesterday between him and us, I'm not going to call him
anything but a good man--now."

She looked at him strangely--studied his face steadily.

"I'll be going out now, I think--I'm going to run over to see Julia for
a time. Please don't go out on the street, Don. Stay right here. We got
into trouble enough yesterday."

"You needn't fear," said he. "There's nothing and nobody in this town I
want to see. I'll be glad when I shake the dust of it off my feet--when
I once get squared away in my own business you shall leave this place
and live with me."

And then, as there came to him again and again the anticipated pain of
parting with the one he himself loved, he came up to his mother and put
his arms once more upon her shoulders. Again her hands found his hair.
She cast a quick glance about her, as though in his defense.

"Don," said she, "I think I'll never get over thinking of you as just a
boy, a little boy."

He tried to smile. "Pity you didn't drown me in the pool yonder," said
he.

It was the most cruel thing he could have found to say, although he
spoke only in his own bitterness, careless, as a man so often is, of a
woman's hurts. But she left him without comment; and soon he had resumed
his own restless walking up and down in the narrow quarters which seemed
to him such a prison.

Meantime all Spring Valley was afoot and agog over this news. It was the
most sensational thing that had happened, as Aaron Craybill said, since
Ben Wilson's wife went crazy out on the farm, come four years ago, and
killed her four babies, and hid in the haystack until they found her
three days later, and sent her to the asylum. And so forth, and so
forth.

All the good folk met in groups at home or in the streets, so that
within an hour after breakfast there was not a soul in all Spring Valley
did not know that the town marshal had just been killed by some unknown
person for some unknown reason. The news seemed dulling, stupefying. The
clerks who opened the drug stores around the public square, the only
shops open of the Sunday, were slow in their sweeping out that morning.
Pedestrians on the streets walked slowly. The entire life of the town
seemed slow. The sluggish, arresting solemnity of death sat upon all the
little community.

Spring Valley had no daily newspaper, and even the weekly _Clarion_, a
production of some six pages, had its trials in making a living there,
so close was the village to larger towns which reached out and covered
most of its commercial needs in this time of telegraph and trolley. The
editor of the _Clarion_ was, naturally, the correspondent of the largest
daily of the near-by metropolis. Twice in all his life he had had
opportunity for a first page story in the great city daily. His first
metropolitan opportunity was when the aforementioned farmer's wife had
killed her children, some four years ago. And now here was something
quite as big. Editor Anderson sat at his own breakfast table for more
than half an hour pondering on the opening sentence which he was going
to write in his dispatch to the morning daily.

By eleven-thirty he had written his story, and had taken it down to the
station agent for transmission by wire; and that worthy told him that as
soon as Number Five got by he would begin to send the message. "I can't
stop for anything so long as that now," said he.

It was somewhat longer as written than as printed, but Mr. Anderson
described the murder of the city marshal in the following terms:

     The progressive little city of Spring Valley, Jackson County,
     this state, was electrified this morning by the startling news
     of the murder of the well-known city marshal, Mr. Joel Tarbush,
     a man of sterling qualities, who has held the office for many
     years, and who had endeared himself in the hearts of the
     community not only for his discharge of his official duties,
     but for his kindliness of heart. The funeral will occur
     tomorrow afternoon at half-past three. Reverend William D.
     Rawlins will give the funeral address.

     The city of Spring Valley is all excitement at this writing. No
     trace of the cowardly assassin has yet been found, and the
     entire affair remains shrouded in the deepest mystery, which
     not even the keenest intellects have been able to penetrate.
     There is no one who can ascribe a motive sufficient to inspire
     the murder of so respected and harmless a citizen.

     Some have ascribed the fiendish act to some hobo or tramp who
     may have taken revenge on the marshal for some real or fancied
     injury in the past. But no one can recall any instance in which
     the deceased has ever incurred the enmity of any such
     characters, so that all remain at a loss how to account for
     this act. There seems to have been no eyewitness, and therefore
     all is but mere conjecture.

     Your reporter was among the first at the premises early this
     morning, and thus gained all the information that can be
     secured at this writing. He has interviewed Miss Audrey
     Tarbush, daughter of the deceased, who had for many years kept
     house for him in their residence on Mulberry Street, about five
     blocks from the courthouse, where the deceased had a small
     garden and raised vegetables and flowers which he sold in the
     best families of our flourishing city.

     Miss Audrey Tarbush, when interviewed by our reporter, said
     that she had last night, according to her usual custom, retired
     at the hour of half-past nine. She did not attend the exercises
     at the city library, where most of the elite of the town were
     present last night, because of a headache from which she
     suffered. She left the front door unlocked, as was her custom,
     for the entry of her father when he had finished the duties of
     his day's work. Usually, Marshal Tarbush came home at about ten
     o'clock, and himself then retired. On this night, by reason of
     certain extraordinary occurrences during the preceding day, he
     thought it wise to remain out later than usual. This was in
     accordance with his well-known courage and his conscientious
     endeavor to protect the residents of the city against any
     possible danger.

     It was about a quarter after one o'clock, as near as Miss
     Audrey Tarbush can recall, that she was awakened by the sound
     of footfalls on the front porch. She called out, "Who's there?"
     but got no answer. As she went to the door her father succeeded
     in opening it and staggered in. He sank down into a chair near
     the center table. She saw then that he was very pale, and had a
     wound upon his head from which blood was still flowing. Much
     alarmed, she inquired of him what had occurred. The deceased
     was unable to answer. He seemed to be approaching a sort of
     coma.

     "Who was it? Who did it?" Miss Audrey Tarbush demanded of him.
     It was a dramatic situation.

     The deceased was unable to make an intelligent reply. "Someone
     hit me," he muttered. That was all he could manage to say, and
     that was all she could catch of his last words. Before long his
     head sank forward and he breathed his last almost in her arms.
     Unassisted she was able to carry the body of her father to the
     near-by sofa.

     At that late hour the telephone operator had gone home, so she
     was unable to call any of the neighbors by means of the
     telephone. She does not recall how long she was alone with the
     dead body of her esteemed parent, but after a time her cries
     from the front porch were heard. The neighbors came to her
     assistance, but nothing could be done.

     Examination of the remains of the deceased revealed a long and
     ragged wound over the upper and left-hand part of the head,
     breaking the cuticle for a distance of some four or five
     inches. The marshal's hat had been on when he was struck. The
     skull was broken for a distance of more than two inches,
     according to the examination of Dr. Amos N. Beals, who examined
     the body, the left parietal bone being crushed in as by some
     heavy instrument.

     Your reporter deduces the following theory of the crime. At a
     late hour, after City Marshal Tarbush had finished his duties
     in the public square, he went towards his home, the public
     meeting at the library having by this time been dismissed. At a
     distance of perhaps fifty feet west of the front gate of his
     own home the deceased was approached by some miscreant, who
     with some heavy blunt instrument struck him down from behind,
     and who then made his escape, leaving no sign behind him. No
     club or weapon of any kind was found.

     After receiving his death blow this estimable citizen seems to
     have walked, steadying himself against the top rail of the
     fence, until he reached the gate. The bloody finger prints upon
     the top of the fence were no doubt made by his own fingers,
     which he must have raised up to his head. He was able to enter
     his own gate, come up his own walk, and ascend his own front
     steps. Up to that time no one can tell the story. What ensued
     after that has been told by your reporter in the interview with
     Miss Audrey Tarbush, his loving daughter.

     So ended a long and honorable life. The pallbearers will be
     chosen from leading citizens of the town, but their names have
     not yet been determined. He will be buried by the Knights
     Templar, to which order he belonged, probably on Sunday
     afternoon, because, although such haste may appear unseemly,
     this early funeral will allow a representative attendance of
     all the members of the order, including practically all our
     leading citizens, with their full music, so that the concluding
     exercises may thus show a greater tribute of respect, the
     attendance at any later day being sure to be far less general.

     Your reporter has interviewed prominent citizens as to the
     cause of this crime which has so shocked our community. When
     approached by your reporter, Judge William Henderson,
     well-known candidate for the United States senatorship, former
     member of the Republic State Central Committee and prominent
     citizen in this state, said, "I cannot hazard even a guess at
     the perpetrator of this ghastly crime which has so shocked our
     community."

The story written by Mr. Anderson ended at this point. As printed it
ended considerably in advance of this point; but at least, as he later
told his wife, he had done his best to give his paper a good story. By
the time his message was waiting in the hands of the station agent,
telephone wires were busy between Spring Valley and other larger towns.
The early afternoon papers in Columbus were on the streets by
eleven-thirty with big headlines, and a few lines of type about the
murder of "County Sheriff Abel Tarbush of Spring Valley, Jackson County,
for which murder four tramps had been suspected and placed in jail." The
deceased was described as a prominent Mason. By that time the star
reporters of the morning dailies were on the through train, Number Five,
bound east from Columbus to Spring Valley, as many learned by telephone;
so that the arrival of Number Five this day would be a matter of special
importance.

Of exact details in all these matters, Don Lane knew but little. It was
for reasons of his own, easily obvious, that he went down to the little
station to meet the through train from the West. Anne Oglesby was
coming!

His mother did not accompany him, of course, and he therefore was quite
alone. Of all those whom he encountered hurrying in the same direction,
all those who packed the little platform and who stood here and there in
groups speaking solemnly one with the other, he could count not a
friend, not an acquaintance. Dully he felt that here and there an eye
was turned upon him, that here and there a word was spoken about him. He
dismissed it as part of the aftermath of his own troubles of the
previous day. He walked nervously up and down, impatiently looking
westward down the line of rails, his own contemptuous hatred for all
these lost in the greater emotion that filled his heart. Anne was
coming--she was almost here! And he must say good-by.

Meantime, in the courthouse, there was going forward due action on the
part of the officers of the law intrusted with the solution of such
mysteries as this murder. The sheriff, a large and solid man, Dan Cowles
by name, was one of the first to inspect the premises where the crime
had been committed. Shortly after that he went over to the office of
Blackman, Justice of the Peace and coroner, who by ten o'clock that
morning had summoned his jury of six men--Nels Jorgens, the blacksmith;
Mr. Rawlins, the minister of the Church of Christ; Ben McQuaid, the
traveling man; Newman, the clothing merchant; J. B. Saunders, the Knight
Templar; Jerome Westbrook, clerk in the First National Bank.

It chanced that the county prosecutor, a young man by the name of
Slattery, was out of town at this time, so that the executive side of
the law for a moment hesitated. The sheriff therefore called up Judge
Henderson and asked his presence at the courthouse for a consultation.
The two were closeted for some time in the sheriff's office. At this
time the deliberations of the coroner's jury would have been well
advanced; therefore, Sheriff Cowles took up the telephone and called up
Coroner Blackman at the Tarbush residence, just as the latter was upon
the point of calling for a verdict of the jury in the accustomed words,
"Murder at the hands of party or parties unknown."

"Wait, Mr. Coroner!" said Sheriff Cowles. "There's going to be some more
witnesses. Keep your jury together."

A few moments later the long shrieking whistle of Number Five was heard
as she came up out of the Paw Paw Creek bottoms, climbing the hill at
the brick yards, and swung around the curve through South Spring Valley
into the stretch of straight track leading down to the station. As the
grinding brakes brought the heavy train finally to a standstill, three
or four young men swung down from the day coaches--reporters from
outside towns.

Don Lane elbowed his way to the edge of the platform. His eye was
searching eagerly along the train exits for someone else--someone else
whom he longed and yet dreaded to see.




CHAPTER XI

IN THE NAME OF THE LAW


Don's moody face suddenly lighted up. A young woman was stepping down
from one of the cars at the farther end of the train, the porter
assisting her to the footstool. Now she was coming steadily along the
edge of the platform, carrying in one hand a trim little bag, in the
other a trim little umbrella. Now she was looking about, expectant. It
was she--Anne!

His heart leaped out to her, his love rose surgingly at sight of her,
sweet and beautiful as she seemed, and all so fit for love of man.

A tall young girl she was, who walked with head well up and the
suggestion of tennis about her--an indefinable something of chic also
about her, as indicative of physical well-being as that suggested by
some of the young faces on the magazine covers of the day; which would
explain why in her college Anne Oglesby always was known as "the
magazine girl." She had straightforward gray eyes, a fine mouth of much
sweetness. Above her forehead rose a deep and narrow ruff of dense brown
hair, golden brown. Trim, yet well-appointed, she was one of those types
whom unhesitatingly we class as aristocrats. A young woman fit for any
higher class, qualified for any rank, she seemed--and a creature utterly
apart from the crowd that now jostled her on the narrow platform.

Her eyes, too, lighted up at sight of the young man who now hurried
forward to meet her, but no unseemly agitation marked her own personal
conduct in public. Demure, clean, cool and sweet, all in hand, she did
not hasten nor hold back.

Dieudonne Lane had told his mother that never yet had he kissed Anne
Oglesby. Now, at sight of her and at the thought that almost at once
they must part forever, a great rebellion rose in his heart. He stepped
forward swiftly, impulsively, irresistibly.

He caught her quickly in his arms before all the crowd and kissed
her--once. It was his great salutation to love--a salutation of great
longing--a salutation which meant farewell.

She gasped, flushed rosy red, but walked straight along with him as he
caught the bag from her hands. She looked up at him, astonished, yet not
wholly resentful. It was no place for speech on the part of either. The
dust of the street seemed naught to him or her, and as for this curious
crowd, they did not chill nor offend--Anne Oglesby suddenly wished to
take all the world into her arms and greet it. Anne Oglesby at that
moment loved--the touch of this man's lips on hers had wrought the
irrevocable, immortal, awful change.

They had not yet spoken a word, these two, at the time he left her to
call some vehicle for her use. He turned and looked directly into the
face of Dan Cowles, sheriff, a man whom he had never seen before, but
who now reached out and laid a hand upon his shoulder. Cowles had that
instant reached the station platform.

Don would have passed, but the sheriff spoke:

"I want you. Come with me."

The tempestuous blood of the young man flamed at this, but now, as he
looked into the solemn face before him, he found something to give him
pause.

"What's up?" he demanded. "Who are you?"

"I'm the sheriff of this county," said Cowles. "Come with me."

"What do you want?" again demanded Don. "I'm with this young lady."

"That's no difference," said Cowles.

"It must be about the Tarbush matter," said Dewdonny Lane. "I'll
testify, but I know nothing of that. I'll come on over directly. This
young lady is going to Judge Henderson's."

The sheriff looked at the young girl curiously. The crowd now had surged
about them. Like so many cattle at the smell of blood, a strange low
sound, animal-like, a sort of moan of curiosity, seemed to rise.
Wide-eyed, the girl turned.

"What is it, Don?" she exclaimed. "What has happened? The Tarbush
case--what do you mean?"

"I'm going to take him to the coroner's hearing, miss," said the sheriff
in a low tone of voice.

"Why, you see, Anne," began Don, "the city marshal of this town was
killed last night. I suppose the coroner is looking into it. It's a
terrible thing--the town's all upset--haven't you heard anything of it?"

"Why, no. I left home before any of our papers came out. How did it
happen?"

Don felt the sheriff again touch his arm. "Step into my car," said he,
"both of you--you get on the front seat with me."

A moment later they were whirling off up the dusty street toward the
central part of the town. The crowd, breaking into little groups, came
hurrying on along the sidewalks, some even falling into a run in the
middle of the street.

"Well, he got him!" said one citizen to another. "Quick work for the
sher'ff, wasn't it? A little more and that fellow would 'a' got off on
that train, like enough. That's what he was down here for. I seen him
lookin' for the train."

"Yes, and that young fellow had a dangerous look on him, too," said
another. "He's _bad_, that's what he is! Look how he showed it
yesterday--right after court, too."

Each had this or that comment to make, but all followed on now toward
the scenes where the further action in the drama of the day must now
ensue.

Cowles pulled up on the side of the square on which Judge Henderson had
his office. "You may get out here, Miss," said he. "I think you'll find
the Judge in right now."

"But why--what's the reason----" she began, much perturbed, and looking
at Don. "What's wrong, Don? Aren't you coming?"

"Yes, Mr. Sheriff," said Don, "let me go up with her. I'll be right on
over."

The big man looked at the two, a sort of pity in his face. "I'm sorry,"
said he, "but you'll have to come with me right away. Tell me, are you
Miss Oglesby, his kin from over Columbus way?"

"Yes, yes," said she. "I've been here before. But tell me, what does
this mean--this murder? It's an awful thing, isn't it? It seems to me I
remember the marshal's name--maybe I've seen him. Who did it--whom do
they suspect?"

"That's what we don't know for sure," said the sheriff, "and it's what
we've got to find out."

"Why, who would ever have thought it of this little town!"

"Things happen in this little town, I reckon, about the same as they do
anywhere," said the sheriff.

"Don----" She turned to him once more as she stood on the pavement, he
still remaining on the front seat of the car where the sheriff's hand
restrained him. "Why, Don----"

But the sheriff's solemn face was turned towards her. He shook his head.
An instant and the car had whirled away from the curb.

They had parted, almost before they had met!

To Dieudonne Lane, ignorant as he was of the cause of all this, it
seemed that the final parting of all had come, and, bitterly he
reflected, they had had no chance--no chance whatever--for what was due
them from their love, their life itself.

Anne Oglesby, the kiss of her lover's lips still sweet and trembling
upon her mouth, her own mind confused, her own heart disturbed, turned
towards the dusty stair, all her senses in a whirl. And within five
minutes Don Lane, very pale and much distressed, was in the front part
of the little home of Joel Tarbush. The officer had brought him before
Justice Blackman, the coroner, and the coroner's jury, six solemn-faced
men who sat now in the front parlor which had no other occupants save
the red-eyed daughter of the dead man, and save the long and shrouded
figure which lay upon the couch near by.

Don Lane could not misread the hostility of the gaze turned upon him by
most of these whom now he saw.

Something suddenly caught at his heart--his first feeling of fear, of
uncertainty; but even this was mingled with a rage at fate, which could
be so cruelly unjust to him. And always, in spite of himself, he felt
his eyes turning to look, awed, terrified, upon the long thing which lay
upon the couch. And always the eyes of these six men saw what he did,
saw what he saw.

"This is Dewdonny Lane," said the Sheriff briefly, and himself sat down
to await the progress of events.

The formalities were few. "You may be sworn," said the coroner to
him--"it's just as well." Then the oath administered, Blackman began the
regular questions, and Don answered steadily.

"My name is Dieudonne Lane. I am twenty-two years of age. I have no
residence as yet. I am a graduate in engineering. I'm going to Wyoming
some time this month to take up my work there."

There was a little silence in the room, and then the coroner began
again:

"Where were you just now?" he asked. "We sent for you at your home."

"I was at the station--I went to meet a friend."

"What friend was it?"

Don Lane flushed red. "What difference is it? Oh, if I must answer, it
was Miss Anne Oglesby, of Columbus. I went down to the train to meet
her."

Sheriff Cowles nodded. "That's true," said he. "I took her up to Judge
Henderson's office myself."

"What relations have you with this young lady?" asked Blackman.

"That's not the business of anyone," said Don Lane hotly.

"Do you want counsel to protect you now?"

"No, why should I? I am perfectly willing to tell all I know about the
case, and that's all I can do. There's no lawyer I'd send for anyhow."

"Where were you last night at about midnight?"

"I was at the library meeting with my mother."

"When did you leave there?"

"It must have been midnight or later--oh, yes, I remember seeing the
town clock as we passed through the square. That was just before one
o'clock--perhaps ten or fifteen minutes. We were out late--every one
was."

"Who was with you when you were going home?"

"My mother, and for a time Mr. Rawlins here--one of you gentlemen of the
jury. He will know. Just as we left the library we were joined by Mr.
Horace Brooks."

"Where did you go?"

"We three walked on together. It was at the second corner of the square,
where Mulberry Street turns off, that Mr. Brooks left me."

Nels Jorgens, one of the jury, now spoke up. "That's true," said he. "I
saw the three of them walking along the front of the square, and saw
them turn in at Mulberry Street. Across from where I live I saw two
people at the gate. It was a man--a tall man--and her--Aurora Lane."

"You yourself were not at the gate then?"

"No," said Don, "I had left just at the corner of the square."

"Why did you leave them?"

"Well, I wanted to have a little run before I went to bed. I'm used to
taking exercise every night--I always did at college, to keep up my
training."

"Where did you go when you were running?"

"I may be mistaken in the directions, but it was across the square,
opposite from Mulberry Street. I turned to the right. I must have run
perhaps four or five blocks, I don't know just how far it was. It was
quite warm."

"Did you come into this street?"

"I don't really know."

"You didn't see anybody?"

"Not a soul. I didn't hear a sound."

"What time was that?"

"I heard the clock strike one before I turned back."

"Gentlemen of the jury," said the coroner, "it was just about that time
that Joel Tarbush was killed, right here."

"That's true," said Don Lane. "It's terrible to think of--but why----"

"You heard Judge Henderson's testimony, gentlemen," went on the coroner.
"He told of seeing these three people pass by on the square in front of
his office stair. Just before that he had said good night to Tarbush
himself. He saw Tarbush start right over this way for his home. Now,
just in time to catch him before he got into his home--if a man was
running fast--a man _did_ run from the square over in this direction!"

The members of the jury remained silent. Their faces were extremely
grave.

"And, gentlemen, you have heard the testimony of other witnesses here
before now, stating that this witness was heard to make threats to
Tarbush yesterday afternoon, right after he was dismissed from my own
court upstairs. Mr. Jorgens, I believe you were there. What did this
young man say after he had for the second time assaulted Ephraim
Adamson--twice in one day, and entirely regardless of the rebuke of the
law?"

"He said, Mr. Coroner," replied Nels Jorgens gravely, even with sadness
in his face, "just when he came out of the crowd where he had left
Adamson laying on the ground already--he said to Tarbush, 'You'll come
next'--or I'll get you next'--something of that kind."

"Was he angry at that time?"

"Yes, Mr. Coroner, he was," said Nels Jorgens, against his will.

Ben McQuaid leaned over to whisper to Jerome Westbrook. "It seems like
this young fellow comes in here with his college education and
undertakes to run this whole town. Pretty coarse work, it looks like to
me."

Jerome Westbrook nodded slowly. He recalled Sally Lester's look.

Of all the six faces turned toward him from the scattered little group
of the coroner's jury, not more than two showed the least compassion or
sympathy. Don Lane's hot temper smarted under the renewed sense of the
injustice which had assail

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