The Just and the Unjust Part 66

Moxlow, utterly dazed by his partner's confession, looked again at the clock on the mantel. Fifteen minutes had pa.s.sed. It was a quarter after eight. His brows contracted as if he were trying to recall some half forgotten engagement. Suddenly he turned, comprehendingly, to Montgomery.

"My G.o.d!--North!" he exclaimed and rushed unceremoniously from the room.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

THE LAST NIGHT IN JAIL

Whether John North slept during his last night in jail the deputy sheriff did not know, for that kindly little man kept his arms folded across his breast and his face to the wall. The night wore itself out, and at last pale indications of the dawn crept into the room. There was the song of the birds and a little later the rumble of an occasional wagon over the paved streets. North stirred and opened his eyes.

"Is it light?" he asked.

"Yes," said the deputy.

The day began with the familiar things that make up the round of life, but North was conscious that he was thus occupying himself for the last time. Then he seated himself and began a letter he had told Brockett he wished to write. Once he paused.

"I will have time for this?" he asked.

"All the time you want, John," said Brockett hastily, as he slipped from the room.

The sun's level rays lifted and slanted into the cell, while North, remote from everything but the memory of Elizabeth's faith and courage, labored to express himself. There was the sound of voices in the yard, but their significance meant nothing to him now. He wrote on without lifting his head. At last the letter was finished and inclosed with a brief note to the general.

The pen dropped from North's fingers and he stood erect, he was aware that men were still speaking below his window, then he heard footfalls in the corridor, and turned toward the door. It was the sheriff and his deputy. Conklin seemed on the verge of collapse, and Brockett's face was drawn and ghastly.

There was a grim pause, and then Conklin, in a voice that was but a shadow of itself, read the death-warrant. When he had finished, North cast a last glance about his cell and pa.s.sed out of the door between the two men. They walked the length of the corridor, descended the stairs, and entered the jail office. North turned to Conklin.

"I wish to thank you and Brockett for your kindness to me, and if you do not mind I should like to shake hands with you both and say good-by here," for through the office windows he had caught sight of the group of men in the yard.

The sheriff, silent, held out his hand. He dared not trust himself to speak. North looked into his face.

"I am sorry for you," he said.

"My G.o.d, you may well be!" gasped Conklin.

North shook hands with Brockett and walked toward the door; but as he neared it, Brockett stepped in front of him and threw it open. As North pa.s.sed out into the graveled yard, out into the full light of the warm spring day, the sheriff mechanically looked at his watch. It was twenty minutes after eight.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

AT IDLE HOUR

From her window Elizabeth saw the gray dawn which ushered in that June day steal over the valley below Idle Hour. Swiftly out of the darkness of the long night grew the accustomed shape of things. Wooded pastures and plowed fields came mysteriously into existence as the light spread, then the sun burst through the curtain of mist which lay along the eastern horizon, and it was day--the day of _his_ death.

Their many failures trooped up out of the past and mocked at her; because of them he must die. They had gone with feverish haste from hope to hope to this dread end! Perhaps she had never really believed before that the day and hour would overtake them; when effort would promise nothing. But now the very sense of tragedy filled that silent morning, and her soul was in fearful companions.h.i.+p with it. A flood of wild imaginings swept her forward, across the little s.p.a.ce of time that was left to her lover. Gasping for breath, she struggled with the grim horror that was growing up about him. His awful solitude came to her as a reproach; she should have remained with him to the end! Was there yet time to go back, or would she be too late? When? When? And she asked herself the question she had not dared to ask of her father.

The day showed her the distant roofs of Mount Hope; the day showed her the square brick tower of the court-house--living or dead, John North was in its very shadow. She crouched by the window, her arms resting on the ledge and her eyes fixed on the distant tower. How had the night pa.s.sed for him--had he slept? And the pity of those lonely hours brought the tears to her burning eyes. She heard her father come slowly down the hall; he paused before her door.

"Elizabeth--dear!" his voice was very gentle.

"Yes, father?"

But she did not change her position at the window.

"Won't you come down-stairs, dear?" he said.

"I can not--" and then she felt the selfishness of her refusal, and added: "I will be down in a moment, I--I have not quite finished dressing--yet!"

John North had thought always of others. In the moment of his supremest agony, he had spoken not at all of himself; by word or look he had added nothing to the sorrow that was crus.h.i.+ng her. This had been genuine courage.

"I must remember it always!" she told herself, as she turned away from the window. "I must not be selfish--he would not understand it--"

Her father was waiting for her at the foot of the stairs, and the glance he bent on her was keen with anxiety. Perfect understanding existed between them no less now than formerly, but the anguish which had left its impress on that white face removed her beyond any attempted expression of sympathy from him.

At the end of the hail the open door gave a wide vista of well-kept lawns. Elizabeth turned swiftly to this doorway. Her father kept his place at her side, and together they pa.s.sed from the house out into the warm day. Suddenly the girl paused, and her eager gaze was directed toward Mount Hope--toward _him_.

"Would it be too late to go to him now?" she asked in a feverish whisper.

A spasm of pain contracted the old general's haggard face, but the question found him mute.

"Would it be too late?" she repeated.

"He would not desire it, Elizabeth," replied her father.

"But would it be too late?" and she rested a shaking hand on his arm.

"You must not ask me that--I don't know."

He tried to meet her glance, which seemed to read his very soul, then her hand dropped at her side and she took a step forward, her head bowed and her face averted.

Again came the thought of North's awful isolation; the thought of that lonely death where love and tenderness had no place; all the ghastly terror of that last moment when he was hurried from this living breathing world! It was a monstrous thing! A thing beyond belief--incredible, unspeakable!

"We can believe in his courage," said her father, "as certainly as we can believe in his innocence."

"Yes--" she gasped.

"That is something. And the day will surely come when the world will think as we think. The truth seems lost now, but not for always!"

"But when he is gone--when he is no longer here--"

The general was silent. North had compelled his respect and faith; for after all, no guilty man could have faced death with so fine a courage.

There was more to him than he had ever been willing to admit in his judgment of the man. Whatever his faults, they had been the faults of youth; had the opportunity been given him he would have redeemed himself, would have purged himself of folly. "Some day," the general was thinking, "I will tell her just what my feelings for North have been, how out of disapproval and doubt has come a deep and sincere regard."

The sun swept higher in the heavens, and the gray old man with the strong haggard face, and the girl in whom the girl had died and the woman had been born, walked on; now with dragging steps, when the stupor of despair seized her, now swiftly as her thoughts rushed from horror to horror.