Madelon Part 13

"You let us pa.s.s!" she said, sternly.

"Where are you going?" he demanded. He looked uneasily at Dorothy as he spoke. It was easy enough to see that she was a restraint upon him, and that fair, timid face in its blue hood held his indignation well in check.

"We are going to New Salem," replied Madelon. "Let us pa.s.s."

"I want to know what you are going for," said Eugene; and he tried to speak with fire, but he still looked furtively at Dorothy.

n.o.body had ever suspected how that lovely face of hers had been in his dreams, unless it had been for a time Dorothy herself. n.o.body had noticed in meeting, of a Sabbath day long since, when Dorothy had first returned from her Boston school, sundry glances which had pa.s.sed between a pair of soft blue eyes in the parson's pew and a pair of fiery black ones in the singing-seats.

Dorothy, half guiltily in those days, had arranged her curls and tied on her Sunday bonnets with a view to Eugene Hautville's eyes; and always, when she returned from meeting, had gone straight to her looking-gla.s.s, to be sure that she had looked fair in them. But n.o.body had ever known, and scarcely she herself.

She had come to think later that she had perhaps been mistaken, for never had Eugene made other advances to her than by those ardent glances; and Burr had come, and she had turned to him, and thought of Eugene Hautville only when he crossed her way, and then with a mixture of pique and shame. Never by any chance did her eyes meet his nowadays of a Sabbath day, and she listened coldly to his sweet tenor in the hymns. Now, suddenly, she looked straight up in his face and met his eyes, and a pink flush came into her white cheeks.

"Please to let us pa.s.s," she said, in her gentle tone, which had yet a tincture of command in it. Any woman as fair as she, who has a right understanding of her looking-gla.s.s, has, however soft she may be, the instincts of a queen within her. She felt a proud resentment for her own old folly and for Eugene's old slighting of her, and indignation at his present att.i.tude as she looked up at him with sudden daring.

Eugene threw back his head haughtily. "She wants to see Burr Gordon,"

he thought, and would have died rather than let her think he would stand in the way of it. He jerked the roan aside, and seemed as if he would have been flung into the way-side bushes with her curving plunge.

"Pa.s.s, if you wish," he said, with a graceful bend in his saddle, and was past them, riding the other way towards the village.

Chapter IX

When they reached the county buildings, the court-house and the jail, in New Salem, the old race-horse was still not nearly spent, although he breathed somewhat hard. When Madelon sprang out to blanket and tie him he seemed to vibrate to her touch like electric steel, and showed that the old fire had not yet died out of his nerves and muscles.

Poor Dorothy Fair's knees were weak under her as she got out of the sleigh. Her pretty face was pitiful, her sweet mouth drooping at the corners like a troubled child's.

Madelon looked at her sharply when they stood before the jail door waiting for admittance. "I have seen you wear a curl each side of your face outside your hood," said she.

"I didn't think of it to-day," Dorothy replied, with forlorn surprise.

Madelon went close to the other girl peremptorily, as if she had been her mother, pulled forward two soft curls from under her hood, and arranged them becomingly against the pale cheeks; and Dorothy submitted.

Alvin Mead opened the jail door, and his great face took on a forbidding scowl when he saw Madelon Hautville.

"Can't let ye in," he said, gruffly. "Ain't a visitin' day." He would have shut the door in their faces had not Madelon made a quick spring against it.

"I don't want to come in!" she cried. "I don't want to see him to-day. It's this lady who wants to see him."

"Can't see n.o.body," said Alvin Mead, filling up the door like a surly living wedge.

"You must let us see him," persisted Madelon. "She's Parson Fair's daughter. She is going to marry Burr Gordon--she must see him."

Alvin Mead shook his head stubbornly. Then Dorothy spoke, thrusting her fair face forward, and looking up at him with terrified, innocent pleading, like a child, and yet speaking with a gentle lady's authority. "I beg you to let me come in, only for a few moments,"

said she. "I will not make you any trouble. I will come out directly when you bid me to."

Alvin Mead looked at her a second, then at Madelon with rough inquiry. "Who did ye say she was?" he growled.

"Parson Fair's daughter, the lady that's going to marry Burr Gordon."

"I can't let but one of ye see him, and she can't stay more'n ten minutes," said Alvin Mead, and moved aside, and Madelon and Dorothy entered.

They followed Alvin Mead down the icy, dark corridor to Burr's cell door. He unlocked it, and bade Dorothy enter. He cast a forbidding look at Madelon. "I will stand here," she said with a strange meekness, almost as if her heart were broken; but when the jailer prepared to follow Dorothy into Burr's cell she caught him by the arm and tried to force him back, and cried out sharply that he should let her see him alone. "She is the girl he is going to marry, I tell you!" she said. "Let them see each other alone. You cannot come between two like that when they are in such trouble."

Alvin Mead looked at her a second irresolutely. Then he stepped back in the corridor and locked the cell door. "That the gal? Thought ye was the one," he said, with a half-chuckle, with coa.r.s.e, sharp eyes upon her face.

"He is going to marry her," Madelon repeated. She stood stiff and straight like a statue, and waited. Once, when Alvin made an impatient motion as though to open the door, she restrained him with such despairing eagerness that he drew back and looked at her wonderingly, and stood in surly silence awhile longer.

"She's got to come out now," he said, at last. "I've got other things to tend to. Can't stay here no longer, nohow." He unlocked the door and threw it open with a jerk. "Time's up!" he shouted, and Dorothy came out directly, almost as if she were running away. Alvin Mead clapped to the door with a great jar and locked it. Madelon, had she tried, could not have got a glimpse of Burr; but she did not try. She sprang at Dorothy Fair, and took her by the shoulders, and looked into her scared face with agonized questioning.

"Did--he confess?" she gasped out. "Did--he tell you, did he--tell you, Dorothy Fair?"

Dorothy shook her head in a mute terror that was almost horror. It seemed as if she would sink to the floor under Madelon's heavy hands.

Alvin Mead stood staring at them.

"Didn't he--tell you--I was the one who--stabbed Lot? Didn't he--tell you?"

"She's at it again," muttered Alvin Mead.

Dorothy shook her head. "He wouldn't speak," she said, faintly. "He would say nothing about it."

Madelon fairly shook her. "Couldn't you make him speak? _You!_"

"I couldn't, I couldn't, Madelon!"

"Did you tell him your heart would break if he didn't--that you couldn't marry him if he didn't?"

"Yes--don't, don't--look at me so, Madelon."

Alvin Mead stepped forward. "Look at here--you're scarin' of that gal to death," he interfered. "You'd better take your hands off her."

Then Madelon turned to him, and grasped at the keys in his hands, as if she would wrest them from him. "Unlock the door and let me in, and let Burr Gordon out!" she demanded, wildly.

The jailer wrested his keys away with a contemptuous jerk, and took the skin from Madelon's hands with them. "You're crazy," he said.

"I am not crazy! You've got an innocent man locked up in there, and I, who am guilty and tell you so, you will not arrest. It is you who are crazy. Let me in!"

Alvin Mead laid a rough hand on Madelon's shoulder. "Now you look at here, gal," said he. "I've had about all this darned nonsense I'm a-goin' to stan'. That chap is in jail for murder, an' in jail he's a-goin' to stay till I git orders from somebody besides you to let him out. An' what's more, don't you come here on no sich tom-fool arrant agin. If you do you won't git in. I ain't no objection to gals he was goin' to marry ef he hadn't broke the laws comin' to see him a leetle spell, if they'll go away peaceable when they're bid, but as for havin' sech highstericky work as this, I'll be darned if I will.

Now I can't stan' here foolin' no longer; you'd better be gittin'

right along home, an' don't you break this other gal's neck with that old stepper you've got out there."

Madelon Hautville said not another word. She went out of the jail quickly, and she and Dorothy were soon in the sleigh and flying down the road. The old racer was not so old nor so weary that the impetus of the homeward stretch failed to stir him--for a mile or so, at least. After that his pace slackened, and then Madelon turned to the other girl, who looked up at her with a kind of piteous defiance.

"What did you say to him?" she demanded.

"I--begged him--if he--did not kill Lot to--say so," replied Dorothy, faintly; then she shrank and quivered before the other girl, who started wrathfully, half as if she would fling her from the sleigh.