The Just and the Unjust Part 49

"You were with North--" he roared.

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

"h.e.l.l!"

He made a step toward her, his hand raised.

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

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

"My G.o.d, I ought to kill you!" he muttered.

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

"You _were_ with North!" Langham repeated.

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

"In his rooms--" he jerked out.

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

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

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

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

"You say you have proof,--don't be absurd, Marsh, you know you haven't!"

she added uneasily.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Has he asked this?" Evelyn questioned.

"Not yet!"

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

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

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

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

"How coa.r.s.e you are, Mars.h.!.+" and she colored angrily, not at his words, however, but at the memory of that last meeting with North.

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

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

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

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

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

"Yes--"

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

"Yes."

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

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

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

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

"Would I let him hang--" she repeated.

"Yes--"

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

"No, d.a.m.n you, I can't trust you!" and he flung her from him.

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

"Marsh--" she began, and hesitated.

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

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

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