The Bondboy Part 50

Joe's lips parted, and his voice came out of them, strained and shaken, and hoa.r.s.e, like the voice of an old and h.o.a.ry man.

"Judge Maxwell, your honor----"

"No, no! Don't tell it, Joe!"

The words sounded like a warning call to one about to leap to destruction. They broke the tenseness of that moment like the noise of a shot. It was a woman's voice, rich and full in the cadence of youth; eager, quick, and strong.

Mrs. Newbolt turned sharply, her face suddenly clouded, as if to administer a rebuke; the prosecutor wheeled about and peered into the room with a scowl. Judge Maxwell rapped commandingly, a frown on his face.

And Joe Newbolt drew a long, free breath, while relief moved over his troubled face like a waking wind at dawn. He leaned back in his chair, taking another long breath, as if life had just been granted him at a moment when hope seemed gone.

The effect of that sudden warning had been stunning. For a few seconds the princ.i.p.als in the dramatic picture held their poses, as if standing for the camera. And then the lowering tempest in Judge Maxwell's face broke.

"Mr. Sheriff, find out who that was and bring him or her forward!" he commanded.

There was no need for the sheriff to search on Joe's behalf. Quick as a bolt his eyes had found her, and doubt was consumed in the glance which pa.s.sed between them. Now he knew all that he had struggled to know of everything. First of all, there stood the justification of his long endurance. He had been right. She had understood, and her opinion was valid against the world.

Even as the judge was speaking, Alice Price rose.

"It was I, sir," she confessed, no shame in her manner, no contrition in her voice.

But the ladies in the court-room were shocked for her, as ladies the world over are shocked when one of their sisters does an unaccountably human thing. They made their feelings public by scandalized aspirations, suppressed _oh-h-hs_, and deprecative shakings of the heads.

The male portion of the audience was moved in another direction. Their faces were blank with stunned surprise, with little gleams of admiration moving a forest of whiskers here and there whose owners did not know who the speaker was.

But to everybody who knew Alice Price the thing was unaccountable. It was worse than interrupting the preacher in the middle of a prayer, and the last thing that Alice Price, with all her breeding, blood and education would have been expected to do. That was what came of leveling oneself to the plane of common people and "pore" folks, and visiting them in jail, they said to one another through their wide-stretched eyes.

Alice went forward and stood before the railing. The prosecuting attorney drew out a chair and offered it to Mrs. Newbolt, who sat, staring at Alice with no man knew what in her heart. Her face was a strange index of disappointment, surprise, and vexation. She said nothing, and Hammer, glowing with the dawning of hope of something that he could not well define, squared around and gave Alice a large, fat smile.

Judge Maxwell regarded her with more surprise than severity, it appeared. He adjusted his gla.s.ses, bowed his neck to look over them, frowned, and cleared his throat. And poor old Colonel Price, overwhelmed entirely by this untoward breach of his daughter's, stood beside Captain Taylor shaking his old white head as if he was undone forever.

"I am surprised at this demonstration, Miss Price," said the judge.

"Coming from one of your standing in this community, it is doubly shocking, for your position in society should be, of itself, a guarantee of your loyalty to the established organization of order. It should be your endeavor to uphold rather than defeat, the ends of justice.

"The defendant at the bar has the benefit of counsel, who is competent, we believe, to advise him. Your admonition was altogether out of place.

I am pained and humiliated for you, Miss Price.

"This breach is one which could not, ordinarily, be pa.s.sed over simply with a reprimand. But, allowing for the impetuosity of youth, and the emotion of the moment, the court will excuse you with this. Similar outbreaks must be guarded against, and any further demonstration will be dealt with severely. Gentlemen, proceed with the case."

Alice stood through the judge's lecture unflinchingly. Her face was pale, for she realized the enormity of her transgression, but there was neither fear nor regret in her heart. She met the judge's eyes with honest courage, and bowed her head in acknowledgment of his leniency when he dismissed her.

From her seat she smiled, faintly above the tremor of her breast, to Joe. She was not ashamed of what she had done, she had no defense to make for her words. Love is its own justification, it wants no advocate to plead for it before the bar of established usage. Its statutes have needed no revision since the beginning, they will stand unchanged until the end.

The prosecuting attorney had seen his castle fall, demolished and beyond hope of repair, before a charge from the soft lips of a simple girl.

Long and hard as he had labored to build it up, and encompa.s.s Joe within it, it was in ruins now, and he had no heart to set his hand to the task of raising it again that day. He asked for an adjournment to morning, which the weary judge granted readily.

People moved out of the room with less haste and noise than usual, for the wonder, and the puzzle, of what they had heard and seen was over them.

What was the aim of that girl in shutting that big, gangling, raw-boned boy's mouth just when he was opening it to speak, and to speak the very words which they had sat there patiently for days to hear? What was he to Alice Price, and what did she know of the secret which he had been keeping shut behind his stubborn lips all that time? That was what they wanted to know, and that was what troubled them because they could not make it out at all.

Colonel Price made his way forward against the outpouring stream to Alice. He adjusted her cloak around her shoulders, and whispered to her.

She was very pale still, but her eyes were fearless and bright, and they followed Joe Newbolt with a tender caress as the sheriff led him out, his handcuffs in his pocket, the prisoner's long arms swinging free.

Ollie and her mother were standing near Colonel Price and Alice, waiting for them to move along and open the pa.s.sage to the aisle. As Alice turned from looking after Joe, the eyes of the young women met, and again Ollie felt the cold stern question which Alice seemed to ask her, and to insist with unsparing hardness that she answer.

A little way along Alice turned her head and held Ollie's eyes with her own again. As plain as words they said to the young widow who cringed at her florid mother's side:

"You slinking, miserable, trembling coward, I can see right down to the bottom of your heart!"

Joe returned to his cell with new vigor in his step, new warmth in his breast, and a new hope in his jaded soul. There was no doubt now, no groping for a sustaining hand. Alice had understood him, and Alice alone, when all the world a.s.sailed him for his secret, and would have torn it from his lips in shame. She had given him the sympathy, for the lack of which he must have fallen; the support, for the want of which he must have been lost.

For a trying moment that afternoon he had forgotten, almost, that he was a gentleman, and under a gentleman's obligation. There had been so much uncertainty, and fear, and so many clouded days. But a man had no excuse, he contended in his new strength, even under the direst pressure, to lose sight of the fact that he was a gentleman. Morgan had done that. Morgan had not come. But perhaps Morgan was not a gentleman at all. That would account for a great deal, everything, in fact.

There would be a way out without Morgan now. Since Alice understood, there would be shown a way. He should not perish on account of Morgan, and even though he never came it would not matter greatly, now that Alice understood.

He was serene, peaceful, and unworried, as he had not been for one moment since the inquest. The point of daylight had come again into his dark perspective; it was growing and gleaming with the promise and cheer of a star.

Colonel Price had no word of censure for his daughter as they held their way homeward, and no word of comment on her extraordinary and immodest--according to the colonel's view--conduct fell from his lips until they were free from the crowd. Then the colonel:

"Well, Alice?"

"Yes, Father."

"Why did you do it--why didn't you let him tell it, child? They'll hang him now, I tell you, they'll hang that boy as sure as sundown! And he's no more guilty of that old man's death than I am."

"No, he isn't," said she.

"Then why didn't you let him talk, Alice? What do you know?"

"I don't know anything--anything that would be evidence," she replied.

"But he's been a man all through this cruel trial, and I'd rather see him die a man than live a coward!"

"They'll hang that boy, Alice," said the colonel, shaking his head sadly. "Nothing short of a miracle can save him now."

"No, they'll never do that," said she, in quiet faith.

The colonel looked at her with an impatient frown.

"What's to save him, child?" he asked.

"I don't know," she admitted, thoughtfully. Then she proceeded, with an earnestness that was almost pa.s.sionate: "It isn't for himself that he's keeping silent--I'm not afraid for _him_ on account of what they wanted to make him tell! Can't you see that, Father, don't you understand?"

"No," said the colonel, striking the pavement sharply with his stick, "I'll be switched if I do! But I know this bad business has taken hold of you, Alice, and changed you around until you're nothing like the girl I used to have.

"It's too melancholy and sordid for you to be mixed up in. I don't like it. We've done what we can for the boy, and if he wants to be stubborn and run his neck into the noose on account of some fool thing or another that he thinks n.o.body's got a right to know, I don't see where you're called on to shove him along on his road. And that's what this thing that you've done today amounts to, as far as I can see."

"I'm sorry that you're displeased with me, Father," said she, but with precious little indication of humility in her voice, "but I'd do the same thing over again tomorrow. Joe didn't want to tell it. What he needed just then was a friend."