Part 13

Meanwhile Colonel Royall sat behind the witness-stand, leaning on his cane, his head bowed and his fine aristocratic face as bloodless as a piece of paper. There were many who pointed at him and whispered, and the whisper traveled. “Was he thinking of his girl’s mother?” That foul hag, the world, has a heart that treasures scandal, and the lips of malice!

The court-room seethed with excitement, but silence reigned again; the lights were flaring now on the judge’s desk and on the reporters’ table; the busy scratch of the stenographers’ pens was audible. Diana was still on the stand, and she explained how Caleb Trench left her to ascertain the results of the shots, and how he returned and got her father and herself into their carriage. Her testimony was simple and direct, and, though she was briefly cross-examined by Colonel Coad, the prosecuting attorney, she sustained her position and suffered nothing at the hands of that pompous but courteous gentleman.

When Diana rose from the witness-stand and walked back to her seat between her father and Miss Sarah Hollis, there was another ripple of the wave of applause, but it was quickly suppressed. She leaned back in her chair and clasped her hands tightly in her lap, struggling with herself, for she was conscious of a new tumult of feeling that submerged even thought itself; and it seemed to her that her heart beat, not only in her bosom, but in every quivering limb. Was it possible, she asked herself, that the tumult in the court-room had frightened her? Or the fact that on her word alone hung a man’s life? No, no, not altogether; in that moment, when their eyes met, she had seen again the lonely trail and heard the dull passion in the man’s voice when he told her that he loved her; and suddenly, in one of those supreme moments of self-revelation, she knew that nothing mattered to her, neither his humble struggle, his poverty, the accusation against him, not even Jean Bartlett’s story, nothing--nothing counted but that one primitive, undeniable fact of his love for her. Before it she felt suddenly defenseless, yet another self was awakening to vigilance in her heart and summoning her back to the battle of resistance. She had testified for him, and every face in the court-room turned toward her, strained to watch her, told her how great had been the weight of her testimony. She had deceived herself with the thought that only her duty brought her, her honor, her determination that justice should be done. Yet she knew now that it was not that, but something mightier, deeper, more unconquerable,--something that, to her shame, refused even to consider the charges against him, and, instead, drew her to him with a force so irresistible that she trembled. She fought it back and struggled, resisted and tried to fix her attention on the proceedings of the court. But what was there in the man? What power that had won its way even with men and made him in so short a time a leader, and now--was it casting its spell over her?

Then she heard her father testifying briefly to the time that he left her, to his own visit to Judge Ladd’s room, the announcement of the shooting, and his return to Diana. It was in the order of sustaining her testimony, but it was unnecessary, for she had already established an _alibi_ for Trench.

Then followed a tilt between counsel on the admission of testimony from Dr. Cheyney as to the character of the defendant. Colonel Coad resisted, fighting point by point. Judge Hollis was determined and vindictive; he even lost his temper and quarreled with the Commonwealth attorney, and would, doubtless, have become profane if the court had not intervened and sustained him. In that moment the old lawyer triumphed openly, his eyes flashing, his face nearly purple with excitement. But the tilt was not over when the doctor was put on the stand. It became evident, in a moment, that Judge Hollis was bent on the story of Jean Bartlett, and Colonel Coad got to his feet and objected. Again silence reigned in the court-room, and they heard the tree of heaven creak under its weight of human fruit. Inch by inch Colonel Coad fought and Judge Hollis won. Testimony had been admitted to damage the character of the prisoner; he was offering this in sur-rebuttal. It was half-past six when Colonel Coad gave up and the old judge put on his spectacles and stared into the spectacled eyes of the old doctor. The two eager, lined old faces were as wonderful in their shrewd watchfulness as two faces from the brush of Rembrandt. The dingy, green-shaded lights flickered on them, and the suppressed excitement of the room thrilled about them, until the very atmosphere seemed charged.

“You have heard the prisoner charged with the ruin of Jean Bartlett, Dr. Cheyney?” asked the judge.

“I have, sir.”

“You knew Jean Bartlett before and after the birth of her child; what was her mental condition at those times?”

“Before the birth of her child she was sane; afterwards she was ill a long time and never fully recovered from the fever and delirium.”

“Did she make any statement to you before the birth of the child?”

Colonel Coad objected; Judge Hollis said that he intended to show that the prisoner was not the father of the child. Objection not sustained. The judge looked sideways at Colonel Coad and coughed; the colonel sat down. The judge repeated his question.

“She did,” said Dr. Cheyney slowly, leaning a little forward and looking intently at the old lawyer. A breathless pause ensued.

“Please state to the court the condition and nature of that statement.” Judge Hollis’ tone was dry, rasping, unemotional.

Dr. Cheyney took off his spectacles, wiped them and put them in his pocket. “She was of sound mind and she stated her case to me, and I made her repeat it and write it down, because”--the old doctor’s face twisted a little into a whimsical grimace,--“I thought likely the child might be handed around considerable.”

A titter ran through the room. Judge Ladd rapped for order. Dr. Cheyney unfolded a slip of paper and smoothed it out.

“If it please the court,” he said quietly, “I have been very reluctant to produce this evidence.”

Colonel Coad rose. “Does it incriminate any person, or persons, not on trial before this court?” he asked.

“It does.”

“Then, your Honor, I object!” shouted the indignant Coad.

Judge Hollis turned to speak.

“The objection is sustained,” said the court.

The old lawyer for the defense turned purple again, and flashed a furious glance at Dr. Cheyney. The doctor smiled, his face puckering. The tense excitement and curiosity in the room found utterance in a sigh of disappointment. Judge Hollis slammed his papers on his desk and turned the witness over to the prosecution. Colonel Coad did not press the examination, and the old doctor went calmly back to his seat with his secret untold.

Hollis turned to the court. “Your Honor, I waive the right to sum up, and rest the case for the defense.”

An hour later Colonel Coad had closed for the prosecution and Judge Ladd charged the jury.

There had been no recess, and the crowded room was packed to suffocation. Everywhere were faces, white, haggard, intent with excitement, and the labored breathing of men who hung upon a word. A thunderstorm was coming on, and now and then a vivid flash flooded the room with light. At half-past eight Judge Ladd gave the case to the jury. The foreman rose and stated that the jury had reached a verdict without leaving the box.

There was an intense moment, and then Judge Ladd spoke slowly.

“Have you agreed upon a verdict?”

“We have, your Honor.”

“Is the prisoner at the bar guilty, or not guilty, as charged in the indictment?”

“Not guilty.”

The wave of passion and excitement broke, the court-room rose as one man; the shout was heard ten squares away, and the echo reached the farthest corner of the city. The bailiffs fought and struggled to keep order, for men would have carried the prisoner on their shoulders. He was the only one unmoved. He stood like a rock amid the surging crowd, and it seemed to Diana that he towered, with a certain simplicity and strength that made him seem at once apart from other men and above them. In her heart she wondered at her own temerity, when she had treated him with discourtesy. Here was a primitive man, and the primitive strength, the righteous force in him, held other men, as that strange gift of magnetism that wields and binds and moves millions till they seem but one.

She turned away, holding tightly to her father’s arm, eager to escape, and begrudging the slow and tortuous passage to the door. Behind her and before her, on every hand, from lip to lip, ran the prisoner’s name.

The colonel almost lifted Diana from the crowd into the carriage. Then he took his seat beside her and closed the door; slowly the horses made their way through the throng in the quadrangle. It was raining hard, and the wind blew the moisture across their heated faces.

“By gum!” said Colonel Royall, “they’ll make him governor! But Jacob Eaton--Jacob Eaton!”

The old man was bewildered; he passed his hand over his face. Diana said nothing; the night blurred itself into the rain.

XXV

IT was long past midnight when Mrs. Eaton went down-stairs for the fourth time to see if her son had returned home.

She was alone with the servants in the old Eaton house, which was three miles from Broad Acres, and she had not ventured out in the storm, which had been raging since early evening. The wind shook the old house at intervals with the moan of autumn in the gale, yet the roll of thunder recalled midsummer. Once she had looked out and, in a blinding flash, saw the old cottonwoods in front of the house stripped naked by the wind. There was a weird aspect to the world in that one fierce moment of illumination, and the tumult of sounds without, the creaking of the old house within, and the interminable ticking of the clocks recalled to her shrinking mind a memory of that other night, long ago, when she had been summoned home from Lexington, to find her husband’s dead body in the long west room, and hear the whisperings of the terrified servants on the stairs. She knew that even now the negroes were locked in the wing, for they believed that on such nights Eaton walked, demanding the blood of the Yarnalls, and since Yarnall’s death, violent as his own, they had shrieked at shadows.

Though she realized the folly of their superstitions, poor Jinny Eaton, alone and vaguely terrified, shivered too. Once she caught herself looking over her shoulder, and at last she cried hysterically. The wind, sweeping a long branch against the window, rattled the pane, and she started up, white with fright. In a sudden panic she rang for her maid, but no one answered, though she heard the blurred sound far in the distance; a glance at the clock told her it was nearly two. There was no light except in the hall and the library, where she herself had turned the electric switch, and she walked through all the other dim rooms, starting at a shadow, and looking over her shoulder when the floors creaked behind her. The house was much more richly furnished than Broad Acres, and everywhere she was surrounded with the luxuries that she loved. But alone there, in those desolate hours before the dawn, poor Jinny found no comfort in the things that had always seemed so comforting. In a vague way at first, and constantly resisting even her own convictions, she had begun to feel a doubt of Jacob,--Jacob, who had been almost omnipotent to her, who had represented all her hopes and aspirations for years, and was, in her own eyes, the achievement of her life. To have her faith in him shaken was more bitter than death. And where was he? A premonition of evil oppressed her, as she wandered from place to place in restless unhappiness. Earlier in the night she had tried in vain to reach him over the telephone: now her only resource was to wait. She went from window to window, peeping out, her face drawn and haggard, and all the well-preserved traces of her former beauty lost in her pathetic dishevelment. She watched the morning dawn over the long fields that smoked with moisture, and she saw the broken limbs of the trees and the dead leaves that scurried before the wind, like the shriveled ghosts of summer. Then, just as she had given up the vigil, and sank in a disconsolate heap in the nearest chair, she heard his latch-key in the door, and running into the hall fell on his neck in a fit of hysterical weeping.

“Oh, Jacob,” she sobbed, “where have you been?”

“Don’t be silly!” he said crossly, and loosened her arms from his neck. “I’m dead beat; where’s Davidson? I want something.”

“The servants are not up yet,” his mother faltered. “I’ll get you some whiskey and soda, dear, and I’ll ring up Davidson. I’ve been up all night.”

Jacob flung himself into a chair and sat there waiting for her to bring the liquor and wait on him, as she had waited on him all his life. But, if she thought of this at all, it was only with an alarmed perception of the haggard moodiness of his expression. She saw that he had been drinking heavily already, but she dared not deny him more, and, in a way, she had faith in his own judgment in the matter. She had never known him to drink more than he was able to bear, and she did not know that Will Broughton said that Trench owed his life to Eaton’s tippling, and steadier nerves and a firmer hand would have dealt certain death. She came back at last, after a lengthy excursion to the pantry, and brought him some refreshments, arranged hastily on a little tray by hands so unaccustomed to any sick-room service that they were almost awkward. She put the things down beside him on the table and fluttered about, eager to help him and almost afraid of him, as she was in his ungracious moods. But her desire for news, the certainty that he could settle all her doubts, lent a pleasurable thrill of excitement to her trepidation. Her news from the city had been vague, and the announcement of Caleb’s acquittal had only filtered to her over a belated telephone to the housekeeper, but here was the fountainhead of all her information.

Meanwhile Jacob drank the liquor, but scarcely tasted the food, and his lowering expression disfigured his usually smooth good looks. He leaned back in his chair, staring absently at the bottle, and saying nothing, though he slowly closed and unclosed his hands, a trick of his when angry or deeply distraught. His mother, seeing the gesture, experienced another throb of dismay; something had happened, something which struck at the root of things, but what? She fluttered to the window and opening the shutter let in the pale gray light of morning, and as she did it she heard the servants stirring in the wing. At last she could endure suspense no longer.

“For heaven’s sake, Jacob!” she cried, “what is the matter?”

He gave her a sidelong look from under heavy lids and seemed to restrain an impulse to speak out. “I suppose you know that rascal is acquitted?” he said curtly.

“I could scarcely believe it!” she replied, dropping into the chair opposite and pushing back her long full sleeves and loosening the ribbons at her throat, as if she suddenly felt the heat. “It seems impossible--after your evidence, too, and Governor Aylett’s! That jury must have been full of anarchists.”

“Full of asses!” snapped Jacob. “I fancy that you don’t know that Diana Royall got up on the witness-stand and made a public exhibition of herself to clear him?”

“Diana?” Mrs. Eaton could not believe her ears.

“Yes, Diana,” mocked her son, “our Diana. She went on the stand and created a sensation, took the court by storm and the city. Good Lord! Her name’s in every club in the place.”

“I--I can’t believe it!” gasped his mother: “it’s incredible--Diana Royall?”

“Incredible?” He rose, his face was white with fury. “Is it incredible? Do you remember her mother?”

Mrs. Eaton collapsed. “Jacob!” she breathed, “don’t! It makes me shiver to think you might have married her.”

“By God, I would to-day!” he cried, unable to restrain himself, “if only to break her spirit, to make her pay for this!”

“I can’t see what she knew,” Mrs. Eaton protested, “she--a young girl--and all this awful scandal about Jean Bartlett in the papers. In my day, a young girl would have been ashamed to show her face in the court.”

“Well, she wasn’t,” said Jacob dryly; “she appeared and told the court that at the hour of the shooting she was alone with Caleb Trench in the prisoners’ cage!”

“Merciful heavens!” ejaculated Mrs. Eaton faintly, “was David crazy to let her do it?”

“He’s an old fool!” said Jacob fiercely, “a damned old fool!”

Mrs. Eaton clasped her hands. “I’m only too thankful, Jacob, that you never married her!” she said devoutly.

“She’s refused me twice,” said Jacob grimly.

His mother uttered an inarticulate sound. And at that instant Davidson, an old gray-headed negro, appeared and Jacob called him. “Tell James to pack my suit-case,” he said sharply. “I’m going to Lexington this morning on the eight-forty.”

“Doctor Cheyney’s at the doah, suh,” said Davidson, “and would like ter see yo’.”

“What does that old fool want, I wonder?” Jacob remarked, as he rose to follow the negro into the hall.

“What are you going so soon for, Jacob?” his mother asked tremulously, “and can you--the bail--”

“I’ve arranged that,” said Jacob shortly, and flung himself out of the room.

Dr. Cheyney was looking out from under the cover of his buggy, and old Henk was breathing as if they had ascended the hill at an unusual gait.

“Morning, Jacob,” said the doctor pleasantly, “I stopped by to leave that book for your mother; Mrs. Broughton asked me to bring it when I passed yesterday and I clean forgot it.”

Jacob took the volume gingerly and looked politely bored. What in the world did the old fool mean by bringing books before seven o’clock in the morning?

Dr. Cheyney gathered up the reins: conversation seemed improbable, but he noticed that Davidson had gone back into the house. They were quite alone under the leaden sky, and the fresh wind blew moist across their faces.

“By the way,” said the old man carelessly, “Judge Hollis has been with Juniper all night and at six this morning I heard he had a confession.”

Jacob looked up into the doctor’s eyes, his own narrowing. “Ah,” he said, “I presume Judge Hollis makes out that Juniper did the shooting?”

“Don’t know,” said Dr. Cheyney, slapping the reins on Henk’s broad back, “heard there would be an arrest to-day,” and he drove slowly off, the old wheels sinking in first one rut and then another, and jolting the carriage from side to side.

Jacob Eaton stood looking after it a minute, then he turned and went into the house. It was now seven o’clock in the morning.

That evening, at the corresponding hour, Colonel Royall and Diana were dining alone at Broad Acres. The fact that Diana had been drawn into an undesirable publicity through her unexpected connection with the celebrated case troubled Colonel Royall profoundly. He was an old-fashioned Southern gentleman, and believed devoutly in sheltering and treasuring his beautiful daughter; every instinct had been jarred upon by the mere fact of her appearance on the witness-stand, and the circumstances, too, which made it practically his own fault. He blamed himself for his carelessness in ignorantly leaving her in a room used by the prisoners and, in fact, for taking her there at all. Yet he fully sympathized with her in her courage. Behind it all, however, was a memory which stung, and the knowledge that an old scandal is never really too dead to rise, like a phœnix, from its ashes.

All through the latter part of the summer the colonel had been unwell, and lately Diana had watched him with deep concern. Dr. Cheyney pooh-poohed her solicitude, said the colonel was as sound as a boy of ten, and only advised a cheerful atmosphere. But Diana, sitting opposite to him that day at dinner, saw how white and drawn his face was, how pinched his lips, how absent his gentle blue eyes. She felt a sudden overwhelming dread and found it difficult to talk and laugh lightly, even when he responded with an eagerness that was an almost pathetic attempt at his natural manner.

They were just leaving the dining-room when Judge Hollis was announced, and Diana was almost glad, even of this interruption, though she was conscious of a sharp dread that they were to hear more of the trial. A glance at the judge’s face as he stalked into the room confirmed this impression; he was no longer wholly triumphant, his rugged jaw was locked, and his shaggy brows hung low over his keen eyes. He walked into the center of the room as usual and banged his hat down on the table.

“David,” he said abruptly, “how deep are you in with Jacob Eaton?”

Colonel Royall leaned forward in his chair, his hands clasping the arms. “Pretty well in,” he said simply, “unless he’s sold out my shares for me. I asked it, but he didn’t do it last week.”

“Oh, Lordy!” said the judge.

Diana went around the table and put her hand on her father’s shoulder; her young figure, drawn to its full height, seemed to stand between him and impending misfortune.

“Juniper confessed this morning,” said Judge Hollis harshly, forcing himself to his unpleasant task. “He was hired by Jacob Eaton to stand in the window of the court-room while Jacob fired from behind him and killed Yarnall.”

Colonel Royall rose and stood, white as ashes. “My God!” he said.

Diana flung one arm around him. Judge Hollis stood looking at them a moment, then he cleared his throat, choked and went on.

“Caleb Trench to-day gave me the proofs that Aaron Todd and others have collected in regard to the Eaton Investment Company. The shares are not worth the paper they’re written on, the company is a name, a bubble, a conspiracy. Not one cent will ever be recovered by the stockholders. Before nine o’clock this morning Jacob Eaton jumped his bail and ran. He can’t be found--he--”

Diana suddenly stretched out a white arm before her father, as if she warded off a blow.

“Not another word, Judge,” she said sternly, “not a word--on your life!”

Judge Hollis uttered an exclamation and went over to the colonel’s side. “Royall,” he said, “I’m a brute--but it’s God’s truth.”

“I know it,” said Colonel Royall, “and Jacob is of my blood--I feel the disgrace. Hollis, I feel the disgrace!” and he sat down and covered his face with his hands.

XXVI

TWO mornings later Dr. Cheyney finished his breakfast in abstracted silence; not even Miss Lucinda’s best rice griddle-cakes calling forth a word of approval. He had been talking over the telephone with Diana Royall. He finished his perfunctory examination of the daily paper, which was full of the flight of Jacob Eaton, the collapse of the Eaton Investment Company, the ruin of many prominent citizens, and the illness of Mrs. Eaton, who had been sent at once to a private sanitarium in the city.

The absorbing topic of Eaton had almost swallowed up the hitherto absorbing topic of Caleb Trench, though Caleb once more loomed up, directing the forces of the opposition.

The doctor folded the paper viciously and put it in his pocket, then he went out and climbed into his old buggy; he remembered quite distinctly that other morning when he had climbed into it at six o’clock to drive past the Eatons at a convenient hour. It might be said that the old man was so hardened in kindly iniquity that his conscience never suffered a single twinge. He and old Henk traveled more slowly up the hill, however, than on that previous occasion. As he approached Broad Acres he was struck with the dreary aspect of the autumn, and noticed that even the house itself looked less cheerful. He had seen Colonel Royall’s name on every quotation of losses in the Eaton Company, and he drew his own conclusions.

At the door Diana met him. She was very pale.