CHAPTER XI

THE GREATER LOVE

The guards turned, one holding Neville by the wrist, the other marching behind, and thus he walked down the hall between the rows of unfriendly faces. As he passed Elinor she looked up timidly, but met a glance of freezing contempt.

So she read the language of his eyes, and he knew not that they spoke any such thing. Instead he had but a vague consciousness that among the dull ranks of meaningless faces his eyes suddenly fell upon a glory, a brilliancy of sunny tresses straying over cheeks of a luminous pallor.

That was Elinor Calvert. Oh, yes! he knew that very well. Who else had that bearing, with its strange blending of a dignity too unconscious to be majestic, with a simplicity too dignified to be wholly simple? And those purple eyes, why were they so sad? Ah, because he was guilty. He had forgotten that; but Giles Brent had said so, and all these hostile faces confirmed the verdict. At any rate, since she thought so, it mattered little whether the verdict were true or false.

Suddenly there came to him a vision of a new circle in the Inferno, a circle where one forever questioned the eyes he loved and dared not read the answer written therein.

"My son, harden not thine heart; but rather submit thyself in penitence and humility to the sentence of justice."

It was Father White who spoke. The words brought Neville back to the present with a shock. He shook off the kind priest's hand rudely.

"Judgment, not justice!" he answered, with haughtiness, and moved on with a smile on his face. Pride is the fox that the Spartan carries under his cloak, smiling while it eats his heart.

Father White drew back, but so full was Neville's mind that he noted not the movement, nor indeed aught else, till he was aware of a yellow head at his elbow and a pair of short legs striding to keep the pace with his own long ones.

Cecil had crept from his mother's side, and joining Neville was now seeking to slip his little hand into the close-clenched one beside him.

"I've brought thomething for you," he whispered, putting his other hand to the breast of his jerkin as they came to the door.

Neville answered by a dreary smile.

"It's a knife to take the place of the one you lost."

The guard shook his head reprovingly.

"No knives for prisoners, Cecil," said Neville.

"Well, you shall have thomething, because you are my friend. I mean that you shall be my tenant at Robin Hood's Barn yet, and I don't think you killed the priest. Mother does; but men must think for themselves."

Neville bit his lip till the blood came.

"See," said Cecil, "here is a picture of Mother done on ivory. She gave it to me the morning I was lord of the manor. I asked if I could give it to you. She smiled and said it would be time enough to think of that when you asked for it, and I promised never to offer it to you till you did; but it ith a pretty picture, and you would like it to look at in the tobacco-house, and you could sell it for bread if you escape"--this in a lower whisper. "Now, do you ask for it?"

Neville grew white to the lips. He looked at the picture as a starving man looks at bread. After an instant's hesitation he shut his teeth and drew himself up.

"_No!_" he cried.

Then wrenching his wrist from the jailer's clasp, he lifted Cecil in his arms, kissed him, and set him down again.

"But I do thank thee from the bottom of a sad heart," he said, and added, "God bless thee and reward thee!"

Inside the hall, with the dignity and formality of which neither fewness of numbers nor bareness of surroundings could rob our forefathers, the court filed down the room, Mistress Brent on her brother's arm.

"Now, Giles," said his sister, "art thou satisfied at last who is the guilty man?"

"I fear there can be no doubt."

"I should say not, indeed. Even Margaret must needs give over her hot defence and admit that the voice of the Lord hath spoken."

"I wish it would tell me what were good to do."

"It does, Giles. It says, 'Be firm! Let not ill-timed tenderness protect the criminal! Blood guiltiness must be wiped out in blood.'"

"That is not a gospel of love, Mary."

"'Tis the gospel of justice. I feel a sense of guilt in myself that Holy Church hath suffered such outrage in the bosom of my household, and this guilt can only be purged away when we withdraw fellowship and sympathy from the evil-doer and deliver him up to justice. To-morrow, Giles, thou must go to St. Mary's and--"

"Softly, Mary! In this matter we must move slowly and with caution."

"Thy friendship for this man makes thee weak."

"Come, come, Mary!" said her brother, testily; "'tis time we discovered whether this province is to be ruled by men or women. Elinor calls me hard of heart for persecuting Christopher Neville; Margaret calls me a fool for suspecting him; now you will have me a weakling for not hanging him out of hand. I tell thee I will have no more meddling in this case; when I see my duty clear before me, I will do it. Till then I bid thee hold thy peace."

Brent's last words were overheard by the worthy Masters Neale and Cornwaleys, who followed close after them.

"The Governor is nigh distraught over this wretched business," said Neale, meditatively stroking the tuft on his chin.

"And well he may be," replied Cornwaleys. "It needs but a small torch to light such a flame of religious dissension here in Maryland as a century shall not suffice to extinguish."

"Yet you would not have the guilty escape?"

"Why not Neville as well as Ingle? Better that than set the province afire. Besides, so many innocent must needs suffer with the guilty. Look at that little sister of Neville's! Yesterday she was gay as a lark; to-day she can scarce lift her swollen eyelids. Poor child! I would I could help her."

Another man in the hall shared the wish of Captain Cornwaleys. As Peggy passed Huntoon she felt her hand grasped, and held in a strong, heartening clasp. "Courage!" Romney whispered. "We are not yet at the end. Much may still come to pass in our favor." Peggy's heart rose at the word "_our_."

"But the blood," she murmured. "I believe it was the priest's revenge for the quarrel he had with Kit." The girl shared the superstition of the age, and it seemed to her that some supernatural and malign agency was working against Christopher.

"Nay," answered Romney, "else how account for this?" and he held up his own hand scarred from joint to the joining of the wrist. "'Twas from the same edge of the crucifix I got the scratch as I watched by the corpse last night, and leaned over to set the candles at the head straighter in their sockets. No, no, Peggy! it will not do to lose heart now. We must think of nothing but how we can help your brother,--clear him if we can; save him if we cannot clear him."

The contagion of hopefulness spread to Peggy's sorrowing little soul, and with it came a blessed sense of having a firm support at hand to lean upon, let the winds of adversity blow as they would. The firm arm and brave heart and ready, resourceful wit were all hers for the asking; nay, were themselves pleading with her to be allowed to spend their life in her service, and she had flouted them and their owner but three days since,--yes, and answered the proffer of honest love by a slap in the face from an evergreen bough!

It would seem by all the laws of psychology that this angry humility and consciousness of her own errors should have made pretty Peggy more tolerant of the mistakes and shortcomings of others; but by a strange revulsion, as she drew near the corner where Elinor Calvert sat gazing into vacancy as if turned to stone by the sight of the gorgon's head, her anger swiftly changed its object. Slowly and somewhat scornfully Peggy looked her over from head to foot.

"Do you believe this calumny?" she asked.

No answer from lips or eyes.

"Oh, shame!" cried the girl. "I can bear it for the rest; but that you, who have known him half his life, you whom he loved, nay worshipped, putting you well nigh in the place of God above, that you should condemn him--oh, it is too much! Thank God he still has me to love and cling to him!"

Slowly the stony face relaxed, the fixed eyes began to see things once more, but the voice was still dim and distant as Elinor answered,--

"Cease, child!--prate no more of what you feel for Christopher Neville! You say you love too much to doubt him. What is your love to mine? I _know_ him guilty, and yet, God help me, I love him still!"