Chapter 2

"Yes, I think we shall have a frost," replied Silas, and the brothers parted.

After Joseph had gone, Mrs. Kilgore came into the parlor and sat down with some sewing. She waited for her husband to speak and tell her if Joseph had said anything. But he sat there staring at the wall, and took no notice of her. Although she knew so well what had been preying upon his mind since last evening, yet he had not once referred to the matter, and she had not dared to do so. It was hard for a talkative little lady like her to understand this reticence about a matter so deeply felt. She could not comprehend that there may be griefs so ghastly that we dare not lift from them the veil of silence. She wanted to "talk it over" a little. She felt that would do Silas good, because she knew it would be a relief to her. Nor was she insensible to the gratification it would afford her vanity to discuss so serious a matter with her husband, whose general tone with her was one of jest and pleasantry, to the disparagement of her intellectual powers, as she thought. So, after glancing up several times timidly at Silas's still set profile, she said, in a weighty little voice:--

"Don't you think Joseph behaves very strangely about the murder?" Her words seemed to be several seconds in making an impression on Silas's mind, and then he slowly turned his face full upon her. It was a terrible look. The squared jaw, the drawn lips, the dull, distant stare, repulsed her as one might repulse a stranger intermeddling with a bitter private grief. Who was she, to come between him and his brother? He did not seem to think it worth while to say anything to explain so eloquent a glance, but immediately faced about again, as if dismissing the interruption from his mind. Mrs. Kilgore did not try to make any more conversation, but went to her bedroom and cried herself to sleep.

But Silas sat in his chair in the parlor, and took no note of the hours till the lamp spluttered and went out. All through the evening, in Joseph's room, which was directly above, he had heard him walking to and fro, to and fro, sitting down awhile, and then starting again; and if the pacing had not finally come to an end, Silas could not have gone to bed, for his heart went out to his brother wrestling there alone with his dreadful secret, and he could not rest till he thought that he, too, was at rest.

Indeed, for the very reason that Joseph was so dear to him, and he felt nothing could change that, he actually hesitated the less to admit these horrible suspicions. Love is impatient of uncertainly, and would rather presume the guilt of a friend from its longing to pour itself out in pity and tenderness, than restrain itself while judgment scrutinizes evidence and decides by a straw's weight.

A practical reflection, moreover, had occurred to Silas.

If Joseph had really--he did not dare to say to himself what--then it was of the utmost importance that they should quickly understand each other, so as to take steps to place him in safety. His desire to share Joseph's horrible secret was like the feeling with which one would fain uncover a friend's loathsome disease in order to help him. Before he went to sleep that night he resolved, therefore, that he would win his confidence by letting him see in every possible way, short of actual words, that he suspected the true state of things, and that Joseph might still confide in him as a faithful brother who would stand by him in the worst emergency.

On first meeting him the following morning he began to carry out this project so worthy of fraternal devotion. He sought occasion to shake hands with Joseph, and gave a meaning pressure to his clasp. At breakfast he was the only one who talked, and endeavored by his manner to let Joseph understand that he perfectly comprehended the situation, and was talking to cover his embarrassment and prevent Mrs. Kilgore from suspecting anything. Several times also he managed to catch his brother's eye, and give him a glance implying sympathy and mutual understanding. This demeanor added the last touch to Joseph's exasperation.

Evading Silas's evident intention of walking down-street, he got away alone, and took both dinner and tea at a restaurant, to put off meeting his brother and sister-in-law as long as possible. He lingered long over his tea in the darkest, loneliest corner of the eating-house, for the prospect, no longer to be avoided, of returning home to confront his sister-in-law's frightened face and Silas's pathetic glances appeared intolerable. Wild ideas of flying from the city and returning never, or not until the truth about the murder had come to light, occurred to him. He even began to arrange what sort of a letter he should write to Silas. But men of forty, especially of Joseph's temperament, who have moved in the same business and domestic ruts all their lives, do not readily make up their minds to bold steps of this sort. To endure suffering or inconvenience is more natural than to change their settled habits. So it all ended in his going home at about eight o'clock, and being greatly relieved to find some callers there.

All three of this strangely stricken family, indeed, shared that feeling. It was such a rest from the nervous strain whenever either or both were left alone with Joseph! The earnestness with which Mrs. Kilgore pressed her guests to stay a little longer was so unusual and apparently uncalled for that I fancy Mr. and Mrs. Smith had a vague suspicion that they were being made game of. But they would have been disabused of that impression could they have appreciated the sinking of heart with which their hosts heard the frontdoor close, and realized that they were again left to themselves. Only one thing had occurred to mar the relief which the call had afforded. The topic of the murder had been exhausted before Joseph entered, but, just as she was leaving, Mrs. Smith made a return to it, saying:--

"Mrs. Kilgore, I was telling my husband I should think you must be scared to be in the house, for fear the murderer might still be hanging around."

Mrs. Kilgore shuddered, and cast an instantaneous, wholly involuntary glance at Joseph. Her husband intercepted it, and, catching his eye, she saw an expression in it as if he could strangle her for what was really only the fault of her nerves. She stammered something, and the bustle of the retiring guests covered her confusion well enough.

Unfortunately, Joseph, too, had caught that sudden, terrified glance of his sister-in-law's at him, and it affected him more than anything that had occurred in either of the two days since the murder. As the guests took their leave, his head dropped on his breast, and his arms fell by the sides of his chair. Mr. Kilgore wanted to send his wife from the room, but his voice stuck in his throat, his tongue refused to move. They waited a moment, and then Joseph said:--

"Send for the police! For God's sake, take me out of this! I can't stand it any longer!"

It was not yet nine o'clock, and a boy came by in the street crying:--

"Extra! The Kilgore barn murderer captured! Full confession!"

Although the words were perfectly audible through the lowered windows to all in the room, Mrs. Kilgore was the only one who took any mental cognizance of them. Nor did either of the men, who sat there like stones, take note of her as she left the room. A minute later they heard her scream, and she ran back with the open paper in her hands.

"He did not do it! He is crazy! They have found the murderer!"

Silas fixed an incredulous, questioning stare upon his wife, and then turned quickly toward his brother. As for Joseph, at first and for several moments, he gave no sign that he had heard at all. Then he slowly raised his eyes to his brother's face with a deliberate, cruel gaze of contemptuous sarcasm and cold aversion. The first effect of this great relief was to flood his mind with bitter wrath at those who had done him the great wrong from which, no thanks to them, he had been rescued.

Mrs. Kilgore hastily read aloud, in a breathless voice, the newspaper account It seemed that two tramps had taken refuge in the barn from the storm that had raged the night of the murder, and getting into some quarrel before morning, one had stabbed the other and fled, only to be captured two days later and confess everything. When Mrs. Kilgore ceased reading, Joseph said:--

"It must be a great disappointment for you that they are not going to hang me for it. I sincerely condole with you."

Mrs. Kilgore cried, "Oh, don't!" and Silas made a gesture of deprecation, but both felt that Joseph had a right to revile them as he chose, and they had no right to complain. But he, even while he could not deny himself the gratification of a little cruel reproach, knew that they were not to be blamed, that they had been as much the victims of a fatality as himself, and that this was one of those peculiarly exasperating wrongs which do not leave the sufferer even the satisfaction of being angry. Soon he got up and walked across the room, stretched himself, drew his hand over his forehead, and said:--

"I feel as if I had just been dug up after being buried alive."

At this sign of returning equanimity, Silas took courage and ventured to say:--

"I know we 've been a pair of crazy fools, Joe, but you 're a little to blame. What's made you act so queerly? You won't deny that you have acted so?"

Joseph smiled,--one does n't appreciate the pure luxury of a smile until he has been deprived of it for a while,--lit a cigar, sat down with his legs over the arm of his arm-chair,--he had not indulged in an unconstrained posture for two days,--and told his side of the story. He explained how, thanks to that tale he was reading, and the ghastly reverie it suggested, his nerves were all on edge when Mrs. Kilgore burst in with a piece of news whose extraordinary coincidence with his train of thought had momentarily thrown him off his balance; and he tried to make them see that, after that first scene, all the rest was a logical sequence.

Mrs. Kilgore, by virtue of her finer feminine nervous organization, understood him so readily that he saw he had made a mistake in not unbosoming himself to her at first. But Silas evidently did not so easily take his idea.

"But why did n't you just tell us that you had n't done it, and end the misunderstanding at one blow?" he asked.

"Why, don't you see," replied Joseph, "that to deny a thing before you are distinctly suspected of it is to suggest suspicion; while to deny it afterward, unless you have proof to offer, is useless?"

"What should we have come to but for the capture of the real murderer?" cried Mrs. Kilgore, with a shudder.

End of Project Gutenberg's Two Days' Solitary Imprisonment, by Edward Bellamy