Anne Part 70

During the reading of this letter, the prisoner for the first time sat with his head bowed, his face shaded by his hand. Miss Teller's sobs could be heard. Anne, too, broke down, and wept silently.

"When I reach home I will write again, and _then_ you will answer."

Helen _had_ reached home, and Anne--had answered.

CHAPTER x.x.xV.

"The cold neutrality of an impartial judge."--BURKE.

The jury were out.

They had been out four hours, but the crowd in the closely packed court-room still kept its ranks unbroken, and even seemed to grow more dense; for if, here and there, one person went away, two from the waiting throng of those in the halls and about the doors immediately pressed their way in to take the vacant place. The long warm summer day was drawing toward its close. The tired people fanned themselves, but would not go, because it was rumored that a decision was near.

Outside, the fair green farming country, which came up almost to the doors, stretched away peacefully in the twilight, shading into the grays of evening down the valley, and at the bases of the hills. The fields were falling asleep; eight o'clock sounding from a distant church bell seemed like a curfew and good-night.

If one had had time to think of it, the picture of the crowded court-room, rising in that peaceful landscape, was a strange one. But no one had time to think of it. Lights had been brought in. The summer beetles, attracted by them, flew in through the open windows, knocked themselves against the wall, fell to the floor, and then slowly took wing again to repeat the process. With the coming of the lights the crowd stirred a little, looked about, and then settled itself anew. The prisoner's chances were canva.s.sed again, and for the hundredth time. The testimony of Anne Douglas had destroyed the theory which had seemed to fill out so well the missing parts of the story; it had proved that the supposed rival was a friend of the wife's, and that the wife loved her; it had proved that Mrs. Heathcote was devoted to her husband, and happy with him, up to the last hour of her life. This was much. But the circ.u.mstantial evidence regarding the movements of the prisoner at Timloesville remained unchanged; he was still confronted by the fact of his having been seen on that outside stairway, by the other significant details, and by the print of that left hand.

During this evening waiting, the city papers had come, were brought in, and read. One of them contained some paragraphs upon a point which, in the rapid succession of events that followed each other in the case, had been partially overlooked--a point which the country readers cast aside as unimportant, but which wakened in the minds of the city people present the remembrance that they had needed the admonition.

"But if this conversation (now given in full) was remarkable," wrote the editor far away in New York, "it should not be forgotten that the circ.u.mstances were remarkable as well. While reading it one should keep clearly in mind the fact that the subject of it, namely, Captain Heathcote, was, in the belief of both the speakers, dead. Had it not been for this belief of theirs, these words would never have been uttered. He was gone from earth forever--killed suddenly in battle. Such a death brings the deepest feelings of the heart to the surface. Such a death wrings out avowals which otherwise would never be made. Words can be spoken over a coffin--where all is ended--which could never be spoken elsewhere. Death brought together these two women, who seem to have loved each other through and in spite of all. One has gone. And now the menacing shadow of a far worse death has forced the other to come forward, and go through a cruel ordeal, an ordeal which was, however, turned into a triumph by the instant admiration which all rightly minded persons gave to the pure, n.o.ble bravery which thus saved a life. For although the verdict has not yet been given, the general opinion is that this new testimony turned the scale, and that the accused man will be acquitted."

But this prophecy was not fulfilled.

Five hours of waiting. Six hours. And now there came a stir. The jury were returning; they had entered; they were in their places. Rachel Bannert bent her face behind her open fan, that people should not see how white it was. Miss Teller involuntarily rose. But as many had also risen in the crowded room, which was not brightly lighted save round the lawyers' tables, they pa.s.sed unnoticed. The accused looked straight into the faces of the jurors. He was quite calm; this part seemed far less trying to him than that which had gone before.

And then it was told: they had neither convicted nor acquitted him. They had disagreed.

Anne Douglas was not present. She was sitting alone in an unlighted house on the other side of the little country square. Some one walking up and down there, under the maples, had noticed, or rather divined, a figure at the open window behind the muslin curtains of the dark room; he knew that this figure was looking at the lights from the court-room opposite, visible through the trees.

This man under the maples had no more intention of losing the final moment than the most persistent countryman there. But being in the habit of using his money, now that he had it, rather than himself, he had posted two sentinels, sharp-eyed boys whom he had himself selected, one in an upper window of the court-room on the sill, the other outside on the sloping roof of a one-story building which touched it. The boy in the window was to keep watch; the boy on the roof was to drop to the ground at the first signal from the sill, and run. By means of this human telegraph, its designer under the maples intended to reach the window himself, through the little house whose door stood open (its mistress having already been paid for the right of way), in time to hear and see the whole. This intention was carried out--as his intentions generally were. The instant the verdict, or rather the want of verdict, was announced, he left the window, hastened down through the little house, and crossed the square. The people would be slow in leaving the court-room, the stairway was narrow, the crowd dense; the square was empty as he pa.s.sed through it, went up the steps of the house occupied by Miss Teller, crossed the balcony, and stopped at the open window.

"Anne?" he said.

A figure stirred within.

"They have disagreed. The case will now go over to the November term, when there will be a new trial."

He could see that she covered her face with her hands. But she did not speak.

"It was your testimony that turned the scale," he added.

After a moment, as she still remained silent, "I am going away to-night," he went on; "that is, unless there is something I can do for you. Will you tell me your plans?"

"Yes, always," she answered, speaking low from the darkness. "Everything concerning me you may always know, if you care to know. But so far I have no plan."

"I leave you with Miss Teller; that is safety. Miss Teller claims the privilege now of having you with her always."

"I shall not stay long."

"You will write to me?"

"Yes."

People were now entering the square from the other side. The window-sill was between them; he took her hands, drew her forward from the shadow, and looked at her in the dim light from the street lamp.

"It is my last look, Anne," he said, sadly.

"It need not be."

"Yes; you have chosen. You are sure that there is nothing more that I can do?"

"There is one thing."

"What is it?"

"Believe him innocent. Believe it, not for my sake, but for your own."

"If I try, it will be for yours. Good-by."

He left her, and an hour later was on his way back to his post at the capital of his State. He was needed there; an acc.u.mulation of responsibilities awaited him. For that State owed the excellence of its war record, its finely equipped regiments, well-supplied hospitals, and prompt efficiency in all departments of public business throughout those four years, princ.i.p.ally to the brain and force of one man--Gregory Dexter.

CHAPTER x.x.xVI.

"I have no other than a woman's reason: I think him so because I think him so."

--SHAKSPEARE.

Summer was at its height. Multomah had returned to its rural quietude; the farmers were busy afield, the court-room was closed, the crowd gone.

The interest in the Heathcote case, and the interest in Ward Heathcote, remained as great as ever in the small circle of which he and Helen had formed part; but nothing more could happen until November, and as, in the mean time, the summer was before them, they had found a diversion of thought in discovering an island off the coast of Maine, and betaking themselves thither, leaving to mistaken followers the belief that Caryl's still remained an exclusive and fashionable resort. Beyond this small circle, the attention of the nation at large was absorbed in a far greater story--the story of the Seven Days round Richmond.

Word had come to Anne from the northern island that the little boy, whose failing health had for so many months engrossed all Miss Lois's time and care, had closed his tired eyes upon this world's pain forever.

He would no longer need the little crutch, which they had both grieved to think must always be his support; and Miss Lois coming home to the silent church-house after the burial in the little cemetery on the height, and seeing it there in its corner, had burst into bitter tears.

For the child, in his helplessness and suffering, had grown into her very heart. But now Anne needed her--that other child whom she had loved so long and so well. And so, after that one fit of weeping, she covered her grief from sight, put a weight of silent remembrance upon it, and with much energy journeyed southward.

For Anne, Miss Lois, and Miss Teller were now linked together by a purpose, a feminine purpose, founded upon faith only, and with outlines vague, yet one none the less to be carried out: to go to Timloesville or its neighborhood, and search for the murderer there.

Miss Teller, who had found occupation in various small schemes for additions to Heathcote's comfort during the summer, rose to excitement when the new idea was presented to her.

"We must have advice about it," she began; "we must consult--" Then seeing in the young face, upon whose expressions she had already come to rely, a non-agreement, she paused.

"The best skill of detectives has already been used," said Anne; "they followed a track, worked from a beginning. We should follow no track, and accept no beginning, save the immovable certainty that he was innocent." She was silent a moment; then with a sigh which was a sad, yet not a hopeless, one, "Dear Miss Teller," she added, "it is said that women divine a truth sometimes by intuition, and against all probability. It is to this instinct--if such there be--that we must trust now."