Satan Sanderson Part 26

Hugh looked past him with hollow, hunted gaze. There was no escape, no weapon to his hand, and those eyes were on him like unwavering sparks of iron.

"But I will!" he exclaimed desperately. "If you'll only help me out of this, I'll live straight to my dying day! You don't know how I've suffered, Harry, or you'd have some mercy on me now! I can never get away from it! That's why I was drunk to-day. Night and day I see him--Moreau, as I saw him lying here that night on the hillside. He haunts me! You don't know what it means to be always afraid, to wake up in the night with the feel of handcuffs on your wrists, to know that such a thing is behind you, following you, following you, never letting you rest, never forgetting!" A choking sob burst from his lips. "Let me go, Harry," he pleaded; "for my father's sake!"

"Your father is dead," said Harry.

"Then for old-time's sake!" He tried to clasp Harry's knees. "They may be here at any minute! I must have been seen as I crossed the mountain!

I thought it would never come out, or I wouldn't have come! I'll go far enough away. I'll go to South America, and you will never see me alive again, neither you nor Jessica! I knew her voice just now--I know she's here. I don't care how or why! You don't need to give me up to get her!

I'll give her to you! For G.o.d's sake, Harry, listen! Jessica wouldn't want to see me hung! For _her_ sake!"

Harry caught his breath sharply. The thrust had gone deep; it had sheared through the specious arguments he had been weaving. The commandment that an hour before had etched itself in letters of fire upon his eyelids hung again before him. He had coveted his neighbor's wife. This man, felon as he was--pitiful hound to whom the news of his father's death brought no flicker of sorrow or remorse, who now offered to barter Jessica for his own safety!--he himself, however unwittingly, had irreparably wronged. Between them stood the accusing wraith of one immortal hour, when the heart of love had beat against his own. If he delivered Hugh to the hangman, would it be for justice's sake?

The scales fell from his eyes. For him, loving Jessica, it could be only a dastard act. Yet if he aided the real Hugh to escape, he, the supposit.i.tious Hugh who had played his role, must continue it. He must second the villainy, and in so doing play the cheaply tragic part. He must pose as an accused murderer before the town whose good opinion he had longed to gain--before Jessica!--until Hugh had had time to win safe away! He might do even more. The real Hugh would stand small chance; even were the evidence not flawless, the old record would condemn him.

But he himself had lightened that record. He had gained liking and sympathy; there might be a chance for him of acquittal.

If this might only be! The truth then need never be known and Hugh Stires, to all belief having been put once in jeopardy, need fear no more. Life would be before him again, to pay the days of righteous living he had played for in the chapel game, to reverse the record of his selfish and remorseless career. If the trial went against him--Hugh would have had his chance, would be far away. He, Harry Sanderson, would not have betrayed him. A hundred people, if he chose to summon them, would establish his own ident.i.ty. It would be cheating justice, making a mock of law, but he was in a position where human statute must yield to a higher rule of action. The law might punish, but he would have been true to his own soul. Jessica would understand. The truth held pain and shame for her, but he would have tried to save her from a greater. And he would have cancelled his debt to Hugh!

It was the Harry Sanderson of St. James parish, of the scrupulous conscience--whose college career as Satan Sanderson had come to be a fiery sore in his breast--who now spoke:

"Get up!" he said. "Have you any money?"

Hugh rose, trembling and ashen. "Hardly ten dollars," he answered.

Harry considered hastily. He was almost penniless; nearly all his share of the strike had gone to repay the forged draft. "I have no ready cash," he said, "but the night we played in the chapel, I left a thousand dollars in my study safe. I have not been there since." He took pencil and paper from his pocket and wrote down some figures hastily. "Here is the combination. You must try to get that money."

"Wait," he added, as Hugh's hand was on the latch. He must risk nothing; he could make a.s.surance doubly sure. "A half-mile from the foot of the mountain, where the road comes in from Funeral Hollow, wait for me. I will bring a horse there for you."

Hugh crushed the paper into his pocket and opened the door. "I'll wait,"

he said. He darted out, slipped around the corner of the cabin, and stealthily disappeared.

Harry sat down upon the doorstep. The strain had been great; in the reaction, he was faint, and a mist was before his eyes. The die was cast. Hugh could easily escape; until he himself spoke, he would not even be hunted. He, Harry Sanderson, was the scapegoat, left to play his part.

How long he sat there he did not know. He sprang up at a m.u.f.fled sound.

He had still a work to do before they came--for Hugh! He saw in an instant, however, that it was Jessica, leading her horse by the bridle.

"I could not wait," she breathed. "You did not come, and I was afraid!"

Mounting, he leaned from the saddle and took both her hands in his--still he did not kiss her.

"Jessica, you believe I am innocent?" he asked anxiously.

"Yes--yes!"

"Will you believe what I am doing is for the best?"

"Always, always!" she whispered, her voice vibrating. "Only go!"

"Whatever happens?"

"Whatever happens!"

He released her hands and rode quickly up the gra.s.sy path.

As she stood looking after him, a dog's whine came from the cabin. She ran and released the spaniel and took him up in her arms.

As she did so a sparkle caught her eye. It came from the tiny gold cross lying where Hugh had flung it, near the lighted doorway. She picked it up, looked at it a moment abstractedly and thrust it into her pocket--scarce consciously, for her heart was keeping time to the silenced hoof-beat that was bearing the man she loved from danger.

Where the way opened into the gloomy cut of Funeral Hollow, Harry dismounted and went forward slowly afoot, leading the horse, till a figure stepped from a clump of bushes to meet him with an exclamation of relief. Hugh had waited at the rendezvous in shivering apprehension and dismal suspicion of Harry's intentions, and had not approached till he had convinced himself that the other came alone. He wrung Harry's hand as he said:

"If I get out of this, I'll do better the rest of my life, I will, upon my soul, Harry!"

"You may not be able to get into the chapel," said Harry; "my rooms"--he felt his cheek burn as he spoke--"may be occupied. On the chance that you fail, take this." He took off the ruby ring, whose interlaced initials had once fortified him in his error of ident.i.ty. "The stone is worth a good deal. It should be enough to take you anywhere."

Hugh nodded, slipped the ring on his finger, and rode quickly off. Then Harry turned and walked rapidly back toward the town.

CHAPTER x.x.xV

FELDER TAKES A CASE

The sheriff stopped his automobile before the dingy telegraph office.

The street had been ringing that evening with more exciting events than it had known in a year.

"He's off," he said disgustedly to the men who had curiously gathered.

"He must have got wind of it somehow, and he had a horse ready. We traced the hoof-prints from the cabin as far as the Hollow. I'm going to use the wire."

"That's a lie!" rumbled an angry voice behind him, as Devlin strode into the crowd. "Hugh Stires gave himself up fifteen minutes ago at the jail."

"How do you know that?" demanded the sheriff, relieved but chagrined at his fool's-errand.

"Because I saw him do it," answered Devlin surlily. "I was there."

"Well, it saves trouble for me. That'll tickle you, Felder," the sheriff added satirically, turning toward the lawyer. "You're a sentimentalist, and he's been your special fancy. What do you think now, eh?"

"I'll tell you what _I_ think," said Devlin, his big hands working. "I think it's a d.a.m.ned lie of Prendergast's!"

"Oh, ho!" exclaimed the sheriff amusedly. "You once danced to a different tune, Devlin!"

The blood was in the big, lowering face. "I did," he admitted. "I went up against him when the liquor was in me, and by the same token he wiped this street with me. He stood me fair and he whipped me, and I needed it, though I hated him well enough afterwards. An'--an'--"

He gulped painfully. No one spoke.

"It's many's the time since then I've wished the hand was shrivelled that heaved that rock at him in the road! The day when I saw my bit of a la.s.s, holdin' to the horse's mane, ridin' to her death in the Hollow--an'--when he brought her back--" He stopped, struggling with himself, tears rolling down his cheeks.

"No murderer did that!" he burst out. "We gave him the back of the hand an' the sole of the foot, an' we kept to it, though he fought it down an' lived straight an' decent. He never did it! I don't care what they say! I'll see Prendergast in h.e.l.l before I'll believe it, or any dirty paper he saved to swear a man's life away."