The Just and the Unjust Part 48

The long day had been devoted to the choosing of the twelve men who should say whether John North was innocent or guilty, but at last court adjourned and Marshall Langham, pushing through the crowd that was emptying itself into the street, turned away in the direction of his home.

For no single instant during the day had he been able to take his eyes from his father's face. He had heard almost nothing of what was said, it was only when the coldly impersonal tones of the judge's voice reached him out of, what was to him silence, that he was stung to a full comprehension of what was going on about him. The faces of the crowd had blended until they were as indistinguishable as the face of humanity itself. For him there had been but the one tragic presence in that dingy room; and now--as the dull gray winter twilight enveloped him,--wherever he turned his eyes, on the snow-covered pavement, in the bare branches of the trees,--there he saw, endlessly repeated, the white drawn face of his father.

His capacity for endurance seemed to measure itself against the slow days. A week--two weeks--and the trial would end, but how? If the verdict was guilty, North's friends would still continue their fight for his life. He must sustain himself beyond what he felt to be the utmost limit of his powers; and always, day after day, there would be that face with its sunken eyes and bloodless lips, to summon him into its presence.

He found himself at his own door, and paused uncertainly. He pa.s.sed a tremulous hand before his eyes. Was he sure of Gilmore,--was he sure of Evelyn, who must know that North was innocent? The thought of her roused in him all his bitter sense of hurt and injury. North had trampled on his confidence and friendship! The lines of his face grew hard. This was to be his revenge,--his by every right, and his fears should rob him of no part of it!

He pushed open the door and entered the unlighted hail, then with a grumbled oath because of the darkness, pa.s.sed on into the sitting-room.

Except for such light as a bed of soft coal in the grate gave out, the room was clothed in uncertainty. He stumbled against a chair and swore again savagely. He was answered by a soft laugh, and then he saw Evelyn seated in the big arm-chair at one side of the fireplace.

"Did you hurt yourself, Marsh?" she asked.

Langham growled an unintelligible reply and dropped heavily into a chair. He brought with him the fumes of whisky and stale tobacco, and as these reached her across the intervening s.p.a.ce Evelyn made a little grimace in the half light.

"I declare, Marsh, you are hardly fit to enter a respectable house!" she said.

In spite of his doubt of her, they were not on the worst of terms, there were still times when he resumed his old role of the lover, when he held her drifting fancy in something of the potent spell he had once been able to weave about her. Whatever their life together, it was far from commonplace, with its poverty and extravagance, its quarrelings and its reconciliations, while back of it all, deep-rooted in the very dregs of existence, was his pa.s.sionate love. Even his brutal indifference was but one of the many phases of his love; it was a manifestation of his revolt against his sense of dependence, a dependence which made it possible for him to love where his faith was destroyed and his trust gone absolutely.

Evelyn was vaguely conscious of this and she was not sure but that she required just such a life as theirs had become, but that she would have been infinitely bored with a man far more worth while than Marshall Langham. From his seat by the fire Langham scowled across at her, but the scowl was lost in the darkness.

"Your father was here last evening, Marsh," Evelyn said at length, remembering she had not seen him the night before, and that he had breakfasted and gone before she was up that morning.

"What did he come for?" her husband asked.

"I think to see you. Poor man, he doesn't seem able to get the run of the hours you keep; I told him he could always find you here between four and eight in the morning. I must say this little insight into your domestic habits appeared to distress him, but I tried to comfort him,--I told him you would probably outlive us all." She laughed softly. "Andy was here this afternoon, Marsh," she went on.

"What the devil did he want?"

"I don't know."

"Is he coming back?"

"He didn't mention it, if he is." And again she laughed.

Langham moved impatiently; her low full-throated mirth jarred on his somber mood.

"Were you in court to-day, Marsh?" she inquired, after a short silence.

"Yes," he answered briefly.

"Were there many there?"

"Yes."

"Any ladies, Marsh?" she questioned, with sudden eagerness.

"If you can call them that," he growled.

"Do you know, Marsh, I had a strong impulse to go, too. Would you have been astonished to see me there?" she asked tentatively.

"We won't have any of that,--do you understand?" he said with fierce authority.

"Why not? It's as right for me as it is for any one else, isn't it?"

"I won't _have_ it!" he said, lifting his voice slightly.

She had risen and now stood leaning against the arm of his chair.

"Marsh, he didn't kill McBride; he couldn't,--he wouldn't harm a mouse!"

Her words set him raging.

"Keep quiet, will you,--what do you know about it, anyhow?" he cried with sullen ferocity.

"Don't be rude, Marsh! So you don't want me to come to the trial,--you tell me I can't?"

"Did my father say anything about this matter,--the trial, I mean?"

asked Langham haltingly.

"Yes, I think he spoke of it, but I really wasn't interested because you see I am so sure John North is innocent!"

He caught one of her hands in his and drew her down on the arm of his chair where he could look into her eyes.

"There is just one question I want to ask you, Evelyn, but I expect you'll answer it as you choose," he said, with his face close to hers.

"Then why ask it?" she said.

"Why,--because I want to know. Where were you on the day of the murder,--between five and six o'clock?"

"I _wish_ you'd let me go, Marsh; you're hurting me--" she complained.

She struggled for a moment to release herself from his grasp, then realizing that her effort was of no avail, she quietly resumed her former position on the arm of his chair.

"You must answer my question, come--where were you?" Langham commanded.

He brought his face close to hers and she saw that his eyes burnt with an unhealthy light.

"How silly of you, Marsh, you know it was Thanksgiving day,--that we dined with your father."

"I am not asking you about that,--that was later!"

"I suppose I was on my way there at the hour you mention."

"No, you weren't; you were in North's rooms!"

"If you were not drunk, I should be angry with you, Marsh,--you are insulting--"

He quitted his hold on her and staggered to his feet.