The One Woman Part 51

CHAPTER x.x.xI

A LACE HANDKERCHIEF

The next morning the lulls between the gusts of wind grew longer and the wind-waves shorter. The snow ceased to fall and the shadows on the clouds began to brighten with the glow of the sun behind them.

The city stirred and shook off its white robe of death. The woman looked at the wounded man with a stifled moan.

"It's no use, Ruth," he said, feebly. "I can't escape. I've got to face it."

"What will they do to you, Frank?" she asked, in misery.

"I don't know," he answered, brokenly. "I killed him in the heat of pa.s.sion in a fight. But I'll be tried for murder."

The officers came and read the warrant of arrest. The dark, tense figure, erect, with defiant face wreathed in midnight hair, stood by his bedside and held his hand.

Her great eyes glowed and gleamed as though a young lioness stood guard over a wounded cub.

Behind the bars in murderers' row the weeks and months were dragging slowly to the day of trial. The rush and roar and fever of the city were now a memory as he sat in brooding silence.

The press was hostile, and reporters worked daily with an army of detectives to find every sc.r.a.p of evidence against him, and as the day fixed for his arraignment drew near, story after story appeared in the more sensational journals, written with the clearest purpose of influencing the mind of every possible juryman.

Ruth's heart sank with anguish as she read these stories, but they stirred her to more vigorous action. She read every newspaper carefully and followed every clue of reporter and detective to antic.i.p.ate its influence.

Not a day pa.s.sed but that she carried to the man behind the bars a message of courage and cheer.

Gordon would sit and watch for that one face whose light was hope until it became the only reality in a universe of silence and darkness. His whole life seemed to focus now on the little face with its dimpled chin and shy, tremulous lips smiling into his cell.

The soft contralto voice, even when it sank to the lowest notes of melancholy, was full of tenderness and caressing feeling. As he touched her tapering fingers on the steel bars and watched the red blood mount until her delicate ears shone like transparent sh.e.l.ls in the dark ma.s.s of her hair, visions of their life together would rise until the past few years seemed the memory of a delirium.

He studied her with increasing fascination. The illuminating power of restraint had developed new forces in his sensitive mind.

How marvelous she seemed, walking toward his cell with gentle yet triumphant footfall, her face aglow with tenderness and love, and how his soul leaped those bars and embraced her!

Many friends on whom he had counted had failed. She had never failed. Her resources were endless, her energy infinite. She would have fought all earth combined without a tremor. And yet those who came in contact with her felt a gentleness that touched with the softness of a caress.

The day before the trial her face glowed with hope.

"Frank, our lawyers are sure we will win!" she cried, with joy.

"Barringer has determined to rest the case on the charge of wilful murder. And if he does the jury will acquit you. There is only one shadow of uncertainty."

The dark eyes clouded and a gleam of fire flashed from their depths.

"I know," he said, sorrowfully.

"We can't find whether that woman is going on the witness stand against you. I've tried in vain to get one word from her lips."

She brushed a tear from her eyes with a lace handkerchief. The man saw it was the mate to the one she had given him stained with her blood the day he had deserted her.

When, she turned to go, he felt for the cot behind him as though blind, fell on his face and burst into sobs.

CHAPTER x.x.xII

A LIFETIME IN A DAY

The court-room was crowded to suffocation. The corridors were jammed, the pavements, park and street outside a solid ma.s.s of humanity.

The prison van plowed its way through the throng. Gordon stepped out, with handcuffs jingling on his wrists, and straightened his giant figure between the two officers who led him.

A cheer suddenly burst from the crowd and echoed through the court-room.

There was no mistaking that cry. He had heard it before. He knew.

He had killed a banker. They were glad of it and proud of him. In muttered curses and cheers they said so. He was the champion of a cla.s.s, and the murder of an enemy had made him a hero. No matter the right or wrong. Down with every banker--what did they care!

Ruth met him in the anteroom, followed him into the prisoner's dock and took her place by his side.

The bill of indictment was read.

"The People against Frank Gordon."

With terrible memories the t.i.tle rang through his soul. The people, for whom he had fought, for whom he had suffered, worked and dreamed, had put him on trial for his life. What a strange fate! The faces grew dim, and a sense of illimitable and awful ruin crushed him.

A soft hand stole gently into his, and its warmth cleared his brain.

He looked around the room and, to his surprise, saw dozens of people he had helped in his ministry of the Pilgrim Church. Just in front of him sat a woman who, under the inspiration of his preaching, had given her fortune to found an orphanage for homeless girls, and was spending her life in happy service as its presiding genius.

She nodded and smiled, and her eyes filled with tears.

There was a stir in the group of lawyers behind him, and the old woman who had kissed him the day Ruth was watching pushed to his side, seized his hand, choked, and could say nothing. She had come all the way from Virginia to cheer him.

Ludlow, his faithful deacon, he saw, and near him sat Van Meter.

The little black eyes were solemn and the mouth drawn with sorrow.

Over against the wall, jammed in the crowd, he saw Jerry Edwards, who was still telling the story of his life with reverent wonder and love. He clasped both hands together, shook them over the heads of the crowd, and smiled.