The One Woman Part 52

A feeling of awe came over him as he thought of the eternity of man's deeds, going on and on forever, whatever might be his own fate.

He looked curiously at Barringer, the young a.s.sistant District Attorney, who was conducting the case against him. In the dark-brown eyes, keen and piercing, there was deadly hostility. He had become famous as a relentless public prosecutor. He came of a long line of great lawyers of the old South, and the breath of a court-room was born in his nostrils. Gordon was chilled by the cold, clear ring of his penetrating voice.

While the jury was being impaneled, Ruth sat by Gordon, eagerly trying to see the invisible secrets of every juror's soul who faced the man she loved.

The court ruled that Socialists were disqualified to sit on the case.

When the twelve men were selected she scanned their faces with searching gaze for the signs of life or death. Their names all seemed strange. She could make nothing out of them.

The opening address of Barringer choked her with fear. In cold-blooded words he told the jury of the certainty of the guilt of the prisoner. His manner was earnest, dignified and terrible in its persuasive a.s.surance.

For days his awful closing sentence rang like a death knell in her ears.

Four days of the week were consumed by the witnesses for the prosecution. On Friday morning Ruth and her lawyers were elated over the unimportant character of the testimony.

Suddenly Barringer looked at the prisoner, frowned, and said:

"Call Kate Ransom Gordon to the witness stand."

The prisoner went white and lowered his eyes.

There was a stir at the side door. With quick, firm step the magnificent figure crossed the room, with every eye save one riveted on her beautiful face.

She took her seat, and in cool, clear tones told her story.

The prisoner looked up once, and she met his gaze with a glance of fierce resentment.

She gave the long history of his suspicions of Overman, of their quarrels about him, of his jealousy and his threat to kill him.

With minute detail she explained the events of the fatal Sunday, described his entrapping Overman in the library unarmed, and of his murder in the dark. She told how she had rushed to the door and found no light within, and how he had enticed her into the room and attempted to choke her to death.

Finally she explained to the jury that the wounds Gordon had received were not from Overman in a fight, but that he had tried to kill her and commit suicide and had failed.

For five hours she sat in the witness chair and coolly swore his life away, baffling with keenest wit at every turn the shrewd lawyer who baited, hara.s.sed and cross-questioned her with merciless vigour.

When she declared that Gordon's wounds were self-inflicted, he stared at her in dazed wonder and gasped to Ruth:

"Merciful G.o.d, is she deliberately lying, or does she believe it?"

Ruth did not answer, but slipped her warm little hand in his and pressed it. His fingers were like icicles.

Gordon seemed to sink into a stupor and take no further note of what was going on in the room.

He turned around, placed his arm on the chair, and fixed his eyes on Ruth, looking, looking! As he felt her hot hand trying to warm the chill of death in his own, he followed every movement of a muscle of her face with hypnotic intensity.

When they led him back to the prison van his shoulders drooped with mortal weariness. He had lived a lifetime in a day, and his hair had turned gray.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII

THE VERDICT

Gordon seemed to take no further interest in the trial. He only sat day after day and watched Ruth. Now and then a faint flush tinged the prison pallor of his cheeks as from some thought pa.s.sing in his memory.

Barringer's speech to the jury was one of fierce and terrible eloquence. Every art of persuasion, every trick of oratory, every force of personality he used with pitiless power. In ridicule, sarcasm, invective, pathos and logic, his voice rose and fell, pulsed and quivered, or rang with the peal of a trumpet. He held the jury in the hollow of his hand for four hours, while Ruth stared at him with her heart in her throat, every word cutting her flesh like a knife or smashing the tissues of her brain with the force of a bludgeon.

The jury retired.

Through the dreary hours of the afternoon Ruth sat in the anteroom by Gordon's side waiting for the verdict. Minutes lengthened into hours, and hours into days and years, until time and eternity were one, and she lived a life of despair or hope within the second between the ticks of the clock on the wall.

She tried to say a word of cheer to Gordon, and choked. The little chin drooped, showing the white teeth, and she sat in dumb misery like a sick child.

The man looked at her tenderly and said:

"You must be calm, Ruth, dear. Death is a physical incident that no longer interests me, except as it affects you. You are the one miracle of life and death to me."

She pressed his hand and could not answer.

At five o'clock the jury returned for instructions, and she listened with agony to their awful questions.

At six o'clock there was a hurried stir in the court-room. The crowd surged into its doors and packed every inch of s.p.a.ce.

The jury were filing in with their verdict.

The judge solemnly took his seat, and the clerk summoned Gordon to stand up.

The giant figure rose with dignity and his steel-gray eyes pierced the jury.

The foreman's lips moved:

"Guilty of murder in the first degree!"

A long breath, a stir, a murmur, and then a broken sob from a woman's heart. Her arms were around his neck, her head on his breast, and her swollen lips in low, piteous tones cried:

"My darling!"

CHAPTER x.x.xIV