Chapter IV: Part TWO: I (1)

Carlin walked with a quick firm step across the square from the courthouse to his office in the bank building. His usually ruddy face was pale, his eyes gleamed with excitement under the brim of his soft felt hat. He made his way through the crowd that filled the street before the jail without halting, shaking off impatiently some attempts to stop him, nodding or shaking his head for all answer to questions shouted at him.

It was a bright spring day. For the second time since his marriage the maples round the square were putting out their brilliant young leaves. But there was no brightness in the throng under the maples. A sombre excitement moved them, a low-toned angry murmur followed Carlin's progress. It was hardly personal to him, however, or only faintly, doubtfully so. He was recognized respectfully, and responded with curt nods, or sometimes a quick lifting of his hand, like a military salute.

He ran up the steps into his own office, and through this to Judge Baxter's, entering with a quick rap on the glass, closing the door sharply behind him. The Judge was alone, writing at his desk, and looked round rather absently, pushing his spectacles up on his forehead. Carlin flung his hat on the rickety sofa in the corner and standing by the desk, his hands thrust deep in his pockets, frowning, he said firmly:

"Judge, we must take this case."

The Judge looked at him now with attention, but without answering. Resistance showed in his face, but he put out his lower lip and thoughtfully shifted his quid of tobacco from one cheek to the other.

"He sent for me and I was admitted to see him, as his counsel," Laurence went on in the same quick urgent tone. "And then--we must do it, that's all."

The Judge looked at the sheet of paper before him, half-filled with his crabbed painstaking writing, laid down his pen, and leaned back in his chair.

"Why?" he demanded coolly.

"My God, Judge!" Carlin burst out.

With an effort to master himself, he turned away and walked several times across the floor.

"If you'd seen the man--if you'd heard him!... I'm all smashed up by it," he confessed huskily, stopping and staring out of the window.

"I see you are," said the Judge. "Have a drink?"

Carlin shook his head. But the Judge, opening a cupboard in his desk, took out a bottle and one glass, poured a stiff allowance of whiskey and tossed it off neat.

"I'm glad you don't drink much, Laurence," he remarked as he put away the glass. "With your excitable temperament you couldn't stand it."

As Carlin stood silent, staring out, the Judge addressed his back.

"I don't like murder cases--never did. Never could do anything with 'em. My clients were hanged, every time--that was long ago.... I haven't touched a criminal case for--well, years. I'm no jury lawyer. We don't want to go into that, Laurence ... and then, the fellow's a brute."

"No--no!... Wait until I tell you about it...."

Laurence turned round. His tone was calmer but he still looked deeply agitated, and began to pace the floor again.

"Well, take your time.... But I can't see what it is to you," said Judge Baxter curiously.

His genial shrewd old face expressed a somewhat cynical perplexity. If he had ever been deeply moved by human passion and folly, he had forgotten it--for many years it had been only a spectacle to him. All crimes spring from love, so-called, or money. One of these two great mainsprings the Judge understood thoroughly. He knew all about human cupidity. He had made his own fortune out of the desire of some of his fellow-beings to over-reach others, and this golden fountain would never run dry. The Judge had all the law of property at his fingers' ends. His ability to help a corporation to use the law was abundantly recognized and recompensed. He was a noted railroad counsel. Why turn aside from this safe and profitable concern with people's purses, to meddle with the wild impulses of their hearts, so-called?

"You say you don't see what it is to me," Carlin began, turning abruptly. "But I know the man, if you remember. He was in my company--one of the best in it too--I knew him well--that's why he thought of me, I suppose.... But even if I hadn't known him, if I'd seen any man as he was this morning, if any man talked to me as he did.... I never heard anything like it--I never saw anything so friendless, forlorn.... He's like a lost beaten dog--there isn't a soul in the world that isn't against him...."

"Well, that's right, I guess," said the Judge cautiously. "He's worse than friendless." He turned his head toward the window, giving ear to the noise from the street--a low continuous murmur. "That crowd means trouble.... When do they take him out?"

"By the afternoon train. The Sheriff thinks he can do it--he's got thirty deputies sworn in."

"I've never seen a lynching here," said the Judge, getting up and going to the window. "But--we came pretty near it once or twice during the war. It looked a good deal like this, too.... You see, our people don't make an awful lot of noise about a thing--when they mean business, they're quiet."

The two men stood side by side, looking down on the square, which was by now closely packed.

"Well, I guess we'll get him out just the same," said Carlin grimly.

"'We'?"

"They won't get him if I can help it.... But I'd like to know why they _want_ to--don't understand a mob getting up like this about it--"

"It runs like wildfire, once it starts.... Perhaps the boys want some excitement, we haven't had much lately. And then," said the Judge emphatically, "they don't _like_ it. It was an unprovoked brutal murder of a woman--a good hardworking woman, with little children to look after--and this fellow comes back, takes to drinking, quarrels with his wife and smashes her head with an ax--by God, if they want to string him up, I don't blame them!"

"Look here, Judge, you're just like the rest of them, you don't understand, you don't know! A man doesn't smash his wife with an ax for _nothing_--"

"If you're going to try to justify him--"

"No, he doesn't want that, neither do I. He's a lost man and he knows it.... All he seemed to want of me was to have one human being understand it--just to tell me about it. He doesn't want to get off, he wants to die."

Carlin's intense blue eyes held the Judge's unwilling gaze; they both forgot the crowd outside, turned from the window. The Judge sat down again at his desk.

"Well, tell me about it," he said reluctantly. "But I'm sorry to see you so worked up.... I really don't see how we could handle a case like this, even if we had a chance to do anything with it. I tell you it isn't the thing, it's all off my beat--you know it. And you're just getting your start, and to handicap yourself right off with an unpopular case where you haven't the ghost of a show, where feeling's dead against you--no, Laurence, my boy, I oughtn't to let you--we can't do it!"

Laurence drew a chair to the other side of the desk, facing the Judge.

"If _we_ can't, I'll try it alone," he said quietly. "All I want for Barclay is a hearing--just to have his side of it known, that's all. He'll have to pay the penalty, of course--he'll get life imprisonment at least and I'm not sure he wouldn't rather be hanged, in fact I'm sure he would, _now_.... But he did have provocation--if you could get anybody to see it."

"Well, see if you can get me to see it. I guess that's a good test," said the Judge coolly. "I'm as prejudiced against him as anybody. I wouldn't lynch him, maybe--but I don't want you to lose your first important case."

He leaned back in his chair and fixed his old, wise, wary eyes on Carlin, who, quite calm now, had an abstracted look.

"Well, to begin I'd have to tell you what I knew about Barclay before this.... He was in the first company to go from here--enlisted for three months, you know. Just dropped his tools and went--he was a machinist, making good wages, had a nice little home here, wife and two children. They were dependent on him, but the wife was sturdy and said she guessed they could get along somehow--and they did. She got work and people helped them, and she kept up the home. Barclay was awfully proud of her and the youngsters--another one was born after he went. He used to show me their pictures and talk about them. He was good at machinery--it was the only thing he _did_ know--he was a gunner in my battery later and a good one. Strong as a horse and he'd fight like the devil when things got hot. A big fellow, good-natured too and kind of simple-minded--soft, you might say, except when he was fighting or drunk. He didn't seem to have but two ideas in his head--one was the war and the other was his family. He re-enlisted, of course, and went through the whole thing, but he was homesick all the time. He used to write home whenever he could, and when he didn't get letters as often as he thought he ought to, he'd come to me and worry, and ask if I'd heard and so on.... I'm telling you this, Judge," Carlin looked earnestly at the Judge's impassive face, "so you can understand what sort of a man he was and what his home meant to him--just everything, outside of what he was fighting for. That man made a real sacrifice, because he thought it his duty. He felt it all the time, but he thought the country needed him, and he had to do it, and he had a pride in it too--he didn't look for any reward, but I suppose he thought what he did would be appreciated somehow--anyhow he didn't expect to lose out altogether by it...."

Carlin stopped for a moment, frowning till his eyes showed only a blue glint.

"Lots of us that went were remembered," he said slowly, "and some--were forgotten."

He picked up a pencil and began scoring deep lines on a sheet of paper.

"Four years is a good slice out of a man's life. He loses a lot--in his life, his work--other men get the start of him--he's far away, and perhaps will never come back, and they're _here_.... When a man gives that much, and risks everything, in what seems a holy cause to him, it seems as if--it seems as if--"

His voice trembled. The Judge was watching him now intently. He got up and began to walk the floor again.

"You see, Judge, that's natural--to want to have some recognition of what you've done. And I know a lot of our fellows felt that the people at home _didn't_ recognize it. They made a lot of fuss about us when we went away, but when we came back--those of us that did come back--they didn't get excited much about us.

"They were busy--they'd been living their lives in peace while we were fighting and protecting them--_we_ stood between them and the enemy and most of them never felt what war is. They might know about it, but they didn't _feel_ it, we saved them from that.... Then when we came back, sometimes they were glad to see us, sometimes not. Anyhow, we had to scramble around and see what we could do, to make a living, to get back the place we'd lost. Lots of us found it hard. It wasn't only the time lost, but those four years of war made a difference in us, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse...."

"Surely," said Judge Baxter, nodding.

"You see, Judge, it upsets all a man's habits and way of living. You can't make a good soldier of a man without loosening up some things in him that are usually kept down. He faces violent death every day, and he _kills_. It's a primitive thing, war is, and men get back to where they were. They suffer and they try to make the other fellow suffer more, they get callous, savage, lots of them. Then when they come back to civilized life, it's hard for them to fit in. I wonder there wasn't more trouble than there was, I wonder that that great army, nearly a million men, melted away as quietly as it did.... Judge, it was a great thing that we did--"

Carlin stopped and fixed his eyes on the Judge, who nodded gravely.

"We felt it so at the time, at least very many of us did, and looking back, we can see how big a thing it was. We fought the good fight, we crushed something evil, that would have destroyed our country. Every man in our army has a right to be proud of it, proud of himself, if he did his best ... he has a right to be remembered...."

"Yes, surely," said Judge Baxter, with the same grave intentness, his keen eyes watching Carlin's every look and motion.

There was a brief silence.

"Well," said Carlin, drawing a deep breath. "Barclay was forgotten.... The last year, letters were scarce. We were on the jump and then we went down into Georgia.... I don't know just what happened here. He doesn't make any accusation against his wife, though it seems there was somebody else she liked. But she'd settled her life without him. She could support the family and she'd got used to doing without him. Perhaps she never cared so much for him as he thought. But yet if he'd been here, probably it would have gone along all right. But he wasn't, you see.... And she heard things about him too. He was in the guardhouse a few times for drinking, and somebody else would mention it in writing home.... All that came out after he got back."

Carlin was still walking about restlessly under the Judge's watchful gaze.

"When he got back he found he wasn't wanted--that's all. His wife could do without him, and preferred to. His children were little--they'd forgotten him. There was a baby he'd never seen. He felt like a stranger in the house. And she made him feel it! At first he couldn't realize it, and tried to have it all as it was before--but it was no use. She didn't want him there.... Well, I suppose you can't see what that meant to him--"

"Yes, I can," said the Judge.

"It was all he had, you know. And she'd taken it away from him--the children and all. He could see that if he'd never come back, if he'd been killed, she would have married this other man, and never missed him. He saw that she wished he hadn't come back. In fact--she told him so, after they got to quarrelling...."

"That was pretty bad," muttered the Judge.

"And he still loved her, you see. Otherwise he'd have gone away again. But he wanted her and the children. So he took to drinking--"

"Why, naturally."

"He took to drinking hard and didn't work--couldn't. And he made the house miserable, of course. They quarrelled terribly, he beat her.... She reproached him for being a useless drunken loafer, spoiling her life and the children's--then she told him she wished he'd died.... It was after that...."

Carlin was silent. The Judge nodded his white head and said abruptly: "Yes, the poor simpleton--lost his head."

"He doesn't remember how it happened--he was drunk. But he doesn't deny it--can't, of course," said Carlin in a low voice. "He said to me that he could hardly believe it ... he'd always loved her ... he said it didn't seem possible he could have hurt her ... he thought he must have been crazy ... he wished he had been killed down south, then it wouldn't have happened and she would have been happy, and the children taken care of, while now.... And then he cried...."

Carlin's voice broke, and he turned away to the window. The Judge's eyes followed him eagerly, dwelt on his bent head, his bowed shoulders for some moments.

"The poor fool," he said, taking off his spectacles and looking at them critically.

"Judge, it was an awful thing to see--that big fellow, all crumpled up like a wet rag--broken, crushed--helpless as a baby,--not a soul to put out a hand to him--and he was sinking, lost--lost forever.... And a good man too, that's the mystery ... why, Judge, anybody might have acted that way--_might_ have ... if people could only see that, feel it...."

The Judge had polished his spectacles to a nicety and now put them on and stood up.

"Well, Laurence, I guess you can make them feel it--I guess you can, my boy!" he burst out.

His broad face lighted up with enthusiasm, with professional ardour.

"Laurence, you were right and I was wrong. If you feel the thing as much as this, it's a chance for you. Nothing counts so much with a jury as feeling--real feeling--and you've got it. We'll take that case and you shall make the address--I'm not a jury lawyer myself, but I know one when I see him! You won't save your man, Laurence, but many a reputation has been made in a lost cause!"

And the Judge, advancing, took Carlin's hand and shook it warmly. Carlin looked at him with troubled, bewildered eyes, and the Judge clapped him on the shoulder briskly.

"Laurence, my boy, I knew you had it in you!" he cried.

"I'm not taking this case to distinguish myself," Carlin said angrily.

"No, no, of course not--that makes it all the better!" the Judge assured him, with the utmost cheerfulness.

But suddenly he became grave again and pondered.

"If the boys try anything it will be when they take him to the train," he reflected.

"I'm going home now to get a bite of dinner--then I'll be on hand if there's trouble. You coming, Judge?" Carlin took up his hat.

"I've got a letter to finish--then I'll be along. But, say, Laurence--"

The Judge stopped on the way to his desk.

"Mary--she won't like this."

Laurence was at the door, and turned a disturbed look on the Judge.

"No, she won't. She liked Mrs. Barclay."

"She won't like our defending him."

"I'll explain--there's a lot she doesn't know--I'll tell her and she'll understand." Carlin's tone had not much conviction.

"Well, perhaps," said the Judge dubiously.

II

In Carlin's household there were now two children. The family still lived at the Judge's house; he had resisted firmly their attempts to leave him. He had turned over the whole house to them, reserving only two rooms on the ground floor for himself, and by now he had established himself as a member of the family. There was no more thought of breaking up the arrangement.

Carlin reached the house a little before the dinner hour. He found his eldest son carefully penned up on the porch, exercising his fat legs by rushes from side to side of his enclosure. In a chair beside the pen sat Mary, with the new baby at her breast. In spite of his hurry and preoccupation, Carlin smiled with pleasure at the group, stopped to hold out a finger to the tottering golden-haired boy, bent to kiss Mary, looking tenderly at her and the small blonde head against her bosom. The baby was but three weeks old. Mary had still about her the soft freshness and radiance of new motherhood. She was pale, her tall figure had not yet regained its firm lines, but her beauty was at its best. She had borne her children easily and happily. The fuller oval of her face, her soft heavy-lidded eyes and the new tenderness of her mouth, expressed the quiet joy of fulfilment, satisfaction.

"I must hurry back--can I have a bite to eat now?" Carlin asked softly, touching the baby's tiny hand outspread on Mary's breast.

"Dinner's nearly ready--I'll see. He's asleep."

"He's always asleep, when he isn't eating, and sometimes then," commented Carlin, smiling.

"So he ought to be," said Mary calmly.

She rose with caution, and carried the baby indoors, the frills of her muslin robe billowing about her. Both parents smiled as a wail from the deserted first-born followed them. They had a robust attitude toward the young James, and he was used to solitary communing with himself in his pen, but didn't like it. Mary carried the baby into the Judge's bedroom and laid him on the bachelor's bed. The Judge liked to have his room used in this way; it delighted him to find articles of infant's attire, or toys belonging to young James, in his quarters. He often said that he was getting all the feeling of being a family man without any of the bother.

Mary went into the kitchen to hurry the stolid Swedish cook, and Carlin ran lightly upstairs. When Mary came up to arrange her hair and dress, a moment later, she found him loading his army revolver, which he persisted in keeping in his top bureau drawer among his neckties.

"What's that for?" she asked quickly.

Carlin looked at her with concern, wishing to break the matter gently to her, for it had been deeply impressed upon him that to disturb Mary was to disturb the baby also, and that any interference with her sacred function was a crime--sacrilege, in fact. He hesitated.

"I know--it's that Barclay!... But what are you going to do?"

"Why--there may be some trouble getting him out of town--"

"Yes, I heard about it. But why do you--"

"Well, I'm sworn in as a deputy to defend him, if--"

"Laurence!"

"Yes, defend him--he's going to have a fair trial, if I--and look here, Mary, I might as well tell you, the Judge and I are going to defend him at the trial."

Paler than before, she laid down her comb and gazed at him. He finished loading the revolver and slipped a box of cartridges into his pocket.

"Defend that man? I don't believe you mean it, Laurence, the Judge wouldn't."

"Yes, he would. You ask him.... I haven't time to tell you all about it now, Mary, I must eat and run. Come downstairs."

Not having succeeded in breaking it gently, Carlin took the opposite tack and spoke with curt military command. In silence Mary turned to the glass, fastened her dress and smoothed her hair carefully. In no circumstances would she be sloppy. She descended the stairs after Carlin, they sat down at the table in the dining-room, and the awkward Swedish girl brought in the dinner. Mary silently filled Carlin's plate. He began to speak, but just then the Judge arrived, winded from a rapid walk and looking worried. He greeted Mary rather apologetically, as he tucked his napkin under his beard.

"Laurence tell you?" he panted. "Now don't get mad, Mary--seems as if we'd have to do it. Explain to you later."

Mary lifted her chin haughtily as she gave the Judge his plate.

"I'm not 'mad'--but I certainly don't understand why you and Laurence want to defend a brute like that man. When I think of poor Sarah Barclay, working and slaving away, and those poor little children--I can't see how you can do it!"

She looked indignantly at her husband, who was eating in haste and left the Judge to reply.

"Now, Mary, you don't understand--don't know _his_ side of it--"

"_His_ side of it--a drunken worthless brute--Judge, I wonder at you, defending murder!"

"No, not murder--no, I don't defend murder, certainly not--"

"You've just said you would! The murder of a helpless woman, with little children depending on her!"

Mary's grey eyes blazed with anger, and the Judge, cowed, continued to splutter excuses with his mouth full.

"Now, Mary! I tell you I don't defend what he did! But he did have something on his side, she didn't treat him well--?"

"Treat him well! He came back, wouldn't work, took her money for drink, beat her--Judge, I'm ashamed of you, to make excuses for such a man!"

The Judge, not liking his post of whipping-boy, glanced reproachfully at the real culprit. Carlin pushed back his chair and lit a cigar.

"Don't abuse the Judge, I got him to do it," he said coolly. "And I did it because I was sorry for the man and because he hasn't a friend on earth, nobody to look to but me, and he isn't half so bad as you think. But you've made up your mind and you don't want to hear anything on the other side. You just want him punished."

"Of course I do!" she cried.

"Well, now, I can't understand why you good church-people are so hard on sinners. Your religion doesn't teach that."

Mary flushed slowly at the bitterness of this speech.

"It doesn't teach us to defend sin," she answered. "But I don't think you know what it does teach."

"Perhaps not. But I seem to remember something about there being more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just men--in _heaven_, of course, not on earth."

"_Repents_, yes--"

"Well, Barclay repents all right.... But the good people of this town don't want to give him any time to repent, you see. They're in a great hurry to send him, with all his imperfections on his head, to--well, I suppose they think he'd go straight to hell. That's why I've got to go right back."

He got up, went round to Mary and bent to kiss her.

"I'm sorry you don't like my doing this, but I've _got_ to do it," he said gently.

She did not respond, but sat looking straight before her. He started away, then came back.

"Mary--kiss me good-bye."

Something in his tone pierced through her frozen resentment. She met his look of anxious love, a sorrowful troubled look--the kiss was given. He hurried out.

The Judge hated to be disturbed at his meals, he was making a very bad dinner. He said pettishly:

"I've got to go right away too--I'll take some pie, please.... I wish people wouldn't get up a fuss at dinner-time."

Mary looked at him absently and handed him the bread.

"Pie, please!... Now, you see, Mary, I was against it at the start," the Judge explained rapidly, after getting what he wanted. "As you know, I've never taken criminal cases, and I didn't want Laurence to get the whole town down on him--for he _will_, you know, at the beginning.... But do you know why I changed my mind? You may believe I had a good reason--say, Mary, are you listening?"

"Well? You were saying you had a good reason."

"Well, sometimes it _pays_ to go against public feeling. It gets a man noticed, anyway. And if he believes enough in his side and can put it over on all the other fellows--why, then, you know, it's a real success.... And I found out today that Laurence can do it--that is, I _believe_ he can. Mary, that boy has lots of talent, lots of it.... Why, look here, he nearly made me cry today, talking about that Barclay,--and yet I believe the man's a low-down skunk, just as you do.... You just let Laurence get at a jury, with that feeling he's got, that sympathy, that simple way of appealing to their emotions--why, he might almost get the man off! Anyhow, he'll make a reputation, Mary, there isn't a doubt--"

"I don't _want_ him to make a reputation doing what's wrong!"

"Wrong? Why, Mary, it isn't wrong to defend a criminal! The law insists that he be defended, it's a sacred part of our legal system. They wouldn't think of hanging him unless he was properly defended. Somebody'll have to do it. And Laurence believes he's _right_ to do it--that's what makes him so strong. There's nothing like having right on your side--that is, I mean, believing you have it, of course--"

"Then Laurence thinks the man was right to murder his wife?" Mary said ironically.

"No, no, dash it all!--oh, well, you can't explain things to a woman," groaned the Judge. "Excuse me, Mary, I've got to get back--"

He took off his napkin, and rose, sighing.

"But I should think you'd be proud of Laurence," he added as he moved ponderously to the door. "To think he's willing to face public disapproval, take all sorts of risks, just to stand by that poor hunted beast--run into danger--"

"Danger?"

She was moved now. Her eyes, wide open, fixed the Judge piercingly. He promptly hedged.

"Oh, well, I don't mean actual danger, of course--life and limb.... I mean,--why, I mean his career, that's all. But he doesn't give a--doesn't think of that. I must run."

The Judge fled ignominiously.

Mary sat still. Her mind moved rapidly enough when her emotion was stirred. In a flash she had pieced together the Judge's words--his hurry and Laurence's--the revolver--Laurence's reference to the mob and his saying he had been sworn in to defend Barclay. She saw it now--certainly he was in danger, actual danger. She wondered she had been so stupid, not to see it before, not to feel it when he said good-bye.

The girl came in to clear the table, and Mary remembered that it was time for young James' nap. She went quickly out on the porch, picked him up and carried him upstairs. When he was tucked into his crib, she put on her bonnet and light shawl, and went down to look at the baby, who was sleeping. She did not like leaving the children, she always got her mother to stay with them if she went out, but now she would not stop for that. She sent a message to her mother by a passing neighbour, and hurried down the street toward the square.

* * * * *

Afterwards she remembered it shuddering, with the vividness of a bad dream that has startled one from sleep. The crowd in the square, in which she was caught at once, it seemed without the possibility of getting forward or getting out. Waves of motion passed through this crowd. She was pushed on, pushed back. Those near her seemed as helpless as herself. A group of men about her tried to protect her, but they too were swept on by the mass, sometimes a rush would almost carry them off their feet. The frills of her dress were torn, her shawl wrenched off her shoulders. In a sudden pressure that nearly crushed her she cried out sharply. Her defenders, fighting back savagely, made a united effort and beat their way across the sidewalk, up some steps, lifting her into the embrasure of a closed shop-door, and there they formed a line before her.

She leaned against the wall, panting and faint, and looked over their shoulders at the swaying crowd. All those faces--a vague blur, like the noise that came from that mass of men--something bewildered, indefinite, a formless suggestion of violence. It was a mob without leaders. The feeling was there, the vague intent, but without shape.

Above the groundswell of the crowd a voice was ringing out, deep and powerful. Across the square, on the courthouse steps, Hilary Robertson was speaking. Through the light veil of maple-branches, at the top of the long crowded flight of steps, she could see him. His voice reached her, not the words but the tones, sharp and hard, not pleading, rather menacing, commanding, flashing like a keen sword of wrath. Now he lifted his arm, with clenched fist, in an imperious gesture....

He stopped, turned and went into the building. There came a sudden shout from the crowd and a struggle began, an eddy like a whirlpool, about something advancing--a black closed vehicle, with horsemen surrounding it, visible over the heads of the people. It passed slowly along the side of the square. Cries, hisses greeted it, and a shower of stones. It passed so close that she could clearly see the faces of two men who stood on the step of the prison van, shielding its door with their bodies. Both had the same look of hard pale resolution. The narrow step gave them a bare foot-hold, they stood close together, holding to the door. One was Carlin, with his revolver in his hand, the other was Hilary Robertson, hatless, his forehead cut by a stone.

III

Carlin came back late that night, weary but triumphant, having seen his man safely lodged in the county jail. He was full of scorn for the futile malice of his fellow-citizens, and declared to Mary and the Judge, as he ate his supper, that he would get Barclay off, just to spite them. He was excited, his blue eyes gleamed with the elation of combat and success. He had identified himself completely now with the cause of his client. The odds against him roused all his energies, his fighting instinct as well as his instinct for protection. Carlin needed at the same time to hate and to love.

But he liked things in clear black and white, he wanted always a definite adversary whom he could hate with reason. He was profoundly impatient of certain feelings in himself which he could not explain nor justify. Some incidents of the day had irritated him deeply, stirring these feelings. Presently he broke out, addressing the Judge.

"I suppose you know that the preacher mixed himself up in it."

"Yes, yes, he certainly did. I will say for that fellow that he's always on hand when there's a scrap," replied the Judge easily. "Spoiled a good fighting man, I guess, when he took to preaching."

"Well, he ought to _stick_ to preaching, and not come poking his nose into what doesn't concern him!"

"Oh, I don't know, Laurence, I guess he did a good turn today. The way he lit into that crowd--he gave them hell. And he has influence round here, people respect him, they know he's no milk-sop. Of course maybe the talk didn't do so much, I don't know--but his coming along with you--"

Carlin cut the Judge short impatiently.

"_We_ didn't want him to go! But there he stuck--he would be in it.... And then he'd got in too and talked to Barclay. Got the poor fellow all mushed up, talking about his sin--as if he didn't feel enough like a sinner already!"

"Well, well, that's his business, you know," argued the Judge. "You can't blame him for that. And he showed he was willing to stand by Barclay. I guess he did about as much to protect him as the deputies did--"

"Oh, bosh!"

"Well, I think so. That crowd knew they'd have to hurt him to get at Barclay, and they didn't want to."

"I saw they cut his head open with a stone," observed Mary calmly. She was sitting beside the table, sewing.

"You saw?"

"I was down there in the square."

The two men stared at her incredulously. She went on, taking tiny neat stitches carefully in the baby's garment:

"I went down after you left. I was worried."

"Down there--in that crowd? Good Lord!"

The Judge looked horrified and guilty.

"Yes. My dress got torn and I lost my shawl. But some men helped me up into a doorway. I saw you go by."

She looked up reflectively at Carlin.

"You were crazy to do that!" he cried. "Why on earth--"

"Well, I was worried. I knew you wouldn't be taking that pistol for nothing."

Carlin gazed at her with softened eyes, with compunction, disturbed and pleased too.

"Why, you poor girl! I didn't think you'd worry. You always take everything so quietly. Why, Mary! You in that mob--!"

"I'm glad I went. The crowd was dreadful, but--I'm glad I saw you."

Her eyes lit up suddenly, glowed.

"You looked splendid!"

"Splendid?"

He laughed, stretched out his hand to hers, deeply pleased.

"I can't express it, but with all that howling crowd, and the stones, yes, you were splendid! Both of you."

Carlin withdrew his hand abruptly, and Mary serenely went on with her sewing.

* * * * *

She was well aware that Carlin disliked Hilary Robertson, but as she considered that his dislike was without reason, she ignored it as much as possible. Carlin's flings at "the preacher," she was accustomed to receive in silence. She considered that Hilary needed no defence, his life spoke for him, he was blameless. She put Carlin's sneers down to his unregenerate nature, his habit of scoffing at religion, which now seemed ingrained. Never would she have admitted the possibility that Carlin might be jealous. That would have been too degrading, it would have reflected upon her, and she was serenely conscious that her conduct and feelings were blameless also. She had tried to explain to him the nature of her admiration for Hilary, but he couldn't or wouldn't understand it. He had a wrong attitude toward it, and toward her church activities and charitable work. Most men, she thought, liked to have their wives religious, but Laurence would have preferred frivolity on her part. He was very fond of pleasure; he insisted on keeping wine in the house, and on taking her to Chicago for the evening on the rare occasions when she could get away. Mary felt that she yielded a good deal, perhaps more than she ought, to Laurence's light tendencies; but then, also, it was a wife's duty to yield, whenever she could consistently with higher duties. So she had a submissive attitude--except when some question of "right" came up.

In reality she ruled the house, and the Judge and Carlin, and the babies and the Swedish servant, with an iron hand. An exact order prevailed in the household, a definite routine for each day. Mary had her ideas about how a family should be managed, and she worked hard to carry them out, and made other people work too. She had a manner now of quiet authority. She did not scold, nor raise her voice when displeased; but visited the transgressor with an awful silence and with icy glances. Outside the house she seldom interfered with the doings of her husband or Judge Baxter. "Business" was the man's province, and she did not enquire, as a rule, into its details. And in her own province she did not expect to be interfered with.

The Judge and Carlin submitted meekly to her rules--refrained from smoking in certain rooms, were prompt at meals, careful about the sort of men they brought to the house, did not indulge in unseemly levity of conversation. The Judge had almost conquered a lifelong habit of profanity. He had a complete fealty to Mary, was touchingly pleased to be ruled by her. He was afraid of her, and often felt like a small boy in her presence. He despised her intellect, as he did that of all women. This contempt existed side by side in his mind with admiration and involuntary awe, and the conjunction never troubled him. He would have said that he admired women but didn't respect them. More difficult to overcome than swearing was his habit of cynical speech about the sex. It broke out now and then in Mary's presence, revealing his deep conviction that women (though angelic no doubt) were hardly human, but of a distinctly inferior species. Mary never troubled to defend her sex. She would merely look at the Judge with a calm, slightly ironical gaze, under which he sometimes blushed.

* * * * *

The next afternoon she went to visit Hilary, who was ill, Mrs. Lowell reported. There was no hesitation now about her entrance. She walked into the house, majestic in her sweeping grey dress, and the widow received her gladly. Confidential relations had long since been established between them on the subject of the minister.

"He's up and dressed, though the doctor ordered him to stay in bed," the widow complained in a subdued voice. "And he won't take his chicken broth, that I made specially--"

"Well, bring it in and I'll see that he takes it," said Mary.

She knocked at the study door. A peevish voice said, "Oh, come in!"

Hilary was lying on the hard sofa, with a rumpled afghan over him. His head was swathed in bandages, his cheeks flushed with fever.

"Oh, it's you," he murmured apologetically. "I thought it was that old woman again."

Mary, laying aside her shawl, proceeded to spread the afghan more smoothly over him and to shake up his pillows. Then she took his wrist, her finger on the pulse.

"Why don't you stay in bed?" she enquired. "You have fever."

"Nonsense, no fever. I got tired yesterday, that's all."

"I should think so. Was the cut on your head very bad?"

"The doctor sewed it up. It's all right."

He spoke gently, and lay back quietly on his pillows. Mary sat down beside the sofa and picked up a book that lay open on the floor.

"Greek--a nice time for you to be reading Greek!" she remarked.

Hilary smiled.

"How are you getting on with it?" he asked.

"Oh, I can pretty nearly write the alphabet," she smiled too. "I practise when I have time. And I'm going to teach it to James when he's old enough."

"They say John Stuart Mill could read Greek when he was three."

"Then I don't see why James shouldn't."

At this they both laughed. The widow now came in, with a sad look, bearing a steaming cup, which Mary took from her and presented to Hilary.

"Drink your broth--and after this you must drink it whenever Mrs. Lewis brings it."

Hilary raised himself with an effort on his pillows and began to sip the broth, making a wry face.

"Awful stuff," he protested.

"Indeed, it's the best chicken broth, if I did make it myself!" muttered the widow, retiring with an offended air.

"I'm afraid you're a trying invalid," said Mary, amused.

"Hate to be treated like an invalid, that's all.... But women always have to be coddling something," Hilary said ungraciously.

He finished the broth and lay back with a sigh of relief. Mary rose and began setting the room in order, restoring scattered books to their shelves, picking up articles of clothing and crumpled papers from the floor. Hilary's eyes followed her; he made no protest, even when she arranged the papers on his desk in neat piles.

"You know," said Mary suddenly, "Laurence and the Judge are going to defend that man--Barclay."

"Yes, I know it."

"Do you think it is right for a lawyer to defend a man he knows to be guilty?"

"There's something to be said even for the guilty," said Hilary after a moment.

"You mean he can be defended?"

Again he hesitated.

"As I understand it, they can't try to deny that he committed the murder, they can only plead extenuating circumstances."

"That means, try to justify it!... Do you believe in that?"

"I don't know all the circumstances.... But the law distinguishes--if it is done in the heat of passion, it may be called manslaughter--not murder."

"And what would he get for that?"

"A term of years, imprisonment."

"Well, I should think murder was murder, however it was done!... And as to circumstances, you know Mrs. Barclay was a good woman, a member of your church, you know what a hard time she had, especially after _he_ came home, and now her children are left worse than orphans--I don't see how you can say that 'circumstances' make any difference!"

She stood straight, her eyes flashing reproach at him.

"Why, Mary, do you want the man hanged?"

"Well, if anybody is hanged, _he_ ought to be! So long as we have laws to punish criminals--"

"You stand up for the woman always, Mary," said Hilary, smiling faintly.

"And you--you and Laurence--it seems to me very queer that you two should be standing up for that man! Yesterday--risking your life for him--now I think it's very strange."

"That wasn't so much for him," said Hilary slowly. "It was to prevent another murder, that's all--to keep them from doing what he'd done."

He shut his eyes wearily, and Mary softened.

"I oughtn't to talk to you about it now. You must be quiet. I'll go now, and you must promise me to go to bed and not get up till the fever's gone. Will you?"

"Yes. But stay a little longer."

She sat down again beside him, and he lay still with his eyes closed.

"Did you go to see the children today?" he asked after a pause.

"Yes, I stopped in. They were playing in the yard--they're so little, you know, they don't realize anything--except perhaps the girl. I wanted to take one of them, but Mrs. Peters said she thought they were better off together."

"Yes, I should think so.... We'll have to find homes for them, though, and it isn't likely they can be together long."

"I know. Mrs. Peters said she would keep one of them--and I could take one. I'm sure Laurence would think that right, as he is so much interested in--the father."

Mary's face and tone expressed a sudden repugnance. Hilary half-opened his eyes and looked at her.

"You hate sinners, don't you, Mary? You don't understand why people sin?"

"From weakness," she said.

"And you haven't much pity for weakness.... You don't understand how a man can make a beast of himself with drink, because he's unhappy."

"Do you?"

"Oh, yes, yes, I understand it," said Hilary with a tortured look. "I know what unhappiness and loneliness can do.... Sometimes I wish I didn't. How can I condemn sin when I understand the sinner so well?"

"You must, though," said Mary calmly.

She knew well this mood of his, by this time she knew his weakness. The relation between these two had changed. No longer did she with humility look up to Hilary as a saint. The change was not so much in him as in her. In the old days, before her marriage, Hilary had often accused himself to her as a weak and erring man, he had passionately resisted her attempts to canonize him. Since then he had talked to her more frankly but in the same way, she knew his yearning for perfection, and his despair of it; she knew too, though not by direct expression, his human longings and his loneliness. She no longer idealized him, she did not need to. But he was intensely interesting to her. He was only a man now, but still better than other men, stronger, with higher aims. She admired him. But they now stood more on an equality; her manner toward him had even a tinge of maternal authority. For she felt that all men, all that she knew, however gifted and interesting, were somewhat childish.

She herself had reached maturity. With the birth of her children she had come into her heritage of life. She was now so firmly planted on the earth, so deeply rooted, that it seemed nothing could shake her. The dreams of her girlhood, of life beyond life, passed by her now like the clouds on the wind. She was satisfied, assured.

Hilary's life, even, seemed to her dream-like, cloud-like, because it was so restless, so tormented. The need for incessant action and struggle that drove him, as it drove Laurence in a different direction, seemed to her sometimes absurd. Religion to her meant tranquillity, the calm certitude that one was on the right path, doing one's duty and refraining from wrong. Simple--and easy.

She stayed a little while longer with Hilary, but insisted that he should not talk. She knew that he liked to have her sitting beside him, immobile, her hands folded on her knee, not even looking at him. She knew now very well what her presence meant to him; their constant meeting in the work of the church; their talks, intimate in a sense, though she made no personal confessions to him and he never expressed his feeling for her in speech. She was quite satisfied with this relation, and sure that Hilary would never overstep the bounds of right and reason, even if tempted to do so. She herself had not the least temptation. All her pride lay in keeping things exactly as they were.

IV

That night she proposed to Laurence that they should adopt one of Barclay's children. Laurence did not like the idea at all; he looked discomfited, and so did the Judge. Both felt it would be the intrusion of a stranger into the domestic circle. Laurence had a good reason to give for his objection, and a sincere one--it would be too much for Mary, she had her hands full now, with the house and two small children. Mary said she could manage it, and that it was only right for her to do her part in helping the unfortunates. She looked so calmly resolved as she spoke that Laurence and the Judge exchanged alarmed glances. They did not oppose her directly, but devised a stratagem. Laurence pointed out to Mary next morning that after all they were living in the Judge's house, and the Judge didn't want a strange child there. So they couldn't very well adopt the child, but he, Laurence, would be responsible for its maintenance and care somewhere else.

"Very well," said Mary austerely. "But I think the Judge is very self-indulgent."

"So am I, then," confessed Laurence. "I don't want it either. But honestly, both of us think about you. I don't want you to undertake it, dearest--it's too much."

"If other people, not so well off as we are, can do it, I should think we could."

"It's a question of what we can do best. I'll gladly give the money, and I'm doing all I can for Barclay too, and so is the Judge."

"I know--for _him_. You're interested in him, but I think you'd do much better to help the children."

"Well, I _will_ help them, you'll see."

Laurence kept his word, and in fact charged himself with the future, as it turned out, of all three children. But Mary was for the moment dissatisfied. She wished to put into instant practice her theories of duty, and utterly scorned theory without practice.

Looking in that afternoon, as she had said she would, to see if Hilary had kept his promise and to report about the children, she mentioned the attitude of her husband and the Judge as explaining why she could not carry out her plan.

"I think men are very inconsistent," she said caustically. "They like to talk about what they'll do for other people, but when it really comes to _doing_ it--"

"A man's reach should exceed his grasp," quoted Hilary. "We always _see_ much more than we can do."

"I think it would be better, then, to see less and do more," remarked Mary.

Hilary looked very weak and pale. His fever was down, but he had kept his bed, unwillingly. Mary had brought him a pot of jelly and a few daffodils from her garden. He held the flowers in his hand, and looked with brooding tender pleasure at their brilliant colour. Mary asked questions about some church-business she was to do for him, and then, in the short remaining time of her visit, they talked about sin.

The conversation of the day before had remained in her mind and puzzled her. She questioned him sharply:

"What did you mean by saying that when you understood the sinner you couldn't condemn sin? Do you really feel that?"

"I often feel it," said Hilary in a low voice.

"Then it would be better for you _not_ to understand the sinner. You said so yourself, you said you wished you didn't."

"Well, I can't help it," Hilary smiled wanly. "Because, you see, I'm a sinner myself."

"Of course you're not. You only like to think you are."

"What is sin? You said it's weakness. Do you think I'm not weak, sometimes?"

"No, I don't think you are. You don't _act_ weakly, and that's the only thing that counts."

"Is it? Don't you think there are sinful thoughts and feelings?"

"Of course. But if we fight against them--"

"Well, don't you think that a man who carries a sinful feeling around with him, even if he doesn't act on it, knows what a sinner is--and do you think he can be very hard on another man who just happens to act?"

Mary cast an angry glance at the pale face turned toward her. There was a look about Hilary's mouth, as though he were repressing a smile. He had a look of mischief, not merry either, but as though deliberately trying to puzzle and disturb her--and she had seen this in him before.

She arose from her chair, and gathered her shawl about her, lifting her chin, stately in her displeasure. Her grey eyes looked down with cold reproof.

"I think instead of talking that way, you'd much better go to sleep."

"Well, good-bye, then," said Hilary.