Chapter THIRTEEN: Light in Darkness

The expression on General Herbert's face was one of mingled doubt and impatience.

"You must be mistaken, Thompson!" he was saying to his foreman, who had, with the coming of night, returned from an errand in town.

"General, there's no mistake; every one was talking about it! Looks like the police had something to go on, too--"

He hesitated, suddenly remembering that John North had been a frequent guest at Idle Hour.

"I had heard that Mr. North was wanted as a witness," observed the general.

"No, they say Moxlow had his eye on him from the start!" rejoined the foreman with repressed enthusiasm for Moxlow.

The general sensed the enthusiasm and was affected unpleasantly by it.

"It would be a great pity if Mr. Moxlow should be so unfortunate as to make a fool of himself!" he commented with unusual acidity. "What else did you hear?"

"Not much, General, only just what I've told you--that they've arrested North, and that young Watt Harbison's been trying to get him out on bail, but they've refused to accept bond in his case. Don't that look like they thought the evidence was pretty strong against him--"

"Well, they, might have arrested you or me," said the general. "That signifies nothing."

He moved off in the direction of the house, and Thompson, after a backward glance at his retreating figure, entered the barn. Out of sight of his foreman, the general's sturdy pace lagged. That young man had been at Idle Hour entirely too often; he had thought so all along, and now he was very sure of it!

"This comes of being too kind," he muttered.

Then he paused suddenly--but no, that was absurd--utterly absurd; Elizabeth would have told him! He was certain of this, for had she not told him all her secrets? But suppose--suppose--and again he put the idea from him.

He found Elizabeth in the small, daintily furnished sitting-room which Mrs. Herbert had called her "boudoir", and seated himself, none too gently, in a fragile gilt chair which his bulk of bone and muscle threatened to wreck. Elizabeth glanced up from _Their Wedding Journey_, which she was reading for the second time.

"What is it, father?" she asked, for his feeling of doubt and annoyance was plainly shown in his expressive face.

"Thompson has just come out from town--he says that John North has been arrested for the McBride murder--"

The book slipped from Elizabeth's hand and fell to the floor; the smile with which she had welcomed her father faded from her lips; she gazed at him with pale face and wide eyes. The general instantly regretted that he had spoken with such cruel abruptness.

"You don't think it is true?" she asked in a whisper.

"Thompson seemed to know what he was talking about."

"It's monstrous!" she cried.

"If North is innocent--" began the general.

"Father!" She regarded him with a look of horror and astonishment. "You don't like him! It's that, isn't it?" she added after a moment's silence.

"I don't like any one who gets into a scrape such as this!" replied the general with miserable and unnecessary heat.

"But it wasn't _his_ fault--he couldn't help it!"

"I don't suppose he could," replied her father grimly.

She rose and came close to his side.

"Father!" she said in a tone of entreaty, placing a hand on his arm.

"What is it, dear?"

There was both tenderness and concern in his keen gray eyes as he glanced up into her troubled face.

"I want you to go to him--to Mr. North, I mean. I want you to tell him how sorry you are; I want him to know--I--" she paused uncertainly.

Perhaps for the first time in her life she was not quite sure of her father's sympathy. She dreaded his man's judgment in this crisis.

"Now seriously, Elizabeth, don't you think I'd better keep away from him? I can do nothing--"

"Oh, how cowardly that would be!" she cried. "How cowardly!"

The old general winced at this. He was far from being a coward, but appearances had their value in his eyes; and even, in its least serious aspect, young North's predicament was not pleasant to contemplate.

"But there is nothing I can do, Elizabeth; why should I become involved?" he urged.

"Then you must go to him from me!" she cried.

"Child--child; what are you saying!" cried the general.

"Either you must go to him, or I shall go!" she said with fine firmness.

Her father groaned.

"Be frank with me, Elizabeth. Has North ever told you that he cared for you?"

"Yes."

"When?"

"Before he went away--I mean that last night he was here."

"I feared as much!" he muttered. "And you, dear?" he continued gently.

"He said we might have to wait a long time--or I should have told you! He went away because he was too poor--"

There was a pause.

"Do you care for him, Elizabeth?" her father asked at length. "Do you wish me to understand that you are committed--are--"

"Yes," she answered quite simply.

"You are sure it is not just pity--you are sure, Elizabeth? For you know, right or wrong, he will probably come out of this with his reputation smirched."

"But he is _innocent_!"

"That is not quite the point!" urged the general. "We must see things as they are. You must understand what it may mean to you in the future, to have given your love to a man who has fallen under such suspicion. There will always be those who will remember this against him."

"But _I_ shall know!" she said proudly.

"And that will be enough--you will ask no more than that, Elizabeth?"

"If my faith in him has never been shaken, could I ask more?"

He looked at her wistfully. Her courage he comprehended. It was fine and true, like her sweet unspoiled youth; in its presence he felt a sudden sense of age and loneliness. He asked himself, had he lived beyond his own period of generous enthusiasm?

"It would be a poor kind of friendship, a poorer kind of love, if we did not let him know at once that this has not changed our--our, regard for him!" she said softly.

"It is not your ready sympathy; you are quite certain it is not that, Elizabeth?"

"I am sure, father--sure of myself as I am of him! You say he has been arrested, does that mean--" and she hesitated.

"It means, my dear, that he is in jail," answered the general as he came slowly to his feet.

She gave a little cry, and running to him hid her face against his arm.

"In jail!" she moaned, and her imagination and her ignorance clothed the thought with indescribable horrors.

"Understand, dear, he isn't even indicted yet and he may not be! It's bad enough, of course, but it might be a great deal worse. Now what am I to tell him for you?"

"Wait," she said, slipping from his side. "I will write him--"

"Write your letter then," said her father. "I'll order the horses at once," he added, as he quitted the room.

Ten minutes later when he drove up from the stables, Elizabeth met him at the door.

"After you have seen him, father, come home at once, won't you?" she said as she handed him her letter.

"Yes, I am only going for this," he replied.

It was plain that his errand had not grown less distasteful to him. Perhaps Elizabeth was aware of this, for she reached up and passed an arm about his neck.

"I don't believe any girl ever had such a father!" she whispered softly.

"I suppose I should not be susceptible to such manifest flattery," said the general, kissing her, "but I find I am! There, you keep up your courage! This old father of yours is a person of such excellent sense that he is going to aid and abet you in this most outrageous folly; I expect, even, that in time, my interest in this very foolish young man will be only second to your own, my dear!"

As he drove away he turned in his seat to glance back at the graceful girlish figure standing in the shelter of Idle Hour's stone arched vestibule, and as he did so there was a flutter of something white, which assured him that her keen eyes were following him and would follow him until the distance and the closing darkness intervened, and hid him from her sight.

"I hope it will come out all right!" he told himself and sighed.

If it did _not_ come out all right, where was his peace of mind; where was the calm, where the long reposeful days he had so valued? But this thought he put from him as unworthy. After all Elizabeth's happiness was something he desired infinitely more than he desired his own. But why could it not have been some one else? Why was it North; what unkind fate had been busy there?

"She sees more in him than I could ever see!" he said aloud, as he touched his horse with the whip.

Twenty minutes later he drove up before the court-house, hitched and blanketed his horse, and passing around the building, now dark and deserted, reached the entrance to the jail. In the office he found Conklin at his desk. The sheriff was rather laboriously engaged in making the entry in his ledger of North's committal to his charge, a formality which, out of consideration for his prisoner's feelings, he had dispensed with at the time of the arrest.

"I wish to see Mr. North. I suppose I may?" his visitor said, after he had shaken hands with Conklin.

"Certainly, General! Want to go up, or shall I bring him down here to you?"

"I'd prefer that--I'd much prefer that!" answered the general hastily.

He felt that it would be something to tell Elizabeth that the interview had taken place in the sheriff's office.

"All right, just as you say; have a chair." And Conklin left the room.

The general glanced about him dubiously. Had it not been for his deep love for Elizabeth he could have wished himself anywhere else and charged with any other mission. He dropped heavily into a chair. North's arrest, and the results of that arrest as he now saw them in that cheerless atmosphere, loomed large before his mind's eye. He reflected that a trial for murder was a horrible and soul-racking experience. He devoutly and prayerfully hoped that it would not come to this in North's case.

His meditation was broken in on by the sound of echoing steps in the brick-paved passageway, and then North and Conklin entered the room. On their entrance the general quitted his chair and advanced to meet the young fellow, whose hand he took in silence. The sheriff glanced from one to the other; and understanding that there might be something intimate and personal in their relation, he said:

"I'll just step back into the building, General; when you and Mr. North have finished your talk, you can call me."

"Thank you!" said General Herbert, and Conklin withdrew, leaving the two alone.

There was an awkward pause as they faced each other. The older man was the first to speak.

"I regret this!" he said at length.

"Not more than I do!" rejoined North, with a fleeting sense of humor.

He wondered what it was that had brought Elizabeth's father there.

"What's the matter with Moxlow, anyhow?" the general demanded.

He glanced sharply into North's face. He saw that the young fellow was rather pale, but otherwise his appearance was unchanged.

"All the evidence seems to point my way," said North, and added a trifle nervously: "I don't understand it--it isn't clear to me by any means! It came so suddenly, and I was totally unprepared to meet the situation. I had talked to Moxlow in the morning, but he had let drop nothing that led me to suppose I was under suspicion. Of course I am not afraid. I know that it will come out all right in the end--"

"Do you want anything, North? Is there anything I can do for you?" asked General Herbert almost roughly.

"Thank you, but apparently there is nothing that any one can do just now," said North quietly.

The color was creeping back into his face.

"Well, we can't sit idle! Look here, you tried for bail, I understand?"

"Yes, but it has been refused."

"Do you know when the grand jury sits?"

"Next week. Of course my hope is that it won't go beyond that; I don't see how it can!"

"Why didn't you send for me at once?" asked the older man with increasing bruskness. He took a turn about the room. "What does it all mean? What do you know about McBride's death?" he continued, halting suddenly.

"Absolutely nothing," said North.

And for an instant the two men looked straight into each other's eyes.

"You are sure you don't need anything--money, for instance?" the general asked, shifting his glance.

"I am quite sure, but I am very grateful to you all the same--"

"Of course the evidence against you is purely circumstantial?"

"I believe so--yes," answered North. "But there are points I don't understand."

"I am coming in to-morrow morning to see you, and talk the whole thing over with you, North."

"I shall be very glad to talk matters over with you, General," said North.

"I wish I could do something for you to-night!" the general said with real feeling, for he realized the long evening, and the longer night that were before the young fellow.

There was a pause. The general could not bring himself to speak of Elizabeth, and North lacked the courage to ask concerning her.

"I heard through one of my men of your arrest. He brought word of it to the farm," the farmer said at length.

"Miss Herbert knows--of course you told her--"

"Yes, North; yes, she knows!" her father replied. "She knows and she urged me to come!"

He saw North's face light up with a sudden look of joy.

"She urged you to come?" repeated North.

"Yes--I think she would have come herself if I had not been willing."

"I am glad she did not!" said North quickly.

"Of course! I told her it would only distress you."

"It would only distress her--which is all that is worth considering," rejoined North.

"That's so!" said the general, approaching the young man and resting a brown and muscular hand on his shoulder.

"She has told you?" asked North.

The older man nodded.

"Yes, she's told me," he said briefly.

"I can't ask if it was pleasant news at this time," said North. "What do you wish me to do?" he continued. "She must forget what was said that night, and I, too, will endeavor to forget--tell her that." He passed a shaking hand before his face.

"I've a note here for you, North--" General Herbert was fumbling in his pocket--"from Elizabeth. Don't you be too quick to decide!"

"With your permission," said North as he took the letter.

He tore it open, and Elizabeth's father, watching him, saw the expression of his face change utterly, as the lines of tense repression faded from it. It was clear that for the moment all else was lost in his feeling of great and compelling happiness. Twice he read the letter before he could bring himself to replace it in its envelope. As he did so, he caught the general's eyes fixed on him. For a moment he hesitated, then he said with the frankness that was habitual to him:

"I think you should know just what that letter means to me. It is brave and steadfast--just as she is; no, you were right, I can't decide--I won't!"

"I wouldn't," said the general. There was a pause and then he added, "After all, it is not given to every woman to show just how deep her faith is in the man she loves. It would be too bad if you could not know that!"

"The situation may become intolerable, General Herbert! Suppose I am held for the murder--suppose a long trial follows; think what she will suffer, the uncertainty, the awful doubt of the outcome, although she knows,--she must know I am innocent."

"Of course, of course!" cried the general hastily, for these were points he did not wish to discuss.

"It's a serious matter when you consider the possibility of an indictment," said North soberly enough.

"That's true; yet we mustn't count the cost now, or at any future time. But I promised Elizabeth I'd come back at once. What shall I say to her, North?"

"Tell her that her letter has changed the whole aspect of things for me. You must try to make her feel the fresh hope she has given me," John replied, extending his hand.

"Conklin!" called the general. He took North's hand. "Good night; I'm infinitely sorry to leave you here, North, but I suppose it can't be helped--"

The sheriff entered the room while he was yet speaking.

"Finished your chat, General?" he asked.

"Yes, thank you, Conklin. Good night. Good night, North," and Elizabeth's father hurried from the room.

For a moment North stood silent, staring absently at the door that had just closed on the general's burly figure. He still held Elizabeth's letter in his hand. In fancy he was seeing her as she had bent above it, her face tender, compassionate; and then there rose the vision of that crowded room with its palpable atmosphere, its score of curious faces all turned toward him in eager expectation. In the midst of these unworthy surroundings, her face, beautiful and high bred, eluded him; the likeness, even as he saw it, was lost, nor could he call it back.

Slowly but certainly that day's experience was fixing itself unalterably in his memory. He caught the pungent reek from the wood-stove, and mingling with it the odor of strong cheap tobacco filled his nostrils again; he was left with the very dregs of sordid shameful things.

The sheriff touched him on the arm.