Part 6 (2/2)

”But in this State?” persisted the other, almost without a movement of the lips.

”They send them to the electric chair--sometimes,” said Mrs.

Wrandall.

There was a long silence between them, broken finally by the girl.

”You have been very kind to me, madam. I have no means of expressing my grat.i.tude. I can only say that I shall bless you to my dying hour. May I trouble you to set me down at the bridge? I remember crossing one. I shall be able to--”

”No!” cried Mrs. Wrandall shrilly, divining the other's intention at once. ”You shall not do that. I too thought of that as a way out of it for you, but--no, it must not be that. Give me a few minutes to think. I will find a way.”

The girl turned toward her. Her eyes were burning.

”Do you mean that you will help me to get away?” she cried, slowly, incredulously.

”Let me think!”

”You will lay yourself liable--”

”Let me think, I say.”

”But I mean to surrender myself to--”

”An hour ago you meant to do it, but what were you thinking of ten minutes ago? Not surrender. You were thinking of the bridge. Listen to me now: I am sure that I can save you. I do not know all the--all the circ.u.mstances connected with your a.s.sociation with--with that man back there at the inn. Twenty-four hours pa.s.sed before they were able to identify him. It is not unlikely that to-morrow may put them in possession of the name of the woman who went with him to that place. They do not know it to-night, of that I am positive.

You covered your trail too well. But you must have been seen with him during the day or the night--”

The other broke in eagerly: ”I don't believe any one knows that I--that I went out there with him. He arranged it very--carefully.

Oh, what a beast he was!” The bitterness of that wail caused the woman beside her to cry out as if hurt by a sharp, almost unbearable pain. For an instant she seemed about to lose control of herself.

The car swerved and came dangerously near to leaving the road.

A full minute pa.s.sed before she could trust herself to speak. Then it was with a deep hoa.r.s.eness in her voice.

”You can tell me about it later on, not now. I don't want to hear it. Tell me, where do you live?”

The girl's manner changed so absolutely that there could be but one inference: she was acutely suspicious. Her lips tightened and her figure seemed to stiffen in in the seat.

”Where do you live?” repeated the other sharply.

”Why should I tell you that? I do not know you. You--”

”You are afraid of me?”

”Oh, I don't know what to say, or what to do,” came from the lips of the hunted one. ”I have no friends, no one to turn to, no one to help me. You--you can't be so heartless as to lead me on and then give me up to--G.o.d help me, I--I should not be made to suffer for what I have done. If you only knew the circ.u.mstances. If you only knew--”

”Stop!” cried the other, in agony.

The girl was bewildered. ”You are so strange. I don't understand--”

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