Part 50 (1/2)

Joe's lips parted, and his voice came out of them, strained and shaken, and hoa.r.s.e, like the voice of an old and h.o.a.ry man.

”Judge Maxwell, your honor----”

”No, no! Don't tell it, Joe!”

The words sounded like a warning call to one about to leap to destruction. They broke the tenseness of that moment like the noise of a shot. It was a woman's voice, rich and full in the cadence of youth; eager, quick, and strong.

Mrs. Newbolt turned sharply, her face suddenly clouded, as if to administer a rebuke; the prosecutor wheeled about and peered into the room with a scowl. Judge Maxwell rapped commandingly, a frown on his face.

And Joe Newbolt drew a long, free breath, while relief moved over his troubled face like a waking wind at dawn. He leaned back in his chair, taking another long breath, as if life had just been granted him at a moment when hope seemed gone.

The effect of that sudden warning had been stunning. For a few seconds the princ.i.p.als in the dramatic picture held their poses, as if standing for the camera. And then the lowering tempest in Judge Maxwell's face broke.

”Mr. Sheriff, find out who that was and bring him or her forward!” he commanded.

There was no need for the sheriff to search on Joe's behalf. Quick as a bolt his eyes had found her, and doubt was consumed in the glance which pa.s.sed between them. Now he knew all that he had struggled to know of everything. First of all, there stood the justification of his long endurance. He had been right. She had understood, and her opinion was valid against the world.

Even as the judge was speaking, Alice Price rose.

”It was I, sir,” she confessed, no shame in her manner, no contrition in her voice.

But the ladies in the court-room were shocked for her, as ladies the world over are shocked when one of their sisters does an unaccountably human thing. They made their feelings public by scandalized aspirations, suppressed _oh-h-hs_, and deprecative shakings of the heads.

The male portion of the audience was moved in another direction. Their faces were blank with stunned surprise, with little gleams of admiration moving a forest of whiskers here and there whose owners did not know who the speaker was.

But to everybody who knew Alice Price the thing was unaccountable. It was worse than interrupting the preacher in the middle of a prayer, and the last thing that Alice Price, with all her breeding, blood and education would have been expected to do. That was what came of leveling oneself to the plane of common people and ”pore” folks, and visiting them in jail, they said to one another through their wide-stretched eyes.

Alice went forward and stood before the railing. The prosecuting attorney drew out a chair and offered it to Mrs. Newbolt, who sat, staring at Alice with no man knew what in her heart. Her face was a strange index of disappointment, surprise, and vexation. She said nothing, and Hammer, glowing with the dawning of hope of something that he could not well define, squared around and gave Alice a large, fat smile.

Judge Maxwell regarded her with more surprise than severity, it appeared. He adjusted his gla.s.ses, bowed his neck to look over them, frowned, and cleared his throat. And poor old Colonel Price, overwhelmed entirely by this untoward breach of his daughter's, stood beside Captain Taylor shaking his old white head as if he was undone forever.

”I am surprised at this demonstration, Miss Price,” said the judge.

”Coming from one of your standing in this community, it is doubly shocking, for your position in society should be, of itself, a guarantee of your loyalty to the established organization of order. It should be your endeavor to uphold rather than defeat, the ends of justice.

”The defendant at the bar has the benefit of counsel, who is competent, we believe, to advise him. Your admonition was altogether out of place.

I am pained and humiliated for you, Miss Price.

”This breach is one which could not, ordinarily, be pa.s.sed over simply with a reprimand. But, allowing for the impetuosity of youth, and the emotion of the moment, the court will excuse you with this. Similar outbreaks must be guarded against, and any further demonstration will be dealt with severely. Gentlemen, proceed with the case.”

Alice stood through the judge's lecture unflinchingly. Her face was pale, for she realized the enormity of her transgression, but there was neither fear nor regret in her heart. She met the judge's eyes with honest courage, and bowed her head in acknowledgment of his leniency when he dismissed her.

From her seat she smiled, faintly above the tremor of her breast, to Joe. She was not ashamed of what she had done, she had no defense to make for her words. Love is its own justification, it wants no advocate to plead for it before the bar of established usage. Its statutes have needed no revision since the beginning, they will stand unchanged until the end.

The prosecuting attorney had seen his castle fall, demolished and beyond hope of repair, before a charge from the soft lips of a simple girl.

Long and hard as he had labored to build it up, and encompa.s.s Joe within it, it was in ruins now, and he had no heart to set his hand to the task of raising it again that day. He asked for an adjournment to morning, which the weary judge granted readily.

People moved out of the room with less haste and noise than usual, for the wonder, and the puzzle, of what they had heard and seen was over them.

What was the aim of that girl in shutting that big, gangling, raw-boned boy's mouth just when he was opening it to speak, and to speak the very words which they had sat there patiently for days to hear? What was he to Alice Price, and what did she know of the secret which he had been keeping shut behind his stubborn lips all that time? That was what they wanted to know, and that was what troubled them because they could not make it out at all.