Part 54 (2/2)

”I'll tell everything--if you'll let me--now,” said she, rising to her feet.

She was white and cold, but steady, and sternly resolute. The prosecutor had not expected that; his challenge had been only a spectacular play for effect. Her offer to speak left him mentally groping behind himself for a support. It would have been different if he had been certain of what she desired to say. As she stood before him there, bloodless, and in such calm of outward aspect that it was almost hysterical, he did not know whether she was friend or foe.

Joe had not expected it; the hundreds of spectators had not looked for that, and Hammer was as much surprised as a ponderous, barber-minded man could be. Yet he was the first, of all of them there, to get his wits in hand. The prosecutor had challenged her, and, he argued, what she had to say must be in justification of both herself and Joe. He stood up quickly, and demanded that Ollie Chase be put under oath and brought to the witness-stand.

Ollie's mother had hold of her hand, looking up into her face in great consternation, begging her to sit down and keep still. In general, people were standing, and Uncle Posen Spratt was worming the big end of his steer-horn trumpet between shoulders of men and headgear of women to hear what he could not see.

Judge Maxwell commanded order. The prosecuting attorney began to protest against the fulfilment of the very thing that, with so much feeling and earnestness, he had demanded but a minute before.

”Considering this late hour in the proceedings, your honor----” he began.

Judge Maxwell silenced him with a stern and reproving look.

”It is never too late for justice, Mr. Prosecutor,” said he. ”Let that woman come forward and be sworn.”

Hammer went eagerly to the a.s.sistance of Ollie, opening the little gate in the railing for her officiously, putting his palm under her elbow in his sustaining fas.h.i.+on. The clerk administered the oath; Ollie dropped her hand wearily at her side.

”I lied the other day,” said she, as one surrendering at the end of a hopeless defense, ”and I'm tired of hiding the truth any more.”

Joe Newbolt was moved by a strange feeling of mingled thankfulness and regret. Tears had started to his eyes, and were coursing down his face, unheeded and unchecked. The torture of the past days and weeks, the challenge of his honor, the doubt of his sincerity; the rough a.s.saults of the prosecuting attorney, the palpable unfriendliness of the people--none of these things ever had drawn from him a tear. But this simple act of justice on the part of Ollie Chase moved the deep waters of his soul.

His mother had taken his hand between her rough palms, and was chafing it, as if to call back its warmth and life. She was not looking at her son, for her faith had not departed from him for one moment, and would not have diminished if they had condemned him under the accusation. Her eyes were on Ollie's face, her lips were murmuring beneath her breath:

”Thank the Lord for His justice and mercy! Thank the Lord, thank the Lord!”

Ollie had settled in the witness-chair again, in the midst of her wide-skirted mourning habit, as on that other day. Joe Newbolt prayed in his heart for the mitigation of public censure, and for strength to sustain her in her hour of sacrifice.

That Ollie had come forward to save him--unasked, unexpected--was like the comfort of a cloak against the wintry wind. The public believed that she was going to ”own up” to it now, and to clinch the case against Joe.

Some of them began to make mental calculations on the capacity of the jail yard, and to lay plans for securing pa.s.ses to the hanging.

Hammer stepped forward to question the witness, and the prosecuting attorney sat down, alert and ready to interpose in case things should start the wrong way. He had lost sight of justice completely, after the fixed habit of his kind, in his eagerness to advance his own prospects by securing the conviction of the accused.

Ollie sat facing Judge Maxwell, who had turned in his swivel-chair; moved out of his bearing of studious concentration, which was his usual characteristic on the bench.

”Now, Mrs. Chase, tell your story in your own way, and take your own time for it,” said Hammer, kindly patronizing.

”I don't want Joe to suffer for me,” she said, letting her sad eyes rest on him for a moment. ”What he kept back wasn't for his own sake. It was for mine.”

”Yes; go on, Mrs. Chase,” said Hammer as she hesitated there.

”Joe didn't shoot Isom. That happened just the way he's said. I know all about it, for I was there. Joe didn't know anything about that money.

I'll tell you about that, too.”

”Now, your honor,” began the prosecutor complainingly, ”it seems to me that the time and place for evidence of this nature has gone by. This witness has testified already, and to an entirely different set of facts. I don't know what influences have been at work to induce her to frame up a new story, but----”

”Your zeal is commendable, Mr. Prosecutor,” said the judge, ”but it must not be allowed to obscure the human rights at hazard in this case. Let the witness proceed.”

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