Part 28 (1/2)

”I don't know, but all that can be done now for him you can do. I've nowhere else to go. It wasn't easy for me to come here, but I'd make any sacrifice for my boy.”

”Sacrifices are at a discount in a lawyer's office. I don't ask you to reconsider your decision, as to me--as to me as your husband. But speaking of sacrifices, I only point out to you that so far as I'm concerned as a lawyer in this town, I might as well be your husband or your lover as your lawyer of record in this case! Since the trial yesterday, and my walk home with you last night, there'll be plenty who'll think so anyway. I may be held as a man worse than I ever was--and neither of us gain by that.”

”That may be so,” said she, bending her face forward in her hands. ”G.o.d!

What a trial, what a risk, what a peril I am to myself and everyone I meet! I've brought loss, suspicion, wrong on you--you who're n.o.ble! And after twenty years----”

”Yes, Aurora. Twenty years outlaws a claim in the law--for men--but not for women. Now, I take on those twenty years of yours when I take on this case. I'm clear about that. I can see this thing straight enough.

This town will go into two camps. Ours is the hopeless one, as things stand now. We are the under dog. If I took this case--maybe even if I won it--I'd be hated by the men and snubbed by the women of this town.

Now, I see all that clearly. And speaking of pay----”

”Oh, if you would,” she exclaimed, leaning toward him, her hands extended, ”I'd do anything you asked me. Do you understand that--_anything_!”

She paused. In the silence the little clock on the mantel ticked so loud it seemed almost to burst the walls. He sat for a long time motionless, and she went on, leaning yet more toward him.

”I've thought it all over again,” she said desperately. ”I'd--I'd begin it again--I'd do anything--I'd do _anything_ you asked me----Why, I've nothing--nothing--oh, so little to give! But--as to what you said last night--I've thought of that. I'm ready--what is it that you wish?”

He looked at her dumbly for a long time, and she thought it was in condemnation. For almost the first time she voiced in her life--continually on the defensive.

”I don't understand it all,” said she. ”I've tried very hard since then.

I was so young. I didn't know much at first--I didn't feel that it was all so wrong--I didn't know much of anything at all, don't you see?”

Now he raised his great hand, his lips trembling. ”Just wait a bit, my dear,” said he. ”We'll take what you've said as proof of your love for your own son. We'll let it stop right there, please. We'll forget what happened last night at your broken gate--we'll forget what's happened just now inside my broken gate. I told you if I ever married you I'd do it on such a basis that I could look you in the face, and you could me.

That's the only way, Aurora. There's not any other way. I reckon I'll always love you--but only on the square.”

”But what can we do--you refuse to help us--and the boy's innocent!”

”Wait, my dear,” said he slowly. ”I've not a woman's wit, so I can't leap on quite so fast as you do. A lawyer reads word by word. I'm still in the preliminaries, not even into the argument of this case yet.”

”But you have refused--you have said it meant ruin to you--I know--I mean that to everyone.”

”You've meant a great deal more than that to me, my dear,” said Horace Brooks, ”and no matter what you mean--no matter what my decision may do to my future--no matter what it may cost me in my larger ambitions, which I entertain, or once did, the same as any other man here in America--why, let it go.”

”But what are you going to do? I'm costing you everything, everything--and I can give you nothing, nothing--and I'm asking still of you everything, everything.”

”Tut, tut! Aurora,” said Horace Brooks, ”I'm going to take this case--for better or for worse! Didn't I tell you I wanted to stand between you and trouble--any trouble? A man likes to do things for a woman--for the woman he loves.”

She sat for a long time, white, motionless, looking at him.

”The pay----” she began stumblingly.

”I'd rather not hear you say anything about that,” he replied simply.

”You did not say anything at all. This is the _office_ of Horace Brooks, attorney at law. As I understand it, I'm duly retained for the defense in the case of the state against Dieudonne Lane, charged with murder.”

The blood came pouring back into Aurora Lane's face as she straightened.

”You are a good man,” said she. ”I always knew it. I----”