“What did you see, Miss Dare?”
“I saw her dining-room door standing ajar and a man leaping headlong over the fence toward the bog.”
The District Attorney started, looked at her with growing interest, and inquired:
“Did you recognize this man, Miss Dare?”
She nodded in great agitation.
“Who was he?”
“Craik Mansell.”
“Miss Dare,” ventured Mr. Ferris, after a moment, “you say this was five minutes to twelve?”
“Yes, sir,” was the faint reply.
“Five minutes later than the time designated by the defence as a period manifestly too late for the prisoner to have left Mrs. Clemmens’ house and arrived at the Quarry Station at twenty minutes past one?”
“Yes,” she repeated, below her breath.
The District Attorney surveyed her earnestly, perceiving she had not only spoken the truth, but realized all which that truth implied, and drew back a few steps muttering ironically to himself:
“Ah, Orcutt! Orcutt!”
Breathlessly she watched him, breathlessly she followed him step by step like some white and haunting spirit.
“You believe, then, this fact will cost him his life?” came from her lips at last.
“Don’t ask me that, Miss Dare. You and I have no concern with the consequences of this evidence.”
“No concern?” she repeated, wildly. “You and I no concern? Ah!” she went on, with heart-piercing sarcasm, “I forgot that the sentiments of the heart have no place in judicial investigation. A criminal is but lawful prey, and it is every good citizen’s duty to push him to his doom. No matter if one is bound to that criminal by the dearest ties which can unite two hearts; no matter if the trust he has bestowed upon you has been absolute and unquestioning, the law does not busy itself with that. The law says if you have a word at your command which can destroy this man, give utterance to it; and the law must be obeyed.”
“But, Miss Dare—” the District Attorney hastily intervened, startled by the feverish gleam of her hitherto calm eye.
But she was not to be stopped, now that her misery had at last found words.
“You do not understand my position, perhaps,” she continued. “You do not see that it has been my hand, and mine only, which, from the first, has slowly, remorselessly pushed this man back from the point of safety, till now, now, I am called upon to drag from his hand the one poor bending twig to which he clings, and upon which he relies to support him above the terrible gulf that yawns at his feet. You do not see—”
“Pardon me,” interposed Mr. Ferris again, anxious, if possible, to restore her to herself. “I see enough to pity you profoundly. But you must allow me to remark that your hand is not the only one which has been instrumental in hurrying this young man to his doom. The detectives—”
“Sir,” she interrupted in her turn, “can you, dare you say, that without my testimony he would have stood at any time in a really critical position?—or that he would stand in jeopardy of his life even now, if it were not for this fact I have to tell?”
Mr. Ferris was silent.
“Oh, I knew it, I knew it!” she cried. “There will be no doubt concerning whose testimony it was that convicted him, if he is sentenced by the court for this crime. Ah, ah, what an enviable position is mine! What an honorable deed I am called upon to perform! To tell the truth at the expense of the life most dear to you. It is a Roman virtue! I shall be held up as a model to my sex. All the world must shower plaudits upon the woman who, sooner than rob justice of its due, delivered her own lover over to the hangman.”
Pausing in her passionate burst, she turned her hot, dry eyes in a sort of desperation upon his face.
“Do you know,” she gurgled in his ear, “some women would kill themselves before they would do this deed.”
Struck to his heart in spite of himself, Mr. Ferris looked at her in alarm—saw her standing there with her arms hanging down at her sides, but with her two hands clinched till they looked as if carved from marble—and drew near to her with the simple hurried question of:
“But you?”
“I?” she laughed again—a low, gurgling laugh, that yet had a tone in it that went to the other’s heart and awoke strange sensations there. “Oh, I shall live to respond to your questions. Do not fear that I shall not be in the courtroom tomorrow.”
There was something in her look and manner that was new. It awed him, while it woke all his latent concern.
“Miss Dare,” he began, “you can believe how painful all this has been to me, and how I would have spared you this misery if I could. But the responsibilities resting upon me are such—”
He did not go on; why should he? She was not listening. To be sure, she stood before him, seemingly attentive, but the eyes with which she met his were fixed upon other objects than any which could have been apparent to her in his face; and her form, which she had hitherto held upright, was shaking with long, uncontrollable shudders, which, to his excited imagination, threatened to lay her at his feet.
He at once started toward the door for help. But she was alive to his movements if not to his words. Stopping him with a gesture, she cried:
“No—no! do not call for anyone; I wish to be alone; I have my duty to face, you know; my testimony to prepare.” And rousing herself she cast a peculiar look about the room, like one suddenly introduced into a strange place, and then moving slowly toward the window, threw back the curtain and gazed without. “Night!” she murmured, “night!” and after a moment added, in a deep, unearthly voice that thrilled irresistibly upon Mr. Ferris’ ear: “And a heaven
