Hand and Ring

"I did not."

"What?"

"I did not put forth any thing like my full speed, sir," the witness repeated, with a twinkle in the direction of Byrd that fell just short of being a decided wink.

"And why, may I ask? What restrained you from running as fast as you could? Sympathy for the defence?"

The ironical suggestion conveyed in this last question gave Hickory an excuse for indulging in his peculiar humor.

"No, sir; sympathy for the prosecution. I feared the loss of one of its most humble but valuable assistants. In other words, I was afraid I should break my neck."

"And why should you have any special fears of breaking your neck?"

"The path is so uneven, sir. No man could run for much of the way without endangering his life or at least his limbs."

"Did you run when you could?"

"Yes, sir."

"And in those places where you could not run, did you proceed as fast as you knew how?"

"Yes, sir."

"Very well; now I think it is time you told the jury just how many minutes it took you to go from Mrs. Clemmens' door to the Monteith Quarry Station."

"Well, sir, according to my watch, it took one hundred and five minutes."

Mr. Orcutt glanced impressively at the jury.

"One hundred and five minutes," he repeated. He then turned to the witness with his concluding questions.

"Mr. Hickory, were you present in the court-room just now when the two experts whom I have employed to make the run gave their testimony?"

"No, sir."

"Do you know in what time they made it?"

"I believe I do. I was told by the person whom I informed of my failure that I had gained five minutes upon them."

"And what did you reply?"

"That I hoped I could make something on them; but that five minutes wasn't much when a clean fifteen was wanted," returned Hickory, with another droll look at the experts and an askance appeal at Byrd, which being translated might read: "How in the deuce could this man have known what I was whispering to you on the other side of the court-room? Is he a wizard, this Orcutt?"

He forgot that a successful lawyer is always more or less of a wizard.

XXXIII.

A LATE DISCOVERY

Oh, torture me no more, I will confess. – King Lear.

WITH the cross-examination of Hickory, the defence rested, and the day being far advanced, the court adjourned.

During the bustle occasioned by the departure of the prisoner, Mr. Byrd took occasion to glance at the faces of those most immediately concerned in the trial.

His first look naturally fell upon Mr. Orcutt. Ah! all was going well with the great lawyer. Hope, if not triumph, beamed in his eye and breathed in every movement of his alert and nervous form. He was looking across the court-room at Imogene Dare, and his features wore a faint smile that indelibly impressed itself upon Mr. Byrd's memory. Perhaps because there was something really peculiar and remarkable in its expression, and perhaps because of the contrast it offered to his own feelings of secret doubt and dread.

His next look naturally followed that of Mr. Orcutt and rested upon Imogene Dare. Ah! she was under the spell of awakening hope also. It was visible in her lightened brow, her calmer and less studied aspect, her eager and eloquently speaking gaze yet lingering on the door through which the prisoner had departed. As Mr. Byrd marked this look of hers and noted all it revealed, he felt his emotions rise till they almost confounded him. But strong as they were, they deepened still further when, in another moment, he beheld her suddenly drop her eyes from the door and turn them slowly, reluctantly but gratefully, upon Mr. Orcutt. All the story of her life was in that change of look; all the story of her future, too, perhaps, if – Mr. Byrd dared not trust himself to follow the contingency that lurked behind that if, and, to divert his mind, turned his attention to Mr. Ferris.

But he found small comfort there. For the District Attorney was not alone. Hickory stood at his side, and Hickory was whispering in his ear, and Mr. Byrd, who knew what was weighing on his colleague's mind, found no difficulty in interpreting the mingled expression of perplexity and surprise that crossed the dark, aquiline features of the District Attorney as he listened with slightly bended head to what the detective had to say. That look and the deep, anxious frown which crossed his brow as he glanced up and encountered Imogene's eye, remained in Mr. Byrd's mind long after the court-room was empty and he had returned to his hotel. It mingled with the smile of strange satisfaction which he had detected on Mr. Orcutt's face, and awakened such a turmoil of contradictory images in his mind that he was glad when Hickory at last came in to break the spell.

Their meeting was singular, and revealed, as by a flash, the difference between the two men. Byrd contented himself with giving Hickory a look and saying nothing, while Hickory bestowed upon Byrd a hearty "Well, old fellow!" and broke out into a loud and by no means unenjoyable laugh.

"You didn't expect to see me mounting the rostrum in favor of the defence, did you?" he asked, after he had indulged himself as long as he saw fit in the display of this somewhat unseasonable mirth. "Well, it was a surprise. But I've done it for Orcutt now!"

"You have?"

"Yes, I have."

"But the prosecution has closed its case?"

"Bah! what of that?" was the careless reply. "The District Attorney can get it reopened. No Court would refuse that."

Horace surveyed his colleague for a moment in silence.

"So Mr. Ferris was struck with the point you gave him?" he ventured, at last.

"Well, sufficiently so to be uneasy," was Hickory's somewhat dry response.

The look with which Byrd answered him was eloquent. "And that makes you cheerful?" he inquired, with ill-concealed sarcasm.

"Well, it has a slight tendency that way," drawled the other, seemingly careless of the other's expression, if, indeed, he had noted it. "You see," he went on, with a meaning wink and a smile of utter unconcern, "all my energies just now are concentrated on getting myself even with that somewhat too wide-awake lawyer." And his smile broadened till it merged into a laugh that was rasping enough to Byrd's more delicate and generous sensibilities.

"Sufficiently so to be uneasy!" Yes, that was it. From the minute Mr. Ferris listened to the suggestion that Miss Dare had not told all she knew about the murder, and that a question relative to where she had been at the time it was perpetrated would, in all probability, bring strange revelations to light, he had been awakened to a most uncomfortable sense of his position and the duty that was possibly required of him. To be sure, the time for presenting testimony to the court was passed, unless it was in the way of rebuttal; but how did he know but what Miss Dare had a fact at her command which would help the prosecution in overturning the strange, unexpected, yet simple theory of the defence? At all events, he felt he ought to know whether, in giving her testimony she had exhausted her knowledge on this subject, or whether, in her sympathy for the accused, she had kept back certain evidence which if presented might bring the crime more directly home to the prisoner. Accordingly, somewhere toward eight o'clock in the evening, he sought her out with the bold resolution of forcing her to satisfy him on this point.

He did not find his task so easy, however, when he came into direct contact with her stately and far from encouraging presence, and met the look of surprise not unmixed with alarm with which she greeted him. She looked very weary, too, and yet unnaturally excited, as if she had not slept for many nights, if indeed she had rested at all since the trial began. It struck him as cruel to further disturb this woman, and yet the longer he surveyed her, the more he studied her pale, haughty, inscrutable face, he became the more assured that he would never feel satisfied with himself if he did not give her an immediate opportunity to disperse at once and forever these freshly awakened doubts.

His attitude or possibly his expression must have betrayed something of his anxiety if not of his resolve, for her countenance fell as she watched him, and her voice sounded quite unnatural as she strove to ask to what she was indebted for this unexpected visit.

He did not keep her in suspense.

"Miss Dare," said he, not without kindness, for he was very sorry for this woman, despite the inevitable prejudice which her relations to the accused had awakened, "I would have given much not to have been obliged to disturb you to-night, but my duty would not allow it. There is a question which I have hitherto omitted to ask – "

He paused, shocked; she was swaying from side to side before his eyes, and seemed indeed about to fall. But at the outreaching of his hand she recovered herself and stood erect, the noblest spectacle of a woman triumphing over the weakness of her body by the mere force of her indomitable will, that he had ever beheld.

"Sit down," he gently urged, pushing toward her a chair. "You have had a hard and dreary week of it; you are in need of rest."

She did not refuse to avail herself of the chair, though, as he could not help but notice, she did not thereby relax one iota of the restraint she put upon herself.