The old bay horse that crawled back to Ringwood with Allis Porter after her interview with Crane must have thought that the millennium for driving horses had surely come. Even the ambition to urge the patriarch beyond his complacent, irritating dog trot was crushed out of her by the terrible new evidence the banker had brought in testimony against her lover.

"I didn't need this," the girl moaned to herself. In her intensity of grief her thoughts became audible in expressed words. "Oh, G.o.d!" she pleaded to the fields that lay in the silent rapture of summer content, "strengthen me against all this falseness. You didn't do it, George--you couldn't--you couldn't! And Alan! my poor, weak brother; why can't you have courage and clear your friend?"

Her heart rose in angry rebellion against her brother, against Crane, against Providence, even against the man she loved. Why should he sacrifice both their lives, become an outcast himself to shield a boy, who in a moment of weakness had committed an act which might surely be forgiven if he would but admit his mistake? yes, it might even be called a mistake. The punishment accepted in heroic silence by Mortimer was out of all proportion to the wrong-doing. It meant the utter ruin of two lives. Firmly as she believed in his innocence, a conviction was forced upon her that unless Alan stood forth and boldly proclaimed the truth the acc.u.mulated guilt--proof would cloud Mortimer's name, perhaps until his death. Even after that his memory might linger as that of a thief.

The evening before Alan had been at Ringwood and Allis had made a final endeavor to get him to clear the other's name by confessing the truth to Crane. On her knees she had pleaded with her brother. The boy had fiercely disclaimed all complicity, protested his own innocence with vehemence, and denounced Mortimer as worse than a thief in having poisoned her mind against him.

In anger Alan had disclosed Mortimer's treachery--as he called it--and crime to their mother. Small wonder that Allis's hour of trial was a dark one. The courage that had enabled her to carry Lauzanne to victory was now tried a thousandfold more severely. It seemed all that was left her, just her courage and faith; they had stood out successfully against all denunciation of Lauzanne, and, with G.o.d's help, they would hold her true to the man she loved.

Even the pace of a snail lands him somewhere finally, and the una.s.sailed Bay, with a premonition of supper hovering obscurely in his lazy mind, at last consented to arrive at Ringwood.

Allis crept to her father like a fearsome child avoiding goblins.

Providentially he had not been initiated into the moral crusade against the iniquitous Mortimer, so the girl clung to him as a drowning person might to a plank of salvation. She longed to tell him everything--of her love for Mortimer, perhaps he had guessed it, for he spoke brave words often of the st.u.r.dy young man who had saved her from Diablo. Perhaps she would tell him if she felt her spirit giving way--it was cruel to stand quite alone--and beseech him, as he had faith in her, to believe in her lover.

Allis went to the tea table by her father's side, fearing to get beyond his hearing; she dreaded her mother's questioning eyes. What could be said in the accused man's defense, or in her own? Nothing; she could only wait.

A square old-fashioned wooden clock on the mantelpiece of the sitting room had just droned off seven mellow hours, when the faint echo of its music was drowned by the crunch of gravel; there was the quick step of somebody coming up the drive; then the wooden steps gave hollow notice.

The visitor's advent was announced again by the bra.s.s knocker on the front door.

"I'll go," said Allis, as her mother rose. The girl knew who it was that knocked, not because of any sane reason; she simply knew it was Mortimer.

When she opened the door he stepped back hesitatingly. Was he not a criminal--was he not about to leave his position because of theft?

"Come in," she said, quietly; "I am glad you have come."

"Shall I? I just want to speak to you for a minute. I said I would come.

But I can't see anybody--just you, alone."

"I understand," she answered. "Come inside."

"I am going away," he began; "I can't stand it here."

"You have done nothing--nothing to clear yourself?"

"Nothing."

"And you won't?"

"No."

"Is this wise?"

"It is the inevitable."

They were silent for a little; they were both standing. The girl broke the stillness.

"I am glad you have come, because I can tell you again that I know you are innocent. I know it, because my heart repeats it a thousand times a day. I listen to the small voice and I hear nothing else."

"You never waver--you never doubt?"

"Never."

"You never will?"

"Never."

"Then I care not. Other men have had misfortune thrust upon them and have borne it without complaint, have had less to solace them than you have given me now, and I should be a coward if I faltered. Some day perhaps, you will know that I am worthy of your faith: G.o.d grant that the knowledge brings you no fresh misery--there, forgive me, I have said too much; I am even now a coward. If you will say good-bye I'll go."

"Good-bye, my hero." She raised her eyes, blurred with tears, and held out her hand gropingly, as one searches in the dark, for the room whirled like a storm cloud, and just faintly she could see the man's strong face coming to her out of the gloom like the face of a G.o.d. He took her hand. "Good-bye," his voice vibrated brokenly; "if--if Justice wills that my innocence be known some day, may I come back? Will you wait, believing in me for a little?"

"Forever."

He drew her to him by the hand he still clasped, and put his strong arms about her. What mattered it now that he had been falsely accused--what mattered it to either of them that he must accept the grim penalty of his endeavor? With them in the soft gloom was nothing but love, and faith, and innocence; and within the strong arms a sense of absolute security, as though the false accusing world had been baffled, beaten down, and the victory theirs--love.

He raised the girl's face and kissed her. "Let G.o.d witness that I press your brave lips in innocence," he said; "and in this pledge I love you forever and ever."

"Amen," came from Allis involuntarily; it sounded to them both like the benediction of a high priest.

"Amen,--" he responded. To speak again would have been sacrilege.

He put her from him gently, turned away and walked quickly from the house.

The girl sat for a long time a gray shadow in the gathering darkness.

He was gone from her. It seemed as though she had scarce spoken the encouragement she wished to give him. It had been a meeting almost without words; but she felt strangely satisfied. The accusing revelation that had come from Crane in the afternoon had been a crushing blow. It was a mistake, of course; it wasn't true--somehow it wasn't true, but still it had stunned. Now in the gloaming she sat with an angel of peace; big, steadfast, honest eyes, full of thankfulness, looked lovingly at her from where he had stood. If she could sit there forever, with the echo of his deep "Amen" to their love lingering in her ears, she would ask no further gift of the G.o.ds.

Mortimer, as with swinging stride he hurried toward the village, let his mind flit back to the room of gray shadows. How little he had said!

Had there been aught spoken at all? The strong arms still tingled with tender warmth where the impress of an angel had set them thrilling ecstatically. Yes, what mattered their speech? There had been little of the future--no promise to send word of his well-being--but let the future look to itself. In the present he was king of a love realm that was greater than all the world.

Field after field flitted by, studded here and there by square, gray specters of ghost-like houses that blinked at him with red dragon eyes.

Sub-consciously he knew the eyes were searching out the secret that made him in all his misery of misfortune so happy. And he would answer to the eyes, dragon or human, without fear and without shame--because he was innocent--that it was love, the greatest thing in all the world, the love and faith sublime of a good, true woman. Woman had he said?--an angel!

XLIV

As Farrell had suggested, Crane sought him at the office the next day at ten o'clock.

Farrell and his clerk were busy planning an enterprising campaign against men who had faith in fast horses for the coming week at Sheepshead Bay.

"Ah!" the Bookmaker exclaimed when Crane entered, "you want that badge number. Hagen, get the betting sheet for the second last day at Gravesend, and look up a bet of one thousand dollars we roped in over Mr. Crane's horse. I want the number to locate the man that parted--I wish there'd been more like him."

"Do you mean Billy Ca.s.s?" queried the clerk.

"Who the devil's Billy Ca.s.s?"

"Why the stiff that played The Dutchman for a thou'."