Branded. Lynde Francis

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СКАЧАТЬ I had; but when I added that my savings were all in the bank he swore impatiently.

      "That will mean an order from the court before you can even pay your counsel's retainer—always providing your account hasn't already been attached to apply on the shortage," he snapped; and at that the corridor officer came to let him out and he went away.

      Having lived in Glendale practically all my life, I had a good right to expect that at least a few of my friends would rally to my support in the time of trouble. They came, possibly a half-dozen of them in all, between Whitredge's visit and old John Runnels's bringing of my dinner at one o'clock.

      Who they were, and what they said to me, are matters which shall be burled in the deepest pit of oblivion I can find or dig. For the best of them, in the turning of a single leaf in the lifebook, I had apparently become an outcast, a pariah. One and all, they had already tried and condemned me unheard, and though there were clammy-handed offers of assistance they were purely perfunctory, as I could see, and there was never a man of them all to say heartily, "Bert Weyburn, I don't believe it of you." It wasn't the fault of any of these cold comfort bringers that the milk of human kindness didn't turn to vinegar in me that day, or that I did not drink the cup of bitterness and isolation to the very dregs.

      I know now, of course, that I was boyishly hot-hearted and unfair; that I was too young and inexperienced to make allowances for that deathless trait in human nature—in all animate nature—which prompts the well to recoil instinctively from the pest-stricken. Later on—but I needn't anticipate.

      It was along in the latter part of the afternoon, and before Whitredge's return, that Agatha came. Her appearance in my cell was a total surprise. I was standing at the little grated window when I heard footsteps in the corridor. I thought it was Whitredge coming back, and was morose enough not to turn or look around until after the door had opened and clanged shut again. Then I wheeled to find myself looking straight into the man-melting eyes.

      "Oh, Herbert!" she gasped; and with that she dropped upon the cot and put her face in her hands.

      If only the women wouldn't weep at us how vastly different this world would be! All day long I had been praying that I might some time have the chance to hold a mirror up to Agatha Geddis; a mirror that would reflect her soul and show her what a mean and shriveled thing it was. But what I did was to sit beside her and put my arm around her and try to comfort her as I might have comforted my sister.

      When her sobbing fit had subsided and she began to talk I found out what she had come for—or I thought I did. It was all a miserable mistake—so she protested—and Abner Withers was the responsible one. It was he who had insisted that I should be arrested and prosecuted; and, thus far, her father had not been able to make him listen to reason. But it would come out all right in the end, if I would only be patient and wait. Mr. Whitredge had been up to the house to see her father, and they had had a long talk. Among other things, she had heard her father say that he would bear all the expenses, meaning—I supposed—that he would see to it that Whitredge did not lose his fee.

      I have more than once had professional mesmerists try to hypnotize me, without success. But there is little doubt that Agatha Geddis turned the trick for me that afternoon in the steel cell of the Glendale police station. As she talked, my heart grew putty-soft again. As before, she dwelt upon the terrible consequences, the awful disgrace, the wreck of her happiness, and all that; and once more I promised her that I would stand by her. Even after she had gone I told myself that since the worst had already happened, it would be cowardly and unmanly to turn back.

      Later, when the reaction came, it is more than likely that I swung back to the other extreme, writing Agatha Geddis down in the book of bitter remembrances as a cold-blooded, plotting fiend in woman's form. She was not that. It may be said that, at this earlier period, she was merely a loosely bound fagot of evil potentialities. Doubtless the threatened cataclysm appeared sufficiently terrifying to her, and she was willing to use any means that might offer to avert it. But it may be conceded, in bare justice, that in this stage of her development she was nothing worse than a self-centered young egoist, immature, and struggling, quite without malice, to make things come her way.

      It was quite late in the afternoon when Whitredge made his second visit to my cell, and this time his attitude was entirely different. Also, he dropped the curt use of my surname.

      "We're going to ignore the question of your culpability for the present, Bert, and wrestle with the plain facts of the case," was the way he began on me. "From what you said this morning, I was led to infer that you had some notion of trying to shift the responsibility to Mr. Geddis. I won't say that something couldn't be done along that line; not to do you any good, you understand, but to do other folks a lot of harm. You could probably roil the water and stir up the mud pretty badly for all concerned. But in the outcome, and before a jury, you'd be likely to get the hot end of it. I'll be frank with you. If I were in your shoes, I'd rather have Geddis for me than against me. He has money and influence, and you are a young man without either."

      "You are trying to advise me to plead guilty?" I asked.

      "Oh, of course, the formal plea in court would be 'Not guilty.' I'm merely advising you not to make the fight vindictive. If you don't, I'm inclined to believe that Geddis will stand by you and you'll get off easy."

      It was on the tip of my tongue to say that I would fight to the last gasp before I would suffer myself to be tried and condemned for a crime of which I was innocent. Then the distorted sense of honor got in its work again. Agatha Geddis's visit was still recent enough to make me believe that I owed her something.

      "You'll have to get me out of it in some way," I returned. "I can't afford to be convicted."

      "Abel Geddis has been a pretty good friend of yours in the past, Bert," the lawyer suggested. "You don't want to forget that."

      "I'm not forgetting it, and I'm giving him all the credit that is due him. But you can't blame me for thinking a little of my mother and sister, and myself. You know what a prison sentence means to a man, better than I do. I couldn't stand for that."

      Whitredge stroked his long chin and looked past me out of the little grated window.

      "We'd hope for the best, of course," he returned. "If we can make it appear as an error in judgment"—there was that cursed phrase again—"without any real criminal intention, and if we can prove that you didn't reap any monetary benefit from the transfer of the mining stock, there is good reason to hope that the court may be lenient. Do I understand that you are giving me a free hand in the case, Bert?"

      "I don't see that there is anything else for me to do," I said, half-doubtfully; and as he was going I asked him about the question of bail.

      "I have waived the preliminary examination for you—merely to save you the humiliation of appearing in a justice's court in Glendale," was the evasive reply.

      "But without the examination I shan't have a chance to offer bail, shall I?"

      Whitredge shook his head. "The guaranty company that is on your bond beat us to it, I'm sorry to say. They sent their attorney over from Cincinnati last night, and he is here now, prepared to refuse the company's consent in the matter of ball. That is another reason why, acting for you, I have waived the preliminary. Without the guaranty company's assent to the arrangement it would be useless for us to offer sureties, though Geddis and two or three others have expressed their willingness to sign for you."

      "Then what am I to expect?"

      "Nothing worse than a little delay. Court is in session, and you will be taken to Jefferson. If the grand jury finds a true bill СКАЧАТЬ