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after the doctor had most courteously and ruefully closed the door behind her, she paused to lean against a tree that was there—her nervous and physical strength all but failing her. He had refused to help her. He had refused to help her. And now what?
And why, when Roberta was no worse off than his sister had been, why should she seek to destroy him in this way? Force him to do something which would be little less than social, artistic, passional or emotional assassination? And when later, if she would but spare him for this, he could do so much more for her—with Sondra's money of course. He could not and would not let her do this to him. His life would be ruined!
It was not right. It was not fair.
bow-wow?"
"What come over de sweet phing?" (When Clyde appeared to be the least reduced in mind she most affected this patter with him, since it had an almost electric, if sweetly tormenting effect on him. "His baby-talking girl," he sometimes called her.) "Facey all dark now. Little while ago facey all smiles. Come make facey all nice again. Smile at Sondra. Squeeze Sondra's arm like good boy, Clyde."
And of late he had been writing his mother that he was doing so well. What was it about his life that made things like this happen to him?
it seemed important to him that only silence, silence was the great and all essential thing now, so that, even under the impending edge of the knife of disaster, he might be able to think more, and more, and more, without being compelled to do anything, and without momentarily being tortured by the thought that Roberta, in some nervous or moody or frantic state, would say or do something which, assuming that he should hit upon some helpful thought or plan in connection with Sondra, would prevent him from executing it.
since every day, or at least every other day, brought him either letters from Roberta or a note from Sondra—their respective missives maintaining the same relative contrast between ease and misery, gayety of mood and the somberness of defeat and uncertainty.
And, as he now learned, except for a few such paths as this, the forest was trackless for forty miles. Without a compass or guide, as he was told, one might wander to one's death even—so
I never loved any one before, but I do love you, and, well, I won't give you up, that's all.
that gay light of adventure replaced by a marked trace of the practical and the material that so persistently characterized her.
He took his straw hat and went out, almost before any one heard him think, as he would have phrased it to himself, such horrible, terrible thoughts.
At times, when in such moods, he felt that he could do anything—drown her easily enough, and she would only have herself to blame.
"Isn't that wonderful in there? Do you hear the tinkling of that water, Clyde? Oh, the freshness of this air!" And yet she was going to die so soon! God!
But here he was talking as though tomorrow she would be here still. And she would not be.
They were certain to have so much fun—just loads of it—but just now she would have to go. Bye-bye! And once more like a bright-colored bird she was gone.
And if he saw any one who looked at all suspicious, he could take flight, could he not? And afterwards doing just that—first walking away into the woods and looking back, as might a hunted animal. Then later returning and sitting or walking, but always watching, watching.
"Hey, you!" Grant Cranston shouted. "Those are my ducks down there! Let 'em alone."
Clyde, while attempting to smile, looked in the direction of the sound and listened like a hunted animal.
"Very well, Mr. Griffiths, I haven't anything more to say. All I'm supposed to do is to arrest you, Clyde Griffiths, for the murder of Roberta Alden. You're my prisoner."
he dared not tell anything in regard to himself, his connection with Roberta, his visit to Big Bittern or Grass Lake. He dared not. For that would be the same as a confession of guilt in connection with something of which he was not really guilty.
And Clyde, blue and weak, replied: "I had nothing to do with her death. That's all I can say now," and yet even as he said it thinking that perhaps he had better not say that—that perhaps he had better say—well, what?
The wind blew my hat off, and we—she and I—got up at the same time to reach for it and the boat upset—that's all. And the side of it hit her on the head. I saw it, only I was too frightened the way she was struggling about in the water to go near her, because I was afraid that if I did she might drag me down. And then she went down. And I swam ashore. And that's the God's truth!"
Yet his eyes were tortured, terrified pools of misery.
And they knew him now for what he was—a plotter of murder! Only, only, if somebody could only know how it had all come about! If Sondra, his mother, any one, could truly see!
he was eventually compelled to desist with the feeling that as a plotter of crime Clyde was probably the most arresting example of feeble and blundering incapacity he had ever met.
Fate seemed too obviously to be favoring the Republican machine in the person of and crime committed by Clyde.
There's an old saying in law, you know, that the consciousness of innocence makes any man calm.
"Of course you know, constructively, in the eyes of the law, if we use his own story, he's just as guilty as though he had struck her, and the judge would have to so instruct."
You know how it is with some of these young fellows of his age, and especially when they've never had anything much to do with girls or money, and want to be something grand."
He was so shrewd and practical, so very direct and chill and indifferent and yet confidence-inspiring, quite like an uncontrollable machine of a kind which generates power.
And when at last these two were ready to go, he was sorry. For with them near him, planning and plotting in regard to himself, he felt so much safer, stronger, more hopeful, more certain of being free, maybe, at some future date.
Asa, with his protesting and yet somehow careworn faith, his weak eyes and weakening body.
the two made their way to the general mission room below, where was silence and many placards which proclaimed the charity, the wisdom, and the sustaining righteousness of God.
"You can talk all you want," suggested Jephson, genially, "so long as you don't say anything.
At times, in the middle of the night or just before dawn, with all the prison silent—dreams—a ghastly picture of all that he most feared and that dispelled every trace of courage and drove him instantly to his feet, his heart pounding wildly, his eyes strained, a cold damp upon his face and hands. That chair, somewhere in the State penitentiary. He had read of it—how men died in it. And then he would walk up and down, thinking how, how, in case it did not come about as Jephson felt so sure that it would—in case he was convicted and a new trial refused—then, well—then, might one be able to
...more
But they'd never believe that under all of the peculiar circumstances, so we're merely going to move that change of heart up a little, see?
His mind ran over all the social personages whom he had encountered during the last year and who would now see him as he was—poor and commonplace and deserted, and on trial for such a crime as this. And after all his bluffing about his rich connections here and in the west. For now, of course, they would believe him as terrible as his original plot, without knowing or caring about his side of the story—his moods and fears—that predicament that he was in with Roberta—his love for Sondra and all that she had meant to him.
He had nicknamed her "Bert"; she had never told him that at home she was called "Bobbie."
But how often did I beg you not to make me do what I did not want to do, and which I was afraid even then I would regret, although I loved you too much to let you go, if you still insisted on having your way."
In regard to the two hats, well, the one hat was soiled and seeing one that he liked he bought it. Then when he lost the hat in the accident he naturally put on the other.
"You've explained why you said that! You've explained why you said that! And because you lied there you expect to be believed here, do you?"
"You didn't want her to live, in spite of your alleged change of heart! Isn't that it?" yelled Mason. "Isn't that the black, sad truth? She was drowning, as you wanted her to drown, and you just let her drown! Isn't that so?"
"Don't you know that you're lying!" shouted Mason, leaning still closer, his stout arms aloft, his disfigured face glowering and scowling like some avenging nemesis or fury of gargoyle design—
still Clyde had time to reply, but most meekly and feebly: "No! No! I didn't. I wanted to save her if I could." Yet his whole manner, as each and every juror noted, was that of one who was not really telling the truth, who was really all of the mental and moral coward that Belknap had insisted he was—but worse yet, really guilty of Roberta's death.
"Oh, don't be afraid," persisted Mason, sardonically. "It's only your dead love's hair."
He was saying to himself that he would not allow himself to be bullied in this way by this man—yet, at the same time, feeling very weak and sick.
Mason's next tack was to hold Clyde up to shame for having been willing, in the face of all she had done for him, to register Roberta in three different hotel registers as the unhallowed consort of presumably three different men in three different days.
after as you say you accidentally struck her and when you knew how her parents would soon be suffering because of her loss—and not say one word to anybody—just walk off—and
Mason's manner was snarling, punitive, sinister, bitterly sarcastic.
