"PROMISE ME YOU WON'T SIGN THE DEED." ... BILL HESITATED
Bill hesitated. "Well, mother wants to awful bad," he answered, slowly.
From the dining-room voices could be heard. "Ye'd better get out," said Bill.
"Not until you promise," persisted Marvin.
Bill wavered an instant. He wanted mother to be happy, and yet, another day did not make so much difference—especially when Marvin was in danger. The door in back of him swung open. Leaning quickly down to Marvin, as the latter crept toward the outer door, he whispered: "All right. I promise."
Mrs. Jones walked into the room with a swagger, half of indignation, half of sorrow. She was still wiping the tears from her eyes. The deed and the pen were in her hand.
Bill went to her, placing an affectionate hand on her bare arm. "Mother, ain't you cold?" He could not resist another tilt at her unusual costume.
"No." She stamped her foot at him, withdrawing her arm from his hand. "I'm hot all over at you, insulting me before those gentlemen." Hurrying to the California desk, she buried her head on her crossed arms and began to cry. "Makin' fun of me," she sobbed, "because I try to look presentable for once in my life."
Following her to the desk, Bill patted her gently on the back. "It's gettin' late, mother," he coaxed. "You're tired and you've been working hard. You're all tuckered out. Now you go up-stairs and put on some clothes and go to bed."
Mrs. Jones shook him from her and went to the other desk, where she stood facing him, her face red and swollen from her tears. "Oh!" she wrung her hands as she looked at him with blazing eyes. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself with the gentlemen here to buy the place and you around the office drinking liquor."
"No, I ain't." Bill answered her outburst mildly, backing away from her lest she should discover the flask in his back pocket.
He was too late. Her eye, accustomed to just such investigations, had detected the lines of the flask as it protruded from his back pocket. Taking hold of him, she put her hand in his pocket and produced the flask, holding it, half empty, to the light.
"That belongs to Mr. Harper," was Bill's ready excuse, given in the monotone which invariably masked a world of guilt. Seeing the doubt in his wife's eye, he added, "You can go up-stairs and ask him, if you don't believe it."
Mrs. Jones did not reply to his last remark. Instead of which she went back to the California desk, where she set down the flask, taking up the deed and holding it out to him. "Now, Bill," she said, in a coaxing voice, "I want you to put your name to this paper." She smiled kindly upon him for the first time in many hours.
Bill wavered before her smile. It was difficult for him to withstand it, especially as he knew how sorely he had tried her. But a promise was a promise with Bill, and his one pride was that he had kept intact through all the years of his digressions this one principle—he never broke his word. He had told Marvin he would not sign the deed without consulting him further, so he turned his eyes from his wife's face and answered, in a low voice, "I can't, mother."
"What's the reason you can't?" Mrs. Jones planted herself in front of him, determined that he should not evade her this time.
"Because I promised my lawyer I wouldn't," he answered, his head turned away from her.
Mrs. Jones took him by the arm and swung him into line with her gaze. "Now see here, Bill," she snapped, "I've been working my fingers to the bone and I'm entitled to a rest and you sha'n't stop my having it. Mr. Thomas is going to take Millie and me to the city to live. If you sign that you can come with us. If you don't you've got to look out for yourself for a while."
Bill had not paid much heed to Hammond's threat delivered a few minutes back. But now something in his wife's tone brought it, recurrent, to his mind. He wondered if, after all, there was some truth behind it.
Pausing to gather his points together, Bill nodded toward the stairs. "Mother, that fellow, Hammond, said he'd throw me out. Do you want me to get out? Is that what you mean?"
It was not what Mrs. Jones had meant at all. But the events of the day had strained her nerves to breaking-point. Since daylight Thomas and Hammond had been after her to force Bill to do as she wished him to. To their suggestions that she teach him a lesson by leaving him for a while she had turned a deaf ear. But now they came surging back and, in answer to her call for a method of persuasion, clamored for recognition. Before she had time to stifle them they had their way. "I mean just that, Bill." There was silence as she thrust the words from her mouth. Bill stood still, gazing steadily at her.
She lowered her lids.
Then he came closer and looked up under her eyes, in the hope that he would find a relenting gleam there. But she turned away from him.
"All right, mother—I'll go."
Without another word he turned and walked toward the door. Mrs. Jones took a quick step forward, then paused. "Where'll you go?" she asked, half in surprise, half in defiance, for she had not believed that he would accept her challenge.
"Oh, 'most anywhere," he said, gaily, forcing a whistle, though his lips quivered. "I'll be all right, mother."
His wife stepped forward again, extending a staying hand, but her resentment had her in its grip. Her hand fell back to her side.
"Well," she called out to him as suddenly she turned from him and hurried up the stairs, "I mean every word I've said! It's one thing or the other! Either you make up your mind to sign this," and she tapped the paper in her hand, "or I'm through with you!" Without a backward glance—fearing, perhaps, that she might weaken—she disappeared along the upper hallway.
Bill took his hand from the door and came slowly back into the room. He strolled to the California desk, pushed back his old hat, and stood there with his hands in his pockets, thoughtfully. Of a sudden his absent eyes lighted on the flask resting on the desk, where Mrs. Jones had put it down. Bill stroked his stubbled chin and gazed at the flask. It seemed to suggest an idea to him. Satisfying himself that there was no one around at the moment, he strolled to the door, poked his head out, and gave a peculiar whistle; then he walked back to the desk and leaned against it, waiting.
In a few minutes Zeb's unkempt visage silently framed itself in the softly opened door. Lightnin' jerked his head as a sign to enter. Stealthily, with many a wary glance to right and left, his disreputable partner of the past eased himself across the lobby and stood before Bill, childlike, trustful inquiry in his eyes.
"What's the idee, Lightnin'?" he rumbled, puffing at the frayed remains of a cigar.
With a gesture of calm triumph Bill pointed to the flask on the desk.
"I said I had it, Zeb," he remarked, in the tone one uses when confronting and confounding a skeptic with ocular proof, "an' there it is!"
"Why, so it be!" said Zeb, reaching out for the prize.
But Lightnin' stopped him. "Hold on a minute, partner. The evidence ain't to be absorbed just yet. In fact, brother, we better keep it intact for future use, 'cause you're goin' on a long journey, Zeb. You an' me is goin' to hit the trail again, old-timer!"
"Gosh! You mean it, Lightnin'?" Zeb showed almost human delight and anticipation. "But for why? You had a row with your old woman?"
"Nope," Bill replied. "Can't call it that, exactly. You needn't worry them brains o' yours about why we're goin', Zeb. It's just that I got a notion to teach some people 'round here a lesson, an'—an' maybe I can bring poor mother to her senses," he added, gently.
"When we goin'?" Zeb questioned, his eyes on the flask.
"Right away—this here minute, in fact," said Bill.
Zeb looked at him dazedly. "Just as we is? Where 're we hittin' fer?"
"I ain't telling that just yet," said Bill, slowly. "Where we are goin' is a secret."
"Oh," Zeb answered, with a nod of wisdom. "I—see. You ain't tellin' 'em you be goin'—not even your old woman, eh?"
"Them brains o' yours is pickin' up a bit, ain't they, Zeb?" Bill commented, with encouraging approval. "Well, you hit it, all right! Nope, we ain't tellin' nobody. We're goin' to kinder disappear completely for a pretty good space. Mother ain't to be able to locate me a-tall. There's some others as 'll likely find out, but I ain't worryin' about them—they want to get rid o' me, an' they ain't likely to exhaust themselves any tryin' to find me. I got a object, Zeb. It ain't none o' your business what that object is—by which I merely mean to say, old-timer, that you wouldn't have no particular interest in it. Come on—let's get out now, afore they begins to gather 'round me again!"
Picking up the flask and sliding it into his coat pocket, Lightnin' walked away toward the door. Nodding wisely, Zeb followed, eyes hopefully on the pleasant bulge in his old partner's coat.
CHAPTER XII
"Well!" Millie, appearing with a tray of late supper to take up-stairs to one of the guests' rooms along about ten o'clock that evening, almost ran into Marvin, who had returned to the hotel in the hope of seeing Bill and giving him the full reason for his not being a party to the sale of the place. The lights in the lobby were turned low and he had managed to evade the sheriff, who was sitting in his buck-board outside, waiting for Lemuel Townsend, who was to return to Reno with him.
Millie's exclamation, because of her surprise in seeing Marvin again, escaped her in pleasant tones, but her memory asserted itself and the smile rapidly faded from her face and she gave a haughty toss of her head, saying, as he stepped in front of her when she started for the stairs, "Will you please let me pass?"
But Marvin had wanted to see her quite as much as he did Bill, the impression she had given him of her liking for Thomas having cut deeper than the events of the earlier part of the day had given him time to realize. Ignoring her request, he removed his hat and said, as he searched her eyes for some play of the old light that had often gladdened his heart in the days when they were together in Thomas's office in San Francisco, "I suppose you are surprised to find me here still?"
Millie swayed toward the Nevada desk, depositing her tray upon it. She faced him, her eyes flashing, her cheeks flushed. Her first impulse was not to answer him. She could not understand his interference in the matter of the deed. Neither did she believe one word he had uttered against Hammond and Thomas. On the contrary, Thomas's apparent interest in her and her mother and his constant flattery and attentions had attained their end. She believed in him implicitly and therefore had given credence to every word he had said against Marvin. Nevertheless, the charge that he was not honest could not quite overcome the quickening of her interest which had manifested itself lately in a heart that ran far ahead of itself at his approach.
After a silence in which she stared at him steadily, his eyes answering hers with an unflinching candor mixed with a vague wistfulness, she answered him. "I don't think anything you could do would surprise me, after all that has happened to-day and all that I've been told about you."
"Millie!" Marvin awkwardly rolled his hat in his hands, while his speech faltered. "I've been waiting around here now for two hours in the hope that I could explain to you why I wanted to stop that sale. And I cannot bear to have you believe that I am a thief and—"
Millie was touched by his attitude. Her hand left her hip and started toward his arm in friendly contact. But again returned the whole picture of the afternoon's events and she coolly turned from him and went to take up her tray again.
"Will you please let me pass?" she asked a second time, as he tried to prevail upon her by taking the tray from her and setting it down again. "I wish to have nothing to say to you. I do not believe your excuses. Mr. Thomas is the best friend I have in the world. I won't listen to a word against him, and I am sure he is too fine a gentleman to say anything about any one unless he were sure that it was true." As she came to the last words she swallowed to keep back the tears, for although they were uttered in perfect faith, her words burned into her own heart with as much bitterness as they were directed toward Marvin.
He was too filled with his mission and too sure that Millie's interest in him was gone to notice the catch in her voice or to attribute it to any sense of affection for him, had he noticed it. He took her hands in his and shook them gently in an endeavor to get her to look into his eyes again. "Millie, please listen to me! I know what I'm talking about when I say that Mrs. Jones is being cheated and robbed—"
She broke away from him, and stood glaring at him, as she stamped her foot. "Don't you dare to say another word about Raymond Thomas to me! Anyway, it is none of your business if he is cheating us!"
"Millie, Millie." Marvin's voice was full of pleading as he persisted, going close to her again and shaking his head sadly. "Why do you allow yourself to be taken in this way? Don't you know that the only reason I am concerned is because I care—Oh, well." He turned away with a sigh and went over to the Nevada desk and took up the tray. "I won't say any more. Will you let me carry the tray up-stairs for you? I'll go then, and you won't be bothered with me any more."
The glare in her eyes melted and she made a gesture as if she would call him to her side again. But she could not forget so easily, and she said, without turning to look at him, in tones less sharp, "Why didn't you tell me before that you suspected him?"
"How could I? You told me how much you thought of Raymond Thomas. I hadn't realized that before—" He put the tray down and came to her side once more.
"Do you mean to say," Millie was again angered, "that I told you I loved Mr. Thomas?"
"That's what I understood," Marvin replied.
The two stood there, Millie glancing at him in contempt, while his whole heart went out to her from his eyes.
He was the first to break the silence. Almost touching her hand with his, he said, softly, "You mean you don't love him?"
Millie snatched her hand away and went back to the desk. "You're always wrong! I told you he was my best friend and he is. I never said I loved him."
If Marvin had not been attracted by the arabesque of the faded rose-garlanded rug at that moment, he would have found some solace in the lowered lids and half-smile which Millie vouchsafed him. But he did not see it. Slowly he followed her back to the desk, this time standing aside as she made her way toward the stairs. "Well, say it now—I mean"—he hesitated, embarrassed, then went on—"I mean—say you don't care for him. And then if you'll only give me time I'll find out what their game is."
Millie stood at the newel-post, steadying the tray against it. Looking down at him, the hard gleam returned to her eyes as she replied, emphatically: "Oh, I don't want you to find out anything about it! I know you're mistaken and you're not going to prevent mother's selling the place, because it's already sold. As soon as daddy's name is signed to it we get the money."
"Well, you sha'n't have that, Millie." Marvin swung his hat against the post without looking up at her. Through the window he traced the moonbeams as they filtered through the pines outside. Above the hoot of an owl the swish of the lake came in to them. They both stood there, gazing out to where so few weeks ago they had walked in the happiness of an unconscious awakening.
It was within Millie's heart to relax as she saw him sigh. From above just then came the sound of Mrs. Jones's voice. It brought back her concern for the tired woman above-stairs. With it returned her anger at Marvin. "You're trying to prevent this sale just to hurt Mr. Thomas in my eyes!" she snapped.
He turned and met her with the question, "Thomas told you that, didn't he?"
She nodded.
"Just the same, Millie," and here Marvin mounted the step and stood close to her as he looked squarely in her eyes, "I'll never let Bill sign that deed. Some day you'll thank me for it."
This was more than her patience could stand. In her anger she almost dropped the tray, but she managed to hold it taut against the balustrade as she frowned at him and stamped her foot.
"Thank you?" she asked, in no gentle voice. "I shall always hate and despise you for it. Always! I hope I shall never see you again, and if I do I shall never notice you—nor speak to you the longest day I live!" Exhausted with her temper, she turned to mount the stairs, when she looked out toward the veranda and saw a figure slowly and stealthily coming up the steps. She recognized it at once and shrieked out, just as the sheriff entered the door, "John, look out!"
But Marvin had been watching her, and the fear in her eyes as she saw Blodgett had been warning enough for him. He gave three quick skips to the other side of the lobby, making mock obeisance toward her, laughter in his voice because of her betrayal of her solicitude in spite of all that she had said.
"Thank you, Miss Buckley," he called as he went up the California stairs to the hall above, just as the sheriff had reached out for him, "thank you, Miss Buckley! I shall be grateful to you—always!"
CHAPTER XIII
Bill's disappearance brought quick changes to the little hotel at Calivada. His ready acceptance of Mrs. Jones's alternative was a complete surprise, and it was several days before she and Millie realized that he had taken her at her word. Even then they thought he had gone off on one of his temporary jaunts in the hills. When the days grew into a fortnight and he did not return they instituted a search among the near-by villages and mining-camps. Everett Hammond and Raymond Thomas were solicitous aids in the inquiry, not for the two women they were defrauding, nor because they felt any concern for Bill's welfare. Rather was their full attention turned toward securing a deed which the Pacific Railroad would consider law-proof. Had the property been entirely within the state of Nevada, Bill's signature would not have been imperative, but the California laws regarding the sale of property were evadable by numerous small technicalities, and shrewd counsel demanded that bona-fide deeds must appear as freewill transfers from both the husband and wife. It was for this reason that Bill's disappearance was a matter of deep satisfaction to both Hammond and Thomas. They had begun to despair of his putting his name to the deed. Now, should he not return within six months, they evolved a new scheme and one which would be law-proof if it could be carried through.
If Mrs. Jones could be persuaded into a divorce, and the decree obtained with full rights to the property, the deed would be legal without Bill's name. It was for this reason that Hammond and Thomas put themselves at Mrs. Jones's service and did everything in their power to discover Bill's whereabouts. It was several weeks before they traced him to Sacramento and from there to the veterans' home at Yountville. By this time Mrs. Jones was quite beside herself, for, in spite of Bill's shiftlessness, which was quite enough to wear away the patience of the average woman, she felt a deep affection for the generous-hearted, whimsical old creature and his companionship through fifteen years, and at a time when her father's death had left her desolate had relieved the monotony of a life which had had little else but hard work. Millie, too, missed her foster-father, whose frequent sallies kept humor alive when work and poverty pressed hard. In reverent and grateful memory she held the thought of his care for her when she had been left a waif by her own father's death. And so, together, Millie and Mrs. Jones pressed Thomas for news of Bill.
He knew that if they learned his whereabouts they would not rest until they had brought him home again. Mrs. Jones's persistent melancholy since Bill's departure told Thomas that in order to get Bill back, the deed itself would be abrogated by her, should that be one of his conditions of return. Therefore both he and Hammond determined that they would not let the two women know of Bill's whereabouts. Instead, they said they had traced him as far as Placerville, known to old-timers as the Hangtown of the gold days, and that from there he had taken the trail up over the Georgetown Divide, where he said he was going to find work in the mines. Search throughout the entire district, Hammond and Thomas informed her, had failed to locate him, and they assured her and Millie that inquiry should be kept up until he was found.
Winter came, bringing with it no news from Bill, and Mrs. Jones settled into a melancholy resignation wherein she seldom smiled and where she spent most of her time in the rocking-chair by the front window, gazing down the path up which Bill had usually zigzagged his recalcitrant way. Thomas was quick to recognize her symptoms and he resolved upon his master-stroke.
One day toward the end of March when a heavy storm had blown up from the lake and the entire forest was torn and twisted by a wind in high and angry mood, Mrs. Jones sat crying in front of the window, wondering where Bill was and beset with the fear that some place beyond the ridge in that vast ocean of mountain billows Bill might be homeless and cold and without food. A sudden gust shook the hillside, bringing down a grizzled pine that had stood close to the house. The crash of its falling resounded down the slope and Mrs. Jones, keyed to high pitch by her vigil of three months, was brought to a sudden burst of despair just as Thomas, who had come to Calivada to superintend the wiring of the house which was now to be put on modern basis, came down the stairs. It was his chance and he took it.
"Mrs. Jones!" There was a surcharge of pity in his voice as he glided across the room and stood over her chair, placing a gentle hand upon her shoulder. "I hate to see you upset. We've done everything in our power to find Mr. Jones and we will leave no stone unturned until we succeed. In the mean time you must think of yourself and Millie."
"It was thinking of myself and Millie that drove him out of his home." Mrs. Jones buried her head on her hand and leaned against the window-sill. The wind, with renewed shock, beat the sleet against the window-pane. "He may be out this minute wandering the hills with no place to go," she sobbed, "and he ain't young no more, neither.
"Of course, I thought all along," she went on, "that by selling the place I could take care of him in his old age, and now he ain't here and the place can't be sold."
"The place can be sold, Mrs. Jones, and you will then have enough money to institute a real search for Mr. Jones." Thomas's emphasis of the possibility of a sale without Bill's signature relaxed Mrs. Jones's mood and she sat up straight in her chair, lifting questioning eyes toward him.
"There is a way." He answered her unspoken inquiry with calm deliberation, while he scrutinized her for the least sign of encouragement or of antagonism as his plan unfolded. "It is a difficult way and one which you may balk at pursuing, but it will justify itself in the end."
"Oh, what is it, Mr. Thomas?" Mrs. Jones's brown eyes widened and hope returned to them as she smoothed out an imaginary wrinkle in her gingham apron and folded her arms across her waist, rocking expectantly back and forth. "I'd do 'most anything if I thought it'd bring Bill back," she exclaimed, raising her voice to an enthusiastic pitch.
Thomas brought an arm-chair from the center-table and sat down beside her. Clasping his hands, he leaned forward, "You can get a divorce, and—"
"Oh, I could never do that!" Mrs. Jones protested and stopped rocking as she lifted up her hands in horror. "He 'ain't never done anything; and besides—"
"That's not the question." Thomas was quick to interrupt her flow of excuses. "I know he has done nothing, Mrs. Jones. But as things stand at present you have neither Bill nor the money for the place. You can't give a clear title to the place while you are married to Mr. Jones unless it bears his signature. You have not the money to find him. A divorce will straighten all this out. You can sell the place for enough money to find Bill. You can remarry him and you will both have a comfortable old age."
"Oh!!!" Mrs. Jones drew the word out with a long inflection of surprise, and she shook her head in the wisdom of a new light. "I see what ye mean." After a moment's abstraction in which she pondered Thomas's suggestion, she continued, "Some way or 'nuther it don't seem straight by Bill."
"It's the only way I see to settle matters. But I sha'n't try to persuade you against your will, Mrs. Jones." Thomas brought to bear on the situation his finest modulations, both in voice and manner, as he sat nonchalantly in his chair, one knee cocked over the other and his foot swinging listlessly back and forth, portraying a personal indifference which Mrs. Jones's simple mind could not penetrate.
"It does seem a good way," she mused aloud, adding, in little spurts, "but I guess—maybe—Well—I think I'll talk it over with Millie."
Mrs. Jones did talk it over with Millie. Also, she had several prolonged interviews with Thomas on the subject, and three days later she put her name to the petition which asked for a divorce from Bill Jones without so much as giving the document a thorough reading. Whatever Thomas proposed was to her, by the very fact of its being his idea, a thing worthy to be done. Millie, being of the same turn of mind, aided her in accepting his decision. And it was only when the first publication of summons appeared in the Reno papers that her heart sank at the words which characterized Bill as a drunkard and a man who was cruel to his wife—lies which Thomas justified as necessary to strengthen the one truthful ground for the divorce—that of failure to provide. Even that Mrs. Jones felt was beside the truth, for although Bill had never exerted himself needlessly, he had performed the chores, gone after the mail, made beds, and, by his gift to her on their marriage day of his three hundred and twenty acres, which were far the better portion of the property, he had made some slight concession to his responsibilities. Bill's digressions had been those of omission rather than those of commission, and Mrs. Jones's misgivings were frequent during the three months that followed.
In the mean time, Thomas and Hammond were quick to inaugurate a new regime at the hotel. Mrs. Jones and Millie remained on in the capacity of guests, while a clerk and a housekeeper were brought from the city to take over the management. Modern improvements and equipment soon turned it into a hostelry that verged on the fashionable. With the early spring freshet augmenting the waterfall and the stream into a cataract whose potential horse-power did not escape Everett Hammond, he made a hurried trip from San Francisco with an official of the Pacific Railroad and succeeded in persuading the company to advance a comfortable sum of money for an option on the Jones property. Mrs. Jones and Millie, fretting under the suspense and without funds, were given a small amount to tide them over until the sale should be consummated, when they were to receive a large block of certificates in the Golden Gate Land Company.
All would have been well with Thomas, who saw life spreading before him in a panorama of ease and elegance, had it not been for two people—Lemuel Townsend and John Marvin. Lemuel Townsend had been placed by the November elections on the list of Superior Court judges, where he immediately came into his own as presiding judge in the majority of divorce cases in Reno. Thomas, unable to withstand the rôle of popular and irresistible Beau Brummell among the prospective divorcées at the hotel, had run against Townsend's displeasure two days before the election, when he had dared to play interloper in Lemuel Townsend's attentions to Mrs. Margaret Davis. With Townsend, it had been love at first sight. With Mrs. Davis it was something less, her only idea at that time being a quick snatch at freedom and a hurried trip back to Broadway, where she hoped to sign up for the summer circuit. Lem Townsend did well enough to pass the time, and it was her own diversion rather than any feeling for him which bade her accept his attentions. Thomas on frequent trips had scattered his flatteries between Millie and the various divorcées. Mrs. Davis came in for her full share and several times there had been clashes between the two men, Thomas invariably stepping aside, but only after verbal skirmishes with Townsend.
Marvin had not been seen in the neighborhood since a few days after Bill Jones had disappeared. He had returned to his cabin, after having established himself in an office in San Francisco with the intention of taking Bill back with him. During the days spent on the trails in search of the old man he had successfully evaded Sheriff Blodgett and had gone back to his office, where he had received a forwarded letter from Bill at the veterans' home at Yountville. He had taken one trip to the home with the purpose of persuading Bill to return with him to the city. But when he saw how comfortable Bill was there in the hillside country, surrounded by the old veterans who vied with one another in recounting their past prowess, he decided to let him alone until such time as he could effect a reconciliation between Bill and Mrs. Jones.
This, he trusted, would be at the termination of the case brought against him by the Pacific Railroad to recover the timber which he had sold to Rodney Harper previous to the sale of his timber-land to the Golden Gate Land Company by Mrs. Marvin. Then, too, he hoped the way would be made straight for him and Millie, although he had half lost hope under his realization of Thomas's superior eligibility.
These things, known to the latter, destroyed his composure and made the lapse between the filing of Mrs. Jones's divorce suit and the termination of its three months' summons by publication, required by law, a period of anxiety. He knew that if Marvin were vindicated before Mrs. Jones could secure her divorce his whole framework would collapse, as Millie and Mrs. Jones, straightforward as they were, would brook no hint of dishonesty on his part. Once discovered as unworthy of trust, their confidence in him would be broken and Marvin would be restored to full standing, not only in Millie's affections, but in Mrs. Jones's approval.
In the latter part of March he took a hurried trip to Reno, where, in conference with Blodgett, who had never been able to forgive Marvin's evasion of arrest, maneuvers to have the two suits tried at the same time sent him back to San Francisco rejoicing in the anticipation that his days of discomfort would soon be over and he could return to his own world again.
CHAPTER XIV
Mid-April came with its arabesquan days of sunlight and shadow and its fragile broidery of new leaf and timid blossom. It was as if its coming had stirred anew the life in Reno's divorce colony. All winter the courts had been dull, most of the men and women seeking divorces arriving in the early fall and biding their time of six months by hibernating through the long, cold season. But now there was a renewed activity in divorce circles. The court calendars were full and there was a steady stream of gaily clad applicants making their way in and out of the Washoe County court-house, going in with nervous, hasty, anxious tread and coming out with a gait which spoke of a new freedom and a smile that bespoke life as once again worth living.
It was one morning just after the flux of spring divorces had begun that Sheriff Blodgett stood looking over the calendar in Judge Lemuel Townsend's court-room. He scowled as he read the words announcing that the first case was that of the Railroad Company versus John Marvin. He patted the warrant which still occupied the waiting list in his pocket. Placing a chair close to the court-room door, he waited for the crowd to begin to file in. He knew that he could not arrest a man in the court-room, but he intended to keep his eye on the corridor, and to that end had propped one of the doors open with a chair so that he could see clear to the swinging doors that led in from the street. If Marvin put in an appearance, he intended to arrest him at once. The thought gave him satisfaction and he sat twirling his long, drooping mustache with one hand and fondling the handcuffs in his coat pocket with the other. Revenge at last would play its part to-day, for, even if Marvin failed to appear and therefore balked him again, the railroad company would get judgment, anyway.
It was at this point in his reverie that Thomas entered the court-room, greeting the sheriff with a genial, "Oh, hello there, Blodgett! I guess our day's come."
With a patronizing pat on Blodgett's shoulder, Thomas passed and went to the clerk, where he procured a list of the day's cases. He, too, nodded in satisfaction, as he saw that the Pacific Railroad case, in which he was attorney, was to come up first. Running his finger down the line, he stopped at another close to the end, smiled again, and turned to the sheriff.
"The Marvin case is first," he observed.
The sheriff nodded and a frown slowly puckered his brow. He walked slowly up to Thomas, who stood at the clerk's desk just within the railing. He hesitated, clearing his throat, and found the courage to ask, with a slight timidity in his voice and manner, "You ain't a-goin' to bring up the old story of my serving the warrant at Calivada, are you?"
Thomas laughed. "No," he replied; "I don't think I'll have to go into that. But I will ask you about the time you went to Marvin's camp."
Blodgett heaved his shoulders in relief, and, with hands in his pockets, went back to his station at the door. "That's all right!" He exhaled a full breath once again.
Thomas turned the leaves of the calendar, looked ahead for a day or two, without noticing much that he saw, then turned the leaves back again to the day's list. He went to the court-room window and looked out upon the valley that ran from Reno up toward the foothills. He sniffed the keen, cool air that was blown up to him. He stood contemplating the rushing waters of the Truckee River below. After several minutes' thought he faced Blodgett again.
"I'm going to ask you what time you were at Marvin's camp, for I want to show he was taking down the timber," he announced.
"I didn't get out where the timber was," the sheriff replied.
"But you know he had a gang of lumbermen there?" In Thomas's tone and in the gleam on his cold, blue eyes the sheriff caught the message of persuasion.
"Oh, sure." He nodded with the air of a man who understood what was wanted of him.
"And they drove you off by force?"
Blodgett nodded again.
"And you remember the date?"
"I guess I won't fergit it." There was emphasis in Blodgett's answer and he arose impatiently from his chair and stood, his arms akimbo, peering down the corridor. "Do you think Marvin'll be here to-day?" This time he was interlocutor. "I got a notion he won't," he added, fathering his disappointment by admitting the possibility of frustration in the one desire that had held him ever since Marvin had foiled him by the technicality of the state boundary-line. He was bound, however, that there should be no opportunity for escape this time.
"I don't care whether he turns up or not," Thomas answered, going to the lawyers' table, opening his brief-case, and setting them out before him as he swung gracefully into a chair. "The case is a cinch," he emphasized, with a grin that found reflection in Blodgett's eyes.
With a warning to the clerk to keep an eye on things until he should return, Blodgett left the court-room and swaggered up the corridor, stopping at the door of the other rooms and taking a frowning survey of the occupants, hoping that Marvin had entered one of them by mistake. If John Marvin was in Reno he was not going to escape arrest this day. With this comforting conclusion in mind, he took up his stand just outside of the court-house door at the top of the steps.
In the mean time Everett Hammond, escorting Mrs. Jones and Millie Buckley, entered Judge Townsend's court-room and were greeted effusively by Thomas.
"Oh, good morning!" He bowed low over Mrs. Jones's hand, which he held in his. "I'm glad to see you." Staring at Millie, who looked very fetching in a trim blue serge tailor suit, he beamed. "How fine you look this morning; quite irresistible, I assure you!"
Millie blushed and looked with frightened glance from the judge's bench to the lawyers' table, and from there to the witness-stand and back toward the door, for all the world as if she were contemplating a rapid escape. She took a deep breath. "I don't feel irresistible," she said. "I feel just as if I wanted to cry and run away." She pouted at Thomas, with entreaty in her pretty eyes.
Thomas laughed, put his hand on her arm in deprecation, and shrugged her fears away. "Oh, the trial won't amount to anything, little lady. What do you say to that, Mrs. Jones?"
The older woman's brown eyes were staring straight ahead, as if she saw a real horror and was without power to controvert it. "All I can say," she replied, in a high-pitched, high-strung voice, "is that I'm here." She waited for a moment, casting furtive glances at Hammond and Thomas, who stood one on each side of her. Having found the courage to assert herself, she burst out, "And I wish I wasn't!"
"Now, now, Mrs. Jones!" There was banter in Hammond's voice, but there was concern in the wise direction of his eyes toward Thomas. "You're a mighty brave woman and I know you're going through with this, for it means that you'll be in a much better position to find your husband and look out for your old age after you get the money for the place."
Mrs. Jones made no response, but cast anxious eyes about the room, and she folded her hands in resignation across her ample waist-line.
"It's like going to the dentist. The worst part is making up your mind to it." Thomas leaned over Mrs. Jones and smiled his most engaging smile. He received no answer to it, so he turned to Millie, who stood at the other side of him.
Before he could speak, the girl rid herself of the question that had been ever present in her mind now for six months, and one which she had never failed to ask him every time she saw him or wrote to him.
"Have you heard anything of daddy?"
Thomas's smile disappeared. He left the little group of four in the middle of the space inside of the rails and sat down again at the table, annoyance in the slump with which he threw himself into his chair. "No, we haven't been able to locate him." He would have been sullen had he dared, but his game was too nearly played and he did not wish to foozle at the last, so he controlled his mood and forced a smile as he thought of a method of getting away from his client's importunity for awhile.
"It must be distasteful for you two women to remain in here any longer than possible," he said, rising from his chair again and pointing to a door at one side of the court-room. "Lennon," he called to the clerk, "my clients can wait in there, can't they?"
The clerk acquiescing, he and Hammond courteously escorted Mrs. Jones and Millie to the door and showed them into a small room which had been fitted up for hysterical women overcome with the proceeding in their cases, or for those who, like Mrs. Jones and Millie, wished to avoid the embarrassment of a long wait in the court-room.
As the two women went through the door, Thomas turned to Hammond and advised, in a low voice: "You better go, too, Hammond. Keep them cheered up."
With bad grace in his shrug and in his eyes, he followed Thomas's suggestion, first murmuring in his partner's ear: "I'll be damn glad when this day is over. All I've been doing this last week is to keep these darned women from backing out."
CHAPTER XV
By this time the court-room was filling up with its usual motley crowd of interested parties and spectators. There were the seekers after freedom, a heterogeneous collection of them, in all sorts and conditions of clothes, of all ages and of all kinds of faces and figures. There were the women from the millionaire colonies of the East, chic, sleek, and composed. They retired into a far corner with their attorneys, conferring in low tones, or else sitting, apparently unperturbed, while waiting for their cases to be called. There were always the adventuress types, chic, too, but made up with an eye to future conquest, their skirts always tighter or wider or shorter or longer than the style decreed, their hair a little more so-so, their lips redder, their cheeks rosier, and their faces whiter than their more conservative sisters of a narrower way. There were tired women from far states not allowing divorces for cruelty or desertion. They sat, in nondescript clothes, most of them, with eyes heavy-lidded, as if they were too weary to care much what happened to them. There were gay young creatures, dancers and small-time vaudeville actresses, who refused to take life seriously and who availed themselves of a dull season to make themselves free for another venture. There was a sprinkling of men, one of them a lumber magnate from an Eastern state, another a noted cabaret entertainer. They sat around, restlessly out of place, but at the same time taking an interest in those about them.
Supplementing these were the spectators. Among them were tourists who came to Reno for the express purpose of attending the divorce trials. Inquisitive folk, regular residents of the town, dropped in to pass an hour's time and to gather gossip for the afternoon tea-table. Club-women, anxious to find food for reform, took up their seats close to the railing, determined that no word of the testimony or proceedings should escape them. And there were the usual hangers-on, old men and women with nothing to do, who found entertainment in listening to the human dramas unfolded from the witness-stand.
Raymond Thomas, before taking his seat at the lawyers' table, took a comprehensive view of his audience. Lifting the skirt of his frock-coat, he sat down, viewing the world and himself complacently. He heard the court-room door swing to, and, looking up, he saw the sheriff coming toward him with Mrs. Margaret Davis by his side.
Mrs. Davis's six months' residence in Nevada had been established and she had come over from Calivada, where she had become quite one of the Jones family, to get her decree. She had expected to meet Mrs. Jones at the Riverside Hotel, but she had been late and had hurried over, her effort flushing her cheeks even beyond the heavy coat of peach-bloom with which she hid the natural roses of her cheeks. She had been scurrying like a chicken around the corridors when she had caught sight of Sheriff Blodgett and importuned him to see her safely to a seat in the court-room.
As soon as she saw Thomas she dismissed the sheriff summarily, while Thomas arose and went forward, opening the swinging gates that admitted the lawyers and witnesses behind the railing. Their greeting was effusive, and Thomas held Mrs. Davis's hand for a moment. She blushed vigorously and simpered:
"Oh, Mr. Thomas, my case comes up to-day, and I'm just worried sick about it. Do you think I could see Lem—" she stopped, hung her head, and looked coquettishly up at Thomas as she bit her lip, correcting herself, "I mean Judge Townsend?"
Thomas looked around to see if any one were listening. "I'm afraid you can't see him just now," he replied, leading her to a chair just under the judge's desk, which was set upon a high platform. "Is there anything I can do?" he asked, in his smooth, bland voice.
"I don't know." Mrs. Davis whined and twisted in her chair. "My lawyer's sick. I telephoned his doctor, who was just as mean as could be and said he couldn't come to court to-day. If I could only tell the judge—" She gave Thomas a look laden with understanding.
"There shouldn't be any trouble about that," laughed Thomas, dropping easily into the chair beside her. "You can explain the circumstances to the judge when your case is called, and—"
"But I don't want it postponed! A court-room scares me just half to death. I'll die if I have to put it off and go through screwing up my courage again. I just will!" She nodded her head emphatically until the bright blue plumes that fell from the back of her enormous picture-hat threatened Thomas's eyes.
He moved away from them, offering, after a moment's thought: "Well, I'll be very glad to represent you if you care to have me. There's nothing to your case, anyhow. The judge is a friend of yours, isn't he?"
Mrs. Davis hesitated and rolled her baby-blue eyes at him from under her heavily beaded lashes as she giggled. "Oh yes—he's a friend," and then, thinking better of her confidence, she ended, with a sigh, "that is, I know him—slightly."
Thomas smiled to himself, reassuring her. "Then don't give it a thought. Just leave everything to me."
A grateful hand was laid upon his arm and she looked up at him with fervid admiration. "You are so smart and so kind, Mr. Thomas. You've taken such a load off my mind. If anything went wrong after waiting all these months I'd just die—that's all there is about it."
At this moment the door of the judge's chambers opened and Lemuel Townsend appeared, clad in a Prince Albert suit and beaming on Mrs. Davis, who arose and walked well into the middle of the floor so that she should not escape his immediate attention.
This was a moment of great satisfaction for Thomas, who looked about the court-room, scrutinizing every man in it, his face brightening as he saw that John Marvin had not put in an appearance. When the sheriff had finished opening court he arose from his place at the lawyers' table, for he knew that the case of the railroad against John Marvin was the first upon the day's calendar. He pulled his revers together with a pompous gesture and opened his mouth to speak. Before he could do so Judge Townsend called to the clerk, whose desk was at one side of the bench, and suggested in low tones:
"I think this first case can go over—"
Thomas caught the words and disappointment drove the self-satisfaction from his face. He ventured to address the court: "If it please your Honor, this is an action for the wrongful taking of timber, and I've come a long way and I would like to get home—"
Townsend had not been listening to a word, his attention being concentrated on the tip of an upstanding feather on Mrs. Davis's hat, which could barely be seen over the top of his desk. "Eh? What's that?" he asked, sharply, not too pleased to be interrupted in his endeavor to catch further sight of Mrs. Davis.
Marvin not having put in an appearance, Thomas's hopes of winning the case for the railroad by default were high. He did not think Marvin would appear, but every delay might be fatal and it took an effort on his part to appear unperturbed. However, he managed to answer in urbane tones, "I was saying, your Honor, that—"
"Oh yes." Townsend bent his head and looked down with severe eyes over the top of his glasses. "Just a moment, please," he added, as Thomas would have finished his plea. Turning to the clerk, he ordered, "Let me see the list."
The list was handed to him and he ran down it, finally remarking to the clerk, "I think I will dispose of these short cases first." Half rising in his chair, he looked over the top of his desk to where Mrs. Davis was twisting and turning in her chair in an effort to get a look at him.
"Mrs. Davis," he called in gentle tones, "are you ready?"
She hurriedly precipitated herself into the middle of the space in front of the platform. "Why, yes," she answered, looking about as if she did not know where to turn and gathering her sealskin cape about her.
"I'll take your case at two o'clock," the judge said to Thomas, who shrugged his shoulders, but did not sit down as Townsend had expected him to do.
As the clerk called the case, "Davis versus Davis," Thomas moved close to the bench, exclaiming, "If it please your Honor—"
He was interrupted by a glower from Townsend, who said, "This case is Davis versus Davis, Mr. Thomas," his eyes wrinkling into a broad smile as he again turned his attention to Mrs. Davis, who stood, bewildered, not knowing whether to laugh or cry.
"I am quite aware that it is the Davis case, your Honor," Thomas answered, not without a note of triumph in his voice and demeanor. "I am the attorney for Mrs. Davis."
Thomas's announcement shocked Townsend into dropping a document he held in his hand. It fell on the desk and was blown by the strong east wind that came in from the window clear across the room. "You are?" he asked, with a mouth fallen half open from surprise and annoyance, his spectacles tilting to the end of his nose.
Thomas did not answer at once, but flushed, turning, for the sake of a few moments in which to think, toward the clerk, who was scrambling after the paper. His glance on its way back to the judge met that of Blodgett, which had both a warning and an "I-told-you-so" quality in it.
"Well?" The judge's question was drawn into a length which further embarrassed Thomas. Being a young man of poise, however, he straightened the revers of his coat and settled them with a shake upon his shoulder, replying, graciously, "Mrs. Davis has appointed me in the place of Mr. Adams."
Townsend continued to stare most ungraciously at the young man in front of him, but Thomas, unabashed, went on: "Your Honor, I believe, is familiar with the complaint and has gone over the depositions submitted by the plaintiff. As the defendant has neither entered a denial, put in an appearance, nor been represented in court, I move that the plaintiff be granted an absolute separation from the defendant."
Swift shafts of indignation bolted from Townsend's eyes back and forth between Thomas and Margaret Davis. He saw that consternation was plainly written on the latter's baby face and that tears were gathering in her big blue eyes now pleadingly uplifted to his. His jaw relaxed and a smile played at the corners of his mouth. But Thomas' complacency at the softening in the judge's attitude was too much, and Townsend snapped out, "The motion is denied."
From her chair directly in front of the judge's desk Margaret Davis immediately jumped up, her eyes opening into large, round, moist orbs which threatened to grow moister as she asked, in a voice that fear had robbed of its ingenuousness, "Does that mean I can't get a divorce?"
Thomas was about to reassure her, when he was again interrupted by the judge, whose voice flattened as he looked away from her, afraid to trust the melting effect of her coy glances. "It means that the motion of your counsel is unusual and that I have good and sufficient reasons for denying it," he said, with emphasis.
Margaret put her handkerchief to her eyes to stem the threatening tide, while Thomas hastened to forestall the avalanche by informing her, as he placed a comforting hand on her arm, that he would be able, at least, to try the case.
Had Lem Townsend been able to prevent the latter, he would have done so, but he was too young as a jurist to allow criticism of his knowledge of points of law, and he reluctantly gave consent to the trial of the case.
It was with a beating heart and a jaw set against the impending quiver of a not too slender frame that she held up her hand for the oath and took her place upon the stand, looking about with a terror that was new born in eyes heretofore ungiven to everything but treacle. Her lips trembled an almost inaudible reply to the clerk's question.
She was still standing, and Thomas, noticing this, motioned her to be seated, beginning at the same time her examination.
"Mrs. Davis, where do you live?" he asked. His own tones were of no certain quality, for the firm pressure of Townsend's white lips and his obvious intention of steering clear of any attempt at honeyed coercion on Margaret Davis's part were not encouraging.
In vain she cast her eyes about in an effort to inveigle the sympathy of Lem Townsend. He stared straight ahead at the paper in front of him, although he saw not a word. Her answer to Thomas's question came with a gasp. "New York." Then realizing that her case was lost and her entire six months' sojourn at Calivada was as nothing unless she immediately corrected her mistake, she gasped a second time as she drew the folds of her blue-velvet cape about her. "Oh no! I don't mean that at all. I live here—I live here in Nevada and I've lived here long enough to get a divorce. The judge—" and here she stopped for breath, making another attempt to corral his stubborn favor—"his Honor—" she jerked, with a quick breath, "can tell—you that."
But the judge did not smile and his eyes remained rigid in their sockets as they glared at the paper in his hand.
"Just answer the questions, please, Mrs. Davis," Thomas cautioned her pleasantly, although as a witness she was disconcerting.
"Well," she drawled, fidgeting in her chair, "that's not easy when you're sworn to tell the truth."
A titter ran through the court-room and was brought to an abrupt end by the sheriff's gavel.
Thomas resumed his examination. "You are the wife of Gerald Davis, are you not?"
She nodded.
"And when and where were you married to him?"
"Seven years ago, October fifth—in Peoria." She glanced about at the sea of smiling faces, again seeking sympathy from the judge.
Again he was adamant.
"You were living in Peoria?"
The insinuation that anything less than a metropolis should be her abiding-place was more than she could bear and in turbulent leaps, broken by her gasps for breath, she blurted, her lips quivering and her eyes filling with tears: "I should—say—not! My husband and I were playing there. We were partners doing a dancing act—"
Thomas tried to interrupt her and succeeded with half a question. "When did your husband first show signs of not loving you and—"
He got no farther, for she went on, determined to get over the disagreeable business of being truthful. "He stopped loving me about a year before we were married."
This time a storm of laughter surged through the court-room and it took several taps of Blodgett's gavel to regain quiet. Undaunted, she finished her story. "It's really hard to explain why we were married. You see"—she hesitated and resumed jerkily—"we were in Peoria—and we were partners—and—and—it rained all week—Well, somehow it seemed a good idea at the time."
At this point it became necessary for Townsend, in order to maintain the dignity of the bench, to caution the spectators that if there were any more such outbursts of joy he would have the court-room cleared.
Thomas still maintained his control, although cold perspiration was wilting his highly polished collar. "But after you were married he was cruel to you, was he not?" he asked.
"I should say he was!" The answer was accompanied by an emphatic nod of the head and again she flew onward, over his head, determined that she should tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
"Why," she opened her left hand and enumerated the said Gerald Davis's shortcomings by pressing its fingers with the thumb and forefinger of her right hand, "he put his name on the bill in larger type than mine. He tried to strike me once—but he was a poor judge of distance. And—and—" she stopped. This time her appeal was directed to Thomas.
"He deserted you, did he not?" Thomas eagerly took up the thread, hoping to unravel the snarl she had worked with it.
"Well, we parted—"
"After he deserted you?"
Before Mrs. Davis could answer the last question, Townsend straightened the spectacles on his nose and entered the case. Slowly welling within him was a jealousy now overwhelming. His political ambitions alone had stood in the way of his descending from the bench and throwing Thomas out of the court-room. It was only by remaining silent that he had curbed his temper. Now it broke away from him, and he turned, thundering, "So far, Mr. Thomas, the witness has not testified that her husband deserted her!"
"Oh—" Margaret Davis turned squarely in her chair, pursing her carmine lips into an irresistible moue. "Of course he deserted me! We were playing in Chicago, and I went West and he stayed there and—"
"That looks to me, madam, as if you deserted him. So far, your testimony has not brought out anything to substantiate your complaint."
Tears unrestrained burst forth at this moment. The thought that not only had she lost all chance of securing her freedom, but that Lemuel Townsend, whose attentions had helped to while away a six months which would otherwise have been dull to one accustomed to a barrage of suitors at the stage door, was more than she could bear. Pointing to Thomas, she sobbed into a purple silk handkerchief that smelled not faintly of patchouli. "That's because he told me to do nothing but answer his questions, and then he asked me all the wrong things—" Her emotion, out of bounds, spent itself in a cataract of tears. Unable to go on, she sat there, trying to stem the tears with a handkerchief inadequate for their volume.
Thomas tried to save his case. "Your Honor—I—"
He hesitated, Margaret Davis coming to his rescue. "Oh, I don't mean to blame you," she said to him, addressing the last of her remark to the judge. "He doesn't know anything about my case!"
What Lemuel Townsend would have liked to do at that moment was to have taken her in his arms and reassure her, as old fools are apt to do with naïve young creatures. But her apparent friendliness with Thomas and her deceitfulness in employing him for her attorney was more than he could condone. He would not relax his stern exterior, although his interior was softening. "Then, why," he asked, in measured tones, "is he appearing for you if he does not understand your case?"
Recognizing the opportunity for explanation, Margaret wiped her eyes, sniffed, and, went on: "My lawyer's sick, you see. And I wanted to tell you all about it, but Mr. Thomas explained that I couldn't see you. And he said he'd do everything for me, and you'd give me a divorce without any trouble at all."
Thomas whitened and turned to the table, where he fingered his brief-case nervously. He could not brave the glare which he knew Townsend was directing at him, nor the tirade he feared would follow.
"When did he tell you all that?" the judge asked, his nostrils quivering with rage, his voice strained to a tenor.
"Just now." Margaret grew happily voluble and she nodded her head back and forth like a child of six as she ogled the judge. "When I came into court he was here and I told him the trouble I was in. It's the only time I've seen him since you asked me not to."
Townsend was so relieved that he did not hear the last of her remark and the noisy delight of the spectators also escaped him. He was bent upon one purpose, that of chastising Thomas. "Why didn't you tell me this before?" he asked Margaret, in tender tones, forgetting, in his ardor, that there was such a thing as a court-room. He leaned far over the desk and beamed upon her. "There, there, don't let it upset you." He offered her a glass of water.
As she took it, Thomas stepped up to the bench again and tried to palliate the judge's wounded sensibilities. "If your Honor please, I was simply acting from a friendly standpoint and I thought—"
"No matter what your motives were, sir, you presumed when you told the plaintiff what the court's rulings would be." He turned abruptly from Thomas and leaned graciously toward the plaintiff. "Now, Mrs. Davis," he resumed, "let me question you. Why did you leave your husband in Chicago?"
Reassured, Margaret bridled coyly and answered, lifting her lids to the judge: "Because he didn't show up for a performance and I had to go on alone—and afterward the manager told him the act was better without him. And he sulked and stayed away from the theater all the rest of the week and on our next jump he refused to go with me." Her last words dwindled into a plaintive whine.
"And you were obliged to go without him?" Lem Townsend subtly gave a slight nod of his head which Margaret caught and interpreted into a vigorous acquiescence with her own curly blond head.
"Did you try to have him go with you?" Again the hint and again Margaret scored her point.
"Of course I did!" she responded. "I mean, yes—your Honor. But he said he'd show me how long I could go it on my own; but I showed him, for I've never seen him since. I only heard from him once and that was when I sent him money."
"Have you tried to see him?" Lem Townsend asked the last question grudgingly, but he felt that his own honor in the case was in danger of impeachment, and he was sure that his slight nod would be followed as it had before. He was right.
"Of course I did. Mr. Blackmore—he was our manager—gave me his sworn statement."
Townsend for the first time really saw the paper in front of him. He read it carefully, answering in tones of quick delight. "Yes, here it is and a deposition dated Chicago stating that Davis left you without warning and refused to dance with you again."
"Yes, your Honor," she cooed.
There was silence while Townsend scrutinized the papers in front of him. Margaret sat with her eyes anxiously fastened on him. With a nod of satisfaction he shoved the papers aside and, smiling down at her, announced in kindly tones, "Your decree is granted."
"Your Honor!" She arose from her chair and sat down in it again, a copious flow of tears making it impossible for her to leave the stand.
Townsend reached for the glass of water and held it toward her once again. "Please, please, Mrs. Davis," he endeavored to calm her, but his compassion only served to bring on another storm. "I'm so emotional," she sobbed, "I can't stop it!"
Townsend looked about helplessly. A sudden awakening to his own prerogative solved the dilemma. "Mr. Sheriff, announce a recess," he ordered. And leaving the bench, he went to Mrs. Davis and guided her into his chambers.
The crowd filed out of the court-room, while Thomas, weak with shame and disappointment, took his seat at the table again, impatiently toying with a paper-knife that had fallen from his pin-seal brief-case.
Blodgett went to him and leaned over with the intention of reassuring him, when there was a disturbance at the window which opened from a balcony a few feet above the street. Both of the men turned just in time to see John Marvin climb through the window and pull his suit-case in after him.
The sheriff stepped forward, hesitating as he realized his powers were negative in a court-room.
"Here, what you doing?" the clerk called out, getting up from his desk.
The sheriff glared and handled the manacles in his pocket with an intemperate disgust.
Marvin looked at him and laughed, answering the clerk. "I've got business in this court. I'm John Marvin and I'm appearing in the case the Pacific Railroad has brought against me." He did not deign to glance at Thomas, who had arisen, facing him, white from the blow to his hope of obtaining a judgment by default.
Marvin went calmly to the other end of the attorneys' table and opened up his shabby brown-canvas brief-case. He whistled to himself softly as he did so and glanced at Thomas, whose pallid mouth was drawn into a dogged sneer.
Blodgett went back to his seat just within the swinging gates that gave entrance behind the railing and sat glaring at Marvin. Quiet reigned in the court; then a faint shuffle of feet was heard beyond the door.
As Blodgett looked around, the door of the court-room opened gently and Bill Jones, clad in a Civil War veteran's uniform, faded from the sun, its brass buttons tarnished, and wearing his soldier's black soft hat with its gold cord cocked jauntily over one eye, sauntered down the aisle, holding out his hand to Marvin, who had jumped from his seat and bounded around the table to greet him.
"Hello, John!" Lightnin' drawled, grinning. "How's tricks? You look kinder legal this morning?"
CHAPTER XVI
As Bill made his way through the swinging gates, Blodgett put out a detaining arm, asking, with a scowl, "Here, what do you want?"
"Been arrestin' any one in California lately?" Bill slid past Blodgett, ignoring his attempt to stop him, the old twinkle in his eye as he touched what he knew to be the sheriff's sensitive spot.
"Well, Lightnin'," Marvin exclaimed, "how did you get here and what in the world have you come for?"
"Yer case ain't over yet, is it?"
Marvin shook his head, repeating his first question.
Bill did not reply at once. Not wanting Marvin to know that he and Zeb had been nearly two weeks getting there, and that they had come in much the same way they had gone, riding when they could get a lift on a train or a wagon, walking when they could not, he pretended to forget the young man's questions, asking one himself instead, "What time your case comin' up?"
"Two o'clock."
The sheriff sauntered up to them. Bill knew the purpose of his approach was to catch the drift of their conversation, so he turned abruptly, his hands in his back pockets, and grinned at Blodgett. Nodding toward Marvin, he drawled, "I'm a witness for him. I got to testify how you served a warrant on him."
The sheriff glared and slouched over to his chair, throwing himself into it as he pulled his black sombrero down over his eyes.
Marvin, his arm about Bill's shoulders, leaned over him, guiding him gently to the attorneys' table. "Well, Lightnin'," he questioned, in an indulgent voice, "how did you happen to show up here?"
"I promised you, didn't I?"
"But that was a long time ago. I supposed you'd forgotten all about it."
Bill glanced quickly at him and smiled. "I ain't never forgotten nothin' since I was four years old."
Marvin, happy to see the old Lightnin' behind the boast, smiled, asking him, "How did you know the trial was to-day?"
"That's easy," Bill replied, as he sat against the edge of the table, steadying himself with his hands. "I seen it in a Reno paper at the Home."
"But I told you the time I came to see you that you needn't bother about coming. I wouldn't have had you come all this long way for the world if I had known it." There was concern in Marvin's voice as he slowly dropped into a chair in front of Bill.
"That's why I didn't say nothin'."
"Where did the money come from?"
"I saved my pension." Bill glanced slyly at him. Catching his questioning eye, he stopped and looked through the window into the distance.
"You told me you sent your pension money to your wife!"
"I did—some of it. I sent mother six dollars, but I didn't get no answer." The laughter went from Bill and he leaned over, looking toward the far hills, strange, unreal purple against the clear, cold blue of the April sky.
Marvin watched him, asking, "Did you tell her you were in the Soldiers' Home?"
"No." Bill's voice was devoid of inflection.
"Then she probably didn't know where you were."
"Where else could I be?" His lips were puckered into a whistle, although they were quivering and no tune came. It was always this way when he thought of mother, so he straightened himself and stood by Marvin's chair, forcing a smile to his lips and jerking out, "And six dollars is six dollars."
The court-room was filling again, five minutes having elapsed since recess was declared. A side door opened and Townsend came into court. Blodgett stood up, pounded the desk with his gavel and announced the opening of the session. Bill and Marvin, rising to order, started and looked at each other as Thomas entered the room just behind the judge. Following him was Everett Hammond, who, when he saw Bill and Marvin together at the attorneys' table, began vigorous and anxious whispering in Thomas's ear as he took his place next to him on the other side of the table.
Margaret Davis entered from the judge's chambers. She was accompanied by Mrs. Jones and Millie.
Bill did not see them. His eyes were fastened on Hammond and Thomas in close conference.
But suddenly, as he turned to take in the rest of the people in the room, his eyes alighted on his wife. He arose and wandered toward her, exclaiming, as she came to meet him, "Why, mother, what are you doing here?" He stared at her and held out his hand.
Mrs. Jones was so surprised to see him that she could not speak and stood still, her hands in the air half-way between her waist and shoulder.
Millie was the first to answer him. "Oh, daddy—" She was going to put her arms around him, when Blodgett rapped upon the table for order.
Tears sprang to Mrs. Jones's eyes and Margaret Davis arose and led her to a chair next to hers and just at the foot of the platform, from which Townsend smiled happily upon them.
"Come along, Mr. Clerk!" There was cheer in Townsend's voice as he directed another saccharine shaft toward Margaret. "I've got an important engagement and I want to get through. Call the next case."
Bill, his eyes still on his wife, walked slowly to the table and sat down just behind Marvin.
"Jones versus Jones," read the clerk, standing at one side of the platform and unfolding the document he held in his hand.
Bill did not hear him. He was gazing at Mrs. Jones, an old tenderness in his eyes, a bitter longing in his heart. Drifting, living only for the hour, as was his nature, but one scar had remained unobliterated upon his memory, one hope alone flickered in the lonely sanctuary of a soul that had known no conflicts. His affection for his wife had been something deeper than emotion, something lighter than passion. It had been the lasting quantity in a life of fleeting concepts, and his six months at the Home had subdued it into a dull ache which found relief only when a faint optimism brought vague dreams of a remote reunion.
Her presence in court puzzled him. He felt that it must have something to do with the sale of the place, or, perhaps, with Marvin's case. And yet he was sure she knew nothing of the transaction between Mrs. Marvin and Thomas, or between Rodney Harper and Marvin. Whatever it was, it had brought a ray of expectancy to Bill, and he jumped as he was brought out of his reverie by Marvin's perplexed whisper: "Jones versus Jones. By Jove, Lightnin', I believe that's you!"
"Me?" Bill glanced around as if he were half awake and leaned far forward in his chair, putting his hand to his ear and straining to catch every word as the clerk read the complaint:
"To the people of the State of Nevada, Mary Jones, Plaintiff versus William Jones, Defendant. A civil action wherein the said plaintiff deposes and says she was lawfully married to the said defendant on the 14th day of June, eighteen hundred and ninety-six, in the state of Nevada. The said plaintiff prays this court for a permanent annulment of her marriage vows, the defendant, William Jones, having disregarded and broken all obligations of the marriage contract, thereby causing the plaintiff great suffering and mental agony and the said Mary Jones claims a final separation and divorce from the said William Jones on the grounds of failure to provide, habitual intoxication, and intolerable cruelty. Subscribed and sworn to me on the fifth day of April, nineteen hundred and seventeen. Alexander Bradshaw, Notary: Raymond Thomas, Attorney for the plaintiff."
When the clerk had finished Bill sent a beseeching glance toward his wife. Each word of the document had entered far into a mind little given to taking account. One by one he had tolled off the record against him, placing the accusations in two files—the true and the false. That his wife had cause for anger against him he now, for the first time, fully realized. But he was bewildered, and when Bill was bewildered it was his habit to seek enlightenment.
After a moment, in which Mrs. Jones darted swift glances from beneath a brow bowed with regret, he turned to Marvin, who had arisen and was standing back of his chair, bending over him, and asked, simply, "Is that all about me?"
Blodgett tapped his sheriff's gavel.
Townsend caught Bill's question and asked, "What did you say?"
Marvin, knowing that Bill was inadequate to the test placed upon him, came quickly to the rescue. Standing in front of the judge, he explained: "Your Honor, Mr. Jones is the unconscious defendant in this case. It just happened that he came to court to-day to be a witness in another case. He has had no previous knowledge of this action."
Before he could go farther Raymond Thomas, upon whom the entire situation was reacting in swift, powerful threats to his cause, arose, his face drawn with the agony of frustration, his voice high pitched from the effort to subdue the feelings fast getting beyond his control. "The defendant's whereabouts were unknown to us, your Honor, and the court allowed us to serve notice by publication."
"Publication in what?" Marvin demanded, as he darted contempt at Thomas.
Townsend answered him. "Proper service was given, if the defendant could not be located." To Bill he addressed the next question, "Is that what you asked about?"
Still confused, and not yet quite getting the trend of the whole matter, he asked, in his quiet, disinterested way, "Who, me?"
"Yes," replied the judge. "You made some remark after the complaint was read."
"I wasn't sure I'd got it straight," Bill said, looking ahead of him, mouth half open.
"You mean the grounds on which the action is based?" the judge persisted.
There was a pause, in which Bill looked first at Thomas, whose lids drooped under the old man's scrutiny, and then at his wife, who hung her head. "I guess so," he jerked, drumming his fingers softly on the table.
Townsend ordered the clerk to repeat that part of the complaint wherein the grounds for the suit were mentioned. The clerk repeated, "Failure to provide, habitual intoxication, and intolerable cruelty."
Bill listened attentively. As the clerk sat down, Bill looked up at the judge, asking, "Is that all?"
