He had braced himself as well as he might to endure the shock of public reprehension, surprise, repulsion, reacting on his own nerves, sensitive to every variation of popular opinion, when he should go to his associates, his weapon in his hand, the report of his own foul deed upon his lips. And yet, strong as he was, he faltered, he tottered, he fell almost fainting against the door at which he entered. He had a vague idea of the startled faces turned toward him, the expectant stillness, the sound of his hoarse, disconnected words in an appalled staccato, the sudden rush, the wild clamor. He hardly recognized the two men who disengaged themselves from the turmoil and came to him,—the best friends he had in the world, he might be sure now. He was only aware of what he had said and how well he had said it, when he was supported between them to a carriage, and was driving with them and with the officer who had been summoned at his request, to the magistrate’s house. His friends were talking together in respectful undertones of this “unfortunate affair,” and arranging the details,—a little complicated because of the late hour,—that there might be naught more unseemly than giving speedy bail. Neither intruded on his reserve. The officer was silent, unofficial, respectfully null, effaced. The stars were bright in the dark sky. The horses’ hoofs flashed fire.
The magistrate, roused to the fact that justice may not sleep when wrongs are to be righted, made the necessary inquiries in so grave and courteous a tone that it seemed he recognized that the occasional killing of a gentleman may be lamentable to the deceased and inconvenient to the surviving, but was nothing to unduly stretch the limits of his elastic impartiality and abeyance of harsh opinion. He promptly accepted the proffered bail, and Harshaw’s friends left him only at his bedroom door, where they shook hands gravely and kindly with him, and in response to some muttered thanks declared they proposed to see him through.
He found beneath the door the cards and notes of other friends who, hearing some wild rumor of the trouble, had called to proffer services. His lips curled triumphantly as he scanned them one by one. They represented the estimation in which he was held. They intimated a reliance on his good faith and motive in any deed.
“But I tell you, Mr. Harshaw,” he said ceremoniously to himself, “’twould have been mighty different if ’twasn’t for your own smartness!” For he could hardly thank his craft enough for the timely expedient of slipping the cartridges into Kinsard’s empty pistol.
He slept badly in the earlier part of the night, but toward day he fell into a deep and dreamless slumber, and woke refreshed. It was later than usual, and he was solitary at breakfast save for the company of strangers. The corridors were well-nigh deserted when he came out with his unfolded newspaper in his hand,—he would not look at it earlier. Most of the members who sojourned at the same hotel had gone to the Capitol. The reading-rooms were quite empty, but for the presence of the sunlight in glittering white blocks upon the carpet. He had lighted a cigar and flung himself into a chair, nerving himself to read the accounts of the shooting and the comments, when suddenly one of his bondsmen came into the room with so precipitate a manner, so perturbed a face, that the trouble so cleverly manipulated assumed anew an indefinitely threatening aspect. He felt his muscles tighten, his pulses quicken as he asked hastily, “What’s up?”
He could not mistake the nature of the look the man bent on him; it made him tingle from head to foot. And yet his errand was the last offices of friendship.
“You’re too quick on the trigger in more ways than one, Harshaw,” he said. “Kinsard was not hit.”
If Harshaw’s conscience had suffered one pang, this announcement might have weighed more with him than all that was to come. The extreme surprise told only on his nerves: his heart thumped heavily; his breath was short, his face flushed; he looked at his interlocutor with eyes that seemed lidless in their intentness.
“Kinsard was not shot. He lost his balance and was stunned by the fall. They have been working with him all night long, but the doctor says he’ll pull through now.” The man faltered a little. It was hard to look into another man’s eyes and say this. “He revived once before you left. He saw you in the gaslight load his pistol with your cartridges. And then he fainted again. I thought I’d tell you. The whole town’s talking.”
It was admirably managed,—Harshaw’s long, amazed stare, the slow rising from the chair, the rotund resonant laughter filling the room. It renewed his friend’s faith in him.