On the way home Billy fell into deep thought, and the thoughts grew into mutterings: "Billy Little, you are coming to great things. A briber, a suborner of perjury, a liar. I expect soon to hear of you stealing. Burglary is a profitable and honorable occupation. Go it, Billy Little.—And for this you came like a wise man out of the East to leaven the loaf of the West—all for the sake of a girl, a mere child, whom you are foolish enough to—nonsense—and for the sake of the man she is to marry." Then the grief of his life seemed to come back to him in a flood, and he continued almost bitterly: "I don't believe I have led an evil life. I don't want to feel like a Pharisee; but I don't recollect having injured any man or woman in the whole course of my miserable existence, yet I have missed all that is best in life. Even when I have not suffered, my life has been a pale, tasteless blank with nothing but a little poor music and worse philosophy to break the monotony. The little pleasure I have had from any source has been enjoyed alone, and no joy is complete unless one may give at least a part of it to another. If one has a pleasure all to himself, he is apt to hate it at times, and this is one of the times. Billy Little, you must be suffering for the sins of an ancestor. I wonder what he did, damn him."
This mood was unusual for Billy. In his youth he had been baptized with the chrism of sorrow and was safe from the devil of discontent. He was by nature an apostle of sunshine; but when we consider all the facts, I know you will agree with me that he had upon this occasion good right to be a little cloudy.
That evening Dic was arrested and held in jail pending Doug Hill's recovery or death. Should Douglas die, Dic would be held for murder and would not be entitled to bail. In case of conviction for premeditated murder, death or imprisonment for life would be his doom. If Doug should recover, the charge against Dic would be assault and battery, with intent to commit murder, conviction for which would mean imprisonment for a term of years. If self-defence could be established—and owing to the fact that neither Dic nor Rita was to testify, that would be difficult to accomplish—Dic would go free. These enormous "ifs" complicated the case, and Dic was detained in jail till Doug's fate should be known.
THE TRIAL
CHAPTER VII
The Trial
I shall not try to tell you of Rita's suffering. She wept till she could weep no more, and the nightmare of suspense settled on her heart in the form of dry-eyed suffering. She could not, even for a moment, free her mind from the fact that Dic was in jail and that his life was in peril on account of her act. Billy went every day to encourage her and to keep her silent by telling her that Dic would be cleared. Mrs. Bays prohibited her from visiting the jail; but, despite Rita's fear of her mother, the girl would have gone had not Dic emphatically forbidden.