Under the Law

by Edwina Stanton Babcock

"I do," said the man miserably, "I do understand. I'm a hound, Eleanor."

With a sigh the lawyer turned back to the letter. "There ought to be a search for Martin," he said thoughtfully. "What clues have you? Did he wear any one ring or anything; was there any peculiarity about him, scars or blemishes? Have you a photo of him?"

Eleanor could remember a very slight defect, a front tooth slightly broken. "He had fine teeth," she said, "and that break was teasingly noticeable." George Ledyard's widow took from the chain about her neck a rather large old-fashioned locket which she drew up from beneath her lace collar and silently she handed the thing to him. Its slight warmth came to the man's fingers in a way that made him glance suddenly at her, wondering at the calm, unconscious face. Keeping his thoughts down as best he might, Shipman opened the side opposite from the reckless face of George Ledyard, that face he had seen go through, at the trial, every swift change of the reckless speculator and desperate trapped man; he glanced for an instant upon the lips that Ledyard's own wife had said, "Lured one until one was wrecked upon them." "With such a face," thought Watts bitterly, "a man can beckon a woman down to hell or up to heaven." Watts dared not look again at the wife drooping there, her little boy's head against her knee. He turned to the other side of the locket. Something, as he looked, rose like a finger post in his heart; it pointed to a set of conditions, a tangled net of human things he had recently known; but the lawyer did not instantly recognize it, only slowly came the gradual shaping of curious mists, and these settled in his mind like fog settling around the tops of houses.

The other face was younger than George's, finer and firmer, singularly a tempered man's face, free from recklessness, but with the look of adventure and an illumined look of pure kindness and intelligence, very unusual in a face so dominant and assured. The eyes, a little wide apart, were set under brows of resolution; the build of chin and cheek were of a spare sobriety; the lips, mobile and gracious, were a scholar's lips.

"Do you suppose he's gray now, if he's alive? Same hair as George's? No?"

Eleanor shook her head. "I don't believe hair like that can change, the curious red chestnut; we used to think that the birds and animals he tamed so easily came to him because he had that crest, a fine glittering plumage like their own."

"He must have seen strange birds in West Africa," Watts said dreamily, "strange men and things." The lawyer looked at her. "He might have gone crazy," he said suddenly. "He may be shut up somewhere; have you thought of that? The man's rotten cowardly, else why should he have left you to face this alone?"

Her eyes, deep and misty, looked at him. "He loved George," she said quietly; "he would have come if he could have; he loved George. Even you," she looked at him a little childishly, "never did that."

Watts smiled at the feminine pettishness.