"I'm loth enough to do it, lass," replied Job; "but I think he's been ill used, and—jilted (that's plain truth, Mary, hard as it may seem), and his blood has been up—many a man has done the like afore, from like causes."
"Oh, God! Then you won't help me, Job, to prove him innocent? Oh! Job, Job; believe me, Jem never did harm to no one."
"Not afore;—and mind, wench! I don't over-blame him for this." Job relapsed into silence.
Mary thought a moment.
"Well, Job, you'll not refuse me this, I know. I won't mind what you think, if you'll help me as if he was innocent. Now suppose I know—I knew he was innocent,—it's only supposing, Job,—what must I do to prove it? Tell me, Job! Isn't it called an alibi, the getting folk to swear to where he really was at the time?"
"Best way, if you know'd him innocent, would be to find out the real murderer. Some one did it, that's clear enough. If it wasn't Jem, who was it?"
"How can I tell?" answered Mary, in an agony of terror, lest Job's question was prompted by any suspicion of the truth.
But he was far enough from any such thought. Indeed, he had no doubt in his own mind that Jem had, in some passionate moment, urged on by slighted love and jealousy, been the murderer. And he was strongly inclined to believe, that Mary was aware of this, only that, too late repentant of her light conduct which had led to such fatal consequences, she was now most anxious to save her old play-fellow, her early friend, from the doom awaiting the shedder of blood.
"If Jem's not done it, I don't see as any on us can tell who did. We might find out something if we'd time; but they say he's to be tried on Tuesday. It's no use hiding it, Mary; things looks strong against him."
"I know they do! I know they do! But, oh! Job! isn't an alibi a proving where he really was at th' time of the murder; and how must I set about an alibi?"