"He's not here," answered Aurora, in a voice she would not have known to be her own. "I don't know where he is. Believe me, if he's not there in the jail, I don't know where he is. What do you want of him? He's not here—I give you my word he's not."
She still stood, near the door, her hands clutching at her clothing, a mortal terror in her soul, her frail woman's body the only fence now for her home, no longer sanctuary.
"You lie! We know he is here—he ain't in the jail. If the sher'f let him out, he'd come here. You've got him hid. Bring him out—it's no use trying to get him away from us. We want him, and we've come to git him."
The words of the leader got their support in the rumble of fourscore throats.
"I'm telling you the truth," quavered poor Aurora Lane. "Men, can't you believe me? Have I ever lied to you?"
A roar of brutish laughter greeted this. "Listen at her talk!" cried one tall young man. "Fine, ain't it! She's been just a angel here! Oh, no, she wouldn't lie to us about that boy—oh! no, she never has! Why, you ain't never done nothing but lie, all your life!"
They laughed again at this, and became impatient.
"This is her little old place," began the same voice. "I've never been in it before. I bet they's been goings-on, right here, more'n once."
"That's so!" said a man whose mouth corners were drawn down hard. "And in this here God-fearin' town o' ours, that's always wanted to be respectable."
"Sure we did, all of us!" encored the cracking treble of the same tall, well-dressed young man. "Whose fault if we ain't? She's his mother. This whole business come of her bein' what she is—looser'n hell, that's all. We stood it all for years—but this is too much—killin' the city marshal——"