"But that's taking him away from me—right now—that's not right!—Can't he get out?"
"He might perhaps be released on bail if the bail were large enough, but the crime is the maximum crime, and the suspicion is most severe. I don't know what means he can command, but he needs counsel now.
"But one thing, Anne," he added, "I forbid you. You must have nothing to do with him. Keep away from him. Go home, and don't meddle in this case. It must take its course."
"I would follow him to the foot of the gallows, if need be, Judge Henderson!" broke out Anne Oglesby in a sudden flare of passionate anger. "Ah, fine!—to give your word, your promise—to give your love, and then within an hour forget it all—to leave the one you love when the trouble comes! Is that all one gains—is that all one may expect—is that all a woman ought to do for the man she loves? Is that all she ought to expect from a man? Suppose it were I in trouble—would he forget me? Would he forsake me? Then shall I? You don't know me if you think that of me!
"You don't know me at all," she blazed on at him, as he turned away. "I've tried to reason. Whatever my success at that, the answer's in my own heart now." (Her heart, now beating so fast under the heaving bosom on which both her hands were clasped.)
"And you forget me? I—I'm in trouble now—it's awful—it's a terrible trouble that I'm in now." Judge Henderson's voice was trembling, his face was pale.
"You—in what way am I bound to you? Trouble—what do you mean? Why, listen!—All your life you have lived with just one aim and purpose and ambition in your heart—and that was yourself! Your own ambition—your own pleasure, your own comfort—those were the things that have controlled you always—don't I know, haven't I heard? You've been a very leech in this town—you have taken all the success in it—all the success of everybody, from all its people—and used it for yourself! It has been so common to you—you are so used to it—that you can't think of anything else—you can't visualize anything else. You think of yourself as the source and center of all good—you can't help that—that's your nature. So I suppose you think you are altogether within your rights when you tell me that I must wreck and ruin my own life to save you and your ambition! Why, you are—you're a sponge—that's what you are—you are just soaking in all the happiness of others—all the success of others, I tell you—taking it all for yourself. 'Our most prominent citizen!' Great God! But what has it cost this community to produce you—what are you asking it to cost me and those I love? Drops in the same bucket? Food for you and your ambition? Do you think I am going to stand that, when it comes to me—me and him—the man I have promised—the man I love? You don't know me! You don't know him! We'll fight!"
He sat, so astounded at this sudden outburst—the first thing of the kind he had ever heard from any human being in all his life—that for the time he could make no reply at all. She went on bitterly now:
"Men like you, sponges like yourself, have made what they call success in all the ages of the world—yes, that's true. Great kings, great cardinals, great politicians, great business men, great thieves have made that kind of a success, that's true enough—I've read about them, yes. Men of that sort—Judge Henderson—sometimes they stop at nothing. They'd betray their very own. I'm not your blood, but if I were, I'd not trust you! Men like you are so absorbed with their own vanity, their own selfishness—they're so used to having everything given to them without exertion, without cost, they grow regardless of what that cost may be to the ones that do the giving. In time they begin to think themselves apart from the rest of the world—don't you think that about yourself now? Oh, are you better than the world? Or are you just a man, like the rest of them? Didn't you ever know—didn't you ever kiss a woman in all your life and know what that meant?"
He had sat, his shocked face turned toward her, too stunned for answer. But she saw him start as though under the blow of a dagger at her last words.