CHAPTER XXX.
A RAILROAD WEDDING.
There was a sudden outbreak of wild enthusiasm as the verdict was given, quickly checked by the court's gavel, then all craned their necks while in a few kind words, the judge congratulated and dismissed the prisoner. Then counsel and friends gathered about Nate with outstretched hands, till his arm ached with the constant pumping, and his tongue was tied with the excitement and confusion. To steady himself he kept his eyes mostly on a little black figure, some distance away. It was close by the side of Miss Lavillotte, but its face never turned from watching him; and he knew that, from the hour the young girl had stood bravely in court and exonerated him from all blame, she had put the sad past behind her and accepted a brighter, happier future. He was only longing, now, to reach her side, but even with Dalton's efforts it was almost impossible to make their way through the press. Somehow, Nate's friends seemed to spring up from everywhere, to-day. Each official, from jailer to judge, had learned to like him, the newspaper men were his staunch allies, and the jurors had a fellow-feeling for him.
He had clung to the clean, unvarnished truth in dogged fashion, and had so impressed all by his simple story, in which he seemed only trying to tell facts, no matter how they bore upon himself, that even the prosecutor was out of conceit with his side of the case.
So the gratulatory crowd gathered thickly about him, and the little group of home-friends had to wait long before he could reach them, near the private door by the clerk's desk.
Lucy, trembling all over, caught his hand as soon as she could reach it, and fairly pulled him from the court-room. "Let's get out of this!" she whispered excitedly. "I can't breathe here. Oh, Nate, to think you are safe and it's all over. Thank God! Thank God!"
"Come," said Dalton to Joyce, who stood hesitantly, not sure there was no more to attend to, "the carriage is below and we've just time to make our train. We can say all our says in there."
He took Joyce's arm with an odd mixture of tenderness, deference, and authority, while the others followed their rapid pace. Once inside the closed vehicle, Nate seemed less excited than any of them, speaking in the same slow, even tones he always used. When Lucy, clinging to his hand, would break out, "Oh, isn't it good—isn't it too good, Nate?" he would only smile and look down at her with a tender,
"Why, yes, Lucy, it's good, but not too good, as I see. It's right, that's all. I didn't need shutting up, and I'm glad I didn't get sentenced that way. 'Twould 'a' come tough on you and the youngsters."