"I'm your man, Mr. Broffin," he said quietly. "I'll go with you—and plead guilty as charged."
Wahaska, the village-conscious, had its nine-days' wonder displayed for it in inch-type head-lines when the Daily Wahaskan, rehearsing the story of the New Orleans bank robbery, told of the voluntary surrender of the robber, and of his deportation to the southern city to stand trial for his offence.
Some few there were who took exceptions to Editor Randolph's editorial in the same issue, commenting on the surrender, and pleading for a suspension of judgment on the ground that much might still be hoped for from a man who had retraced a broad step in the downward path by voluntarily accepting the penalty. Those who objected to the editorial were of the perverse minority. The intimation was made that the plea had been inspired—a hint basing itself upon the fact that Miss Grierson had been seen visiting the office of the Wahaskan after the departure of the detective, Matthew Broffin, with his prisoner.
The sensational incident, however, had been forgotten long before a certain evening, three weeks later, when the Grierson carriage conveyed the convalescent president of the Bayou State Security from the Grierson mansion to the southbound train. Andrew Galbraith was not alone in the carriage, and possibly there were those in the sleeping-car who mistook the dark-eyed and strikingly beautiful young woman, who took leave of him only after he was comfortably settled in his section, for his daughter. But the whispered words of leave-taking were rather those of a confidante than a kinswoman.
"I'll arrange the Raymer matter as you suggest," she said, "and if I had even a speaking acquaintance with God, I'd pray for you the longest day I live, Uncle Andrew. And about the trial: I'm going to leave it all with you; I've g-got to leave it with you! Just remember that I shall bleed little drops of blood for every day the judge gives him, and that the only way he can be helped is by a short sentence. He wouldn't take a pardon: he—he wants to pay, you know. Good-night, and good-by!" And she put her strong young arms around Andrew Galbraith's neck and kissed him, thereby convincing the family party in Lower Seven that she was not only the old man's daughter, but a very affectionate one, at that.
The little-changing seasons of central Louisiana had measured two complete rounds on the yearly dial of Time's unremitting and unhasting clock when the best hired carriage that Baton Rouge could afford drew up before the entrance to the State's Prison and waited. Precisely on the stroke of twelve, a man for whom the prison rules had lately been relaxed sufficiently to allow his hair to grow, came out, looked about him as one dazed, and assaulted the closed door of the carriage as if he meant to tear it from its hinges.
"Oh, boy, boy!" came from the one who had waited; and then the carriage door yielded, opened, closed with a crash, and the negro driver clucked to his horses.
They were half-way to the railroad station, and she was trying to persuade him that there would be months and years in which to make up for the loveless blank, before sane speech found its opportunity. And even then there were interruptions.