The Light that Lies

by George Barr McCutcheon

To the amazement of every one, the defendant's counsel announced that they had but one witness: the prisoner himself. And every one then knew that no matter what the prisoner said in his own defence, his testimony would be unsupported; it would have to stand alone against odds that were overwhelming.

Slowly but surely it became evident to these more or less discerning men that James Hildebrand's plea would be for sympathy and not for vindication. By his own story of the dealings with Stevens and Drew and the others he hoped to reach their hearts and through their hearts a certain sense of justice that moves in all men's minds.

Sampson's heart sank. While he was convinced that the old man had been cruelly tricked by his business associates, that they had squeezed him dry in order to profit by his misery, that Stevens at least was actuated by a personal grudge which found relief in crushing the father of the man he hated, and that the others may have been innocently or pusillanimously influenced by the designs of this one man who sought control, there still remained the fact that Hildebrand, according to the evidence, had violated the law and was a subject for punishment—if not for correction, as the prison reformers would have it in these days. In no way could the old man's act be legally or morally justified. Sampson, after hearing the announcement of his counsel, realised that he would have a very unpleasant duty to perform, and he knew that he was going to hate himself.

He had never spoken a word to Alexandra Hildebrand; he had not even heard the sound of her voice—her conversation with counsel was carried on in whispers or in subdued tones—And yet he was in love with her! He was the victim of a glorious enchantment.

And he knew that No. 7 was in love with her—foolishly in love with her; and so was the once supercilious No. 12; and the chubby bachelor; and No. 9 who wanted to stay off the jury because he had to get married in three weeks; and No. 8 who had two sons in the high school, one daughter in Altman's and two wives in the cemetery; and the sombre-faced No. 1; and all the rest of them! No. 2, who chewed gum resoundingly, no longer chewed. His jaws were silenced. He had an impression that Miss Hildebrand disapproved of gum-chewing, so he stopped. More than this, no man could sacrifice.

The spruce young men from the district attorney's office were visibly affected—(they really were quite sickening, thought Sampson); and the deputy clerk, the court-room bailiffs, and the stripling who carried messages from one given point to another with incredible speed, now that he had something to keep him moving.

All of them, in a manner of speaking, were in love with her. And she was not in love with any one of them. There could be no doubt about that. They meant absolutely nothing to her.

Sampson wondered if she had a sweetheart, if there was some one with whom she was in love, if those dear lips—and he sighed bleakly. He hated, with unexampled venom, this purely suppositious male who harassed him from morning till night. Common-sense told him that she must have a sweetheart. It was inconceivable that she shouldn't possess the most natural thing in the world. She just couldn't help having one. What sort of a fellow was he? Of course, he didn't deserve her; that was clear enough, assuming that the fellow actually existed. In his present frame of mind, Sampson could think of only one man in the world who might possibly be deserving of her.

Nevertheless, he felt that he was behaving in a silly, amateurish manner, falling in love with her like this. It was to be expected of ignorant, common louts such as No. 7—a very ordinary jackass!—and the other ten men in the box, to say nothing of the suddenly adolescent yet middle-aged horde outside. It was just the sort of thing that they would be certain to do. They were a fatuous—but there he stopped, scowling within himself. What right had he to call these other men fools? He was no better than they. Indeed, he was worse, for he always had believed himself to be supremely above such nonsense as this. They made no pretentions. They fell in love with her just as they would have fallen in love with any pretty girl—and, Heaven knows, pretty girls are always being fallen in love with. But that he, the unimpressionable, experienced Sampson, should lose his heart—and head—over a girl who had never spoken a word to him, whom he had never seen until six days before, and who doubtless would go out of his life completely the instant the trial was over—why, it ought to have been excruciatingly funny. But it wasn't funny.

It was very far from funny. Putting one's self in a class with No. 7 and No. 12 and the rest of them was certainly not Sampson's idea of something to laugh at. So he scowled ominously every time he chanced to think of any one of them—which happened only when Miss Hildebrand deigned to look at that particular individual.