The Rose in the Ring

by George Barr McCutcheon

"It was a forgery—a false will?" she cried, trembling violently in her excitement.

"I know it was—I know it. My grandfather had told me of the deed. This was the envelope and the paper. There was no such deed to be found. That makes me half believe that he did sign the will, thinking it was something else. My story about the deed was not believed. As for Isaac Perry, my uncle said that he left for New York soon after my grandfather's visit to Richmond, doubtless when the will was drawn and signed. He could not have been near Jenison Hall at the time of the shooting. Uncle Frank produced a letter from Isaac, received that very day from New York, in which he said that he was going to Europe as the body-servant of a New York gentleman who had helped him to secure an education.

"They locked me in the cellar and put a guard over me until the sheriff could come up in the morning. Christine, there wasn't a single chance for me to prove my innocence. I knew that Uncle Frank and Isaac Perry had arranged the whole devilish plot—how nicely they arranged it, too! It worked out even better than they expected, for I unwittingly damned myself. I never can tell you of my feelings when the whole thing became clear to me. I must leave that to your imagination. I was as innocent as a babe, and yet, in the eyes of every one, as guilty as ever any murderer has been in this world. My only chance to escape certain hanging lay in escape. It was after three o'clock in the morning when I began to think of flight. I made up my mind that I could never hope for acquittal. I thought only of getting away from them and then devoting my whole life to finding the proof of my innocence. Isaac Perry can prove it—or my uncle. But, my uncle will not do it—and Isaac is not to be found. I discovered that when I reached Richmond two nights afterwards. He had left nearly three weeks before, never to return, it was said.

"Well, to make it short, I hit my darky guard over the head with a chunk of stove-wood. I hated to do it, but it was the only chance. You can't kill a nigger by hitting him on the head. Then I crawled through a small hole in the cellar wall into the potato bins beyond. From there I could easily get into the back yard, provided no one was watching. They were all on the other side of the wing, discussing the murder—and me. They said I'd surely be lynched the next night. Oh, it was awful. I crawled out of the window hole and sneaked off toward the hen-houses, below the old slave building. I don't know when they missed me. I only know that I reached the woods and ran and ran till I thought I should drop. Some other time I will tell you of all I went through during the next week. You won't believe a lot of it, I know,—it was so dreadful. There were a good many times when I was ready to give up, and a good many times when they almost had me. God helped me, though. He heard my prayers. I'll never again think there is no God, as a lot of us used to think at the University. You don't know the agony of dread and fear in which I'm living now. Something tells me that they will get me and that I'll never have the chance to find Isaac Perry, to force him to tell the truth."

"I am sure you will find him, David," she said, but her heart was very cold.

The circus tents were just ahead of them now. The band was playing and people were hurrying along the poorly lighted streets, sheltered by umbrellas, all bound for the "grounds."

David's lips were rigid; his eyes saw nothing of the scene ahead, nor were his ears conscious of the music.

"Christine, I am going to kill my uncle Frank," he said, quite calmly.

"Oh, David!"

"If I find I can't clear myself, I am going back there and shoot him down like a dog—just as he shot his poor old fa—father." His body shook with the racking sobs that choked him.