The Long Lane's Turning

by Hallie Erminie Rives

There was a knock at the door and a man entered. It was Cameron Craig. He responded briefly to the lawyer's greeting and coming to the window, stood a moment beside him, looking down at the hurrying wheeled traffic, the loitering pavement pedestrians—and the flapping canvas sign. He laughed a little, but without mirth.

"You were there, I suppose," he said.

Treadwell nodded. "Yes. It's tilting at the windmills, of course."

"They began too late," said Craig grimly. "The ticket is safe enough this year. But next year—the Gubernatorial campaign—if they only had fire enough to keep the blaze going till then, they might give us trouble."

The other did not answer. His eyes had rested briefly on Craig's face, then again had sought the window. He was thinking that his visitor had not changed for the better during the past two months. The fact, indeed, would have been apparent to a casual eye. The virulent force and will were no less noticeable, but there was now a kind of glaze over his face—a certain fierce and sullen quality that seemed a reflection of inner bitterness.

The judicial eye clove to the fact. Since that far-away night at the "Farm," Craig's passion had never loosened its grip. It was characteristic of the man that he had on that occasion played the only card in his hand, not blindly, but by instinct and without hesitation. But while he had apparently gained his point, it had been borne to him gradually that his very method of play had lost him infinitely more than he had gained. In the mind of the woman he desired he had transgressed the rules of the game, and the realisation maddened him. Never since then had he heard her name coupled with Harry Sevier's. Never had he seen them together. This had given him satisfaction. But if he had shattered her regard for the man whom he now hated more tenaciously than he had ever hated anything in his whole life, the fact had seemed to hold no advantage for himself. On several visits to the city, he had invented reasons to call at the Allen house, but he had soon learned that he was not to meet Echo there. He had, however, seen her elsewhere more than once—when her gaze had gone by him as if he had been empty air. Though his veins burned with the fever of the famished, he had not ventured to challenge that cold aloofness. But it had rankled and stung him almost beyond endurance, till he had come to thirst avidly for some kind of test between them—for action, whatever the result might mean. And the fierce desire that raged within him, feeding on itself, had left its sinister traces on his face.

Abruptly Craig withdrew his gaze. "I see young Sevier held forth last night. The last time I heard him was in court, just a year ago. The young fop! He'd do better to stick to his lawbooks—though I hear he has no cases anymore."

"It's his own choice," the attorney answered coldly. He liked Harry Sevier and he resented the other's tone, no less than the words. "He could have a new client every day if he wanted. As a matter of fact he hasn't taken a case since the one you speak of. He fought for six months trying to get through an appeal on that. It was the first criminal case he had ever lost and it cut him up some, I fancy. Of course it's ridiculous to take it so to heart, but I swear I can't help liking him for it! He's not merely a fop, either. In my opinion he comes mighty near being just what that crowd at the Civic Club have been looking for."

Craig's eyes had not left Treadwell's. "In what way?" he asked.

"As a spokesman. They know what they believe and what they want to fight for. But they've been inarticulate. Most of them are blue-blooded old fogies, with their souls full of fine ideals, but with no leader. In him (and in that speech of his last night he threw in his lot with them absolutely) they have a finely trained legal mind—for with all his old fire-works Sevier always had that—and a natural orator besides. You should have heard him last night! For two hours he held that great audience in a perfect spell. 'The finest exhibition of southern oratory since the war' the papers called it this morning, and I tell you, Craig, they weren't far wrong!"