"All this is dramatic, of course, but doesn't make me the murderer of the squaw."
"No! but you killed my father!" shouted Charlie Jackson. And rising, he hurled forth the story he had told Lydia, years before. Lydia sat with her hands clasped tightly in her lap, her eyes fastened in horror on Charlie's face. A great actor had been lost in creating Charlie an Indian. He pictured his father's death, his sister's two attempts at revenge with a vividness and power that held even Levine spell-bound. It seemed to Lydia that the noose was fastened closer round John's neck with every word that was uttered.
Suddenly she sprang to her feet. "Stop, Charlie! Stop!" she screamed.
"You shan't say any more!"
Senator Elway rapped on the table. "You're out of order, Miss Dudley," he exclaimed, sharply.
Lydia had forgotten to be embarrassed. "I can't help it if I am," she insisted, "I won't have Charlie Jackson picturing Mr. Levine as a fiend, while I have a tongue to speak with. I know how bad the Indian matters are. Nobody's worried about it more than I have. But Mr. Levine's not a murderer. He couldn't be."
The three commissioners had looked up at Lydia with a scowl when she had interrupted Charlie. Now the scowl, as they watched her flushed face, gave way to arched eyebrows and a little smile, that was reflected on every face in the room except Charlie Jackson's.
"Lydia, you keep out of this," he shouted. "You don't know what you're talking about."
"I do too!" stormed Lydia. "I—"
"Order! Let Jackson finish, Miss Dudley," said Senator Smith.
"I can't let him finish," cried Lydia, "until I tell you about Mr. Levine. He's been as much to me as my own father ever since my mother died when I was a little girl. He's understood me as only my own mother could, hasn't he, Daddy!"