“I done hit,” came the unwillingly wrung confession. “My real name’s Grant.... Severance aided me.... Thet’s why I sought to kill Spurrier. I deemed he war a huntin’ me down.”
“Now,” ordered the young woman, “what about Joe Givins?”
Again a long pause, then: “Blind Joe Givins—only he ain’t no blinder than me—read papers hyar—he diskivered thet Spurrier was atter oil rights—he tipped off ther oil folks—he war their spy all ther time—shammin’ ter be blind——” There the speaker struggled to breathe and let his head fall back with the utterance incomplete. Five minutes later he was dead.
“Hit don’t seem ter me,” said Brother Hawkins a short time later, while Glory still stood in dazed and trance-like wonderment, “es ef what he said kin be true. Why ef hit be, John Spurrier was aimin’ ter plunder us hyar all ther time! He was counselin’ us ter sell out—an’ he was buyin’. I kain’t believe that.”
But Glory had drawn back to the wall of the room and into her eyes had come a new expression. The 281 expression of one who must tear aside a veil and know the truth, and who dreads what that truth may be.
She had said that justice, no less than mercy, was God’s command laid upon mortals. She had, almost by the extremity of withholding from Colby his hope of salvation until he spoke, won from him the declaration which would give back to John Spurrier an unsmirched name. Once Spurrier had said that was his strongest wish in life. But now justice called again: this time justice to her own people and perhaps it meant the unveiling of duplicity in the man she had married.
“Brother Hawkins,” she declared in a low but fervent voice, “if it’s not true, it’s a slander that I can’t let stand. If it is true, I must undo the wrong he’s sought to do—if I can. Please wait.”
Then she was tearing at the bit of paneling that gave access to the secret cabinet, and poring over papers from a broken and rifled strong box.
There was the uncontrovertible record, clear writ, and at length her pale face came up resolutely.
“I don’t understand it all yet,” she told the preacher. “But he was buying. He bought everything that’s been sold this side the ridge. He was seeking to influence the legislature, too. I’ve got to talk to my father.”