"Go on," murmured Wilfred. "I couldn't reach em, and you made a point, that time. Go on—don't give 'em a chance to think."
"But I can't—I've said all I had to say—"
"Don't stop, dear, for God's sake—the case is desperate! You'll have to do it—for Bill."
"And that isn't all," Lahoma called in a broken pathetic voice, as she turned her pale face upon the curious crowd. "That isn't all. You know Brick and Bill have been all I had—all in this world... You know they couldn't have been sweeter to me if they'd been the nearest of kin—they were more like women than men, somehow, when they spoke to me and sat with me in the dugout—and I guess I know a little about a mother's love because I've always had Brick and Bill. But one day somebody else came to the cove and—and this somebody else, well—he—this somebody else wants to marry me—today. This was the end of our journey," she went on blindly, "and—and it is our wedding-day. I thought there must be SOME way to get Brick to the wedding, but you see how it is. And—and we'll have to marry without him. But Bill's here—in that jail—because he wouldn't betray his friend. And I couldn't marry without either Brick or Bill, could I?"
She took her quivering hand from Wilfred's sturdy arm, and moving to the top of the steps, held out her trembling arms appealingly:
"MEN!— Give me Bill!"
The crowd was with her, now. No doubt of that. All fierceness gone, tears here and there, broad grins to hide deep emotion, open admiration, touched with tenderness, in the eyes that took in her shy flower-like beauty.
"You shall have Bill!" shouted the spokesman of the crowd. And other voices cried, "Give her Bill! Give her Bill!"
"Bring him out!" continued the spokesman in stentorian tones. "We'll not ask him a question. Fellows, clear a path for 'em."
A broad lane was formed through the throng of smiling men whom the sudden, unexpected light of love had softened magically.