I reeled, and sat down weakly on the steps. “Not Wanza! Not Wanza!” I kept repeating over and over.
Something gripped me by the throat, tears in my eyes smarted them. I clasped my head with my arms, hiding my face. I felt drowning in deep currents. That brave girl—insouciant, cheery, helpful Wanza! What had she to do with the murder of Randall Batterly?
CHAPTER XXII
RENUNCIATION
JOEY and I slept that night at Cedar Dale, and the next morning as early as might be I obtained permission to visit Wanza in the village jail. We looked into each other’s eyes for a beating moment, and then I had her hands in mine and was whispering, “Courage, courage, Wanza.”
The color surged into her white cheeks, and her eyes blazed.
“Do you think I did it, David Dale?” she whispered painfully.
“Wanza—child—what sort of confession have you made?”
“I told them I was the only one who knew anything about it. I told them it was a shot from my revolver that killed Mr. Batterly. They showed me the revolver Mrs. Batterly’s attorney had, that you found in the hollow stump, and I swore it was mine. And so they put me in here to wait for a trial. But they let her go. It was on her account that I told what I did. I never said I killed him—never!”
“My poor, poor, girl!”
“Hush! Please don’t! Don’t say a word! Oh, I don’t want to break down—I been through a lot—a lot! I’ll tell you all now—all, Mr. Dale! It was like this. That day at Hidden Lake Randall Batterly found me there alone. He was drunk—very drunk. I had just come in and I thought Mrs. Batterly had gone to Roselake as she had intended. I told him so when he asked for her. And—when he thought there was no one about he began saying all sorts of silly things. Truly, Mr. Dale, I had never spoken to him but just three times in the village—just to be civil. But he said some downright disgusting things that day, and he put his arms around me, and he held me tight, and he—he kissed me twice—oh, so fierce like! though I struck him hard. I got frightened. I saw he was so drunk he could scarcely stand. Mrs. Batterly’s revolver was lying on the table. I motioned to it. ‘Don’t touch me again, Mr. Batterly,’ I screamed, ‘or I’ll shoot myself.’ I think I was almost out of my head with fright. I turned to run from the room when he caught my arm. I had my own revolver in the pocket of my sweater coat, and I pulled it out quick as a flash. ‘Come,’ he said, looking ugly, ‘give me that revolver! Give it here! Don’t be a fool.’ We had a scuffle and he had just wrenched the revolver away from me, when, oh, Mr. Dale, it slipped from his hands and struck the floor hard, and went off. He had been grinning at me because he had got the revolver in his own hands, and he stood there still grinning for a second—oh, an awful second—and then he just crumpled up and dropped on the floor at my feet, dead, dead, dead!”