“No need to tell me that,” Stevens replied. “I’ll treat him as I would my brother.”

Then the carriage drove away, and before bedtime the news spread through the city that Paul was in jail,—that his mother was going from one fainting fit into another, with three doctors in attendance,—that Clarice was in convulsions with two, Elithe in hysterics with one,—that Miss Hansford was crazy and Judge Ralston was to offer $10,000 for the capture of the man who killed Jack Percy.

CHAPTER XXXII.
IN PRISON.

When Paul heard the key turned upon him and the sound of voices die away and began to realize that he could not get out if he wished to, a kind of frenzy seized him and for a time he was beside himself. What business had Max Allen to arrest him, innocent as he was of the dreadful accusation brought against him? Why had his father and Tom allowed it and left him there in jail, shut in with bars and bolts? He would get out,—he would be free. Going to the heavy door, he shook it with all his strength, but it did not yield to his blows. There was another one leading to the passage connecting with the janitor’s rooms, and he tried that next. But it was locked and bolted. He could not get out there. He stood upon the chair and shook the iron bars across the open window. If they moved he did not know it, and with a despairing look at the ocean and the white sails against the evening sky he gave that up. There was no way of escape unless it were through the wide chimney. He might get out there, and going down on the hearth on his hands and knees, he looked up the sooty flue to where a ledge of brick and mortar broke the line and impeded the way. The chimney was impracticable. He was hemmed in on every side,—a prisoner. The perspiration was rolling down his face and back and arms,—there was a buzzing in his ears and a throbbing in his head as he began to walk up and down his rather small apartment.

“Am I mad? If not, I soon shall be,” he said, and then his thoughts went back to the time when a boy in the Boston High School he had spoken the “Maniac’s Plea,”

“Stay, jailer, stay, and hear my woe,

She is not mad who kneels to thee.”

He had been greatly applauded and told he could not have done a maniac’s part better had he really been one.

“I can do it better now,” he thought, repeating some parts of it with fierce gestures and glassy eyes.

Outside the cool evening breeze came from the sea through his open window and blew across his face. The tide was coming in, and there was something soothing in the sound of the waves breaking on the shore a few rods away, and as he listened he grew more calm and began to put things together and recall the incidents of the last few hours. He remembered how glad he was to be coming home and how pleasant the Bluff and Heights had looked with their handsome villas and grounds sloping to the water. The roof of the Ralston House, with its cupola and look-out, he had saluted with a thought of his mother, of whom he was very proud, and who would probably be at the wharf to meet him and Clarice. He had put his arm around the latter as they drew near the landing and saw the crowd of people, who, she said, had come to meet them. With an exclamation of disgust he recalled his satisfaction and pride as he thought she was right,—that because of her misfortune and his the people were sorry and were showing it in that way. They had come out to meet them, or him, not to do him honor, but on the contrary to arrest him,—to drag him to prison for a crime he never committed. Tom’s face, which he had not noticed at the time, came back to him now, with Max Allen’s stammering words of greeting and request to speak with him, and Clarice’s angry exclamation as her dress was stepped on. The drive to the cottage, his parting with the weeping girl, who clung to him just as she had never done before when he said good-bye,—the drive back to the church, where Max and a portion of the crowd were waiting for him, were all plainly outlined before him, and then——! He could feel again the chill, followed by a sensation as if hot lead were being poured through every vein and scorching every nerve, when Max said: “I’ve got to arrest you.”