“But she could write just a line,—a word,—if only ‘Dear Paul,’ it would help me some,” Paul said, and at last Clarice did write.
“Dear Paul,” she began, “I am heart broken, and can never be happy again. Neither of us can, whichever way it turns. If you are convicted, it must be over with us, of course. If you are not, we can never live down the disgrace. Oh, Paul, why not tell exactly how it happened? People say that most likely nothing would be done to you if you would. I can’t come to you. I couldn’t bear to see you in prison. It would kill me. I am nearly killed now. My head aches all the time, I can’t sleep, and everything is so dreadful and so different from what it was to have been. What have I done that this should come upon me, and why was Elithe permitted to come here? If she had staid in Samona, Jack would have staid there, too. Has it ever occurred to you that if it were some one beside Jack whom you shot Elithe’s memory would not be quite so good? She must have liked him better than she pretended. Poor Jack. It is dreadful, and I am so unhappy. So is mamma. Bills are coming in and they are awful, and we have no good of them. I am so tired and must stop. They have kindly arranged it that I need not appear at the trial, and I am glad. I should die if I had to go on the stand. I believe I shall die as it is. Good-bye. From your wretched Clarice.”
She could scarcely have written a more heartless letter if she had tried. Everything about herself and her own unhappiness and nothing of pity or comfort for Paul, who took her letter eagerly when his mother brought it to him and tearing it open read it almost at a glance. Then his head began to droop lower and lower, and his chest to heave with the emotions he could not keep back.
“What is it, Paul?” his mother asked, but he did not answer. He could not tell her that the letter had brought him more pain than pleasure. Indeed, it was all pain, and to himself he said, “She never loved me as I did her.”
This hurt him cruelly, though scarcely more than the knowledge that she believed he shot Jack, and that Elithe’s testimony would be biased because it was Jack. Still it was something to hear from Clarice at all, and he kept her letter in his hand and looked at the “Dear Paul” many times and tried to find excuses for her.
It was Saturday when he received Clarice’s letter and Monday was to be the first day of the trial. That night just before dark Tom came to him with the evening papers and a note from Elithe. As the day of the trial came nearer she grew more nervous and frightened. The band, which she said was pressing against her forehead, tightened its hold until it seemed to her it was cutting into her flesh. Her head above it grew hot, and her head below it so cold that her teeth sometimes chattered with the chill oppressing her.
“How can I face that crowd and him, and tell what I saw, and what will he think of me,” she said, as she remembered all Paul’s kindness to her and thought of the return she was to make. “I’ll write and tell him how sorry I am,” she determined at last, and without waiting to consider, wrote the note, which was as follows:
“Mr. Ralston: If I could keep from appearing against you next Monday I would. I have prayed so many times that God would take away my memory so that I could not remember what I saw and heard, but the more I pray the more distinctly I see it all before me. Not a thing is missing. I hear your voice, I see your face just as you looked at me and spoke to me when I leaned from the window. If I fall asleep I dream about it and I think of it all day with a feeling in my head which I cannot describe. It is like a band of hot iron across my forehead and I sometimes look in the glass to see if there is not a big dent there. I wish I had never come here, so much that is dreadful has happened; and oh, the awful things the papers say! I was never engaged to Mr. Percy,—never could have been,—and my testimony will not be influenced by any prepossession in that direction. My cheeks burn when I think of it. How could I be prejudiced against you,—one of the kindest friends I have ever had. I wish it were right to tell a lie, but I dare not. Forgive me, and do not hate me when you see me stand up and swear against you. You will get clear some way, I am sure. Everybody hopes it; everybody is sorry for you, and except your father and mother and Miss Percy, no one so sorry as I,—
ELITHE.”
It was too dark for Paul to read this note when it was brought to him, and for a time he sat talking with, or rather listening to Tom, who told him of the general gloom pervading the town as the trial drew near. He did not say that the shops were closed and there was crape on every door, but he did intimate that there was neither bathing, nor wheeling, nor dancing, nor sailing, nor playing on the tennis court; and this in part was true, for the social atmosphere was clouded with apprehension, and there was but little interest in anything of a festive nature. Only the children were light hearted and happy. They played on the beach and in the water and in the parks as usual, but when their voices grew very loud and hilarious they were as quickly hushed as if the sound could reach Paul in his prison and add to his cup of bitterness. All this and more Tom repeated, and Paul could not help feeling cheered as he listened.