Paul Ralston

by Mary Jane Holmes

“Come, Fanny, come,” the judge said, unwinding her arms from Paul’s neck and gently pushing her towards the door.

When his parents were gone Paul threw himself upon his bed and sobbed so loud that the jailer’s wife heard him in the hall outside and cried herself for the unhappy man. Tom came before long, cheerful as usual, but for once his cheerfulness failed in its effect.

“Don’t, Tom,” Paul said, “don’t try to rouse hopes which can not be fulfilled, and don’t think me weak if I cry. I shall be braver to-morrow and face it like a man.”

They were both crying now,—Paul and Tom, who had broken down for the first time and gave way so utterly that it was Paul’s task to comfort and soothe.

“Let me cry a bit, and don’t touch me,” Tom said, shaking off Paul’s hands; then regaining his composure he continued: “We were boys together, Mr. Paul, you the master, I the servant, but you never made me feel that, and now misfortune has brought us very close together, so close that—would you mind if—if—I kissed you as your mother did? I should like to remember it when—.” Tom finished the sentence in his own mind one way, and Paul another as like two girls they kissed each other and said good-bye.

Then Paul was really alone through the longest night he had ever known and which seemed the shortest when it was over and daylight looked through the window. He did not go to bed, but sat the whole night through, thinking of what was before him, and feeling sure that he did not reach the reality or know how it would feel to confront his friends and acquaintances and strangers and the rabble, men and women,—more women than men,—who would come to see him and hear him tried for his life. He was glad Clarice was not to be there. All his tenderness for her was in full force; her selfish letter was forgotten, her faults condoned, and she was only the girl he loved and had hoped to make his wife. He would have been glad to have seen her once and heard her say she loved him still, but he felt no hardness towards her because she had kept aloof from him. She couldn’t come, he said, and then he thought of Elithe and his heart gave a sudden throb of something inexplicable to himself. She would be in the courtroom and he was sorry to have her see him humiliated and charged with murder, and sorry for her that she must testify against him. He didn’t blame her. He didn’t blame anybody, although there came into his mind the thought “Why has God allowed this when he knows I am innocent.” He knew prayers had been offered for him in all the churches, for Tom had told him so and during the dark days of his incarceration he had prayed himself as he had never done before. God had not answered and he was still a prisoner, and the day was breaking over the sea, a glorious September day such as he had seen and revelled in many a time in the old life gone forever, for if he were freed it could never be quite the same again. A man, however innocent he might be, who had been tried for his life, could not hold his head as he had held it before.

“I must stoop always,” he said. “I find myself doing it now when I walk. Tom and I used to be just of a height. Now I am the shorter. I noticed it last night when we stood together before the glass.”

It was a little change to think of this and wonder at it, but the pain came back again when he heard some one outside of the building say to another, “Fine day for the trial. The town will be full. They say there isn’t standing room now at the hotels.”

Paul stopped his ears lest he should hear more. The town was already full and would be fuller of people come to see him,—Paul Ralston,—once the head of everything, and now brought so low that when he left the jail it would be under an official escort and on his way to the prisoner’s dock accused of murder. The sun was now up and he could hear the stir of life in the street and on the water where row boats were passing, full of people, who had come from Johnstown a few miles up the coast to be on hand when the doors of the Court House were opened. He guessed their object and stopped his ears again to shut out the sound of their voices, which rang as cheerfully as if they were going to his bridal. Once he thought of Clarice. Was she thinking of him in that dread hour? Was she praying for him? He believed so, and bowing his head he prayed for her that God would give her strength to keep up under the strain of that day. Mrs. Stevens was bringing his breakfast, but he turned from it with loathing. Then as he saw the look of disappointment on her face he tried the coffee and the steak, telling her both were excellent, and adding with a smile, “They say criminals eat heartily the very morning before they are hung. I am a criminal in the eyes of the world, but I am not to be hung to-day, and I can’t eat. You are so kind; you always have been. Father will not forget it when I am gone.”

An hour later his father and mother came in, the latter so weak that she could scarcely walk. All night at intervals she had been upon her knees, praying for her boy, and when her husband bade her take some rest she answered, “If Paul were dying in my arms I could not rest, and I feel as if he were dying to us. To-morrow and next day will tell the story. We have done all we can do. Only God can help us now.”