She passed it to Clarice, who read: “My Darling: Can you come to me before you go and let me see your dear face again? You may never be my wife, but the knowing that you love and trust me will make life more endurable, whether spent in a foreign land or in a felon’s cell. I have so much to say to you. Come, Clarice; if you ever loved me, come.”
Clarice’s lips quivered as she read the note, and her eyes were full of tears. For a brief instant she hesitated and seemed to be thinking. Then she said, “I cannot go.”
“You cannot!” Elithe repeated, and Clarice continued: “No, I cannot. Of what use would it be when I can’t say I think him innocent.”
“You don’t think him guilty?” Elithe exclaimed, and Clarice replied, “I think he killed Jack. Your testimony proved that.”
“I know, I know,” Elithe answered her; “I had to tell what I saw. But it was an accident. He did not mean to do it.”
“Why, then, does he not say so? Why persist in a falsehood when the truth might save him?” Clarice asked in a tone of voice which roused Elithe, and no lawyer defending his client was ever more eloquent than she was in her defense of Paul and her entreaty for Clarice to see him.
“If you ever loved him, you must love him now more than ever, when he needs it so much, and if he were free or in a foreign land you would still marry him,” she said.
Clarice shook her head. “You must hold peculiar ideas,” she said, “if you think I could marry one who killed my brother. I have thought it all over,—again and again,—during these wretched days. Don’t imagine I have not suffered, for I have. Think of the crushing blow which fell when I was so happy and expected to be happier, and all through Paul. I have loved him. I suppose I love him still, but can never be his wife. I am sorry for him. I hope he will escape justice and would help him if I could. I find myself weakening now as I talk to you, and dare not trust myself to see him. You say he often sits in the look-out. Tell him to be there to-morrow when the boat goes out. There will not be many on it, and I will wave him a God bless you and good-bye.”
“Is that all?” Elithe asked, rising to go.
It seemed as if Clarice wavered a moment, her love for Paul tugging at her heart and fighting with her pride, which conquered.