Amos shook his head and strode to the window. Then he came back to her, where she was trying to swallow the pain in the roof of her mouth. He stretched his great hands in front of him. “How could I ever look at them again if they pulled that lever?” he sobbed—for the words were a sob; and immediately he flung himself back to the window again.
“Amos, I know they won’t hang him; why, they can’t. If the Governor could only see him.” Ruth was standing, and her face was flushed. “Why, Amos, I thought maybe he might be guilty until I saw him! I know the Governor won’t see him, but if we told him about the poor fellow, if we tried to make him see him as we do?”
Amos drearily shook his head. “The Governor is a just man, Ruth, but he is hard as nuts. Sentiment won’t go down with him. Besides, he is a great friend of Frank Woods, who has got his back up and isn’t going to let me pull his prisoner out. Of course he’s given his side.”
“The girl—this Elly? If she were to see the Governor?”
“I don’t know whether she’d do harm or not. She’s a nice little thing, and has stood by Sol like a lady. But it’s a toss up if she wouldn’t break down and lose her head utterly. She comes to see him as often as she can, always bringing him some little thing or other; and she sits and holds his hand and cries—never seems to say three words. Whenever she runs up against me she makes a bow and says, ‘I’m very much obliged to you, sir,’ and looks scared to death. I don’t know who to get to go with her; her mother keeps a working-man’s boarding-house; she’s a good soul, but—”
He dropped his head on his hand and seemed to try to think.
It was strange to Ruth that she should long to go up to him and touch his smooth black hair, yet such a crazy fancy did flit through her brain. When she thought that he was suffering because of her, she had not been moved; but now that he was so sorely straitened for a man who was nothing to him more than a human creature, her heart ached to comfort him.
“No,” said Amos; “we’ve got to work the other strings. I’ve got some pull, and I’ll work that; then the newspaper boys have helped me out, and folks are getting sorry for Sol; there wouldn’t be any clamor against it, and we’ve got some evidence. I’m not worth shucks as a talker, but I’ll take a talker with me. If there was only somebody to keep her straight—”
“Would you trust me?” said Ruth. “If you will, I’ll go with her to-morrow.”