Amos sat down. “Ruth,” he said, solemnly, “you haven’t got talent, you’ve got genius!”
“Why, of course,” said Ruth, “he might snub us and not listen to us, but he would have to listen to his wife. She is such a pretty lady, Amos, and so kind. We had a little bit of trouble seeing her at first, because the girl (who was all dressed up, like the pictures, in a black dress and white collar and cuffs and the nicest long apron), she said that we couldn’t come in, the Governor’s wife was engaged, and they were going out of town that day. But when Elly began to talk to her she sympathized at once, and she got the Governor’s wife down. Then I told her all about Sol and how good he was, and I cried and Elly cried and she cried—we all cried—and she said that I should see the Governor, and gave us tea. She was as kind as possible. And when the Governor came I told him everything about Sol—about his mother and the little boy at the mill and the dog, and how he saved the other boy, pulling out that big iron bar red-hot—”
“But,” interrupted Amos, who would have been literal on his death-bed—“but it wasn’t a very big bar. Not the bar they begin with—a finished bar, just ready for the shears.”
“Never mind; it was big when I told it, and I assure you it impressed the Governor. He got up and walked the floor, and then Elly threw herself on her knees before him; and he pulled her up, and, don’t you know, not exactly laughed, but something like it. ‘I can’t make out,’ said he, ‘from your description much about the guilt or innocence of Solomon Joscelyn, but one thing is plain, that he is too good a fellow to be hanged!’”
“And did you take the dagger I sent, and my telegram?”
“Your telegram? Dagger? Amos, I’m so sorry, but we didn’t go back to our lodgings at all. We had our bags with us, and came right from the Governor’s here!”
“Then you didn’t say anything about evidence?”
“Evidence?” Ruth looked distressed. “Oh, Amos! I forgot all about it!”
Amos always supposed that he must have been beside himself, for he caught her hand and kissed it, and cried, “You darling!” Nothing more, not a word; and he went abjectly down on his knees before her chair and apologized, until, frightened by her silence, he looked up—and saw Ruth’s eyes.
After all, the evidence was not at all wasted; for the Italian woman, thanks to a cunning use of the dagger, made a full confession; and, the public wrath having been sated on Sol, a more merciful jury sent the real assassin to a lunatic asylum, which pleased Amos, who was not certain whether he had not stepped from one hot box into another. Ruth told Amos, when he asked her the inevitable question of the lover, “I don’t know when exactly, dear, but I think I began to love you when I saw you cry; and I was sure of it when I found I could help you!”