“So that holds you, does it? That binds the hands of the Judge, does it? This wonderful daughter, who snubs him on the street–she mustn’t marry the brother of a man who was hanged!” Margaret laughed, and the Judged glowered in rage until the scar stood white upon his purple brow.
“Dahling,” she leered, “remember our little discussion of Kenyon Adams’s parentage that night! Maybe our dear little girl is going to marry the son, the son,” she repeated wickedly, “of a man who was hanged!”
He stepped toward her crying: “For God’s sake, quit! Quit!”
“Oh, I hope he’ll hang. I hope he’ll hang and you’ve got to hang him! You’ve got to hang him!” she mocked exultingly.
The man turned in rage. He feared the powerful, physical creature before him. He had never dared to strike her. He wormed past her and ran slinking down the hall and out of the door–out from the temple of love, which he had builded–somewhat upon sand perhaps, but still the temple of love. A rather sad place it was, withal, in which to rest the weary bones of the hunter home from the hills, after a lifelong ride to hounds in the primrose hunt.
He stood for a moment upon the steps of the veranda, while his heart pumped the bile of hate through him; and suddenly hearing a soft footfall, he turned his head quickly, and saw Lila–his daughter. As he turned toward her in the twilight it struck him like a blow in the face that she in some way symbolized all that he had always longed for–his unattainable ideal; for she seemed young–immortally young, and sweet. The grace of maidenhood shone from her and she turned an eager but infinitely wistful face up to his, and for a second the picture of the slim, white-clad figure, enveloping and radiating the gentle eagerness of a beautiful soul, came to him like the disturbing memory of some vague, lost dream and confused him. While she spoke he groped back to the moment blindly and heard her say:
594“Oh, you will help me now, this once, this once when I beg it; you will help me?” As she spoke she clutched his arm. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Father, don’t let them murder him–don’t, oh, please, father–for me, won’t you save him for me–won’t you let him out of jail now?”
“Lila, child,” the Judge held out his hand unsteadily, “it’s not what I want to do; it’s the law that I must follow. Why, I can’t do–”
“If Mr. Ahab Wright was in jail as Grant is and the workmen had the State government, what would the law say?” she answered. Then she gripped his hands and cried: “Oh, father, father, have mercy, have mercy! We love him so and it will kill Kenyon. Grant has been like a father to Kenyon; he has been–”
“Tell me this, Lila,” the Judge stopped her; he held her hands in his cold, hard palms. “Who is Kenyon–who is his father–do you know?”