第17章 THE VICTIM OF THE LAW(3)

"You were given a fair trial, and there's an end of it."The girl, standing there so feebly, seeming indeed to cling for support to the man who always held her thus closely by the wrist, spoke again with an astonishing clearness, even with a sort of vivacity, as if she explained easily something otherwise in doubt.

"Oh, no, I wasn't!" she contradicted bluntly, with a singular confidence of assertion."Why, if the trial had been fair, Ishouldn't be here."

The harsh voice of Cassidy again broke in on the passion of the girl with a professional sneer.

"That's another thing they all say."

But the girl went on speaking fiercely, impervious to the man's coarse sarcasm, her eyes, which had deepened almost to purple, still fixed piercingly on Gilder, who, for some reason wholly inexplicable to him, felt himself strangely disturbed under that regard.

"Do you call it fair when the lawyer I had was only a boy--one whom the court told me to take, a boy trying his first case--my case, that meant the ruin of my life? My lawyer! Why, he was just getting experience--getting it at my expense!" The girl paused as if exhausted by the vehemence of her emotion, and at last the sparkling eyes drooped and the heavy lids closed over them.She swayed a little, so that the officer tightened his clasp on her wrist.

There followed a few seconds of silence.Then Gilder made an effort to shake off the feeling that had so possessed him, and to a certain degree he succeeded.

"The jury found you guilty," he asserted, with an attempt to make his voice magisterial in its severity.

Instantly, Mary was aroused to a new outburst of protest.Once again, her eyes shot their fires at the man seated behind the desk, and she went forward a step imperiously, dragging the officer in her wake.

"Yes, the jury found me guilty," she agreed, with fine scorn in the musical cadences of her voice."Do you know why? I can tell you, Mr.Gilder.It was because they had been out for three hours without reaching a decision.The evidence didn't seem to be quite enough for some of them, after all.Well, the judge threatened to lock them up all night.The men wanted to get home.The easy thing to do was to find me guilty, and let it go at that.Was that fair, do you think? And that's not all, either.Was it fair of you, Mr.Gilder? Was it fair of you to come to the court this morning, and tell the judge that I should be sent to prison as a warning to others?"A quick flush burned on the massive face of the man whom she thus accused, and his eyes refused to meet her steady gaze of reproach.

"You know!" he exclaimed, in momentary consternation.Again, her mood had affected his own, so that through a few hurrying seconds he felt himself somehow guilty of wrong against this girl, so frank and so rebuking.

"I heard you in the courtroom," she said."The dock isn't very far from the bench where you spoke to the judge about my case.

Yes, I heard you.It wasn't: Did I do it? Or, didn't I do it?

No; it was only that I must be made a warning to others."Again, silence fell for a tense interval.Then, finally, the girl spoke in a different tone.Where before her voice had been vibrant with the instinct of complaint against the mockery of justice under which she suffered, now there was a deeper note, that of most solemn truth.

"Mr.Gilder," she said simply, "as God is my judge, I am going to prison for three years for something I didn't do."But the sincerity of her broken cry fell on unheeding ears.The coarse nature of the officer had long ago lost whatever elements of softness there might have been to develop in a gentler occupation.As for the owner of the store, he was not sufficiently sensitive to feel the verity in the accents of the speaker.Moreover, he was a man who followed the conventional, with never a distraction due to imagination and sympathy.Just now, too, he was experiencing a keen irritation against himself because of the manner in which he had been sensible to the influence of her protestation, despite his will to the contrary.

That irritation against himself only reacted against the girl, and caused him to steel his heart to resist any tendency toward commiseration.So, this declaration of innocence was made quite in vain--indeed, served rather to strengthen his disfavor toward the complainant, and to make his manner harsher when she voiced the pitiful question over which she had wondered and grieved.

"Why did you ask the judge to send me to prison?""The thieving that has been going on in this store for over a year has got to stop," Gilder answered emphatically, with all his usual energy of manner restored.As he spoke, he raised his eyes and met the girl's glance fairly.Thought of the robberies was quite enough to make him pitiless toward the offender.

"Sending me to prison won't stop it," Mary Turner said, drearily.

"Perhaps not," Gilder sternly retorted."But the discovery and punishment of the other guilty ones will." His manner changed to a business-like alertness."You sent word to me that you could tell me how to stop the thefts in the store.Well, my girl, do this, and, while I can make no definite promise, I'll see what can be done about getting you out of your present difficulty."He picked up a pencil, pulled a pad of blank paper convenient to his hand, and looked at the girl expectantly, with aggressive inquiry in his gaze."Tell me now," he concluded, "who were your pals?"The matter-of-fact manner of this man who had unwittingly wronged her so frightfully was the last straw on the girl's burden of suffering.Under it, her patient endurance broke, and she cried out in a voice of utter despair that caused Gilder to start nervously, and even impelled the stolid officer to a frown of remonstrance.