told Miss Marlay that her father found the air very bad for him, and
meant to go to St. Anthony, where there was a mineral spring and a good
hotel. For her part, she was glad of it, for a little place like
Metropolisville was not pleasant. So full of gossip. And no newspapers or
books. And very little cultivated society.

Miss Marlay said she had a package of something or other, which Mr.
Charlton had sent with his regards. She said "something or other" from an
instinctive delicacy.

"Oh! yes; something of mine that he borrowed, I suppose," said Helen.
"Have you seen him? I'm really sorry for him. I found him a very pleasant
companion, so full of reading and oddities. He's the last man I should
have believed could rob the post-office."

"Oh! but he didn't," said Isa.

"Indeed! Well, I'm glad to hear it. I hope he'll be able to prove it. Is
there any new evidence?"

Isa was obliged to confess that she had heard of none, and Miss Minorkey
proceeded like a judge to explain to Miss Marlay how strong the evidence
against him was. And then she said she thought the warrant had been
taken, not from cupidity, but from a desire to serve Katy. It was a pity
the law could not see it in that way. But all the time Isa protested with
vehemence that she did not believe a word of it. Not one word. All the
judges and juries and witnesses in the world could not convince her of
Albert's guilt. Because she knew him, and she just knew that he couldn't
do it, you see.

Miss Minorkey said it had made her father sick. "I've gone with Mr.
Charlton so much, you know, that it has made talk," she said. "And father
feels bad about it. And"--seeing the expression of Isa's countenance, she
concluded that it would not do to be quite so secretive--"and, to tell
you the truth, I did like him. But of course that is all over. Of course
there couldn't be anything between us after this, even if he were
innocent."

Isa grew indignant, and she no longer needed the support of religious
faith and high moral principle to enable her to plead the cause of Albert
Charlton with Miss Minorkey.

"But I thought you loved him," she said, with just a spice of bitterness.
"The poor fellow believes that you love him."

Miss Minorkey winced a little. "Well, you know, some people are
sentimental, and others are not. It is a good thing for me that I'm not
one of those that pine away and die after anybody. I suppose I am not
worthy of a high-toned man, such as he seemed to be. I have often told
him so. I am sure I never could marry a man that had been in the
penitentiary, if he were ever so innocent. Now, could you. Miss Marlay?"

Isabel blushed, and said she could if he were innocent. She thought a
woman ought to stand by the man she loved to the death, if he were
worthy. But Helen only sighed humbly, and said that she never was made
for a heroine. She didn't even like to read about high-strung people in
novels. She supposed it was her fault--people had to be what they were,
she supposed. Miss Marlay must excuse her, though. She hadn't quite got
her books packed, and the stage would be along in an hour. She would be
glad if Isabel would tell Mr. Charlton privately, if she had a chance,
how sorry she felt for him. But please not say anything that would
compromise her, though.

And Isa Marlay went out of the hotel full of indignation at the
cool-blooded Helen, and full of a fathomless pity for Albert, a pity that
made her almost love him herself. She would have loved to atone for all
Miss Minorkey's perfidy. And just alongside of her pity for Charlton thus
deserted, crept in a secret joy. For there was now none to stand nearer
friend to Albert than herself.

And yet Charlton did not want for friends. Whisky Jim had a lively sense
of gratitude to him for his advocacy of Jim's right to the claim as
against Westcott; and having also a lively antagonism to Westcott, he
could see no good reason why a man should serve a long term in
State's-prison for taking from a thief a land-warrant with which the
thief meant to pre-empt another man's claim. And the Guardian Angel had
transferred to the brother the devotion and care he once lavished on the
sister. It was this unity of sentiment between the Jehu from the Green
Mountains and the minstrel from the Indiana "Pocket" that gave Albert a
chance for liberty.

The prisoner was handcuffed and confined in an upper room, the windows of
which were securely boarded up on the outside. About three o'clock of the
last night he spent in Metropolisville, the deputy marshal, who in the
evening preceding had helped to empty two or three times the ample flask
of Mr. Westcott, was sleeping very soundly. Albert, who was awake, heard
the nails drawn from the boards. Presently the window was opened, and a
familiar voice said in a dramatic tone:

"Mr. Charlton, git up and foller."

Albert arose and went to the window.

"Come right along, I 'low the coast's clear," said the Poet.

"No, I can not do that, Gray," said Charlton, though the prospect of
liberty was very enticing.

"See here, mister, I calkilate es this is yer last chance fer fifteen
year ur more," put in the driver, thrusting his head in alongside his
Hoosier friend's.

"Come," added Gray, "you an' me'll jest put out together fer the Ingin
kedentry ef you say so, and fetch up in Kansas under some fancy names,
and take a hand in the wras'le that's agoin' on thar. Nobody'll ever
track you. I've got a Yankton friend as'll help us through."

"My friends, I'm ever so thankful to you--"

"Blame take yer thanks! Come along," broke in the Superior Being. "It's
now ur never."

"I'll be dogged ef it haint," said the Poet.

Charlton looked out wistfully over the wide prairies. He might escape and
lead a wild, free life with Gray, and then turn up in some new Territory
under an assumed name and work out his destiny. But the thought of being
a fugitive from justice was very shocking to him.

[Illustration: "GIT UP AND FOLLER!"]

"No! no! I can't. God bless you both. Good-by!" And he went back to his
pallet on the floor. When the rescuers reached the ground the Superior
Being delivered himself of some very sulphurous oaths, intended to
express his abhorrence of "idees."

"There's that air blamed etarnal infarnal nateral born eejiot'll die in
Stillwater penitensh'ry jest fer idees. Orter go to a 'sylum."

But the Poet went off dejectedly to his lone cabin on the prairie.

And there was a great row in the morning about the breaking open of the
window and the attempted rescue. The deputy marshal told a famous story
of his awaking in the night and driving off a rescuing party of eight
with his revolver. And everybody wondered who they were. Was Charlton,
then, a member of a gang?




CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE TEMPTER.


Albert was conveyed to St. Paul, but not until he had had one
heart-breaking interview with his mother. The poor woman had spent nearly
an hour dressing herself to go to him, for she was so shaken with
agitation and blinded with weeping, that she could hardly tie a ribbon or
see that her breast-pin was in the right place. This interview with her
son shook her weak understanding to its foundations, and for days
afterward Isa devoted her whole time to diverting her from the
accumulation of troubled thoughts and memories that filled her with
anguish--an anguish against the weight of which her feeble nature could
offer no supports.

When Albert was brought before the commissioner, he waived examination,
and was committed to await the session of the district court. Mr.
Plausaby came up and offered to become his bail, but this Charlton
vehemently refused, and was locked up in jail, where for the next two or
three months he amused himself by reading the daily papers and such books
as he could borrow, and writing on various subjects manuscripts which he
never published.

The confinement chafed him. His mother's sorrow and feeble health
oppressed him. And despite all he could do, his own humiliation bowed his
head a little. But most of all, the utter neglect of Helen Minorkey hurt
him sorely. Except that she had sent, through Isabel Marlay, that little
smuggled message that she was sorry for him--like one who makes a great
ado about sending you something which turns out to be nothing--except
this mockery of pity, he had no word or sign from Helen. His mind dwelt
on her as he remembered her in the moments when she had been carried out
of herself by the contagion of his own enthusiasm, when she had seemed to
love him devotedly. Especially did he think of her as she sat in quiet
and thoughtful enjoyment in the row-boat by the side of Katy, playfully
splashing the water and seeming to rejoice in his society. And now she
had so easily accepted his guilt!

These thoughts robbed him of sleep, and the confinement and lack of
exercise made him nervous. The energetic spirit, arrested at the very
instant of beginning cherished enterprises, and shut out from hope of
ever undertaking them, preyed upon itself, and Albert had a morbid
longing for the State's prison, where he might weary himself with toil.

His counsel was Mr. Conger. Mr. Conger was not a great jurist. Of the
philosophy of law he knew nothing. For the sublime principles of equity
and the great historic developments that underlie the conventions which
enter into the administration of public justice, Mr. Conger cared
nothing. But there was one thing Mr. Conger did understand and care for,
and that was success. He was a man of medium hight, burly, active, ever
in motion. When he had ever been still long enough to read law, nobody
knew. He said everything he had to say with a quick, vehement utterance,
as though he grudged the time taken to speak fully about anything. He
went along the street eagerly; he wrote with all his might. There were
twenty men in the Territory, at that day, any one of whom knew five times
as much law as he. Other members of the bar were accustomed to speak
contemptuously of Conger's legal knowledge. But Conger won more cases and
made more money than any of them. If he did not know law in the widest
sense, he did know it in the narrowest. He always knew the law that
served his turn. When he drew an assignment for a client, no man could
break it. And when he undertook a case, he was sure to find his
opponent's weak point. He would pick flaws in pleas; he would postpone;
he would browbeat witnesses; he would take exceptions to the rulings of
the court in order to excite the sympathy of the jury; he would object to
testimony on the other side, and try to get in irrelevant testimony on
his own; he would abuse the opposing counsel, crying out, "The counsel on
the other side lies like thunder, and he knows it!" By shrewdness, by an
unwearying perseverance, by throwing his whole weight into his work,
Conger made himself the most successful lawyer of his time in the
Territory. And preserved his social position at the same time, for though
he was not at all scrupulous, he managed to keep on the respectable side
of the line which divides the lawyer from the shyster.

Mr. Conger had been Mr. Plausaby's counsel in one or two cases, and
Charlton, knowing no other lawyer, sent for him. Mr. Conger had, with his
characteristic quickness of perception, picked up the leading features of
the case from the newspapers. He sat down on the bed in Charlton's cell
with his brisk professional air, and came at once to business in his
jerky-polite tone.

"Bad business, this, Mr. Charlton, but let us hope we'll pull through.
_We_ generally _do_ pull through. Been in a good many tight places in my
time. But it is necessary, first of all, that you trust me. The boat is
in a bad way--you hail a pilot--he comes aboard. Now--hands off the
helm--you sit down and let the pilot steer her through. You understand?"
And Mr. Conger looked as though he might have smiled at his own
illustration if he could have spared the time. But he couldn't. As for
Albert, he only looked more dejected.

"Now," he proceeded, "let's get to business. In the first place, you must
trust me with everything. You must tell me whether you took the warrant
or not." And Mr. Conger paused and scrutinized his client closely.

Charlton said nothing, but his face gave evidence of a struggle.

"Well, well, Mr. Charlton," said the brisk man with the air of one who
has gotten through the first and most disagreeable part of his business,
and who now proposes to proceed immediately to the next matter on the
docket. "Well, well, Mr. Charlton, you needn't say anything if the
question is an unpleasant one. An experienced lawyer knows what silence
means, of course," and there was just a trifle of self-gratulation in his
voice. As for Albert, he winced, and seemed to be trying to make up his
mind to speak.

"Now," and with this _now_ the lawyer brought his white fat hand down
upon his knee in an emphatic way, as one who says "nextly." "Now--there
are several courses open to us. I asked you whether you took the warrant
or not, because the line of defense that presents itself first is to
follow the track of your suspicions, and fix the guilt on some one else
if we can. I understand, however, that that course is closed to us?"

Charlton nodded his head.

"We might try to throw suspicion--only suspicion, you know--on the
stage-driver or somebody else. Eh? Just enough to confuse the jury?"

Albert shook his head a little impatiently.

"Well, well, that's so--_not_ the _best_ line. The warrant was in your
hands. You used it for pre-emption. That is very ugly, very. I don't
think much of that line, under the circumstances. It might excite
feeling against us. It is a very bad case. But we will pull through, I
hope. We generally do. Give the case wholly into my hands. We'll
postpone, I think. I shall have to make an affidavit that there are
important witnesses absent, or something of the sort. But we'll have the
case postponed. There's some popular feeling against you, and juries go
as the newspapers do. Now, I see but one way, and that is to postpone
until the feeling dies down. Then we can manage the papers a little and
get up some sympathy for you. And there's no knowing what may happen.
There's nothing like delay in a bad case. Wait long enough, and
something is sure to turn up."

"But I don't want the case postponed," said Charlton decidedly.

"Very natural that you shouldn't like to wait. This is not a pleasant
room. But it is better to wait a year or even two years in this jail than
to go to prison for fifteen or twenty. Fifteen or twenty years out of the
life of a young man is about all there is worth the having."

Here Charlton shuddered, and Mr. Conger was pleased to see that his words
took effect.

"You'd better make up your mind that the case is a bad one, and trust to
my experience. When you're sick, trust the doctor. I think I can pull you
through if you'll leave the matter to me."

"Mr. Conger," said Charlton, lifting up his pale face, twitching with
nervousness, "I don't want to get free by playing tricks on a court of
law. I know that fifteen or twenty years in prison would not leave me
much worth living for, but I will not degrade myself by evading justice
with delays and false affidavits. If you can do anything for me fairly
and squarely, I should like to have it done."

"Scruples, eh?" asked Mr. Conger in surprise.

"Yes, scruples," said Albert Charlton, leaning his head on his hands with
the air of one who has made a great exertion and has a feeling of
exhaustion.

"Scruples, Mr. Charlton, are well enough when one is about to break the
law. After one has been arrested, scruples are in the way."

"You have no right to presume that I have broken the law," said Charlton
with something of his old fire.

"Well, Mr. Charlton, it will do no good for you to quarrel with your
counsel. You have as good as confessed the crime yourself. I must insist
that you leave the case in my hands, or I must throw it up. Take time to
think about it. I'll send my partner over to get any suggestions from you
about witnesses. The most we can do is to prove previous good character.
That isn't worth anything where the evidence against the prisoner is so
conclusive--as in your case. But it makes a show of doing something." And
Mr. Conger was about leaving the cell when, as if a new thought had
occurred to him, he turned back and sat down again and said: "There _is_
one other course open to you. Perhaps it is the best, since you will not
follow my plan. You can plead guilty, and trust to the clemency of the
President. I think strong political influences could be brought to bear
at Washington in favor of your pardon?"

Charlton shook his head, and the lawyer left him "to think the matter
over," as he said. Then ensued the season of temptation. Why should he
stand on a scruple? Why not get free? Here was a conscienceless attorney,
ready to make any number of affidavits in regard to the absence of
important witnesses; ready to fight the law by every technicality of the
law. His imprisonment had already taught him how dear liberty was, and,
within half an hour after Conger left him, a great change came over him.
Why should he go to prison? What justice was there in his going to
prison? Here he was, taking a long sentence to the penitentiary, while
such men as Westcott and Conger were out. There could be no equity in
such an arrangement. Whenever a man begins to seek equality of
dispensation, he is in a fair way to debauch his conscience. And another
line of thought influenced Charlton. The world needed his services. What
advantage would there be in throwing away the chances of a lifetime on a
punctilio? Why might he not let the serviceable lawyer do as he pleased?
Conger was the keeper of his own conscience, and would not be either more
or less honest at heart for what he did or did not do. All the kingdoms
of the earth could not have tempted Charlton to serve himself by another
man's perjury. But liberty on one hand and State's-prison on the other,
was a dreadful alternative. And so, when the meek and studious man whom
Conger used for a partner called on him, he answered all his questions,
and offered no objection to the assumption of the quiet man that Mr.
Conger would carry on the case in his own fashion.

Many a man is willing to be a martyr till he sees the stake and fagots.




CHAPTER XXIX.

THE TRIAL.


From the time that Charlton began to pettifog with his conscience, he
began to lose peace of mind. His self-respect was impaired, and he became
impatient, and chafed under his restraint. As the trial drew on, he was
more than ever filled with questionings in regard to the course he should
pursue. For conscience is like a pertinacious attorney. When a false
decision is rendered, he is forever badgering the court with a bill of
exceptions, with proposals to set aside, with motions for new trials,
with applications for writs of appeal, with threats of a Higher Court,
and even with contemptuous mutterings about impeachment. If Isa had not
written to him, Albert might have regained his moral _aplomb_ in some
other way than he did--he might not. For human sympathy is Christ's own
means of regenerating the earth. If you can not counsel, if you can not
preach, if you can not get your timid lips to speak one word that will
rebuke a man's sin, you can at least show the fellowship of your heart
with his. There is a great moral tonic in human brotherhood. Worried,
desperate, feeling forsaken of God and man, it is not strange that
Charlton should shut his teeth together and defy his scruples. He would
use any key he could to get out into the sunlight again. He quoted all
those old, half-true, half-false adages about the lawlessness of
necessity and so on. Then, weary of fencing with himself, he wished for
strength to stand at peace again, as when he turned his back on the
temptations of his rescuers in Metropolisville. But he had grown weak and
nervous from confinement--prisons do not strengthen the moral power--and
he had moreover given way to dreaming about liberty until he was like a
homesick child, who aggravates his impatience by dwelling much on the
delightfulness of the meeting with old friends, and by counting the
slow-moving days that intervene.

But there came, just the day before the trial, a letter with the
post-mark "Metropolisville" on it. That post-mark always excited a
curious feeling in him. He remembered with what boyish pride he had taken
possession of his office, and how he delighted to stamp the post-mark on
the letters. The address of this letter was not in his mother's undecided
penmanship--it was Isa Marlay's straightforward and yet graceful
writing, and the very sight of it gave him comfort. The letter was simply
a news letter, a vicarious letter from Isabel because Mrs. Plausaby did
not feel well enough to write; this is what Isa said it was, and what she
believed it to be, but Charlton knew that Isa's own friendly heart had
planned it. And though it ran on about this and that unimportant matter
of village intelligence, yet were its commonplace sentences about
commonplace affairs like a fountain in the desert to the thirsty soul of
the prisoner. I have read with fascination in an absurdly curious book
that people of a very sensitive fiber can take a letter, the contents and
writer of which are unknown, and by pressing it for a time against the
forehead can see the writer and his surroundings. It took no spirit of
divination in Charlton's case. The trim and graceful figure of Isa
Marlay, in perfectly fitting calico frock, with her whole dress in that
harmonious relation of parts for which she was so remarkable, came before
him. He knew that by this time she must have some dried grasses in the
vases, and some well-preserved autumn leaves around the picture-frames.
The letter said nothing about his trial, but its tone gave him assurance
of friendly sympathy, and of a faith in him that could not be shaken.
Somehow, by some recalling of old associations, and by some subtle
influence of human sympathy, it swept the fogs away from the soul of
Charlton, and he began to see his duty and to feel an inspiration toward
the right. I said that the letter did not mention the trial, but it did.
For when Charlton had read it twice, he happened to turn it over, and
found a postscript on the fourth page of the sheet. I wonder if the habit
which most women have of reserving their very best for the postscript
comes from the housekeeper's desire to have a good dessert. Here on the
back Charlton read:

"P.8.--Mr. Gray, your Hoosier friend, called on me yesterday, and sent
his regards. He told me how you refused to escape. I know you well enough
to feel sure that you would not do anything mean or unmanly. I pray that
God will sustain you on your trial, and make your innocence appear. I am
sure you are innocent, though I can not understand it. Providence will
overrule it all for good, I believe."

Something in the simple-hearted faith of Isabel did him a world of good.
He was in the open hall of the jail when he read it, and he walked about
the prison, feeling strong enough now to cope with temptation. That very
morning he had received a New Testament from a colporteur, and now, out
of regard to Isa Marlay's faith, maybe--out of some deeper feeling,
possibly--he read the story of the trial and condemnation of Jesus. In
his combative days he had read it for the sake of noting the
disagreements between the Evangelists in some of the details. But now he
was in no mood for small criticism. Which is the shallower, indeed, the
criticism that harps on disagreements in such narratives, or the
pettifogging that strives to reconcile them, one can hardly tell. In
Charlton's mood, in any deeply earnest mood, one sees the smallness of
all disputes about sixth and ninth hours. Albert saw the profound
essential unity of the narratives, he felt the stirring of the deep
sublimity of the story, he felt the inspiration of the sublimest
character in human history. Did he believe? Not in any orthodox sense.
But do you think that the influence of the Christ is limited to them who
hold right opinions about Him? If a man's heart be simple, he can not see
Jesus in any light without getting good from Him. Charlton, unbeliever
that he was, wet the pages with tears, tears of sympathy with the high
self-sacrifice of Jesus, and tears of penitence for his own moral
weakness, which stood rebuked before the Great Example.

And then came the devil, in the person of Mr. Conger. His face was full
of hopefulness as he sat down in Charlton's cell and smote his fat white
hand upon his knee and said "Now!" and looked expectantly at his client.
He waited a moment in hope of rousing Charlton's curiosity.

"We've got them!" he said presently. "I told you we should pull through.
Leave the whole matter to me."

"I am willing to leave anything to you but my conscience," said Albert.

"The devil take your conscience, Mr. Charlton. If you are guilty, and so
awfully conscientious, plead guilty at once. If you propose to cheat the
government out of some years of penal servitude, why, well and good. But
you must have a devilish queer conscience, to be sure. If you talk in
that way, I shall enter a plea of insanity and get you off whether you
will or not. But you might at least hear me through before you talk about
conscience. Perhaps even _your_ conscience would not take offense at my
plan, unless you consider yourself foreordained to go to penitentiary."

"Let's hear your plan, Mr. Conger," said Charlton, hoping there might be
some way found by which he could escape.

Mr. Conger became bland again, resumed his cheerful and hopeful look,
brought down his fat white hand upon his knee, looked up over his
client's head, while he let his countenance blossom with the promise of
his coming communication. He then proceeded to say with a cheerful
chuckle that there was a flaw in the form of the indictment--the grand
jury had blundered. He had told Charlton that something would certainly
happen. And it had. Then Mr. Conger smote his knee again, and said
"Now!" once more, and proceeded to say that his plan was to get the
trial set late in the term, so that the grand jury should finish their
work and be discharged before the case came on. Then he would have the
indictment quashed.

He said this with so innocent and plausible a face that at first it did
not seem very objectionable to Charlton.

"What would we gain by quashing the indictment, Mr. Conger?"

"Well, if the indictment were quashed on the ground of a defect in its
substance, then the case falls. But this is only defective in form.
Another grand jury can indict you again. Now if the District Attorney
should be a little easy--and I think that, considering your age, and my
influence with him, he would be--a new commitment might not issue perhaps
before you could get out of reach of it. If you were committed again,
then we gain time. Time is everything in a bad case. You could not be
tried until the next term. When the next term comes, we could then see
what could be done. Meantime you could get bail."

If Charlton had not been entirely clear-headed, or entirely in a mood
to deal honestly with himself, he would have been persuaded to take
this course.

"Let me ask you a question, Mr. Conger. If the case were delayed, and I
still had nothing to present against the strong circumstantial evidence
of the prosecution--if, in other words, delay should still leave us in
our present position--would there be any chance for me to escape by a
fair, stand-up trial?"

"Well, you see, Mr. Charlton, this is precisely a case in which we will
not accept a pitched battle, if we can help it. After a while, when the
prosecuting parties feel less bitter toward you, we might get some of the
evidence mislaid, out of the way, or get some friend on the jury,
or--well, we might manage somehow to dodge trial on the case as it
stands. Experience is worth a great deal in these things."

"There are, then, two possibilities for me," said Charlton very quietly.
"I can run away, or we may juggle the evidence or the jury. Am I right?"

"Or, we can go to prison?" said Conger, smiling.

"I will take the latter alternative," said Charlton.

"Then you owe it to me to plead guilty, and relieve me from
responsibility. If you plead guilty, we can get a recommendation of mercy
from the court."

"I owe it to myself not to plead guilty," said Charlton, speaking still
gently, for his old imperious and self-confident manner had left him.

"Very well," said Mr. Conger, rising, "if you take your fate into your
own hands in that way, I owe it to _myself_ to withdraw from the case."

"Very well, Mr. Conger."

"Good-morning, Mr. Charlton!"

"Good-morning, Mr. Conger."

And with Mr. Conger's disappearance went Albert's last hope of escape.
The battle had been fought, and lost--or won, as you look at it. Let us
say won, for no man's case is desperate till he parts with manliness.

Charlton had the good fortune to secure a young lawyer of little
experience but of much principle, who was utterly bewildered by the
mystery of the case, and the apparently paradoxical scruples of his
client, but who worked diligently and hopelessly for him. He saw the flaw
in the indictment and pointed it out to Charlton, but told him that as it
was merely a technical point he would gain nothing but time. Charlton
preferred that there should be no delay, except what was necessary to
give his counsel time to understand the case. In truth, there was little
enough to understand. The defense had nothing left to do.

When Albert came into court he was pale from his confinement. He
looked eagerly round the crowded room to see if he could find the
support of friendly faces. There were just two. The Hoosier Poet sat
on one of the benches, and by him sat Isa Marlay. True, Mr. Plausaby
sat next to Miss Marlay, but Albert did not account him anything in
his inventory of friends.

Isabel wondered how he would plead. She hoped that he did not mean to
plead guilty, but the withdrawal of Conger from the case filled her with
fear, and she had been informed by Mr. Plausaby that he could refuse to
plead altogether, and it would be considered a plea of not guilty. She
believed him innocent, but she had not had one word of assurance to that
effect from him, and even her faith had been shaken a little by the
innuendoes and suspicions of Mr. Plausaby.

Everybody looked at the prisoner. Presently the District Attorney moved
that Albert Charlton be arraigned.

The Court instructed the clerk, who said, "Albert Charlton, come
forward."

Albert here rose to his feet, and raised his right hand in token of
his identity.

The District Attorney said, "This prisoner I have indicted by the
grand jury."

"Shall we waive the reading of the indictment?" asked Charlton's counsel.

"No," said Albert, "let it be read," and he listened intently while the
clerk read it.

"Albert Charlton, you have heard the charge. What say you: Guilty, or,
Not guilty?" Even the rattling and unmeaning voice in which the clerk was
accustomed to go through with his perfunctory performances took on some
solemnity.

There was dead silence for a moment. Isa Marlay's heart stopped beating,
and the Poet from Posey County opened his mouth with eager anxiety.
When Charlton spoke, it was in a full, solemn voice, with deliberation
and emphasis.

"NOT GUILTY!"

"Thank God!" whispered Isa.

The Poet shut his mouth and heaved a sigh of relief.

The counsel for the defense was electrified. Up to that moment he had
believed that his client was guilty. But there was so much of solemn
truthfulness in the voice that he could not resist its influence.

As for the trial itself, which came off two days later, that was a dull
enough affair. It was easy to prove that Albert had expressed all sorts
of bitter feelings toward Mr. Westcott; that he was anxious to leave;
that he had every motive for wishing to pre-empt before Westcott did;
that the land-warrant numbered so-and-so--it is of no use being accurate
here, they were accurate enough in court--had been posted in Red Owl on a
certain day; that a gentleman who rode with the driver saw him receive
the mail at Red Owl, and saw it delivered at Metropolisville; that
Charlton pre-empted his claim--the S.E. qr. of the N.E. qr., and the N.
1/2 of the S.E. qr. of Section 32, T. so-and-so, R. such-and-such--with
this identical land-warrant, as the records of the land-office showed
beyond a doubt.

Against all this counsel for defense had nothing whatever to offer.
Nothing but evidence of previous good character, nothing but to urge that
there still remained perhaps the shadow of a doubt. No testimony to show
from whom Charlton had received the warrant, not the first particle of
rebutting evidence. The District Attorney only made a little perfunctory
speech on the evils brought upon business by theft in the post-office.
The exertions of Charlton's counsel amounted to nothing; the jury found
him guilty without deliberation.

The judge sentenced him with much solemn admonition. It was a grievous
thing for one so young to commit such a crime. He warned Albert that he
must not regard any consideration as a justification for such an offense.
He had betrayed his trust and been guilty of theft. The judge expressed
his regret that the sentence was so severe. It was a sad thing to send a
young man of education and refinement to be the companion of criminals
for so many years. But the law recognized the difference between a theft
by a sworn and trusted officer and an ordinary larceny. He hoped that
Albert would profit by this terrible experience, and that he would so
improve the time of his confinement with meditation, that what would
remain to him of life when he should come out of the walls of his prison
might be spent as an honorable and law-abiding citizen. He sentenced him
to serve the shortest term permitted by the statute, namely, ten years.

The first deep snow of the winter was falling outside the court-house,
and as Charlton stood in the prisoners' box, he could hear the jingling
of sleigh-bells, the sounds that usher in the happy social life of winter
in these northern latitudes. He heard the judge, and he listened to the
sleigh-bells as a man who dreams--the world was so far off from him
now--ten weary years, and the load of a great disgrace measured the gulf
fixed between him and all human joy and sympathy. And when, a few minutes
afterward, the jail-lock clicked behind him, it seemed to have shut out
life. For burial alive is no fable. Many a man has heard the closing of
the vault as Albert Charlton did.




CHAPTER XXX.

THE PENITENTIARY.


It was a cold morning. The snow had fallen heavily the day before, and
the Stillwater stage was on runners. The four horses rushed round the
street-corners with eagerness as the driver, at a little past five
o'clock in the morning, moved about collecting passengers. From the
up-town hotels he drove in the light of the gas-lamps to the jail where
the deputy marshal, with his prisoner securely handcuffed, took his seat
and wrapped the robes about them both. Then at the down-town hotels they
took on other passengers. The Fuller House was the last call of all.

"Haven't you a back-seat?" The passenger partly spoke and partly coughed
out his inquiry.

"The back-seat is occupied by ladies," said the agent, "you will have to
take the front one."

"It will kill me to ride backwards," whined the desponding voice of
Minorkey, but as there were only two vacant seats he had no choice. He
put his daughter in the middle while he took the end of the seat and
resigned himself to death by retrograde motion. Miss Helen Minorkey was
thus placed exactly _vis-à-vis_ with her old lover Albert Charlton, but
in the darkness of six o'clock on a winter's morning in Minnesota, she
could not know it. The gentleman who occupied the other end of the seat
recognized Mr. Minorkey, and was by him introduced to his daughter. That