Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v108.djvu/406

386 "I was just waiting for that! Will you look at this, please? and don't reply until you have read it carefully."

He drew a paper from his pocket and laid it unfolded on the table before her.

"You have only to sign this—here," he said, "to arrange it all. You haven't any fixed contract with Mr. Ai?"

"No," she answered, briefly, and glancing down at the paper.

Courtney opened his fountain-pen and held it towards her.

"Then you can accept this offer from Judge Wells. It is a purely business proposition. He has taken a fancy to your work, and is willing to pay for his whim. Not that your work isn't worth it. I wouldn't have offered you less than he states here. The contract is for a year, you see, and the Judge is a prince to serve. Only, he wouldn't allow you to work for any one else. You see that's stipulated."

"His terms are princely," she said, slowly.

She sat looking down at the contract, wistfully, as Courtney thought, then pushed it from her, with a motion as if she were about to rise.

"You have been very kind," she said; "both of you have been very kind. Won't you tell Judge Wells for me how much I thank him? I know exactly what you and what a man like Judge Wells must think of Mr. Ai. But you don't either of you know him! You don't understand him or me. We don't belong in your world—your class. I am a working-woman now—whatever I may have been. And I know perfectly how to take care of myself, and just what risks I may run. A woman differently brought up, your sister perhaps, couldn't safely do what I can. As for Mr. Ai—But there is no use in my trying to explain him to you. I know his faults, but I am as safe in his office, working for him, as I would be with my own father. Nothing could persuade me to leave him. He has done for me—Oh, you don't know! I owe him everything, in kindness, in good faith. And I trust him. You don't know anything about it!"

Courtney bent forward towards her, his voice lowered.

"I know all about it! He has led you to believe he has influence with Governor Worden, and that he can help you in your efforts to gain your brother's pardon. See this—this is what told me the whole story. You dropped it on the floor of my study—your brother's letter. I was his lawyer. It was his story I told you to-night—you recognized it. Judge Wells and I have talked it all over. He knows the Governor—intimately. He will undertake to bring up the case before him. His mere taking it up means much. He is not the man to present a case he is not fairly sure of succeeding with. All depends, of course, on the impression the Governor receives. Can't you see you would only hurt your brother's cause by such an advocate as Mr. Ai? Governor Worden would never yield—he could not—to pressure from such a quarter.—No, my boy. No, I don't want a paper. Not to-night."

But the next moment Courtney was detaining the little newsboy who had ventured to touch the arm of his accustomed patron, offering his wares. He counted out the pennies into the child's hand, asking him laughing questions of his sales, his savings—anything to turn away for the moment. She had asked him to speak plainly, had listened quietly, had seemed steady to bear anything, and then suddenly—the woman in her had conquered! She sat with her face hidden by the hand that supported her drooping head, perfectly motionless except for a breathing like suppressed sobs. Her very self-control alarmed Courtney. What it might lead to he did not know. He was out of his depth—shocked at what he had done, helpless. He dared not speak to her, hardly dared look at her. He dismissed the child and mechanically opened the newspaper he had bought, spreading it out on the table. As he did so one of the headings caught his eye. He looked again—again! then read down the column. The fine lines seemed to rise at him from the page, magnified by his amazement: "A pardon granted to-day by the Governor No reasons given, save the prisoner's good conduct." Then a brief summary of the case and the prisoner's name. His client's!

Courtney looked up. Bad news he knew she would meet bravely. How might she receive this, for which she had so long struggled and waited? She was