Books: The One Woman
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Thomas Dixon >> The One Woman
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For days his awful closing sentence rang like a death knell in her
ears.
Four days of the week were consumed by the witnesses for the
prosecution. On Friday morning Ruth and her lawyers were elated
over the unimportant character of the testimony.
Suddenly Barringer looked at the prisoner, frowned, and said:
"Call Kate Ransom Gordon to the witness stand."
The prisoner went white and lowered his eyes.
There was a stir at the side door. With quick, firm step the
magnificent figure crossed the room, with every eye save one riveted
on her beautiful face.
She took her seat, and in cool, clear tones told her story.
The prisoner looked up once, and she met his gaze with a glance of
fierce resentment.
She gave the long history of his suspicions of Overman, of their
quarrels about him, of his jealousy and his threat to kill him.
With minute detail she explained the events of the fatal Sunday,
described his entrapping Overman in the library unarmed, and of
his murder in the dark. She told how she had rushed to the door
and found no light within, and how he had enticed her into the room
and attempted to choke her to death.
Finally she explained to the jury that the wounds Gordon had
received were not from Overman in a fight, but that he had tried
to kill her and commit suicide and had failed.
For five hours she sat in the witness chair and coolly swore his
life away, baffling with keenest wit at every turn the shrewd lawyer
who baited, harassed and cross-questioned her with merciless vigour.
When she declared that Gordon's wounds were self-inflicted, he
stared at her in dazed wonder and gasped to Ruth:
"Merciful God, is she deliberately lying, or does she believe it?"
Ruth did not answer, but slipped her warm little hand in his and
pressed it. His fingers were like icicles.
Gordon seemed to sink into a stupor and take no further note of
what was going on in the room.
He turned around, placed his arm on the chair, and fixed his eyes
on Ruth, looking, looking! As he felt her hot hand trying to warm
the chill of death in his own, he followed every movement of a
muscle of her face with hypnotic intensity.
When they led him back to the prison van his shoulders drooped with
mortal weariness. He had lived a lifetime in a day, and his hair
had turned gray.
CHAPTER XXXIII
THE VERDICT
Gordon seemed to take no further interest in the trial. He only sat
day after day and watched Ruth. Now and then a faint flush tinged
the prison pallor of his cheeks as from some thought passing in
his memory.
Barringer's speech to the jury was one of fierce and terrible
eloquence. Every art of persuasion, every trick of oratory, every
force of personality he used with pitiless power. In ridicule,
sarcasm, invective, pathos and logic, his voice rose and fell,
pulsed and quivered, or rang with the peal of a trumpet. He held
the jury in the hollow of his hand for four hours, while Ruth stared
at him with her heart in her throat, every word cutting her flesh
like a knife or smashing the tissues of her brain with the force
of a bludgeon.
The jury retired.
Through the dreary hours of the afternoon Ruth sat in the anteroom
by Gordon's side waiting for the verdict. Minutes lengthened into
hours, and hours into days and years, until time and eternity were
one, and she lived a life of despair or hope within the second
between the ticks of the clock on the wall.
She tried to say a word of cheer to Gordon, and choked. The little
chin drooped, showing the white teeth, and she sat in dumb misery
like a sick child.
The man looked at her tenderly and said:
"You must be calm, Ruth, dear. Death is a physical incident that
no longer interests me, except as it affects you. You are the one
miracle of life and death to me."
She pressed his hand and could not answer.
At five o'clock the jury returned for instructions, and she listened
with agony to their awful questions.
At six o'clock there was a hurried stir in the court-room. The
crowd surged into its doors and packed every inch of space.
The jury were filing in with their verdict.
The judge solemnly took his seat, and the clerk summoned Gordon to
stand up.
The giant figure rose with dignity and his steel-gray eyes pierced
the jury.
The foreman's lips moved:
"Guilty of murder in the first degree!"
A long breath, a stir, a murmur, and then a broken sob from a woman's
heart. Her arms were around his neck, her head on his breast, and
her swollen lips in low, piteous tones cried:
"My darling!"
CHAPTER XXXIV
THE APPEAL
Two weeks later the judge pronounced the sentence of death. Again
the dark figure was by the prisoner's side, alert, erect, every
faculty of mind and body at its highest tension, her cheeks aflame
with defiance, her eyes gleaming with hidden fire.
She was sure the Court of Appeals would grant a new trial. She bade
her beloved good-by at the gates of Sing Sing, and the door of the
Chamber of Death closed upon him.
Day and night she worked with tireless energy. She systematically
laid siege to the editors and owners of the papers in New York,
and at last won every hostile critic by her patience, her beauty
of character, and the infinite pathos of her love.
The moment sentence of death was pronounced on Gordon, Kate sued
for a divorce from him as a convicted felon, and it was granted.
The little dark woman became the toast of every hardened newspaper
reporter who came in contact with her. The newsboys learned to
recognise her from her pictures, and as she went in and out of the
court-rooms and the lawyers' offices they would watch and wait for
her, doff their dirty caps, smile, hand her a flower, and cry:
"She's de queen!"
When Ruth saw the notice of Kate's divorce, she asked her lawyers
to arrange at once for her to remarry Gordon at Sing Sing.
The senior counsel shook his head.
"You must not dare, madam," he gravely said. "If we should not get
a new trial, or fail on the second trial, the Governor at Albany
is our only hope."
A wave of sickening terror swept Ruth's soul. She recalled King's
strange reserve of the past months. His letters were kind and
sympathetic, but there was something hidden between their lines
that chilled her.
"We must not lose!" she answered, bitterly.
"I don't think we will," the lawyer hastened to assure her. "But
we must reserve every weapon."
The Court of Appeals decided in Gordon's favour and ordered a new
trial.
As the day approached, Ruth's nervousness increased. His chances
were better, but she could hear the awful words of Kate Ransom
swearing away his life. Their echoes rang in her soul until she
could no longer endure it.
She was at Gramercy Park at last.
When Kate swept proudly and coldly into the room, and extended her
hand, she held it in her grasp timidly and nervously.
"I've come to beg you," she said, piteously, "not to say he made
those wounds in his own breast. They fought a duel as men have often
done. You were in a swoon. You thought he did it himself because
he told you he was going to die with you. He did not hurt you. He
only laid you tenderly on the lounge, smoothed your hair, kissed
and left you. Surely you have brought me enough sorrow. Have pity
on me!"
Kate led her to a seat and spoke with quiet decision. "I said what
I believed to be the truth. I shall repeat it. I can feel his wild
beast's claws on my throat now in the night sometimes and wake with
a scream."
"Ah, but he was mad," she cried, through her tears. "He is tender
and gentle as a child. Surely you"--she paused and caught her
breath--"who have slept with your head on his dear breast know
this!"
"It is useless to talk to me," she answered, with anger. "He deserves
to die. And it will be a good riddance for you, and for the world.
He was stirring the passions of mobs that will yet make work for
hangmen."
"But he is not on trial for this," she pleaded, "You should be
the last to reproach him with it. Think of all the sacrifices for
you--his career, his wife and children, his father, his friends.
Surely there is yet one spark of love for him in your heart?"
Kate shook her head.
"Then for my sake, I beg of you--you are a woman. You have loved.
Have mercy on me! You asked me once for help--did I fail you?"
The blond face softened.
"No, you didn't. I'm sorry for you. If it were your life, I'd save
it if I swore a thousand lies--but for him, the brute--I can feel
him strangling me now--you have not felt his hands on your throat."
"No," said the soft contralto voice, "not on my throat; it would
have been a relief to have felt them there. They were on my soul.
But I love him---"
Kate was relentless, and Ruth left, shivering with anguish and
angry pride.
The new trial dragged its length to the second jury. Ruth spent
and pledged the last dollar of her fortune.
Once more she heard the foreman, in tones that seemed far off in
space, say the fatal word--
"Guilty!"
She stood by his side again before the judge and heard the words
of death fall from his lips, this time with blanched face and cold
little fingers locked in agony.
Again the gates at Sing Sing closed, and a woman turned her footsteps
toward the Governor's Mansion at Albany.
CHAPTER XXXV
BETWEEN TWO FIRES
Ruth trembled at the thought of her appeal to King. She knew his
iron will, his intense love, and the certainty with which he had
long regarded their coming union. His ambitions were still mounting,
and daily with better assurances of success. His party had chosen
another man their candidate for the Presidency, and had been
overwhelmed in defeat, while he had been re-elected Governor by a
larger plurality.
He received her with grave tenderness.
"Morris," she cried, pathetically, seizing his hand and holding
it, "he is not guilty of murder. Everything has been against him
in these trials. They were not fair. He killed that man in what men
have always called a fair fight. You are a manly man. You believe
in justice. You will not let them kill him!"
She could feel the strong man's hand tremble in hers, looked up
into his face, and saw a tear quiver on his lashes.
"Oh! Ruth," he cried, bitterly, "why do you cling to this man? He
is regarded as the most dangerous firebrand in America. I could
show you hundreds of letters piled on that desk begging me in the
name of law and order and all the forces of civilised society not
to interfere with his sentence. Come, you know how I love you.
This is horrible cruelty to me. The doors of the White House are
opening. You know that what I have, am now, and ever may be, is
yours. It will all be ashes without you. I offer you a deathless
love, honour and glory, and you come here to tell me you prefer a
convicted felon in his cell. My God, it is too much!"
The Governor leaned on his desk and shaded his face with his hands.
"How can I help it, Morris, if I love him?" she asked, piteously.
He raised his head, looked away, and softly said:
"Ruth, could you never love me?"
She was silent a moment and her lips trembled.
"If he dies, I cannot live," she gasped.
He leaned close, took her hand, and said:
"I'll order a stay of sentence for three months."
She kissed his hand, and murmured:
"Thank you."
From the telegraph office at Albany over the wires to Sing Sing's
house of death flew the message:
"Sentence stayed for three months while the Governor considers your
pardon. Faith and hope eternal. RUTH."
The next express carried her to him with the copy of the Governor's
order in her bosom.
The warden smiled and congratulated her. She had long before won
his heart, and there was no favour within the limits of law that
he had not granted to the man she loved.
Ruth looked at Gordon tenderly through the barred opening of his
cell.
Her heart ached as she saw the ashen pallor of his face and the skin
beginning to draw tight and slick across the protruding cheek-bones
of his once magnificent face. Three years of prison had bent
his shoulders and reduced his giant frame to a mere shadow of his
former self. Only the eyes had grown larger and softer, and their
gaze now seemed turned within. They burned with a feverish mystic
beauty.
Ruth fixed on him a look of melting tenderness and asked:
"Do you not long for the open fields, the sky and sea, my dear?"
He gazed at her hungrily.
"No. Sometimes I've felt a queer homesickness in these dying
muscles that thirst for the open world, but I've no time to think
of mountain or lake, or hear the call of field or sea---Ruth, I
can only think of you! I have but one interest, but one desire of
soul and body--that you may be happy. I would be free, not because
I fear death or covet life"--his voice sank to a broken whisper--"but
that I might crawl around the earth on my hands and knees and
confess my shame and sorrow that I deserted you."
"Hush, hush, my love; I forgive you," she moaned.
"Yes, I know; but all time and eternity will be too short for my
repentance."
The woman was sobbing bitterly.
"These prison bars," he went on with strange elation, "are nothing.
The old queer instinct of asceticism within me, that made a preacher
of an Epicurean and an athlete, has come back to its kingship. Its
sublime authority is now supreme. I despise life, and have learned
to live. There is no task so hard but that the king within demands
a harder. There can be no pain so fierce and cruel but that it
calls my soul to laughter. As for Death--"
His voice sank to dreamy notes.
"She who comes at last with velvet feet and the tender touch of a
pure woman's hand--her face is radiant, her voice low music. She
will speak the end of strife and doubt, and loose these bars. With
friendly smile she will show me the path among the stars, until I
find the face of God. I'll tell Him I'm a son of His who lost the
way on life's great plain, and that I am sorry for all the pain
I've caused to those who loved me."
[Illustration: A cheer suddenly burst from the crowd and echoed
through the court-room.]
Ruth felt through the bars and grasped his hand, sobbing.
"Don't, don't, don't, Frank! Stop! I cannot endure it!"
The warden turned away to hide his face.
CHAPTER XXXVI
SWIFT AND BEAUTIFUL FEET
For three months Ruth went back and forth from Sing Sing to
Albany, battling with the Governor for Gordon's life and cheering
the condemned man with her courage and love.
The fatal day of the execution had come, and she was to wage the
last battle of her soul for the life of her love with the man who
loved her.
It was a day of storm. The spring rains had been pouring in torrents
for a week and the wind was now dashing against the windows blinding
sheets of water.
A carriage stopped before the Governor's Mansion, and two women
wrapped in long cloaks leaped quickly out. The Governor was at his
desk in his office.
There was the rustle of a woman's dress at his door. He looked and
sprang to his feet, trembling.
He threw one hand to his forehead as though to clear his brain,
and caught a chair with the other.
Advancing swiftly toward him, he saw the white vision of Ruth
Spottswood the night of the ball when he had lost her. The same
dress, the same rounded throat, only the bust a little fuller, and
the same beautiful bare arms with the delicate wrists and tapering
fingers. The great soulful eyes, with just a gleam of young sunshine
in their depths, and the same flowers on her breast. She walked
with lithe, quick grace, and now she was talking in the low sweet
contralto music that had echoed in his soul through the years.
"Please, Governor," she was saying, as her hot hand held his, "save
my father!"
The man's eyes were blinking, and he put one hand to his throat as
though he were about to choke. He looked past the white figure of
the girl and saw her mother kneeling in the corner of the room,
the tears streaming down her face and her lips moving in prayer.
In quick tones he called:
"Ruth!"
She leaped to her feet and was before him in a moment, with scarlet
face, dilated eyes and disheveled hair.
"You've won. I give it up."
Ruth pressed both hands to her breast and caught her breath to keep
from screaming.
He pressed the button on his desk. The clerk appeared.
"Write out a full pardon for Frank Gordon, and call the warden of
Sing Sing!"
Ruth dropped to her knees, crying:
"O Lord God, unto thee I give praise!"
In a moment the clerk hurried back to the Governor's side and in
startling tones whispered:
"The wires are down, sir. I can't get the warden."
The Governor snatched his watch from his pocket.
"There is no train for two hours. Order me a special!"
The despatcher flashed his command for a clear track as far as the
wires would work, and within fifteen minutes the great engine with
its single coach dashed across the bridge and plunged down the
grade toward Sing Sing, roaring, hissing, screaming its warnings
above the splash and howl of the storm.
The Governor sat silent with his head resting on his hand, shading
his eyes.
Ruth, still and pale, gazed out the car window, and, shivering,
closed her eyes now and then over the vision of a cold dead face
she feared to see at the journey's end.
They had made fifty miles in fifty minutes, and not a word had been
spoken.
The Governor looked at his watch and leaned over:
"Cheer up, Ruth. We are making a mile a minute through the storm,
over slippery rails. We will make it in time."
Suddenly the emergency brakes came down with a crash, every wheel
was locked, and the train slid heavily on the track, hissing,
grinding, swaying, the steel rails blazing with sparks.
The Governor sprang from the car. "We're blocked by a wreck, sir,"
the conductor said, touching his cap. "The high water has undermined
the track on the river bank."
Within twenty minutes the engine in front of the wreck was secured,
Ruth and Lucy were in the cab, and the engineer and fireman stood
reading their orders.
"Gentlemen, I am the Governor," said a voice by their side.
They looked up.
"This is a matter of life and death. The life of a man--and the life
of the little pale woman I helped into your cab. Put this engine
into Sing Sing by five minutes to two o'clock and I'll give you a
thousand dollars. Five hundred for each of you."
The engineer smiled.
"We'll do it for you, sir, without money. We voted for you."
The Governor pressed their hands.
Down the storm-clouded track the engine flew with throbbing heart
of steel and breath of fire like a panting demon. Back and forth
over the spongy rails she swayed, her mighty ribs cracking as she
lurched and jumped and plunged. But the fireman in his flannel
shirt, dripping with perspiration, never paused, as with steady
stroke he fed her roaring mouth; and the engineer, with his hand
on her pulse, leaned far out of the cab with his eyes fixed on the
flying track.
The hour for the condemned man was at hand. He had asked the warden
as a special favour to do his duty without delay at the appointed
time.
Gordon was ready, dressed with his old fastidious distinction to
the last detail of his toilet. He had spent the entire night before
writing to Ruth the last chapter in a secret diary he had kept and
given to the warden for her.
The warden read the death warrant with halting lips. He had been
strangely drawn to this tall young giant with his premature gray
hairs. Gordon's words of lyric fire to him of the mysteries of life
and death had thrown a spell over his imagination. He was going to
kill him now with the horrible feeling that he was his own brother.
"Come, my friend," Gordon said to him, cheerfully, "you promised
me there should be no delay. I've a child's eagerness now to push
the black curtains aside and see what lies beyond. I've often
dreamed and wondered. In a few minutes I shall know. I hear it
calling me, that unknown world of silence, beauty and mystery. Let
us make haste."
But the feet of the jailer were of lead. He would stop and hold
his lower lip tightly under his teeth, as though in pain.
At last they were in the dim chamber that is the vestibule of
death. The cap had been drawn over his face and the leather straps
buckled on his wrists legs,
The warden put his hand on the electric switch.
There was a shout and a stir without, the thump of hurrying feet,
and the butt of a guard's gun thundered against the door.
The warden sprang forward.
"Stop! The Governor!" he heard faintly shouted through the deep-padded
panels.
CHAPTER XXXVII
THE KISS OF THE BRIDE
For a quarter of an hour the Governor sat and talked with Lucy,
waiting the arrival of Gordon and Ruth. The warden arranged that
they should meet in the adjoining room alone.
No eye save God's saw their meeting. Those who waited only heard
through the heavy curtains half articulate cries like the soft
crooning of a mother over her babe.
When they entered the room and Lucy had clung passionately for
a moment to the neck of the tall, gaunt figure, the Governor took
his hand.
"I have accepted Ruth's word and yours for the truth in this case,
Frank Gordon. I have grown to know that she is the soul of truth.
I heard you preach once from the text, 'He saved others, himself he
could not save.' I did not know then what you were talking about.
I know now--"
"Oh, Morris," Ruth broke in, "we will always love you as the nearest
and dearest friend on earth."
"As for you, Frank Gordon," he went on. "I could no longer hate you
if I tried. In the presence of a love so pure, so divine as that
which hallows your life, I uncover my head. I am on holy ground--I
am in the presence of the living God."
He turned away, and Ruth broke into a sob, while the man by her
side hung his head and sat down as though too weak to stand.
The Governor lifted Gordon from the seat, seized Ruth's hand and
placed it in his.
"I know your heart's desire, Ruth," he said, slowly, "I have an
officer of the law here to perform a marriage ceremony. Holding
your first marriage a divine sacrament, you once planned a civil
one in this grim prison. No matter how I learned this: it shall be
so to-day."
The magistrate advanced and pronounced them husband and wife, sat
down by a desk, and made out the record.
The Governor rose and handed the official pardon to Gordon.
"To you I give life."
He tore the other paper into two parts by its dotted lines, handed
Ruth one half and held the other in his trembling fingers.
"This, Ruth, is your marriage certificate"--he paused--"and my
death warrant. Frank Gordon, we have changed places."
Again the woman sobbed.
"You have forgotten something, Morris," she answered, wistfully.
"Yes, I know: myself."
"It is your right to kiss the bride," she said, softly, "and I wish
it."
He stooped and reverently touched her forehead. And when he turned
away Lucy stood before him, her soft young bosom, neck and face
crimson, her eyes dancing, and the sweet little mouth quivering.
"May I kiss you, Governor?" she cried, tremblingly. "You are my
hero!"
Her bare arms flashed around his neck, and her warm lips met his.
In the mansion on the hill at Albany, the Governor sat that night
in his magnificent room alone until the dawn of day, holding in his
hand an old battered tintype picture of a laughing girl standing
beside a poor young lawyer.
THE END
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