The One Woman (Dixon, 1903)/Chapter 32
The court-room was crowded to suffocation. The corridors were jammed, the pavements, park and street outside a solid mass of humanity.
The prison van plowed its way through the throng. Gordon stepped out, with handcuffs jingling on his wrists, and straightened his giant figure between the two officers who led him.
A cheer suddenly burst from the crowd and echoed through the court-room.
There was no mistaking that cry. He had heard it before. He knew. He had killed a banker. They were glad of it and proud of him. In muttered curses and cheers they said so. He was the champion of a class, and the murder of an enemy had made him a hero. No matter the right or wrong. Down with every banker—what did they care!
Ruth met him in the anteroom, followed him into the prisoner's dock and took her place by his side.
The bill of indictment was read.
"The People against Frank Gordon."
With terrible memories the title rang through his soul. The people, for whom he had fought, for whom he had suffered, worked and dreamed, had
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put him on trial for his life. What a strange fate! The faces grew dim, and a sense of illimitable and awful ruin crushed him.
A soft hand stole gently into his, and its warmth cleared his brain.
He looked around the room and, to his surprise, saw dozens of people he had helped in his ministry of the Pilgrim Church. Just in front of him sat a woman who, under the inspiration of his preaching, had given her fortune to found an orphanage for homeless girls, and was spending her life in happy service as its presiding genius.
She nodded and smiled, and her eyes filled with tears.
There was a stir in the group of lawyers behind him, and the old woman who had kissed him the day Ruth was watching pushed to his side, seized his hand, choked, and could say nothing. She had come all the way from Virginia to cheer him.
Ludlow, his faithful deacon, he saw, and near him sat Van Meter. The little black eyes were solemn and the mouth drawn with sorrow. Over against the wall, jammed in the crowd, he saw Jerry Edwards, who was still telling the story of his life with reverent wonder and love. He clasped both hands together, shook them over the heads of the crowd, and smiled.
A feeling of awe came over him as he thought of the eternity of man's deeds, going on and on forever, whatever might be his own fate.
He looked curiously at Barringer, the young Assistant District Attorney, who was conducting the case against him. In the dark-brown eyes, keen and piercing, there was deadly hostility. He had become famous as a relentless public prosecutor. He came of a long line of great lawyers of the old South, and the breath of a court-room was born in his nostrils. Gordon was chilled by the cold, clear ring of his penetrating voice.
While the jury was being impaneled, Ruth sat by Gordon, eagerly trying to see the invisible secrets of every juror's soul who faced the man she loved.
The court ruled that Socialists were disqualified to sit on the case.
When the twelve men were selected she scanned their faces with searching gaze for the signs of life or death. Their names all seemed strange. She could make nothing out of them.
The opening address of Barringer choked her with fear. In cold-blooded words he told the jury of the certainty of the guilt of the prisoner. His manner was earnest, dignified and terrible in its persuasive assurance.
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.