20 The Verdict

Guthrie and Warfield followed me to the door of my room, but there they left me, knowing instinctively that I wished to be alone. I went in, shut the door, drew down the curtains, because I did not want to see the light just then, and sank into a chair. I was still weak and dizzy and all my nerves were quivering. I had made the confession, and for a moment I had felt a wonderful relief because I had thrown my burden away. But then Alicia had picked it up and what would the world say of her? She, clothed in the armor of the spirit might not care, but I cared, and such doubts and fears as these tortured me. As I was now the world might say what it pleased of me, but I could not bear to have scandal tearing her to pieces.

I wished, too, for a word from her, or of her. I had seen her faint and I had seen them carrying her away, and for a moment, I had a dreadful fear lest she might be dead, but reason convinced me that it could not be so. A thousand schemes, all equally vain and fruitless, ran through my mind. I would tell exactly why I had gone to the Grey house, I would explain my condition at the time, and lest any part of it should seem incredible I would enlarge upon the truth, and attribute to myself things that I did not do, in order that I might protect her good name. I do not boast, I claim no credit for myself, but it is God’s truth that all this time Alicia and her fate were first in my thoughts.

After Alicia my mind turned to my own position, and here the pride and tenacity that had so often carried me on came to my aid. I had done no wrong, I was the Governor of the State, fairly and freely elected by the people, and it was for them to say whether I should continue to occupy the chair which I had not disgraced by anything done while I was there. I would call a session of the Legislature, lay my resignation before the members and they could accept it or reject it as they saw fit.

A knock at the door and a servant entered.

“The gentlemen from the press,” he said. “Will you see them, sir?” he asked.

I had forgotten them, but I should have known that the reporters would come to me at once, and I did not hesitate,

“Yes, bring them up,” I replied.

I noticed that the man looked curiously at me. He, too, had heard of all that had happened, and mentally I winced at an examination by a servant, but his curiosity was only natural. He bowed and in a few minutes returned with the reporters, four in number, who asked me if I wished to make a statement, or if I would say anything further in regard to the extraordinary event of the day.

In our country it is not easy for a public man to escape the press, and flight only makes pursuit more strenuous. Nor did I know that to-day I wished to evade it, because I had something to say to the public. When I came to talk, all the plans and schemes to protect Alicia that had entered my mind fell to the ground. Enough of subterfuges, evasions and inventions; they always recoiled upon me. I would tell the exact truth, and I told it to them.

I went over the whole story of that night, the state in which I was, the manner in which I had pushed past Alicia and entered the house, how we had been schoolmates and children together, and then the sudden entrance of her husband with all the possibilities to her, not realized by me until then; how on the impulse of the moment I had claimed to be a burglar and afterward the chain of circumstances tightening about me, until I had almost seemed to myself to be one. I spoke eagerly, quickly, and with all the feeling in me, and it was such an easy thing to tell the truth, it came spontaneously, freely, naturally. I saw that I was making an impression upon these men; they seemed to be convinced and as they felt they would write.

“Of course, Governor,” said the oldest of the men, “this is a very extraordinary event; you appreciate that?”

“Undoubtedly,” I replied.

“We have no object but to state the facts. Maybe the newspaper exaggerates sometimes, but it is not necessary to do so in this case; the facts are enough. We tried to see Mrs. Grey, but her friends would not allow it.”

“They were right,” I said, “I have told everything.”

He laughed a little.

“That is true,” he said, “but newspaper practice compelled us to make the trial.”

Then they folded up their notes, bowed and left, and as they did so I watched their manner. I was anxious to see how they would bear themselves toward me, whether by familiarity, a light word here and there, a careless gesture, they would show that they no longer considered me entitled to respect. My pride was yet great, and now it was savagely sensitive, I should be quicker than ever to resent a slight and God knows I now expected many of them. But they were grave and quiet, perhaps a little curious like the servant, and that was all. If they were an index to the public mind I was not yet wholly condemned or at least the decree was held in reserve.

A half hour after they had gone, Jimmy Warfield came into the room and his coming was like a shaft of sunlight. He seemed to be wholly cheerful, hailed me in hearty tones, and seizing my hand gave it the grasp of a friend.

“Harry,” he said, “I’ve come to tell you news.”

“Of Alicia—Mrs. Grey.”

“Aye of her. The Guthries have her, and I think they’ll keep her at their house for many days. She recovered quickly from the faint in which she fell and there has been a singular transformation in her—Mrs. Guthrie told me about it—a weight seems to be lifted from her, she is placid, even happy, she thinks that she will now bear all the blame, and that you will appear clean and whole before the world.”

“That cannot be!” I exclaimed.

“No, not in the way she thinks. And now Harry we must face the facts. It is of them that I have come here to talk to you.”

He suddenly dropped his light manner and became grave and watchful. I knew that no expression of mine would escape his notice.

“Yes, the facts,” I said. “Nothing can wave them aside.”

“That is true, but we can consider them. First, Mrs. Grey. You are aware that her reputation will be blown upon—I must speak plainly—the evil-minded create evil where evil there is none. But, Harry, she is indifferent to it, she has an armor of proof against it, and she loves you. What have you ever done that you should deserve the love of such a woman?”

“Nothing,” I answered devoutly.

“I’ve asked you the question that Harrison asked less than an hour ago of me, but he made the addition that you were a man. He said that you acted like a man to-day, and that he was not surprised. But we come now to yourself. What are you going to do?”

“Call a session of the Legislature and offer my resignation.”

A faint smile that I did not understand curved the corners of his lips.

“Then you leave it to the Legislature to decide.”

“Yes,” I said.

He suddenly laughed outright.

“There speaks your fighting spirit,” he exclaimed. “It is the spirit that brought you from a convict’s cell to the Grovernor’s chair, and it is one of the things that I wanted to discover on behalf of your friends when I came here. Harry, you must not yield, you must fight. Its fight! fight! fight! You were an innocent man when you went to the penitentiary to protect a woman’s good name. Chivalry isn’t dead yet, above all in this good old State of Kentucky. Don’t you see what a tremendous appeal such an act makes to the public? What you lose in one quarter you may win in another.”

“And I really have friends left among the people?”

“Friends! of course, thousands of them. I can judge of the State by what is happening here in the city, and again we must face the facts. Already two hostile and bitter camps are formed, one for you and one against you. By God, if you are impeached, Harry, it will only be after a fight, worth telling about years afterward!”

He talked on, and I think his chief object now was to cheer me. But I wished to ask him one more question and after some hesitation I came to it.

“What of Grey?” I asked. “He is here isn’t he, what is he going to do?”

His face darkened.

“I am sorry you asked me that, Harry,” he replied, “but since you have asked me I’ll answer you truthfully. Grey is wild with rage and is low enough to make charges against his wife and you—no, no threats, Harry! You are not in a position to threaten Grey.”

It was true and I sank back with a groan. I was the last man who could protect Alicia’s good name, and it was a bitter fact.

“But Mrs. Grey has friends who are a wall of defense around her,” said Jimmy, eyeing me gravely.

“I know it and I thank God for it,” I said.

He sat with me a long time and after a while Guthrie came in and joined us. Other friends followed in the course of the day, and I saw that I, too, would have a wall of defense around me, although I was fully aware that Warfield told the truth, when he said it would be a hard fight. A part of the world might believe and applaud me, but another part would laugh and sneer, and the fact that I had been in the penitentiary, whether innocent or not, must remain. Yet I would have changed nothing now for my own sake; it was only for Alicia that I could have wished the tale untold.

The newspapers the next day contained varying comments, the opposition making the most of the revelation, demanding my instant retirement from the Governor’s chair that I had disgraced, while the others seemed to be puzzled, willing to wait an opportunity for the operation known as feeling the public pulse. It is needless for me to say that they overflowed with descriptions of the scene at the hall. Alicia’s name was handled gently, and the records of my trial and conviction were printed. I could see that the probabilities were on my side. It was well known that I was rich and had always been so, with no temptation to burglary, but that very fact merely deepened the shadow on Alicia’s name, and whatever I might do, I could not help it. Under the well-glazed politeness of the public prints and of conventional life I knew that a mighty whispering was going on, and that it formed a coil around Alicia and myself.

On the second day I took an early morning train for Frankfort, leaving without warning, and thus escaping any attention whether hostile or otherwise at the railroad station. I also had the advantage of arriving at the capital under the same circumstances, and I was at the Executive Mansion before the town knew of my coming.

It was Seth, who opened the door for me, and it may seem a curious thing, but I was nervous about the kind of greeting this simple lad would give me. Just now I cared more for his good opinion than for that of many able men. But his face shone only with joyous welcome, and his eyes expressed a new and warm feeling of comradeship.

“And to think that you were Charlie after all!” he exclaimed. “I’d a never dreampt it! But Charlie was a good man, I knowed all the time, an’ sometimes I’ve been right sick ’cause I believed I’d never see him again an’ now I see him every day.”

I shook Seth’s hand until he winced. Here indeed was faith, pure, simple and incorruptible, and it was like oil on a burn. It never occurred to his mind that any disgrace attached to me because I had been in prison. To loyal Seth I was merely lost Charlie Johnson returned, and hence doubly a friend.

I ate early luncheon and then walked to the Capitol, Frankfort still unaware of my return, and I still wondering how the little city that I loved would take me. The good opinion of its ten thousand people was very dear to my heart, and even now when my story was proclaimed to the whole world I was not willing to sacrifice it. I had imagined, for a few moments after the revelation, that I should be indifferent henceforth to all things; that the floods might roll over me as they would, but I soon found that it was not so with me. There was still a wide difference between cloud and sunshine, and I yet felt within me the capacity to fight, increased, rather than diminished, by the crisis through which I had gone.

I looked from my window upon the lawn in the center of which stood the Capitol, and idly watched the sparrows hopping over the brown grass. It was all familiar, intimate, endeared by associations, and I did not wish to give it up, above all I did not wish to quit in disgrace.

A knock at my door. Seth announced Judge Wharton, and the old gentleman came in fast upon the announcement, his fine face flushed by rapid walking and his eyes bright. He held out both hands, and never was a welcome more grateful to a man than his to me. I seized his two hands in mine and for a few moments I could not speak. When I released them he patted me on the shoulder as a father would a child, and there was emotion in his own voice when he said:

“You’ve done the right thing, Mr. Clarke”—an echo of Elias’ own words—“and I honor you for doing it. You have spiked at least a part of the guns of your enemies. It was an extraordinary story that you told, but I believe every word of it, and so do others. Where you have made new enemies you have also made new friends.”

I had a long talk with him and he confirmed me in my resolution to call a special session of the Legislature, lay before it my resignation, and await the action that it saw fit. Like Jimmy Warfield he was a plain-spoken and wise friend, not seeking to conceal from me the fact that I must suffer often from insult and mortification and that people willing to blacken my reputation would always be found. My story might be proven true a thousand times, but many, wholly ignoring the circumstances, would dismiss me with the single assertion, “He was in the penitentiary once.”

The Judge not only preached his faith, but lived it. He asked me to dinner at his house the evening of the same day and took care that the fact should become known to our Kentucky world, thus putting upon me in the public eye the seal of his endorsement, which was no little thing, and I owe him for it a debt of gratitude that I can never hope to pay.

The next morning came the letter from Uncle Paul and Aunt Jane. I say “the” letter instead of “a” letter because I had been expecting it, and I cannot describe the nervous dread with which I awaited it. I had raised myself from the depths into the high opinion of these two good people, the nearest of my blood kin, and now was I about to sink back into the deepest of deep sloughs?

It was a joint letter and they wrote:

Our Dear Nephew:
We have read in the newspapers the full accounts of your speech and confession, and we have thought it over a day or two before writing. It is bitter to us to know that a nephew of ours has ever been in the penitentiary, and to know that at a critical period of your life you told a great falsehood. We do not find anywhere in the Bible a commendation of falsehoods, but we are convinced that you told it to protect a woman and we do not greatly blame you. It has always been taught in Kentucky that men should protect women, and you were true to your training.
We wish to say, after mature thought, that we approve of what you have done and that we are proud of you. We wish to say also that you are the Governor of Kentucky and that you should hold with all your might to the office which is yours.

Now the tears came to my eyes, tears of relief and joy. I cared vastly for the opinion of these two old people, yet I might have known that they would never have deserted me. I looked again at the stiff formal handwriting, that of my Aunt Jane, and I passed my fingers caressingly over it, as if the sense of touch could carry to them in far away Sumter County. After a while I put the letter away in my breast pocket and entered upon my new life, resolved to make as much of it as I could. I addressed myself to the pile of State papers, accumulated in my absence, and sought the mental relief that comes from absorption in work.

I shall not describe the immediate days that followed. It is needless to say that the storm raged around me, and my poor character was shattered over and over again. Even when commended, the commendation often took forms that were not pleasing. I was favorite food for Sunday supplements, in which I appeared in all forms and colors, and my story, in every possible exaggeration, became common property, and alas! Alicia’s with it. It was the thought of her that made my life almost unbearable at this period. I could do so little for her, nothing in fact; yet we wrote once to each other.

She told me that she was well in body, mind and spirit, and happier than she had been for a long time before. She did not know what the world was saying about her, because it was kept from her, nor did she seek to know, but she was confident that it would do me full justice, and would elevate me to a yet higher pedestal because of the sacrifice I had made. But she felt that it would be better that we should never see each other again. It was demanded by law, honor and reason alike.

It was Alicia unchanged! Now that the storm was turned upon her she felt it not at all. Her armor of right never failed her, it contained not a flaw where a weapon could enter. She willingly sacrificed every ambition of the world for the serenity of the spirit that is only a little below the angels. How poor and mean I felt myself beside her!

My friends would have kept from me most of the things that were said by the evil-minded about Alicia, but they could not hide all. I knew that her character was assailed, I knew—and this made me burn—that Grey had the impudence to talk about securing a divorce, but the people around him had sense enough to make him stop such talk—he was too vulnerable himself.

When I first heard of Grey’s threat I rejoiced, because I should have been glad for Alicia to come to me even with the smirch upon her name—I should know what a lie the charge was, but thought convinced me that she would not come in such a manner. Catching a reflection of her own lofty spirit I knew that she must be right. I could never bear that her name should not be white and clean before all the world, and if we were to meet by that road only it was better that we never meet at all.

The Legislature met in special session and my resignation was laid before it with all the forms prescribed by law. My enemies made an attempt to shove the resignation aside and have me impeached, which would be a greater disgrace, but they were defeated and then the question of accepting or rejecting the resignation was taken up and debated.

I, of course, did not go into either House or Senate while the question was up, but every detail was quickly brought to me, and I followed them with an overmastering anxiety. Harrison was there in his old seat, pale, worn and more cynical than ever. He took no part in the debate and nobody knew how he would vote. Bucks had come back from the mountains raging against me and he assailed me in numerous and bitter speeches, sparing no epithet that would be allowed on the floor. Connor also was in the front of the opposition and obviously found a keen delight in applying to me the term, “ex-convict.” It was Jimmy Warfield who said incidentally that some men who were not guilty had been convicts while some who were guilty had never been, and after that the words “ex-convict” were used much less.

Jimmy Warfield took the floor and made a powerful speech in my defense. I blush now at the things he said of me; how I had done for another what not one man in ten thousand would have done, and how I had raised myself by courage and energy from the lowest depths to the highest position in the State. I will not describe the long debate over myself. It is all fully told in the newspapers of the time, but when the day of the voting came my friends proved themselves in a large majority. The resignation was rejected, and the members poured into the Executive Mansion to congratulate me.

I was vindicated, so far as the law and the majority went, but I knew that the trail of it would hang to me, and that I should be a lonely man in the chair of state. It was my day of triumph, but I did not forget these things as the good friends who had saved me shook my hand.

Harrison came with the others. He had voted to reject the resignation and haughtily declined to give any explanation of his vote. To me he said:

“I like a good fighter, Mr. Clarke, and to me you are of more interest here than you would be in obscurity.”

I merely nodded to him; there was a faint suggestion of patronage in his tone and there are few things I like less than patronage. I did not see him again as the special session of the Legislature was adjourned a day later, and he went back at once to Louisville.

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