recoiled and turned away.
“Proceed,” growled Oberwaltzer, sullenly.
“Now, Clyde,” resumed Jephson anew, as calm as though
he had just lit and thrown away a match. “You say your
salary was twenty-five dollars and you had these various
expenses. Had you, up to this time, been able to put aside
any money for a rainy day?”
“No, sir—not much—not any, really.”
“Well, then, supposing some doctor to whom Miss Alden
had applied had been willing to assist her and wanted—say
a hundred dollars or so—were you ready to furnish that?”
“No, sir—not right off, that is.”
“Did she have any money of her own that you know of?”
“None that I know of—no, sir.”
“Well, how did you intend to help her then?”
“Well, I thought if either she or I found any one and he
would wait and let me pay for it on time, that I could save
and pay it that way, maybe.”
“I see. You were perfectly willing to do that, were you?”
“Yes, sir, I was.”
“You told her so, did you?”
“Yes, sir. She knew that.”
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“Well, when neither you nor she could find any one to help
her, then what? What did you do next?”
“Well, then she wanted me to marry her.”
“Right away?”
“Yes, sir. Right away.”
“And what did you say to that?”
“I told her I just couldn’t then. I didn’t have any money to get
married on. And besides if I did and didn’t go away
somewhere, at least until the baby was born, everybody
would find out and I couldn’t have stayed there anyhow.
And she couldn’t either.”
“And why not?”
“Well, there were my relatives. They wouldn’t have wanted
to keep me any more, or her either, I guess.”
“I see. They wouldn’t have considered you fit for the work
you were doing, or her either. Is that it?”
“I thought so, anyhow,” replied Clyde.
“And then what?”
“Well, even if I had wanted to go away with her and marry
her, I didn’t have enough money to do that and she didn’t
either. I would have had to give up my place and gone and
found another somewhere before I could let her come.
Besides that, I didn’t know any place where I could go and
earn as much as I did there.”
“How about hotel work? Couldn’t you have gone back to
that?”
“Well, maybe—if I had an introduction of some kind. But I
didn’t want to go back to that.”
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“And why not?”
“Well, I didn’t like it so much any more—not that kind of life.”
“But you didn’t mean that you didn’t want to do anything at
all, did you? That wasn’t your attitude, was it?”
“Oh, no, sir. That wasn’t it. I told her right away if she would
go away for a while—while she had her baby—and let me
stay on there in Lycurgus, that I would try to live on less and
give her all I could save until she was all right again.”
“But not marry her?”
“No, sir, I didn’t feel that I could do that then.”
“And what did she say to that?”
“She wouldn’t do it. She said she couldn’t and wouldn’t go
through with it unless I would marry her.”
“I see. Then and there?”
“Well, yes—pretty soon, anyhow. She was willing to wait a
little while, but she wouldn’t go away unless I would marry
her.”
“And did you tell her that you didn’t care for her any more?”
“Well, nearly—yes, sir.”
“What do you mean by ‘nearly’?”
“Well, that I didn’t want to. Besides, she knew I didn’t care
for her any more. She said so herself.”
“To you, at that time?”
“Yes, sir. Lots of times.”
“Well, yes, that’s true—it was in all of those letters of hers
that were readhere. But when she refused so flatly, what
did you do then?”
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1017
“Well, I didn’t know what to do. But I thought maybe if I
could get her to go up to her home for a while, while I tried
and saved what I could—well … maybe … once she was
up there and saw how much I didn’t want to marry her
——” (Clyde paused and fumbled at his lips. This lying was
hard.)
“Yes, go on. And remember, the truth, however ashamed of
it you may be, is better than any lie.”
“And maybe when she was a little more frightened and not
so determined——”
“Weren’t you frightened, too?”
“Yes, sir, I was.”
“Well, go on.”
“That then—well—maybe if I offered her all that I had been
able to save up to then—you see I thought maybe I might
be able to borrow some from some one too—that she might
be willing to go away and not make me marry her—just live
somewhere and let me help her.”
“I see. But she wouldn’t agree to that?”
“Well, no—not to my not marrying her, no—but to going up
there for a month, yes. I couldn’t get her to say that she
would let me off.”
“But did you at that or any other time before or subsequent
to that say that you would come up there and marry her?”
“No, sir. I never did.”
“Just what did you say then?”
“I said that … as soon as I could get the money,” stuttered
Clyde at this point, so nervous and shamed was he, “I
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1018
would come for her in about a month and we could go away
somewhere until—until—well, until she was out of that.”
“But you did not tell her that you would marry her?”
“No, sir. I did not.”
“But she wanted you to, of course.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Had you any notion that she could force you so to do at
that time—marry her against your will, I mean?”
“No, sir, I didn’t. Not if I could help it. My plan was to wait as
long as I could and save all the money I could and then
when the time came just refuse and give her all the money
that I had and help her all I could from then on.”
“But you know,” proceeded Jephson, most suavely and
diplomatically at this point, “there are various references in
these letters here which Miss Alden wrote you”—and he
reached over and from the district attorney’s table picked up
the original letters of Roberta and weighed them solemnly
in his hand—“to a plan which you two had in connection
with this trip—or at least that she seemed to think you had.
Now, exactly what was that plan? She distinctly refers to it,
if I recall aright, as ‘our plan.’”
“I know that,” replied Clyde—since for two months now he,
along with Belknap and Jephson, had discussed this
particular question. “But the only plan I know of”—and here
he did his best to look frank and be convincing—“was the
one I offered over and over.”
“And what was that?”
“Why, that she go away and take a room somewhere and
let me help her and come over and see her once in a while.”
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“Well, no, you’re wrong there,” returned Jephson, slyly.
“That isn’t and couldn’t be the plan she had in mind. She
says in one of these letters that she knows it will be hard on
you to have to go away and stay so long, or until she is out
of this thing, but that it can’t be helped.”
“Yes, I know,” replied Clyde, quickly and exactly as he had
been told to do, “but that was her plan, not mine. She kept
saying to me most of the time that that was what she
wanted me to do, and that I would have to do it. She told
me that over the telephone several times, and I may have
said all right, all right, not meaning that I agreed with her
entirely but that I wanted to talk with her about it some more
later.”
“I see. And so that’s what you think—that she meant one
thing and you meant another.”
“Well, I know I never agreed to her plan—exactly. That is, I
never did any more than just to ask her to wait and not do
anything until I could get money enough together to come
up there and talk to her some more and get her to go away
—the way I suggested.”
“But if she wouldn’t accede to your plan, then what?”
“Well, then I was going to tell her about Miss X, and beg her
to let me go.”
“And if she still wouldn’t?”
“Well, then I thought I might run away, but I didn’t like to
think about that very much.”
“You know, Clyde, of course, that some here are of the
opinion that there was a plot on your part which originated
in your mind about this time to conceal your identity and