An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser

unquestionably she would. Quite everything of all this was

being published in the papers every day. He could not deny

that he was with her and that he wanted to be with her. At

the same time he had not been happy. How miserably

unhappy he had been, enmeshed in that shameful and

brutal plot! But now he must explain in some way so that

Sondra, when she should read it, and this jury, would

understand. And so now he added, while he swallowed with

his dry throat and licked his lips with his dry tongue: “But I

was sorry about Miss Alden just the same. I couldn’t be

happy then—I couldn’t be. I was just trying to make people

think that I hadn’t had anything to do with her going up there

—that’s all. I couldn’t see that there was any better way to

do. I didn’t want to be arrested for what I hadn’t done.”

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“Don’t you know that is false! Don’t you know you are lying!”

shouted Mason, as though to the whole world, and the fire

and the fury of his unbelief and contempt was sufficient to

convince the jury, as well as the spectators, that Clyde was

the most unmitigated of liars. “You heard the testimony of

Rufus Martin, the second cook up there at Bear Lake?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You heard him swear that he saw you and Miss X at a

certain point overlooking Bear Lake and that she was in

your arms and that you were kissing her. Was that true?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And that exactly four days after you had left Roberta Alden

under the waters of Big Bittern. Were you afraid of being

arrested then?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Even when you were kissing her and holding her in your

arms?”

“Yes, sir,” replied Clyde drearily and hopelessly.

“Well, of all things!” bawled Mason. “Could you imagine

such stuff being whimpered before a jury, if you hadn’t

heard it with your own ears? Do you really sit there and

swear to this jury that you could bill and coo with one

deceived girl in your arms and a second one in a lake a

hundred miles away, and yet be miserable because of what

you were doing?”

“Just the same, that’s the way it was,” replied Clyde.

“Excellent! Incomparable,” shouted Mason.

And here he wearily and sighfully drew forth his large white

handkerchief once more and surveying the courtroom at

large proceeded to mop his face as much as to say: Well,

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this is a task indeed, then continuing with more force than

ever:

“Griffiths, only yesterday on the witness stand you swore

that you personally had no plan to go to Big Bittern when

you left Lycurgus.”

“No, sir, I hadn’t.”

“But when you two got in that room at the Renfrew House in

Utica and you saw how tired she looked, it was you that

suggested that a vacation of some kind—a little one—

something within the range of your joint purses at the time—

would be good for her. Wasn’t that the way of it?”

“Yes, sir. That was the way of it,” replied Clyde.

“But up to that time you hadn’t even thought of the

Adirondacks specifically.”

“Well, no sir—no particular lake, that is. I did think we might

go to some summer place maybe—they’re mostly lakes

around there—but not to any particular one that I knew of.”

“I see. And after you suggested it, it was she that said that

you had better get some folders or maps, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And then it was that you went downstairs and got them?”

“Yes, sir.”

“At the Renfrew House in Utica?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Not anywhere else by any chance?”

“No, sir.”

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“And afterwards, in looking over those maps, you saw

Grass Lake and Big Bittern and decided to go up that way.

Was that the way of it?”

“Yes, we did,” lied Clyde, most nervously, wishing now that

he had not testified that it was in the Renfrew House that he

had secured the folders. There might be some trap here

again.

“You and Miss Alden?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you picked on Grass Lake as being the best because

it was the cheapest. Wasn’t that the way of it?”

“Yes, sir. That was the way.”

“I see. And now do you remember these?” he added,

reaching over and taking from his table a series of folders

all properly identified as part and parcel of the contents of

Clyde’s bag at Bear Lake at the time he was arrested and

which he now placed in Clyde’s hands. “Look them over.

Are those the folders I found in your bag at Bear Lake?”

“Well, they look like the ones I had there.”

“Are these the ones you found in the rack at the Renfrew

House and took upstairs to show Miss Alden?”

Not a little terrified by the care with which this matter of

folders was now being gone into by Mason, Clyde opened

them and turned them over. Even now, because the label

of the Lycurgus House (“Compliments of Lycurgus House,

Lycurgus, N. Y.”) was stamped in red very much like the

printed red lettering on the rest of the folder, he failed to

notice it at first. He turned and turned them over, and then

having decided that there was no trap here, replied: “Yes, I

think these are the ones.”

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“Well, now,” went on Mason, slyly, “in which one of these

was it that you found that notice of Grass Lake Inn and the

rate they charged up there? Wasn’t it in this one?” And here

he returned the identical stamped folder, on one page of

which—and the same indicated by Mason’s left forefinger—

was the exact notice to which Clyde had called Roberta’s

attention. Also in the center was a map showing the Indian

Chain together with Twelfth, Big Bittern, and Grass Lakes,

as well as many others, and at the bottom of this map a

road plainly indicated as leading from Grass Lake and Gun

Lodge south past the southern end of Big Bittern to Three

Mile Bay. Now seeing this after so long a time again, he

suddenly decided that it must be his knowledge of this road

that Mason was seeking to establish, and a little quivery

and creepy now, he replied: “Yes, it may be the one. It

looks like it. I guess it is, maybe.”

“Don’t you know that it is?” insisted Mason, darkly and

dourly. “Can’t you tell from reading that item there whether

it is or not?”

“Well, it looks like it,” replied Clyde, evasively after

examining the item which had inclined him toward Grass

Lake in the first place. “I suppose maybe it is.”

“You suppose! You suppose! Getting a little more cautious

now that we’re getting down to something practical. Well,

just look at that map there again and tell me what you see.

Tell me if you don’t see a road marked as leading south

from Grass Lake.”

“Yes,” replied Clyde, a little sullenly and bitterly after a time,

so flayed and bruised was he by this man who was so

determined to harry him to his grave. He fingered the map

and pretended to look as directed, but was seeing only all

that he had seen long before there in Lycurgus, so shortly

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before he departed for Fonda to meet Roberta. And now

here it was being used against him.

“And where does it run, please? Do you mind telling the jury

where it runs—from where to where?”

And Clyde, nervous and fearful and physically very much

reduced, now replied: “Well, it runs from Grass Lake to

Three Mile Bay.”

“And to what or near what other places in between?”

continued Mason, looking over his shoulder.

“Gun Lodge. That’s all.”

“What about Big Bittern? Doesn’t it run near that when it

gets to the south of it?”

“Yes, sir, it does here.”

“Ever notice or study that map before you went to Grass

Lake from Utica?” persisted Mason, tensely and forcefully.

“No, sir—I did not.”

“Never knew the road was on there?”

“Well, I may have seen it,” replied Clyde, “but if so I didn’t

pay any attention to it.”

“And, of course, by no possible chance could you have

seen or studied this folder and that road before you left

Utica?”

“No, sir. I never saw it before.”

“I see. You’re absolutely positive as to that?”

“Yes, sir. I am.”

“Well then, explain to me, or to this jury, if you can, and

under your solemn oath which you respect so much, how it

comes that this particular folder chances to be marked,

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‘Compliments of the Lycurgus House, Lycurgus, N. Y.’” And

here he folded the folder and presenting the back, showed

Clyde the thin red stamp in between the other red lettering.