A Private Chivalry by Francis Lynde

AND Dorothy? Truly, these were terrible days and weeks for one who loved, and had lost and found, only to lose again. But, believing in her lover's innocence as no one else save Henry Antrim did believe in it, she was yet powerless to break a single thread of the net which enmeshed him. She could do naught but grieve despairingly, and that in secret, since none but her father and Antrim guessed the depth of her hurt.

To her in her misery came an angel of light masquerading as one Parker Jarvis. She knew the reporter by sight, and better by repute, since Antrim had spoken much of him and of his friendly movings in Brant's affair. She also knew that he was of those who would have held Brant excused though guilty; but at this point her knowledge of him paused until, one black Thursday evening in late November, but a single sweep of the clock hands from the fatal Friday morning, when she had stolen out of the house to be alone with her misery, he stood uncovered before her holding the gate for her to pass out.

"Do you know who I am, Miss Langford? " he asked; and when she signed assent he turned and walked beside her.

"I don't mean to intrude, and I could have only one excuse for waylaying you," he went on. "If there is any blame, Harry Antrim must answer for it. He doesn't mean to tell all the things he knows, but sometimes he tells a good bit more than he sets out to, and he has told me enough to make me understand why to-morrow will hurt you worse than it will any of us."

There was manifestly no answer to be made to this, and she let him go on without hindrance. For to-morrow would end it all, and anything less than death seemed too trivial to be opposed.

"I wanted to ask you to help me at a pinch where I am unable to help myself," he continued. "But before I come to the helping part, I'd like to tell you just where I stand to-night. May I do that?"

Her "Yes" was no more than a whisper, but he heard it and took his cue promptly, beginning in the midst.

"At first I thought Brant did it, as a matter of course. Everything pointed that way, and the mere fact of his giving himself up seemed as good as a confession. But afterward when I began to dig a little deeper into it I wasn't so sure; in fact, I came to believe that your brother had done it, and that Brant was trying to screen him -- to -- well, to stand in the way until your brother had a chance to run for it. You mustn't mind my saying these things, because they have to be said before I can come around to the present state of affairs."

Again she gave him liberty. "It does not matter; nothing matters any more."

"Thanks. Well, about that time I had a talk with Brant, and I'm ashamed to say he made me fly the track again -- made me believe he did do it, after all; and I went on believing it till one day about a week ago, when Harry Antrim told me what you told him Brant had told you. That is pretty badly tangled up, but I guess you know what I am driving at."

"Mr. Brant told me he was innocent -- is that what you mean? " she asked.

"That's it precisely, and I just put it up that he would come pretty near telling you the truth; that you are the one person in the world he wouldn't lie to. So I had to climb over the fence again, and -- well, to cut a long story short, I haven't had ten hours' sleep in the last sixty-odd; and -- and to-morrow is the day."

She caught despairingly at the straw, as any poor drowning one might. "O Mr. Jarvis, what have you done? what can be done?"

"I don't know that I have done anything. I've been desperately tangled up in two theories, and one of them is no good unless I can get rid of the other. Miss Langford, you will know how hard pressed I am when you hear what I came over here to ask you, but you must let to-morrow be my excuse for anything and everything. You have seen your brother and have been with him more or less every day since this thing happened: is he the one who ought to be counting the hours as George Brant is probably counting them this evening?"

The early dusk of the winter day was beginning to prick out the arc lights in the downtown circuits, and she stopped to turn back; and so facing him she gave him his answer:

"No, Mr. Jarvis, my brother did not do it. I have thought of that -- I have been driven to think of it, dreadful as it is; and I have watched him -- God forgive me! -- I have watched him as an enemy might. _He did not do it! _"

Jarvis threw up his head and drew a deep breath of the crisp night air, as a swimmer who feels the bottom under his feet while yet the shore of ultimate safety is afar off.

"That helps out a whole lot," he said; and his involuntary sigh was a measure of the relief which her assurance gave him. "May I walk back with you? I'm not half through."

She suffered him, and he went quickly forward in the path she had cleared for him.

"We are now a long way ahead of any point that has been reached hitherto," he began. "Brant didn't do it, and your brother didn't do it. But a man was killed, and if he did not commit suicide, somebody must have killed him. Happily, we don't have to wrangle with the suicide theory, so we may safely fall back on the alternative. Do you follow me?"