Coming Through the Rye Read Online Free PDF Page A

when they know, they will be very much ashamed!”
    But there was no sign or stir from the limp form in her arms.
    Finally she lifted great eyes of appeal to Sherwood’s face.
    â€œIf you ever have been a gentleman, I beg that you will go to the telephone and call my father’s friend, Judge Freeman. He will explain it all to you, and then perhaps you will have the grace to apologize and withdraw. When my father becomes conscious, if I tell him it was a mistake and that you have apologized and withdrawn, he will be calmer, and perhaps he may get over this. You must get Judge Freeman quickly! There is no time to waste! Tell him I beg that he will come to us at once. We are in great trouble!”
    The young man’s voice was very gentle.
    â€œI’m so sorry,” he said, “but Judge Freeman cannot help you now. He—”
    â€œOh—you needn’t be
afraid
to call him!” she said contemptuously. “I’ll see that you do not get into any trouble through it. We are not the kind who prosecute people even if they are—
murderers
!” she ended bitterly, with tears dropping upon the white face in her lap.
    There was a little stir behind her. Almost as if a throng were entering. A strange doctor stooped beside her and slipped a practiced finger on the patrician wrist of her father. Just behind came Chris panting. The men in uniform seemed to have multiplied. They were on all sides of the room—silently. Had there been only two of them before? How confused her mind was! Perhaps she was only dreaming. Had she been going to a house party a little while before? Was this all real?
    Stern-faced men were lifting her father now at the doctor’s command, men in uniform, who walked with measured tread as if they were used to doing gruesome tasks, as if they were ordained of God for such terrible offices. They carried him upstairs. They did not ask her where to go. They swept her aside as if she were a child.
    They opened a door at the head of the stairs. She stood dazed, watching them. How had they known which was his room? She seemed to know without seeing that they were laying him upon his bed, and they were shutting the door!
    She cast a look of rebuke about upon the men who stood there silently, the man Sherwood notably at their head, the boy Chris drooping, just behind him, and fled up the stairs.
    But they put her out—silently, gently, but firmly, and shut the door. She stood a moment staring horror in the face and then went swiftly down the stairs as she had come up and stopped in front of Sherwood.
    â€œWhere is my brother?” she demanded breathlessly. Her face was stained with tears, and her gold hair was ruffled around her sweet face. There was something fine and glorious in her eyes such as one sees in the eyes of a child who is in search of its mother.
    A look passed between Sherwood and Chris, and back again. It said: “Did they get him?” Its answer: “They did. He is in custody.” The miserable truth sat upon Chris’s nice-boy face written large. There was yearning tenderness in Sherwood’s eyes as he looked back at the slender girl in her little bright spring outfit, all rumpled now and a stain of water down the front where she had spilled it trying to make her father drink.
    â€œHe is not here just now,” he temporized. “He had to go away. Will you not try to forget what part I had to play in all this and let me help you for the present?”
    â€œ
Had
to?” repeated the girl sharply, ignoring his offer. “Do you mean they took him away?” Her perceptions seemed suddenly sharply awake.
    Sherwood looked at her compassionately. A flash passed between him and the boy again. She saw it.
    â€œHave they?” she appealed to Chris.
    He nodded miserably.
    â€œDo you mean they have
arrested
my brother?” She turned back to Sherwood, her voice suddenly grown older, more mature.
    Sherwood could only bow