University of Virginia Library

28. CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE TEMPTER.

ALBERT was conveyed to St. Paul, but not until
he had had one heart-breaking interview with
his mother. The poor woman had spent nearly
an hour dressing herself to go to him, for she was
so shaken with agitation and blinded with weeping,
that she could hardly tie a ribbon or see that her breastpin
was in the right place. This interview with her son shook
her weak understanding to its foundations, and for days afterward
Isa devoted her whole time to diverting her from the
accumulation of troubled thoughts and memories that filled her
with anguish—an anguish against the weight of which her
feeble nature could offer no supports.

When Albert was brought before the commissioner, he
waived examination, and was committed to await the session
of the district court. Mr. Plausaby came up and offered to
become his bail, but this Charlton vehemently refused, and was
locked up in jail, where for the next two or three months
he amused himself by reading the daily papers and such books
as he could borrow, and writing on various subjects manuscripts
which he never published.

The confinement chafed him. His mother's sorrow and feeble

health oppressed him. And despite all he could do, his own
humiliation bowed his head a little. But most of all, the utter
neglect of Helen Minorkey hurt him sorely. Except that she
had sent, through Isabel Marlay, that little smuggled message
that she was sorry for him—like one who makes a great ado
about sending you something which turns out to be nothing—
except this mockery of pity, he had no word or sign from
Helen. His mind dwelt on her as he remembered her in the
moments when she had been carried out of herself by the contagion
of his own enthusiasm, when she had seemed to love
him devotedly. Especially did he think of her as she sat in
quiet and thoughtful enjoyment in the row-boat by the side
of Katy, playfully splashing the water and seeming to rejoice
in his society. And now she had so easily accepted his guilt!

These thoughts robbed him of sleep, and the confinement
and lack of exercise made him nervous. The energetic spirit,
arrested at the very instant of beginning cherished enterprises,
and shut out from hope of ever undertaking them, preyed
upon itself, and Albert had a morbid longing for the State's
prison, where he might weary himself with toil.

His counsel was Mr. Conger. Mr. Conger was not a great
jurist. Of the philosophy of law he knew nothing. For the
sublime principles of equity and the great historic developments
that underlie the conventions which enter into the administration
of public justice, Mr. Conger cared nothing. But there
was one thing Mr. Conger did understand and care for, and
that was success. He was a man of medium hight, burly, active,
ever in motion. When he had ever been still long enough
to read law, nobody knew. He said everything he had to say
with a quick, vehement utterance, as though he grudged the

time taken to speak fully about anything. He went along the
street eagerly; he wrote with all his might. There were
twenty men in the Torritory, at that day, any one of whom
knew five times as much law as he. Other members of the
bar were accustomed to speak contemptuously of Conger's legal
knowledge. But Conger won more cases and made more money
than any of them. If he did not know law in the widest
sense, he did know it in the narrowest. He always knew the
law that served his turn. When he drew an assignment for
a client, no man could break it. And when he undertook a
case, he was sure to find his opponent's weak point. He
would pick flaws in pleas; he would postpone; he would
browbeat witnesses; he would take exceptions to the rulings
of the court in order to excite the sympathy of the jury; he
would object to testimony on the other side, and try to get
in irrelevant testimony on his own; he would abuse the opposing
counsel, crying out, “The counsel on the other side lies
like thunder, and he knows it!” By shrewdness, by an unwearying
perseverance, by throwing his whole weight into his
work, Conger made himself the most successful lawyer of his
time in the Territory. And preserved his social position at the
same time, for though he was not at all scrupulous, he managed
to keep on the respectable side of the line which divides
the lawyer from the shyster.

Mr. Conger had been Mr. Plausaby's counsel in one or two
cases, and Charlton, knowing no other lawyer, sent for him.
Mr. Conger had, with his characteristic quickness of perception,
picked up the leading features of the case from the newspapers.
He sat down on the bed in Charlton's cell with his brisk professional
air, and came at once to business in his jerky-polite tone.

“Bad business, this, Mr. Charlton, but let us hope we'll
pull through. We generally do pull through. Been in a good
many tight places in my time. But it is necessary, first of all,
that you trust me. The boat is in a bad way—you hail a
pilot—he comes aboard. Now—hands off the helm—you sit
down and let the pilot steer her through. You understand?”
And Mr. Conger looked as though he might have smiled at his
own illustration if he could have spared the time. But he
couldn't. As for Albert, he only looked more dejected.

“Now,” he proceeded, “let's get to business. In the first
place, you must trust me with everything. You must tell me
whether you took the warrant or not.” And Mr. Conger paused
and scrutinized his client closely.

Charlton said nothing, but his face gave evidence of a struggle.

“Well, well, Mr. Charlton,” said the brisk man with the air
of one who has gotten through the first and most disagreeable
part of his business, and who now proposes to proceed immediately
to the next matter on the docket. “Well, well, Mr.
Charlton, you needn't say anything if the question is an unpleasant
one. An experienced lawyer knows what silence
means, of course,” and there was just a trifle of self-gratulation
in his voice. As for Albert, he winced, and seemed to be
trying to make up his mind to speak.

“Now,” and with this now the lawyer brought his white
fat hand down upon his knee in an emphatic way, as one who
says “nextly.” “Now—there are several courses open to us.
I asked you whether you took the warrant or not, because the
line of defense that presents itself first is to follow the track
of your suspicions, and fix the guilt on some one else if we
can. I understand, however, that that course is closed to us?”

Charlton nodded his head.

“We might try to throw suspicion—only suspicion, you
know—on the stage-driver or somebody else. Eh? Just enough
to confuse the jury?”

Albert shook his head a little impatiently.

“Well, well, that's so—not the best line. The warrant was
in your hands. You used it for pre-emption. That is very
ugly, very. I don't think much of that line, under the circumstances.
It might excite feeling against us. It is a very bad
case. But we will pull through, I hope. We generally do.
Give the case wholly into my hands. We'll postpone, I think.
I shall have to make an affidavit that there are important witnesses
absent, or something of the sort. But we'll have the
case postponed. There's some popular feeling against you, and
juries go as the newspapers do. Now, I see but one way, and
that is to postpone until the feeling dies down. Then we can
manage the papers a little and get up some sympathy for you.
And there's no knowing what may happen. There's nothing
like delay in a bad case. Wait long enough, and something
is sure to turn up.”

“But I don't want the case postponed,” said Charlton decidedly.

“Very natural that you shouldn't like to wait. This is not
a pleasant room. But it is better to wait a year or even two
years in this jail than to go to prison for fifteen or twenty.
Fifteen or twenty years out of the life of a young man is
about all there is worth the having.”

Here Charlton shuddered, and Mr. Conger was pleased to see
that his words took effect.

“You'd better make up your mind that the case is a bad

one, and trust to my experience. When you're sick, trust the
doctor. I think I can pull you through if you'll leave the
matter to me.”

“Mr. Conger,” said Charlton, lifting up his pale face,
twitching with nervousness, “I don't want to get free by
playing tricks on a court of law. I know that fifteen or twenty
years in prison would not leave me much worth living for,
but I will not degrade myself by evading justice with delays
and false affidavits. If you can do anything for me fairly and
squarely, I should like to have it done.”

“Scruples, eh?” asked Mr. Conger in surprise.

“Yes, scruples,” said Albert Charlton, leaning his head on
his hands with the air of one who has made a great exertion
and has a feeling of exhaustion.

“Scruples, Mr. Charlton, are well enough when one is about
to break the law. After one has been arrested, scruples are in
the way.”

“You have no right to presume that I have broken the
law,” said Charlton with something of his old fire.

“Well, Mr. Charlton, it will do no good for you to quarrel
with your counsel. You have as good as confessed the crime
yourself. I must insist that you leave the case in my hands,
or I must throw it up. Take time to think about it. I'll send
my partner over to get any suggestions from you about witnesses.
The most we can do is to prove previous good character.
That isn't worth anything where the evidence against
the prisoner is so conclusive—as in your case. But it makes a
show of doing something.” And Mr. Conger was about leaving
the cell when, as if a new thought had occurred to him,
he turned back and sat down again and said: “There is one

other course open to you. Perhaps it is the best, since you
will not follow my plan. You can plead guilty, and trust to
the clemency of the President. I think strong political influences
could be brought to bear at Washington in favor of your
pardon?”

Charlton shook his head, and the lawyer left him “to think
the matter over,” as he said. Then ensued the season of
temptation. Why should he stand on a scruple? Why not
get free? Here was a conscienceless attorney, ready to make
any number of affidavits in regard to the absence of important
witnesses; ready to fight the law by every technicality of the
law. His imprisonment had already taught him how dear liberty
was, and, within half an hour after Conger left him, a
great change came over him. Why should he go to prison?
What justice was there in his going to prison? Here he was,
taking a long sentence to the penitentiary, while such men as
Westcott and Conger were out. There could be no equity in
such an arrangement. Whenever a man begins to seek equality
of dispensation, he is in a fair way to debauch his conscience.
And another line of thought influenced Charlton.
The world needed his services. What advantage would there
be in throwing away the chances of a lifetime on a punctilio?
Why might he not let the serviceable lawyer do as he pleased?
Conger was the keeper of his own conscience, and would not
be either more or less honest at heart for what he did or did
not do. All the kingdoms of the earth could not have tempted
Charlton to serve himself by another man's perjury. But liberty
on one hand and State's-prison on the other, was a dreadful
alternative. And so, when the meek and studious man
whom Conger used for a partner called on him, he answered

all his questions, and offered no objection to the assumption
of the quiet man that Mr. Conger would carry on the case in
his own fashion.

Many a man is willing to be a martyr till he sees the stake
and fagots.