Lightnin'

Marvin took a seat in front of Bill at the attorneys' table, while Bill on the edge of his chair leaned forward expectantly, his eyes fastened not on Thomas, but upon his wife, who sat with her head bowed and her eyes staring into her lap.

Thomas beckoned to Mrs. Jones, calling her name.

As she arose, Hammond, who sat next to Thomas on the other side of the table from Marvin and Bill, and who had appeared indifferent and bored so far in the proceedings, jumped to his feet, dismay written on every feature, and hastened to whisper in his partner's ear: "Are you crazy? The most dangerous thing you can do, now that old Jones is in court, is to call her to the stand."

Thomas in his vaunted shrewdness had overlooked this possibility, but now that Hammond mentioned it to him he saw what disastrous complications Mrs. Jones's presence on the witness-stand might lead to. Nodding in answer to Hammond's counsel, he again turned to Mrs. Jones, saying, "I don't think it will be necessary for you to testify at all, Mrs. Jones." As she sat down, he smiled at Millie, addressing her, "Miss Buckley, will you take the stand, please?"

Millie had not expected to be called, and as she arose at his summons her face flushed with embarrassment. She stood still momentarily and her eyes met Marvin's for the first time since he had appeared in court. With an angry flash they quickly sought the witness-chair, and, although trembling at the ordeal before her, she made an effort to trip lightly to the stand. As she took her place and was sworn in by the clerk her replies were scarcely audible. Casting frightened glances up through her long lashes at Thomas, she was reassured by a smile. After the preliminary examination as to her adoption by Bill and Mrs. Jones and her residence with them since she was three years old, he began upon the intimate questions which he hoped would weave a web of incriminating evidence against Bill, evidence which would redound to his justification in the part he had played in bringing about the divorce.

"Miss Buckley," he asked, pulling nervously at his cuffs and bringing them down two or three inches below his sleeves, "Mrs. Jones has toiled early and late to provide for the family ever since you can remember, has she not?"

Millie nodded, gazing anxiously at Bill, who, far forward on his chair, was drinking in every word she said. There was a pitiful accusation behind the sadness in the eyes with which he returned her gaze.

As Thomas continued she, like her mother, concentrated her attention on her hands folded tight in her lap.

"Why did you leave home three years ago, Miss Buckley?"

"To earn my living, of course," was the reply, in low, reluctant tones.

"What did you do with your wages?"

Millie hesitated. After taking out barely enough to live on in meager fashion she had sent most of the remainder home, not because either Mrs. Jones or Bill had asked for help, but because she knew how difficult was their living during the long winter months when their only source of income was Bill's pension and the few mountain people who dropped in when passing back and forth and remain overnight and for a meal or so. Had she known that she was to be called as a witness she might even have refused to accompany Mrs. Jones to court, for Bill's derelictions could never outweigh the knowledge that it was he who had saved her from an orphanage. She swallowed the lump in her throat, but even this did not keep back her tears at the thought that her answer might be the betrayal of the old man who had been a father to her through all the years.

Thomas saw her disinclination and understood the condition of mind which prompted it. He knew he must call his persuasive powers to his aid, so he went very close to the witness-stand, and, leaning over her, spoke in his softest tones.

"I am sorry to have to ask these questions, Miss Buckley, because I know how you dread to testify in this case, but it is unavoidable. Will you answer my question? You sent the greater part of your wages home, did you not?" He spoke as if he, too, were distressed.

Millie, falling into the trap, sighed, "Yes, sir."

"And you really left home to earn money in order to help support the Jones family, didn't you?"

Again, overcome by the complications of the situation in which she found herself, she was unable to answer except with a reluctant nod.

"Did you ever see Mrs. Jones's husband drunk?"

As Thomas asked this question he looked toward Bill. Millie did not answer. The tears gathered in her eyes and she wiped them away, burying her face in the handkerchief she held in one of her hands.

Thomas insisted. "You have seen him in that condition hundreds of times, have you not?"

There was a malicious note in his voice this time, as well as in the look he directed at the old man at the table.

Millie caught it, and a slight antagonism crept into her voice as she straightened in her chair, answering, in surprise, "Why, I never counted."

Thomas was deriving a long-desired satisfaction in his prodding of Bill, and it threatened his shrewder self-control. "But he was in the habit of coming home drunk, wasn't he?" There was real glee in the question, but it escaped Millie this time. With a beseeching glance at Thomas, and one which pleaded for forgiveness toward Bill, she said, slowly, "Sometimes."

"And because of the poverty brought about by those bad habits you were obliged to leave – "

Here Millie broke in. Forgetting her embarrassment and the crowded court-room in the realization that words were being put into her mouth, words which fell far short of the truth, she burst out, indignantly: "Why, I never said any such thing! I went away to work because there was no opportunity in Calivada to earn any money, and I thought as long as I was going at all I might just as well go to San Francisco where I could make a salary large enough to take care of myself and to help Mr. and Mrs. Jones, who have been very good to me."

Thomas saw that he had overstepped himself and he groped in his mind for new questions, until a scowl from Hammond reminded him that it might be better to stop rather than to bring out evidence which might turn against them and in favor of Bill. So he dismissed Millie from the stand.

She stood up while Thomas took his place next to Hammond at the table. But Marvin, after a few whispered words with Bill, took Thomas's place by the witness-chair, holding up a detaining hand and calling, "Miss Buckley!"

Millie glared at him, blushed deeply, and walked off the stand. She had not been able to forgive him for his advice to Bill and still held him responsible for Bill's leaving home, as she had felt that if Bill had not been prejudiced against Thomas and Hammond the place would have been sold and they would have all been living together in comfort.

But she did not get very far. As she left the platform Townsend motioned her to return and, submerging his personal friendship for her beneath his judicial duties he exclaimed, severely:

"One moment, Miss Buckley. The counsel for the defense has asked you a question."

Millie turned her back on Marvin as she dropped into the chair again. A smile played on Marvin's lips, but it was a rueful one. To come thus face to face with her in a situation where he was compelled to be her antagonist in order to see that justice was done to his old friend was not a happy ordeal for him.

Townsend knew what was going on between the young people and he felt keenly for them, but it was a part of him to hold to his duty always and not to his own personal biases. His severity did not relax even when Millie pouted: "I don't want to answer his questions! Must I?"

The people in the court-room, interested and amused at the unusual dénouement, went into a peal of laughter which received swift check from the sheriff's gavel. She flushed violently and obeyed Judge Townsend's admonishment that she must answer all of Marvin's questions.

Marvin's first inquiry did not tend to make things any easier for her.

"Who employed you as a stenographer?" he asked. His back was turned to Thomas, but he could feel the latter shifting in his chair.

Finding no mercy in Townsend's manner, she succumbed to the inevitable, snapping, with a toss of her head, "Mr. Thomas!"

"This Mr. Thomas?" Marvin asked.

"Yes," said Millie. There had been nothing in her heart but deepest misery and shame at having to testify against Bill during her examination by Thomas. Now she was fired by a resentment against Marvin, Bill being forced out of the equation. Her answers came in a swift defiance that bespoke a determination to make it as difficult for him as possible. Marvin, seeing at once that she and Mrs. Jones were still plastic in the hands of Thomas and Hammond, was tempted into battle.

"Did Mr. Thomas," he asked, "give you this position because you told him you wanted to be of financial assistance to the Jones family?"

Millie opened her mouth to reply, but Thomas was on his feet at once, objecting to the question.

Facing the judge, Marvin ignored Thomas, saying, "I am quite willing to withdraw it if it is found objectionable, your Honor."

Thomas stepped quickly to Marvin's side. He was a few inches the taller and he glared down at Marvin, who stared back, his jaw set in the resolution to stand firm against the man he knew to be a fraud.

That he was standing on thin ice Thomas knew, and he knew also that bluff was the only feasible strategy to employ against the unforeseen crisis wrought by Bill's sudden and unexpected arrival. "Don't flatter yourself that I mind any question you might ask," he emphasized, "only this one has no bearing on the case."

At this, Townsend sustained the objection. Marvin, resorting to a legal trick, changed the form of the question, for he was bound to prove his point. "Well, Miss Buckley," he asked, "Mr. Thomas has taken an interest in your affairs and given you advice?"

The insinuation was more than Millie could bear calmly. She turned quickly, meeting his eyes in anger as she flashed a significant smile toward Thomas.

"Mr. Thomas has been more than kind to me always. He has given me advice when I had no one else to turn to."

"And you have always followed his advice?"

Following his key, Millie replied, "Always, implicitly, in spite of what others– " and she paused long enough to send a pointed shaft Marvin's way – "have said against him."

Marvin grinned and continued, "Miss Buckley, you have never known Mr. Jones to be cruel or even unkind to his wife, have you?"

An objection from Thomas was overruled, the judge contending that cruelty was one of the grounds in the complaint. As he had forgotten how the question read, he asked the stenographer to repeat it. Millie answered in the negative and Marvin prodded her further, "You have never seen him unkind to any one or anything, have you?"