The San Rosario Ranch
"That seems very strange. Why did you want to watch him?"
"'E 'as not slept the night; 'e 'as nothing eat the day; I fear 'im
_malade_. I follow him."
Galbraith continued his examination, and elicited from the witness the
admission that he had remained outside the cabin that night, concealed
in the bushes, and had only left it after Horton had taken his
departure. He had then started to return, but after he had gone a mile
he retraced his steps with the intention of cooking for his master's
breakfast a brace of quail he had shot on the way. He found the cabin
empty, and on the wall the portrait which he had seen sketched. It was
where it would have been easily effaced, and so he had loosened the
board on which the drawing was made, and carried it to his house.
Graham was now recalled and questioned.
"Mr. Graham, you have told the court that you are an artist by
profession. Is it your habit to make drawings of persons of a striking
appearance?"
"I have the habit of sketching any remarkable-looking people whom I
happen to meet."
"On the night in question, were you impressed by anything uncommon in
the appearance of the man who slept by the fire in the lodge?"
"I was."
"Did you make any notes of the impression made on you by the man?"
"I did. I sketched him as he crouched in the ashes of the fire."
"What materials did you use?"
"A charred piece of wood, and a smooth board in the side of the cabin."
"Would you recognize your work if you should see it?"
"Undoubtedly."
"By what means?"
"I should recognize it as you would your own handwriting; besides--"
"You have other means of knowing it?"
"My initials will be found in the upper right-hand corner of the
sketch."
"Is this the sketch?"
"It is."
There was a craning of necks, and a murmur of recognition from those
present who could obtain a glimpse of the strong drawing held up by
Maurice Galbraith. Graham's words in answer to the last question were
hardly necessary to prove the resemblance. Horton, sitting in his
chair, his head thrown back, his hands clasping his knees, had
all-unconsciously assumed the pose in which Graham had sketched him. The
resemblance was indubitable, and the cheeks bore the bloody testimony of
Ah Lam's hands.
This was evidence which there was no breaking down; and Horton, when the
sketch was at last turned so that he could see it, gave an oath under
his breath, which was not lost upon the jury. The twelve men with whom
lay the decision of Horton's guilt or innocence were for the most part
tradesmen and mechanics, the only exception being in the person of Mr.
Patrick Shallop, the mining king, who by some strange chance had been
impanelled on this occasion. The voice of such a man would carry great
weight in the decision. The case was evidently going against the
prisoner. The evidence of the prosecution was very damaging, and
Horton's friends in the crowd were greatly discouraged.
The trial occupied several hours, and ended in the conviction of Daniel
Horton. Maurice Galbraith made a speech which has already become
famous. He had induced a Californian jury to pronounce a man who had
killed a Chinaman guilty of voluntary manslaughter. He had obtained
this almost unprecedented verdict, and a full sentence from the court of
ten years' imprisonment. The efforts of the defending counsel to turn
the main interest in the case from the chief feature, by endeavoring to
implicate Graham in the attempted abduction, were useless. Horton's
real confederate was found, and the truth of the matter arrived at.
Through the newspaper accounts of Millicent, published at the time of
her rescue of Graham, these men had learned that she was a rich heiress,
and had conceived the bold idea of carrying her off in order to extort a
large sum of money for her ransom.
The flimsy tissue of lies which Pierson had woven was quickly unravelled
by Galbraith. The fact that the jury had for a time been misled by the
false evidence, made their verdict more immediately unanimous than it
might otherwise have been; and the cloud which had for a moment overhung
John Graham was dispelled as quickly as a noxious vapor is blown away by
a brisk westerly wind. He was cleared of every suspicion. Galbraith
had surpassed himself in his management of the case, even in the eyes of
his warmest friends. Had he not been working for the woman he loved?
In exonerating his rival, he had done the only thing that in him lay to
win Millicent's gratitude. She had thanked him, and blessed him for his
eloquence with tears and smiles. He had gained her friendship; and does
not friendship soften into love more often than love crystallizes into
friendship?
CHAPTER XIX.
"Je me dis seulement; a cette heure en ce lieu,
Un jour, je fus aime, j'aimais, elle etait belle.
J'enfouis ce tresor dans mon ame immortelle.
Et je l'emporte a Dieu!"
"A letter for you, Mr. Graham."
"Very well; lay it down."
The burly landlady placed the missive on the small, unpainted pine table
which stood near the artist's easel, and with a last glance at the
feminine superscription, and the device of the golden Psyche which
sealed it, left the room. It was late in the afternoon,--there would be
only an hour more of light in which he could paint. Graham did not
glance at the letter. If it had been a telegram it would have waited
till the tender gray of the sky had been laid on the canvas. At last it
grew too dim for him to distinguish the tints on his palette, and,
throwing down his brushes, the young man rose and stretched his cramped
limbs. He had not moved from his stool for four hours. As he paced up
and down his narrow room, the letter caught his eye. He had quite
forgotten its existence.
It was from Millicent. He stepped close to the window, and by the
waning light perused the words traced by a hand that surely had trembled
in the writing. Twice he read it through, as if not understanding its
import. Then, with a groan, he cast the letter upon the floor, and sank
upon a low seat near by. His head supported by his hands, his elbows
upon his knees, he sat, the picture of despair. With a sudden movement
he grasped the missive and crushed it between his two hands, as if to
avenge upon the senseless paper the pain which it brought to him.
He could not bear it in the cold, dark room; the streets would be full
of people who might divert him. He soon found himself in a crowded
thoroughfare. It was six o'clock, and the city was full of hurrying
men, women, and children returning homeward after the long day's work.
The girl from the millinery establishment under his room, whose sweet,
childish face he had painted from memory the very day before, was just
leaving the shop as he stepped into the street. She was very poorly
dressed, with a hat which would have disgraced anybody but a milliner's
apprentice. Her dress fitted neatly, however, and she gave her
close-cut jacket a tug to make it smooth about the shoulders before she
reached the corner. A tall, pale, dyspeptic-looking youth joined her
just outside the druggist's. Graham recognized him as the clerk in a
dry-goods shop near by. Their greeting he could not but overhear.
"I am late, George--"
"Twenty minutes; I almost gave you up," in a surly tone.
"I am so sorry; don't be angry." The man hesitated a moment; then her
pleading voice got the better of his ill-temper, and, taking her by the
arm after the fashion of his kind, he led her across the street, and in
a moment they were lost to Graham's sight. He next stopped at the
cobbler's around the corner to call for a pair of boots which had needed
repairing. The narrow stall was brightly lighted, and he saw through
the window a little child holding up its face to be kissed. The
cobbler's girl had just brought her father his supper. As Graham
entered, the man pushed the little figure gently into the street. "Tell
mother I 'll not be late," he said; and wiping his blackened hands upon
his dirty ticking apron, he greeted the artist civilly, and proceeded to
find his boots for him.
"They need re-soling, Mr. Graham, but I did not like to do the job
without orders. The patches are all right."
Graham paid the man for his work, and went out. He had thought to find
distraction in the street, but what he saw there only made him more
desolate. He was alone, while all other men had some loving soul to
greet them after their day's toil. The pair of lovers, the cobbler and
his child, made him feel his loneliness more acutely, and emphasized
painfully the news which the letter had brought to him,--Millicent was
gone!
She had passed as suddenly and unexpectedly out of his life as she had
entered it. He had not seen her since that day in the court-room. And
now she was gone, back to the Old World, to Venice the mysterious, the
silent, to the old Palazzo Fortunio, with its lofty halls and marble
corridors, back to the old home, which he knew could never be home to
her again. All the color seemed to have faded out of his life; she had
taken it with her. He suffered deeply, impatiently, angry at himself
for suffering, yet powerless to forget the pain which the letter had
given him. He picked it up again from the floor when he came back to
the lonely studio, and marked that though the letter was crushed and
torn, the device of the golden Psyche was still intact.
On the following day he found some consolation in his picture. He came
back to it after his vigil with an uncherished grief, with less
enthusiasm than before; but from that hour until he had laid the last
stroke of paint on the canvas, his hand faltered not, if his imagination
sometimes flagged. He could not serve both love and art. He had chosen
his mistress, and would be faithful to his choice. He dared not think,
while he painted, of the woman whose influence had so warmed his frozen
existence. To do so seemed an infidelity to his Art,--a breach of faith
which would not escape its merited punishment. So he resolutely put her
from his mind, and labored day and night upon his great picture.
Summer and autumn were past, and the first month of winter was drawing
to its close, when Graham finished his picture. He had painted it as he
always did his best works, without interruption. From the morning on
which he had made the first rough chalk sketch, until the day when he
reluctantly drew the fine veil of varnish over his work, he had hardly
looked at any other canvas. He was not satisfied with it,--what true
artist ever is satisfied with his work?--and yet he was convinced that
it was the best he had yet accomplished. He had sometimes realized what
he had sacrificed for this picture; and as he touched in the crimson
line of sunset, the fancy came to him, that the sky was stained with
heart's-blood.
His few brother artists--there was but a handful of them in the
city--and his pupils requested him to set a day for them to see the new
picture, and Graham had consented. The young sculptor, who had the next
room, threw open the door which separated the two studios, and both
rooms were in holiday trim. Northcote had been in the country all the
previous day, gathering flowers and ferns with which to deck the bare
apartment. He placed a jar of roses before the picture with a reverent
face; he loved the artist whose light purse had for the last two years
kept a roof over his head and life in his body.
Graham was greatly admired by the knot of artists who lived, or starved,
in San Francisco. They were the pioneers of art in the new Western land;
and their work, if crude and untutored, was not wanting in certain
strong qualities. Several of them were men of promise; and they were