CHAPTER XXVIII

O'

I

LGA was conscience-stricken when she recalled

how public had been the display of her emotion

in the court-room, yet she would have burst into a tantrum if any one other than herself had ventured to criticize. As a matter of fact, her ebulition was due to the reaction she had experienced from the sudden and unexpected twist the case took. That a trial should be required at all was beyond her comprehension, for one only had to ask Richard, as she had done, to learn from him of his entire innocence! Starting with this hypothesis, she had thought of the whole affair as a mere formality, but she became more impressed with its seriousness as the day progressed. Treadway became the object of her deadliest hatred when he testified against Richard. Olga knew that he was lying, but to her surprise and consternation the spectators around her accepted his statement as absolute truth! For the first time she realized that the danger earlier suggested by Dr. Thurber's chance reference to the electric chair was real, and apprehension gripped her heart. Then, when the lawyer fastened the crime so completely on Treadway, Olga's joy knew no bounds. She had not believed that such things ever

happened except in the movies! She wriggled her way to where Richard was standing, and once there it would have required more than human force to prevent her from expressing her emotion in the one way that Nature prompted.

After the first excitement, she realized how her demonstration would appear to others, and she was deeply chagrined. Richard had not chided her, but she feared lest she had made him angry. He had always been so gentle with her, even when he scolded her, but she remembered the look in his face when Sterling told him of the strikers' raid upon the office! As other people crowded around her hero, the girl slipped away unnoticed, and now, thoroughly miserable, awaited Richard's return to the flat where she had nursed him back to life.

The waiting was trying, for the moments were filled with doubts. The dead silence of that room contained ghosts of hours which to her had been the happiest in her life; but now they seemed so long ago that she almost questioned their reality. As she waited, her mind centered on the conversation with Richard in the jail, the effect of which still hung over her oppressively, even though she had been unable to analyze her vague forebodings. Now the sentences came back to her in fragments, and they troubled her. She was not wise enough nor sufficiently experienced to explain her fears, but in her heart she felt the sophistry of Richard's arguments. All that was clear to her was that she had been necessary to him while he was ill and weak, but now he needed her no longer.

II

The hours of the afternoon crept by, and Richard did not come; but at last Olga's vigil was rewarded by the sound of feet upon the stairs. She started joyfully to the door, but before she reached it drew back in disappointment. That intermittent clump upon the treads was not made by Richard's footsteps, and could only announce the approach of Barry O'Carolan and his wooden leg. Her lip quivered, but the thought that the visitor might perhaps tell her of Richard caused her to open the door and welcome him.

"Hello, Olga," he greeted her on the top landing; "where's the Capt'n?"

"That is what I am asking you."

"Hasn't he been back here?”

Olga shook her head.

"I thought he'd be sure to come here," Barry continued. "I want to tell him what it means to us fellers

...

to have him cleared . . . Can I wait a few minutes to see if he'll come?"

"Sure."

Olga led the way into the room and motioned Barry to a chair by way of belated hospitality.

"Why don't you sit down?" she demanded abruptly after a moment of awkward standing.

"Ladies first!"

Barry bowed with as much ceremony as his wooden leg would permit.

"My God!" Olga exclaimed in frank astonishment. "That Stewart lady must have been teaching you man

ners!.. But say, Barry, there is something nice in being polite to people, isn't there?”

Her caller had been grinning sheepishly over the attention his courtesy attracted, but the girl's remark as they seated themselves put him at his ease.

"At first it does look kind of foolish, don't it?" he replied . .: . "all this bowin' and scrapin', and takin' off your hat, and treatin' women like they were better than men; but after you get used to it, it sort of makes you feel good to do it."

"You are a swell ladies' man, Barry, for a lame feller. Did you have to practice much?"

"Shucks, no!" he boasted, trying to act with becoming modesty; "it comes natural when you see it goin' on 'round you all the time."

"There is something in that," Olga admitted after a moment's meditation. "It is the same way with me. I can't say 'hell' and 'damn' any more since I have been with Richard without feeling like . . . There! I nearly said it then!"

"You needn't stop on my account," Barry assured her magnanimously. "I'm not above employin' a bit of profanity myself at times, but I've quit wastin' it on unimportant occasions."

"Barry," the girl declared in admiration, "you will be a gentleman yet if you keep on. When I first knew you I didn't think you amounted to anything, with your working around in the garden, and your dippy ideas about flowers, and being so gentle and quiet. I used to think a man to be worth anything had to talk loud, and swing his arms, and all that. But look at Richard!

There is a man for you! He is quiet to look at, but my God! when he gets moving! Being with him has taught me a lot. And every now and then I hear of some things you have done that I wouldn't have thought you had the guts to do; but it's that quiet 'strength of conviction' Richard talks about, and I suppose you have learned it from the Stewart lady, just as I did from Richard . . .”

"Say," interrupted Barry, "aren't you gettin' kind of fresh callin' the Capt'n by his first name?"

"Who has a better right?" Olga demanded, placed instantly on the defensive.

"Well," he answered, looking at her deliberately, "there's Miss Lola for one, she's got a better right." "Did she ever nurse him day and night and keep him from going off the hooks altogether? Did she ever hold his head in her arms while he was raving mad, and calm him down until he slept like a baby? Didn't he tell you himself, the last time you were here, Barry O'Carolan, that a wife could not have done more for him?"

"Yes; I heard him say that, Olga; but you haven't got any idea that you and the Capt'n are goin' to be married ever, have you?"

"Why not?"

The girl's militant attitude returned and her eyes snapped.

"I did not think so, Barry until he lost his money. While he was a rich man's son, of course I did not think of it; but now, when he has become poor like me, and just one of us, I don't see why he could not marry me.