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To Ailsa Paige June and July passed like fevered dreams; the brief sweet spring had suddenly turned into summer in a single day a strange, stifling, menacing summer full of heavy little thunder-storms which rolled crackling and banging up the Hudson amid vivid electric displays, leaving no coolness behind their trailing wake of rain.
So there was no regular hospital duty asked of Ailsa Paige, none required; and she and a few other women attended a class of instruction conducted by her own physician, Dr. Benton, who explained the simpler necessities of emergency cases and coolly predicted that there would be plenty of need for every properly instructed woman who cared to volunteer.
Afterward" he glanced at her "the world was spinning, Mrs. Paige. You only remained real " His face altered subtly. "And when I touched you " "I gave you a waltz, I believe," she said, striving to speak naturally; but her pulses had begun to stir again; the same inexplicable sense of exhilaration and insecurity was creeping over her.
Peaslee the next morning to the jury-room. The counsel of the night had brought no comfort, and when he came among his fellows their constraint and silence were far from reassuring. Nor, when the sitting had begun, did he like the enigmatic smile with which the well-dressed Paige stood and swung his watch-chain. How he distrusted and feared this smug, self-complacent young man!
Paige turned slowly and looked at him, but the quiet rebuke in her eyes remained unuttered. "Be more genuine with me," she said gently. "I am worth it, Mr. Berkley." Then, suddenly there seemed to run a pale flash through his brain, "Yes," he said in an altered voice, "you are worth it. . . . Don't drive me away from you just yet." "Drive you away?" in soft concern. "I did not mean "
She knew that they were welcoming her. Their hands, their smiles, their shouts, their affectionate eyes overcame her. She stammered, "Thank you, oh, thank you!" One of the men was clamoring at Kennicott, "I brought my machine down to take you home, doc." "Fine business, Sam!" cried Kennicott; and, to Carol, "Let's jump in. That big Paige over there. Some boat, too, believe me!
"She must be very beautiful," sighed Camilla. "She was." "Oh. . . . Is she dead?" "Murdered." Camilla looked at the stage in horrified silence. Later she touched him again on the arm, timidly. "Are you not well, Mr. Berkley?" "Perfectly. Why?" "You are so pale. Do look at Ailsa Paige. I am completely enamoured of her. Did you ever see such a lovely creature in all your life?
"He was in his room, then, immediately after the shot?" "Yes." "Ah! And when you spoke to him, did he admit firing the shot?" "No." "Did he deny it?" "Yes." "Where was his gun?" "In the rack over the mantel." "In the rack over the mantel," repeated Paige, slowly, glancing at the jurors. "Did you examine it?" "Yes." "What was its condition? Did it show that it had been fired?" "No; it was clean."
His grip almost crushed Berkley's shoulder muscles. "And now I'll tell you what Ailsa Paige did. She went before Miss Dix and told her that there was not one atom of truth in the charges.
All these testified to the fact that Mr. Paige was a temperate man. In those days nearly everybody used spirituous liquors. Paine was not an exception, but he did not drink to excess. Mr. Lovett, who kept the City Hotel, where Paine stopped, in a note to Caleb Bingham declared that Paine drank less than any boarder he had.
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