"In that case," declared Babson, playing his trump card, "it will be my unpleasant duty to commit you for contempt."
There was a bustle of excitement about the reporters' table. Here was a story!
"Very well," answered Miss Beekman proudly. "Do as you see fit, and as your own duty and conscience demand."
The judge could not conceal his annoyance. The last thing in the world that he wished to do was to send Miss Althea to jail. But having threatened her he must carry out his threat or forever lose face.
"I will give the witness until tomorrow morning at half after ten o'clock to make up her mind what she will do," he announced after a hurried conference with O'Brien. "Adjourn court!"
Miss Beekman did not go to bed at all that night. Until a late hour she conferred in the secrecy of her Fifth Avenue library with her gray-haired solicitor, who, in some mysterious way, merely over the telephone, managed to induce the newspapers to omit any reference to his client's contemptuous conduct in their morning editions.
"There's no way out of it, my dear," he said finally as he took his leave—he was her father's cousin and very fond of her—"this judge has the power to send you to jail if he wants to—and dares to! It's an even chance whether he will dare to or not. It depends on whether he prefers to stand well with the McGurks or with the general public. Of course I respect your attitude, but really I think you are a little quixotic. Points of honor are too ephemeral to be debated in courts of justice. To do so would be to open the door to all kinds of abuses. Dishonest witnesses would constantly avail themselves of the opportunity to avoid giving evidence."
"Dishonest witnesses would probably lie in the first place!" she quavered.
"True! I quite overlooked that!" he smiled, gazing down at her in an avuncular manner. "But to-day the question isn't open. It is settled, whether we like it or not. No pledge of privacy, no oath of secrecy—can avail against demand in a court of justice. Even confessions obtained by fraud are admissible—though we might wish otherwise."
Miss Beekman shrugged her shoulders.
"Nothing you have said seems to me to alter the situation."
"Very well," he replied. "I guess that settles it. Knowing you and the Beekman breed! There's one thing I must say," he added as he stood in the doorway after bidding her good night—"that old fellow Tutt has behaved pretty well, leaving you entirely alone this way. I always had an idea he was a sort of shyster. Most attorneys of that class would have been sitting on your doorstep all the evening trying to persuade you to stick to your resolution not to give their client away, and to do the square thing. But he's done nothing of the sort. Rather decent on the whole!"
"Perhaps he recognizes a woman of honor when he sees one!" she retorted.
"Honor!" he muttered as he closed the door. "What crimes are sometimes committed in thy name!"
But on the steps he stopped and looked back affectionately at the library window.
"After all, Althea's a good sport!" he remarked to himself.
At or about the same moment a quite dissimilar conference was being held between Judge Babson and Assistant District Attorney O'Brien in the café of the Passamaquoddy Club.
"She'll cave!" declared O'Brien, draining his glass. "Holy Mike! No woman like her is going to stay in jail! Besides, if you don't commit her everybody will say that you were scared to—yielded to influence. You're in the right and it will be a big card for you to show that you aren't afraid of anybody!"
Babson pulled nervously on his cigar.
"Maybe that's so," he said, "but I don't much fancy an appellate court sustaining me on the law and at the same time roasting hell out of me as a man!"
"Oh, they won't do that!" protested O'Brien. "How could they? All they're interested in is the law!"
"I've known those fellows to do queer things sometimes," answered the learned judge. "And the Beekmans are pretty powerful people."
"Well, so are the McGurks!" warned O'Brien.
"Now, Miss Beekman," said Judge Babson most genially the next morning, after that lady had taken her seat in the witness chair and the jury had answered to their names, "I hope you feel differently to-day about giving your testimony. Don't you think that after all it would be more fitting if you answered the question?"
Miss Althea firmly compressed her lips.
"At least let me read you some of the law on the subject," continued His Honor patiently. "Originally many people, like yourself, had the mistaken idea that what they called their honor should be allowed to intervene between them and their duty. And even the courts sometimes so held. But that was long ago—in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. To-day the law wisely recognizes no such thing. Let me read you what Baron Hotham said, in Hill's Trial in 1777, respecting the testimony of a witness who very properly told the court what the accused had said to him. It is very clearly put:
"'The defendant certainly thought him his friend, and he'—the defendant—'therefore did disclose all this to him. Gentlemen, one has only to say further that if this point of honor was to be so sacred as that a man who comes by knowledge of this sort from an offender was not to be at liberty to disclose it the most atrocious criminals would every day escape punishment; and therefore it is that the wisdom of the law knows nothing of that point of honor.'"
Miss Beekman listened politely.
"I am sorry," she replied with dignity. "I shall not change my mind. I refuse to answer the question, and—and you can do whatever you like with me."
"Do you understand that you are in contempt of this court? Do you intend to show contempt for this court?" he demanded wrathfully.
"I do," answered Miss Althea. "I have contempt for this court."
A titter danced along the benches and some fool in the back of the room clapped his hands.
Judge Babson's face grew hard and his eyes narrowed to steel points.
"The witness stands committed for contempt," he announced bitingly. "I direct that she be confined in the city prison for thirty days and pay a fine of two hundred and fifty dollars. Madam, you will go with the officer."
Miss Althea rose while the ghost of the Signer encircled her with his arm.
Mr. Tutt was already upon his feet. He knew that the ghost of the Signer was there.
"May I ask the court if the witness, having been committed for the contemptuous conduct of which she is obviously guilty, may remain in your chambers until adjournment, in order that she may arrange her private affairs?"
"I will grant her that privilege," agreed Judge Babson with internal relief. "The request is quite reasonable. Captain Phelan, you may take the witness into my robing room and keep her there for the present."
With her small head erect, her narrow shoulders thrown back, and with a resolute step as befitted the descendant of a long line of ancestors Miss Althea passed behind the jury box and disappeared.
The twelve looked at one another dubiously. Both Babson and O'Brien seemed nervous and undecided.
"Well, call your next witness," remarked the judge finally.
"But I haven't any more witnesses!" growled O'Brien. "And you know it almighty well, you idiot!" he muttered under his breath.
"If that is the people's case I move for the defendant's immediate discharge," cried Mr. Tutt, jumping to his feet. "There is no evidence connecting him with the crime."
McGurk, furious, sprang toward the bar.
"See here! Wait a minute! Hold on, judge! I can get a hundred witnesses—"
"Sit down!" shouted one of the officers, thrusting him back. "Keep quiet!"
Babson looked at O'Brien and elevated his forehead.