An American Tragedy - Theodore Dreiser [408]
“I wanted to talk to her about it just after we got there if I could—the next morning, anyhow—but just as soon as we got off up there and got settled she kept saying to me that if I would only marry her then—that she would not want to stay married long—that she was so sick and worried and felt so bad—that all she wanted to do was to get through and give the baby a name, and after that she would go away and let me go my way, too.”
“And then?”
“Well, and then—then we went out on the lake—”
“Which lake, Clyde?”
“Why, Grass Lake. We went out for a row after we got there.”
“Right away? In the afternoon?”
“Yes, sir. She wanted to go. And then while we were out there rowing around—” (He paused.)
“She got to crying again, and she seemed so much up against it and looked so sick and so worried that I decided that after all she was right and I was wrong—that it wouldn’t be right, on account of the baby and all, not to marry her, and so I thought I had better do it.”
“I see. A change of heart. And did you tell her that then and there?”
“No, sir.”
“And why not? Weren’t you satisfied with the trouble you had caused her so far?”
“Yes, sir. But you see just as I was going to talk to her at that time I got to thinking of all the things I had been thinking before I came up.”
“What, for instance?”
“Why, Miss X and my life in Lycurgus, and what we’d be up against in case we did go away this way.”
“Yes.”
“And … well … and then I couldn’t just tell her then—not that day, anyhow.”
“Well, when did you tell her then?”
“Well, I told her not to cry any more—that I thought maybe it would be all right if she gave me twenty-four hours more to think things all out—that maybe we’d be able to settle on something.”
“And then?”
“Well, then she said after a while that she didn’t care for Grass Lake. She wished we would go away from there.”
“SHE did?”
“Yes. And then we got out the maps again and I asked a fellow at the hotel there if he knew about the lakes up there. And he said of all the lakes around there Big Bittern was the most beautiful. I had seen it once, and I told Roberta about it and what the man said, and then she asked why didn’t we go there.”
“And is that why you went there?”
“Yes, sir”
“No other reason?”
“No, sir—none—except that it was back, or south, and we were going that way anyhow.”
“I see. And that was Thursday, July eighth?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, now, Clyde, as you have seen, it has been charged here that you took Miss Alden to and out on that lake with the sole and premeditated intent of killing her—murdering her—finding some unobserved and quiet spot and then first striking her with your camera, or an oar, or club, or stone maybe, and then drowning her. Now, what have you to say to that? Is that true, or isn’t it?”
“No, sir! It’s not true!” returned Clyde, clearly and emphatically. “I never went there of my own accord in the first place, and I only went there because she didn’t like Grass Lake.” And here, because he had been sinking down in his chair, he pulled himself up and looked at the jury and the audience with what measure of strength and conviction he could summon—as previously he had been told to do. At the same time he added: “And I wanted to please her in any way that I could so that she might be a little more cheerful.”
“Were you still as sorry for her on this Thursday as you had been the day before?”
“Yes, sir—more, I think.”
“And had you definitely made up your mind by then as to what you wanted to do?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, and just what was that?”
“Well, I had decided to play as fair as I could. I had been thinking about it all night, and I realized how badly she would feel and I too if I didn’t do the right thing by her—because she had said three or four times that