You wouldn't know of my
boy, Lilly; you were too young then. The whole country knew him, eleven
years ago. Lon Elaine. It's easier Blair; no questions asked. It was the
beginning of a cleanup that my boy blazed the way for. He went to the
gallows, Lilly--my boy--"
"No! No!"
"He died a gunman. Thank God his child was born dead. But he lies in my
heart, Lilly like a saint washed clean. He sinned for love, and because
stronger forces than he wanted him for a tool. May every man on his jury
live to carry that truth to his grave. He killed in self-defense and he
sinned for love. I'll exonerate him in a play, yet! I will! I'll tell
them! I'll tell them!"
Told without hysteria, her tale had almost a droning quality on the
twilight. She was grim in her tragedy, and her lips were as twisted and
dried as paint tubes, yet Lilly crept closer, laying her cheek rather
timidly against the corduroyed one.
"Ida Blair," she said. "I see now. 'The Web'! Oh--Ida Blair."
They fell silent, the two of them, dry-eyed, cheek to cheek, drowning
back into a long twilight that finally blackened.
"I don't know why I've told you all this.
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