An American Tragedy - Theodore Dreiser [366]
“But did Clyde Griffiths want the world to know how he had treated her? Of course not! And there and then began to form in his mind a plan by which he could escape exposure and seal Roberta Alden’s lips forever. And, gentlemen, the state will prove that he did so close her mouth.”
At this point Mason produced a map of the Adirondacks which he had had made for the purpose, and on which in red ink were traced the movements of Clyde up to and after her death—up to the time of his arrest at Big Bear. Also, in doing this, he paused to tell the jury of Clyde’s well-conceived plan of hiding his identity, the various false registrations, the two hats. Here also he explained that on the train between Fonda and Utica, as again between Utica and Grass Lake, he had not ridden in the same car with Roberta. And then he announced:
“Don’t forget, gentlemen, that although he had previously indicated to Roberta that this was to be their wedding journey, he did not want anybody to know that he was with his prospective bride—no, not even after they had reached Big Bittern. For he was seeking, not to marry but to find a wilderness in which to snuff out the life of this girl of whom he had tired. But did that prevent him, twenty-four and forty-eight hours before that time, from holding her in his arms and repeating the promises he had no intention of keeping? Did it? I will show you the registers of the two hotels in which they stayed, and where, because of their assumed approaching marriage, they occupied a single room together. Yet the only reason it was forty-eight instead of twenty-four hours was that he had made a mistake in regard to the solitude of Grass Lake. Finding it brisk with life, the center of a summer religious colony, he decided to leave and go to Big Bittern, which was more lonely. And so you have the astounding and bitter spectacle, gentlemen, of a supposedly innocent and highly misunderstood young man dragging this weary and heartsick girl from place to place, in order to find a lake deserted enough in which to drown her. And with her but four months from motherhood!
“And then, having arrived at last at one lake lonely enough, putting her in a boat and taking her out from the inn where he had again falsely registered as Mr. Clifford Golden and wife, to her death. The poor little thing imagined that she was going for a brief outing before that marriage of which he talked and which was to seal and sanctify it. To seal and sanctify it! To seal and sanctify, as closing waters seal and sanctify, but in no other way— no other way. And with him walking, whole and sly—as a wolf from its kill—to freedom, to marriage, to social and material and affectionate bliss and superiority and ease, while she slept still and nameless in her watery grave.
“But, oh, gentlemen, the ways of nature, or of God, and the Providence that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we may! It is man who proposes, but God—God—who disposes!
“The defendant is still wondering, I am sure, as to how I know that she thought she was still going to be married after leaving the inn at Big Bittern. And I have no doubt that he still has some comforting thoughts to the effect that I cannot really and truly know it. But how shrewd and deep must be that mind that would foresee and forestall all the accidents and chances of life. For, as he sits there now, secure in the faith that his counsel may be able to extract him safely from this” (and at this Clyde sat bolt upright, his hair tingling, and his hands concealed beneath the table, trembling slightly), “he does not know that that girl, while in her room in the Grass Lake Inn, had written her mother a letter, which she had not had time to mail, and which was in the pocket of her coat left behind because of the heat of the day, and because she imagined she was coming back, of course. And which is here now upon this table.”
At this Clyde’s teeth fairly chattered. He shook as with a chill. To be sure, she had left her coat behind! And Belknap and Jephson also sat up, wondering what this could be. How fatally, if at all, could it mar or make impossible the plan of defense which they had evolved? They could only wait and see.