Part 35 (1/2)

Cora was on the point of saying why she threw the book, and whose name was on the t.i.tle-page, but she checked herself in time. It had been very difficult to persuade her that her interests were safe in the hands of Lettice's brother, and even now she had occasional misgivings on that point. Sydney went on quickly.

”A book lying close to your hand, you mean?”

”She said a certain book,” Mr. Milton interjected.

”You must make allowance for her,” said the judge. ”You know she is French, and you should follow her in two languages at once. No doubt she meant 'some book or other.' The point has no importance.”

”And then,” said Sydney, ”you altered your positions?”

”We stood facing each other.”

”What happened next?”

”Suddenly--I had not moved--an evil look came in his face. He sprang to the table, and took from the drawer a long, sharp poignard. I remembered it well, for he had it when we were married.”

”What did he do then?”

”He raised it in his hand; but I had leaped upon him, and then began a terrible struggle.”

The court was excited. Alan and his counsel were almost the only persons who remained perfectly cool.

”It was an unequal struggle?”

”Ah, yes! I became exhausted, and sank to the ground.”

”Before or after you were stabbed?”

”He stabbed me as I fell.”

”Could it have been an accident?”

”Impossible, for I fell backward, and the wound was in front.”

After Sydney had done with his witness, Mr. Milton took her in hand; and this was felt by every one to be the most critical stage of the trial.

Milton did his best to shake Cora's evidence, not without a certain kind of success. He turned her past life inside out, made her confess her infidelity, her intemperance, her brawling in the streets, her conviction and fine at the Hammersmith Police Court. It was all he could do to restrain himself from getting her to acknowledge the reason of her visit to Maple Cottage; but his instructions were too definite to be ignored. He felt that the introduction of Miss Campion's name would have told in favor of his client--at any rate, with the jury; and he would not have been a zealous pleader if he had not wished to take advantage of the point.

By this time Cora was in a rage, and she damaged herself with the jury by giving them a specimen of her ungovernable temper. The trial had to be suspended for a quarter of an hour, whilst she recovered from a fit of hysterics; but it said much for her crafty shrewdness that she was able to adhere, in the main, to the story which she had told. She was severely cross-examined about the scene in Surrey Street, and especially about the dagger. She feigned intense surprise at being asked and pressed as to her having brought the weapon with her; but Mr. Milton could not succeed in making her contradict herself.

Then the other witnesses were heard and counsel had an opportunity of enforcing the evidence on both sides. Mr. Milton was very severe on his learned friend for introducing matter in his opening speech, on which he did not intend to call witnesses; but in his own mind he had recognized the fact that there must be a verdict of guilty, and he brought out as strongly as he could the circ.u.mstances which he thought would weigh with the court in his client's favor. Sydney was well content with the result of the trial as far as it had gone. There had been no reference of any kind to his sister Lettice; and, as he knew that this was due in some measure to the reticence of the defence, it would have argued a want of generosity on his part to talk of the cruelty of the prisoner in stopping his wife's allowance because she had molested him in the street.

The judge summed up with great fairness. He picked out the facts which had been sworn to in regard to the actual receiving of the wound, which, he said, were compatible with the theory of self-infliction, with that of wilful infliction by the husband, and with that of accident. As for the first theory, it would imply that the dagger had pa.s.sed from the prisoner's hands to those of his wife, and back again, and it seemed to be contradicted by the evidence of the landlady and the other lodger.

Moreover, it was not even suggested by the defence, which relied upon the theory of accident. An accident of this kind would certainly be possible during a violent struggle for the possession of the dagger. Now the husband and wife virtually accused each other of producing this weapon and threatening to use it. It was for the jury to decide which of the two they would believe. There was a direct conflict of evidence, or allegation, and in such a case they must look at all the surrounding circ.u.mstances. It was not denied that the dagger belonged to the prisoner, but it was suggested in his behalf that the wife had purloined it some time before, and had suddenly produced it when she came to her husband's apartments in Surrey Street. If that could be proved, then the woman had been guilty of perjury, and her evidence would collapse altogether. Now there were some portions of her evidence which were most unsatisfactory. She had led a dissolute life, and was cursed with an ungovernable temper. But, on the other hand, she had told a consistent tale as to the occurrences of that fatal afternoon, and he could not go so far as to advise the jury to reject her testimony as worthless.

His lords.h.i.+p then went over the remaining evidence, and concluded as follows:--

”Gentlemen, I may now leave you to your difficult task. It is for you to say whether, in your judgment, the wound which this woman received was inflicted by herself or by her husband. If you find that it was inflicted by her husband, you must further decide, to the best of your ability, whether the prisoner wounded his wife in the course of a struggle, without intending it, or whether he did at the moment wittingly and purposely injure her. The rest you will leave to me. You have the evidence before you, and the const.i.tution of your country imposes upon you the high responsibility of saying whether this man is innocent or guilty of the charge preferred against him.”