Part 47 (1/2)

The time hung heavy on her hands. She could do nothing, read nothing, think of nothing--except of the unhappy man within those walls, who had been brought to death's door, and who must have known a living death for the past six months. To her, merely looking at the walls and thinking of their victim, every minute seemed an hour, and every hour a day of blank despair. What must the minutes and hours have seemed to him, buried alive in that hideous pile of bricks, and in the yet more hideous pile of false accusations and unmerited disgrace?

She had found out the date of the trial, and procured the papers in which it was reported. The whole wretched story was before her now. She saw how the web had been weaved round him; she understood the pains which had been taken to keep her own name from being mentioned, and she noted with burning indignation the persistency with which Sydney had labored, apparently, to secure a conviction.

She was on the point of seeking out Mr. Larmer, in order to learn from him the a.s.surance of innocence which Alan must have given to his solicitor; but she refrained. It would look as though she wanted evidence of what she believed so absolutely without any evidence; and besides, was it not one of the pleasures which she had promised herself, to hear from Alan's own lips all that he cared for her to hear?

She stood by her window in the evening, and saw the lights spring up one by one about the frowning gates of the prison. She was quite alone, Milly having gone out with her baby to buy her some clothes. Lettice was miserable and depressed, in spite of her good intentions; and as she stood, half leaning against the shutter in unconscious weariness of body, yet intent with all her mind upon the one subject that engrossed her, she heard the distant stroke of a tolling bell.

Dong!--dong!--dong! it sounded, with long intervals between the notes.

Straight across the vacant ground, from the shrouded walls of Alan's dungeon, and into the contracting fibres of her own tortured heart; it smote with sudden terror, turning her blood to ice and her cheeks to livid whiteness.

Great heaven, it was a death-knell. Could it be Alan who was dead!

For a moment she felt as if she must needs rush into the street and break open those prison gates, must ascertain at once that Alan was still alive. She went out into the hall and stood for a moment hesitating. Should she go? and would they tell her at the gates if Alan was alive or dead?

The landlady heard her moving, and came out of a little apartment at the back of the house, to see what was going on.

”Were you going out, ma'am?” she asked, curiously.

”I? no; at least,” said Lettice, with somewhat difficult utterance, ”I was only wondering what that bell was, and----”

”Oh, that's a bell from the church close by. Sounds exactly like a pa.s.sing-bell, don't it, ma'am? And appropriate too. For my son, who is one of the warders, as I think I've mentioned to you, was here this afternoon, and tells me that one of the prisoners is dead. A gentleman, too: the one that there was so much talk about a little while ago.”

Lettice leaned against the pa.s.sage wall, glad that in the gathering darkness her face could not be seen.

”Was his name--Walcott?” she asked.

”Yes, that was it. At least I think so. I know it was Wal--something. He was in for a.s.sault, I believe, and a nicer, quieter-spoken gentleman, my son says he never saw. But he died this afternoon, I understand, between five and six o'clock--just as his time was nearly out, too, poor man.”

Lettice made no answer. She stole back into her sitting-room and shut the door.

So this was the end. The prisoner was released, indeed; but no mortal voice had told him he was free, no earthly friend had met him at the door.

She fell on her knees, and prayed that the soul which had been persecuted might have rest. Then, when the last stroke of the bell had died away, she sat down in mute despair, and felt that she had lost the best thing life had to give her.

Outside upon the pavement men and women were pa.s.sing to and fro. There was no forecourt to the house; pa.s.sers-by walked close to the windows; they could look in if they tried. Lettice had not lighted a candle, and had not drawn her blinds, but a gas-lamp standing just in front threw a feeble glimmer into the room, which fell upon her where she sat. As the shadows deepened the light grew stronger, and falling direct upon her eyes, roused her at last from the lethargy into which she had sunk.

She got up and walked to the window, intending to close the shutters.

Listlessly for a moment she looked out into the street, where the gas-light flickered upon the meeting streams of humanity--old folk and young, busy and idle, hopeful and despairing, all bent on their own designs, heedless like herself of the jostling world around them.

She had the shutter in her hand, and was turning it upon its hinges, when a face in the crowd suddenly arrested her. She had seen it once, that ghastly painted face, and it had haunted her in her dreams for weeks and months afterwards. It had tyrannized over her in her sickness, and only left her in peace when she began to recover her strength under the bright Italian skies. And now she saw her again, the wife who had wrecked her husband's happiness, for whom he had lingered in a cruel prison, who flaunted herself in the streets whilst Alan's brave and generous heart was stilled for ever.

Cora turned her face as she pa.s.sed the window, and looked in. She might not in that uncertain light have recognized the woman whose form stood out from the darkness behind her, but an impulse moved Lettice which she could not resist. At the moment when the other turned her head she beckoned to her with her hand, and quickly threw up the sash of the window.

”Mon Dieu!” said Cora, coming up close to her, ”is it really you? What do you want with me?”

”Come in! I must speak to you.”

”I love you not, Lettice Campion, and you love not me. What would you?”

”I have a message for you--come inside.”

”A message! Sapristi! Then I must know it. Open your door.”