Part 55 (1/2)
”And you lied to us when you pretended that you suspected us of robbing you! You knew all along that the only robbery you yourself had committed--you impudent swindler!”
He only received the same reply--
”Yes; I did”.
Dr. Twelves wagged his finger at her, gruesomely.
”You shall hang for it, Isabel Burney--you shall hang by the neck until you're dead!”
Mr. McTavish cried--
”At any rate, you shall be sent to penal servitude for the fraud you have committed on us!”
She showed no signs of resentment, as only a very short time before she undoubtedly would have done, when her resentment would probably have taken a sufficiently active turn. From her demeanour it was difficult to determine if she comprehended what was being said to her. She gazed stolidly about the room. Near a window stood Nannie Foreshaw, leaning on a stick, holding with one hand the curtain from behind which she had just emerged. At sight of her she shrank backwards, as if she would withdraw herself as far as she could. Before the door, as if he would bar her retreat, was Harry Talfourd. When she saw him she seemed to be moved more than she had been by any of the others; she turned aside, with a low cry, and covered her face. Possibly, in some tangled fas.h.i.+on, she remembered how, so recently, she had played to him the _role_ of the great lady, the benefactress; how willing she had been to be something more to him than that; and she was vaguely conscious of what a contrast she was exhibiting to him now.
Margaret had been seated at a table writing. Now, rising, she turned to the woman who was still on her knees upon the floor.
”I have set down upon this sheet of paper a short confession of your guilt. If you will sign it you shall not hang; you shall not be sent to prison. You shall receive your only punishment from your own conscience. I think that is to condemn you to the greater punishment. I will read to you what I have written.”
She read aloud from the paper which she took in her hand:--
”'I confess that Cuthbert Grahame instructed me to draw up a will in which he left all that he had in the world to Margaret Wallace; that, without his knowledge, I subst.i.tuted for it another form of will, according to which he left his property to me, and that I induced him to sign this fraudulent form by means of a trick. I also confess that I murdered Cuthbert Grahame in order to avoid an exposure of the trick by means of which I had induced him to sign the subst.i.tuted fraudulent form of will.' If you will attach your name to this confession you shall receive no punishment beyond that which you award yourself--that will be a sufficient one. Come here and sign.”
As if automatically, Mrs. Lamb rose to her feet, moved towards the table, seated herself on the chair which Margaret had occupied, accepted the pen which the girl offered, and wrote her name in full on the sheet of paper which was set before her.
When she had signed, leaning back, she looked from one to the other. They waited for her to speak, expecting perhaps some burst of tardy anger. Then, on a sudden, without a word or a movement, she slid from the chair on to the floor. When they gathered round her she lay still.
CHAPTER x.x.xVI