Part 20 (1/2)

”Give me a kiss, uncle, at parting.”

”Oh yes, I'll give you a kiss. Anything you like, Valeria. I shall be sixty-five next birthday; and I thought I knew something of women, at my time of life. It seems I know nothing. Loxley's Hotel is the address, Mr. Benjamin. Good-night.”

Benjamin looked very grave when he returned to me after accompanying Doctor Starkweather to the garden gate.

”Pray be advised, my dear,” he said. ”I don't ask you to consider _my_ view of this matter, as good for much. But your uncle's opinion is surely worth considering?”

I did not reply. It was useless to say any more. I made up my mind to be misunderstood and discouraged, and to bear it. ”Good-night, my dear old friend,” was all I said to Benjamin. Then I turned away--I confess with the tears in my eyes--and took refuge in my bedroom.

The window-blind was up, and the autumn moonlight shone brilliantly into the little room.

As I stood by the window, looking out, the memory came to me of another moonlight night, when Eustace and I were walking together in the Vicarage garden before our marriage. It was the night of which I have written, many pages back, when there were obstacles to our union, and when Eustace had offered to release me from my engagement to him. I saw the dear face again looking at me in the moonlight; I heard once more his words and mine. ”Forgive me,” he had said, ”for having loved you--pa.s.sionately, devotedly loved you. Forgive me, and let me go.”

And I had answered, ”Oh, Eustace, I am only a woman--don't madden me!

I can't live without you. I must and will be your wife!” And now, after marriage had united us, we were parted! Parted, still loving each as pa.s.sionately as ever. And why? Because he had been accused of a crime that he had never committed, and because a Scotch jury had failed to see that he was an innocent man.

I looked at the lovely moonlight, pursuing these remembrances and these thoughts. A new ardor burned in me. ”No!” I said to myself. ”Neither relations nor friends shall prevail on me to falter and fail in my husband's cause. The a.s.sertion of his innocence is the work of my life; I will begin it to-night.”

I drew down the blind and lighted the candles. In the quiet night, alone and unaided, I took my first step on the toilsome and terrible journey that lay before me. From the t.i.tle-page to the end, without stopping to rest and without missing a word, I read the Trial of my husband for the murder of his wife.

PART II. PARADISE REGAINED.

CHAPTER XV. THE STORY OF THE TRIAL. THE PRELIMINARIES.

LET me confess another weakness, on my part, before I begin the Story of the Trial. I cannot prevail upon myself to copy, for the second time, the horrible t.i.tle-page which holds up to public ignominy my husband's name. I have copied it once in my tenth chapter. Let once be enough.

Turning to the second page of the Trial, I found a Note, a.s.suring the reader of the absolute correctness of the Report of the Proceedings. The compiler described himself as having enjoyed certain special privileges.

Thus, the presiding Judge had himself revised his charge to the jury.

And, again, the chief lawyers for the prosecution and the defense, following the Judge's example, had revised their speeches for and against the prisoner. Lastly, particular care had been taken to secure a literally correct report of the evidence given by the various witnesses.

It was some relief to me to discover this Note, and to be satisfied at the outset that the Story of the Trial was, in every particular, fully and truly given.

The next page interested me more nearly still. It enumerated the actors in the Judicial Drama--the men who held in their hands my husband's honor and my husband's life. Here is the List:

THE LORD JUSTICE CLERK,} LORD DRUMFENNICK, }Judges on the Bench.

LORD n.o.bLEKIRK, }

THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mintlaw), } DONALD DREW, Esquire (Advocate-Depute).} Counsel for the Crown.

MR. JAMES ARLISS, W. S., Agent for the Crown.

THE DEAN OF FACULTY (Farmichael), } Counsel for the Panel ALEXANDER CROCKET, Esquire (Advocate),} (otherwise the Prisoner)

MR. THORNIEBANK, W. S.,} MR. PLAYMORE, W. S., } Agents for the Panel.

The Indictment against the prisoner then followed. I shall not copy the uncouth language, full of needless repet.i.tions (and, if I know anything of the subject, not guiltless of bad grammar as well), in which my innocent husband was solemnly and falsely accused of poisoning his first wife. The less there is of that false and hateful Indictment on this page, the better and truer the page will look, to _my_ eyes.