A Terrible Temptation: A Story of To-Day Part 25

While the judge was making a keen comparison, counsel continued the cross-examination.

"You are aware that this letter caused a separation between Sir Charles Ba.s.sett and the lady he was engaged to?"

"I know nothing about it."

"Indeed! Well, were you acquainted with the Miss Somerset mentioned in this letter?"

"Slightly."

"You have been at her house?"

"Once or twice."

"Which? Twice is double as often as once, you know."

"Twice."

"No more?"

"Not that I recollect."

"You wrote to her?"

"I may have."

"Did you, or did you not?"

"I did."

"What was the purport of that letter?"

"I can't recollect at this distance of time."

"On your oath, sir, did you not write urging her to co-operate with you to keep Sir Charles Ba.s.sett from marrying his affianced, Miss Bella Bruce, to whom that anonymous letter was written with the same object?"

The perspiration now rolled in visible drops down the tortured liar's face. Yet still, by a gigantic effort, he stood firm, and even planted a blow.

"I did not write the anonymous letter. But I believe I told Miss Somerset I loved Miss Bruce, and that _her_ lover was robbing me of mine, as he had robbed me of everything else."

"And that was all you said--on your oath?"

"All I can recollect." With this the strong man, cowed, terrified, expecting his letter to Somerset to be produced, and so the iron chain of evidence completed, gasped out, "Man, you tear open all my wounds at once!" and with this burst out sobbing, and lamenting aloud that he had ever been born.

Counsel waited calmly till he should be in a condition to receive another dose.

"Oh, will n.o.body stop this cruel trial?" said Lady Ba.s.sett, with the tears trickling down her face.

The judge heard this remark without seeming to do so.

He said to defendant's counsel, "Whatever the truth may be, you have proved enough to show Sir Charles Ba.s.sett might well have an honest conviction that Mr. Ba.s.sett had done a dastardly act. Whether a jury would ever agree on a question of handwriting must always be doubtful.

Looking at the relationship of the parties, is it advisable to carry this matter further? If I might advise the gentlemen, they would each consent to withdraw a juror."

Upon this suggestion the counsel for both parties put their heads together in animated whispers; and during this the judge made a remark to the jury, intended for the public: "Since Lady Ba.s.sett's name has been drawn into this, I must say that I have read her letters to Mr.

Ba.s.sett, and they are such as she could write without in the least compromising her husband. Indeed, now the defense is disclosed, they appear to me to be wise and kindly letters, such as only a good wife, a high-bred lady, and a true Christian could write in so delicate a matter."

_Plaintiff's Counsel._--My lord, we are agreed to withdraw a juror.

_Defendant's Counsel._--Out of respect for your lordship's advice, and not from any doubt of the result on _our_ part.

_The Crier._--WACE _v._ HALIBURTON!

And so the car of justice rolled on till it came to Wheeler v. Ba.s.sett.

This case was soon disposed of.

Sir Charles Ba.s.sett was dignified and calm in the witness-box, and treated the whole matter with high-bred nonchalance, as one unworthy of the attention the Court was good enough to bestow on it. The judge disapproved the a.s.sault, but said the plaintiff had drawn it on himself by unprofessional conduct, and by threatening a gentleman in his own house. Verdict for the plaintiff--40s. The judge refused to certify for costs.

Lady Ba.s.sett, her throat parched with excitement, drove home, and awaited her husband's return with no little anxiety. As soon as she heard him in his dressing-room she glided in and went down on her knees to him. "Pray, pray don't scold me; I couldn't bear you to be defeated, Charles."

Sir Charles raised her, but did not kiss her.

"You think only of me," said he, rather sadly. "It is a sorry victory, too dearly bought."

Then she began to cry.

Sir Charles begged her not to cry; but still he did not kiss her, nor conceal his mortification: he hardly spoke to her for several days.

She accepted her disgrace pensively and patiently. She thought it all over, and felt her husband was right, and loved her like a man. But she thought, also, that she was not very wrong to love him in her way.

Wrong or not, she felt she could not sit idle and see his enemy defeat him.

The coolness died away by degrees, with so much humility on one side and so much love on both: but the subject was interdicted forever.

A week after the trial Lady Ba.s.sett wrote to Mrs. Marsh, under cover to Mr. Oldfield, and told her how the trial had gone, and, with many expressions of grat.i.tude, invited her and her husband to Huntercombe Hall. She told Sir Charles what she had done, and he wore a very strange look. "Might I suggest that we have them alone?" said he dryly.

"By all means," said Lady Ba.s.sett. "I don't want to share my paragon with anybody."

In due course a reply came; Mr. and Mrs. Marsh would avail themselves some day of Lady Ba.s.sett's kindness: at present they were going abroad.

The letter was written by a man's hand.

About this time Oldfield sent Sir Charles Miss Somerset's deed, canceled, and told him she had married a man of fortune, who was devoted to her, and preferred to take her without any dowry.

Ba.s.sett and Wheeler went home, crestfallen, and dined together. They discussed the two trials, and each blamed the other. They quarreled and parted: and Wheeler sent in an enormous bill, extending over five years. Eighty-five items began thus: "Attending you at your house for several hours, on which occasion you asked my advice as to whether--"

etc.

Now as a great many of these attendances had been really to shoot game and dine on rabbits at Ba.s.sett's expense, he thought it hard the conversation should be charged and the rabbits not.

Disgusted with his defeat, and resolved to evade this bill, he discharged his servant, and put a retired soldier into his house, armed him with a blunderbuss, and ordered him to keep all doors closed, and present the weapon aforesaid at all rate collectors, tax collectors, debt collectors, and applicants for money to build churches or convert the heathen; but not to _fire_ at anybody except his friend Wheeler, nor at him unless he should try to shove a writ in at some c.h.i.n.k of the building.