The Baronet's Bride Part 52

"He pooh-poohed the notion of her dying, cheered her up, nursed her a.s.siduously, and finally brought her around. He left her in London, posted down here, and remained here until the return of Sir Everard and my lady from their honey-moon trip. The day after he presented himself to them--displayed his pictures, and among others showed my lady her mother's portrait, taken at the time of her marriage. She recognized it at once--her father had left her its counterpart on the night he died. He knew her secret, and she had to meet him if he chose. He threatened to tell Sir Everard else, and the thought of her husband ever discovering her mother's shame was agony to her. She knew how proud he was, how proud his mother was, and she would have died to save him pain. And that is why she met Mr. Parmalee by night and by stealth--why she gave him money--why all the horrors that have followed occurred."

Once more the cruel, clear, unfaltering voice paused. A groan broke the silence--a groan of such unutterable anguish and despair from the tortured husband that every heart thrilled to hear it.

With that agonized groan, his face dropped in his hands, and he never raised it again. He heard no more--he sat bowed, paralyzed, crushed with misery and remorse. His wife--his lost wife--had been as pure and stainless as the angels, and he--oh, pitiful G.o.d! how merciless he had been!

Sybilla Silver was dismissed; other witnesses were called. Edwards and Claudine were the only ones examined that day, Sybilla had occupied the court so long. They corroborated all she had said. The prisoner was remanded, and the court adjourned.

The night of agony which followed to the wretched prisoner no words can ever tell. All he had suffered hitherto seemed as nothing. Men recoiled in horror at the sight of him next day; it was as if a galvanized corpse had entered the court-room.

He sat in dumb misery, neither heeding nor hearing. Only once was his attention dimly aroused. It was at the evidence of a boy--a ragged youth of some fifteen years, who gave his name as Bob Dawson.

"He had been out late on that 'ere night. It was between ten and eleven that he was a-dodgin' round near the stone terrace. Then he sees a lady a-waitin', which the moon was shining on her face, and he knowed my lady herself. He dodged more than hever at the sight, and peeked round a tree. Just then came along a tall gent in a cloak, like Sir Everard wears, and my lady screeches out at sight of him. Sir Everard, he spoke in a deep, 'orrid voice, and the words were so hawful, he--Bob Dawson--remembered them from that day to this.

"'I swore by the Lord who made me I would murder you if you ever met that man again. False wife, accursed traitoress, meet your doom!'

"And then my lady screeches out again and says to him--she says:

"'Have mercy! I am innocent, Heverard! Oh, for G.o.d's sake, do not murder me!'

"And Sir Heverard, he says, fierce and 'orrid:

"'Wretch, die! You are not fit to pollute the hearth! Go to your grave with my 'ate and my cuss!'

"And then," cried Bob Dawson, trembling all over as he told it, "I see him lift that there knife, gentlemen, and stab her with all his might, and she fell back with a sort of groan, and he lifts her up and pitches of her over hinto the sea. And then he cuts, he does, and I--I was frightened most hawful, and I cut, too."

"Why did you not tell this before?" the judge asked.

"'Cos I was scared--I was," Bob replied, in tears. "I didn't know but that they might took and hang me for seeing it. I told mammy the other night, and mammy she came and told the gent there," pointing one finger at the counsel for the crown, "and he said I must come and tell it here; and that's all I've got to tell, and I'm werry sorry as hever I seed it, and it's all true, s'help me!"

Sybilla Silver's eyes fairly blazed with triumphant fire. Her master, the arch-fiend, seemed visibly coming to her aid; and the most miserable baronet pressed his hand to his throbbing head.

There was the summing up of the evidence--one d.a.m.ning ma.s.s against the prisoner. There was the judge's charge to the jury. Sir Everard heard no words--saw nothing. He fell into a stunned stupor that was indeed like madness.

The jury retired--vaguely he saw them go. They returned. Was it minutes or hours they had been gone? His dulled eyes looked at them expressionless.

"How say you, gentlemen of the jury--guilty or not guilty?"

"Guilty!"

Amid dead silence the word fell. Every heart thrilled with awe but one. The condemned man sat staring at them with an awful, dull, glazed stare.

The judge arose and put on his black cap, his face white, his lips trembling.

Only the last words seemed to strike him--to crash into his whirling brain with a noise like thunder.

"And that there you be hanged by the neck until dead, and may the Lord have mercy upon your soul!"

He sat down. The awful silence was something indescribable. One or two women in the gallery fainted, then the hush was broken in a blood-curdling manner.

CHAPTER x.x.xII.

SYBILLA'S TRIUMPH.

It was the night before the execution. In his feebly lighted cell the condemned man sat alone, trying to read by the palely glimmering lamp.

The New Testament lay open before him, and on this, the last night of his life, he was reading the story of Gethsemane and Calvary. On this last night heart and soul were at rest, and an infinite calm illumined every feature.

Weeks had pa.s.sed since the day when sentence of death had been p.r.o.nounced upon him, and the condemned man had lain burning in the wild delirium of brain fever.

Sybilla Silver had been his most sleepless, his most devoted attendant.

Her evidence had wrung his heart--had condemned him to the most shameful death man can die; but she had only told the truth, and truth is mighty and will prevail. So she came and nursed him now, forgetting to eat or sleep in her zeal and devotion, and finally wooed him back to life and reason, while those who loved him best prayed G.o.d, by night and by day, that he might die.

But, while hovering in the "Valley of the Shadow," death had lost all its terror for him--he rose a changed man.

"And she is there," he said, with his eyes fixed dreamily on the one patch of blue May sky he could see between his prison bars--"my wronged, my murdered, my beloved wife! Ah, yes, death is the highest boon the judges of this world can give me now!"

And so the last night came. He sat alone. The jailer who was to share his cell on this last, awful vigil had been bribed to leave him by himself until the latest moment.

"Come in before midnight," he said, smiling slightly, "and guard me while I sleep, if you wish. Until then, I should like to be left quite alone."

And the man obeyed, awed unutterably by the sublime look of that marble face.

"He never did it," he said to his wife. "No murderer ever looked with such clear eyes and such a sweet smile as that. Sir Everard Kingsland is as hinnocent as a hangel, and there'll be a legal murder done to-morrow. I wish it was that she-devil that swore his life away instead, I'd turn her off myself with the greatest pleasure."

As if his thoughts had evoked her, a tall dark figure stood before him--Miss Sybilla Silver herself.

"Good Lord!" cried the jailer, aghast; "who'd a-thought it? What do you want?"

"To see the prisoner," responded Sybilla.

"You can't see him, then," said the jailer, gruffly. "He ain't going to see anybody this last night, ma'am."

"Mr. Markham"--she came over and laid her velvet paw on his arm, and magnetized him with her big black eyes--"think better of it. It is his last night. His mother lies on the point of death. I come here with a last sacred message from a dying mother to a dying son. You have an aged mother yourself, Mr. Markham. Ah! think again, and don't be hard upon us."

A sovereign slipped into his palm.

"For only half an hour, then," he said; "mind that. Come along!"

The key clanked; the door swung back. The pale prisoner lifted his serene eyes; the tall, dark figure stepped in.

"Sybilla!"

"Yes, Sir Everard."

The great door closed with a bang.

"Half an hour, mind," reiterated the jailer.