The Diamond Coterie Part 66

A bright flush leaped to his cheeks and burned there hotly.

"Yes, it was about you, sis. But you will soon be as well and happy as ever, won't you?" anxiously.

"To be sure, Evan; we will both get well very fast. We have got so much to live for, and we are too young to die."

CHAPTER XLI.

SIR CLIFFORD HEATHERCLIFFE.

It is the opening hour of Clifford Heath's trial.

The court room is crowded to its utmost capacity; never has there occurred a trial there so intensely interesting to all W----.

The prisoner is a little paler, a little graver than his ordinary self.

But is his ordinary self in every other respect; as proud of bearing, as self-possessed, as handsome, and _distingue_ as ever.

Beside him sits Mr. O'Meara, alone. Mr. Wedron, after all his labor, and his seeming interest, is unaccountably absent; unaccountably, at least, so far as the opposition, the prisoner, the judge, jury, and all the spectators are concerned. Mr. O'Meara seems not at all disturbed by his absence, and evidently understands all about it.

Near the prisoner sits a man who causes a buzz of inquiry to run through the entire audience.

He is tall, fair haired, handsome; the carriage of his head, the haughtiness of his bearing, reminds more than one present of Clifford Heath, as they first knew him. He is a stranger to all W----, and "Who is he? Who is he?" runs from lip to lip.

The stranger is seemingly oblivious of the attention lavished upon him; he bends forward at times, and whispers a word to the prisoner, or his counsel, and he turns occasionally to murmur something in the ear of Constance Wardour, who sits beside him, grave, stately, calm.

She is accompanied by Mrs. Aliston and Mrs. O'Meara, and Ray Vandyck sits beside the latter lady, and completes the party.

Mr. Lamotte is there, subdued, yet affable, and Frank, too, who is paler than usual, but quite self-possessed.

Near the party above mentioned, may be seen the two city physicians, but, and here is another cause for wonderment, Doctor Benoit is not present; and, who ever knew the good doctor to miss an occasion like this?

"Business must be urgent, when it keeps Benoit away from such a trial,"

whispers one gossip to another, and the second endorses the opinion of the first.

Sitting there, scanning that audience with a seemingly careless glance, Constance feels her heart sink like lead in her bosom.

She feels, she knows, that already in the minds of most, her lover is a condemned man. She knows that the weight of evidence will be against him. They have a defense, it is true, but nothing will overthrow the fact that John Burrill went straight to the house of the prisoner, and was found dead hard by.

All along she has hoped, she knew not what, from Bathurst. But since he returned Sybil's note in so strange and abrupt a manner, she has had no word or sign from him, and now she doubts him, she distrusts everything.

But, little by little, day by day, she has been schooling her heart to face one last desperate alternative. Her lover _shall_ be saved! Let the trial go on. Let the worst come. Let the fatal verdict be p.r.o.nounced, if it must; after that, perish the Wardour honor. What if she must trample the heart out of a mother's breast? What if she must fling into the breach the life of a blighted, wronged, helpless, perhaps dying sister woman?

Hardening her heart, crushing down her pride, she muttered desperately on this last day of doubt and suspense.

"Let them all go. Let the verdict be what it may, Clifford Heath shall not suffer a felon's doom!"

Then she had nerved herself to calmness and gone to face the inevitable.

"Prisoner at the bar, are you guilty or not guilty?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Prisoner at the bar, are you guilty or not guilty?"]

The reading of the indictment has turned all eyes upon the prisoner's face.

He stands erect, his head haughtily poised, his clear dark eyes fixed fully upon the judge.

"I am not guilty, your honor."

A murmur runs through the court room. The stranger bends to whisper to Constance. The trial proceeds.

Once again all the evidence brought forward at the inquest is repeated--sworn to--dilated upon. Once again it presses the scales down, down, down, and the chances for the prisoner hang light in the balance.

One thing puzzles the prosecuting attorney, and troubles the mind of Jasper Lamotte.

O'Meara, the shrewd, the fox like--O'Meara, who never lets pa.s.s a flaw or a loophole for criticism; who never loses a chance to pick and torture and puzzle a witness, is strangely indifferent.

One by one the witnesses for the prosecution pa.s.s before him; little by little they build a mountain of evidence against his client. He declines to examine them. He listens to their testimony with the air of a bored play-goer at a very poor farce.

After the testimony of the two masons, comes that of the party who last saw John Burrill in life. They testify as they did at the inquest--neither more, nor less.

Then come the dwellers in Mill avenue. They are all there but Brooks and Nance Burrill.

"Your honor," says the prosecuting attorney, "two of our witnesses--two very important ones--are absent. Why they are absent, we do not know.

Where they may be found, is a profound mystery.

"One of these witnesses, a man called Brooks, we believe to have been especially intimate with the murdered man. We think that he could have revealed the secret which the prisoner took such deadly measures to cover up. This man can not be found. He disappeared shortly after the murder.

"Our other witness vanished almost simultaneously. This other was the divorced wife of the murdered Burrill. She, too, knew too much. Now I do not insinuate--I do not cast any stones, but there are some, not far distant, who could explain these two mysterious disappearances, 'an they would.'"

"An they _will_!" pops in the hitherto mute O'Meara. "They'll make several knotty points clear to your understanding, honorable sir."

A retort rises to his opponent's lips, and a wordy war seems imminent, but the crier commands "Order in the Court," and the two antagonists glare at each other mutely, while the trial moves on.

Frank Lamotte comes upon the witness stand. As before, he tells nothing new.

He was aware that his brother-in-law possessed some secret of Doctor Heath's. Did not know the nature of it, but inferred from words Burrill had let drop, that it was of a damaging character.

Upon being questioned as to his acquaintance with the prisoner, and what he knew of his disposition and temper, he replies that he has known the prisoner since he first came to W----; liked him very much; never had any personal misunderstanding, although of late the prisoner had chosen to treat him with marked coldness.

As to his temper--well, he must admit that it was very fiery, very quickly roused, very difficult of control, he believed. Prisoner was by nature intolerant to a fault. He had shown this disposition in presence of witness on many occasions.

Being shown the knife found in the cellar, he examines it carefully, and p.r.o.nounces it to be the one he has often seen in Doctor Heath's instrument case, or its precise counterpart.

This ends his testimony. O'Meara has no questions to ask, and Jasper Lamotte takes his son's place. He is the last witness for the prosecution.

He has less to say than any of the others.