The Trial; Or, More Links of the Daisy Chain Part 41

'Yes. I saw the face of fiendish barbarity that once was over me, when I was a miserable little school-boy! He did it; and he has the receipt.'

Dr. May squeezed his arm. 'I have not betrayed the secret, have I!'

'You knew that he knew it!'

'Not knew--suspected--generosity.'

'I saw him! I saw him cast those imploring earnest eyes of his on the scoundrel as he spoke of the receipt--and the villain try to make himself of stone. Well, if I have one wish in life, it is to see that fellow come to the fate he deserves. I'll never lose sight of him; I'll dog him like a bloodhound!'

And what good will that do, when--Tom, Tom, we must move Heaven and earth for pet.i.tions. I'll take them up myself, and get George Rivers to take me to the Home Secretary. Never fear, while there's justice in Heaven.'

'Here's Henry!' exclaimed Tom, withholding his father, who had almost ran against the brother, as they encountered round a corner.

He was pale and bewildered, and hardly seemed to hear the Doctor's hasty a.s.severations that he would get a reprieve.

'He sent me to meet you,' said Henry. 'He wants you to go home--to Ave I mean. He says that is what he wants most--for you to go to her now, and to come to him to-morrow, or when you can; and he wants to hear how Aubrey is,' continued Henry, as if dreamily repeating a lesson.

'He saw then--?'

'Yes, and that seems to trouble him most.'

Dr. May was past speaking, and Tom was obliged to answer for him--that Aubrey was pretty well again, and had desired his dearest, dearest love; then asked how Leonard was.

'Calm and firm as ever,' said Henry, half choked. 'Nothing seems to upset him, but speaking of--of you and Aubrey, Dr. May--and poor Ave.

But--but they'll be together before long.'

'No such thing,' said Dr. May. 'You will see that certainty cures, when suspense kills; and for him, I'll never believe but that all will be right yet. Are you going home?'

'I shall try to be with--with the dear unhappy boy as long as I can, and then I'll come home.'

Dr. May grasped Henry's hand, gave a promise of coming, and a message of love to the prisoner, tried to say something more, but broke down, and let Tom lead him away.

CHAPTER XV

Under the shroud Of His thunder-cloud Lie we still when His voice is loud, And our hearts shall feel The love notes steal, As a bird sings after the thunder peal--C. F. A.

Not till dusk could Dr. May get back to Stoneborough, and then, in an evening gleam of that stormy day, he was met at the gate of Bankside by Richard and Ethel.

'You need not come in, papa,' said Ethel. 'She is asleep. She knows.'

Dr. May sighed with unspeakable relief.

'Mr. Bramshaw telegraphed, and his clerk came down. It was not so very bad! She saw it in our faces, and she was so worn out with talking and watching, that--that the very turning her face to the wall with hope over, became sleep almost directly.'

'That is well,' murmured the Doctor. 'And can you be spared, my dear?

If you could come I should be glad, for poor Aubrey is quite done up.'

'I can come. Mary is with her, and Richard will stay to meet Henry, if he is coming home, or to send up if they want you; but I think she will not wake for many hours; and then--oh! what can any one do!'

So Richard turned back to the sorrowful house; and Dr. May, tenderly drawing Ethel's arm into his own, told her, as they walked back, the few incidents that she most wanted to hear, as best he could narrate them. 'You have had a heart-rending day, my dear,' he said; 'you and Mary, as well as the rest of us.'

'There was one comfort!' said Ethel, 'and that was his own notes. Ave has all that he has written to her from Whitford under her pillow, and she kept spreading them out, and making us read them, and--oh! their braveness and cheeriness--they did quite seem to hold one up! And then poor little Minna's constant little robin-chirp of faith, "G.o.d will not let them hurt him." One could not bear to tell the child, that though indeed they cannot hurt him, it may not be in her sense! Look here!

These are her slippers. She has worked on all day to finish them, that they might be done and out of sight when he came home this evening.

The last st.i.tch was done as Richard came in; and now I thought I could only take them out of every one's sight.'

'Poor things! poor things! And how was it with the child when she heard?'

'The old sweet note,' said Ethel, less steadily than she had yet spoken, '"nothing could hurt him for what he had not done." I don't know whether she knows what--what is in store. At least she is not shaken yet, dear child.'

'And Ave--how did you manage with her through all the day?'

'Oh! we did as we could. We tried reading the things Mr. Wilmot had marked, but she was too restless; her hands would wander off to the letters, caressing them, and she would go back to talk of him--all his ways from a baby upwards. I hope there was no harm in letting her do it, for if there is anything to do one good, it is his n.o.ble spirit.'

'If you had only seen his face to-day,' exclaimed the Doctor, half angrily, 'you would not feel much comfort in the cutting off such a fellow. No, no, it won't be. We'll pet.i.tion--pet.i.tion--pet.i.tion--and save him, we will! Minna will be right yet! They shall not hurt him!'

'Is there really hope in that way?' said Ethel, and a quiver of relief agitated her whole frame.

'Every hope! Every one I have seen, or Tom either, says so. We have only to draw up a strong enough representation of the facts, his character, and all that; and there's his whole conduct before and since to speak for itself. Why, when it was all over, George heard every one saying, either he was a consummate hypocrite, or he must be innocent.

Harvey Anderson declares the press will take it up. We shall certainly get him off.'

'You don't mean pardoned!'

'Commutation of the penalty. Come on,' said the Doctor, hurrying at his headlong pace, 'there's no time to be lost in getting it drawn up.'

Ethel was dragged on so fast, that she could not speak; but it was with willing haste, for this was the sort of suspense in which motion and purpose were a great relief after the day's weary waiting. Gertrude, quite spent with excitement and tears, had wisely betaken herself to bed; and it would have been well had Aubrey followed her example, instead of wandering up and down the room in his misery, flushed though wan, impetuously talking treason against trial by jury, and abusing dignitaries. They let him have it out, in all its fury and violence, till he had tired out his first vehemence, and could be persuaded to lie on the sofa while the rough draught of the pet.i.tion was drawn up, Tom writing, and every one suggesting or discussing, till the Doctor, getting thorough mastery over the subject, dictated so fluently and admirably, that even Tom had not a word to gainsay, but observed to Ethel, when his father had gone up to bed, and carried Aubrey off, 'What an exceedingly able man my father is!'

'Is this the first time you have found that out?' said Ethel.

'Why, you know it is not his nature to make the most of himself! But studying under him brings it out more; and there's a readiness about him that I wish was catching. But I say, Ethel, what's this? I no more doubt who did the deed, than I do who killed Abel; but I had once seen Cain's face, and I knew it again. Is it true that the boy was aware, and told my father?'

'Did he tell you so?'

'Only asked if he had betrayed the secret. If they both know it--why, if it be Leonard's taste, I suppose I must say nothing to the contrary, but he might as well consider his sister.'

'What do you know, Tom?' said she, perplexed.

'Only that there's some secret; and if it be as I am given to understand, then it is a frenzy that no lucid person should permit.'

'No, Tom,' said Ethel, feeling that the whole must be told, 'it is no certainty--only unsupported suspicion, which he could not help telling papa after binding him on honour to make no use of it. Putting things together, he was sure who the man in the yard was; but it was not recognition, and he could not have proved it.'

'What Quixotry moved my father not to put the lawyers on the scent?'

Ethel explained; and for her pains Tom fell upon her for her folly in not having told him all, when he could have gone to Blewer and gathered information as no professional person could do; then lamented that he had let Aubrey keep him from the inquest, when the fellow's hang-dog look would have been sure to suggest to him to set Anderson to get him searched. Even now he would go to the mill, and try to hunt up something.