The Two Sides of the Shield Part 52

'I knew my aunt would prevent my having anything to do with him.'

'And you--excuse me--what interest had you in doing so?'

'My mother had been like his sister, and always helped him.'

All these answers were made with a grave, resolute straightforwardness, generally with something of Dolores's peculiar stony look, and only twice was there any involuntary token of feeling, when she blushed at confessing the concealment from her aunt, and at the last question, when her voice trembled as she spoke of her mother. She kept her eyes on her interrogators all the time, never once glancing towards the prisoner, though all the time she had a sensation as if his reproachful looks were piercing her through.

She was dismissed, and Constance Hacket was brought in, looking about in every direction, carrying a handkerchief and scent bottle, and not attempting to conceal her flutter of agitation.

Mr. Calderwood had nothing to ask her but about her having received the cheque from Miss Mohun and forwarded it to Flinders, though she could not answer for the date without a public computation back from Christmas Day, and forward from St. Thomas's. As to the amount--

'Oh, yes, certainly, seven pounds.'

Moreover she had posted it herself.

Then came the cross-examination,

'Had she seen the draft before posting it?'

'Well--she really did not remember exactly.'

'How did she know the amount then?'

'Well, I think--yes--I think Dolores told me so.'

'You think,' he said, in a sort of sneer. 'On your oath. Do you know?'

'Yes, yes, yes. She a.s.sured me! I know something was said about seven.'

'Then you cannot swear to the contents of the envelope you forwarded?'

'I don't know. It was all such a confusion and hurry.'

'Why so?'

'Oh! because it was a secret.'

The counsel of course availed himself of this handle to elicit that the witness had conducted a secret correspondence between the prisoner and her young friend without the knowledge of the child's natural protectors. 'A perfect romance,' he said, 'I believe the prisoner is unmarried.'

Perhaps this insinuation would have been checked, but before any one had time to interfere, Constance, blushing crimson, exclaimed, 'Oh! Oh! I a.s.sure you it was not that. It was because she said he was her uncle and that they ill-used him.'

This brought upon her the searching question whether the last witness had stated the prisoner to be really her uncle, and Constance replied, rather hotly, that she had always understood that he was.

'In fact, she gave you to understand that the prisoner was actually related to her by blood. Did you say that she also told you that he was persecuted or ill-used by her other relations?'

'I thought so. Yes, I am sure she said so.'

'And it was wholly and solely on these grounds that you a.s.sisted in this clandestine correspondence?'

'Why--yes--partly,' faltered Constance, thinking of her literary efforts, 'so it began.'

There was a manifest inclination to laugh in the audience, who naturally thought her hesitation implied something very different; and the judge, thinking that there was no need to push her further, when Mr. Calderwood represented that all this did not bear on the matter, and was no evidence, silenced Mr. Yokes, and the witness was dismissed.

The next point was that Colonel Reginald Mohun was called upon to attest that the handwriting was his brother's. He answered for the main body of the draft, and the signature, but the additions, in which the forgery lay, were so slight that it was impossible to swear that they did not come from the hand of Maurice Mohun.

'Had application been made to Mr. Mohun on the subject?'

'Yes, Colonel Mohun had immediately telegraphed to him at the address in the Fiji Islands.'

'Has any answer been received?'

'No!' but Colonel Mohun had a curious expression in his eyes, and Mr.

Calderwood electrified the court by begging to call upon Mr. Maurice Mohun.

There he was in the witness-box, looking sunburnt but vigorous. He replied immediately to the question that the cheque was his own, and that it had been left under his daughter's charge, also that it had been for seven pounds, and the 'ty' and the cypher had never been written by him. The prisoner winced for a moment, and then looked at him defiantly.

The connection with Alfred Flinders was inquired into and explained, and being asked as to the term 'Uncle,' he replied, 'My daughter was allowed to get into the habit of so terming him.'

The sisters saw his look of pain, and Jane remembered his strong objection to the t.i.tle, and his wife's indignant defence of it.

Dolores stood trembling outside in the waiting-room, by her Uncle Reginald, from whom she heard that her father had come that morning from London with Lord Rotherwood, but that it had been thought better not to agitate her by letting her know of it before she gave her evidence.

'Has he had my letter?' she asked.

'No; he knew nothing till he saw Rotherwood last night.'

All the misery of writing the confession came back upon poor Dolores, and she turned quite white and sick, but her uncle said kindly, 'Never mind, my dear, he was very much pleased with your manner of giving evidence. Such a contrast to your friend's. Faugh!'

In a few more seconds Mr. Mohun had come out. He took the cold, trembling hands in his own, pressed them close, met the anxious eyes with his own, full of moisture, and said, 'My poor little girl,' in a tone that somehow lightened Dolly's heart of its worst dread.

'Will you go back into court?' asked the colonel.

'You don't wish it, Dolly?' said her father.

'Oh no! please not.'

'Then,' said the colonel, 'take your father back to the room at the hotel, and we will come to you. I suppose this will not last much longer.'

'Probably not half an hour. I don't want to see that fellow either convicted or acquitted.'

Then Dolores found herself steered out of the pa.s.sages and from among the people waiting or gazing, into the clearer s.p.a.ce in the street, her father holding her hand as if she had been a little child. Neither of them spoke till they had reached the sitting-room, and there, the first thing he did when the door was shut, was to sit down, take her between his knees, put an arm round her, and kiss her, saying again, 'My poor child!'

'You never got my letter!' she said, leaning against him, feeling the peace and rest his embrace gave.

'No; but I have heard all. I should have warned you, Dolly; but I never imagined that he could get at you there; and I was unwilling to accuse one for whom your mother had a certain affection.'

'That was why I helped him,' whispered Dolores.