CHAPTER XLVIII.
HOW WILL IT END?
“You are mad, Hermione,” cried Kenelm Eyrle. “You cannot mean it; it is not true.”
“It is true,” she replied; “that dagger was mine, and I—hear me, Kenelm Eyrle—I confess it, I did the deed. I, and I alone, am guilty!”
“My God!” he cried, “it is surely impossible. Those hands of yours are surely not stained with crimes so abhorrent.”
“I am guilty,” she said, “and I alone. Do your worst to me now.”
“I refuse to believe you. I cannot credit it. You to do such a deed.”
“Yes,” she replied, and there was no hesitation, nor fear in her voice, “I did it, Kenelm; I am guilty.”
He stood in silence, his emotion too great for words. This gentle, gracious, lovely lady a murderess! Ronald innocent after all? She, whom he had looked upon as pure and peerless, guilty of this monstrous crime?
“I cannot believe it,” he repeated.
“Yes; it is true, I would not have told you had you promised to let the dread memory of it die. I would not have mentioned it if you had promised to—to spare my husband. Guilty as I am, I dare not double my guilt by letting him die for what was my crime.”
He was still looking at her, as though he were in a dream.
“Do with me what you will,” she said. “I prayed, I pleaded for Ronald’s life; I do not even ask for mine.”
“Why not?”
“Even would you give it to me, the gift is not worth having. I lay it down more cheerfully than, if you gave it to me, I should take it up.”
“Why—why did you not tell me before; why let me blame Ronald for one moment, if he be innocent?”
“I should not have told you all unless I had been compelled. I hid my guilt while I could save Ronald. I own it now.”
“You know the penalty you must pay?” he said, sadly.
“Yes; you will bring me to trial. I shall plead guilty and die—ah, me!—I should die, Kenelm. I would rather die than live. I shall leave my little ones a legacy to Heaven.”
“Hermione,” he said, “you are mad—this sudden shock has turned your brain. You are most surely mad.”
“I was mad when I stood by and heard you blame Ronald for my faults. I am sane now.”
“Guilty!” he murmured, “my lifelong friend, the companion of my young, happy days. Sweet Hermione, who never injured even a worm, who was so tender of the little birds in their nests, who would step aside lest she should bruise a blossom or crush a flower, guilty of that horrible deed!”
“Yes, guilty,” she said. “I repeat it again and again—guilty of the crime.”
“But how, why—oh, Hermione! why did you seek to injure her?”
“Do you not know that she had come between me and the man I loved; that she had taken my love’s heart from me and made it her own?—did you not know that, and is it not motive sufficient?”
“It is,” he replied, still more sadly, “and yet, Hermione, I cannot believe it was you. My reason recoils from anything so monstrous.”
“It is my fault,” she said, “and I am tired of my life. I am weary even unto death.”
“Hermione,” he said, “I had rather died than have made this discovery.”
“There is an old saying, ‘Murder will out.’” she replied, with the dreariest and most ghastly smile.
“It is like some horrible dream to me,” he cried. “I would to Heaven that I could wake.”
“You will never wake from that,” she replied; and then deep silence fell over them again.
Suddenly he went over to her chair.
“Hermione,” he said, “my nerves fail me. I cannot hurt you. Save yourself if you can. When I went away from you just now I sent a telegram to Scotland Yard to say the murderer was found.”
“The detectives will come down here, then?” she said, wearily.
“Yes. I tell you, for I cannot injure you.”
“You think so now,” she said, calmly; “but in a few days when the first shock has worn away, your old desire, your old thirst for justice, will come back, and you will do then what you shrink from doing now. It has been a long struggle. Let it end. If you do not give me up to justice, I will give myself up.”
She looked at him and a light that did not seem to be of earth came over her face.
“Kenelm,” she said, “I must ask you one favor. Do not let my story be made public until I am condemned.”
“Have you, then, no wish to live, Hermione?”
“None!” she replied, and the despair on her face was plainly written. He knew that she spoke the truth.
“It is an awful doom,” he said, rather to himself than to her—“a terrible doom! Would to Heaven I could save you from it. Are you ill, Hermione?”
For the last remnant of color had faded from her lips, even the light left her eyes.
“Are you ill?” he repeated. “Speak to me, Hermione.”
“No; I am not ill. It was only a strange fluttering here at my heart, as though it had stopped beating. Kenelm, help me to realize my doom!”
He shuddered as she asked the question:
“Tell me in plain words what I have to bear.”
“It is too horrible, Hermione. I cannot look at you and do it.”
“Then turn your eyes from me, but tell me—let me know.”
“If it be true that you have committed this crime you will be tried for it.”
“Tried—where—tell me all about it, Kenelm, I am so ignorant.”
“You will be taken from here to Lowestone Prison to await your trial on the charge of willful murder. Hermione, you are ill and are hiding it from me.”
She laughed with scornful despair.
“Can you care for my being ill when you have hunted me down to death?” she said. “How absurd that seems, Kenelm. I am not ill, but there is a strange feeling at my heart as though my strength were failing. It will not hurt me—go on! I shall be tried at Lowestone. Can I take the children, or must I say good-by to them forever?”
“You cannot take them, of course, Hermione. You can employ the best counsel in England; you can have the best defense.”
“I shall make no defense; I shall say nothing, but plead guilty, guilty of all. After that, what next?”
“Your sentence,” he replied, and the words died away on his lips.
“What will it be?” she asked.
“I cannot tell. My God! am I dreaming? Is it you, Hermione, asking me these terrible questions as though they concerned any other rather than yourself? I dare not think what it will be—the bare thought of you, a delicate, high-bred, gentle woman undergoing so shameful a death fills me with horror too great for words. I will not believe you did it,” he cried passionately, his face flushing with sudden hope.
“And I tell you,” she replied, with the same air of weariness and dejection, “that I am guilty of it all, and that I shall plead guilty before any judge in England. The law may do its worst to me; it can inflict no torture worse than life. I suppose, though, you will not tell me so, Kenelm, that I must die for the crime.”
He turned from her with a low moan.
“I thought my heart was harder,” he said. “I can bear no more, Hermione.”
“I have but one more question to ask. When will your detective arrive?”
“To-morrow,” he replied. “I am going, Hermione. I can bear no more.”
“You will not tell my father nor my mother until after I am gone, Kenelm?”
“I will not, and how I shall tell them only God knows.”
The next moment he had gone, leaving her alone.
“I will go back and look at my children,” she said. “I may not see them again.”
She went to the nursery, with that same strange, fluttering pain at her heart.
She bent over them and kissed them with a passion of tears.
“How shall I leave you?” she moaned. “How can I part from you? I go forth to shame and death, but you will know all in heaven.”
Then her heart gave way, and she wept until her very soul seemed exhausted and she could weep no more. Little Harry stirred in his sleep, and she soothed him with gently murmured words. Who would soothe them when she was gone? Who would tell them how dearly she had loved them, and how well she loved them? Who would whisper the name of the disgraced mother?
She ceased weeping at last, and a look of calm came over her face.
“God knows,” she said, as she laid her tired head on the pillow to rest. “God knows, and the children will know in another world.”