Innocent

“You remember the morning of the 21st of October?” said the counsel for the prosecution.

“Oh, indeed, alas! I do,” said the poor woman, the tears coming to her eyes. This injudicious warmth of assent was indicated to her as something wrong by the sharp cough of Mr. Serjeant Ryder, who, however, did not look at her; but Sir Alexis did, and Nelly, who clasped her hands and fixed an entreating glance on her mother, full of unutterable things. These warnings did, I think, less good than harm, for they confused the unfortunate witness beyond description.

“Something remarkable, then, happened on that morning? The prisoner was absent from home, so far as I understand, on the day before?”

“She was on a visit at her cousin’s, near Sterborne,” said Mrs. Eastwood, “or at least so I thought.”

“I see from the depositions,” continued the counsel, “that the prisoner arrived suddenly at your house on the morning of the 21st. Will you be good enough to inform the court of the circumstances attending her return home?”

Mrs. Eastwood paused; she gave an anxious look round, to her daughter, to Sir Alexis, finally to the familiar countenance of the judge, who seemed to look at her with that twinkle in his eye of incipient sarcasm and amusement which she had encountered before. She met, too, from a distant corner the frowning, peremptory look of Frederick, who, being far off, raised a finger to her in warning—warning of what? She drew a long breath of reluctance and fear.

“I hope I need not tell a lady of your education,” said the counsel peremptorily, “that hesitation can only harm the unfortunate prisoner. No prevarication will help her. Everybody must feel for your very painful position; but you are pledged, I must remind you, to conceal nothing, to inform the court of the truth. The prisoner came home suddenly on the morning of Sunday, the 21st of October. You did not expect her, believing her to be safe with her relation?”

“I did not expect her,” said Mrs. Eastwood, faltering; “she was to have stayed for some weeks; still, as she was a little peculiar in her ways of acting, and very fond of home, and frightened of strangers, I should not have been surprised, at any time——”

“You were surprised, however, on this particular morning? Come, madam, the court is waiting. I understand you were not up when the prisoner burst suddenly into your room?”

“She did not burst into my room at all,” said Mrs. Eastwood with indignation. “When I opened my eyes, roused by the sound of the door opening, I saw her by my side.”

“This was at a very early hour in the morning, before the other members of the household were up?”

“It was about seven o’clock. The housemaid had let my poor child in as soon as she went down-stairs. She came to me, naturally—”

“And when you woke under these unusual circumstances, and saw her by your bedside, what did the prisoner say?”

Again Mrs. Eastwood paused. She threw once more a bewildered look round the court. Then recovering herself, she turned with the dignity of sorrow to the judge himself. “My lord,” she said firmly, “I don’t know what to do. The words I have to repeat will shock and startle every one who hears them; they will convey a false impression—they will create a prejudice——”

“The witness has no power of choice in the matter,” said the judge. “It is for the jury to decide what is true and what is false. The facts are what we must exact from you.”

Mrs. Eastwood grew very pale, so pale that all the women in the court believed she was going to faint, and the greater part of them grew sick with sympathy. “Then,” she said, in a very low voice, which, however, was heard everywhere, so great was the silence, “if I must tell it, this was what she said: ‘I have killed Frederick’s wife.’”

A long-drawn, sobbing breath of spent excitement, so universal as to reach to a subdued but distinct sound, came from the crowd. The witness stood for a moment leaning upon the front of the box, seeing nothing but a mist of white faces—her brain whirling, her mind confused, with the shock. It did not occur to her—how should it?—that her reluctance, her paleness, her misery, were all so many additions to the force of her testimony. What more terrible witness could have appeared against Innocent than one out of whom this terrible testimony had to be dragged as from the bottom of her heart?

Some few moments elapsed before she knew very well what she was saying after this. She replied mechanically to the questions put to her, but she did not wake up to a full sense of what she was doing till she found herself narrating her visit to Sterborne on the next day. Then as she recovered her senses gradually, and began to discriminate once more out of the sea of faces those which interested herself most deeply, she awoke to the importance of all she was saying. She threw herself into this easier narrative. She remembered everything—her confusion and bewilderment passed away. It is so much easier to recollect, to explain, to record fully, events which are not against you, which are rather in your favour! Her account of all she saw and heard was so clear that it did much to neutralize the damning effect of her former testimony. Yet what could neutralize such a confession—“I have killed Frederick’s wife”? Why should the girl say such a thing, was asked on every side, if it was not true?

Jane, the housemaid—the cause of the trial—the traitor who had betrayed Innocent, came next to corroborate Mrs. Eastwood’s testimony; but with so very different an intention! and Jane produced a little reaction in Innocent’s favour by her evident desire to exaggerate, and anxiety to improve upon her former evidence. The lawyers fought over her for some time, and Mr. Serjeant Ryder managed to elicit several facts very detrimental to Jane’s private character, although noways affecting her story, for when she was done that story remained plain enough.

“I have killed Frederick’s wife!” These words were simple enough to remain in any one’s memory, and terrible enough to require no aggravation. “She was a-kneeling by the bedside,” said Jane, “holding her aunt by the arm. Neither on ’em saw me. She had something clasped tight in her hand——”

“Something in her hand? What was that?” the counsel for the prosecution demanded eagerly.

“I don’t know what it was,” said Jane. “No, I didn’t name it before. I didn’t think as it could be of any importance. I saw as she had her hand clasped tight when I let her in; but I couldn’t see what it was——”

Mrs. Eastwood was recalled, and desired to explain this previously unnoted circumstance. She came back into the witness-box very pale, knowing by instinct what was coming. And bit by bit the damning parts were dragged from her. Faltering and pale, and reluctant, she described the little phial which Innocent herself had held out to her, to prove her wild story, and admitted that she had put it away, feeling it to be of importance. Afterwards, when her drawers were put in order, some one, “by accident,” had thrown it away. It had been done against her will. She had been much distressed—but it was by accident. To this story she clung with a kind of blank despair. All that she knew when she tottered out of the box was that she had not committed Frederick, or involved him in the matter. But it would be impossible to exaggerate the fatal effect of this confused and faltering story. For the first time the audience and the jury began to believe in Innocent’s guilt——

There was a momentary instinctive pause after this momentous piece of evidence, and then the doctors were called who had examined poor Amanda’s remains. Into the terrible details of such an examination I need not enter. They had been able to add nothing to the elucidation of the mystery; time had extinguished all trace of the poison, if poison there was. The only medical witness whose evidence was of any importance was young Mr. Sweteson, of Sterborne, who had been the assistant partner of the doctor whom Jenny Eastwood was now pursuing across Europe—and had once or twice visited Mrs. Frederick Eastwood. He was aware that she had suffered from a disease of the heart, which gave his former principal much anxiety. For his own part, the young man said, with the confidence of youth, he had not shared that alarm. This young doctor had no prejudice against Innocent; he was, on the contrary, touched by her pathetic history. But he was on “the other side.” Though the witnesses at such a trial are called in the interest of truth only, and though humanity, justice, and natural feeling all urge upon them the necessity of bearing their testimony without bias, it is, I think, certain that every man summoned for the prosecution has a natural tendency to make the worst, and every man summoned for the defence a disposition to make the best, of the case. The present witness yielded quite unconsciously to this natural impulse. He did not agree, he said (not informing the court how small were his opportunities of forming an opinion), with his former colleague. He believed Mrs. Frederick Eastwood’s complaint to be chiefly fanciful—the vapours of a foolish and high-tempered woman—dangerous enough to the comfort of her family, if you liked, but not dangerous to her, unless indeed she had broken a blood-vessel in one of her fits of passion, he added, somewhat contemptuously, or done herself bodily harm in some other way. Serjeant Ryder examined this witness closely as to the time necessary for the operation of an overdose of opium, a question in which the court in general did not show itself greatly interested. The day had been warm, the court was very full, the interest of the great audience waned as the drowsy afternoon drooped towards evening; and it became apparent that no decision could be arrived at. The cross-examination of the doctor delayed the proceedings in a way which the audience thought tiresome, and which puzzled the honest jury, who did not see what was meant by it. The same feeling of weariness which had come upon the audience in general, and which was evinced by all those restless movements, coughs, and flutterings of going and coming, which prove to every public speaker when interest begins to fail, had come, I suppose, upon Innocent too, though she had not followed the proceedings with any intellectual attention to speak of. She was roused, however—I cannot tell how—by all that had occurred. What Aunty had said of her, and what the maids had said of her, had penetrated vaguely, taking some time to do so, into her torpid brain. And quite suddenly, while the young doctor and the counsel for the defence were still carrying on their duel on the scientific question, the whole assembly was suddenly thrilled, electrified, galvanized back again into interest. The people behind stood up, those in front bent forward, the official persons roused themselves in a sudden flutter, the usher of the court rushed to the rescue, the counsel started to their feet in dismay, the very judge on the bench began to telegraph wildly. The cause of this commotion was that Innocent herself had spoken. She was called to on all hands, as if the soft girlish voice could revolutionize the state. “Silence!” “Prisoner at the bar, you cannot be allowed to speak.” “You must be silent, Lady Longueville.” “Innocent, hush! hush! you must not speak!”—all these addresses were made to her loud and low, in every accent of authority, persuasion, and tenderness. Innocent took no notice. She went on—her clear, youthful voice sounding through theirs as the song of a bird sounds through the clang of an explosion. She paid no attention to the looks any more than the words addressed to her. Simple as she was, I suppose the thrill of sudden interest about her—the immediate turning of every eye upon her—stimulated and encouraged her mind. She put out her hand and gently pushed away the woman from the prison who attended her, and whose zeal to stop her was vehement. She said what she had to say through all the cries and remonstrances addressed to her. Whosoever does so singly and steadily is sure, I suppose, of a hearing at the end.

“You have asked them things they do not know,” she said; “why do not you ask me? I know more. It was I that was with her. I will tell you if you will listen to me. Please tell them to be still, please! for what I want is to save you trouble. No, please go away! I will go with you when I have told them. (This was to the prison matron, who had again clutched at her.) It is quite true, except that I never wanted to be with her, to be in the room at all. When I went up to her without Frederick she was very angry and scolded. I said to her, ‘Do not be angry, it does not hurt any one so much as you. They say it will kill you, if you do not stop; and it cannot kill any one else.’ Then she was quiet, and I read to her; and then she fell asleep, and I suppose I fell asleep too. Mr. Molyneux, will you tell them to be quiet, please! I woke when she shook me, holding my arm. I tried to drop the drops for her, as she told me. I tried twice, and emptied it out, for I could not. Then I went again close to the bed to try if I could do it—(Oh, silence, please! silence, as you say.) She caught hold of my arm again. She shook me. Almost all the bottle went into the glass. She took it out of my hand and drank it. That is how it was. Yes, I will be silent now, if you wish it. I will go away if you wish it. That is how it was.”

The cries all died into silence as Innocent’s voice ended. Her unlawful interposition had woke the hubbub, and it ceased when she ceased. Not half the audience could possibly have heard, but that half was in wild excitement, while the rest, who had not, struggled with equally wild determination to get better places, or to ask from those who had heard it what she had said. An indescribable scene of confusion followed. The afternoon air was stifling and heavy, the long day was at an end, a thunder-cloud had come over the sun, which was near its setting, and darkened one side of the court-house, while the light came in pale and weird on the other, pouring in a gleam of illumination from the pallid sky out of which the storm was about to break. This gleam fell full upon Innocent’s pale face, still tremulous with the excitement—if excitement it could be called—of her self-revelation, and upon that of Nelly, who stood up unawares in her agitation near her, and whose likeness to her cousin—invisible in happier moments—came out now with the most curious force. After that one amazed, affrighted pause, which was not unlike the pause before the storm outside, renewed cries of “Silence!” and “Clear the court!” were heard. The whole scene was like the brewing of a popular tumult.

“Remove the prisoner,—the court will adjourn till to-morrow,” said the powerful voice of the judge, and the papers added that he made an indignant remonstrance as to the failure of the officials in keeping order, and the extraordinary breach of decorum which they had just witnessed. But if such remarks were made, no one heard them. The court broke up. Mr. Justice Molyneux, with a solemn face, went to his solemn lodging, devoting Innocent in his heart to all the infernal gods, and groaning over the unhappy destiny which had brought her case into his hands, while the streets about suddenly filled with a buzzing crowd, all the inns swarming with groups eager for the discussion of the case—and their dinner. Torrents of rain, pouring down out of the black skies, soon swept from the streets all the eager clusters of people who discussed out of doors the one only subject of the day. Carriages stood under shelter through the storm, or lingered in the courtyards of the hotels in the High Street, till the worst of the thunder was over; but, going or coming on the ways, there was nothing talked of, nor thought of, but Innocent. Was she innocent?—was she guilty? Was it accident, a mistake, the misadventure of a frightened child; or was it the crime of a wildly passionate woman, to secure to herself the man she loved? In all Sterrington there was nothing talked of but the trial. The entire population fought over it, taking different sides, and waiting with an excitement which had something pleasurable in it for the morrow which should decide.

How the Eastwoods and the Vanes waited for that morrow, crowding together in the little sitting-room opposite the prison, one or another of the women sitting constantly at the window, watching with eyes full of tears the other high window opposite, with messengers coming and going from the lawyers—from the railway and telegraph office, to see if there was any news from Jenny—I cannot venture to record. But to tell how Innocent spent the night is easy. She slept—such sleep as comes to the beloved of heaven—and woke in the morning with a smile upon her lips, thinking she was in the little church of the Spina and saying “Our Father” before she woke.

CHAPTER XLVIII.

THE SECOND DAY.

Next day the Town Hall was more crowded than ever. The sleep of the town—I might say of the county also—had been uneasy and broken. The place was torn asunder by faction as it never before had been known to be. The Longuevillists were the strongest party; the Battyists the most virulent. The one insisted upon poor Innocent’s youth, beauty, strange fortunes, and pitiful, appealing looks, which they said were enough to melt the heart of a stone. The other cried out indignantly that had she been a poor girl, and not Lady Longueville, all this pity would have been spared, that nobody would have cared what happened to her, that she would have been left to her fate. The first were ready to forgive her love for Frederick, which everybody on both sides took for granted, partly from the evidence, partly from those unspoken, unconscious currents of rumour which come on every wind; and, indeed, many of Innocent’s partisans held in their secret heart that it was quite possible she might have done it, but forgave her for the sake of her sweet face. Everybody accordingly rushed to the scene of action almost by daylight next morning. There were people who had been sitting there for hours before the judge made his appearance, to secure a seat. Miss Vane, who had gained a victory over herself during the course of the previous day, who had accepted the mortification as for her good, and decided to her satisfaction that poor Innocent’s terrible misfortune was “a judgment” on her own pride, took heart of grace to accompany Nelly to her place near the bar, thus declaring openly that she too “stood by” her cousin. Nelly, who had grown very pale and hollow-eyed, for whom this trial had involved more than appeared, whose eyes, when she could spare them from Innocent, cast furtive glances through the crowd, wondering if it was possible that any one who had ever said he loved her could keep away from her now, was very glad of Miss Vane’s support. I doubt, however, whether Innocent was so much as conscious of it. She had fallen into a passive state, and stood at the bar with the early morning sunshine falling upon her girlish, pallid countenance, like an image of silent Patience, leaning upon the rail against which she stood, declining to take the seat they offered her. The weary strain was becoming too much for the girl’s immature and delicate frame. She did not look at either judge or jury that day, but fixed her eyes upon a bit of blue sky which appeared through a window, and stood unconscious of anything else, gazing into that—longing to be out of doors, out of this close, crowded place, out of the surrounding walls, the throng of people, and the solitude which alternated with that publicity. “When do you think it will be over? When do you think they will let me go?” she said, in the voice which had grown more plaintive and childlike than ever, to the woman who stood by her.

“Hush, my lady! you mustn’t speak to-day, or you’ll get us all into trouble,” the woman replied. Yet Innocent repeated the question at intervals through the weary day. How bright it was, that gleam of sky!—how pleasant it would be to be out, to be in the sunshine, among the flowers at Longueville, or, sweeter still, in the Lady’s Walk, with the history book, and the primroses making all the grass golden. These were the thoughts that went through her mind as she stood through the second weary day, grown too weary to attend, thinking only of the primroses, while she was being tried for her life.

The case for the prosecution had not been closed. The remaining evidence was trifling in substance, but horribly important in scope. It was chiefly made up of bits of conversation in which Innocent had expressed her love for Frederick—and her dislike of Frederick’s wife. The former suppositious sentiment was very easy to prove, and the poor girl had never hesitated to express the latter feeling. One of the witnesses was a Sister from the High Lodge, who gave her evidence very reluctantly, but with almost as damning an effect as that of Mrs. Eastwood on the previous day, for Innocent had unfolded to this lady her conviction that such people should not live. On the close of her evidence the counsel for the prosecution spoke. He drew a touching picture of the poor young wife deserted by a fickle husband, hearing his steps below as he walked and talked with another, yet subduing her painful feeling, receiving that other with kindness, and with touching confidence admitting her to her sick room. Then he pictured the course of thought which might have arisen in the mind of a girl not wholly bad, yet distracted by a lawless love, and with the power in her hands of sweeping her rival from the face of the earth, probably without suspicion or discovery. What so easy? had not she the means in her hand? He represented her as stung and roused by the reproaches which probably the young wife on suddenly awaking might address to her, and, fired by sudden resentment, rushing to “the fatal draught” which was before her. He commented upon her wild flight, her confession, the remorse which had evidently seized her, the terror, which it was evident her friends had shared. He pointed out the strange and lurid light which the destruction of the phial, an incident unknown to the prosecution before yesterday, threw upon the whole question. When he ended the assembly had all decided against Innocent in their hearts; the jurymen, pale and almost stupefied by the thought, looked at her, wondering how they could find a Lady Longueville, a beautiful young woman, guilty, and trying to steel their hearts to that terrible duty. Half the women in the place (and there were a great many) were weeping. Good heavens! was it proved, then? was she guilty, that child? The hopes of her friends fell. Nelly sank back in her seat, covering her white face with her trembling hands. Sir Alexis continued to stand up with his arms folded on his breast, and a face like yellow marble, or old ivory, so ghastly did it look, every sign of youth gone out of it, steeling himself to bear whatever was to come.

The evidence for the defence seemed at the first glance very insignificant. It was chiefly directed to one point. The first witnesses called were two railway officials, who proved that the up-train passed through Sterborne at 12.45 every night, that it was seldom more than ten minutes late, being an express train to town with few stoppages, and that on the night of the 20th October it had left Sterborne station at 12.50 exactly. The only other witness of any importance produced was a London physician of eminence, who proved that no opiate, even though administered in a very large quantity, could by any possibility produce death within the time indicated by the evidence. The sleep which preceded death would no doubt have set in (he said), but that was very distinct and easy to be distinguished from any fit of fainting or temporary unconsciousness. “The merest tyro in medicine must know as much as this,” he added, with a contempt of the country practitioner who had maintained an opposite opinion. This was absolutely the whole of the case for the defence. The speech of Mr. Serjeant Ryder was equally brief and pithy. He pointed out the vagueness of the evidence as to hour, and the fact that by the longest computation two hours was all the time allowed for such a sequence of events as the prosecution attempted to set forth; for the conception and carrying out of a murder by poison, the death of the deceased, the flight of the prisoner, all the developments of this tragic drama. Never drama on the stage went more quickly, he cried; and he showed how innocent fright and panic might have quite naturally produced every sign which was put forth as a sign of guilt. What more natural than that, seeing her charge die before her eyes, her simple and somewhat feeble (as the court had perceived) and undeveloped intelligence should jump at the idea that she had herself been partially instrumental in the terrible event she had witnessed? He pointed put that the only inference which could be drawn from the testimony of those witnesses who had been present on the occasion was that the death of the deceased had been instantaneous, whereas Dr. Frankfort had proved to them beyond dispute that no death by opium could be instantaneous, that the poison required a certain time to do its work, a time which was not afforded by the short interval between eleven o’clock, which the witness Johnson had heard striking while the voice of the deceased was still loud and angry, and 12.40, when the unfortunate prisoner left Sterborne by the train. These dates, he added, placed the case beyond the category of possibilities. And with this brief and unsensational address he sat down.

All this—the case for the defence altogether—did not occupy an hour. The audience held their breath. They stared at each other like people fallen from some sudden height. Was it possible that they had been spending their interest and tears all for nothing?—for an untenable case, a thing which had been from the commencement impossible, had they taken the trouble to examine. The jurymen’s faces lighted up. After all, it might not be necessary to convict the young creature who was called “my lady.” They would have recommended her to mercy, no doubt, and done everything they could to cancel their decision had they been compelled to make one in an adverse sense. But now their relieved feelings showed in their countenances, which brightened to the new possibilities unfolded before them. One or two only remained cloudy. The rest prepared with a cheerful confidence, seeing themselves almost out of the wood, and as eager to be relieved as Innocent, to hear the judge’s summing up. Mr. Justice Molyneux was very great in this grand point of a judge’s duty. It was one of “the greatest intellectual treats” to hear him. But perhaps he was not quite himself that day. He commented upon the evidence in a style which was not marked by his usual force and freedom. He said something civil about Mrs. Eastwood. He noticed slightly the touching, though altogether irregular, address of the prisoner. He pointed out to the jury that, though circumstances had at one time seemed overwhelmingly against her, and though her own evident impression that she was guilty, her precipitate flight, her repeated confession, seemed in one point of view to establish her guilt, there was a more charitable interpretation to be put on all these strange proceedings. It was possible, as the prisoner’s counsel had suggested, that simple fright and terror might be at the bottom of them, instead of guilt. Other cases had occurred in which an innocent person had accused himself of terrible crimes such as he had never committed. The jury was called upon to weigh all these contending arguments with the most serious care, and judge whether the panic of guilt or the panic of mere fright was at work upon the mind of the prisoner. He need not tell them that where there was a doubt she was entitled to the benefit of that doubt. The conduct and avowals of the prisoner herself made the chief foundation the prosecution had to build upon, and the destruction of the phial by the prisoner’s family was no doubt very strongly against her. The judge then called their attention to the only, but most important, point on which the defence was founded. It was backed by an authority which, to many people, would seem infallible; but yet there were minds to which no one is infallible, and it was proverbial that doctors differed on the most important subjects. If they believed that Dr. Frankfort was right, and that poisoning by opium was impossible in so short a time, then their only course would be to acquit the prisoner; but if, on the other hand, they proposed to take the opinion of a younger disciple of Esculapius, then the case remained as the very able and striking speech of the counsel for the prosecution left it. Fortunately, the whole matter lay in a nutshell. If they accepted the confessions of the prisoner, which some minds might be inclined to do—for there could be no doubt that an unsolicited confession of guilt was a very grave matter, and could not be disregarded—and considered the after circumstances as confirmatory of her guilt, they would find her guilty, though he did not think that even in that case there was any evidence to prove premeditation, and the offence must bear a less solemn appellation than that of murder; but if, on the other hand, they believed the distinct affirmation of the great physician whose evidence (delivered, he need not say, in the clearest and most satisfactory manner) they had just heard, they would understand that, notwithstanding her own impression of guilt, and whatever might be the intention with which the potion was administered, it was physically impossible that the prisoner could have committed the crime laid to her charge.

There was a pause when the judge finished, then an attempt at applause, suppressed by the officials, who, after their failure on the previous day to silence Innocent, were doubly on the alert. Then the crowd grew suddenly still, and every man looked at his neighbour. The excitement grew intense. The next sound everybody felt must be the words of the verdict, the “Guilty” or “Not Guilty,” which should be life or death. I will not attempt to describe the feelings of those principally concerned. I think they had come to that point when feeling becomes impossible, the mind having gone through all its stages. They waited, not daring to look up, not daring to think. The two least concerned were the accused and her counsel. She because that gleam of sky through the window had caught her wandering soul; he because he felt sure of his verdict. And thus they waited in the silence, in the awful suspense which subdues a great, rustling, restless crowd into unnatural, many-breathing stillness, waiting for the issues of life and death.

What visions went and came in that moment! Nelly with her feverish eyes saw—or was it a dream?—Ernest’s face look out from the depths of the crowd and then vanish. Sir Alexis saw, not a scaffold—that was impossible—but a gloomy array of prisons, rising one beyond another, as the suspense continued. Death in life—would not that be worse than death itself?

CHAPTER XLIX.

DELIVERED.

Mr. Justice Molyneux had his own troubles on that painful day. He disliked having anything to do with cases in which what he called “private feeling” must be more or less involved. He was angry with the Eastwoods for being connected prospectively with himself, and with Innocent for being connected with the Eastwoods. He was angry with his son for keeping on that lingering, absurd engagement which ought to have come to a conclusion one way or another a year ago. He hoped now that Ernest would see his folly; and yet privately within himself the man who—whatever he was besides—was a man and no weakling, despised his son for not standing by the girl whom he professed to love. He had seen this girl, whom he himself had, so to speak, received into his family, to whom he had given a fatherly kiss as Ernest’s future wife, by herself, with the high though passive courage of a woman, standing by her cousin in her trouble; and though he was glad on the whole that his son “kept himself out of it,” yet in the depths of his soul he was ashamed that a son of his should have so poorly played the man. Had Ernest been there, dancing attendance on the family in trouble, his father would have denounced him as an incurable fool; but he would have respected him, notwithstanding his folly. Now, he was glad that things had turned out as they had done; but he despised Ernest, and blushed—so far as a judge and man of the world can blush—at the thought that he himself had been instrumental in bringing such a poor creature into the world. He was wroth, too, to have this wretched business prolonged for another day—to have those Eastwoods constantly before his eyes, and that solitary Nelly with her white face. They were as much in his way as ever Haman was to Mordecai. He hated to see them—he felt ashamed before them—he wished the business well over for the poor little idiot at the bar, who was as mad as a March hare no doubt, but pretty, poor thing! Mad for Frederick Eastwood? Heaven above, what idiots women are!

These reflections, however, did not interfere with his dinner, of which the excellent judge had great need—for hard work in which there is a mixture of emotion (as much emotion again as a judge can be expected to feel) is very exhausting, and whets a naturally excellent appetite. He had fortunately come to the end of the more substantial part of his repast, when a sudden message was brought to him. The jury had made up their minds! What was to be done? Were they to be held in vile durance for a whole night after this desirable result had been obtained? Was the accused to be kept in the agonies of suspense for the same period? And finally—which was, perhaps, the most important of all—was business to be delayed next morning by the re-introduction of this case, which had already taken up the court during two days? The judge made up his mind, though not without some internal groanings. He called his retinue about him; sent hasty warnings to the counsel for the different sides, and to all the principal parties involved; and, donning his robes, took his way once more to the Town Hall, causing great commotion among the groups in the streets. Lights were hastily lighted, doors hastily thrown open, and the agitated street emptied itself at once in a throng—gentle and simple together—the ragamuffin and the righteous member of society for once in their lives side by side—into the dim and dingy Town Hall, with its huge, staring portraits of mayors and lord-lieutenants, faintly lighted up by the flaring gas, and its dust-coloured walls looking more dingy than ever in the unwonted light.

Innocent was seated on her poor bed, dull and passive and alone. She had ceased to think of the sky through the window and the world out of doors, and the hope of going home. To be without imagination is sometimes an advantage, but very often it is a great misfortune. Poor Innocent, being almost destitute of this quality, had not strength of vitality to remind herself that to-morrow was on its way, and might bring her deliverance. The dimness and the terrible solitude fell upon her like things eternal. She could not rouse herself to feel that this dreary night, which was again closing over her, would ever end. The darkness had fallen upon her mind like lead, weighing her down to the very ground. It seemed something from which she could never more get free, from which escape was impossible. She was not thinking. She was past the possibility of thought. She sat listless, in a dull trance of pain, incapable of motion or of feeling. When the key grated in the lock, when the door was suddenly thrown open, and figures dark against the light which streamed behind them rushed in with haste and excitement to call her, she rose, dazed and stupefied, because they told her to do so, tied on her little bonnet because they bade her, and followed for the same reason, with her faculties so dull and dead that nothing which could have happened would have roused, much less surprised her. She held mechanically by the woman who had attended during those two weary days, but she did not ask, not even of herself in her thoughts, where they were taking her, or what was the cause of this sudden interruption of the dismal stillness. The reign of phantasmagoria had come back again; the strange dingy court with its lights, the strange sea of faces, all whirled about the girl—something which had no connexion with her, no meaning, an inarticulate dream. She gazed straight before her with her scared eyes which saw nothing. She held fast to the woman, the only point of reality which felt steady in this whirl of sight and sound. What it meant was all dark to Innocent. A vague sense that something was about to be done to her crept gradually upon her bewildered faculties. Somehow, she could not tell how, the scene seemed to mingle with that old scene in the Methodist chapel, so that she could not tell whether some sudden chance had transported her there again, and whether these moving figures which seemed about to approach her were those of the men whom she had supposed to threaten her life. She turned wildly to look if there was any way of escape. Alas! this time poor Innocent could not flee. She was surrounded, shut in, secured on all sides. It seemed to her that she heard her own name out of the midst of that terrible, spectral crowd. Ah, what was coming? what was coming? With a cry which rang through the whole building, which reached the crowd outside, which echoed for days through the ears of every one who heard it, she shrank back into the corner where she stood, back, cowering and hiding her face with her hands.

What happened next? I do not think that Innocent ever knew. She was the centre of a confusion and tumult, from which after a while there slowly merged the face of Sir Alexis close to hers, quivering with emotion and joy. Then his voice, saying, “It is all over, my darling, we are going home——” then strange low cries and sounds of weeping—sounds in which Innocent benumbed had no power to join; then a breath of air, wild, sweet fresh air of the spring night, suddenly blowing upon her face as if it had never been caught and confined within four walls; and then she knew nothing more.

“The girl has gone mad,” said Mr. Justice Molyneux, as he threw off his robes, “and I have a dozen minds to commit the jurymen for wilful murder—well—or contempt of court if you will—it comes to much the same thing.”

She was acquitted—that was the end—whether or not too late to save her tottering reason no one knew. Even Batty himself and his warmest partisans had been struck dumb by that cry. “She’s got off; but the Lord hasn’t let her off,” cried some one of those virulent censors who are so ready to undertake that God must agree with them; but the crowd cried “Shame” upon the vindictive suggestion. They kept back the malcontents with instinctive sympathy while poor Innocent was half led, half carried out by a side door towards the rooms where Mrs. Eastwood, happily unconscious of the crisis, was trying to sleep after nights of sleepless anxiety. As Innocent was thus led away some one else rushed to the door of the Town Hall, meeting the crowd as it poured forth, meeting the lawyers who stood about in groups, discussing the matter. “I have brought the doctor!” he shouted vaguely at the wigged figure of Mr. Ryder, the only one distinguishable in the uncertain light. John Vane caught at the young man’s arm in the crowd. “It is all over,” he said, “thank God! She is safe, and it is all over.” Jenny Eastwood fell back upon the doctor, whom he had hunted after so long, whom he had brought so far, and who was now surrounded by a crowd of eager friends, shaking hands with him. If he had been but a year or two younger I think the boy would have cried in the bitterness of his disappointment. All this for nothing! and Innocent saved without him, when he was away, without any need of his services! Though he gulped his trouble down in a moment, and faced John Vane, who was looking at him kindly, with a countenance instantaneously subdued out of the quiver of pain that had passed over it, Jenny had as sharp a pang to bear in that moment as might have supplied discomfort enough for a year. “Never mind. It was best to do it anyhow,” he said, feeling the sting go through and through him, and scarcely conscious of anything else.

“Quite right,” said Vane; “though like most great efforts it is not to have any reward. Come home with me, Jenny. They are all here. I don’t think we could have lived out another night.”

“Who are ‘we’?” said Jenny cautiously.

“All of us,” said Vane, with the water in his eyes. He could have cried too, for other motives than those of Jenny. He had not thought of himself—he had not even in his generosity thought of Nelly until that moment. But he had been with her constantly during the few days which appeared to them all like so many years. He had stood by her when there was no one else to stand by her, when even her mother, as a witness, was not allowed to be with her child. He had been Nelly’s brother, her support, her companion; he and not the other; and was the other to come in now, when all was over, to take the reward which he had not earned, to share the ease when he had not shared the trouble? A poignant sense of injustice began immediately to combat in Vane’s mind with a great many other feelings. Is there any simple, unmingled feeling, any primitive unity of thought, possible to men in these days? something of the sort had been forced upon all this group during Innocent’s danger; they had been conscious of but one thought and one purpose, that of saving her. But now that she was saved, do you suppose that simple joy was enough to fill up these complex souls? They were all off in a moment, each into his separate labyrinth, conscious of the relief, but chiefly because that relief allowed the presence of other evils to be felt. Jenny, poor boy, had a very tangible cause for his disappointment. He had laboured in vain, and spent his strength for nought, and the others who had not done half so much as he had got the reward. Thus his feelings were somewhat analogous to those which had burst into sudden life in the mind of Vane. Both of them mastered their feelings, and began to talk of the trial, and how it had come to this happy issue. But the man and the boy felt very much alike in the sudden shock and revulsion. They had laboured and suffered, and others had the reward.

Dear reader, I will not insist upon carrying you into all the strange excitement which filled those little lodgings. Innocent, when she was taken into the unknown room, seemed to have suddenly frozen again into the Innocent who had arrived two years before at The Elms. She suffered Nelly to hang about her, to place her in a chair, to bring her a footstool, to take off her bonnet with the same passive stare which had bewildered them all in the old days. I believe if Frederick had come in at that moment she would have turned to him as she had then, falling back upon her first friend. But Frederick, fortunately, was not there. The mob, not willing altogether to lose a victim, and urged on by certain hot partisans of Batty, had detected him on his way to his mother’s lodgings, and had so hooted and mobbed and jeered him, that he had taken refuge in high disgust and profound humiliation in the railway station. Frederick, as I have often said, held reputation high, though he did a great deal in secret to forfeit it; and this vulgar assault and the supreme horror of hearing himself called names—himself, Frederick Eastwood, the most important figure in the world to his own thinking—so worked upon him, coupled with the sense that a few ruffians even lingered without to renew the operation as soon as he re-appeared, that he took the next train for London, telegraphing from thence to Sir Alexis his joy and congratulations. He had not cut a very exalted figure altogether at the trial of his cousin for the murder of his wife. The Sealing Wax Office is too important a branch of the economy of the State not to have departments in the larger colonies, and branches all over the world. Frederick accepted a colonial appointment the very next day. It was the only thing to be done in his circumstances; and, except his mother, I doubt if any one much regretted his departure; but mothers have a way of thinking well of their children—a prejudice which, perhaps, if not very wise, is still good for the world.

Innocent was roused a little out of her stupor when she was taken up-stairs to the room where Mrs. Eastwood lay, trying to rest, because she had promised to do so, and wondering what the sounds might be down-stairs, the sounds of as many feet passing outside, which honour and her promise forbade her from noticing. She gave a great cry, and sprang from her sofa to catch Innocent in her arms, when she was led in by Nelly in order that her mother’s eyes when she woke should open upon the saved one.

“As if I could sleep with one of you in danger!” Mrs. Eastwood cried, weeping. Innocent did not leave her all night, and gradually by slow degrees the warmth came back to her heart, as warmth and life come back to the limbs of a creature frozen and benumbed by drowning, or by exposure to the cold. When she slept, which was not for a long time, her smile came back to her in dreams, and then a faint shadow of colour to her white cheek; and when she woke, she woke herself again—the Innocent of Longueville, the budding, half-expanded soul who had begun to reward the toils of all those who had tended her. With wonder and joy they watched her—not mad, not vacant, not stupefied—recovering as a flower does that has been trodden upon, but from which no passing misfortune can take its elasticity. While they wondered and speculated whether it was safe to say anything to her of the proceedings of the past days, she went of herself to the window, and looked across at the dreary old prison walls. They saw her gazing at this dreary building, and waited, no one daring to speak. At last she turned to them with a soft smile.

“Which was my window?” she said.

They all came hurrying round to prove to her how safe she was, how entirely delivered from the gloomy durance of yesterday, and pointed it out to her with smiles and tears.

“That one!” said Innocent, still smiling. “I wish I had known it was so near. What a little way! and you sat here and watched me? It was almost the same as being at home.”

Why did they all kiss her, with those tears? She accepted the kisses and dried the tears with her handkerchief, with a half-laughing gesture like a child’s.

“Yes, almost the same,” she repeated, lingering upon the word with a strange, smiling pathos, which gave to it a double suggestiveness. She stood long at the window thus smiling, saying nothing more—as the soul may smile which has newly arrived in heaven—in a trance of celestial wonder to find out after all how little way it is from the prison window to the light of the everlasting home.

And after this she became perfectly tranquil, and prepared for her journey home, and did what she was told, with no apparent consciousness that anything very extraordinary had happened to her. Sir Alexis, much more shaken, looking old, as though ten years had passed over his head, was eager to take advantage of this calm, and carry her back to Longueville without delay.

“She must be ill—this cannot last. After all that she has gone through her health must give way sooner or later,” he said. But he was much more likely to be ill himself than was Innocent. She, in the simple unity of her feelings, had not felt half nor a third part so much as he had felt—as he felt still. For all the complications of sentiment, the horror of publicity, the man’s humiliation at having his domestic privacy intruded upon, at having his marriage discussed, his wife’s name bandied about from one vulgar mouth to another, every circumstance of his life laid bare, had no existence for Innocent. She had felt the actual horrors of loneliness, vague alarm, sickening personal terror, made stronger by ignorance. But these were all; and when she was alone no longer, when she was freed from her prison, surrounded by her friends, no longer frightened or forsaken, the weight was taken at once from Innocent’s head. She thought nothing of the publicity, and was not conscious of the shame.

But Sir Alexis was conscious of it—very conscious. He felt to his very heart that years would have to elapse before his young bride could be seen anywhere without being pointed out as “the woman who was tried for murder.” He knew that in society most people would believe, or at least say, whether they believed it or not, that she had been guilty; and that everybody would make sure that she had loved Frederick Eastwood, a hypothesis very galling to her husband. Thus, though Innocent was saved, he was not saved, nor could be all his life, from the consequences of this prosecution. The newspapers began to comment upon it immediately after its termination, and to characterize it as entirely vindictive—a case which no good barrister should have undertaken, for which no grand jury ought to have brought in a true bill. “Everybody knows that, under certain physical conditions, there is nothing so common as self-accusation,” said the Thunderer; “and that murder is the favourite crime selected by the victims of this mania.” These discussions were all in Innocent’s favour: but oh, how terrible is the favour of the newspapers to a young girl—a young wife of eighteen! Better a hundred times that they should even damn her instantaneously, and let her go!

Thus Sir Alexis hastened back with his bride to Longueville, telling her fondly that everything was over that could harm her, and that they should now begin their old, sweet life once more. But, alas! that sweet life was gone like the winter snow; for the man who was no longer young, who could not hope to live to forget or see it forgotten, that life would return no more.

CHAPTER L.

JENNY’S MEDITATION.

“Nelly, where is Molyneux?” asked her brother abruptly. Jenny had just come back from the railway-station, where he had been seeing Innocent off. He was not in a very light-hearted humour, I can scarcely tell why. The boy was a far-seeing boy,—he might have private reasons of his own which increased his predisposition to see things in an uncomfortable light; but, at all events, Jenny was of opinion that Innocent’s chances of happiness were somewhat diminished; and, being uncomfortable himself, he had no particular objection to make other people uncomfortable. Besides, he had perceived, with his quick eyes, that his sister had “something on her mind,”—and he was disposed to help her to deliver herself. Mrs. Eastwood and Nelly were going on a visit to Miss Vane at the High Lodge, and then they were to proceed to Longueville. They were all rather glad to escape from home and their anxious friends, until the great event of Innocent’s trial had lost something of its freshness and novelty. Mrs. Eastwood, too, was much shaken in health by all her anxieties and vigils; and to see Nelly’s pale face, with dark lines under the eyes, and the shadowy resemblance to Innocent, which grew more apparent as she grew sadder, was more than enough to warrant Jenny in his conclusion that she had something on her mind. She started nervously when he addressed this question to her. She had not so much as named Ernest to any one since they came to Sterrington, and in the excitement of other anxieties, and absorption of all things in Innocent, she had not been questioned on the subject even by her mother. This was one reason why Nelly was so pale:—she had to reveal to them all the change of affairs. She had to acknowledge to herself formally, in so many words, that it was all over. She had to wind up this chapter of her early life, and agree that it was ended, and communicate the fact to everybody. And Nelly, not feeling herself able to take the initiative, had been burdened and weighed down by the secret, which no one shared, more than I can say.

“Ernest?” she said, with a sudden flush, and then added, more quietly, “at home, I suppose,—for anything I know——”

“Why was he not here with you?” said Jenny, pursuing his inquiries steadily. “There was nothing to detain him, I know; for he did come to see how things were going on——”

“Ah! I was right, then!” said Nelly, “it was his face I saw.—Tell me what was the meaning of it, Jenny dear.—Tell me all you know.—How did you find out he had been here?—and why, why did he come here, without coming to me——?”

“Are you still fond of Molyneux, Nelly?”

“Oh, don’t ask me any questions,” she cried, with the impatience of suffering, “tell me all you know!”

“Look here,” said Jenny; “a great deal that is not nice is said about women. For my part I am inclined to stand up for women. I’m a woman’s son, which tells for something,—and a fellow that has been brought up to be your brother, Nelly, likes girls in a way.—But look here, it will go a long way to convince me that you are all people say—silly, pig-headed, unreasonable, and more fond of your own way than of anything else in the world,—if you, Nelly Eastwood, a girl of some sort of character, go and break your heart for that prig Molyneux, when you can have a brick like John Vane for the picking up——”

“Jenny! how dare you speak to me so?”

“Oh, as for daring, I’m not afraid of you,” said Jenny calmly, “nor I don’t mind what I say.—What, a fellow that leaves you in that court by yourself,—a fellow that knows all about law and that sort of thing, and never offers help or advice,—that’s ready to come in and take the good of you when we’re all well at home—but can’t stand by you for a day when you’re in trouble!—By Jove!” cried Jenny, who was not addicted to expletives,—“a whipper-snapper of a fellow at the best, who is no more fit to be put by the side of John Vane than—I am! If you show yourself such a fool, Nelly, there’s nothing that was ever said about women so bad but I’ll believe it,—I’ll give you up for ever, you, and all the rest!—--”

Jenny took a turn round the little room at the end of this speech, to work off the vehemence of his feelings. But as for Nelly, all her spirit, all her self-will, all her sense of fun had died out of her. She tried to be angry and could not,—she tried to laugh and could not. Her heart ached with confused and complicated pangs of suffering. If I was to try to lay bare that mystery of diverse pain, the only readers who would follow me through it would probably be women who understand it without description. Nelly had not lived all this time between these two men without having been forced into the same way of thinking as her brother expressed so forcibly. She too had been compelled to admit to herself, by imperceptible degrees, first with a secret rage against Vane, with indignation at herself, with grief, with sore perception of a hundred minute points of difference which went to her heart, that the man whom she had supposed she loved was not the equal of the other man who loved her. How she had resisted and fought against this conviction! how she had struggled, bringing up before herself Ernest’s good qualities, his superior talents (and everybody knows that a man of genius cannot be bound by the same rules as other men), his greater youth, (for of course men become considerate as they grow older), and the influence of his family, which was not of an elevating kind; how by-and-by she had sunk into silence (with herself) on the subject, tacitly allowing Vane’s excellence, and falling back upon the main fact that he was not Ernest; until this last chapter of all, when her appeal to Ernest had been made in vain, when he had accepted her farewell, abandoned her side, left her without even a word of consolation during the trial,—when he had wounded her heart and outraged her pride and delicacy, and left no plea possible to be made for him, even by the most subtle advocate. The mere fact that he had been her accepted lover, that the dreams of the future had all woven themselves about him, that he had kissed her virgin lips, and held her virgin hand, was the only link which now bound Nelly, by one of the fantastic, unformulated laws of a girl’s code of honour, to Ernest Molyneux. This had been so; and to such a girl as Nelly Eastwood the bond so made was one which it was shame and torture to break, or to think of as having existed when once broken. All girls do not feel in this way; but then all girls are not alike, any more than all men are—which is a doctrine curious and strange, I am aware, to many critics. All these different pangs and griefs were surging through her mind as Jenny cut the knot of her hidden thoughts, and boldly broached the subject which she had not dared so much as to whisper a word of. And yet it had to be spoken about. Ernest had not even written to her; he had accepted the dismissal she had given him in her haste; and the fact must be made known and recognized. She made no answer for some time to Jenny’s tirade, but at last she burst forth piteously, in tones which he could not resist,—

“Oh, Jenny, tell me all you know; it is not from any weak wish—what I want is to know—Why did he come? and why did he not come here? What did he say? I will tell you everything there is to tell, if you will first tell me what you know!—--”

“Nelly, I hope you are not such a fool as you look,” said the boy severely. “I met him at the junction half way, where the train stops. He was going up, I was coming down. He said he had been to see how the trial was going on, that things looked rather bad, that I had better make haste with my doctor, that doctors were no good, for they would swear against each other through thick and thin, and that if we’d had our wits about us, we’d have packed Innocent off to Australia or somewhere, as soon as we knew, and that she’d never get over it nor any of us as long as she lived, if they acquitted her twenty times over. Then he gave me a nod and the train went off. It was a pleasant meeting,” said Jenny; “if it hadn’t been that I had the doctor to look after, and my head full of poor Innocent, and some thoughts of you, Nelly, if you can care for such a fellow—by Jove, I’d have dragged him out of the carriage window, and pitched him across the rails—it would have served him right.”

“Jenny, my dear boy,” said Mrs. Eastwood, coming in, “does not poor Innocent’s great misfortune show you the folly of such threats? I don’t know of whom you were speaking—but I am sure you didn’t mean what you say, whoever it was. Don’t say such things, dear. You wouldn’t hurt any one——”

“Wouldn’t I though!” cried Jenny, indignant. “You may trust me, mother, if I had the chance. If ever man deserved a good licking, it’s him.”

“Oh, Jenny, don’t!” said Nelly, in a sharp tone of pain.

The mother looked from one to the other. She did not ask any questions. I suspect the mystery was not so profound to her as poor Nelly had thought it.

“We have had enough of such talk,” she said. “Nelly, Miss Vane is to come for us at three o’clock, and Jenny’s train is still earlier. I wish we were all out of this place which has brought us nothing but misfortune——”

“I don’t call the Vanes misfortunes,” said Jenny.

“Ah, the Vanes!” his mother replied, with a relaxation of all the lines in her face; and then she smiled, and said, “Come, Nelly. I hope the humours of the nunnery will blow some of our cobwebs away.”

Jenny thought the metaphor very confused as he went out, leaving them to their packing, and, no doubt, to confidences more distinct than Nelly had given to himself. But he was a lad of understanding, and he perceived all that had happened. Yes, the metaphor was very confused—how could humours blow cobwebs away? There was this to be said about women certainly, that the language they used was very often inexact, though it might be forcible enough. For instance, Jenny acknowledged to himself his mother could polish off a fellow very neatly when occasion served—and he had no doubt she would polish off Molyneux in a way that would leave nothing to be desired. But still the metaphor was confused; he was thinking how to put it when he encountered Vane, who had a restless way of taking walks abroad when there was nothing else to be done. Jenny joined himself to the elder man whom he admired, and went over the town with him, looking at the public buildings with vague curiosity. The Assizes were still going on, and groups standing about the Town Hall, as they had been when poor Innocent stood at the bar; but to Innocent’s cousins it seemed that it was years since the trial had ended, though they paused, and looked with a long-drawn breath at the place where other people might be suffering the same anxieties which now had ended for them.

“I wonder,” said Jenny, bringing this perennial train of thought suddenly in, to break the lighter tone of their conversation—“I wonder if Molyneux is right—if she’ll never get over it as long as she lives.”

“If——who——will never get over it?” asked Vane.

“Innocent; that’s what he said—I suppose he knows Society, and that sort of thing; though she was acquitted twenty times—that she would never get over it as long as she lived.”

“All that comes very well from Molyneux,” said Vane, growing red, “who has never done anything, so far as I know, to help either Innocent—or your family, Jenny—to whom he was beholden——”

“Well,” said Jenny, with an indifferent air, “it’s an ill wind that blows nobody good. I believe poor Innocent’s trial has done what nothing else could have done—convinced Nelly at last that this fellow Molyneux——”

“You don’t mean it!” cried Vane.

Jenny, who had taken his arm, felt Vane “jump,” as he said after, and knew that his chance shot had taken full effect.

“But I do,” said Jenny composedly. “I had not time to get it all out of her; but I am quite sure of this much, at least, that all is over between them—and time too. Why, the fellow actually came down here—to see how things were going—and never went near them. Nelly saw him in the court. A girl would be a fool indeed—which Nelly ain’t, for I know the sort of girl she is—if she put up with that——”

How John Vane “jumped,” to be sure!—what a nervous fellow he was, though big enough for anything, and with that beard! So Jenny thought as he felt his companion’s arm thrill, and enjoyed it. I don’t think Vane made any immediate response, good or bad. He managed to make Jenny talk, which was more to the purpose, but I don’t think he committed himself in words; nor was it until they had gone a long way through the streets, and Jenny had recollected that the time approached for his train, that John Vane’s feelings burst forth in speech.

“Jenny, old fellow,” he said, “is there anything you want—books, or that? or a little spare tin that you don’t care to speak to your mother about? Make me your banker, old boy.”

Jenny withdrew his arm from that of his friend. He was quite as tall, and, barring the beard, not much less imposing in muscular magnitude. The boy stood almost on equal terms, as Englishmen love to have them, with his elder companion. He looked Vane seriously, even anxiously, in the face, and addressed him slowly.

“Do you think she’ll have you?” he said.