Olivia

The days wore on. To Olivia they appeared sometimes to drag with leaden weight, at others to fly by on wings. No news had reached her of Bertie, no tidings of Bartley Bradstone, or Seth the gypsy, and Liz Lee. It seemed as if, indeed, Fate were fighting against her, and that the mystery which surrounded the murder in the woods grew deeper and darker as the hour of the trial drew near.

And it was very near now. For on the twenty-ninth, Harold Faradeane was to be tried, and it was now the night of the twenty-eighth.

Since she had sent the telegram to stop Seth, Olivia had not left the house; and though she had regained her strength, there was a look on her face, an expression of indefinable suspense and terror and sadness which almost drove the poor squire distracted.

But in his mind, as in others, the thoughts of all that the morrow night might mean to Harold Faradeane blotted out all else, even the remembrance of his darling’s situation: married to a man to whom she had not spoken since her wedding day, and who had gone off, left the country on “important business,” as he had written, with no intimation of his return.

But the finishing stroke to his anxiety was dealt him by Olivia herself, when, on the eve of the eventful day, she announced her intention of being present at the trial.

“You!” exclaimed the poor squire, aghast.

“My—dear—Olivia!” gasped Aunt Amelia.

But Olivia glided round to where her father sat, and stole her arms round his neck.

“Papa, you will not try and prevent me?” she said, in a strange voice, at once pleading and resolute.

“But—but you have been so ill, are still weak and unfit for the slightest excitement. How will you bear to see that poor fellow standing there, and being tried for his life? My dear, my dear, think!” and he stroked her hair with a trembling hand.

“I have thought, dear,” she said, quietly, laying her pale face against his. “I must go! I should die if I stayed at home to wait, wait, wait! Besides”—and her eyes flashed—“will not all his enemies be there—people who believe that he committed this wicked crime—and are only his friends to be absent?”

The squire kissed her and sighed.

“Have your own way, my dear. But I wish—I wish that Bartley were here!” he added, with a troubled frown. “I have heard nothing from him.”

She drew away from him suddenly, and without a word left the room.

All that night she lay awake, looking at the silent stars with hot, tearless eyes, thinking of Harold Faradeane in his narrow cell, waiting the verdict of life or death; and going over and over all the points of the strange mystery, which grew darker and more impenetrable the more she struggled to pierce it.

The morning broke with all the mature splendor of late summer; and as Bessie dressed her, she still thought of the man awaiting his fate, the man whose faith and honor she would have answered for with her life.

The trial was to begin at ten; but long before that time the court was crowded and all the avenues were blocked with eager and curious people, who were excitedly discussing the incidents of the murder and the chances of the prisoner. Not a few of them had been present at the entertainment, and heard him recite the tragic poem of “Eugene Aram,” and the sensation he had produced was recalled, and put in evidence against him.

No wonder he had made them all shudder and tremble: he who was capable of committing a murder himself, they said.

The story of his mysterious purchase of The Dell and the strangely secluded life he had led, of the man who was always on the watch to keep people from seeing his master, and the dog kept to attack all visitors; what could it mean, but that there was some dark mystery connected with him, of which this crime in the woods was the logical outcome?

At ten o’clock the streets were crowded, and the buzz of excitement grew into something like a roar as the Grange carriage was seen to pull up at the townhall, and the squire, with Olivia and Bessie, alighted. The curiosity to see the beautiful girl who had been stricken down on her wedding day, and had not seen her husband since, overmastered the respect they felt for her, and there was a rush toward the door; but half-a-dozen policemen drove the crowd back and made a lane, and the three passed through it to the hall.

Olivia wore a veil, and her arm trembled for a moment as it rested upon her father’s, but it was only for a moment, and she walked, and compelled him to walk, slowly.

They entered the court, and the crowd made way for them. The judge was making his way to the bench at the moment, and, as he looked round with his calm, serene eyes, he saw the worn, pale face of the squire, and stopped to shake hands with him, and motioned him to seats just below him.

Olivia sat with clinched hands, trying to still the throbbing of her heart; then she looked round. The well of the court was filled with barristers, and among them the great London counsel, Mr. Sewell, the man whose acuteness and eloquence had sent many a man to the scaffold. Beside him she saw—and her heart throbbed again—the terrible London solicitor whose proud boast it was that no malefactor upon whom his legal claws had fixed had ever slipped through them! She looked for Mr. McAndrew, but he was nowhere to be seen. Then she looked toward the dock, and, as she did so, there was a stir and a murmur of excitement, and Harold Faradeane entered.

Pale and haggard, worn thin by the confinement of his cell and his sleepless nights though he was, there was still the look in his dark eyes which, when she had first seen it, had drawn her heart irresistibly toward him: and it drew her now.

He raised his eyes and looked round at the judge and the jury and the counsel, and then he saw her. She, if no one else, saw the light that flashed for a moment in his grave eyes, and the color that passed swiftly over his face.

Obeying an impulse she did not try to resist, she raised her veil, and, looking at him steadily, bowed her head with the deep respect which only a woman can convey in a bow.

Every eye in court saw it, and a thrill ran through the crowd.

Faradeane’s lips quivered, and his hand grasped the front of the dock; but he did not acknowledge her salutation in any other way.

“By Heaven, she’ll believe in him if they bring him in guilty twice over!” muttered Colonel Summerford to the solicitor.

That gentleman merely shrugged his shoulders.

Then the usher cried, “Silence!” A deep hush fell upon the court, and the clerk rose to read the indictment. “Prisoner at the bar, do you plead ‘guilty,’ or ‘not guilty’?” he demanded.

One could have heard a pin drop, so intense was the silence, as all breathlessly awaited the answer. It came:

“Guilty.”

A murmur arose, a dull sound of amazement.

“Silence!”

The judge leaned forward, and regarded the calm, set face with grave attention.

“Do you plead guilty, prisoner?” he asked, in the slow, judicial tone, impartial, almost insentient. “Where is the counsel for the defense?”

“I desire no counsel, my lord,” said Faradeane, in a voice that, though low, was distinct enough to reach the remotest corner of the court.

The judge looked at him thoughtfully for the space of a moment.

“Do you say that you are undefended?”

“I have no defense, my lord,” came the response, almost apathetic in its calm weariness.

Olivia’s heart seemed to stand still. She clutched her father’s arm.

“Father! father!”

“Hush!” he said, and looked toward the judge.

“Prisoner, are you sensible of the awful position in which you stand? I fear not. But it is my duty to see that you have a fair trial, without fear or favor. With the sense of my responsibility upon me, I take upon myself to advise you to withdraw that plea and to permit a counsel to defend you. Mr. Edgar”—and he leaned forward and addressed a young barrister—“will you defend the prisoner?”

The young counsel sprang to his feet at once, and bowed to the judge.

“I will, my lord.”

He made his way to the front of the dock, and looked up at Faradeane.

“You are mad!” he said, in too low a voice for those around to hear. “We plead ‘Not guilty,’ my lord,” he added, firmly.

Faradeane made a slight gesture of weary resignation; and Mr. Sewell, the famous London counsel, rose, hitched his robe on to his shoulder, and commenced his address. The judge leaned back; the deep hush once more settled upon the court.

“My lord and gentlemen of the jury: I shall not have to detain you long with the recital of this tragic story. I shall, in the fewest and plainest words consistent with my painful duty, recount so much of the history of this case as can be sworn to by trustworthy witnesses, who, if they did not actually see the crime committed—and how seldom are there any witnesses present at the precise moment the blow is struck, the shot fired!—who, if they were not actually present at the fatal moment, arrived almost before the breath had left the body of the victim.”

Then, in well-balanced sentences, and in a grave, solemn voice, he told the story of the finding of the dead woman, and the prisoner’s presence near the body, together with the discovery of the revolver bearing his name.

The judge glanced now and again at the pale, composed face of the prisoner, and the crowd marked that, though he kept his eyes fixed on the ground, his face showed no sign of fear or emotion.

“I shall call witnesses who will prove these facts, as I submit, irrefutably. And now, my lord, I come to the point which doubtless you and the gentlemen of the jury have been waiting for—the question of motive. Why should the prisoner, a man of evident refinement, a gentleman on behalf of whose character my learned friend, his counsel, will no doubt bring a cloud of witnesses, commit this awful crime? Why should he shoot this woman? My answer is: Because she was his wife——”

A thrill ran through the court; and as the crowd seemed to stir and sway with astonished excitement, a faint cry rose from Olivia’s lips.

Faradeane heard it, and for a moment he raised his eyes and looked at her—a look that pleaded for forgiveness, for mercy. White as a ghost, she clung to her father’s hand.

“It—it—is not true!” she breathed.

“His wife; the woman who, in a moment of passion, as unreasoning as that in which he slew her, he had secretly married. It does not become any man to speak ill of the dead; but, gentlemen of the jury, it will be my painful duty to produce evidence to prove that the tie which the prisoner had in a rash moment contracted with the deceased was of so galling, so unendurable a nature, that he was compelled to fly from her. Most men would have severed the bond. The prisoner could have sought and obtained a release in the Divorce Court, for she had given him cause; but there were reasons why such a step should be unacceptable to him. My lord, gentlemen, up to the present, we see in the prisoner only an ordinary, private gentleman, living in a quiet, country spot secluded from the eyes of the world. But such was not always his position. The prisoner has not always borne the name of Harold Faradeane; and it is my painful task to ask you to recognize in him the person of the Earl of Clydesfold!”

A murmur quite audible, and not to be suppressed, rose from the crowd. The barristers put their heads together, the judge leaned forward and looked at the prisoner.

“The Earl of Clydesfold!” went from lip to lip.

Olivia uttered no cry, but sat white and statuesque.

“His wife! His wife!” rang in her ears.

She understood that scene in the wood, when he had held her in his arms and called her his love, and then drawn back, like a man stepping from the edge of a precipice. His wife!

“The Earl of Clydesfold!” continued the counsel. “Witnesses will be called who will tell you the story of his unfortunate, his ill-fated marriage; will show you how a man, gifted by nature, favored by fortune, of ancient and noble birth, possessed of enormous wealth, was induced by a mad passion to forget all that was due to his rank, to the honor of an ancient name, and to marry a young gypsy girl whom, blinded by that passion, he believed to be all that was innocent and pure; but who, before the honeymoon had passed, proved herself utterly unworthy to bear the name of any honest man!”

He paused and arranged his papers.

“Consider his position. Consider the nature of the prisoner. He had, all unwittingly, married this woman; was it possible for him, having discovered her true character, to drag the story of his shame, to drag the honor of his name through the mud of a divorce case? As many a man in his position had done before, he elected to hide his misery and his dishonor from the eyes of the world, in which he had held so lofty a place. He put aside the name rendered famous by a long line of distinguished ancestors, and, leaving the woman who had ruined his life, he came and hid himself in this retired spot. For a time he succeeded in concealing himself. The woman—his wife—was free to live in riotous splendor upon his money, and he may have laid the flattering unction to his soul that she would be content to leave him in peace. But, gentlemen, the consequences of such a folly as the prisoner committed are not to be avoided or escaped. The woman to whom he had given his name, in an evil and ill-fated moment, resolved that she would compel him to own her before the world or lay bare the story of his shame. She succeeded in tracking him to the place of his concealment. She had an interview with him on the night before her death. The incidents—some of the words that passed at that interview—I shall place before you. An appointment was made for the morrow. On that morrow she was found lying dead at his feet, the weapon by which she was slain beside her, bearing his name. Such evidence, so conclusive, so convincing, so damning, cannot, I fear, but lead you to the painful decision that the deceased came by her death at the hands of the prisoner.”

The spectators drew a long breath, as he concluded, and all eyes turned to the prisoner.

He had scarcely moved; but the weary expression on his face had deepened, and he looked as if the crowded court had slipped from his consciousness, and he was going back, mentally, to the terrible folly of his life.

A thrill of pity stirred the hearts of the crowd, and one or two women put their handkerchiefs to their eyes and sobbed audibly.

The excitement was intense. Mr. Sewell conferred for a moment with the solicitor for the prosecution, and the counsel called:

“Viscount Bortoun.”

A young man, the son of a well-known statesman, stepped into the box, and with a sad look at Faradeane, repeated the words of the oath.

“Do you know the prisoner?”

“Yes, indeed, I do,” was the low and mournful reply. “He is the Earl of Clydesfold,” and he looked at Faradeane as if imploring his pardon for appearing against him. “I came here because I was obliged,” he faltered.

“That will do, my lord; we can understand how painful it must be for you,” said Mr. Sewell, gently; and the viscount stepped from the box.

“I shall now call witnesses to the marriage.”

Mr. Edgar sprang to his feet.

“But I submit, my lord, that my learned friend has not sufficiently proved my client’s”—he did not use the word “prisoner,” it was noticed—“identity. The motive—the motive for this crime is all-important. One witness is not sufficient!”

The judge nodded.

Mr. Sewell bent down and whispered to the solicitor; he shrugged his shoulders. There was a pause. Then a strange coincidence happened. There was a movement in the crowd. It parted, and a young man forced his way to the dock, and with a cry of “Clydesfold!” seized the prisoner’s hand!

The spectators shouted, the usher yelled “Order!” the judge leaned forward and first looked amazed, then frowned.

“Bertie!” sprang from Olivia’s white lips.

He turned, still holding Faradeane’s hand, and looked at her. Ah, such a look! No pen can describe it; no poet, no painter could convey it.

“Order!” cried the usher, sternly.

McAndrew tugged Sewell’s arm, and “I call Viscount Granville,” he said, instantly.

Faradeane smiled down at him sadly, and drew his hand away; and, with a wild, angry look on his handsome face, Bertie was led by the arm to the box.

“You are Lord Granville?”

“I am,” he answered, in a low voice.

“You know the prisoner at the bar?”

“I know Lord Clydesfold,” he responded. “He honors me with his friendship!”

The court thrilled.

“Yes, honors me!” he repeated, looking at Faradeane with mingled affection and indignation. “And I say that to accuse him——”

“You may stand down, my lord,” said Sewell.

“One moment,” interposed the judge’s grave voice. “You have only just arrived in court, Lord Granville?”

“I have, my lord,” said Bertie, eagerly. “I have been abroad”—he looked at Faradeane—“and reached England yesterday, midday. I heard of this—this ridiculous charge against my friend only this morning, a few minutes ago. I know that he is as utterly incapable of committing a crime as——”

He stopped, almost breaking down.

The judge bore with him in patient sympathy and silence for a moment, then he said:

“Do you know anything of the prisoner’s marriage?”

“I know nothing of it, and I do not believe it,” replied Bertie, instantly.

A buzz of applause rose, and was instantly quelled by the usher.

“When did you see the prisoner last?” asked Mr. Sewell.

“I—I can’t give you the date—the day I left England. Here at The Dell.”

“Did you ask him—did he tell you——”

“Oh, my lord!” said Mr. Edgar. “Hearsay evidence! Really!”

But Bertie rushed on:

“No, I do not know why he was living under an assumed name. He would not tell me. I wish he had; but he refused.”

He stopped, feeling all eyes upon him. He had spoiled the effect his affectionate greeting and indignant assertion of the prisoner’s innocence had produced.

“You may stand down, my lord,” said Mr. Sewell.

He went and stood beside Olivia, and took her hand.

Then Mr. Sewell called the landlord of the George Inn, where Bella-Bella had stopped; Faradeane’s man, who had prevented her entering The Dell—the case looked blacker—and then he called William Alford.

It was Bessie’s turn to shrink and cry now.

“You were passing The Dell, the prisoner’s cottage, the night of the visit of the deceased. Tell us the conversation you heard between her and the prisoner.”

Alford, with a piteous look at Bessie and Faradeane, hesitated.

“I—I don’t remember. I couldn’t hear distinctly.”

Mr. Sewell looked at him sternly.

“Come, sir; were these the words?” and he repeated Bella’s speech, which in a tipsy moment poor Alford had blurted out one night at the George. “You heard her say that she knew the prisoner wished she was dead, that he would like to kill her? Answer, sir!”

“I——Oh, Mr. Faradeane, what am I to do, sir?”

“Answer,” said Faradeane, in a grave, compassionate voice.

“Silence!”

“Well,” with a groan, “I did!”