THE EXAMINATION.
| Alas how is it with you? |
| That you do bend your eyes on vacancy. |
| And——Shakespeare. |
The next morning he was early as usual at the prison, and as usual he had to wait until the doors were opened.
The news of the impending medical examination of the prisoner had been conveyed to the warden on the preceding afternoon. The prisoner and her companion had been notified of it this morning, so that when Lyon Berners was admitted to the cell he found the place in perfect order, and Sybil and Beatrix carefully dressed as if for company.
"See! we are all ready to receive our visitors, Lyon. And oh! I am so glad to be at home again, and to give a dinner party! Like old times! Before we went on our wedding tour, Lyon!"
These were the first words Sybil addressed to her husband, as he entered the room.
Lyon Berners drew her to his bosom, pressed a kiss on her lips, and then signed to Miss Pendleton to follow him to the window.
"What does all this mean, dearest Beatrix?" he inquired.
"If means that her insanity is increasing. She awoke this morning, perhaps with some dream of home still lingering in her mind; at all events, with the impression that she was at Black Hall. I have not combated the pleasant delusion; indeed I have rather fostered it."
"You were right, dear friend. You know of this intended visit of the physicians?"
"Oh, yes; and so does she, only she fancies that they are to be her guests at a dinner party."
As Beatrix thus spoke, there was a sound of approaching footsteps in the corridor, and the cell door was again opened to admit Dr. Hart.
The good physician shook hands with Mr. Berners, who stood nearest the door, and whispering hastily:
"I wish to speak with you apart presently," he passed on to meet Sybil, who, with the courtesy of a hostess, was coming forward to welcome him.
He shook hands with her pleasantly, and inquired after her health.
"Oh, thanks! I am very well since I got home. I took cold. Where did I take cold?" she said, with an air of perplexity, as she passed her thin white hand through her silken black tresses.
"You have been travelling, then?" said the doctor, to try her memory.
"Yes; travelling."
"And saw many interesting sights, no doubt?"
"I—yes; there were caves—the Mammoth Cave, you see; and ships in the harbor; and—and—" A look of doubt and pain passed over her, and she became silent.
"And many, many more attractive or instructive objects met your sight, no doubt?"
"Yes; we were in England just before the Conquest, and I saw Harold the Saxon and Edith the Fair. But 'Fair' was 'foul' then—so foul that the Spirit of Fire consumed her. Oh!—"
She paused, and an expression of horrible anguish convulsed her beautiful face.
"But you are at home now, my child," said the doctor soothingly, laying his hand upon her head.
"Oh, yes," she answered, with a sigh of deep relief as her countenance cleared up; "at home now, thank Heaven! And oh, it is so good to be at home, and to see my friends once more. And then again, you know—"
Whatever she was going to say was lost in the chaos of her mind. She sighed wearily enough now, and relapsed into profound reverie.
The doctor took advantage of her abstraction to leave her side, and beckon to Mr. Berners to follow him to the farthest corner of the cell, so as to be out of hearing of the two ladies.
"What do you think of her case?" anxiously inquired. Sybil's husband, as soon as he found himself apart with the physician.
"She is deranged of course. Any child could tell you that. But, Mr. Berners, I called you apart to tell you that myself and my colleagues, Bright and Wiseman, determined to visit our patient singly, and to make a separate examination of her. Now, for certain reasons, and among them, because I am a family practitioner, we all agreed that I should pay her the first visit. And now, Mr. Berners, I must ask you to go and find out if there is an experienced matron about the house; and if so, to bring her here immediately."
Lyon Berners bowed and went out, but soon returned with the warden's widowed daughter.
"Here is Mrs. Mossop, doctor," he said, introducing the matron.
"How do you do, madam? And now, Mr. Berners, I must further request that you will take Miss Pendleton out and leave Mrs. Mossop and myself alone with our patient," said the doctor.
Mr. Berners gave Miss Pendleton his arm and led her from the room.
One of the under-turnkeys locked the door and stood on guard before it.
Mr. Berners and Miss Pendleton walked up and down the corridor in restless anxiety.
"My brother was here to see me yesterday afternoon, Lyon," she said.
But Mr. Berners, absorbed in anxiety for his wife, scarcely heard the young lady's words, and certainly did not reply to them.
But Beatrix had something else to say to him, and so she said it:
"Lyon, if you should succeed in getting Sybil's pardon, (pardon for the crime she never committed!) and should decide to take her to Europe, do you know what Clement and myself have determined to do?"
"No," said Mr. Berners, with a weary sigh.
"We have decided to go abroad with you and share your fate; whether we go for a year or two of pleasant travelling and sight-seeing, or whether we go into perpetual exile."
Lyon Berners, who had been almost rudely indifferent to the young lady's words until this moment, now turned and looked at her with astonishment, admiration, and gratitude, all blended in the expression of his fine countenance.
"Beatrix! No! I appreciate your magnanimity! And I thank you even as much as I wonder at you! But you must not make this sacrifice for us," he said.
Miss Pendleton burst into tears.
"Oh!" she said amid her sobs; "there can be nothing in the world so precious to us as our childhood's friendships! Clement and I have played with Sybil and you since we were able to go alone! We have no parents, nor sisters, nor brothers, to bind us to our home. We have only our childhood's friends that have grown up with us—you and Sybil. Clement will resign his commission in the army; he does not need it, you know, any more than his country now needs him; and we will let the old manor house, and go abroad with you!"
"But, dear Beatrix, to expatriate yourselves for us!"
"Oh, nonsense!" she said, brushing the bright tears from her blooming face. "You are trying to make this out an act of generosity on our part. It is no such thing. It is a piece of selfishness in us. It will be a very pleasant thing, let me tell you, to go to Europe, and travel about and see all the old historic countries, for a year or so."
"A year or so! Oh, Beatrix! it will not be a year or so, of pleasant travelling! It will be the exile of a lifetime!"
"I don't believe it! I have more faith than that! I believe that
'Ever the right comes uppermost,
And ever is justice done;'
sooner or later, you know! And anyhow Clement and myself have resolved to go abroad with you and Sybil! And you cannot prevent us, Mr. Berners!"
"I am very glad that I cannot; for if I could, Beatrix, I should feel bound by conscience to do it."
"Set your conscience at rest, Mr. Berners! It has nothing to do with other people's deeds!"
"But, dear Beatrix, you are reckoning without your host, Destiny, which now means the report of the medical examiners and the action of the governor upon it! She may not be free to go to Europe."
"I think she will," said Beatrix, cheerfully.
At that moment there was a knock from the inside of the cell.
The turnkey unlocked the door.
Dr. Hart came out alone, and the door was locked after him.
Mr. Berners left the side of Beatrix, and went to meet the physician.
"Well?" inquired Sybil's husband.
"My dear sir, hope for the best. She has yet to be visited by my colleague, Dr. Bright, late of the State Insane Asylum. He is, of course, an expert in cases of insanity. His report will have more weight than mine in regard to her case. But I tell you this in confidence. I ought really not to give any sort of opinion to any one at this point of the investigation."
And with a friendly shaking of hands and a polite bow, Dr. Hart went below.
A few minutes passed, and Dr. Bright, who was a stranger to Mr. Berners, came up and passed to the door of the cell, which was opened for him by the turnkey in attendance.
The "mad doctor," as he was popularly called, remained more than an hour shut up with his patient.
At length he came out, bowed to the lady and gentleman that he saw waiting in the corridor, and went down stairs.
Mr. Berners would have given much for the privilege of questioning the "mad doctor;" but as such a privilege could not be obtained at any price, he was forced to bear his suspense as well as he could.
In a few moments Dr. Bright was succeeded by Dr. Wiseman, the least important of the three medical examiners.
He saw Mr. Berners, came right up to him and grasped his two hands with both his own, and with the tears springing to his eyes, exclaimed:
"I hope to heaven our examination of this lady may eventuate in her release from captivity."
There was something in the delicacy of the physician's words, as well as in the earnestness of his manner, that deeply affected Sybil's husband. He pressed the young doctor's hands as he replied:
"I thank you very much for your earnest sympathy; and I need not say how devoutly I join in your prayer that this investigation may terminate in the release of my dear and most innocent wife."
The physician then passed into the cell, which was opened for his admittance, and then closed as before.
A half hour went by, and he came out again.
"I do not know what conclusion my colleagues have come to, Mr. Berners; but for myself, I do not think this lady is, or has been for some time, a responsible agent," he said, in passing Sybil's anxious husband.
"You hold your consultation immediately?" inquired Mr. Berners.
"Yes, immediately, in the warden's private parlor, which Mr. Martin offered for our use," answered Dr. Wiseman, as he bowed and went down stairs.
Mr. Berners and Miss Pendleton were then permitted to return to Sybil's cell, to remain with her while waiting the result of the physicians' consultation.
They found Sybil so fatigued from the visits that had been made her, that she lay quite still and almost stupefied upon her bed.
Mrs. Mossop was watching by her side; but at the entrance of Mr. Berners and Miss Pendleton she arose and left the cell.
Lyon went to the bedside of his wife, and asked how she felt.
"Tired."
This was the only word she spoke, as with a heavy sigh she turned her face to the wall.
Lyon and Beatrix sat with her all the afternoon, and even until the warden came to the door with the information that the physicians had concluded their consultation, and were about to leave the prison, and that Mr. Worth was below, waiting to see Mr. Berners.