CHAPTER XXXI.
FOUND GUILTY.
There was the silence of death. Men looked blankly in each other's faces, then at the prisoner. With an awfully corpse-like face, and wild, dilated eyes, he sat staring at the witness—struck dumb.
The silence was broken by the lawyer.
"This is a very extraordinary statement, Miss Silver," he said. "Are you quite certain of its truth? It is an understood thing that the late Captain Hunsden was a widower."
"He was nothing of the sort. It suited his purpose to be thought so. Captain Hunsden was a very proud man. It is scarcely likely he would announce his bitter shame to the world."
"And his daughter was cognizant of these facts?"
"Only from the night of her father's death. On that night he revealed to her the truth, under a solemn oath of secrecy. Previous to that she had believed her mother dead. That death-bed oath was the cause of all the trouble between Sir Everard and his wife. Lady Kingsland would have died rather than break it."
She glanced again—swift, keen, sidelong, a glance of diabolical triumph—at the prisoner. But he did not see it, he only heard the words—the words that seemed burning to the core of his heart.
This, then, was the secret, and the wife he had loved and doubted and scorned had been true to him as truth itself; and now he knew her worth and purity and high honor when it was too late.
"How came Mr. Parmalee to be possessed of the secret? Was he a relative?"
"No. He learned the story by the merest accident. He left New York for England in his professional capacity as photographic artist, on speculation. On board the steamer was a woman—a steerage passenger—poor, ill, friendless, and alone. He had a kindly heart, it appears, under his passion for money-making, and when this woman—this Mrs. Denover—fell ill, he nursed her as a son might. One night, when she thought herself dying, she called him to her bedside and told him her story."
Clear and sweet Sybilla Silver's voice rang from end to end, each word cutting mercilessly through the unhappy prisoner's very soul.
"Her maiden name had been Maria Denover, and she was a native of New York City. At the age of eighteen an English officer met her while on a visit to Niagara, fell desperately in love with her, and married her out of hand.
"Even at that early age she was utterly lost and abandoned; and she only married Captain Hunsden in a fit of mad desperation and rage because John Thorndyke, her lover, scornfully refused to make her his wife.
"Captain Hunsden took her with him to Gibraltar, where his regiment was stationed, serenely unconscious of his terrible disgrace. One year after a daughter was born, but neither husband nor child could win this woman from the man she passionately loved.
"She urged her husband to take her back to New York to see her friends; she pleaded with a vehemence he could not resist, and in an evil hour he obeyed.
"Again she met her lover. Three weeks after the wronged husband and all the world knew the revolting story of her degradation. She had fled with Thorndyke."
Sybilla paused to let her words take effect. Then she slowly went on:
"There was a divorce, of course; the matter was hushed up as much as possible; Captain Hunsden went back to his regiment a broken-hearted man.
"Two years after he sailed for England, but not to remain. How he wandered over the world, his daughter accompanying him, from that time until he returned to Hunsden Hall, every one knows. But during all that time he never heard one word of or from his lost wife.
"She remained with Thorndyke—half starved, brutally beaten, horribly ill-used—taunted from the first by him, and hated at the last. But she clung to him through all, as women do cling; she had given up the whole world for his sake; she must bear his abuse to the end. And she did, heroically.
"He died—stabbed in a drunken brawl—died with her kneeling by his side, and his last word an oath. He died and was buried, and she was alone in the world as miserable a woman as the wide earth ever held.
"One wish alone was strong within her—to look again upon her child before she died. She had no wish to speak to her, to reveal herself, only to look once more upon her face, then lie down by the road-side and die.
"She knew she was married and living here; Thorndyke had maliciously kept her au fait of her husband and child. She sold all she possessed but the rags upon her back, and took a steerage passage for England.
"That was the story she told Mr. Parmalee. 'You will go to Devonshire,' she said to him; 'you will see my child. Tell her I died humbly praying her forgiveness. She is rich; she will reward you.'
"Mr. Parmalee immediately made up his mind that this sick woman, who had a daughter the wife of a wealthy baronet, was a great deal too valuable, in a pecuniary light, to be allowed 'to go off the hooks,' as he expressed it, thus easily.
"He pooh-poohed the notion of her dying, cheered her up, nursed her assiduously, and finally brought her around. He left her in London, posted down here, and remained here until the return of Sir Everard and my lady from their honey-moon trip. The day after he presented himself to them—displayed his pictures, and among others showed my lady her mother's portrait, taken at the time of her marriage. She recognized it at once—her father had left her its counterpart on the night he died. He knew her secret, and she had to meet him if he chose. He threatened to tell Sir Everard else, and the thought of her husband ever discovering her mother's shame was agony to her. She knew how proud he was, how proud his mother was, and she would have died to save him pain. And that is why she met Mr. Parmalee by night and by stealth—why she gave him money—why all the horrors that have followed occurred."
Once more the cruel, clear, unfaltering voice paused. A groan broke the silence—a groan of such unutterable anguish and despair from the tortured husband that every heart thrilled to hear it.
With that agonized groan, his face dropped in his hands, and he never raised it again. He heard no more—he sat bowed, paralyzed, crushed with misery and remorse. His wife—his lost wife—had been as pure and stainless as the angels, and he—oh, pitiful God! how merciless he had been!
Sybilla Silver was dismissed; other witnesses were called. Edwards and Claudine were the only ones examined that day, Sybilla had occupied the court so long. They corroborated all she had said. The prisoner was remanded, and the court adjourned.
The night of agony which followed to the wretched prisoner no words can ever tell. All he had suffered hitherto seemed as nothing. Men recoiled in horror at the sight of him next day; it was as if a galvanized corpse had entered the court-room.
He sat in dumb misery, neither heeding nor hearing. Only once was his attention dimly aroused. It was at the evidence of a boy—a ragged youth of some fifteen years, who gave his name as Bob Dawson.
"He had been out late on that 'ere night. It was between ten and eleven that he was a-dodgin' round near the stone terrace. Then he sees a lady a-waitin', which the moon was shining on her face, and he knowed my lady herself. He dodged more than hever at the sight, and peeked round a tree. Just then came along a tall gent in a cloak, like Sir Everard wears, and my lady screeches out at sight of him. Sir Everard, he spoke in a deep, 'orrid voice, and the words were so hawful, he—Bob Dawson—remembered them from that day to this.
"'I swore by the Lord who made me I would murder you if you ever met that man again. False wife, accursed traitoress, meet your doom!'
"And then my lady screeches out again and says to him—she says:
"'Have mercy! I am innocent, Heverard! Oh, for God's sake, do not murder me!'
"And Sir Heverard, he says, fierce and 'orrid:
"'Wretch, die! You are not fit to pollute the hearth! Go to your grave with my 'ate and my cuss!'
"And then," cried Bob Dawson, trembling all over as he told it, "I see him lift that there knife, gentlemen, and stab her with all his might, and she fell back with a sort of groan, and he lifts her up and pitches of her over hinto the sea. And then he cuts, he does, and I—I was frightened most hawful, and I cut, too."
"Why did you not tell this before?" the judge asked.
"'Cos I was scared—I was," Bob replied, in tears. "I didn't know but that they might took and hang me for seeing it. I told mammy the other night, and mammy she came and told the gent there," pointing one finger at the counsel for the crown, "and he said I must come and tell it here; and that's all I've got to tell, and I'm werry sorry as hever I seed it, and it's all true, s'help me!"
Sybilla Silver's eyes fairly blazed with triumphant fire. Her master, the arch-fiend, seemed visibly coming to her aid; and the most miserable baronet pressed his hand to his throbbing head.
There was the summing up of the evidence—one damning mass against the prisoner. There was the judge's charge to the jury. Sir Everard heard no words—saw nothing. He fell into a stunned stupor that was indeed like madness.
The jury retired—vaguely he saw them go. They returned. Was it minutes or hours they had been gone? His dulled eyes looked at them expressionless.
"How say you, gentlemen of the jury—guilty or not guilty?"
"Guilty!"
Amid dead silence the word fell. Every heart thrilled with awe but one. The condemned man sat staring at them with an awful, dull, glazed stare.
The judge arose and put on his black cap, his face white, his lips trembling.
Only the last words seemed to strike him—to crash into his whirling brain with a noise like thunder.
"And that there you be hanged by the neck until dead, and may the Lord have mercy upon your soul!"
He sat down. The awful silence was something indescribable. One or two women in the gallery fainted, then the hush was broken in a blood-curdling manner.