GRAPES AND THORNS.
BY THE AUTHOR OF "THE HOUSE OF YORKE."
CHAPTER IX.
THE VERDICT.
The arrest was made in September; in November the trial came on. It would have been earlier, but that witnesses were to be summoned from England. It was understood in Crichton that everything was very soon to be in readiness, and that the trial would be a short one; one side announcing confidently a speedy acquittal, the other intimating, by a grave but equally confident silence, their belief in a speedy conviction.
"Dear Mother Chevreuse!" sighed Honora Pembroke, who trembled with terror and apprehension as the day drew near, "how far from your heart is all this bitterness! How far from your wish it would have been to see a man hunted like a beast of prey, even if he had done you a wrong! How far from your peace is all this excitement!"
Far, indeed, would such an inquisition, however necessary to the ends of justice and the good of society, have been from that sweet and overflowing heart, where love, when it could not make the wandering steps seem to be searching for the right path, uprose like a flood, and washed out those traces of error from remembrance. Far enough, too, was all this trouble from the changing form that had once held so much goodness. One might guess how Nature had taken back to her motherly bosom the clay she had lent for mortal uses, and was slowly fitting it, by her wondrous alchemy, for immortality; purifying the dross from it, brightening the fine gold. While this tumult went on overhead, the crumbling dust of that temple whose ruin had brought such sorrow and disaster was slowly and sweetly going on its several paths to perfection; stealing into violets, into roses, into humble grass-blades, into mists that gathered again in drops to refresh its own blossoms and foliage!
Who can say what countless shapes of constantly aspiring loveliness the dust of the saint may assume before uniting once more and for ever to form that glorified body which is to hold, without imprisoning, the beatified spirit, and transmit without stain the sunshine of the Divine Presence?
Yes; far enough from such a progress was the feverish trouble resulting from this sudden and violent dissolution. Friends went to cover anew with flowers and green that grave over which the snows of coming winter had let fall a pure and shining mantle; but the tears they shed were bitter, and their flowers withered in the frost. Voices of those she loved recalled her virtues, and repeated her wise and tender sayings; but they, like all the world, found it easier to admire than to imitate. At humble firesides, where families gathered at night, shivering half with cold and half with fear, they blessed and mourned the hand that had helped them and the voice that had sympathized with and encouraged; but their blessing was so encumbered with human selfishness that it cast the shadow of a malediction. Pure indeed must be that love in whose footprints hatred never lurks!
On the day the trial began F. Chevreuse lost courage. More fatigued by constant physical labor than he would own, he was still more exhausted in mind. A devouring anxiety had taken possession of him. If he was less sure of Mr. Schöninger's innocence than he had been, no one knew it. Probably he entertained no doubt on that subject. But he was certainly less confident that the accused would be able to free himself entirely from suspicion. He could no longer be ignorant of the fact that there was a very damaging array of testimony against him.
"I must be allowed to be childish for once, if it is childishness," he said. "I cannot perform my duties till this is over. If a priest is needed, go to F. O'Donovan. Don't let any one come near me but Mr. Macon. Above all things, don't let any woman in."
We pardon this last request of F. Chevreuse, for he was not in the habit of speaking slightingly of women; and it must be owned that few of them have the gift of silence or of ceasing to speak when they have no more to say.
Mr. Macon was precisely the friend he needed in these circumstances—quick-sighted, clear-headed, prompt, and taciturn. He was, moreover, a man of influence, and could obtain information in advance of most persons.
"Make yourself quite easy, F. Chevreuse," he said. "You shall know everything of consequence within ten minutes after it has happened in the court-room."
The gentleman had in his pocket a package of small envelopes, all directed plainly to F. Chevreuse, and each one containing a slip of paper. When he seated himself in the court-room, a boy stood beside him ready to run with his messages.
In the priest's house, F. Chevreuse had shut himself into his mother's room. A bright fire burned on the hearth, the sun shone in through the eastern window, and at the other side could be seen a window of the church with the cipher of the Immaculate Mother, white and gold-colored, in the arch of it, sparkling as if it had just been traced there by Our Lady herself. All was still, the length of the house being between him and the street, so that only a faint hum of life reached his ears.
"It is hard to believe that misfortune is to come again," he muttered, glancing at the quiet brightness of the scene. "And I will not believe it. I will not think of it. In the name of God, all vain and evil thoughts begone!"
He drew a table near the fire, placed several books on it, and, seating himself, began in earnest to translate a book which he had been fitfully at work upon in the brief pauses of nearer duties. It was a relief to him to look thus into the mind of another, and escape a while from his own. "I am fortunate in having this to do," he thought, looking at the bright side of the situation.
The habit of concentrating his thoughts on the subject in hand did much for him; and when Mr. Macon's first message arrived, it found him bending with interest over the written page whereon he had rendered well a happy thought.
"That is better than the original," he said to himself. "The English is a large, loose-jointed language, sprawling slightly, but it is a sprawling Titan. It is rich and strong. For such a work as this, the French is a trifle too natty and crisp. Come in!"
The door opened, and his messenger stood there. Instantly all rushed across the priest's mind again. He stretched his hand for the note the boy offered him, and tore it hastily open. It was short:
"Nothing but preliminaries so far. The court sits again at two o'clock."
F. Chevreuse glanced at the clock, and saw that it was already noon. Two hours had passed like ten minutes while his mind was thus abstracted.
"Were there many people about the court-house?" he asked.
The boy had been instructed to give his notes without saying anything, and to speak only when spoken to; but he had not been told how much to say when he was spoken to. The temptation to relate what he had seen was irresistible.
"Oh! yes, father," he said, his eyes glistening with excitement. "There was such a crowd that I could hardly get out. I had to hold up the letter, and say it was for you. Then they made way."
F. Chevreuse dropped his eyes, and his face grew more troubled. "Mr. Schöninger was not in court?" he asked.
"No, sir!" The boy hesitated, and had evidently something more to say.
"Well?" said the priest.
"Somebody threw a crucifix in at his cell-window to-day, and he broke it up and threw it out again," the messenger said eagerly.
The priest's face blushed an angry red. "Have they no more reverence for the crucifix than to use it as a means of insult, and expose it in turn to be insulted?" he exclaimed. "Was it done by a Catholic? Do you know who did it?"
F. Chevreuse was putting on his overcoat and searching for his hat, to the great terror of the indiscreet tale-bearer.
"I don't know who did it," he stammered. "I guess it was some boys. But that was this morning; and now the police drive everybody away from that side of the jail. I am sure they won't do such a thing again, father."
The priest perceived the boy's distress in spite of his own preoccupation. "Never mind, Johnny," he said kindly, and tried to smile as he laid his hand on that young head. "You did no harm in telling me; I ought to know if such things happen. Come, I am going out, and our roads are the same for a little way. You are going to dinner? Well, thank your father for me, and say that I shall go only to the jail, and directly home again."
"And what has he gone to the jail for?" Mr. Macon inquired in surprise when he received this message from his son.
The boy answered truthfully enough, but with a somewhat guilty conscience, that he did not know, and sat down to his dinner, which he was unable to eat. His round cheeks were burning like live coals with excitement, and his heart was trembling with the thought that it was he who had sent the priest on that errand.
"You must learn to bear excitement better, my son," the mother said. "It will never do for you to be in court every day, if it is going to make you lose your appetite."
Thus admonished, Johnny called back his courage. "Oh! I'm not excited at all, mother," he said, with a fine air of carelessness. "It is only that I am not hungry. Why, all the men in the court-house, except the judge, were more excited than I was; weren't they, father?"
The father and mother exchanged a glance and smile. They were rather pleased with the self-confidence of this doughty young lad of theirs.
Meantime, F. Chevreuse had reached the jail, and learned that the story he had heard was quite true. Some boys, encouraged, it was thought, by their elders, had flung a crucifix into the Jew's cell-window, which was not far from the ground, and it had been tossed out to them, broken in two. The prisoner had complained that missiles were being thrown in, when the police had received instructions to keep the place clear.
"I have not allowed any visitors in the corridor for several days," the jailer said. "People crowded here by scores. But you, of course, can always go in. They are just carrying in the dinner."
"I am not sure that I wish to speak to him," the priest said with hesitation, but after a moment followed into the corridor. The waiter set the tin dishes containing food into the different cells, through a hole in the door, and retired. The jailer stood near the outer door. F. Chevreuse approached Mr. Schöninger's cell, not with the eager confidence of his first visit, but with an apprehension which he could not overcome. Other footsteps prevented his own from being heard, and he stood at the grating, unseen and unsuspected by the inmate of the cell.
Mr. Schöninger sat on the side of his bed, his face partly turned from the door, looking steadfastly out through the window. A silent snow had begun to fall, tossed hither and thither by the wind. The jail was near the Immaculate Conception, F. Chevreuse's new church, and the stone Christ that crowned the summit of the church was directly opposite the window of the cell. It stood there above the roof of the building, with the sky for a background, its arms outstretched, and now, in the storm, seemed to be the centre toward which all the anger of the elements was directed. The myriad flakes, tumbling grayly down, like flocks of rebel angels being cast out of heaven, buffeted the compassionate face as they passed, and, after falling, seemed to rise again for one more blow. They rushed from east, west, north, and south, to cast their trivial insult at that sublime and immortal patience. A small bird, weary-winged, nestled into the outstretched hand, and the wind, twirling the snow into a lash, whipped it out, and sent it fluttering to the ground. Nothing was visible through the window but that solitary form in mid-air stretching out its arms through the storm.
On that Mr. Schöninger's gaze was immovably set, and his face seemed more pale and cold than the stone itself. His hands were folded on his knees, the rising of the chest as he breathed was scarcely perceptible, and not a muscle of the closely-shut mouth stirred. His large, clear eyes, and the eyelids that trembled now and then, alone relieved the almost painful fixedness of his position.
Whether, absorbed in his own affairs, the direction his eyes took was merely accidental, or whether the statue itself had drawn and held that earnest regard, was not easy to decide. But a Catholic, ever ready to believe that images, whose sole purpose is, for him, to recall the mind to heavenly contemplations, will suggest holy thoughts even to unbelievers, must also necessarily hope that no eyes will for a moment rest on them in entire unconsciousness.
F. Chevreuse, after one glance, drew noiselessly back. Mr. Schöninger's strong and resolute calmness, which hid, he knew not what, of inner tumult or repose, disconcerted him. Besides, he had not forgotten that those white hands, so gently folded now, had within a few hours broken in pieces the symbol of man's salvation, and flung them from him in scorn. He would offer no explanations nor assurances to one who seemed so little in need of them. Sighing heavily, he turned away, and sought refuge again in his own home.
Yet a faint gleam of light had penetrated his sombre mood from this visit, and, when he had closed the door of his room, he stepped hastily to the window looking toward the church, and glanced up at the statue above him. It had been wrought in Italy, and brought to America in the good ship Cometa, and had on the voyage come near being thrown overboard to lighten the ship during a storm. Bales and barrels of merchandise had gone by the board, costly oils had floated on the waves, costly wines had perfumed them, but the heaviest thing in all the freight, the stone Christ, had been left undisturbed in spite of the sailors. The captain was a rough man, and cared little for any form of religion; but somewhere within his large, rude nature was hidden, like a chapel in a rock, a little nook still bright and fresh with his youth and his mother's teachings.
"If Jesus Christ did really walk on the sea without sinking, then he can keep this image of himself from sinking, and us with it," he said. "I'll put it to the test. If the ship goes down, I'll never believe in any of those old stories again."
And he held to his resolution through a terrific storm, in spite of a crew on the brink of mutiny, and finally sailed into port with the sacred image, which had, he believed, miraculously preserved them. And ever after, as they sailed, a little image of Christ sailed with them, fixed in the bows; and at night, during storms at sea, the sailors, albeit no Catholics, would bow their heads in passing it, and mutter a word of prayer for aid; and one old sailor, to whom for thirty years the land had been strange and the sea a home, used to tell how, on one terrible night of that long storm when the stone Christ had been their sole freight left, the crew, lashed to mast and spar, and looking every moment for destruction, had seen a white form glide forth from the hold, and, standing in the bows, stretch out its hands over the waves, which, with the gale, sank away to silence before them, leaving only the gentle breeze that had wafted them on their way home.
"I leave him to you, O shadow of my Lord!" the priest said. "Speak to him! call him so that he cannot resist you!"
He then returned to his work, somewhat relieved. "No trial is insupportable to him who has faith," he thought. "And may be all this trouble has come upon him in order that he might lift his eyes and behold that Christ whom he has denied standing with arms outstretched to receive him."
But notwithstanding this faint comfort, the second message did not find F. Chevreuse so absorbed as the first had. He could with difficulty command his thoughts, and was constantly lifting his head to listen for an approaching step, or starting at a fancied knock at the door.
Near the close of the afternoon the boy came, when the light was so dim that the note could be read only by taking it to the window.
"They have opened the case a long way off," Mr. Macon wrote. "They have proved that Mr. Schöninger has a lawsuit in England which involves a large fortune. It costs him every dollar he can raise, his opponents being an established family of wealth and influence, who have for years been in possession of the property he claims. They have proved that during the year ending last April his lawyers received from him fifteen hundred dollars in quarterly payments, and that in April they wrote that, without larger advances of money, it would be impossible for them to carry on the claim. In May, then, he sent them five hundred dollars, in June five hundred more, and on the first of September a thousand dollars. That closes the business for this afternoon."
"And what is the impression made?" F. Chevreuse asked Mr. Macon, when that gentleman called on him in the evening.
"The impression, or rather the conviction, is that Mr. Schöninger was in a condition to make a man desperate in his wish for money. An immense fortune might be secured by expending a few thousands then, and would certainly be lost if he had not the few thousands. They brought in a crowd of small tattlers to show that about the time he received this letter, and after, he was in great distress and agitation of mind; that he lost his appetite, and was heard walking to and fro in his chamber at night. Furthermore, it is evident that the money was obtained in some way after the first of May, though it was not all sent at that time. People naturally ask where the money came from, since he was not known to have any in bank, and was supposed to have sent before all he earned above what was necessary for him to live on."
"Poor fellow!" said F. Chevreuse pityingly. "What a trouble there was all the time under that calm exterior! For I never saw him otherwise than calm. Why, people might comment on my walking my room at night. I frequently walk so when I am thinking, and always when I say my beads."
"I do not imagine that Mr. Schöninger was saying his beads," Mr. Macon said rather dryly. "He was undoubtedly in trouble. He certainly had always an air of calmness, but to my mind it was not an air of contentment. He gave me the impression of a person who has some secret locked up in his mind. This affair of the contested inheritance explains it."
"Poor fellow!" F. Chevreuse said again, and leaned back in his chair. "He has got to have all his private affairs dragged up for discussion, and his looks and actions commented on by the curious. That is the worst of such a trial. A man fancies that he has been living a quiet, private life, and he finds that he has all the time been in a glass case with everybody watching him. The simplest things are distorted, and a mountain is built up out of nothing, and that without any wrong intention either, but simply by the curiosity and misconceptions of people."
Mr. Macon said nothing. He respected the priest's charity, but, for himself, he reserved his decision till the judge should have pronounced. He was not enthusiastic for Mr. Schöninger, nor prejudiced against him; he simply waited to see what would be proved, and had no doubt that the truth would triumph.
On the second day the trial progressed rapidly, approaching a vital point. Mr. Schöninger had not slept the night before the death of Mother Chevreuse, but had been heard walking and moving about his room till morning. Miss Carthusen, whose chamber was next his, gave this piece of information, and added that the next morning the prisoner looked very pale, and scarcely tasted his breakfast. She spoke with evident reluctance, and subjoined an explanation which had not been asked. "I noticed and remembered it, because I had heard of his suit in England, and was afraid it might be going against him."
She glanced nervously at the prisoner, and met a look wherein a softer ray seemed to penetrate the searching coldness. Perhaps he was touched to learn that one for whom he had cared so little had, without his suspecting it, sympathized with him, and been kindly observant of his ways.
On being questioned, she said that Mr. Schöninger had not come home the next night. They had expected him, because he usually told them when he was to be absent; but did not think very strange of it, as he was due early the next day at the town of Madison, where he went every week to give lessons, and where he sometimes went overnight. The last she saw of him that night was at Mrs. Ferrier's. They had a rehearsal there, and he had excused himself early, saying that he had an engagement, and left alone before any of the company.
Being further questioned, she admitted having seen that he took with him from his boarding-house the shawl that he habitually wore on chilly evenings.
A shawl was shown her, and she was asked if she recognized it.
"It was not easy to recognize any one among all the gray shawls there were in the world," she replied rather flippantly, "but Mr. Schöninger's was like that; she should think it might be his."
As she went out, the witness passed quite near the prisoner, and looked at him imploringly; but he took no notice of her. She paused an instant, then, bursting into tears, hurried out through the crowd, clinging to the arm of her adopted father. Lily Carthusen found herself far more deeply involved than she had intended. In a moment of pique and jealousy she had entertained and encouraged this accusation, and even insinuated that she could tell some things if she would; but it was one thing to suspect privately, and make peevish boasts which attracted to her the attention she so dearly loved, and quite another to face the terrible reality where a man was being tried for his life and she swearing against him.
Yet even while grieving over her haste, and repenting it after a fashion, her anger rose again at the remembrance of that cold glance which had averted itself from her when all in the court-room could have seen that she mutely begged his pardon for what she had been obliged to say.
"I hope this will teach you to guard your tongue a little," her father said in deep vexation, as he extricated her from the throng. "It's about the last place for a lady to come to. And, moreover, I hope it will cure you of concerning yourself about the pale looks and bad appetite of young men who do not trouble themselves about you."
"Oh! yes, papa," says Miss Lily; "since I've had a bad time, be sure you add a scolding to it. It's the way with you men."
Mr. Carthusen wisely kept silence. He had learned before this that the young woman who called him father had a remarkable talent for retort.
Where, then, did Mr. Schöninger spend the night the priest's house was entered? Not in Madison; for he had driven himself there early in the morning. He had waked a stable-keeper at four o'clock in the morning to give him a horse and buggy to drive to Madison. The man had wondered at the prisoner taking so early a start, even if he had to begin his lessons at eight o'clock, and had thought that something was the matter with him. He looked pale; and several times, while harnessing the horse, the witness had glanced up and seen him shivering, as if with cold, though it was a beautiful May morning. Mr. Schöninger had seated himself on a bench near the stable-door while waiting, and leaned his arms on his knees, looking down, and had not uttered a word before driving away, except to say that he would be back at seven o'clock in the evening. He looked like a man who had been up all night.
Being questioned, the witness testified that the prisoner wore at the time he saw him in the morning a large gray shawl, such as gentlemen wear; and, on still further questioning, he said that he had observed there was a little piece torn out of one corner. He had noticed and remembered this, because the shawl hung over the wheel when Mr. Schöninger started, and he had stopped him to tuck it up. His first passing thought had been that it was a pity to injure a new shawl; his second, on seeing the torn corner, that, after all, the shawl was not a new one. He would not, perhaps, have remembered such trivial circumstances but for what he heard immediately after. Some one came in and told him of Mother Chevreuse's death. It occurred to him that Mr. Schöninger must have heard of it already, and that it was that news which had made him so sober and silent. He recollected, too, having heard that F. Chevreuse and the Jew were quite great friends, but that the priest's mother did not like they should have any intercourse. He had observed, too, that Mr. Schöninger's boots were muddy, and wondered at it a little, as the roads were not bad, and as the prisoner had always been nice in his dress.
When Mr. Macon visited F. Chevreuse the evening of the second day, he found the priest looking quite haggard.
"You have written me the bad, and the worst of the bad," he exclaimed the moment the door was shut on them. "There must be something to counterbalance all this nonsense!"
"On the contrary, there is something to add," Mr. Macon replied. "Johnny couldn't get through the crowd at the last. They would not make way for him."
"Well?" the priest asked sharply.
They had seated themselves before the fire, and the red light of it shone up into one face turned sideways, and full of shrinking inquiry as it looked into the other face, whose downcast eyes seemed to shun being so read.
"Mr. Schöninger was somewhere wandering about the city all that night," Mr. Macon said. "He was seen and recognized by two or three persons, all of whom noticed something odd in his manner. He was seen in the lane back of the house here as late as eleven o'clock, and appeared to be going toward the river, but came back to the street on finding himself observed. He was not at his boarding-house nor at any of the hotels that night. Moreover, the measure taken of the tracks near your house corresponds with the size of the boots he wore."
"I don't want to hear any more!" exclaimed F. Chevreuse passionately, and hid his face in his hands.
His companion glanced quickly at him, then looked into the fire, and remained silent.
After a moment, the priest lifted his face.
"You don't mean to say that the case is going against him?" he asked in a low voice that expressed both fear and incredulity.
"It looks a little like that now," was the quiet reply. "But we do not know what to-morrow may bring forth."
"I believe Jane was called to-day?" F. Chevreuse remarked after a moment.
The other nodded his head.
"I hope she behaved well?" he added painfully.
Another nod. "Yes; as well as one could expect her to."
"The Ferriers, too, and Lawrence?"
"Yes; but their testimony was not of any great consequence."
The testimony of the Ferrier family was, however, entirely favorable to the prisoner, and they had mentioned him with such respect and kindness as to visibly affect him, and to create a sort of diversion in his favor. The wealth and style of the party, the manner in which they took possession, as it were, of the court-room, with several gentlemen clearing the path before them, made an impression. When they went out, the prisoner looked at them with a faint smile as they passed. Annette smiled in return, and Lawrence bowed with scrupulous respect and friendliness; but Mrs. Ferrier, rustling in voluminous silks, down which her rich sables slipped loosely, leaned over the bar, and, in the face of the whole court and crowd of spectators, shook hands with Mr. Schöninger, and, in a voice audible to the whole company, made with him an appointment which hovered strangely between the tragical and the absurd.
"Come to my house the minute you are out of this terrible place," she said. "Don't go anywhere else." Then she flounced out, wiping her eyes, and tossing her head disdainfully at the judge, the lawyers, and the crowd, whom she held to be, severally and collectively, to blame for these unjust and impertinent proceedings.
"You know, mamma," Annette said, "the judge has to listen to everybody, and it isn't his fault if people are accused. And Mr. Wilson is obliged to make out his case, if he can, and to ask a great many questions. Some things that seem to us trivial may have a good deal of importance in a case like this. You must remember that a law-court is quite different from a drawing-room, where people cannot be too inquisitive without being checked."
"I shall take care that none of them come to my drawing-room again," retorted the mother with spirit. "To think of that Mr. Wilson, who has been at my house to dinner, telling me to try to remember something that he knew I had forgotten or didn't want to tell! You may depend upon it, Annette, that man has a spite against poor Mr. Schöninger. It is as plain as day that he is raking up all he can against him. I shouldn't be surprised if the scamp were to hire men to tell lies about him. He looks capable of it. And then, to question me about what Mr. Schöninger had over his shoulder when he came to my house, and what time it was when he went away, and to show me that trumpery old gray shawl—if that is the majesty of the law, I don't want to see any more majesty. The object—and a most ridiculous and slanderous object it is, too—is to find out if Mr. Schöninger, as fine a gentleman as ever lived, broke into a priest's house, and murdered a lady and a saint, and stole a little package of dirty one-dollar bills. That's what they pretend to want to find out; and why don't they find it out in the proper way? It needn't take 'em long, I should think. But no! they must poke their noses into people's private affairs, asking every kind of impudent question, and making you say things twice, and then asking if you are sure, and then telling you that it's no matter what your opinion is about things; as if I hadn't a right to an opinion! They want to make money, and dawdle out a case as long as they can—that's what they want. And as for the curiosity of women, it's nothing! It takes a man to cross-question."
"O mamma, mamma!" sighed Annette, with smiling indulgence.
"Oh! yes; it's always 'O mama!'" exclaimed Mrs. Ferrier excitedly. "But I have common sense, for all that. And if I'd had the slightest idea how they were going to act, I would have thought out a good story before I came, and stuck to it through thick and thin."
"Why, mamma!" cried the daughter in dismay, "you were sworn to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. If you had said anything else, you would have committed perjury."
Mrs. Ferrier looked at her daughter in astonishment not unmingled with alarm. "I didn't swear any such thing," she said, the tide of her eloquence somewhat checked.
"Why, yes, mamma, we all took the oath. When we held up our hands and kissed the book, that was the time."
"I never uttered a word," averred the mother with decision.
"But the clerk said the words for us, mamma, and we held up our hands to denote, I suppose, that we acceded to all he said."
"I heard him mumble over something, I didn't know what it was," said the lady slightingly. "And so somebody else swears for you, like sponsors at a baby's baptism! Well, if he does the swearing, then the perjury is his."
"Good gracious, mamma!" cried Annette, "I hope you haven't been telling any lies!"
Mrs. Ferrier looked at her daughter in dignified reproof. "No, Annette; I'm not in the habit of telling lies, and I haven't told any to-day. And I hope I haven't told any truths about that poor struggling creature, who is, for all the world, like a sheep among wolves. I could never bear to see even a wolf hunted, much less a man."
The three were driving home, Lawrence seated opposite the ladies. While Mrs. Ferrier was talking, he leaned forward, with his arms on his knees, and softly smoothed the fur border of her velvet mantle. He had those little caressing ways when any one pleased him. A faint smile now and then touched his lips at some simple or energetic expression of hers, but his face was so averted that she did not see it, and it would appear that her simplicity did not displease, though it might amuse him a little.
Presently he relinquished the mantle border, and began, with delicate approach, to touch the wrist lets, stroking the dark fur softly, and pushing his finger-tips into it; and at length, when her attention, fluttering abstractedly toward him now and then, had become fixed on him, and she held herself still, and looked, with a half-surprised smile of pleasure, to see what sweet and childish thing he was doing, he took her two plump and well-gloved hands in his, and looked up at his wife. "There's no danger of her telling anything but the truth, Annette," he said. "She is too good and honest for anything else." And he actually bent his handsome head, and kissed Mrs. Ferrier's hands, first one then the other!
There was a momentary silence. Annette, startled by this unexpected delight, could only look at her husband with tearful, shining eyes.
"I tell you, Annette, she doesn't make half as many mistakes as—as I do, for instance."
He dropped his face, relinquished the hands he had kissed, and began again to play with the border of Mrs. Ferrier's cloak, leaving the two women to their talk.
But we have left F. Chevreuse and Mr. Macon.
"That hateful shawl, who raked that out?" the priest asked after a while, questioning in spite of himself.
"The whole turns upon that," Mr. Macon said, rousing himself from the brown-study into which he had fallen. "It seems that Miss Carthusen went up to the convent to make the acquaintance of the Sisters, and, while there, saw a shawl thrown over a lounge in the parlor. She examined it while waiting for the Sisters to come in, and found the corner torn. She mentioned the fact to that Renford, who is an amateur detective. The fellow's great ambition is to become a second Vidocq; he immediately offered to undertake the case, with the provision that, if he should succeed in finding the criminal, he should be regularly employed as a detective."
"Where did the Sisters get the shawl?" demanded F. Chevreuse. "Have they got to be dragged in?"
"It would seem that everybody is to be dragged in," Mr. Macon said. "My wife got the shawl, she doesn't know where, when she was collecting for the convent. That is, they say that she brought it; though she cannot recollect any person giving her such an article, nor recollect even having seen it among the packages. But her carriage was piled full that day, and she had called, perhaps, at twenty houses; so it would not be strange if she should forget."
"So those poor nuns have had to go into court!" said F. Chevreuse, much distressed by the news. "Which one went?"
"Oh! it wasn't a Sister; it was Anita," said Mr. Macon. "My wife went with the child, and stood by her all the time. It was Anita who took all the things from the carriage while my wife was talking with Sister Cecilia in the garden; and the girl counted and examined every package."
"She must have been terrified to death, that poor little lamb!" exclaimed F. Chevreuse, rising to walk about the room. "I think I should have been there with her. I would have gone if I had known. You keep too much from me, Mr. Macon. I known that you and others do this from kindness; but you must remember that it isn't for me to be cowardly and shrink like a baby. I'm not sure but I should feel better to be in the midst of it all than to be shut up here suffering the torments of suspense."
"You had a great deal better have nothing to do with it," his friend said decidedly. "You are not needed. F. O'Donovan was in court with Anita and my wife, and there was a body-guard of Catholics all about to make room for them going and coming. It was hard for the poor child; but what she felt most was not being in a crowd, and obliged to speak in public; she did not appear to think of that; but the thought that what she must say might bring trouble on any one almost overpowered her. She excited a great deal of sympathy. While she spoke, you could have heard a pin drop in the room."
"After all," F. Chevreuse said, catching at a consolation, "it won't hurt any of them to see one of God's snow-drops; and she is no more tender than many a martyr of the church has been."
Mr. Macon's brief story did not give any idea of the sensation produced in court by the appearance of this child, who was as strange to such a scene as if she had been, indeed, a wild flower brought from some profound forest solitude. Her beauty, the dazzling paleness of her face, from which the large eyes looked full of anguish and fear, the flower-like drooping of her form as she leaned on Mrs. Macon's supporting arm—all startled the most hardened spectator into sympathy. Careless and callous as they might have been, feeding on excitement as a drunkard takes his draught, ever stronger and stronger as his taste becomes deadened, each one seemed to realize for a moment how terrible a thing it is to see a human life at stake, and to have influence to destroy or to save it. If she had been a relative or personal friend to the accused, the impression would have been less deep; but the fact that she would have shown the same painful solicitude for any one of them may have stirred in their consciences some sense of their own heartlessness. They made way for her, and listened in breathless silence to hear what she would say. Her very distress lent a silvery clearness to her voice, usually so low and soft, and every word was heard as plainly as the notes of a small bird chirping when its nest is attacked.
"All I know, your honor, is this: Mrs. Macon drove about Crichton to ask for things for the convent; and Mother Ignatia let me go out to bring in the parcels she brought, because it pleased me. I always set down on a slip of paper a list of the articles, and the day of the month she brought them, and some of the Sisters helped me, and looked on. But this time no one but me did anything, for it was the day after Mother Chevreuse was killed, and everybody was in great trouble. Mrs. Macon said, when she came, that she had spent the night before at Madison with her sister there, and started early in her phaeton to beg for us, and had heard nothing of the news till she reached Crichton late in the afternoon. Then she drove straight to us; and, when she got out of the phaeton, she ran to Sister Cecilia, and they threw themselves into each other's arms, and began to cry. We were all crying, but I went to take the parcels out of the phaeton, because I wanted to do something. And I made a list of them, because I always had, and I carried them up-stairs. And I knew just how everything looked, because I tried to think of my work and not of Mother Chevreuse. And I do know surely that the gray shawl which was laid over our lounge was brought that day. I saw the piece torn out of the corner, and, when they arranged it for a cover, they turned the torn corner behind. That is all, your honor, except that Miss Carthusen came to the convent one day, and, when I went into the parlor, she was examining the shawl, and she said she did it because there was one like it missing out of their house. And I hope," said this simple creature, rising, in her earnestness, from Mrs. Macon's arm, and leaning imploringly toward the judge—"I hope that what I have said will not hurt anybody nor be used against anybody. And I ask Mr. Schöninger to forgive me if what I have said displeases him; for, if it should do him harm, I shall be unhappy about it as long as I live."
No one said a word as the girl was led, trembling and half fainting, out of the court-room. The prisoner regarded her with astonishment while she spoke, and when she turned toward him her pitiful face, and made her appeal for forgiveness, he bowed, and a slight involuntary motion of his hands looked as if he would fain have supported her drooping form. Never had he seen so simple and so impassioned a creature. An angel taking its first flight out of the white peacefulness of heaven, and looking for the first time on the miseries of earth, could scarcely have shown a more shrinking and terrified pity than had been displayed by this young girl, drawn from her peaceful convent home to the arena where crime and justice struggle for the mastery. And yet that pure and tender child had given him a terrible blow. Perhaps he felt that her testimony was important, simple as the story she told seemed to be; for his face grew deathly pale, and for the first time during the trial he lost that air of scornful security which he had sustained so far. Averting his face slightly, he seemed to be studying out some problem, and, as he thought, the faint lines between his brows grew deeper, and those sitting near him could see the veins in his temples swelling and throbbing with the stress of some sudden emotion.
The next morning F. Chevreuse went out to make sick-calls after his Mass was over, and returned quite convinced that his friends had been right in advising him to remain in-doors. Everybody he met gazed at him, as if trying to read in his face what thought or feeling he might be striving to hide; people turned to look after him; and groups of excited talkers became silent as he approached, only to resume their conversation with increased vehemence when he had passed. He had been obliged to check the wordy sympathy of some and the angry denunciations of others, who thought to please him by wishing ill to Mr. Schöninger; and more than once his heart had been wrung by some loud lament over his lost mother.
"You were right," he said to F. O'Donovan when he went in. "I will not go out again unless there is need of it."
"Then I give you as a task this forenoon to translate ten pages of that book," his brother priest replied. "It is needed, and should be ready for the early spring sales."
F. Chevreuse laid aside his wrappings with alacrity, glad to have a task assigned him. "But I would like to go into the church a minute," he said, making this request with the humility of a child. "Not to pray," he added quickly, as if afraid of receiving too much credit for piety; "I want to go into the gable, and look down to the court-house."
He stopped for permission, and his face was so worn and troubled that his friend checked the slight smile that unconscious display of obedience had provoked.
"Go, by all means, but do not stay long," he said. "The day is very cold. And, besides, it will do no good to watch there."
What he called the gable was a long, low attic running the whole length of the church, and lighted by a small gable window at each end. A steep stairway led up to a chamber over the altar; but from that the ascent was made by long ladders, very seldom used. The window over the altar gave a fine view of all the eastern and northern part of the city, and looked directly into the square in front of the court-house.
F. Chevreuse toiled wearily up, feeling himself grown old, and stood in the long, dusky room. The floor was covered with wood-shavings left by the builders, and spiders had hung their webs in thick festoons from beam to beam. One side of the southern window, at the further end of the church, was gleaming brightly, where the sun had begun to come in, and the rafters near it glowed as if kindling with fire; but the north window, that felt scarce a touch of sunshine in the winter-time, was covered deeply with frost, piled layer on layer through the cold night.
He put his face to the frame, and breathed on it till the glittering coldness melted, and a drop of water ran down, then another, and presently there was a clear spot in the glass. He wiped this dry with his handkerchief; then, covering his mouth and nose, that his breath might not freeze over the improvised loophole into the outer world, he leaned closer and looked out. For the large panorama of the city, spread out under a clear winter sky, and shot through by the two sparkling rivers, he cared not. Only one spot attracted his attention, and that was the court-house and the square in front of it. Looking there, he drew back, winked to clear his eyes, which had, perhaps, been dazzled by the sharp and tangled lights and shadows of the place; then looked again. The square should have been white with half-trodden snow, and dotted by passers here and there; instead of that, it was entirely black. But the blackness was not of the soil nor pavement; it was the swaying blackness of a crowd. They thronged the streets, pressing toward the square, and stood on the steps of the court-house, struggling to enter. Even at that distance he could see that policemen were forcing them back.
F. Chevreuse turned hastily away from the window, and descended to the church, heartsick at the sight. He threw himself one moment before the altar, then went into the house. As he entered, Jane, who was on the lookout, hid herself in her room till he had passed through the kitchen. Since the trial began, they had not met. She felt sure that he did not approve entirely of her conduct, and he allowed her to be invisible without asking any questions.
F. O'Donovan looked at him anxiously as he re-entered the sitting-room; and, when he went and leaned on the mantel-piece, hiding his face in his hands, approached and touched him kindly on the shoulder.
"It isn't your way, Raphael, to break down so," he said in that sweet voice of his, still sweeter with pity and tenderness.
That name, the name of his boyhood, when he and O'Donovan were at school together; when he was so overflowing with happiness that he could never be still, but had to be for ever at work or at play; when he knew no more of care than what the getting of his lessons involved, no more of sin than the little faults he recounted at his confessor's knees and forgot the next moment, and no more of sorrow than the changing of one beloved professor for another who speedily became as dear. O'Donovan, the beautiful boy, the youngest at school, had been his pride and idol in those days. He turned to him now, and, in the old way the English boys used to mock at him for, kissed his friend and school-fellow on both cheeks; at which the Irishman laughed a little and blushed a good deal.
"You're not much changed from the boy you were," said F. Chevreuse. "You had always a way of seeming to coax, while you were really commanding. Well, you're almost always right. How the wind whistles!"
It was a cutting north wind that broke multitudinously against the church, and seemed to splinter there into separate sharp voices. They went up from the narrow passage between the church and the house, they rang from the chimneys, and sighed and whimpered about the feet of the stone Christ, as if some wounded creature, invisible to man, had crawled there to seek for pity.
"What a day!" repeated F. Chevreuse, looking out. "December is certainly an ugly month, and January is a worse one. February would be worst of all, but that it is so near spring you can snap your fingers in its face."
He seated himself at the table, drew the books towards him, and glanced round at the fire, as if to assure himself that there was something shining in his vicinity, then took up a pen, and laid it down again, shivering, not because he was cold, but because he knew there was so much cold about.
F. O'Donovan, seated near the window, with his finger between the leaves of his Breviary, to keep the place, had observed his every movement. He dropped the book on his knee, and spoke in a gentle, dreamy way that was the very essence of soothing.
"Yes, this is now for a while one of the cold spots on the earth; but we have only to climb a little, in spirit or in memory, to have a different idea of December and everything else. How many years ago to-day is it that you and I saw oranges ripening in the sun in December, and roses blooming, and people pushing back their cloaks for the heat? It is an anniversary, for I have some little reason to remember the date. We were in Rome. I had been shivering in a bare, sunless room at the Propaganda, when I looked up and caught a glimpse through the window of a bit of miraculous blue sky over the roof of San Andrea's. It was four o'clock in the afternoon, and time for a walk. I called you, and we started on a little exploring expedition; for we had neither of us seen much of Rome at that time. We muffled ourselves well, and went out into the Piazza di Spagna. I recollect you saying, as we came to those great stairs, that they must have been modelled by some one who had Jacob's dream-ladder in his mind. You said, too, that one reason why Rome is so much more beautiful than any other city is not because it is more artistic, but more natural. Each part grew for itself, instead of being cramped by some dominating idea that spoilt all in trying to direct all. You were delighted with the perfectly cool way in which a whole street would go up-stairs or down-stairs. Well, there was the whole side of a piazza going up-stairs. We went up, past the group of models, you know, who stand there to be stared at; the bearded old man who stands for S. Peter or Moses, the brigand and the brigand's wife, and the little brown gypsies. The calendar said it was December; yet in the piazza below the air said it was April. When we paused at the first landing, and began to wish we had left our cloaks at home, it was May, and up in front of the Trinita de' Monti it was mid-June. The fruit-sellers left their large baskets of oranges in the sun while they sat in the shade and waited for customers; there were baskets of flowers, with heaps of half-open roses on the stone rail of the balustrade, and streams of rich verdure flowed wide or trickled brightly between the gray sweeps of stone. In the east was that unimaginable blue that can only be compared to a gem; in the west, a dazzle of unclouded sunshine; and between the two, Rome floated in a silvery mist. You leaned on the balustrade, and—wretch that you were!—your first thought was a pagan one. You said that the goddess of beauty had sunk into the midst of the city, and left her drapery of cloud clinging all about it, and that, when she should withdraw, there would be a vision in the sky, but Rome would be nothing but ashes. That was the best image that Raphael Chevreuse could find, with the city before him all a-bubble with the domes of Christian churches. You may recollect that I gave you a very pretty lecture on the subject. Then you pointed out to me a pillar of smoke wreathing slowly up into the sky, showing between the bold front of the Pincian Hill and the twin cupolas in the Piazza del Popolo, with the distant forest and mountain for a background, and you said that we were nothing but cloud-people living in a cloud, and that the only realities were Moses and the Israelites out there offering up sacrifice in the wilds between Egypt and Chanaan. Well, December being too hot for us then, we walked off toward Santa Maria Maggiore. Do you remember the great orange-tree, as large as an apple-tree, that showed over the convent walls, and how thickly the golden oranges were set among its green foliage; and the symbol over the convent door of two lions trying to get at a bird that was safe in the top of a palm-tree;[274] and the vane that you said could have been thought of nowhere but in Italy—a rod with a cross at the top and a bird's wing swinging round as the wind changed? And when we walked on among the ruins, what superstitious young man gathered dandelions, because gold-colored flowers always brought him some happy chance, he said; and then, in the next breath, looking at those mountains before us, swimming, it seemed, in a sea of rosy-purple vapors, broke out with a psalm, "Montes exultaverunt ut arietes; et colles, sicut agni ovium"? You declared vehemently that the mountains were dancing, and I had to hold you to keep you from dancing too. A pretty sight it would have been to see a young Christian priest twirling pirouettes among the ruins of the temple of Minerva! Doubtless, while we are in the midst of the snows and frost of a northern morning, the sun is just going down over that same warm and glowing scene. And, doubtless, too," said F. O'Donovan slowly, coming to the point he had started to reach, "outside this pain and confusion there is peace and happiness waiting to come in and give us our soul's summer in this world even. The storms are short, but the peace is long, and for ever waiting overhead."
"But life is not long," concluded F. Chevreuse, "and it behooves me to be about my work."
He drew the books toward him, and began to work in earnest. He had been comforted in one regard that morning: he would not himself be called into court, the only points on which he could give evidence being better known to others. Jane and Andrew had both seen the condition of his little study, with its bolted window and locked-up desk, after he left the house that fatal night, and both F. O'Donovan and Mr. Macon saw it in the morning before he came home. The other point, relating to the sort of bank-bills he had lost, was of no consequence, as the bankers could not say what sort of money Mr. Schöninger had paid them. Every disposition was shown to spare him unnecessary pain, and they even strained a point for that purpose.
He was not needed, indeed, and the case was being brought rapidly to a conclusion, as his first despatch showed him.
"Old Mr. Grey, from the pond farm, with his granddaughter, have been brought in," Mr. Macon wrote, "and by their help the story has been made to assume form. Mr. Schöninger returned to Crichton that day past their place. He got into a rough road and broke his harness somewhere, and went to their house to borrow a rope to mend it. He had a shawl on his arm when he went up to the door. While the young girl was gone for the rope, he folded the shawl, and put it into my wife's phaeton among the other packages. My wife was then with old Mrs. Grey in the house. Mr. Grey was at work in the garden, and saw what was done. The girl also saw the shawl on his arm when he came, but did not notice it afterward. It is likely to go hard with him."
F. Chevreuse had a very red face when he looked over this note. But he handed it to F. O'Donovan without a word, and resumed his writing again. If he knew well what he was writing is doubtful. That color did not leave his face, and now and then he pressed his hand to his forehead, as if confused.
"Mr. Schöninger has roused himself at last," the next note said. "He seems for the first time to comprehend that he is in danger. He looks like a lion. I hope he may prove to have some of a lion's strength, for his chances are small."
F. Chevreuse handed the paper to his brother priest, who had been out and come in again, and watched his face while he read it.
"Will you tell me frankly your opinion of this?" he said then.
F. O'Donovan dropped his eyes, having, evidently, no mind to be frank on the subject. "I cannot have a settled opinion on a question of which I have heard but one side," he said. "I have been in court this morning, and talked with some people there, and the chances at present seem for a conviction. But we cannot tell the strength of the defence as yet."
In spite of his reserve, there was no mistaking his belief in the prisoner's guilt.
F. Chevreuse shut his book decisively.
"Since I am not needed here, I may as well go and see the bishop," he said. "I was to have gone this week to settle important business with him, but he excused me on the supposition that I would not be allowed to leave Crichton. Can you take care of my people a few days longer?"
"A week longer, if you wish."
"Four days will be enough—two to go and come, two there. You will know where to telegraph for me, if I should be wanted. I will go straight to the bishop's house, and stay there."
"How glad I am that you did not say 'episcopal residence'!" remarked his companion.
F. Chevreuse was already making his preparations for the journey. He glanced up rather imperiously from the valise he was packing.
"Why should I say it?" he demanded. "Never used such an expression in my life. And this reminds me that you have been criticising me before to-day, calling me superstitious, and I don't know what else. In one little corner of my mind I have been thinking the matter over ever since, and have arrived at these conclusions: superstition, being nothing but erratic faith, should be treated with great tenderness; and, besides, you will recollect that I was at that time reading the pagan classics; furthermore, Rome herself was not born in the faith, but is a converted pagan, and she stands there, a Christian Juno, with all Olympus kneeling about her feet; and well so, for any form is good that is capable of holding a Christian soul. Still further, I have concluded that young O'Donovan, whose hair still looks, across the room, quite black, should show a becoming reverence for Chevreuse, who has long since ceased to count his white hairs and begun to count his black ones. I said an elder soldier, not a better. Did I say better? Good-by. God bless you!"
And he was off, glad of the noise and speed of the cars, of the changing faces and scenes, of anything that would help to ease his mind by a momentary distraction. Yet, in spite of every effort, the thought haunted him of Mr. Schöninger rousing himself to do battle for his life. Call up whatever image he would to entertain his mind, that one intruded. He pictured to himself the first dawn of apprehension in the prisoner's face rapidly intensifying to a flash of angry terror, the reddening or the whitening color, the gathering storm of the brows. He tried to guess what he would do and say, by what grand effort he would at last fling off in scorn the accusation which he had not believed could cling to him—if he should be able to fling it off. That doubt was like a thorn, and he hastily called to mind something to banish it. He remembered what F. O'Donovan had been saying of Rome, and tried to recollect something of that old picture-book part of his life, to see again in fancy its shady streets and sunny piazzas, to enter in spirit some dim church starred around with lamps, and lined with precious marbles; but when he had laboriously fashioned the scene, a hand was outstretched to put it aside like a painted curtain, and again he saw the Jewish gladiator, alive and alert, fighting desperately for his life.
"You can see that I have run away to escape disagreeable scenes and talk," were his first words on reaching his destination. "And now to business."
It was quite understood, then, that no one was to tell him anything relating to the trial, nor mention the subject to him; so that when, on the evening of the third day, he started for home, he knew no more of the progress or result of it than he had known on leaving Crichton.
There were but few passengers that evening, and F. Chevreuse established himself in a corner of the car, put his ticket in his hat-band, that he might not be disturbed by the conductor, leaned back and shut his eyes, that he might not be talked to by any one else, and took out his beads to exorcise troublesome thoughts and invoke holy ones. It was a saying of his that the beads, when rightly used, had always one end fastened to the girdle of Mary, and were a flowery chain by which she led the soul directly to the throne of God.
They proved so to him in this case, and one after another the Joyful Mysteries were budding and blossoming under his touch, when presently he found himself somewhat disturbed by the voices of two men who were talking behind him. At first the sound reached him through the long vista of that heavenly abstraction; but soon the distance lessened, and then a single word brought him down with a shock.
"He fought hard at last," one said, "but it was of no use. Everything was against him."
It needed not another word to tell the priest who and what were meant; but other words were spoken.
"His defence was a mere mass of sentimentality," the speaker went on. "He owns to having walked the streets the whole night of the murder, but he says that it was from distress of mind. He had to decide before the next day whether he would abandon all hope of the fortune for which he was contending, and lose with it all that he had expended, or else throw into the chasm the few hundreds he had retained that an accident might not find him penniless. He declared that the state of his mind was such that he could not sleep, nor keep still, nor stay in the house. Now, that part of the story would not have been so bad if he had not been seen near the priest's house, hanging about there, and going away when he was observed, and if he had not declared that, when he went away from Crichton in the morning, he had not heard of the murder. The tracks were not a strong point, for Newcome makes everybody's boots just alike, and there are a good many men in Crichton who have as neat a foot as Schöninger. But the rest of the defence was nonsense. The shawl was what convicted him. It was his shawl; he owned it; and the fragment found in Mme. Chevreuse's hand just fitted the torn corner, thread for thread. I could see that he was confounded when that came up. He says he left the shawl in Mrs. Ferrier's garden in the evening, and went for it early in the morning before anybody was up, and that he found it just where he had left it. He owned, too, that he put it slyly into Mrs. Macon's carriage. He said he knew her and what she was collecting for; had heard all about it at Madison. When he left his broken harness—which, by the way, was not broken, it appears, but only unclasped somewhere—and went to Mr. Grey's, he took his shawl over his arm absent-mindedly, and found it a nuisance while he was going through the woods. Seeing Mrs. Macon's carriage there full of parcels, some gray blankets among them, it occurred to him to add his shawl to the pile without putting any one to the trouble of thanking him. He said that he believed those nuns to be very good women, and that he felt a respect for them for the sake of F. Chevreuse, who had been very polite to him. Fancy a Jew taking off his shawl to give it to a nun, and that to please a priest! The story is too ridiculous, you see. Oh! it is clear. There never was a clearer case of circumstantial evidence. No one could have a doubt. But the verdict is too hard."
"You think it should not have been murder in the first degree?" another voice asked.
"It should not," was the emphatic reply. "It is almost an outrage to make it so. But people became ferocious the moment it was clear that he was guilty, and I believe they would gladly have taken him out and hanged him to the first tree. The fact undoubtedly is that he was pressed for money, and meant to help himself to the priest's. Mme. Chevreuse heard him, and started to alarm the house, and I think he gave her an unlucky push. But nothing of that sort would content the prosecution nor the people. They must have it that at the very best he killed her wilfully when he found that she had recognized him. The female servant testified that there was a candle overturned in the priest's room, which must have gone out in falling. Madame's first thought would naturally be to light a candle. Still, that is not sure. That same servant wished to show that the prisoner had a spite against the priest's mother, and the Carthusen girl had the same story; but if people had been calm, their gossip would have made no impression. Schöninger's lawyer tried to prove that madame's death resulted from the fall; but there was a bad bruise...."
F. Chevreuse gasped for breath. "For God's sake, stop!" he cried out, half turning toward the speaker, then sinking instantly into his seat again.
A perfect silence followed. The priest was struggling with his feelings, and regretting not having withdrawn before his self-control gave way, and the gentlemen behind him were recovering the shock of learning who their neighbor was, and feeling their way to a solution of the difficulty. One of them had an inspiration. "Let's go and have a cigar," he said; and F. Chevreuse was left to himself.
But his solitude was full of terrible images, and in that few minutes all his relations with the Jew had been changed. He would not have said to himself that he believed the man guilty, and he would have said that, guilty or innocent, he wished him no harm; but what his imagination had utterly refused to do in connecting Mr. Schöninger with his mother's tragical fate the plain talk of this stranger had accomplished. He could no longer separate the two; and the sight of the Jew, or the sound of his name even, would, in future, call up associations intolerable to him.
"You know all, then?" was F. O'Donovan's greeting when they met.
The face of F. Chevreuse showed, indeed, that he had no questions, or few, to ask.
"The law has decided," he said, "and, for the present at least, I cannot question its decision. They know better than I how to arrive at the truth. At the same time, I never will say of a man that he is guilty till he has himself told me that he is, or till I have the evidence of my own senses. And now, what have you to tell me about my people? Is it well with them?"
"It is well," was the echo.
The people had, indeed, settled into their usual quiet mode of life again with surprising readiness, as often happens to those who, giving themselves entirely up to an excitement, exhaust its force the sooner. The conviction and sentence of Mr. Schöninger had not only given them a satisfying sense of justice vindicated, but had impressed them with awe. The suddenness of his fall, when they had leisure to contemplate its accomplishment, was startling. But a few weeks before, he had walked their streets with a step as proud as the proudest, and there was not one among them, whatever his prejudices, who was not pleased to receive his salutation; in a few months longer—months of misery and disgrace—he would be called on to suffer the extreme penalty of the law.
Some of them remembered, too, when all was over, the defence the prisoner had made, if defence it could be called, when he was permitted to speak for himself. They were bitter words, full of fierce and haughty defiance and denunciation and at the time their sole effect had been to provoke still further against him the popular rage; but, for some reason, there was a thrilling pathos in the recollection of them, perhaps because they had been uttered in vain, and because they showed with what horror he contemplated his impending doom.
"You seek my destruction because I am a Jew, not because I am a criminal," he exclaimed; "and you condemn me without proof. But do not flatter yourselves that I shall perish so. Do not believe that I shall fall a victim to your insane and presumptuous bigotry. It may triumph for a time, but the triumph will be short."
Not a very pleasant sort of address to be listened to by a judge who had tried to be impartial, and meant to be honest, nor to a jury who were fully convinced of the speaker's guilt, and who had moreover, as juries are likely to have, a more than judicial sense of their own dignity. Yet, for all that, there was not one of them who would have liked to face again those flashing eyes and that white hand pointing like a flame where his words should fall. They were rather afraid of the man, and looked with equal uneasiness toward the execution of his sentence and the possibility of rescue or escape, or of revenge even, which he had seemed to threaten.
For the present, however, the prison was strong and well guarded, and the convict, being in solitary confinement, had no means of communicating with any friends he might have outside. He was still in Crichton, the state prison being near the city jail; and still, if he chose, he could look out from his grated window and see the Christ in air stretching out arms of loving invitation to him.
TO BE CONTINUED.
FOOTNOTES:
[274] The beasts of prey have triumphed, and the birds have been driven away.