CHAPTER LI.
The proceedings relating to Westwood's trial and Hubert Lepel's confession naturally excited great interest. The whole matter had to be investigated once more; and it could not be denied that a howl of indignation at Hubert's conduct went up through the length and breadth of the land. Even Flossy's indiscretions—to call them by no harsher name—were not held to excuse him for suppressing the fact that he had taken Sydney Vane's life, and then allowed Andrew Westwood to suffer the penalty of a crime which he had not committed. The details that came out one after another whetted the public appetite to an incredible extent. And in such a case it soon became evident that no details could be suppressed at all. Even the fact of the attachment between Hubert and Cynthia leaked out, although everybody tried hard to keep it a secret; and great was the wonder excited by Cynthia's steady refusal to give up the lover who had nearly caused her father's death.
"She must be a heartless creature indeed!" the busybodies said. "Who ever heard of such a revolting position? Has her father cast her off? What a grief it must be to him! It is like a terrible old Greek tragedy!"
And, when the busybodies heard that Westwood had not objected to his child's marriage with Hubert Lepel, and had actually appeared to be friendly with him, they concluded that all parties concerned must be equally devoid of the finer qualities of human nature, and that a painful revelation of baseness and secret vice had just been made.
But, in spite of public indignation, it was not possible for Hubert Lepel to receive very severe punishment from the arm of the law. He had never been examined at Westwood's trial—and the law does not compel a man to inculpate himself. He was held to have committed manslaughter, and he was condemned to two years' imprisonment. And Westwood received a "free pardon" from the Queen—which Cynthia thought a very inadequate way of testifying to his innocence; and he walked through London streets a free man once more, and might have been made into a hero had he chosen, especially when it became known that he was very well off, and that he had a daughter so beautiful and gifted as the young lady who had previously been known to the general public as Cynthia West.
Cynthia was entreated to sing again and again, and was assured that people would flock to hear her and to see her more than ever. But she steadily refused to sing in any public place. She could not overcome the feeling that her audience only came to stare at her as Westwood's daughter, and not to hear her sing. She withdrew therefore from the musical profession, and lived a quiet life in London with her father, who had postponed his departure for a few weeks. He would not return to America until the close of Hubert Lepel's trial.
The General's sad death, caused chiefly by excitement, was felt, when the shock was passed, to be almost a relief for his friends. They all felt that it would have been sad indeed if the old man had lived to see himself desolate, his name dragged through the mud, his wife branded with shame, the boy that he had loved not only laid in the grave, but known to be no kin to him at all. He could not have borne it; his life would have been a misery to him; and it was perhaps well that he should die. His will had been unsigned, and the property therefore passed to Enid, with the usual "half" to his widow.
Flossy found herself better off than she had expected to be. She never seemed to regret her actions, not even the hysterical outburst which had caused her to confess her guilt and to hasten the General's end. She declared herself relieved that she had now nothing to conceal. As for the execration that she met with from all who knew her story, she cared very little indeed. She refused to see her old acquaintances, and went abroad as soon as possible. Her lawyer alone knew her address—for she did not correspond with her English friends; but she was occasionally heard of at a foreign watering-place, where she posed as an interesting widow completely misunderstood by a sadly prejudiced world. In time she married again, and it was said that her husband, a Russian nobleman, ill-treated-her; but Flossy was quite capable of holding her own against any number of Russia noblemen, and it was more likely that he suffered at her hands than she at his. In the wild Northern lands however she finally made her home; and she announced to her lawyer her determination never to set foot in England again. A traveller who afterwards came across her in Russian reported to her relatives that she was looking haggard and worn, that she was said to take chloral regularly, and that she suffered from some obscure disease of the nerves for which no doctor could find a cure. And thus she passed out of the lives of her English friends—unloved, unmourned, unhappy, and, in spite of wealth and title, unsuccessful in all that she tried to attain.
Enid, the owner of Beechfield Hall, took a dislike to the place, and would not live in it for many a long day. She remained with Miss Vane until a year had passed after the General's death, and then she married Mr. Evandale and took up her abode at the Rectory. She made an ideal parson's wife. Her health had grown stronger in the quiet atmosphere of Miss Vane's home; and, curiously enough, she never had another of her strange "seizures" after her departure from Beechfield Hall. She herself always believed that she had conquered them by an effort of will; but Mr. Evandale was disposed to think that she had been occasionally put under the influence of some drug by Mrs. Vane, and that Mrs. Vane had either wished to remove her altogether from her path or undermine her health and intellect completely. At a later date she had grown tired of this method, and tried to take a quicker way; but in this attempt she had been foiled. Parker remained in Enid's service, and made a faithful nurse, devoted to her mistress and her mistress's children, and above all devoted to her master, who had spoken to her gently of her past, and given her new hope for the future.