XXXI
“WERE HER HANDS CROSSED THEN?”
Threescore and ten I can remember well:
Within the volume of which time, I have seen
Hours dreadful, and things strange; but this sore night
Hath trifled former knowledge.
Macbeth.
I shall say nothing about myself at this juncture. That will come later. I have something of quite different purport to relate.
When I left the court-room with the other witnesses, I noticed a man standing near the district attorney. He was a very plain man—with no especial claims to attention, that I could see, yet I looked at him longer than I did at any one else, and turned and looked at him again as I passed through the doorway.
Afterward I heard that he was Sweetwater, the detective from New York who had had so much to do in unearthing the testimony against Arthur,—testimony which in the light of this morning’s revelations, had taken on quite a new aspect, as he was doubtless the first to acknowledge. It was the curious blending of professional disappointment and a personal and characteristic appreciation of the surprising situation, which made me observe him, I suppose. Certainly my heart and mind were full enough not to waste looks on a commonplace stranger unless there had been some such overpowering reason.
I left him still talking to Mr. Fox, and later received this account of the interview which followed between them and Dr. Perry.
“Is this girl telling the truth?” asked District Attorney Fox, as soon as the three were closeted and each could speak his own mind. “Doctor, what do you think?”
“I do not question her veracity in the least. A woman who for purely moral reasons could defy pain and risk the loss of a beauty universally acknowledged as transcendent, would never stoop to falsehood even in her desire to save a brother’s life. I have every confidence in her. Fox, and I think you may safely have the same.”
“You believe that she burnt herself—intentionally?”