'Guilty on the third count,' said the foreman. 'Not guilty on the four others. We beg, however, most strongly to recommend the prisoner to your lordship's merciful consideration, believing that he has been led into this crime by one who has been much more guilty than himself.'
'I knew Mr. Chaffanbrass was wrong,' said Mr. Gitemthruet. 'I knew he was wrong when he acknowledged so much. God bless my soul! in a court of law one should never acknowledge anything! what's the use?'
And then came the sentence. He was to be confined at the Penitentiary at Millbank for six months. 'The offence,' said the judge, 'of which you have been found guilty, and of which you most certainly have been guilty, is one most prejudicial to the interests of the community. That trust which the weaker of mankind should place in the stronger, that reliance which widows and orphans should feel in their nearest and dearest friends, would be destroyed, if such crimes as these were allowed to pass unpunished. But in your case there are circumstances which do doubtless palliate the crime of which you have been guilty; the money which you took will, I believe, be restored; the trust which you were courted to undertake should not have been imposed on you; and in the tale of villany which has been laid before us, you have by no means been the worst offender. I have, therefore, inflicted on you the slightest penalty which the law allows me. Mr. Tudor, I know what has been your career, how great your services to your country, how unexceptionable your conduct as a public servant; I trust, I do trust, I most earnestly, most hopefully trust, that your career of utility is not over. Your abilities are great, and you are blessed with the power of thinking; I do beseech you to consider, while you undergo that confinement which you needs must suffer, how little any wealth is worth an uneasy conscience.'
And so the trial was over. Alaric was taken off in custody; the policeman in mufti was released from his attendance; and Charley, with a heavy heart, carried the news to Gertrude and Mrs. Woodward.
'And as for me,' said Gertrude, when she had so far recovered from the first shock as to be able to talk to her mother—'as for me, I will have lodgings at Millbank.'
CHAPTER XLII. — A PARTING INTERVIEW
Mrs. Woodward remained with her eldest daughter for two days after the trial, and then she was forced to return to Hampton. She had earnestly entreated Gertrude to accompany her, with her child; but Mrs. Tudor was inflexible. She had, she said, very much to do; so much, that she could not possibly leave London; the house and furniture were on her hands, and must be disposed of; their future plans must be arranged; and then nothing, she said, should induce her to sleep out of sight of her husband's prison, or to omit any opportunity of seeing him which the prison rules would allow her.
Mrs. Woodward would not have left one child in such extremity, had not the state of another child made her presence at the Cottage indispensable. Katie's anxiety about the trial had of course been intense, so intense as to give her a false strength, and somewhat to deceive Linda as to her real state. Tidings of course passed daily between London and the Cottage, but for three days they told nothing. On the morning of the fourth day, however, Norman brought the heavy news, and Katie sank completely under it. When she first heard the result of the trial she swooned away, and remained for some time nearly unconscious. But returning consciousness brought with it no relief, and she lay sobbing on her pillow, till she became so weak, that Linda in her fright wrote up to her mother begging her to return at once. Then, wretched as it made her to leave Gertrude in her trouble, Mrs. Woodward did return.