Black Sheep: A Novel

by Edmund Yates

Jim Swain was, of course, the chief witness, and he told his story with clearness and directness, though he was evidently and deeply affected by the sight of Harriet, whom his quick eye instantly recognized. She took no notice; she did not change her position, or raise her veil as the examination of the boy proceeded, as minute by minute she heard and felt the last chance, the last faint hope of escape, slip away, and the terrible certainty of doom become clearer and more imminent. She heard and saw the boy whose story contained the destruction of hope and life, showed her the utter futility of all the plans they had concocted, of all the precautions they had taken; showed her that while they had fenced themselves from the danger without, the unsuspected ruin was close beside them, always near, wholly unmoved. It had come, it had happened; all was over, it did not matter how. There was no room for anger, no power of surprise or curiosity left in her mind. As the golden locket was produced, and the identity of the portrait with that of the murdered man was sworn to, a kind of vision came to her. She saw the bright spring morning once more, and the lonely bridge; she saw the river with the early sunlight upon it; she saw herself leaning over the parapet and looking into the water, as the parcel she had carried thither with careful haste sank into the depth and was hidden. She saw herself returning homeward, the dangerous link in the evidence destroyed, passing by the archway, where a boy lay, whom she had pitied, even then, in her own great and terrible anguish. If anything could be strange now, it would be strange to remember what he then had in his possession, to render all her precaution vain. But she could not feel it so, or think about it; all things were alike to her henceforth, there was no strangeness or familiarity in them for evermore. Occasionally, for a minute, the place she was in seemed to grow unreal to her, and to fade; the next, she took up the full sense of the words which were being spoken, and every face in the crowd, every detail of the building, every accident of the scene, seemed to strike upon her brain through her eyes. She never looked at Jim, but she saw him distinctly; she saw also the look with which Routh regarded him.

That look was murderous. As the boy's story made his motives evident, as it exposed the fallacious nature of the security on which Routh had built, as it made him see how true had been Harriet's prevision, how wise her counsel--though he hated her all the more bitterly as the knowledge grew more and more irresistible--the murderous impulse rose to fury within him. Standing there a prisoner, helpless, and certain of condemnation, for he never had a doubt of that, the chain he had helped to forge by his counsel to Dallas was too strong to be broken; he would have taken two more lives if he had had the power and the chance--the boy's, and that accursed woman's. Not his wife's, not Harriet's; he knew now, he saw now, she had not brought him to this. But the other, the other who had tempted him and lured him; who had defeated him, ruined him, and escaped. He knew her shallow character and her cold heart, and his fierce, vindictive, passionate, sensual nature was stirred by horrid pangs of fury and powerless hate as he thought of her--of the triumphant beauty which he had so coveted, of the wealth he had so nearly clutched--triumphant, and happy, and powerful still, while he--he! Already the bitterness and blackness of death were upon him.

And the boy! So powerful, even now, was the egotism of the man's nature, that he winced under the pain of the defeat the boy had inflicted upon him--winced under the defeat while he trembled at the destruction. He had kept him near him, under his hand, that if the need should arise he might use him as an instrument for the ruin of George Dallas, and so had provided for his own ruin. The active hate and persistent plan of another could not have worked more surely against him than he had himself wrought, and the sense of the boy's instrumentality became unbearably degrading to him, wounding him where he was most vulnerable.

Thus all black and evil passions raged in his heart; and as his wife looked in his face, she read them there as in a printed book, and once again the feeling of last night came over her, of the strangeness of a sudden cessation to all this, and also something like a dreary satisfaction in the knowledge that it was within her power and his to bid it all cease--to have done with it.

Looking at him, and thinking this, if the strange dream of her mind may be called thought, the curiosity of the crowd began to anger her a little. What was the dead man to them, the nameless stranger, that they should care for the discovery--that they should come here to see the agony of another man, destined, like the first, to die? The popular instinct filled her with loathing, but only momentarily; she forgot to think of it the next minute, and the vagueness came again, the film and the dimness, and again the acute distinctness of sound, the intensity of vision.

It was over at length. The prisoner was committed for trial. As he was removed with the celerity usual on such occasions, Harriet made a slight sign to the solicitor acting for Routh--a sign evidently preconcerted, for he approached the magistrate, and addressed him in a low voice. The reply was favourable to his request, and he, in his turn, signed to Harriet, who left her place and came to where he was standing. He placed her in the box, and she stood there firmly, having bowed to the magistrate, who addressed her:

"You are the prisoner's wife?"

"I am."

"You wish to speak to me?"

"I wish to ask your permission to see my husband before he is removed."