“None that will do any good, I fear. I did, indeed, nurse my uncle and my cousin through their last illnesses—”
“Prisoner, you are seriously compromising yourself by making these admissions. You must be careful not to commit yourself again,” said Squire Upton.
“Sir, if I speak at all, I can only speak the truth, and I cannot believe that the truth can hurt me. I repeat, then, your worships, that I did nurse my uncle and cousin through their last illness. I did prepare with my own hands all the food and drink of which they partook—”
“Prisoner, prisoner,” said Squire Upton, in a tone of great sympathy, for—despite the conclusive evidence against her, it was impossible to look into her innocent eyes without feeling a doubt of her supposed guilt, and wishing to give her the benefit of that doubt—“prisoner, I must again earnestly warn you that you are fatally criminating yourself, a thing that the law does not require you to do. Justice affords even to the most guilty the opportunity of acquittal, which the criminal is not bound to destroy.”
“Sir, I am not a criminal; and if speaking the truth is to destroy me, it must do so. I did prepare their food and drink, as I did everything else for their relief and comfort, because I loved them so much that I would have given my life, if its sacrifice could have saved theirs. I put no injurious ingredient in anything that I made for them. And as for that deadly poison of St. Ignatius’ Bean, of which it is said they died, and which was found in my box, I do not know how it came there. I never, certainly, had it in my possession, never knew anything of its properties, never even heard of its existence before! And as I have spoken truly, so may the Lord deliver my life from this great peril!”
She concluded in a very low voice, and at the close of her little speech sank trembling into her chair again. Her simple defence, with its fatal admissions, was of course worse than useless; and her unsupported denial of the poisoning had not a feather’s weight to counterbalance the crushing mass of evidence against her.
“Humph! I see but one course for us to pursue, and that is to send her to trial. What do you say, Mr. Humphreys? What do you say, Mr. Upton?” inquired Sir Ira Brunton, looking to the right and left upon his associate magistrates.
“I regret to be obliged to coincide with you,” said Mr. Humphreys.
“It is very sad, very, very sad; but I see no possible alternative,” said Squire Upton, looking with deep compassion upon the poor young girl.
“Fill out the mittimus, Wallace,” ordered Sir Ira Brunton.