Cruel as the grave

by Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth

“Nor Rachel, the damp girl,” added Lyon.

“No, poor child; but she may very soon become one,” sighed Sybil.

And Lyon put on his broad-brimmed hat and went out.

Sybil locked the door, took off her red wig, and her coarse outer garment, and took from her travelling bag a soft woolen wrapper and a pair of slippers and put them on, and sat down before the fire to make herself comfortable. At first the sense of relief and rest and warmth was enough to satisfy her; but after an hour’s waiting in idleness, the time hung heavily on her hands, and she grew homesick and lonesome. She thought of the well-stocked library of Black Hall; of her bright drawing-room, her birds, her flowers, her piano, her easel, her embroidery frame, her Skie terrier, her tortoise shell cat and kittens, her fond and faithful servant, the many grand rooms in the old hall; the negroes’ cabins, the ancient trees, the river, the cascade, the mountains—the thousand means of occupation, amusement, and interest, within and around her patrimonial home, the ten thousand ties of association and affection that bound her to her old place, and she realized her exile as she had never done before. Her spirit grew very desolate, and her heart very heavy.

But Sybil really was not a woman to give way to any weakness without an effort. She got up and tried to engage herself by examining the two little rooms that were to be her dwelling place for a day or a week, as chance might direct.

There was not much to interest her. The furniture was poor and old, but neat and clean, as anything under the care of pale Rachel was sure to be. Then Sybil looked about to try to find some stray pamphlet or book, that she might read. But she found nothing but a treatise on tanning and an old almanac until, happening to look behind the glass on the chest of drawers in the inner room, she discovered a small volume which she took to be the New Testament. She drew it from its hiding-place and sat down to read it. But when she opened the book, she found it to be—“Celebrated Criminal Trials.”

At once it seemed to have a fearful interest for her, and this interest was terribly augmented when, on further examination, she discovered that a portion of the work was devoted to the “Fatal Errors of Circumstantial Evidence.”

To this part of the book she turned at once, and her attention soon became absorbed in its subject. Here she read the cases of Jonathan Bradford, Henry Jennings, and many others tried for murder, convicted under an overwhelming weight of circumstantial evidence, executed, and long afterwards discovered to be entirely innocent of the crimes for which they had been put to death. Sybil read on hour after hour. And as this evening, while sitting in solitude and idleness and thinking of her home and all its charms, she had first realized the bitterness of her exile, so now, in reading these instances of the fatal effects of circumstantial evidence upon guiltless parties, she also first realized the horrors of her own position.

She closed the book and fell upon her knees, and weeping, prayed for pardon of those fierce outbursts of hereditary passion, that had so often tempted her to deeds of violence, and that now subjected her to the dread charge of crime. Yes, she prayed for forgiveness of this sin and deliverance from this sinfulness, even before she ventured to pray for a safe issue out of all her troubles.

Relieved, as every one feels who approaches our Father in simplicity and faith, she arose from her knees, and sat down again before the fire to wait for the return of her husband.