Hetty did not find it easy to accommodate her pride to the plan which was to give her a fresh and rather imposing start in the world. She was to have a full year in which to determine whether she should accept toil and poverty as her lot, or emulate the symbolic example of Dicky the canary bird. At the end of the year, unless she did as Dicky had done, her source of supplies would be automatically cut off and she would be entirely dependent upon her own wits and resources. In the interim, she was a probationary person of leisure. It had required hours of persuasion on the part of Sara Wrandall to bring her into line with these arrangements.
"But I am able and willing to work for my living," had been Hetty's stubborn retort to all the arguments brought to bear upon her.
"Then let me put it in another light. It is vital to me, of course, that you should keep up the show of affluence for a while at least. I think I have made that clear to you. But here is another side to the matter; the question of recompense."
"Recompense?" cried Hetty sharply.
"Without your knowing it, I have virtually held you a prisoner all these months, condemned in my own judgment if not in the sight of the law. I have taken the law unto myself. You were not convicted of murder in this Unitarian court of mine, but of another sin. For fifteen months you have been living under the shadow of a crime you did not commit. I was reserving complete punishment for you in the shape of an ignoble marriage, which was to have served two bitter ends. Well, I have had the truth from you. I believe you to be absolutely innocent of the charge I held over you, for which I condemned you without a hearing. Then, why should I not employ my own means of making restitution?"
"You have condescended to believe in me. That is all I ask."
"True, that is all you ask. But is it altogether the fair way out of it? To illustrate: our criminal laws are less kind to the innocent than to the guilty. Our law courts find a man guilty and he is sent to prison. Later on, he is found to be innocent—absolutely innocent. What does the State do in the premises? It issues a formal pardon,—a mockery, pure and simple,—and the man is set free. It all comes to a curt, belated apology for an error on the part of justice. No substantial recompense is offered. He is merely pardoned for something he didn't do. The State, which has wronged him, condescends to pardon him! Think of it! It is the same as if a man knocked another down and then said, before he removed his foot from the victim's neck: 'I pardon you freely.' My father was opposed to the system we have—that all countries have—of pardoning men who have been unjustly condemned. The innocent victim is pardoned in the same manner as the guilty one who comes in for clemency. I accept my father's contention that an innocent man should not be shamed and humiliated by a PARDON. The court which tried him should re-open the case and honourably ACQUIT him of the crime. Then the State should pay to this innocent man, dollar for dollar, all that he might have earned during his term of imprisonment, with an additional amount for the suffering he has endured. Not long ago in an adjoining State a man, who had served seventeen years of a life sentence for murder, was found to be wholly innocent. What happened? A PARDON was handed to him and he walked out of prison, broken in spirit, health and purse. His small fortune had been wiped out in the futile effort to prove his innocence. He gave up seventeen years of his life and then WAS PARDONED for the sacrifice. He should have been paid for every day spent in prison. That was the very least they could have done."
"I see now what you mean," mused Hetty. "I have never thought of it in that way before."
"Well, it comes to this in our case, Hetty: I have tried you all over again in my own little court and I have acquitted you of the charge I had against you. I do not offer you a silly pardon. You must allow me to have my way in this matter, to choose my own means of compensating you for—"
"You saved my life," protested Hetty, shaking her head obstinately.