At the trial Mr. Jabez Duck told, with many embellishments and at least two poetical quotations, how this dreadful young man had been admitted to the bosom of his family under the name of Smith. Then the detective bobbed up in the box to produce the implements of forgery and the records of crime found at Mr. Smith’s lodging. The clerks from the bank swore to him as the person who had presented the forged cheque of Grigg and Limpet’s. Then an expert in handwriting proved that the endorsement, ‘Smith and Co.,’ tallied with certain writings admitted to be George’s, found at his rooms and on his person. Link by link the chain of evidence was completed. Defence there was practically none, but a firm denial on the prisoner’s part, and a cock-and-bull story of having been the victim of some vile plot, which had not even the merit of originality. It was just the sort of story clever rascals do invent as a last resource. Doubtless there were other people concerned in the matter, but they were his confederates, not his employers.
George stood and listened as the evidence grew blacker and blacker, and at last began to wonder if it could be true—if he had lived two lives and didn’t know it.
When he saw that against such damning facts he could make no defence, he gave himself up to his fate. Bess, thank God, was with her father. The old man had saved money, and would provide for her. She, at least, need not share his shame. His marriage with her was a secret, and there was no one to prove she was the girl who had been known as Mrs. Smith at the little house at Dalston.
All he could do in support of his plea of ‘Not guilty’ would be to tell an explanatory story, which he knew his Bess, when she read it, would believe, whatever her father and the world did.
He put the whole plot against him down to Smith and Co. He believed in his own heart that he had been made a scapegoat purposely by them; that they had known who he was all along, and had had a hand in the burglary. It was a clever plot, and it had succeeded. He was ruined for life, but he had not anything on his conscience. He was deeply grieved at his father’s condition, and felt partly responsible for it, but of the hideous guilt attributed to him in that respect he knew he was innocent.
His stoical calmness deserted him as the time grew near for the verdict. The trial had been a long one. The element of doubt in the case had at one time been strong, but the police evidence had turned everything against him.
He was found guilty by twelve intelligent fellow-countrymen, and a long sentence of penal servitude was pronounced against him by the judge, who went out of his way to point a moral on the evils of young men being extravagant, getting into debt, and keeping bad company.
When George heard the sentence and was removed, it seemed as though a high wall were suddenly built up about his life. The sense of injustice faded before the sudden feeling of intense loneliness which fell upon him like a chill. He hardly realized all it meant at first. He had only that strange sense of desolation which comes upon anyone left alone in a strange place as his friends and companions vanish from his view.
When the warder touched him on the arm to lead him below, and the eyes of the thronged court were fixed upon his face, he made a sudden effort to rouse himself from the lethargy into which he seemed to have fallen. He stepped to the front of the dock, and exclaimed in a loud, clear voice:
‘As God is my witness, I am an innocent man!’