“Every one is prejudiced against him but me,” she said with strange calmness. “Look at me. I am dying. I know it, and yet I am calm and fearless. I could even be happy were it not for him, and the thought of him being lost to me through all eternity. I could not exist in heaven sundered from him. It would not be heaven to me. Oh, sir! you have seen much misery and much wickedness, but you know that a woman is not always blind even when she loves with all her soul. He is not so bad; but he is easily influenced and led away. If he is taken and put in prison, through that fearful woman, will you remember that? And if I should not be allowed to see him, or if I am taken away before then, will you give him a message from me?”
I bowed, for I could not speak.
“Tell him I have never lost faith in the goodness of his heart, that I shall love him for ever, and that heaven will never be heaven to me without him beside me. Will you tell him to think of that—sometimes—when he is alone; and of the sweet, happy hours we spent together when we were but boy and girl, full of innocent glee and love, before he was contaminated and led away. Oh, if God would only grant me a little time longer on earth—a little time—just enough to see poor Will led back to the right road and safe for heaven, I could lay my head and say—‘Take me, Lord Jesus, take me home!’”
“You may be quite sure that time will be granted you for all that God needs you to do on earth,” I softly returned. “He will not take you till your work is done.”
I spoke with her for some time, going over many points in her history already partly known to me, but I found that she would not breathe one word against the man. She would not admit that in a fit of passion he had thrown her into the river, or that she owed to that immersion her present feeble condition. She would not listen with patience to one slighting expression or word of demur; her whole soul was wrapped up in him; and no tender, pure-souled mother could have yearned over her child more eagerly than she did over the man whose very name I could scarcely utter with patience. When she was gone I drew a long breath, and mentally wished that I might get my clutches on Smeaton firmly enough to treat him to a good long sentence of penal servitude. I felt as if that would relieve my mind a bit.
A day or two later I came on Dinah and her companion, and took them without trouble, but they had not an article about them which could connect them with the robbery at Dinah’s last place. After a short detention they were released, and I hoped that they would take fright and leave the city. During my short acquaintance with Dinah, it struck me that she was a great deal worse than her companion. “She is of the stuff that jail birds are made of, and a bad one at that,” was my reflection, and I remember thinking that it would certainly not be long before I heard of her again, supposing they favoured the city much longer with their presence. I saw them occasionally after that, and noted the general decay in their appearance, and guessed at their means of living, but never managed to get near them. One evening I was surprised by a visit from Dinah at the Central. She looked savage and sullen—a perfect fiend.
“You want to take Will Smeaton?” she abruptly began. “I know you do, for you’ve been after him often enough.”
“I would rather take you,” was my cold reply, and I spoke the truth.
She affected to take the remark as a joke, and laughed savagely—having the merriment all to herself. Then she revealed her message. Smeaton and another were to break into a shop in the New Town by getting through a hatch, creeping along the roof, and thence descending through an unoccupied flat, and so reaching the workrooms and shop.
“You’ve quarrelled with him, and this is your revenge, I suppose?” was my remark when she had finished, but Dinah’s reply cannot be written down.