There are very few, if any, prisoners, be they innocent or guilty, who, accused of murder, or of any other crime considered too serious to admit of release on bail, do not endure agonies of mind during that terrible interval between their committal and trial.
Possibly the innocent suffer the most; for to all the restraints and humiliations of prison life—less severe, indeed, than those imposed on convicted criminals, but still irksome and wearing to a degree—are added a bitter sense of injustice and often almost intolerable anxiety on account of those, their nearest and dearest, who, innocent as themselves, are yet inevitably involved in the disaster, subjected to all the agonies of separation, of suspense, sometimes of piteous privation. Even the fortitude induced by the inner consciousness of innocence is seldom strong enough to overcome this mental and physical distress.
So Roger Carling suffered—all the more because he strove to show no sign, endeavoured always to appear cheerful and confident in his interviews with his solicitors and counsel, and above all with Grace, whose visits, albeit under the strict regulations as to time, and under more or less official surveillance, were the great events of this grim and dreary period.
Like the blessed sunshine she came into that bare, formal room, always beautifully dressed, with a smile on her dear lips, the lovelight in her eyes; and they would sit hand in hand and chat almost gaily for the prescribed time, which sped all too swiftly, while the dark intervals between dragged on leaden feet.
Only God, Who knows the secret of all hearts, knew what effort that courage required, or how nearly their hearts were breaking!
For the days and weeks were drifting by, and no fresh light whatever had been shed on the mystery of Paula Rawson’s death. The trial was to take place early in the New Year, the first on the list for the session, and Cummings-Browne, K.C., had been secured for the defence. If anyone could secure acquittal on such slight grounds of defence as were at present available it was he. But although the faithful few never wavered in their belief of Roger Carling’s innocence, they knew it would be a stern fight—in fact, almost a forlorn hope.
Only Grace herself would never acknowledge that. How his deliverance would be brought about, his innocence established before all the world, she did not know; but not even in those long nights when she lay awake, thinking of and praying for her beloved in anguish of soul, did she allow herself to doubt that he would be delivered, he would be vindicated.
That sublime faith alone enabled her to endure these dark winter days of loneliness and sorrow.
Always she kept before her the one thought: “When Roger comes home.” On that she shaped her whole life.
That was why she insisted on living alone in the little flat that was to have been their first home, which she told herself should yet be their home together.