"When it was dark night Hermie came to me and said that there was something we could do for father's sake, and I must help her. She told me the boy was in the house and he was innocent, but that if he was found he might be arrested unjustly. She told me that some great disgrace might fall on father's name if we did not get him safely away. Oh, I did not at all understand at the time that she meant that if he were charged she must confess and be convicted. She chose some clothes of father's, and then I found that the boy was locked in a very narrow press in that very room. He put on the clothes, and he and Hermie knotted some dark thing together and we let him down from the window in the dark to the garden. He got in the neighbor's garden. She told him how to get from garden to garden. The police were about, but he got away. Her mind seemed quite clear. She said that because the boy was innocent it was our duty to tell nothing that could lead to his capture. She never told Mr. Alden that she knew who the boy was or who sent him, that he had brought a letter, or how he escaped."
"But how was she so certain that he was innocent?"
"Ah, that is what I have asked myself night and day for years. What could make her certain but one thing? She knew, and if she knew that anyone else had committed the deed, why not tell and exonerate the boy?"
"It is most extraordinary," said Durgan. The words were wrung from him almost without his will.
Bertha took no notice. "Then that night she did not know what she was saying. She thought she saw all sorts of strange things in the room, and she talked continually, as if seeing people who were not there. Her words were quite fantastic and related to nothing I could understand. But occasionally, when she seemed more coherent, she told me that the police would come for her, that she would be proved to be guilty, and begged me in the most touching terms to love her in spite of all. In the daytime she would get up and go about the house, and she appeared composed; but I knew her well enough to see that she was still strange. But she never said a word, except when we were alone, to lead anyone to suppose that she knew more than she first told. On the third day Mr. Alden told us that she would be taken to prison. It was an awful shock to me, but it seemed to rouse her and bring back her faculties. We were alone together for about an hour. After she had tried to soothe and comfort me by speaking of duty, of God, and of heaven, she spoke to me very solemnly, and told me not to grieve for any hardship that befell her, for she had broken the law and must suffer if she was condemned; but that, short of doing or saying anything to inculpate anyone else, she would do all that could be done to convince the world of her innocence. She said: 'It would be worse for you, and for father's sake, if I were convicted. I will fight for my liberty unless someone else is accused; but remember, if anyone else is accused, I shall have to do what will bring disgrace. Remember that, Bertha. Remember that if any circumstance should come to your knowledge to tempt you to accuse anyone else, that will put an end to my hopes.' She said this very solemnly several times. Then she told me the lines on which Mr. Alden would probably have the case conducted; and that I must tell nothing but the truth, but refuse to tell about the boy, or what she had told me. I never heard anyone speak more clearly and collectedly. She foresaw almost everything. Our other lawyers and Mr. Alden said the same thing, that her intellect was almost like that of a trained lawyer in its prevision of the effect of evidence."
"And did you believe her guilty?"
"I did not know what to think. I was stunned. I dared not think, for it took all my mind to act the part she assigned to me. But afterwards, during the long time she was in prison and during the trial, I believed her innocent. When I thought of her goodness and the perfectly unforeseen and inexplicable manner of the way poor papa and mamma died, I could not think Hermione guilty, and I did not. As to the wild things she said in those nights, I supposed she had been in a fever, and put down all I could not understand to that.
"Then we formed the plan of going abroad and returning to some place like this, only not so lonely. We packed all our valuables to be put in a safe by Mr. Alden. When my sister had packed the family papers and her own jewelry and locked and sealed the box, she called me to look at it and gave me the key. When she was ill in Paris she told me of her confession, and that it lay at the bottom of this box. But she asked me most solemnly never to open it unless someone else was falsely accused. She told me that she had no further motive in life than to make up to me as far as possible for all that I had innocently suffered; but she begged me not to make life too hard for her by ever speaking of this matter again. I have never spoken to her again about it."
Bertha's voice had become very melancholy; now she ceased.
"This mulatto calling himself 'Dolphus is certainly the boy?"