“No need of that. I don’t want Rossie dragged into the court to swear against me. I know more than she does; nothing can save me. I shall not put in a defense;” and he did not.
Coldly, proudly, and apparently unmoved, he sat in the criminal’s seat and listened to his trial, and saw the looks of horror and execration cast at him, and saw Yulah’s face, like the face of a fiend, sneering exultingly at him, and heard at last his sentence of imprisonment with the utmost composure; and no one who saw him on his way to his new home would have dreamed of the fate which awaited him. Only once did he show what he felt, and that was when the prison dress was brought for him to put on. He had been very fastidious with regard to his personal appearance, and he flinched a little and turned pale for an instant, then rallying quickly he tried to smile and affect some pleasantry with regard to the unsightly garb which transformed him at once from an elegant man of fashion into a branded felon, with no mark of distinction between him and his daily companions.
CHAPTER LV.
CONCLUSION.
After the trial was over, and the doctor safely lodged in prison to serve out his length of time, Rothsay gradually grew quiet and ceased to talk of the startling events which had thrown the town into such commotion. They were getting accustomed to the fact that Rossie was alive and with them again. She had appeared in the streets with Beatrice two or three times, and many of her old friends had been admitted to see her, but she was still very weak in body and mind, and was kept as quiet as possible. Beatrice had made a short visit with her husband to Boston, but had returned again to her own home, bringing Trix and Bunchie with her, hoping the effect on Rossie might be good. And it was, for from the moment the children came and turned the orderly house upside down with their play and prattle, she began to improve and seem much like the Rossie of old, except that her face and figure were thinner and there were no roses on her cheeks, and there was always a tired look in her eyes and about her mouth. Of her brother she never spoke, nor of Josephine either; neither had she ever been near the Forrest House, which, without her knowledge, had gradually been undergoing a transformation, preparatory to the time when she should be equal to visit it. Both Everard and Beatrice, with Aunt Axie to assist them, had been busy as bees, removing from the house every article of furniture which either the doctor or Josephine had bought, and replacing it with the old, familiar things of Rossie’s childhood.
When the doctor refurnished the house he had ordered all the rubbish, as he called it, to be stored away in the attics and unused rooms, where it had lain untouched save as dust and cobwebs had accumulated on it, and thus it was comparatively easy for the rooms to assume their natural appearance, except so far as they had been changed by new windows and doors, and partitions thrown down to make them more commodious. Could Axie have had her way, she would have put everything back as it was, and not have left a vestige of the past, but Everard had the good sense to see that the changes were such as both he and Rossie would like when accustomed to them. He put himself with Rossie, for he knew he should live there with her, although nothing definite was settled by word of mouth. He had a plan which he meant to carry out, and when the house was restored to itself, and the same old carpets were on the floor, and the same old pictures on the wall, and the chairs in his father’s room standing just as they stood that day when Rossie came to him so fearlessly and asked to be his wife, he went to her and said she was to ride with him that morning, as there was something he wished to show her. She assented readily, and was soon beside him in Beatrice’s phaeton, driving toward the Forrest House grounds, into which he suddenly turned.
“Oh, Everard,” she cried, as her cheek flushed scarlet, “where are you going? Not there? I cannot bear it yet. It will bring the buzzing back, and all the uncertainty. Don’t go, please. It’s like a haunted place.”
But Everard was firm, and quieted her as well as he could, and pointed out Aunt Axie standing in the door just as she used to stand waiting for her young mistress, and John farther on in the stable-yard, and even the old dogs barking in the early sunshine, and running to meet them as they came up. It did not seem strange nor haunted now, and Rossie made no resistance when Everard lifted her from the phaeton and carried her into the house, which seemed so restful and home-like that she felt all her old morbid feelings and fears dropping from her, and flitted from room to room like some joyous bird, until she came to the judge’s chamber, where she paused a moment on the threshold, while there flashed upon her a remembrance of that day which seemed so long ago, when she had entertained it so fearlessly, and done that for which she always blushed when she recalled it. Passing his arm around her Everard drew her into the room, and closing the door made her sit down beside him, while he said, “Rossie, you surely have not forgotten a scene which took place here more than six years ago, when a miserable, sorely-tried young man sat here a beggar, with a secret on his mind far worse and harder to bear than prospective poverty. And while he sat thinking of the future, and shrinking from it with a dread of which you cannot conceive, there came to him a little sweet-faced girl, who, in her desire to comfort him and give back what she believed to be his, asked to be his wife, without a thought of shame. No, Rossie, don’t try to get away from me, for you cannot. I shall keep you now, forever,” he continued, as Rossie tried to free herself from the arm which only held her closer, as Everard went on: “In one sense that time seems to me ages and ages ago, so much has happened since, while in another it seems but yesterday, so distinctly do I recall every incident and detail, even to the dress and apron you wore, and the expression of your face as it changed from perfect unconsciousness to a sense of what you had done. You came to me a child, but you left me a woman, whom I do believe I would even then have taken to my heart but for the bar between us. That bar is now removed, and Rossie, my darling, I have brought you here to the old home, and into the very room, to answer the question you asked me then, that is, if you are still of the same mind. Are you, Rossie? Do you still wish to be my wife?”
He had her face between his two hands, and was looking into her eyes, which filled with tears as she said to him: “Oh, Everard, yes, yes. I have wished it so much when it was wicked to do so, and now that it is not, I wish it still; only I am afraid I must not, for there is such a horrible fear before me all the time which I cannot shake off. Day and night it haunts me, that I am not all right in my brain. I saw so much and suffered so much that I can’t put things together quite straight, and my head buzzes at times, and I do not remember, and am even troubled to know just who I am and what has happened. Oh, do you think, do you suppose I am going to be a,——a,——” She hesitated, and her lips quivered pitifully as she finally pronounced the dreadful word,—“fool.”
Everard’s laugh was something pleasant and good to hear, it was so long and loud.