“Go and ask him what he thinks,” said Mrs. Eastwood anxiously in the ear of Sir Alexis; but Longueville, too, shook his head. He saw well enough what Innocent’s counsel thought; he had no desire to have his conclusion put into words. He himself could not banish from his mind a chill sense that Innocent had retrograded, that she had gone back ever so far from the mental condition to which she had reached when he read to her on the terrace at Longueville. A chill dread struck his heart that this terrible event in her life would contradict all his hopes, would put a final end to all her possibilities of development, and reduce the simple unopened mind into mere idiocy. This horror of doubt being in his own mind, it may be supposed that he had no wish to have it confirmed and forced upon him by the voice of another. He shook his head and threw himself down in the languor of despondency upon the wooden stool from which his counsel had risen. This was almost the most bitter moment he had yet gone through. She for whom he had hoped so much, his crowning glory, his rare, unique blossom of humanity, would this be her conclusion? She would be acquitted—on the score of idiocy! It seemed the most hopeful, the only prospect before them.
Mrs. Eastwood happily did not give herself up to any such thoughts. Her office for the moment was to cheer Innocent, not to forecast what was coming. She sat down beside her on the bed, and told her everything she could think of which would amuse her. She told her minutely how Nelly and herself had found lodgings opposite the prison. “You cannot see us, my darling; but we can see you,” she said, with a show of cheerfulness, “at least we can see your window. One of us is always watching you, Innocent. Is not that a little comfort to think of? If we cannot say good-night, so that you can hear, we say it in our hearts. Nelly sat half the night through watching, looking up at the window. What a pity it is so high—if it were not so high you could look across the road to us, and then you would feel as if you were at home. But when you say your prayers, dear, then you can make sure that we are with you; for I don’t think there is one hour—not an hour, my darling—that Nelly and I are not praying for you.” Here for a moment Mrs. Eastwood broke down.
“Yes,” said Innocent, pleased, like a child. “I will do so too. Saying your prayers is a very good way; but I wish I could go down-stairs and across to the Spina as I used to do. I liked the chapel at the High Lodge; the minster is too great. It is so strange,” she went on, with a smile. “I cannot get it out of my heart that the Arno is down there, and the Spina Church just as it used to be. It is because I cannot look out of the window.”
“Yes, dear,” said Mrs. Eastwood caressingly; “but of course you know that the Spina is not there.”
“Oh, yes,” said Innocent; “and sometimes I think it must be Longueville and the great trees stretching for miles—it is so strange not to see; but I never think it is home. I do not feel that it could be home.”
“Listen,” said Mrs. Eastwood in Longueville’s ear. “She is as sensible as any one can be—full of imagination, poor darling; but nothing else. God bless her! she was fond of Niccolo, and all that. And it has a very strange effect upon one, when one cannot see out of the window. She is as sensible as you or me.”
Longueville shook his head still, but took comfort. I think, however, that when he went away it was, on the whole, better for the poor prisoner; for though the anxiety of the watch he kept upon her was disguised as far as he could do it, it still disturbed vaguely the absolute confidence which alone made Innocent happy. The doubt disturbed her—she could not have told why. It was only when she knew that she was entirely in possession of the sympathy of her surroundings, a knowledge which she attained by no intellectual process, but by something in the air, that Innocent lost her look of woe. Even the prison, the terrible loneliness of the night which she had to look forward to; the shock of this dreadful event which had taken place in her life did not prevent her smile from regaining much of its simple sweetness when her aunt talked to her alone, prattled to her—Heaven help them!—of subjects much unlike those which one would expect to be discussed in a prison cell, of every gentle folly that occurred to her, and trifles far enough from her aching heart.
Mr. Ryder and Mr. Pennefather remained in Sterrington that night, and there was a long and solemn consultation held after the prison was closed to Innocent’s relations in the little sitting-room opposite the jail where the Eastwoods were living. The Spring Assizes were approaching very closely, and Innocent’s anxious defenders were divided upon one important subject—whether to seek for delay and gain time to collect all the evidence they could in her favour, including that of the doctor’s, who had left Sterborne after Amanda’s death, and who was naturally a most important witness, or whether to allow the case to come on at the Assizes which was to be held in less than three weeks, and for which the quiet country town of Sterrington was already preparing with unusual flutter of anticipation, for an exciting and interesting trial, a very romance in real life, which would draw the eyes of the world upon it, was no common occurrence. Both the lawyers were anxious for delay, but the family more immediately concerned were equally anxious that the trial might be got over as speedily as possible; partly, perhaps, because it was impossible for them to believe in any but a favourable issue as soon as the case was fully gone into, and partly from the more serious and substantial reason that all felt the impossibility of Innocent bearing up against a lengthened interval of loneliness and suspense. “The child will die,” Mrs. Eastwood said. Sir Alexis did not explain his fears, but they were of a still more miserable kind. Whether she lived or died, she would probably, he believed, have fallen into a blank idiocy even before these three terrible weeks were over, and if the three weeks were lengthened into three months, there could be no hope for her whatever. “The trial must come on as soon as possible,” he said, with an obstinacy which his confidential adviser, Mr. Pennefather, who flattered himself that he knew Sir Alexis to the very depths of his soul, could not understand, and no argument could move him from his position. Altogether, the lawyers, I fear, were not satisfied with the unhappy “relations.” It is true that relations are apt to be either over-confident or over-frightened, and to insist illogically upon the innocence of the accused, when the thing to be done is to prove that innocence—a very different matter from believing in it. But their obstinacy on the point of the trial, their indifference to the necessity of the doctor’s presence, and the irrelevant interruptions made by the ladies, at last provoked Mr. Ryder, who was not famed for his temper. “These matters ought to be left entirely in our hands,” he said peremptorily. “The doctor, so far as I can see at present, is the only witness on whom we could depend.”
“But when I tell you,” cried Mrs. Eastwood, “that I was there—that no one thought of such a thing—that it was a mere delusion——”
“What was a mere delusion?” said the lawyer sharply. “Did Lady Longueville give the draught or not? Is she under a delusion as to the actual opiate, or simply as to having killed the patient? If it is certain that she gave the draught, then the medical evidence is all important. We must discriminate between these two points. Is there any proof, except her confession that she gave the draught at all?”