Mr. Jarrow Cook bowed, and the proceedings went on without any further interruption.
The prisoner, who was dressed in a quiet gown of gray cashmere, sat placidly in an armchair near Mr. Jarrow Cook. She was pale, but quite self-possessed. The evidence of the police inspector seemed to interest her very much, as he related with careful regard to detail how he was sent for, and what he saw and heard in the prisoner’s room; how he cautioned her, and what he said when he took her into custody.
An observant reporter thought he detected a peculiar smile pass over the mobile features of Lady Francis Onslow, when the first medical witness suggested the impossibility of a woman having made the marks on the throat of the dead man; but no doubt, when the case comes to be sifted to its very dregs, and the prosecuting counsel has to reply to this medical criticism, he will be able to adduce instances of the enormous strength that comes with passion, or is the outcome of some great act of revenge, and so on.
That is, if Lady Francis Onslow should have to take her trial for willful murder, though the coroner’s inquest ended with her condemnation, the case has still to go before the police magistrate, and already public opinion has decided that if Lady Francis Onslow did kill the would-be Tarquin she is only guilty of manslaughter. By her own confession, upon which she was originally charged, the man sought her life, and she killed him. It was remarked by many that in America she would have easily found bail if she had been arrested, and that if she had ever come before a court for trial she would have been promptly acquitted. “Justifiable homicide” is a verdict not unknown to the English law, many wise persons also remarked.
Meanwhile Lady Francis Onslow was on her way in a police van, to be charged in the police court, and a detective had been told off at Scotland Yard to keep his eye upon Lord Francis Onslow.
CHAPTER IX.
BY MRS. LOVETT CAMERON.
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted—Nevermore!
She was free—free to go where she pleased—to do as she liked. The hideous nightmare of the trial was over; a jury of her countrymen had brought in a verdict of “Justifiable homicide.” The laws of her country had given her back her liberty, and Fenella was a free woman.
Perhaps the jury had not been altogether unimpressed by the pale loveliness of the unhappy girl who had stood before them as “prisoner in the dock” during those two terrible days; perhaps the sight of the small pale face, of the piteous brown eyes, of the childish rosy lips that quivered a little, yet that never swerved in that one statement that they repeated through all the weary examination and cross-examination, may have influenced those rough men, who held her life in their hands, more than they had any idea of.
“I confess it. I killed him; he attempted my life; and I killed him in self-defense.”