She sat at her window, still, white, silent. The hours had crushed heavily over her, and spared her nothing. Not until now did she know, not until now did she realize all that her husband had been to her, all that she had looked for from him, all the hope that had illumined the dark days of her imprisonment, lit up her bare cell, flushed its soft light over the court-house that dreadful day, the day that until now had been the most dreadful day of all her life.
A hundred eyes had been upon her, had burnt greedily into her soul—curious eyes, searching eyes, eyes all around. All the air was alive with voices—voices that rose and fell monotonous, persistent, dreadful. What were they saying? Now a sentence disentangled itself, now another. “The prisoner pleads guilty, my lord.” “The prisoner!” How curious it sounded. “The prisoner!” How should she know anything of prisoners, dreadful creatures, shameful, lowering, hideous? She had dreamed of them in her happy childhood, and awaking, shuddering, had hidden her face in nurse’s breast, or been soothed to rest again in father’s arms.
“The prisoner is separated from her husband,” went on that monotonous voice. How strange, she was separated from her husband; strange she should be like the prisoner, a shameful, disgraced prisoner. And dreaming she smiled, smiled in the dock, with a hundred opera glasses scanning her fair pale face, and a hundred naked eyes burning into her secrets.
But the smile woke her, she had always smiled; but now, now it was a long time since she had smiled. What was she smiling at? Then she woke to the knowledge of her surroundings, and she shuddered in the dock; the sweet face grew white and convulsed; suddenly she burst out crying. Crying aloud, poor child, poor wayward child, who had meant to play through life, and woke from her playing—here.
All alive and awake she was for the rest of that horrible day, quivering and trembling and sobbing, half child, half woman, as the trial wore on. Ever and again the crimson flushed into her cheek, her eyes suffused, her head bent, in a very agony of shame; she heard horrible questions, horrible answers. She felt herself undraped before these inquisitorial eyes, and shrinking, drawing her cloak round her with shaking hands, she would try and hide her poor hot face.
But as the day wore on, something of hope crept in warm about her heart. If Frank were here, he would not let them talk so—Frank, her lover. She heard again the passionate protestations of their short betrothal. She felt again his lips against hers. She was back again in the golden days when the sun flush of love was over all her life, and sun queen in those hours she had played with her happiness. And pitifully the tremulous lips murmured, “If Frank were here, he would not let them hurt me; if Frank were here!”
What a strange, complicated Fenella! Arraigned for murder, she pleaded “Guilty.” “Guilty,” though her hands were clean! With the unthinking generosity of a child she did a woman’s deed with a man’s heart. She took her husband’s guiltless guilt upon herself, and cried, “It was I,” while yet the horror of his act was vibrating through her frame. She had not counted the cost, could not. But if all the sum of those dreadful hours and days had been spread out before her, with shining eyes she would have scanned it, and still have called out generously, “It was I.”
But her heart was larger than her brain. Her brain failed her a little at the last. She was dim, confused, frightened. She forgot so much. These men who were there to judge her, noting the crouching, weeping girl, with golden hair disheveled, bloodshot eyes, weak and shrinking, thinking her guilty, pronounced her innocent, and sent her forth free.
Free! but what a freedom! Where was Frank? Where was anybody? Who was there to take her in his strong arms, let her hide her face upon his breast, weep there until her shame had died away, and the memory of her degradation was washed clean. Who, indeed?
The man who had defended her, who had been her lover, who had been her friend, came to her and he—he would not take her hand. He had spoken to her of her boy, and the cold emptiness of her heart ached with the sudden rush of her emotion as she cried out, with outstretched arms: “My boy! bring me my boy!” To press the child in her arms, to feel the soft down of his cheek against hers, to hear the lisping, “Muzzer, muzzer, dear,” from his lips, to have his arms about her—this, this would save her reason. She felt her reason going, felt her mind darkened, the path before her no longer clear. She was in a gloomy world, groping helplessly for a warm, human clasp of fellowship. Jacynth, her friend, answered her mother-cry. Answered, and left her childless.