“Ann Chapman!” exclaimed John Cornelius springing to his feet. “Ann Chapman! Give me the letter.”
I put it into his hands. His eyes glanced at the date, and then rested, fixed, upon the signature. The pallor of the dead crept slowly over him; his arms gave up their strength and fell to his side, the paper dropped upon the floor. “Here, take it, take it,” he said, in a hollow whisper, looking straight out upon vacuity; “it is nothing, nothing, nothing.” Then turning to his counsel, he bid them enter a discontinue, and walked hurriedly out of court.
“This is a strange ending!” said the judge.
“My client is mad!” said the opposite senior counsel.
“Our client is mad!” echoed his junior, bundling up his papers with a piece of red tape.
“Mad or sane, gentlemen, it is a fit conclusion to what should never have been begun,” said I, taking the young widow under my arm and leading her away, much wondering at the abrupt termination of the suit.
“Do you think Mr. Cornelius has really gone mad?” she asked, looking up into my face with a tear upon her eyelids. It was one of sorrow, not joy; God bless her, she had forgotten her good fortune in sympathy for her oppressor.
“If to have a conscience is to be so,” I answered; and took leave of her at the door of her residence—at the door of the house we had battled for—so happy, that she tried and could not say, “I thank you.”
——