"He may be unworthy to live," murmured the scared chaplain, "but, oh, how utterly unfit to die!"
"That is true," rejoined Justin Arnold with undiminished vehemence. "Those, if you will, are words of truth and sense: go you and preach them to the makers and executioners of English law. In the mean time I would speak privately with this gentleman."
The reverend pastor, with a mute gesture of compassion, sorrow, and regret, was about to leave the cell, when he was stayed by the prisoner, who exclaimed, "Now I think of it, you had better, sir, remain. The statement I am about to make can not, for the sake of the victim's reputation, and for her friends' sake, have too many witnesses. You both remember Jane Eccles?" A broken exclamation from both of us answered him, and he quickly added—"Ah, you already guess the truth, I see. Well, I do not wonder you should start and turn pale. It was a cruel, shameless deed—a dastardly murder, if there was ever one. In as few words as possible, so you interrupt me not, I will relate my share in the atrocious business." He spoke rapidly, and once or twice during the brief recital the moistened eye and husky voice betrayed emotions which his pride would have concealed.
"Jane and I were born in Hertfordshire, within a short distance of each other. I knew her from a child. She was better off then, I worse than we subsequently became—she by her father's bankruptcy, I by my mo—, by Mrs. Barton's wealthy marriage. She was about nineteen, I twenty-four, when I left the country for London. That she loved me with all the fervor of a trusting woman I well knew; and I had, too, for some time known that she must be either honorably wooed or not at all. That with me was out of the question, and, as I told you, I came about that time to London. You can, I daresay, imagine the rest. We were—I and my friends I mean—at a loss for agents to dispose of our wares, and at the same time pressed for money. I met Jane Eccles by accident. Genteel, of graceful address and winning manners, she was just fitted for our purpose. I feigned reawakened love, proffered marriage, and a home across the Atlantic, as soon as certain trifling but troublesome affairs which momently harassed me were arranged. She believed me. I got her to change a considerable number of notes under various pretexts, but that they were forged she had not and could not have the remotest suspicion. You know the catastrophe. After her apprehension I visited this prison as her brother, and buoyed her up to the last with illusions of certain pardon and release, whatever the verdict, through the influence of my wealthy father-in-law, of our immediate union afterward, and tranquil American home. It is needless to say more. She trusted me, and I sacrificed her—less flagrant instances of a like nature occur every day. And now, gentlemen, I would fain be alone."
"Remorseless villain!" I could not exclaiming under my breath as he moved away.
He turned quickly back, and looking me in the face, without the slightest anger said, "An execrable villain if you like—not a remorseless one! Her death alone sits near, and troubles my to all else hardened conscience. And let me tell you, reverend sir," he continued, resuming his former bitterness as he addressed the chaplain—"let me tell you that it was not the solemn words of the judge the other day, but her pale, reproachful image, standing suddenly beside me in the dock, just as she looked when I passed my last deception on her, that caused the tremor and affright, complacently attributed by that grave functionary to his own sepulchral eloquence. After all, her death can not be exclusively laid to my charge. Those who tried her would not believe her story, and yet it was true as death. Had they not been so confident in their own unerring wisdom, they might have doomed her to some punishment short of the scaffold, and could now have retrieved their error. But I am weary, and would, I repeat, be alone. Farewell!" He threw himself on the rude pallet, and we silently withdrew.
A paper embodying Justin Arnold's declaration was forwarded to the secretary of state, and duly acknowledged, accompanied by an official expression of mild regret that it had not been in time to save the life of Jane Eccles. No further notice was taken of the matter, and the record of the young woman's judicial sacrifice still doubtless encumbers the archives of the Home Office, forming, with numerous others of like character, the dark, sanguine background upon which the achievements of the great and good men who have so successfully purged the old Draco code that now a faint vestige only of the old barbarism remains, stand out in bright relief and changeless lustre.
MY NOVEL; OR, VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE.
(Continued from page 543.)