Alarmed at his searching expression, she turned abruptly away from him with unmistakable haughtiness this time. But no sooner had she done so than, smitten by a swift recollection of the folly and injustice of the act, she returned with a glance and gesture so full of mute, impulsive penitence that it more than atoned; it explained.
The proud surprise in his face melted to a quiet smile. He resumed his seat by Mrs. Ferrier, and began to talk with her, taking no further notice of Honora for a few minutes. But when he saw her sitting silent and pale, her momentary trouble forgotten in the recollection of the solemn scenes which she had witnessed in the last few days, he spoke to her.
“I hope you will take some interest in my choir,” he said; “for I wish to improve it very much. The material is bad, the greater part of it. Those persons seem to have been selected who had loud, blatant voices and a firm belief that they were excellent singers. They make noise enough, and are not afraid; but they are vulgar singers. I want a choir of boys in addition to them. You must know some good voices among the children.”
She brightened. It was a pleasant surprise to hear something in common life spoken of, and to have one who knew all assume that all was not lost.
“I know a good many such voices,” she said; “and I should be glad to help you. Could not I make the selection, and teach them the first lessons? It would be small work for you.”
“If you would be so good,” he replied, quite as if he had expected the offer.
And so, without more words, Miss Pembroke was installed as Mr. Schöninger's musical assistant. It was a timely employment and interest in her changed life, and exerted a softening influence on his. He gradually relinquished the designs he had meditated, and looked on his sufferings in a more impartial light. Whatever prejudice had existed, he could not doubt, when he examined the subject calmly, that he had been condemned on a reasonable array of circumstantial evidence, and that, without prejudice, any other man would have been condemned on the same evidence. Besides, even had there been a chance of success in the attempt, he could not have received as much in legal reparation as was voluntarily given him by the public. The city was, in a manner, at his feet. The highest officials, both in private and in their public capacity, tendered to him their respect, their regrets, and offers of any assistance he might need. People felt that they could not do too much for him. It was quite true, as Mrs. Ferrier said to him: “Now is the time for you to break the law, if you want to. You could do anything, and no one would find fault with you for it.”
For the real criminal, who shall say how it happened that he was not brought to justice? There was certainly an immense activity in [pg 677] searching where he was not. The law put on its most piercing spectacles, then shut its eyes and looked in every direction. The spectacles saw nothing. If they were on the point of having a glimpse, they were instantly turned in another direction. We have all seen such justice when wealth and influence are on the side of the culprit. Letters came from Annette to her mother with only the smallest circumlocution, and answers were sent to them with the most transparent diplomacy in the world.
“When my poor Gerald heard of his mother's death,” Annette wrote, “I thought for a while that he would die. He lay for hours almost insensible, and only revived from one swoon to fall into another. But he soon recovered from the first shock, and is, I think, glad to know that her sufferings were so short. But he says nothing, and I do not talk to him. I wait to see what God will do with his soul. He is like a frail building that has been overthrown so thoroughly that not one stone remains upon another, and is being built up again in a different shape. I can perceive a strength in the new foundations of his life which I had not believed him capable of. Indeed, he is not humanly capable of them. But this is the city of miracles, and ours is a miraculous faith. As I have told you, he says nothing. His life is almost an absolute silence, and, I might say, blindness to earthly things. I never see him looking at any beautiful or sublime object except the crucifix. Even I seem to be only a voice to him. He begins lately to show a disposition to be active, which is to me a sign that his mind is becoming settled.”
Annette did not think it best to describe the nature of the activity that her husband was showing, well knowing that it would have made Mrs. Ferrier believe herself to be, in addition to her other afflictions, the mother-in-law of a maniac. For the work he did, here and there, wherever it could be quietly done without attracting attention, was menial. She had seen him help the poor man unload his cart of stones, or take the spade from his hands to labor in his stead, and he was constantly performing menial labors in the house. All this was done, not with any appearance of being an eccentric gentleman, but as one of the poor. For day by day his dress had been growing rude and his whole aspect changed. The sun had burnt his fair skin and faded his unshorn beard, and, by means best known to himself, his delicate hands had become dark and rough. Looking at the firm, silent lips and downcast eyes, Annette could scarcely doubt that the man she had called her husband was gradually and purposely effacing all the beauty and daintiness of which he had been so proud. He never went out with her, and if by chance they were likely to encounter in the street, he avoided the meeting. No one, except the people of the house where they lived, suspected that there was any acquaintance or connection between this dainty signora and this man, who grew every day less and less to be distinguished from the common laborer.