I looked at my watch: it wanted five-and-twenty minutes to eight. “I have but a very few minutes to spare,” I observed to the still passionately grieving wife; “and as to the letter, you had better place it in the hands of the attorney for the defence.”
“Ah, sir,” sobbed the wife, raising her timid eyes towards me, “you do not believe us or you would not be so eager to seize my husband.”
“Pardon me,” I replied, “I have no right to doubt the truth of what you have told me; but my duty is a plain one, and must be performed.”
“Tell me frankly, honestly,” cried the half-frantic woman with a renewed burst of tears, “if, in your opinion, this evidence will save my unhappy, deeply-injured husband? My father, I fear, deceives me—deceives himself with a vain hope.”
I hesitated to express a very favorable opinion of the effect of a statement, obnoxious, as a few moments’ reflection suggested, to so much suspicion. The wife quickly interpreted the meaning of my silence, and broke at once into a flood of hysterical lamentation. It was with the greatest difficulty I kept life in her by copious showers of water from the decanter that stood on the table. This endured some time. At last I said abruptly, for my watch admonished me that full ten minutes had been passed in this way, that I must summon the waiter and leave her.
“Go—go,” said she, suddenly rallying, “since it must be so. I—I will follow.”
I immediately left the house, hastened to the quay, and, on arriving there, strained my eyes seaward in search of the expected ship. A large bark, which very much resembled her, was, to my dismay, riding at anchor within the breakwater, her sails furled, and everything made snug for the night. I ran to the landing-steps, near which two or three sailors were standing.
“What vessel is that?” I asked, pointing to the one which had excited my alarm.
“The Columbia,” replied the man.
“The Columbia! Why, when did she arrive?”