TELLING THE TRUTH TO ROSSIE.
Rossie had asked, on her voyage home, who lived at the Forrest House,
and had been simply told that Josephine was there still, but no mention
had been made of the unnatural marriage lest it should excite her too
much. Now, however, it was desirable that she should know the truth, in
part, at least, for her testimony would be necessary when the trial came
on. So Everard told it to her a few days after the arrest, when she
seemed stronger than usual, and able to bear it.
She had been steadily improving since Rothsay was reached, though she
talked but little, and was most of the time so absorbed in thought that
she did not always hear when spoken to, or answer if she did. She heard,
however, when Everard came, and recognized his step the moment he
touched the piazza, and her pale face would light up with sudden joy and
her large eyes glow like coals of fire; but since their first interview
she had not suffered him to kiss her, or even to hold her hands in his
as he sat and talked to her. Josephine living was a bar between them
still, and Everard guessed as much, and told her at last that Josephine
had died on the very night of her return to Rothsay. She was sitting in
her easy-chair, with her head resting upon a pillow, and her little
white, thin hands held tightly on her lap, as if afraid of the masculine
fingers beating restlessly upon the arm of her chair. But when she heard
of Josephine’s death, her hands involuntarily unlocked and crept toward
the restless fingers, which caught and held them fast while Everard went
on very slowly and cautiously to tell her the rest of the story,—the
part which involved her brother, whose name he had not before mentioned
to her. At first she listened breathlessly, with parted lips and
wide-open eyes, which almost frightened him with their expression of
wonder, and surprise, and incredulity.
“Everard,—Everard!” she gasped, “you are not telling me the truth? Say
you are not. I would almost rather have died in that dreadful place than
know my brother did this. Surely it is not true?”
“Yes, true in every particular,” Everard replied, softening now as much
as possible what he had still to tell of the man whose trial would come
on very soon, and for whom there was no escape.
“Couldn’t you save him, Everard, if you should try? Couldn’t I do
something?” she asked.
“No, Rossie,” he answered. “You could not save him, and ought not if you
could. Men like him must be punished,—must answer for their misdeeds,
else there is no such thing as justice or protection for any one. You
are not angry with me, Rossie?” he continued, as she drew her hand from
his and leaned back in her chair.
“No, not angry; only it is all so very horrible, and brings the buzzing
back, and the confusion, and I hardly know who I am, or who you are, or
what it’s all about, only you must go away. I can’t hear any more,” she
said, wearily; and after that there were days and weeks when she lay in
bed, and scarcely moved or noticed any one, except Everard, whom she
welcomed with her sweetest smile, saying to him always the same thing:
“I have been thinking and thinking, and praying and praying, and I
suppose it is right, but oh! I am so sorry.”
Everard knew that her mind was dwelling upon the miserable man, who,
when told of her condition and that the trial was to be delayed till she
was able to give her testimony, had said:
“No need of that. I don’t want Rossie dragged into the court to swear
against me. I know more than she does; nothing can save me. I shall not
put in a defense;” and he did not.
Coldly, proudly, and apparently unmoved, he sat in the criminal’s seat
and listened to his trial, and saw the looks of horror and execration
cast at him, and saw Yulah’s face, like the face of a fiend, sneering
exultingly at him, and heard at last his sentence of imprisonment with
the utmost composure; and no one who saw him on his way to his new home
would have dreamed of the fate which awaited him. Only once did he show
what he felt, and that was when the prison dress was brought for him to
put on. He had been very fastidious with regard to his personal
appearance, and he flinched a little and turned pale for an instant,
then rallying quickly he tried to smile and affect some pleasantry with
regard to the unsightly garb which transformed him at once from an
elegant man of fashion into a branded felon, with no mark of distinction
between him and his daily companions.