THE VERDICT.
Once more Mrs. Allen was put upon the stand to undergo the questions
which had been so fruitless with the doctor. It was this point of the
case alone which struck terror to the prisoner. When a question was
asked which apparently threatened to drag her husband's name through
that tortuous investigation, her lips would blanch and her eyes fill
with sharp anxiety. Thus her face gleamed out white and ghastly when
Mrs. Allen was put under the torture of new questions. The mother looked
at her gravely, and turned to the judge; but when the attorney proceeded
with his interrogations, she answered simply:
"I am her mother. Let me go."
They did let her go. The attorney had no heart to press that pale,
tortured woman farther, and became generous, partly from humanity,
partly because there was something in the face of his witness which
warned him that nothing short of death would force her to speak.
Unfortunately he had evidence enough, and could afford to take this poor
mother from the rack of his questions.
When this danger was over, the prisoner fell back into her previous
state of gentle resignation. So long as her husband's reputation was
safe, so long as his name was kept out of the proceedings, she had no
feeling of resistance.
The business of the court went on. All the details of that strange death
and burial, so far as known evidence could give them, were laid before
the court. The prisoner heard them like one in a dream. Once or twice
she lifted those mournful eyes as some detail struck suddenly on her
remembrance; but the connecting links being deficient in her mind,
baffled its consciousness. Then a change came upon the court. The
witness stand was empty, and a tall, hard-faced man stood before the
judge, pledging himself to prove her guilt. Katharine heard him with a
sort of dreary amazement. How sturdily he denounced her. How bitter were
his words. How cruelly sharp those dark eyes as they turned from the
jury to her face. Poor thing, it seemed very cruel. What had she done
that a strong man should hunt her to death with his words.
Then another man arose. She knew him, for he had visited her in prison.
The look which he cast upon her was full of compassion. He pleaded for
her like one inspired. His face was pale with emotion--his voice
faltered and his eyes filled when he turned to make a last appeal to the
twelve men who held her life in their hands. In the midst of this
appeal, Katharine came out of her dream and began to weep from self
pity. Her sufferings all rose vividly before her, but it seemed another
person she was pitying, not herself. She met the softened glances turned
toward the place where she sat with tender sympathy, as if they were all
deploring the misery of some third person. Thus, a faint glow shone out
from the pallor of her face, which deepened the sentiment in her behalf.
Then the judge arose with his face to the jury. His voice was slow and
grave, his countenance sad. She could not comprehend him. He was neither
stern like her enemy, nor pathetic like her friend. Still, under his
seriousness she felt that some pity for her youth existed. When he sat
down she gave him a long, sorrowful look, which he broke by lifting one
hand to his face as if those eyes troubled him.
The twelve men arose and went out, one after another, like mourners at a
funeral. Then a murmur ran through the court, and suppressed whispers
went from lip to lip. She knew that these men held her life, but could
not realize that their fiat was so near. Time went by. It might have
been minutes, it might have been hours, for aught she knew, since those
men had left their seats empty. The court was still thronged. The judge
sat in his arm-chair, shrouding his face with one hand.
A faint bustle. The twelve men glided into their old places, and a
voice, deep, solemn, and stern, spoke out:
"Prisoner, look upon the jury--jury, look upon the prisoner."
Katharine stood up. Those twelve men met her mournful gaze with
shrinking glances.
"Guilty, or not guilty?"
"Guilty! But not of murder in the first degree. Not guilty unto death!"
There was a hushed tumult in the crowd. Those who looked upon her face
rejoiced that she was saved the last penalty. Some muttered bitterly
against the verdict, and grew indignant with the jury for depriving them
of a death spectacle; and a few said, in their hearts, this verdict is
unjust--that young creature is innocent.
Katharine sat down; a band, hard and firm as iron, that had seemed
tightening around her heart all the day, broke, and flooded her being
with tears. Poor, poor child! she had been so afraid to die. Amid all
her heroism, there was a perpetual dread, which made her gentle nature
shrink from the horror before her. Besides, death would take her away
from _him_, perhaps, forever and ever. This thought had been the most
cruel of all. But it was over now. They would not take her life--she
might see him again--he would love her all the better for having
shielded his name from this trouble and disgrace; at any rate, she would
not die, she would not die.
Overwhelmed with these feelings, she heard nothing that was going on in
the court, but sat with her hands clasped and quivering in her lap,
while the tears fell, drop by drop, down her cheeks, whispering:
"I live! I live! and shall see him again!"
A voice called forth her name, commanding her to stand up and hear the
sentence of the court.
She arose, supporting herself by the railing, for the last few moments
had left her very weak. Her eyes were full of tears. She saw the judge
through a mist, and his words sounded from a great distance.
"Condemned to sit upon a gallows, erected on the public common of New
Haven, for one hour, with a halter around your neck; and, after that, to
be confined in the State's Prison, at Simsbury Mines, during eight
years."
She heard words of kindly encouragement and entreaty to use the mercy
extended by the court as a means of repentance. Her great sin, unnatural
cruelty. Time for reformation--fragments like these floated by her, but
they left no impression. She only comprehended one thing--they had given
her life! life! life! life!
She sunk on her knees as the judge ceased, buried her face on the
criminal's seat--and thanked God that he had permitted her to live. The
old widow had sat through it all quiet--as great suffering most
frequently is--pale as death, but with a certain stern fortitude which a
Spartan mother might have felt without shame. When the jury came in she
arose with slow unconsciousness, and stood upright in the presence of
the court, her gray eyes heavy with anguish, her white lips parted in an
agony of suspense. Guilty, but not unto death. She lifted her clasped
hands feebly upward, and fell back, sobbing like a little child.