JUDGES
In the room was the same faint, luminous glow which had been
noticeable in the hall and on the stairs. There could have
been no more eloquent testimony of her condition than the fact
that she accepted its presence as a matter of course; that it
never seemed to occur to her that there was something about
it which required elucidation; still less that a few shrewd,
well-directed inquiries might result in a very simple
explanation. She stood on the threshold, all dishevelled, bent,
weeping; always before her eyes the things which she alone could
see, stricken with a mad agony of fear by the horror of the
sight.
She came a little farther towards the room, staring towards the
bed. When she had taken a step or two it seemed as if her legs
refused to uphold her any longer. Down she sank on to her knees
again; again she covered her face with her hands, as if by such
means she could shut off from herself the hideous imaginings of
her haunted brain.
"Don't! don't! don't!" she wailed.
While still she remained in that attitude of humility and
penitence there came a voice which called her by what had once
been her name.
"Isabel Burney!"
That she heard it there could be no doubt. At the sound of it
she shivered more than ever. But it may be that she was in doubt
whether it was a material voice, or whether it was a fresh
manifestation of those too-well remembered tones, which kept
calling to her all the time. For it is possible that a
disordered mind may be conscious that there is a difference
between the real and the imaginary without being capable of
satisfactorily perceiving what it is. She did not answer. It
came again, not loud, yet distinct and dominating.
"Isabel Burney."
This time she repeated her former wail, with renewed force of
entreaty.
"Don't! don't!"
If it was intended for a cry of appeal to be left alone, it went
unheeded. The voice returned, asking what was emphatically a
leading question.
"Did you murder Cuthbert Grahame?"
She made not the slightest attempt to shirk the very weighty
responsibility which attended the reply to such a question. An
affirmative was bursting from her lips almost before it was
asked.
"Yes! yes! yes!"
"How did you murder him?"
Again the wail--
"Don't! don't! don't!"
"How did you murder him?"
The wail became hysterical cries.
"Oh! oh! oh!"
But the voice persisted.
"How did you murder him?"
Confused words came stumbling from her lips, as if they were
being forcibly extracted.
"The pillows--dragged---from under--he choked."
"You dragged the pillows from under him, so that his head fell
down, and he was choked."
"Yes."
"Why did you murder him?"
Here again the answer came rapidly and clearly.
"Because I didn't want him to destroy the will which I had
tricked him into signing."
"How did you trick him?"
"He made me draw up a will which left all his property to
Margaret Wallace."
"And then?"
"I drew up a will in which he left everything to me."
"And then?"
"I covered it with a sheet of paper, and got him to sign it,
thinking that he was signing the other."
"Did he know what you had done?"
"Yes; I killed him before he could tell any one else and have
the will destroyed."
The voice was still. There was silence, broken by the sound of
some one moving. The room was filled with a bright light. The
voice came again.
"Isabel Burney!"
The woman on her knees, dropping her hands, looked round. By a
lighted lamp which rested on a writing-table stood Margaret
Wallace. Whether Mrs. Lamb realised that she was looking at the
girl herself, or supposed that she was confronted by a
materialised phantom, has never been certainly known. She stared
at her surlily, unblinkingly, affrightedly, as one might stare
at some unpleasing object in a dream. The girl repeated the
questions which had already been answered. As one listened the
last remnants of doubt vanished as to whose was the voice which
had already made itself so prominent.
"Did you trick Cuthbert Grahame into signing a will in which he
left all that he had to you, when he supposed himself to be
signing one in which he left it all to me?"
There was a momentary hesitation, then the answer, spoken
sullenly, half beneath her breath, yet plain enough.
"Yes; I did."
"And did you then kill him because you feared discovery of what
you had done?"
"Yes; I did."
There was another movement on the other side of the room. When
Mrs. Lamb looked round she found herself looking at Dr. Twelves,
who put a question to her on his own account.
"So you lied to me when you said those pillows must have
slipped--you knew better. As I suspected, you dragged them
away--you female fiend!"
His invective went unnoticed; there came the rather monotonous
refrain--
"Yes; I did".
There were other movements proceeding from all parts of the
room. On one side of her were Andrew McTavish and his partner,
Mr. Brown. Mr. McTavish was evidently very angry.
"And you lied to us when you pretended that you suspected us of
robbing you! You knew all along that the only robbery you
yourself had committed--you impudent swindler!"
He only received the same reply--
"Yes; I did".
Dr. Twelves wagged his finger at her, gruesomely.
"You shall hang for it, Isabel Burney--you shall hang by the
neck until you're dead!"
Mr. McTavish cried--
"At any rate, you shall be sent to penal servitude for the fraud
you have committed on us!"
She showed no signs of resentment, as only a very short time
before she undoubtedly would have done, when her resentment
would probably have taken a sufficiently active turn. From her
demeanour it was difficult to determine if she comprehended what
was being said to her. She gazed stolidly about the room. Near a
window stood Nannie Foreshaw, leaning on a stick, holding with
one hand the curtain from behind which she had just emerged. At
sight of her she shrank backwards, as if she would withdraw
herself as far as she could. Before the door, as if he would bar
her retreat, was Harry Talfourd. When she saw him she seemed to
be moved more than she had been by any of the others; she turned
aside, with a low cry, and covered her face. Possibly, in some
tangled fashion, she remembered how, so recently, she had played
to him the _role_ of the great lady, the benefactress; how
willing she had been to be something more to him than that; and
she was vaguely conscious of what a contrast she was exhibiting
to him now.
Margaret had been seated at a table writing. Now, rising, she
turned to the woman who was still on her knees upon the floor.
"I have set down upon this sheet of paper a short confession of
your guilt. If you will sign it you shall not hang; you shall
not be sent to prison. You shall receive your only punishment
from your own conscience. I think that is to condemn you to the
greater punishment. I will read to you what I have written."
She read aloud from the paper which she took in her hand:--
"'I confess that Cuthbert Grahame instructed me to draw up a
will in which he left all that he had in the world to Margaret
Wallace; that, without his knowledge, I substituted for it
another form of will, according to which he left his property to
me, and that I induced him to sign this fraudulent form by means
of a trick. I also confess that I murdered Cuthbert Grahame in
order to avoid an exposure of the trick by means of which I had
induced him to sign the substituted fraudulent form of will.' If
you will attach your name to this confession you shall receive
no punishment beyond that which you award yourself--that will be
a sufficient one. Come here and sign."
As if automatically, Mrs. Lamb rose to her feet, moved towards
the table, seated herself on the chair which Margaret had
occupied, accepted the pen which the girl offered, and wrote her
name in full on the sheet of paper which was set before her.
When she had signed, leaning back, she looked from one to the
other. They waited for her to speak, expecting perhaps some
burst of tardy anger. Then, on a sudden, without a word or a
movement, she slid from the chair on to the floor. When they
gathered round her she lay still.