"Then she rode forth, clothed on with chastity:
The deep air listen'd round her as she rode,
And all the low wind hardly breathed for fear.
The little wide-mouth'd heads upon the spout
Had cunning eyes to see: the barking cur
Made her cheeks flame: ... the blind walls
Were full of chinks and holes; and overhead
Fantastic gables, crowding, stared: but she
Not less thro' all bore up."--TENNYSON.
Gregory Dexter kept his word. He telegraphed to Miss Teller and to Miss
Teller's lawyers. He thought of everything, even recalling to Anne's
mind that she ought to write to her pupils and to the leader of the
choir, telling them that she expected to be absent from the city for
several days. "It would be best to resign all the places at once," he
said. "After this is over, they can easily come back to you if they wish
to do so."
"It may make a difference, then, in my position?" said Anne.
"It will make the difference that you will no longer be an unknown
personage," he answered, briefly.
His dispatch had produced a profound sensation of wonder in the mind of
Miss Teller, and excitement in the minds of Miss Teller's lawyers.
Helen's aunt, so far, had not been able to form a conjecture as to the
identity of the mysterious young girl who had visited her niece, and
borne part in that remarkable conversation; Bagshot's description
brought no image before her mind. The acquaintance with Anne Douglas,
the school-girl at Madame Moreau's was such a short, unimportant, and
now distant episode in the brilliant, crowded life of her niece that
she had forgotten it, or at least never thought of it in this
connection. She had never heard Helen call Anne "Crystal." Her
imagination was fixed upon a girl of the lower class, beautiful, and
perhaps in her way even respectable--"one of those fancies which," she
acknowledged, "gentlemen sometimes have," the tears gathering in her
pale eyes as she spoke, so repugnant was the idea to her, although she
tried to accept it for Heathcote's sake. But how could Helen have known
a girl of this sort? Was this, too, one of those concealed trials which
wives of "men of the world" were obliged to endure?
Neither did Isabel or Rachel think of Anne. To them she had been but a
school-girl, and they had not seen her or heard of her since that summer
at Caryl's; she had passed out of their remembrance as entirely as out
of their vision. Their idea of Helen's unknown visitor was similar to
that which occupied the mind of Miss Teller. And in their hearts they
had speculated upon the possibility of using money with such a person,
inducing her to come forward, name herself, and deny Bagshot's testimony
point-blank, or at least the dangerous portions of it. It could not
matter much to a girl of that sort what she had to say, provided she
were well paid for it.
Miss Teller and the lawyers were waiting to receive Anne, when, late in
the evening, she arrived, accompanied by Mr. Dexter. The lawyers had to
give way first to Miss Teller.
"Oh, Anne, dear child!" she cried, embracing the young girl warmly; "I
never dreamed it was you. And you have come all this way to help us! I
do not in the least understand how; but never mind--never mind. God
bless you!" She sobbed as she spoke. Then seeing Dexter, who was
standing at some distance, she called him to her, and blessed him also.
He received her greeting in silence. He had brought Anne, but he was in
no mood to appreciate benedictions.
And now the lawyers stepped forward, arranging chairs at the table in a
suggestive way, opening papers, and consulting note-books. Anne looked
toward Dexter for directions; his eyes told her to seat herself in one
of the arm-chairs. He then withdrew to another part of the large room,
and Miss Teller, having vainly endeavored to beckon him to her side, so
that he might be within reach of her tearful whispers and
sympathy-seeking finger, resigned herself to excited listening and
silence.
When Anne Douglas appeared on the witness-stand in the Heathcote murder
trial, a buzz of curiosity and surprise ran round the crowded
court-room.
"A young girl!" was the first whisper. Then, "Pretty, rather," from the
women, and "Beautiful!" from the men.
Isabel grasped Rachel's arm. "Is that Anne Douglas?" she said, in a
wonder-struck voice. "You remember her--the school-girl, Miss Vanhorn's
niece, who was at Caryl's that summer? Helen always liked her; and Ward
Heathcote used to talk to her now and then, although Mr. Dexter paid her
more real attention."
"I remember her," said Rachel, coldly; "but I do not recollect the other
circumstances you mention."
"It _is_ Anne," continued Isabel, too much absorbed to notice Rachel's
manner. "But older, and a thousand times handsomer. Rachel, that girl is
beautiful!"
Anne's eyes were downcast. She feared to see Heathcote, and she did not
even know in what part of the room he was placed. She remained thus
while she was identified by Bagshot and Simpson, while she gave her
name, and went through the preliminary forms; when at last she did raise
her eyes, she looked only at the lawyers who addressed her.
And now the ordeal opened. All, or almost all, of that which she had
told Gregory Dexter she was now required to repeat here, before this
crowded, listening court-room, this sea of faces, these watching
lawyers, the judge, and the dreaded jury. She had never been in a
court-room before. For one moment, when she first looked up, her courage
failed, and those who were watching her saw that it had failed. Then
toward whom did her frightened glance turn as if for aid?
"Rachel, it is Gregory Dexter," said Isabel, again grasping her
companion's arm excitedly.
"Pray, Isabel, be more quiet," answered Mrs. Bannert. But her own heart
throbbed quickly for a moment as she recognized the man who had told her
what he thought of her plainly in crude and plebeian Saxon phraseology.
Anne was now speaking. Bagshot's testimony was read to her phrase by
phrase. Phrase by phrase she corroborated its truthfulness, but added
what had preceded and followed. In this manner all the overheard
sentences were repeated amid close attention, the interest increasing
with every word.
But still it was evident that all were waiting; the attitude was plainly
one of alert expectancy.
For what were they waiting? For the confession of love, to whose
"extraordinary words" the New York journals had called attention.
At last it came. An old lawyer read the sentences aloud, slowly,
markedly; while the fall of a feather could have been heard in the
crowded room, and all eyes were fastened pitilessly upon the defenseless
girl; for she seemed at that moment utterly forsaken and defenseless.
"'You say that I can not love,'" slowly read the lawyer, in his clear,
dry voice; "'that it is not in my nature. You know nothing about it. You
have thought me a child; I am a child no longer. I love Ward Heathcote,
your husband, with my whole heart. It was a delight to me simply to be
near him, to hear his voice. When he spoke my name, all my being went
toward him. I loved him--loved him--so deeply that everything else on
the face of the earth is as nothing to me compared with it. I would have
been gladly your servant, yes, _yours_, only to be in the same house
with him, though I were of no more account in his eyes than the dog on
the mat before his door.'"
There was an instant of dead silence after these last passionate words
had fallen strangely from the old lawyer's thin lips. Then, "Are these
your words?" he asked.
"They are," replied Anne.
In that supreme moment her glance, vaguely turned away from the
questioner, met the direct gaze of the prisoner. Until now she had not
seen him. It was but an instant that their eyes held each other, but in
that instant the thronged court-room faded from her sight, and her face,
which, while the lawyer read, had been white and still as marble, was
now, though still colorless, so transfigured, so uplifted, so beautiful
in its pure sacrifice, that men leaned forward to see her more closely,
to print, as it were, that exquisite image upon their memories forever.
Then the crowd took its breath again audibly; the sight was over. Anne
had sunk down and covered her face with her hands, and Miss Teller, much
agitated, was sending her a glass of water.
Even the law is human sometimes, and there was now a short delay.
So far, while the testimony of the new witness had been dramatic, and in
its interest absorbing, it had not proved much, or shaken to any great
extent the theory of the prosecution. On the contrary, more than ever
now were people inclined to believe that this lovely young girl was in
reality the wife's rival. Men whispered to each other, significantly,
"Heathcote knew what he was about. That is the most beautiful girl I
ever saw in my life; and nothing can alter _that_."
"But now the tide turned. The examination proceeded, and the two
unfinished sentences which Bagshot had repeated were read. Anne
corrected them.
"'You can not conquer hate,'" read the lawyer.
"Mrs. Heathcote did not say that," began Anne; but her voice was still
tremulous, and she paused a moment in order to control it.
"We wish to remark here," said one of Miss Teller's lawyers, "that while
the witness named Minerva Bagshot is possessed of an extraordinary
memory, and while she has also repeated what she overheard with a
correctness and honesty which are indeed remarkable in a person who
would deliberately open a door and _listen_, in this instance her
careful and conscientious ears will be found to have been mistaken."
He was not allowed to say more. But as he had said all he wished to say,
he bore his enforced silence with equanimity.
"Mrs. Heathcote wished me to come and live with her," continued Anne.
"She said, not what Mrs. Bagshot has reported, but, 'You can not conquer
_fate_.' And then she added, 'We two _must_ be together, Anne; we are
bound by a tie which can not be severed, even though we may wish it. You
must bear with me, and I must suffer you. It is our fate.'"
This produced an effect; it directly contradicted the impression made by
Bagshot's phrase, namely, that the two women had parted in anger and
hate, the wife especially being in a mood of desperation. True, it was
but Anne's word against Bagshot's, and the strange tendency toward
believing the worst, which is often seen at criminal trials, inclined
most minds toward the elder woman's story. Still, the lawyers for the
defense were hopeful.
The last sentence, or portion of a sentence, was now read: "'If he had
lived, one of us must have died.'"
It had been decided that Anne should here give all that Helen had said,
without omission, as she had given it to Dexter.
"Yes," she answered; "Mrs. Heathcote used those words. But it was in the
following connection. When we had said good-by, and I had promised to
come again after the funeral, she went with me toward the door. 'If he
had lived,' she said, 'one of us must have died.' Then she paused an
instant, and her voice sank. 'Changed or died,' she added. 'And as we
are not the kind of women who change, it would have ended in the wearing
out of the life of one of us--the one who loved the most. And people
would have called it by some other name, and that would have been the
end. But now it is _he_ who has been taken, and--oh! I can not bear
it--I can not, can not bear it!'"
She repeated these words of Helen's with such realistic power that tears
came to many eyes. Rachel Bannert for the first time veiled her face.
All the feeling in her, such as it was, was concentrated upon Heathcote,
and Helen's bitter cry of grief, repeated by Anne, had been the secret
cry of her own heart every minute since danger first menaced him.
Anne's words had produced a sensation; still, they were but her
unsupported words.
But now something else was brought forward; proof which, so far as it
went, at least, was tangible. Anne was testifying that, before she went
away, Helen had taken from her own neck a locket and given it to her as
a token of renewed affection; and the locket was produced. The defense
would prove by Bagshot herself that this locket on its chain was round
her mistress's neck on the morning of that day, and Mrs. Heathcote must
therefore have removed it herself and given it to the present witness,
since the latter could hardly have taken it from her by force without
being overheard, the door being so very conveniently ajar.
And now the next proof was produced, the hurried note written to Anne by
Helen, after the tidings of her husband's safety had been received.
After the writing had been identified as Helen's, the note was read.
* * * * *
"DEAR ANNE,--Ward is safe. It was a mistake. I have just received a
dispatch. He is wounded, but not dangerously, and I write this on my way
to the train, for I am going to him; that is, if I can get through. All
is different now. I trust you. But I love him too much not to try and
make him love _me_ the most, if I possibly can.
HELEN."
* * * * *
This was evidence clear and decided. It was no longer Anne's word, but
Helen's own. Whatever else the listeners continued to believe, they must
give up the idea that the wife and this young girl had parted in anger
and hate; for if the locket as proof could be evaded, the note could
not.
But this was not all. An excitement more marked than any save that
produced when Anne acknowledged the confession arose in the court-room
when the lawyers for the defense announced that they would now bring
forward a second letter--a letter written by Mrs. Heathcote to the
witness in the inn at Timloesville on the evening of her death--her last
letter, what might be called her last utterance on earth. It had been
shown that Mrs. Heathcote was seen writing; it would be proved that a
letter was given to a colored lad employed in the hotel soon after
Captain Heathcote left the room, and that this lad ran across the street
to the post-office and dropped it into the mail-box. Not being able to
read, he had not made out the address.
When the handwriting of this letter also had been identified, it was,
amid eager attention, read aloud. The feeling was as if the dead wife
herself were speaking to them from the grave.
* * * * *
"TIMLOESVILLE, _June 10, half past 8_ P.M.
"DEAR ANNE,--I sent you a few lines from New York, written on my way to
the train, but now that I have time, I feel that something more is due
to you. I found Ward at a little hospital, his right arm injured, but
not seriously. He will not be able to use it readily for some time; it
is in a sling. But he is so much better that they have allowed us to
start homeward. We are travelling slowly--more, however, on my account
than his. I long to have the journey over.
"Dear Anne, I have thought over all our conversation--all that you told
me, all that I replied. I am so inexpressibly happy to-night, as I sit
here writing, that I can and will do you justice, and tell all the
truth--the part that I have hitherto withheld. And that is, Anne, that
your influence over him _was_ for good, and that your pain and effort
have not been thrown away. You asked him to bear his part in life
bravely, and he has borne it; you asked him to come back to me, and he
did come back. If you were any other woman on earth, I would never
confess this--confess that I owe to _you_ my happiness of last winter,
when he changed, even in his letters, to greater kindness; confess that
it was your influence which made him, when he came home later, so much
more watchful and gentle in his care of, his manner toward, me. I
noticed the change on the first instant, the first letter, and it made
my heart bound. If it had been possible, I should have gone to him then,
but it was not. He had rejoined his regiment, and I could only watch
for his letters like a girl of sixteen. When he did come home, I counted
every hour of that short visit as so much happiness greater than I had
ever known before. For I had always loved him, and _now_ he loved me.
"Do not contradict me; he does love me. At least he is so dear to me,
and so kind and tender, that I do not know whether he does or not, but
am content. You are a better, nobler woman; yet _I_ have the happiness.
"He does not know that I have seen you, and I shall never tell him. He
does not know that I know what an effort he has made. But every kind act
and tone goes to my heart. For I _did_ deceive him, Anne; and if it had
not been for that deception, probably he would not now be my husband--he
would be free.
"Yet good has come out of evil this time, perhaps on account of my deep
love. No wife was ever so thankfully happy as I am to-night, and on my
knees I have thanked my Creator for giving me that which makes my life
one long joy.
"He has come in, and is sitting opposite, reading. He does not know to
whom I am writing--does not dream what I am saying. And he must never
know: I can not rise to _that_.
"No, Anne, we must not meet, at least for the present. It is better so,
and you yourself will feel that it is. But when I reach home I will
write again, and _then_ you will answer.
"Always, with warm love, your friend,
HELEN."
* * * * *
During the reading of this letter, the prisoner for the first time sat
with his head bowed, his face shaded by his hand. Miss Teller's sobs
could be heard. Anne, too, broke down, and wept silently.
"When I reach home I will write again, and _then_ you will answer."
Helen _had_ reached home, and Anne--had answered.