THE VERDICT
Meanwhile in the narrow cell Harry was alone with his bitterness. His
judicial sense, keenly alive, from the very first had appreciated the
woeful weakness, evidentially speaking, of his position. He had no
illusions on this score. A little while--after such deliberation as was
decent and seemly--and he would be a condemned criminal, waiting in the
shadow of the hempen noose. In such localities justice was swift. There
would be scant time between verdict and penalty--not enough, doubtless,
for the problem to solve itself. For the only solution possible was
Hugh's dying in the hospital at Aniston. So long as the other lived, he
must play out the role.
And if Hugh did die, but died too late? What a satire on truth and
justice! The same error which put the rope about his own neck would fold
the real Hugh in the odor of sanctity. He would lie in the little jail
yard in a felon's grave, and Hugh in the cemetery on the hill, beneath a
marble monument erected by St. James Parish to the Reverend Henry
Sanderson. He was in an _impasse_. In the dock, or in the cell with the
death-watch sitting at its door, it was all one. He had elected the
path, and if it led to the bleak edge of life, to the barren abyss of
shame, he must tread it.
His own life--he had come in his thinking to a point where that mattered
least of all. Harry Sanderson, the vanished rector of St. James,
mattered. And Jessica! On the cot lay a slender blue-bound
book--Tennyson's _Becket_. She had sent it to him, in a hamper of her
favorites, some days before. He picked it up and held it in his hand,
touching the limp leather gently. It was as soft as her cheek, and there
was about the leaves a hint of that intangible perfume that his mind
always associated with her--
... the smell of the jasmin-flower
That she used to wear in her breast!
Far more than his life, more than the name and fame of the Reverend
Henry Sanderson, she mattered! Could he write it for her eye, the whole
truth, so that sometime--afterward--the bishop might know, and the blot
be erased from his career? Impossible! With Hugh buried in Aniston and
he in Smoky Mountain, who was there but would smile at such a tale? She
might shout it to the world, and it would answer with derision. And
what comfort would the truth be to her?
Could he say to her: "Your husband lies dead under my tombstone, not
innocent, but unregenerate and vile. I, who you think am your husband,
am not and never was. You have come to my call--but I am nothing to you.
You are the wife of the guilty murderer of Moreau!" Could he leave this
behind him, and, passing from her life for ever, turn the memory of
their love into an irremediable bitterness? No--no! Better never to tell
her! Better to let her live her life, holding her faith and dream,
treasuring her belief in his regeneration and innocence!
He thought of the closing chapter in his life at Aniston, when in that
hour of his despair he had prayed by his study desk. The words he had
then said aloud recurred to him: "If I am delivered, it must be by some
way of Thine Own that I can not conceive, for I can not help myself." He
was powerless to help himself still. He had given over his life into the
keeping of a Power in which his better manhood had trusted. If it
exacted the final tribute for those ribald years of Satan Sanderson, the
price would be paid!
A step came in the corridor--a voice spoke his name. The summons had
come. As he laid the blue book back on the cot, its closing words--the
dying utterance of the martyred Becket--flashed through his mind, the
personal cry of his own soul:
"Into Thy hands, O Lord--into Thy hands!"
Before the opening door the hum of voices in the court-room sank to
stillness itself. The jury had taken their places; their looks were
sober and downcast. The judge was in his seat, his hand combing his
beard. Harry faced him calmly. The door of a side room was partly open
and a girl's white face looked in, but he did not see.
"Gentlemen of the jury, have you arrived at a verdict?"
"We have."
There was a confusion in the hall--abrupt voices and the sound of feet.
The crowd stirred and the judge frowningly lifted his gavel.
"What say you, guilty or not guilty?"
The foreman did not answer. He was leaning forward, looking over the
heads of the crowd. The judge stood up. People turned, and the room was
suddenly a-rustle with surprised movement. The crowd at the back of the
room parted, and up the center aisle, toward the judge's desk, staggered
a figure--a man whose face, ghastly and convulsed, was partly swathed
in bandages. At the door of the judge's room a girl stood transfixed and
staring.
The crowd gasped. They saw the familiar profile, a replica of the
prisoner's--the mark that slanted across the brow--the eyes
preternaturally bright and fevered.
A pale-faced, breathless man in clerical dress pushed forward through
the press, as the figure stopped ... thrust out his hands blindly.
"Not--guilty, your Honor!" he said.
A cry came from the prisoner at the bar. He leaped toward him as he fell
and caught him in his arms.