SPECIAL PLEADING.
It was over! She knew! The hope which may have buoyed my spirits, that
Philippa’s agitation at learning of Sir Mervyn Ferrand’s death was but
due to the fact that once she loved the man entirely vanished. I could
see no loophole of escape, no possibility of persuading her that she
was fancying horrors which had never taken place. Moreover, although I
would have given my life to have saved her from the knowledge of this
thing, I could not meet the eyes of her I loved, and lie to her.
I did indeed, if but for the sake of gaining time, attempt to stammer
out some evasive answer; but she interrupted me before I had spoken
five words.
“Why do I ask?” she echoed. “I knew it all--all--all! In dreams it has
come to me--the whitened road--the dull dead face--the whirling snow!
In dreams I have stood over him, and said to myself, ‘He is dead!’ But,
Basil, my love, my husband, I thought it was but a dream. I drove it
away. I said, ‘It must be a dream. I hated him, and so I dreamed that I
killed him.’ Basil, dearest Basil, tell me, if you can, that I dreamed
it!”
Her voice sank into accents of piteous entreaty. She looked at me
yearningly.
“Dearest, it must have been a dream,” I said.
She threw out her arms wildly. “No, no! It was no dream. Even now I
can see myself standing in the night over that motionless form. I can
feel the cold air on my cheek. I can see myself flying through the
snow. Basil, I hated that man, and I killed him!”
The tears were streaming down my cheeks. I seized her hands, and strove
to draw her to me. She tore herself from my grasp, and throwing herself
wildly on the bed, broke into a paroxysm of sobs. As I approached her
she turned her head from me.
“I killed him! killed him!” she whispered in awe-struck tones. “Oh,
that fearful night! It has haunted me ever since. I knew not why. Now I
know! He wronged me, and I killed him! killed him!”
I placed my arm around her neck, and my cheek against hers. As she felt
my touch she started up wildly.
“No, no!” she cried. “Touch me not! Shun me! Shrink from me! Basil, do
you hear? Do you understand? I have murdered a man!”
Once more she threw herself on the bed, her whole frame quivering with
anguish.
“A shamed--a ruined woman!” she muttered. “A villain’s forsaken toy,
and now a murderess! You have chosen your wife well, Basil!”
“Sweetest, I love you,” I whispered.
“Love me! How can you love me? Such love is not holy. If you love me,
aid me to die, Basil! Give me something that will kill me! Why did you
save my life?”
“Because I loved you then, as I love you now.”
She was silent, and I hoped was growing calmer. I was but waiting for
the first shock of her newly-born knowledge to pass away, in order
to reason with her, and show her that by every moral law she was
guiltless of the fearful crime. Suddenly she turned to me.
“How did I kill him?” she said, with a shudder.
“Dearest, rest. We will talk again presently.”
“How did I kill him?” she repeated with vehemence.
“He was found shot through the heart,” I answered reluctantly.
“Shot through his heart--his wicked heart! Shot by me! How could I have
shot him? With what? Basil, tell me all, or I shall go mad! I will not
have the smallest thing concealed. I will know all!”
“He was shot with a pistol.”
“A pistol! a pistol! How did I come by it? Where is it?”
“I threw it away.”
“You? Then you knew!”
I bowed my head. I felt that concealment was useless. She must know all.
I told her everything. I told her how she had promised to come for me;
how, as she did not keep that promise, I went in search of her. I told
her how she had swept past me in the snow-storm; how I had overtaken
her. I repeated her wild words, and told her how the fatal weapon had
fallen at my feet, and how I had, on the impulse of the moment, hurled
it away into the night; how she had broken away from me, and fled down
the lonely road; how, excited and terrified by her words, I had gone on
to learn their meaning; how I had found the body of Sir Mervyn Ferrand;
how, without thought of concealing the deed, I had laid the dead man by
the roadside; how I had rushed home, and found her, Philippa, waiting
for me, and in the full height of temporary insanity. I told her all
this, and I swore that from the moment I discovered that her senses
had gone astray I held her, although she had done so dreadful a deed,
as innocent of crime as when she slept, a babe, on her mother’s breast.
She listened to me with fixed dilated eyes. She interrupted me neither
by word nor gesture; but when I had finished speaking she covered her
face with her hands, and great tears trickled through her fingers. “No
hope! No hope!” she cried. “Oh, Basil, I dared to hope that something
you would tell me would show me it was not my hand which did this
thing! My love, my own love, we have been so happy while I could
persuade myself all this was a dream! We shall be happy no more, Basil!”
Although she still shrank from me, by force I drew her to me, and laid
that poor head on my shoulder. I stroked the smooth black silky hair,
I kissed the white forehead, and used every endearing and soothing
expression that love such as mine could suggest. In vain! The moment I
loosened my hold my wife fled from my side.
“Basil,” she cried, “you knew it! You knew the blood of a man was on my
hands! Again I say such love is not holy!”
“Dearest, again I tell you that in my eyes--if the truth were known, in
the eyes of all--you are innocent as a babe.”
She shook her head hopelessly, I saw that nothing at present could move
her. Perhaps it was more than I had a right to expect. So for the time
I gave up arguing. I begged her for my sake to retire to rest. I gave
her a soothing draught. I sat by her for hours, and held her hand,
until at last her eyelids fell, and, worn out by grief, she slept.
Oh, how right I had been in choosing flight! Although a cursed chance
had revealed what I fondly hoped would be forever buried in oblivion,
how right I had been! Had the hands of Justice grasped my sweet wife,
although she might no doubt have been found guiltless, the trial,
the exposure, would have killed her. Thank heaven she was safe, and
amenable only to the tribunal of her own sensitive conscience!
When I heard her breathing grow regular, and knew that she was in a
deep sleep, I pressed my lips gently to her fair cheek, and left her. I
went in search of my mother, and made the best tale I could think of to
account for Philippa’s indisposition. I forced myself to wear a smiling
face, and to listen with a show of interest to the account my mother
gave me of certain difficulties which had during my absence arisen with
some of the native servants. But there was nothing which could really
interest me when I thought of my poor love lying there sleeping, to
awake, alas! to sorrow and remorse. No wonder that, as soon as I had
spent with my mother the smallest portion of time which filial duty and
gratitude exacted, I flew back to Philippa’s bedside.
I watched beside her until she awoke--until her splendid dark eyes
unveiled themselves. I leaned over and kissed her passionately. Between
sleeping and waking, while consciousness was yet in abeyance, she
returned my caresses. Then came back memory and its terrors.
“Leave me,” she said; “I am a murderess!”
Once more I denied it; once more I told her she was innocent. My only
hope was, that by continued argument I might in time ease her mind. She
listened almost apathetically. I grew eloquent and passionate. Was I
not pleading for my own sake as well as hers? If I could but persuade
her she was unaccountable for what she had done, some remnant of the
happiness which a few days ago I had promised myself might even now be
left.
“Basil,” she whispered, “I have been dreaming horrible things. Will
they try me--and hang me?”
“We are in Spain, dearest. Even if you were guilty, the English law
could not reach you.”
She started. “And it was for this you hurried to Spain? To save me from
a felon’s death?”
“To save you from what, in your state at the time, you could not bear.
I say again you are innocent, but I dare not risk the trial.”
She was silent for some minutes; then she spoke.
“I am proud, passionate, wicked,” she said; “but I could never have
meant to do this. I was mad! I must have been mad! Basil, you could
tell them I was mad. They would believe you, and forgive me.”
She looked at me imploringly.
“I could stand up,” I said, “and state on oath that you were at the
time in a raging delirium. I could pledge my professional reputation
that your actions were the result of madness. Fear nothing on that
score, my wife.”
I spoke boldly; but as I spoke a thought shot through me--a thought
which blanched my cheek and brought the beads of perspiration to my
brow. I knew enough of law to be aware that a husband could not in a
criminal case give evidence for or against his wife. My marriage with
Philippa had deprived her of the benefit of my testimony as to her
insanity. I trembled like a leaf as I pictured what might happen in the
event of her being tried for the murder of Sir Mervyn Ferrand. The very
nurses had but seen her sane. No one but myself and perhaps my servant
had seen her in her madness.
My dismay was such that I was bound to leave the room, in order to
recover my presence of mind. Again and again I thanked Heaven that we
were on foreign soil. The thought that my unreasoning love might have
destroyed her I loved was almost more than I could bear.
I fancy I have lingered long enough over that terrible time, when
my wife first learned that the dream which had haunted her was
reality--that her hand had unknowingly avenged her supposed and
premeditated wrong. Let me but say that the mental anguish into which
the knowledge plunged her was not unattended by physical evil. In fact,
for many days my poor girl was ill, very ill. My mother and I nursed
her with every care, and by and by youth and a splendid constitution
reasserted themselves, and, a shadow of her former self, she was able
to leave her bed. My mother was tenderness itself to her daughter. She
knew nothing of the true cause of her illness; indeed, she blamed me
roundly for not having taken proper care of my beautiful bride, and
vowed laughingly that for the future nothing should induce her to trust
Philippa out of her sight.
Now that Philippa knew all she had done, I thought it better to tell
her that, although he had no intention of so doing, Sir Mervyn Ferrand,
in causing a mock marriage to be celebrated, had by a strange chance
really made her his wife. This gave her little comfort. “It makes
my crime the greater,” she said bitterly. “I have killed my husband
instead of my seducer! I am not fit to live!”
Weeks went by. Philippa gradually grew stronger, and, what was even
more a cause of joy to me, calmer and more reasonable on a certain
subject. With all the power I could bring to bear, I had never ceased
to impress upon her that morally she was innocent, and I believed my
words were bearing fruit. Her fits of mental anguish and self-reproach
grew of less frequent occurrence. She did not, whenever we were alone,
continually harp upon her crime. Calm seemed to settle upon us once
more, and I ventured to hope that the great physician, Time, would one
day bring to my wife’s heart something that might be called sorrowful
happiness; but I knew I must wait years and years for this.
She was changed, greatly changed. Her lips seldom smiled: her eyes
never brightened, unless when she saw me drawing near. She seemed older
and graver. But I knew, in spite of all, she loved me with a deathless
love.
Although at last we had ceased to discuss the sorrow of our life, I
suspected it was seldom absent from her mind. Sometimes as I lay beside
her I heard her moaning and talking in her troubled dreams, and too
well I knew the cause. As my arm stole round her, and assured her of
the safety and certainty of my great love, in my heart I cursed the
dead man whose evil deed had brought such lasting woe on the fair head
pillowed on my bosom. Ah me! what life might have been for us two, now
that love reigned between us!
Once--it was shortly after Philippa began to creep, a weak invalid,
about the fragrant _patio_--she said to me, with evident meaning in her
voice, “Basil, do you see the London papers?”
“Sometimes--not always. I have almost forgotten England.”
“Promise me you will see them every day.”
“I will, if you wish; but why?”
Her voice sank. “Can you not guess? Basil, listen. I have consented to
be guided by you. I am praying that the day may come when I shall think
as you think. But what if an innocent person were accused of the crime
I have committed? Then there is but one course; you could urge nothing
against it. Promise me you will see the paper every day as soon as it
reaches here. I shall have no peace unless you do.”
I promised fearlessly. Justice does sometimes make mistakes, but
not such a mistake as the one hinted at by Philippa. No; Sir Mervyn
Ferrand’s death was a mystery never to be solved. So, to set my poor
wife at ease on the matter, I wrote and ordered that _The Times_ should
be posted to me every day.