Theservices of a detective proved imperative in finding Gerard. His banks when applied to by cable, regretted to reply that they did not know his address. He had left no directions to have his mail forwarded. Apparently his one idea had been to efface himself and break with some home ties. It was a proceeding which did not altogether surprise Mrs. Bobby, who understood the phase of mind which it indicated; but to Mr. Fenton it was proof positive of his own suspicions, that Gerard dreaded to be summoned as witness on behalf of the woman whom he had once loved.
"She is glad to have him out of the way," thought the astute lawyer to himself. "No doubt he has evidence which she is afraid of. Yes, she lied no doubt when she said she had told him herself of her marriage, just as she lied when she said she couldn't remember what she had done on the twenty-third of December. She remembered—I could see that plainly—very well." The counsel for the defence was reluctantly convinced of his client's guilt, but he had good hopes of saving her nevertheless, though he did not think it was to be done by means that were strictly legal. He said little andaccepted Gerard's disappearance with philosophy, even though he did not absolutely discourage Bobby Van Antwerp from sending a detective on his track. It could at least, the lawyer argued, do no harm, since he was quite certain that Gerard however urgently summoned would not come. Bobby lost heart and would have let the matter drop, but his wife's influence again carried the day. The detective started, with urgent directions from Mrs. Bobby to find the witness at any cost, and equally urgent directions from Mr. Fenton by no means to find him, unless his evidence were desirable.
Meanwhile the summer came and life in The Tombs assumed a different phase.
The atmosphere in Elizabeth's cell grew unbearable, and the warden allowed her to spend a large part of her time in the prison court. Here, too, since the intense heat, the other women assembled for an hour every day, and she was brought in actual contact with them for the first time. The court was large, and she could sit on the bench which the warden had placed for her in the shadow of the wall. And yet, though she tried to, she could not ignore them; she found herself, little by little, observing them, taking even some faint interest in them. She grew to know them by name, and would talk to some of them, asking timid questions, partly with an instinctive desire to get away from her own thoughts, partly with the feeling that they were human beings, in trouble like herself. There was a lurking sympathy in her heart for even the most depraved. She would share with them her fruitand flowers, or make little presents of one kind or another, even though the matron, discovering this assured her that they were in many cases quite unworthy of her kindness.
"They won't thank you for it, Miss," she said "they won't indeed. They're just as likely as not to say the worst things of you behind your back."
Elizabeth stared at her thoughtfully for a moment beneath knit brows.
"I don't know that I care about their thanking me," she said at last, "and even if they're not worthy, that doesn't make it any the less hard for them, does it?"
To the matron this sentiment had a taint of immorality and she drew herself up primly. "Why, on that principle, Miss," she said, "there's no use at all in good behavior." Her point of view was the correct one, of course—at least for a prison official. But it was natural that Elizabeth, in revolt against the hard judgment of the world, should take the opposite side. And certainly the women, even the roughest of them, seemed to be grateful in their own way for her kindness, and respected absolutely the intangible barrier between them. There were one or two, indeed, younger and more imaginative than the rest, who would follow her with wistful eyes as she passed, or flush in involuntary, awkward delight if she spoke to them; to whom her presence in their midst appealed irresistibly, touching some latent sense of romance, and lending a new interest to the prison routine. There was something wraith-like, spiritual about her, as she grew from day to day,more frail, her face more thin and wasted, her eyes more unnaturally large and strained, and the shadows beneath them deeper and darker. Her gowns, since the hot weather began, were always white, unrelieved by color even at throat or belt. Only her hair made a gleam of brightness, the more vivid for the pallor of her face and the grayness of the prison walls.
It was this soft, wavy hair at which visitors to The Tombs looked most curiously, recognizing one of the strong pieces of evidence against her. There was a number of visitors to The Tombs, even on those hot summer days; people who only stared at one prisoner and asked before they left one question of the prison officials, which met the one answer. The warden—a gruff old man, hardened by long contact with the lowest offenders—seemed when his turn came to hesitate.
"Guilty, she?" he repeated, staring up at the questioner with his shrewd old eyes. "Well, there ain't a guilty person in The Tombs—not to hear them talk; but—she"—he paused a moment. "She never says nothing; but—bless you"—carried beyond himself by an unwonted burst of sentiment—"I'd as soon suspect an angel from heaven."
"Ah, he has had a large fee," the more cynical would observe as they left, and it was true. But the canny old warden was quite capable of accepting all the money in the world, and reserving the right to his own opinion, which he had stated in this case with absolute honesty. And it was shared, moreover,by the entire prison,—jailers and criminals alike.
Elizabeth grew conscious of the general sentiment and it cheered her more than its intrinsic value seemed to warrant. For it was based on no tangible evidence, was the result of a hundred unconsidered, unimportant words and actions, the effect of which, to those who had not seen or heard them, it was hard to explain; and it could penetrate little to the outside world. But she felt strangely indifferent to the outside world. Her horizon was bounded by the prison walls.
One day, sitting dull and languid on her bench in the shadow of the wall, she chanced to overhear a fragment of a conversation between the warden and a visitor. They stood within the door of the office, and their voices came to her distinctly. "I tell you," the warden said, apparently bringing his argument to a conclusion, "they'll never put a woman—let alone a young and pretty one like her—in the electric chair."
"Ah, but if she's guilty,"—the visitor's voice demanded. And then, with an odd grunt from the warden, they passed on. She could not hear the rest.
But what she had heard thrilled her with a new, sharp pang of terror, the reason of which she could not have explained. There was nothing in the warden's assertion, nothing even in the visitor's protest. She knew of course that there were people who believed her guilty, and the man's words werereassuring rather than otherwise. Yet something in them called up before her vividly for the first time the very danger which he disclaimed. Yes, she was to be tried for her life! Incredible stupidity!—how was it she had never realized it before?
There was after all nothing extraordinary, unprecedented in the idea; it was one which had exercised over her in times past a curious fascination. She remembered well having read a graphic account of the last hours of a noted criminal, everything that he had said and done, the way in which he had met his fate, his last words ... it all came back to her with startling distinctness. She had tried at the time to put herself in his place, to think how she would have felt.... It was so futile, she had desisted from it at last with a smile at her own absurdity, the healthy instincts of her warm young life asserting themselves, as they generally did, against the occasional morbidness of her imagination. Now, looking back on it, the whole thing seemed one of those presentiments with which people doomed to misfortune are visited.
Yet the idea was absurd, even now. There was no danger, for she was innocent. That man was guilty—or so the papers said. She remembered that he had protested his innocence—to the end. And perhaps he had spoken the truth.
What did the papers say about her own case? The evidence against her was strong—she had always vaguely known that. But—what was it the man had said?—they'd never put a woman, guiltyor innocent, in the electric chair. But what woman would accept her life on such terms as that? Elizabeth raised her head with that characteristic, proud little motion which not all the humiliations of prison life had availed to break her of entirely. "I would rather die," she said to herself, "I would rather die."
And then she remembered how she had shrunk from death—that morning months ago in the park. She felt again the intense physical repulsion, the instinctive clinging to life, the dread of the unknown....
That evening when the younger matron—the one she liked the best—came with her dinner, she put her through a series of questions, which embarrassed the kind woman not a little. Had she ever, Elizabeth demanded, seen people who were condemned to death and how had they behaved? Did they seem frightened, or were they calm and brave? Were they—did the matron really believe that they were guilty, beyond possibility of doubt?
"Are innocent people ever condemned," asked the girl, sitting huddled together on her bed and staring at the matron with haggard eyes. "Surely there couldn't be—you don't suppose there could be—such a terrible mistake?"
"I"—The matron's voice suddenly failed her, her eyes filled with tears. "Heaven knows I hope not, Miss," she said and went out hastily.
Elizabeth sat still, staring before her. "She believes me innocent—but she is afraid I will be found guilty." A little shudder passed through her, inspite of the intense heat. And then again the dull cloud of weary indifference descended upon her, and she said to herself that she did not care.
But as time went on, she knew that this was false.
A few days later Mrs. Bobby came back, after spending a week in the country much against her will. It seemed to her that Elizabeth looked much worse than when she saw her last. She sighed as she realized, more emphatically than ever, how much of the girl's beauty had left her with that wealth of color and outline which had been its most striking characteristic. Certainly any one who judged of her by the famous picture, taken in her first bloom, would be wofully disappointed now. There was only the soft sweep of the hair, and the strange shadow in the eyes—of which the first premonition as it were had somehow crept into the picture—but for these points of resemblance one would hardly know her for the same woman.
"No," Mrs. Bobby reflected, "they won't acquit her for her beauty." But aloud she talked cheerfully, giving the Neighborhood news—what there was of it, skimming the cream of her letters from friends at gayer places—profoundly uninteresting just then, and mocking the scene about them with its frivolous incongruity—but what matter. Anything to keep going the ball of conversation! But at last, in spite of herself, there came a pause.
It was intensely hot. The sun beat down upon the rough uneven stones which paved the prison court, it baked the wall against which the two women leaned. Before their eyes there rose upsharply the walls of the men's prison, and beyond a fragment of the Court-house, with which the Bridge of Sighs formed a connecting link, invisible from where they sat. A little way off, in a small circle of shade, a group of women prisoners gathered silent, inert. A great stillness brooded over the place, broken only by the buzzing of flies and the noises in the street, which sounded dreamily as if it were many miles away. A man was crying "Strawberries, fresh strawberries!" and his voice floated in to the prison, bringing with it a tantalizing suggestion of coolness and freedom and green fields.
Involuntarily Elizabeth made a gesture of weariness, and raised to her parched lips the great bunch of roses, fresh from the country, which Mrs. Bobby had brought. They already hung their heads.
"I suppose," the girl said dreamily, her eyes half shut, "our flowers must be all out at the Homestead. It always looks so pretty there now, before the heat has lasted too long. I can see it—the river with the sails on it, and the fields covered with daisies—they must be out now—ah, and the wild-roses!"—She drew a long breath. "Oh, I am sick sometimes for a sight of it all," she broke out with sudden vehemence. "I'd give anything to lie down in the grass with the trees over me, and the cool wind in my face, and so—sleep"—Her voice sank away, she made a weary gesture. "I'm so tired," she said, "I'd like to sleep forever."
"My dear child." Mrs. Bobby caught her breath, a mist of tears in her eyes. "Don't you ever sleep here?"—she asked tentatively after a moment, andElizabeth answered in the same dreary way, unconscious, apparently, that she was departing from her usual reserve.
"No, I don't sleep often," she said, "especially since the nights have been so hot. But when I do"—she paused and stared reflectively before her, while the shadow in her eyes grew deeper. "There's a dream that haunts me now," she said at last, "whenever I fall asleep. I dream about my trial, and—it always goes against me. I stand there all alone, the judge pronounces sentence, and I—I try to speak, I try to tell them that I'm innocent, but—the words won't come—I wake up half strangled"—she broke off shuddering. "Ah, you can't imagine how horrible it is," she said, "worse even than—lying awake."
Mrs. Bobby was silent for a moment, but when she spoke her voice was steady. "It's a horrible dream," she said, "but it's impossible—quite impossible that it should come true. You won't be left alone, we shall all stand by you, you will be acquitted surely—surely"—in spite of herself, her voice suddenly faltered, in a way that belied her words.
"You think so?" Elizabeth said, quickly. "Youhopeso. But—if you should be mistaken?" She put out her hand and grasped Mrs. Bobby's wrist. "Tell me the worst," she said. "I'd rather know it. Is there much danger, do you—in your heart of hearts, do you think that I shall be acquitted?" Involuntarily her grasp tightened, her strained, dilated eyes searched her friend's face with a look thatseemed to compel only the truth—to tolerate no evasions. And Eleanor Van Antwerp, with all her courage, could not meet it. She turned her face away with a little sob.
Elizabeth sat rigid for a moment, waiting for the answer that did not come; then her fingers relaxed their hold, she took her hand away and sank back against the wall.
There was a long silence. The noon-day sun crept towards them, dazzling the eyes, a few flies buzzed aimlessly about. Upon Eleanor Van Antwerp's mind the prison court, as she saw it then, baking in the noon-day heat—the group of women huddled together, the rags of some, the tawdry finery of others, the look of dogged misery on their coarse faces—the whole scene impressed itself, calling up always in after years a sense of powerless despair.
At last Elizabeth turned to her, and a faint smile hovered about her white lips.
"Do you know," she said, "did the warden show you? in that corner there they have—the old scaffold—what's left of it, at least. They keep it as an interesting relic. Oh, he wouldn't show it to me"—she smiled again painfully—" he's too considerate—I heard him telling one of the visitors. They don't have anything of the kind now, he said,—there is—Sing Sing and the electric chair. And that is—or so they say—more merciful. But is it—do you really think it can be?" She paused and stared up at Mrs. Bobby with eyes full of a dawning terror. "To have a hood put over one's face," shewent on, her voice trembling, "that's how they do it, isn't it?—to wait—wait for the shock." ... She stopped, the look of terror in her eyes grew deeper. She lifted the roses from her lap and held them up before her face, as if to shut out, with their color and fragrance, some horrible vision. "Oh, I see it day and night," she said, "day and night! If I see it much longer, I shall go mad."
Mrs. Bobby's hand tightened convulsively upon hers.
"Elizabeth, my dear," she cried, "you mustn't think of such possibilities. It could never—come to that, they would never—carry their cruelty to that extent"—Her voice faltered.
Elizabeth put down her roses and looked up at her. Her face showed recovered self-control. "Why—because I'm a woman?" she asked, with a pale little smile. "That's what the warden said—that they wouldn't condemn a woman to death. But even if they—stopped short of that, would imprisonment—would this sort of thing, or worse"—she swept her hand with a comprehensive gesture round her—"wouldn't death, on the whole, be better?"
And Mrs. Bobby could not answer, for she thought in her heart it would be—infinitely better.
But in a moment she rallied her energies.
"Elizabeth," she said, "there's no necessity to consider—either alternative. I believe firmly that we shall get you off. But in order to do it you must help us—to defend you. You seem indifferent about it; Mr. Fenton complains that you keep things back. You can't afford to trifle—tell useverything. Isn't there"—she leaned forward eagerly and grasped Elizabeth's hand—"doesn't Julian Gerard know something that would help us?"
She felt Elizabeth start and shiver; then stiffen into sudden rigidity. The hand she held was withdrawn, and with the action the girl seemed to release herself, mentally and physically, from her grasp.
"I don't know," she said, and her voice was cold, almost as though she resented being questioned, "I don't know why you think that."
"I don't think—I feel it! There is something that he can say." Mrs. Bobby's eyes seemed to challenge a denial. Elizabeth met them with a look of defiance.
"There is nothing," she said. "He knows nothing; or if he did"—she lowered her voice with a sudden change of tone—"if he could save me, I'd rather die than have him sent for."
"Ah—you'd rather die?" Mrs. Bobby caught her breath. "And you think that is fair—to yourself, to your aunts, to us all?"
"I don't know." The girl's voice had the ring of weary obstinacy that suffering will sometimes assume. "I only know I don't want him—sent for."
Mrs. Bobby seemed to reflect. "We can't send for him," she said at last, "we don't know where he is."
Elizabeth started. "You don't," she repeated, in a low voice, "know where he is?"—
"No, he left no address. His mail is at his banker's—they don't know where to forward it."
Elizabeth turned her face away. "Ah, I see," she murmured, "he doesn't wish to be reminded of—anything at home." A pale cold smile flitted across her white face. "It is better so," she said, firmly, "far, far better. I am glad that he is away and that there is no use in sending for him."
"But if there were"—all Mrs. Bobby's self-control could not keep the tremor from her voice—"if there were, Elizabeth, isn't there something that he could testify in your favor? Do tell me, dear," she urged; the girl sat silent. "You see I have guessed it—it can do no harm for me to know what it is."
Elizabeth spoke at last, low and hesitatingly. "He knows that on the twenty-third of December, when—when that man said he saw me in Brooklyn, I was with him—with Julian. I went out that morning, meaning to do some shopping, but I met him accidentally. He persuaded me to go up to the Metropolitan Museum—there was a picture he wanted to show me. We were there some hours. And—and that is all."
"And that was," said Mrs. Bobby breathlessly, "on the twenty-third of December. You aresure?"
"Quite sure," said the girl listlessly, "but what difference does it make? I wouldn't tell Mr. Fenton—I said I couldn't remember what I did that day, and I wouldn't tell you now, if I thought that you could send for him. You can't send for him, can you?" She looked at Mrs. Bobby with sudden alarm. "You really don't know where he is?"
"Upon my word and honor," Mrs. Bobby assuredher, "I don't." And then she said little more, but kissed Elizabeth presently, bade her keep up her courage, and left sooner than she generally did.
"No, I don't know where he is," she said to herself, as the hansom bore her swiftly up-town, and she stared out absently at the deserted streets. "We don't know, but please God, we shall soon. If only that man finds him, if he can only get him here in time."
Thiswas in the early summer; and Elizabeth's trial was to be in November. The time approached, and nothing had been heard of Julian Gerard. Efforts were made to postpone the trial, that this important witness might have time to appear. But the influence of people like the Van Antwerps, which seems in some ways all-powerful, is in others curiously slight. The District Attorney was acting in the interests of the yellow journals and they, according to their own account, in the interests of the people, which required, as they set forth in high-sounding editorials, that no more favor should be shown to Miss Van Vorst than to the lowest criminal.
After all, the girl's health had suffered so severely from the long confinement that it seemed a cruelty to lengthen it, even with the hope of Gerard's return. Mr. Fenton himself was of opinion that the trial should not be postponed. He had done his best for his client, though hampered more, perhaps, than he realized by his secret doubt of everything she said. He did not believe in this alibi, which she had trumped up, as he decided, when the one person who could confirm or deny it was safely out of the way. Yet he tried to find some other witness whoremembered, or imagined having seen her at the Museum on the morning when she was supposed to have been in Brooklyn. No such person could be found. The case for the defence was lamentably weak. Mr. Fenton admitted the fact to himself with a shrug of the shoulders, and fell back philosophically on his conviction that no jury would send a young woman of Elizabeth's position and attractions to the electric chair.
Perhaps the person most to be pitied in those days was Miss Cornelia, who had been summoned as witness for the prosecution to corroborate the testimony of Bridget O'Flaherty, her former waitress, as to her niece's words and manner on the morning after the murder. The poor lady was in a pitiful state of agitation. "What shall I say?" she asked, looking appealingly from one to the other of Elizabeth's friends and advisers.
"Say anything," said Mrs. Bobby, hastily, "any—any lie that you can invent."
She stopped. Miss Cornelia drew herself up with dignity. "I don't think our child's cause can be helped by—by lies, Mrs. Van Antwerp," she said.
Mrs. Bobby felt herself rebuked. "Well, I am not given to lies myself, as a rule," she explained, apologetically, "but in a case like this it seems to me that the end justifies the means. It's a doctrine brought into discredit, I know, by the Jesuits, but still it seems to have a certain foundation in common-sense."
"I don't know anything about the Jesuits," said Miss Cornelia, with some stiffness, "but I shall tryto act as our Church would advise, even—even if Elizabeth"—here her voice broke.
"I think," said Bobby Van Antwerp, coming to the rescue, "that Miss Cornelia is right, Eleanor. It is much better to tell the exact truth, and Fenton will make the best of it.—Good Heavens," he said afterwards to his wife, "you don't suppose that the poor lady could invent a plausible story, or even keep back anything that wouldn't be brought out in cross-examination and make a worse effect than if she gave it of her own accord!"
But upon Miss Cornelia the opposite side of the question was beginning to make an impression. Her mind moved slowly. It was not easy for her to break from old tradition. Her conscience had hitherto recognized the broadly drawn line between right and wrong; no indefinite, subtle gradations. As she had said once to Elizabeth, fully meaning it, one could always do right if one tried. But if—if one could not tell what the right was?...
Miss Joanna, sitting opposite to her in the twilight, broke the silence hesitatingly. "I suppose, sister," she said, "I suppose you remember—exactly what the poor child said—that morning? You haven't"—Miss Joanna caught her breath—"you haven't forgotten?" There was a note of entreaty in her voice.
Miss Cornelia could see it so plainly; the breakfast table and the paper with those startling headlines, and the look on Elizabeth's face, when she had made that extraordinary assertion. A confession of guilt! That was the way in which it would be construed—thereseemed no way out of it. Miss Cornelia did not think that the most merciful jury could acquit her after that. And yet the child was innocent—Miss Cornelia knew that as surely as she knew that the Bible was inspired. Was it reasonable, was it right that she should be required to give evidence against her? Over Miss Cornelia's mind there swept a sudden, sharp sense of injustice, a passionate rebellion against fate.
But a life-long habit of truth-telling is hard to overcome. She answered Miss Joanna after a moment. "I—I haven't forgotten, sister," she said, and the hot tears scorched her eyeballs.
Miss Joanna put away her knitting with a hopeless sigh. "Well, of course, sister, you must speak the truth," she said, drearily, "but—it does seem hard." Then she went out of the room, crying quietly.
Miss Cornelia sat motionless in the twilight, while that new tumult of rebellion still raged within her. Ah, yes, it seemed more than hard—it seemed cruel, unjust, that such a thing should be required of her. Those strange people, the Jesuits, whom she had always held in horror, had some reason on their side after all. There were cases to which the simple, old-fashioned rules of right and wrong did not apply, which were extraordinary, unprecedented.... Miss Cornelia could not help asking herself—with a thrill of self-condemnation, indeed, and yet another feeling which defended the question—whether in certain circumstances, the wrong were not more to be commended, wiser, better than the right.
She spent a sleepless night, thinking it over. The whole foundations of her life, of her faith seemed shaken. She looked the next morning so exhausted, when she went down as usual to The Tombs, that Elizabeth at once divined that some new misfortune had happened, and it was not long before she drew it out of her.
She sat for a long time very still, one hand clasping Miss Cornelia's, the fingers of the other tapping on the ledge of the wall beside her.
"Of course, auntie," she said at last, quietly, "you must tell exactly what happened. There's no good to be gained by lies; at least"—she made an attempt at a smile—"my own success in that line hasn't been very striking. I was a little out of my head that morning, and I don't remember exactly what I said! but whatever it was"—she raised her head proudly—"I don't want anything kept back. Let them know the whole truth; then, if they condemn me, well and good. At least I shan't have anything"—her voice faltered—"anythingmoreto reproach myself with."
"Elizabeth!" The older woman gazed up at her admiringly. "You are so brave—you are a lesson to me! But you—you don't realize, my darling—" sobs choked her voice.
"Oh, yes—I realize." A pale smile flitted across the girl's face. "I have realized—quite clearly—all these months. But that's no reason, auntie, why you should save me by lies."
And then she turned the subject, and began to talk calmly enough, about one of the women prisoners,in whose case she took a keen interest. Nothing more was said about her own affairs. She had relapsed, since that conversation months before with Mrs. Bobby, into her old reserve, and spoke very little of herself. The cooler weather was helping her. She seemed stronger, and always quite calm. Miss Cornelia went away, feeling rebuked for her own cowardice. Elizabeth was right, she thought with a pang of self-reproach; nothing but the truth must be told in her defence. But meanwhile Miss Cornelia tried to reconcile two opposite instincts; offering up day and night two apparently irreconcilable petitions; that she might be enabled to speak the truth exactly, and yet do no harm to her niece's cause.
Itwas the first day of Elizabeth's trial. She could hardly realize that it had come—this event which they had anticipated so long, the thought of which had lately crowded out every other. There was nothing alarming about the present proceedings—the appearance of one jury-man after another, generally followed in each case by a peremptory challenge. One was objected to because he was thought to have formed a favorable opinion, another an unfavorable one, and still another because he was apparently incapable of forming any opinion at all. If she had not been on trial for her life, she might have thought it dull.
Her gaze wandered to that wide court-room window opposite, from which she could see an expanse of roofs, flag-staffs and chimneys, full of charm and excitement after the unbroken outline of blank walls, which for many months had bounded her view. Then, forgetting herself, she glanced about the room, quickly turned and shrank back, while the color rushed into her white face. There were some women whom she knew, thickly veiled, in the crowd behind her—women who were against her. Those who were her friends had the consideration to stay away. And there were otherswhom she did not know, who crowded as close to the bar as they could, eying her with eager curiosity, making remarks about her in a stage whisper. As the heroine of this sensational case, she was a disappointment both in dress and appearance.
"Well, her hair waves prettily"—the words came distinctly to Elizabeth's ears in a lull in the proceeding—"but that's about all. I don't see why she was ever called a beauty, do you?"
"Why, no, indeed. Her features aren't regular—not a bit. And isn't she thin and white!"
"Hush!" a kindlier voice broke in, suppressing the others. "It's no wonder, poor thing. Most people would lose their looks, if they'd been through what she has."
A pang shot through Elizabeth none the less distinct because the reason was, in view of what was going on, so trifling and absurd. She had dressed herself that morning with unusual care, resolved to present as far as possible an undisturbed front to the world; and she had not realized that the plain black gown, and the unrelieved sombreness of the black hat, which would once have thrown into more dazzling relief her fresh young beauty, now emphasized with startling plainness the change in her appearance. For a moment, the fact forced itself upon her and hurt even then. When a woman has always been regarded as a beauty, it is hard to become accustomed to a different point of view. After all, what difference did it make? She had not realized the effect which her looks were supposed to produce on the jury.
For a while the prospect of any jury at all seemed dubious. The hours passed, the day came to an end, and there were exactly two men in the box. It was not till the end of the third day that the number was complete—twelve most unhappy men, whose faces Eleanor Van Antwerp scanned eagerly. Some, she decided, were kind; others—too logical; all of them were more or less intelligent. There were one or two, she thought, to whom the pathos of Elizabeth's pale and faded looks might appeal with an eloquence that fresh coloring and rounded curves would have lacked entirely. Upon these men she based her hopes.
And so the trial, once fairly started, dragged on its weary length. Mrs. Bobby spent her days there, sitting beside Elizabeth; her whole life, just then, seemed bounded by the court-house walls. She had no interest in anything outside. And Elizabeth's aunts, too, came every day. It was pathetic to see these timid, elderly women, plunged for the first time in their sheltered lives into this fierce glare of publicity, under which they bore up unflinchingly, in the effort to show to all the world their firm faith in their niece's ultimate acquittal.
As for Elizabeth, she had little hope; but neither had she, except at times, any great fear. The worst had been that first day, and now she was used to being stared at; used even to the thought that she was being tried for her life. The scene and its accessories—the listening, eager crowd behind her, the judge before her with his impassive face, in which she thought she could perceive, now and again—ordid her hopes deceive her?—a gleam of sympathy; the jury weary but resigned, the reporters taking notes, scanning her with eyes that noted every detail of her manner and bearing, placed upon them Heaven knows what construction! Bobby Van Antwerp moving restlessly about, holding long conferences with the lawyers; her counsel and the District Attorney wrangling, glaring at each other over the heads of unfortunate witnesses—the whole thing lost its terrors, grew to be an accepted part of her life's routine.
The evidence at first was technical. There was much she did not understand—she wondered if the jury did. There were the doctors, showing with many long words and tedious explanations, with what sort of poison the murder had been committed; and then there were the handwriting experts, with still longer words and more tedious explanations. Now—what was it that they had brought out? Those unfortunate letters which she remembered so well having written, in great haste and anxiety. The experts were pointing out numerous points of resemblance between them and another piece of paper, which she had never seen before. And now it was the secret marriage they were proving—though what was the use of that, when no one denied it? The question of motive was absolutely clear; the District Attorney had expatiated upon it at great length in his opening speech.
All this Elizabeth grasped more or less distinctly. She realized that the evidence was strong against her. But she could not, weak and dazed as she was,keep her mind on it. The voice of the witnesses would grow indistinct, a mist would pass over the anxious faces around her, a lull would come in the nervous tension of the atmosphere; the blue sky, which she saw from the window, would seem very near, and she would float off into phases of oblivion, from which she would be roused, perhaps, by a touch on her arm, or a voice in her ear. "Listen, darling, that was a point in your favor," her aunts or Eleanor Van Antwerp would say.
These points were few and far between. But there was one which Elizabeth understood—she hoped that the jury did.
Mr. Fenton was examining one of the medical experts for the prosecution, a man who had had large experience in poisoning cases. The counsel for the defence was putting him through series of questions, the drift of which was not altogether plain. What sort of a crime did he consider poisoning? An atrocious one, was it not?—generally committed by hardened criminals? Had the witness ever been in contact with a case of poisoning where the whole scheme had been concocted and carried out by a girl of twenty, far removed by education, friends and antecedents from any connection with crime? No, the witness could not, in his own experience, recall any such case, but he had no doubt that it had been known, though he agreed in response to Mr. Fenton's next question, that it would be slightly abnormal. And here the District Attorney interposed with one of those objections which each lawyer seemed to make mechanically, whenevera question proved inconvenient to his side; but the Judge decided in favor of Mr. Fenton, and he went on imperturbably, shifting his ground a little.
"Poisoning is a crime—don't you think so?—that calls for a great deal of thought and calculation?"
"Yes," the witness thought it would undoubtedly.
"The person who planned it would have plenty of time to consider the consequences?"
The witness responded: "I should think so."
"He or she—whoever it was that planned it—would be probably of a cold-blooded and calculating disposition?"
"Probably."
"And not likely, do you think so?—to suffer from hysterical remorse as soon as the act was accomplished?"
Here the opposing counsel again intervened, and was again silenced by the Judge. Mr. Fenton repeated his question.
"I ask you," he said, addressing the witness with a certain solemnity, "as a man who has had experience with criminals and human nature, whether you think it likely that a woman, strong-minded and cold-blooded enough to commit this diabolical crime, on hearing of its accomplishment—a thing she has been expecting for days—would be seized with a fit of hysterical remorse, would utter wild, incriminating words, in the presence of—no matter whom, any one who chanced to be present, and would rush up at once to look at the body of the man whom she had murdered?"
The witness hesitated. "It—it doesn't seem likely," he admitted at last.
"It would be much more, don't you think," said Mr. Fenton quietly, "like the conduct of an innocent woman, who was suffering from a nervous shock, and had no thought of controlling her actions because she had no idea of being suspected?"
The witness, after a long pause: "Yes, it—would certainly seem so."
"It certainly does," said Mr. Fenton. "Thank you, doctor. I have no more questions to ask." And he sat down with the air of one who has scored a point.
Thereupon the prosecution, as if to prove the strength of the evidence which he had anticipated, placed upon the stand Bridget O'Flaherty, formerly maid-servant to the Misses Van Vorst, who swore upon her solemn oath that the prisoner had in her hearing declared herself guilty of the murder of Paul Halleck. Yes, those were her very words, the maid declared—"that she had killed him," and she had added that "it had come at last—just as she despaired of it" or something of the kind, referring no doubt to the fact that Halleck had kept the poison some time before taking it. The woman's testimony was full and circumstantial, and she gave the impression of telling the truth.
Mr. Fenton, on cross-examination, proved that she had been dismissed without a character from the services of the Misses Van Vorst, also that she had been paid for her evidence by a yellow journal. Itseffect was distinctly undermined when he permitted her to leave the stand. And with that the prosecution called upon Miss Cornelia to corroborate the maid's statement.
Miss Cornelia was deathly white; her head shook, her thin, silvery curls fluttered, as if they had caught the infection of her own nervousness. In one hand she grasped her smelling-salts desperately, with the other she revolved in an agitated way a small black fan. A murmur of sympathy ran through the court-room as she took her place. Even the District Attorney seemed sorry for her and put his opening questions with unwonted gentleness. His tone was still bland when he came to the important point—had she noticed anything peculiar in her niece's manner on the morning after the murder?
Miss Cornelia's answer was low, but it was quite audible. "She was—shocked, naturally."
"Naturally. But did she seem surprised?"
Miss Cornelia's answer was this time still lower, and given with more hesitation. "I—I think so."
"You mean you are not sure?"
"I—I was so upset myself"—began Miss Cornelia.
"That you did not notice?"
"No, I—I did not notice," said Miss Cornelia, relieved.
"You thought that her manner was unremarkable, and simply what you might have expected under the circumstances?"
"Yes, I—I thought so," said Miss Cornelia. Sheadded to herself the mental reservation that she had no idea what sort of manner under the circumstances, she should have expected.
The District Attorney assumed a more impressive manner. "Miss Van Vorst," he said, "do you believe in the sacredness of an oath?"
"Yes, I—I certainly."
"You would not speak anything but the truth?"
"No," said Miss Cornelia, this time more firmly.
"Then I ask you," said the District Attorney, suddenly drawing himself up to his full height, and fixing his eyes upon her, "I ask you, on your sacred oath, did your niece, or did she not, on the morning after the murder of Paul Halleck, say to you that she had killed him, or words to that effect?"
There was a long silence. Miss Cornelia looked desperately about her; at the Judge, whose face showed more than ever a touch of human sympathy; at Mr. Fenton, white with anxiety, trying to telegraph a hundred things which she could not understand; at the jury, bending eagerly forward; then back at those most interested,—her sister in an agony of suspense, Mrs. Van Antwerp flushed and trembling in her vain desire to intervene. Lastly, Miss Cornelia's haggard eyes sought Elizabeth herself; the girl was sitting white and rigid, motionless as a statue, her hands clenched, her eyes resolutely bent upon the floor. If it was a terrible moment for her; how much worse was it for the aunt who had brought her up, who was now called upon by a refinement of cruelty to destroy what seemed to be her only chance. Oh, for the courage—itseemed to her almost noble!—to utter one good lie! But there were the lynx-like eyes of the District Attorney fixed upon her, there was the oath she had taken, weighing upon her conscientious soul.... Suddenly she felt, with a sense of despair, that her silence had already spoken louder than speech. And, even as the thought passed through her mind, her answer framed itself on her lips and seemed to be uttered without her own volition; one word, barely audible, but caught at once and registered by twenty reporters, while a suppressed sigh went the round of the court-room.
"Yes."
"Thank you," said the District Attorney. "That is all I wished to know."
Therewas still cross-examination.
Mr. Fenton, too, began with unimportant questions. He gave Miss Cornelia, who looked ready to faint, time to recover herself a little. The questions he asked were easy to answer. Had her niece, in the course of her education, given them much trouble, had she ever deceived them, kept anything from them before this fatal secret? Ah, no, no! Miss Cornelia gave her answers tremulously, yet with a fervent relief, an eager desire to make herself heard throughout the court-room.
"Then with your knowledge of your niece's character," Mr. Fenton asked, speaking almost carelessly, "you didn't think of her as the sort of person likely to commit a crime?"
Miss Cornelia drew herself up with sudden dignity and her voice was plainly audible, and without a tremor. "Most certainly not," she said.
"Then how," inquired Mr. Fenton calmly, "did you account for her extraordinary assertion that she had committed this murder?"
Miss Cornelia hardly hesitated. "I thought she was out of her mind," she said. "I couldn't account for it in any other way."
"It never occurred to you for a moment that it was true?"
"Not for a moment." The words came out indignantly.
"You naturally did not suppose that were she really guilty, she would proclaim it quite so readily as that?"
Miss Cornelia stared. "I never," she said, simply, "thought of such a thing as her being guilty."
"But you asked her, did you not, for some explanation of her words?"
"I asked her," faltered Miss Cornelia, "what she meant by saying such a dreadful thing. And she said—she said"——
"Yes," said Mr. Fenton, encouragingly. "Take your time and tell us the exact truth. What did she say?"
"She seemed to be rather dazed—She said that she had wished so much for it to happen that when it did, it seemed almost like an answer to her wishes—as if she were accountable for it."
"And you accepted her explanation?" said Mr. Fenton. "It seemed to you plausible?"
"I knew what she meant—yes. But I could see that she was over-wrought and excited, or she wouldn't have thought of it."
"Did she seem distressed over Halleck's death?"
Miss Cornelia hesitated. "N—not at first," she said. "She couldn't seem to realize it."
"And afterwards?"——
"Yes, she seemed distressed then. I thought,"said Miss Cornelia firmly "that she felt very badly indeed when she realized it."
"And there was nothing in her manner that could induce you to believe that she expected it, or knew a thing about it beyond what she read in the papers?"
"Nothing."
With this word, firmly pronounced, Miss Cornelia's ordeal came to an end; she descended white and dazed. Elizabeth leaned over as she returned to her place and pressed her hand with a faint little smile. "It's all right, auntie, I'm glad you spoke the truth." And so the episode passed.
"She really has done no more harm than we expected," Bobby Van Antwerp observed to his wife. "It is one of those things which sound much worse than they really are. After all, what does it amount to? The hysterical assertion of an excited girl! A guilty woman is more careful what she says."
"I will tell Elizabeth," said his wife, in relief, "what you say." But though she found an opportunity after the day's session, to whisper this encouragement into the girl's ear, Elizabeth listened vacantly and did not seem fully to grasp it. The maid's evidence, her aunt's corroboration, had brought up vividly to her mind the danger that existed all the time behind these slow, technical deliberations. That night the horrible waking dream, from which for awhile she had been free, returned more startlingly real than ever, and the face of the Judge who sentenced her was the same face inwhich, during the long days in the court-room, she had thought she detected some involuntary gleams of sympathy. It had seemed a kind face in the day-time, but in her dream it was inexorably stern.
The next morning, at the trial, her mind did not wander; she kept it resolutely fixed on the evidence. Mr. D'Hauteville was on the stand, and she wondered what more fatal revelations were to be made of her words and actions on that unfortunate morning, when she hardly knew what she said or did. But no new developments were brought out. There was no trace in Mr. D'Hauteville's evidence or his easy, unembarrassed manner of the suspicions which he had been perhaps the first person in town to entertain.
Yes, he had seen Miss Van Vorst on the morning after the murder, and had himself taken her into the studio. Was there anything peculiar in her manner? Certainly; she seemed much distressed, as was natural, he thought, under the circumstances. Had she tried to possess herself of the fatal flask, or of any other incriminating objects, as for instance her own letters? No, most emphatically no. Was it true, as the elevator man had already stated, that she had defended herself against his accusations? He could not remember anything of the kind; certainly he had not accused her, as he had no reason to suspect her.
Mr. Fenton on cross-examination, drew from him a description of her tears, of the fearless way in which she had entered, her apparent indifference tobeing observed. Was it, Mr. Fenton demanded, the manner of a guilty woman? The witness fully agreed that it was not. And then he left the stand, saying to himself philosophically that all was fair in the cause of a beautiful and unfortunate girl, whom he had admired extremely, and with whom his friend Gerard had been, and might be still, desperately in love.
The next witness was the Brooklyn tradesman, whose evidence had been already so much exploited by the yellow journals that it lacked the force of novelty. He deposed to having sold the flask on the morning of the twenty-third of December, to a woman in black, thickly veiled, slight and tall, and with reddish hair. The witness was quite sure about the date, and as to the time he was less explicit, but convinced that it was somewhere between the hours of ten and twelve. He was a middle-aged man with a plain, honest face, and evidently anxious to tell what he knew and no more. When the District Attorney, in a dramatic manner, desired him to look at the defendant, and declare if she were the woman to whom he sold the flask, he seemed to shrink in distress from the terrible responsibility thus placed upon him.
"I—it is so long ago," he protested, "and—you—must remember that she wore a veil."
"Which entirely obscured her face?"——
"No, not entirely," the witness reluctantly admitted.
"Look at the defendant," the District Attorney insisted, "and tell the court if her general appearancerecalls that of the woman to whom you sold the flask."
He turned to Elizabeth and requested her to rise. She grew a shade paler and stared at him for a moment as if startled; then slowly, she obeyed him, and stood facing the witness, who brought reluctantly his anxious gaze to bear upon her. She was ashy-white, but she held her head erect, her eyes met his without flinching. Thus they stood for fully a minute, and the silence in the court-room was tense with nervous excitement. Then the witness spoke.
"I—there is a certain resemblance," he said.
"Then you identify her?" said the District Attorney.
The witness was silent. He looked again at Elizabeth. She was trembling now, and caught hold of a chair as if for support. The witness cleared his throat. He was thinking that he had a daughter of about Elizabeth's age.
"I—I really could not tell," he began.
"Take your time," said the District Attorney, impressively. "This is a very important point."
And then there was again a long silence. In the midst of it the sun, bursting through a gray mass of clouds, touched Elizabeth's hair with a wave of light. It stood out, a shining halo, against the rim of her black hat. The witness stared at it as if fascinated. Then he uttered a sound—it might almost have been a sob—of relief.
"That is not the same woman," he said. "The hair is quite different! That other woman's hairwas a much deeper red—it didn't shine and glisten. And her whole air, the way she held herself was different. I am sure it is not the same."
And this opinion, once announced, he clung to tenaciously—nothing the District Attorney said could shake it. Mr. Fenton would not even cross-examine, and there was great rejoicing in the ranks of the defense.
But the next day the prosecution placed upon the stand a druggist's clerk, who remembered having sold a bottle of arsenic to a woman dressed in black on the morning of the twenty-third of December. The occurrence was impressed on his mind because he had demurred as to selling poison, and she had presented a physician's certificate. She was handsomely dressed and seemed like a lady; he had noticed particularly that her hair was reddish. And when asked to identify Elizabeth, he swore unhesitatingly that she was the same woman.
Upon Mr. Fenton's cross-examination, it became evident what important questions may hang on the color of a woman's hair.
Mr. Fenton: "You said, did you not, that the woman's hair was red?"
Witness, cautiously: "I said, reddish. That's not quite the same thing."
Mr. Fenton: "Explain the difference."
Witness, confused: "Well, I—I don't know. I meant to say it was sort of—sort of light"——
"You meant to say, in other words, that it was not black?"
Witness, recovering himself and speaking stubbornly: "No, I meant to say that it was reddish—sort of sandy"——
"Ah—like the District Attorney's moustache, for instance?"
There was laughter in the court-room. The District Attorney's moustache was a brilliant carrot color, which at the opposing counsel's words, was emulated by his face.
"I object to these personalities," he said.
Mr. Fenton was instructed by the Judge to be more serious, but held to his point.
"Your Honor, it is necessary to find out what the witness means by the vague word 'reddish.' If he thinks it applies to the District Attorney's moustache"——
"But I don't," objected the aggrieved witness, to the renewed amusement of the court-room. "I call that carroty."
"Then point out, among people present, what hair you consider reddish."
The witness's eyes wandered till they alighted upon the distinctly sandy locks of one of the experts for the prosecution. "I call that hair reddish," he announced, with some satisfaction at finding a way out of his dilemma.
"Ah—now oblige me, by looking at the defendant's hair and tell us if you think it is like that of this gentleman."
The witness glanced helplessly at Elizabeth. "It—isn't much like it," he admitted.
"And yet you describe both as 'reddish?'"
The witness was desperate. "Well, I—I don't exactly know"—he said.
"What you mean by 'reddish?'" said Mr. Fenton.
"Well—no," said the witness.
"I see that you don't. It's not necessary for you to tell us that. You are color blind evidently, and by 'reddish' you simply mean anything between black and tow-color. But you can't swear away a woman's life with such vague descriptions as this. You can go now. I have no more questions to ask."
The crestfallen witness gladly retreated. But in spite of his discomfiture, his evidence had been a serious blow to the defense, and when, a few days later, the prosecution closed its case, it was admitted on every side to be a strong one.
The defense opened quietly enough. Mr. Fenton, too, brought out his handwriting experts, who were prepared with an equally startling array of technical details, to swear to the exact opposite of what had been solemnly declared by the experts for the prosecution. The court settled down into a dreamy mood, and the spectators for the most part went to sleep.
There was a break in the monotony, and one which created much excitement, when Elizabeth took the stand on her own behalf. She had been very anxious to do this, and Mr. Fenton had reluctantly consented, with many misgivings and elaborate instructions, to which he saw, to his alarm, that she listened almost vacantly. But when shebegan to testify his doubts disappeared. She gave her evidence very simply and directly, and there was something in the soft, low tones of her voice, an indefinable ring of girlishness, of youth and inexperience, which carried with it an illogical thrill of conviction.
She had never, she said, bought the flask which contained the poison, nor had she ever seen one exactly like it. She had not gone to Brooklyn on the twenty-third of December—she had never gone there in her life. She had spent the morning of the twenty-third of December at the Metropolitan Museum. She had not bought the bottle of arsenic, and knew nothing of it. She had no reason to expect Paul Halleck's death. She had read of it in the papers. No, she had not meant the assertion literally when she said that she had killed him; she had been startled because his death had seemed to come in direct answer to her wishes, and she had somehow felt accountable for it. Yes, it was a morbid idea—she realized it now, but she had not been at all well at the time. That was the reason she had gone up to the studio; she had been in a state of nervous excitement and hardly knew what she did. No, she had not thought of the police suspecting her in consequence; such an idea had never entered her mind.
On the whole, Mr. Fenton was satisfied with the effect that she was producing. He had made the agreeable discovery that he was beginning to believe in her himself; and if this conviction was impressing itself more and more upon his own suspiciousmind, it must, he thought, be all-powerful with the jury, whom he had already mentally appraised as kindly men, anxious to escape from an unpleasant duty, and willing to give the prisoner the full benefit of every doubt.
But when Mr. Fenton at last sat down and the District Attorney took his place, then, indeed, began a very bad quarter of an hour for Elizabeth. Question by question, the lawyer drew out of her her reasons for keeping her marriage secret and for wishing Halleck dead, her engagement to Gerard and the manner in which she had deceived him. Her color changed from white to red and back again to ghastly pallor, her voice faltered and broke piteously, but still the terrible inquiry proceeded. Behind her, her aunts were biting their lips in agony and Mrs. Bobby was beside herself with indignation. "I'd give anything in the world," she said to her husband, "to get even with that man." Elizabeth's counsel was keeping up a running fire of objections, but in vain. The District Attorney got in his questions somehow or another, and Elizabeth answered them as best she could.
"Why," she was asked among other things, "was your engagement to Mr. Gerard broken off?"
"Because," she faltered, "I—I told him of my marriage."
"Why did you suddenly tell him, when you had kept it concealed so long?"
Elizabeth looked up with a piteous appeal in her eyes, which was answered by an objection on the part of her counsel, and she was told by the Judgethat she need answer no question unless she wished. But by this time she had recovered herself.
"I am quite willing to answer," she said. "I told him because I was sorry I had deceived him. I had no other reason."
"You are quite sure that youdidtell him, and that he did not—find out for himself?"
There was an insulting tone to the question, but she answered it steadily, without anger. "I am quite sure," she said.
"Who was with you on the day that you say you went to the Metropolitan Museum?" This was the next question, put with disconcerting suddenness.
She turned still whiter, if that were possible, than before, and her answer was barely audible. "Mr. Gerard."
"Was any one else with you?"
"No one."
"Is he the only person who can corroborate your statement?"
"Yes."
"Then it is a pity he is not here."
She was silent.
"Mr. Gerard," observed Mr. Fenton, "when he went abroad left no address. We made efforts to communicate with him, but so far, we have not succeeded. It is most unfortunate."
"Most unfortunate, certainly," echoed the District Attorney, "for the defendant. But perhaps he was not anxious to be summoned. We have heard of witnesses who went to the ends of the earth to avoid it."
He turned to Elizabeth. "Do you know of any reason," he asked, "why he should not wish to come?"
Elizabeth's hands were clasped together nervously. "I—I cannot tell."
"Did you send for him, as soon as you knew that his testimony was needed?"
"I did not."
"Whydid you not?" said the District Attorney, in his sneering voice.
The color flushed into her face. "Because I—because I"—Her voice faltered and broke. "I did notwishhim sent for," she said, with a sudden flash of defiance. Then she turned deathly white, and put up her handkerchief to her lips. "I—will not answer any more questions," she added, faintly.
After all, it had been very bad—worse, far worse, than she had expected. She felt as she left the stand that she had done her cause only harm. It seemed to her moreover, that whether she were acquitted or found guilty, she could never, after the abasement of that cross-examination, hold up her head again.
The outlook was gloomy, and the case for the defence was almost closed. But when Mrs. Bobby arrived in court the next morning, she was greeted by Mr. Fenton with a broad smile.
"We must put the handwriting experts on again," he said, cheerfully. "It will be dull, but anything to gain time. I have had a cable from Mr. Gerard. He will be here in a few days."