'Tis not everThe justice and the truth o' th' question carriesThe due o' th' verdict with it.—Shakespeare.
At an early hour the next morning the court was opened, the Judges resumed their seats, and the accused was conducted back to her place.
Ishmael Worth opened for the defence.
I shall not even attempt to give so much as an epitome of his speech. I should never be able to do justice to the logic, eloquence, pathos, and power of his oratory. I shall only indicate that the points upon which he dwelt most were, the magnanimous nature of his client, which rendered her utterly incapable of committing the atrocious crime with which she stood charged; the fatal fallibility of circumstantial evidence, which he illustrated by direct reference to many recorded cases, well-known to the legal profession, in which parties had been convicted and executed, under the strongest possible circumstantial evidence, and had afterwards been discovered to have been guiltless; the facility with which a murderer might have concealed himself in that bedroom occupied by the deceased on the night of the murder, have eluded the search of the sleepy nurse, and after committing his crime, being frightened by thescreams of his awakened victim, should have escaped through the window and slammed the shutter to, from the outside, when it would fasten itself with its spring bolt; the perfect naturalness of the circumstance that the accused, on hearing her guest scream, should have flown down those communicating stairs to her assistance, and should have drawn from her wounded bosom the dagger left there by the flying murderer. This, and much more than can even be touched upon here, he said, and then proceeded to call witnesses for the defence.
These were some of the old friends and neighbors of the accused lady, who warmly bore witness to the generosity and nobility of her nature, which placed her in their estimation so far above the possibility of committing a crime so heinous.
Then came the white servants of her household, who described the situation of Rosa Blondelle's rooms on the first floor of Black Hall; the easy entrance into them from the grounds below, and the insecure spring fastenings of the windows, which might be opened from without by a thin knife passed under the latch and lifted.
All felt how small the amount of material was, out of which even the most learned and eloquent advocate could make a defence for Sybil Berners.
The examination of the witnesses for the defence closed.
Mr. Sheridan then made his last effort for his client, and was followed by Mr. Worth, both of whom exerted their utmost faculties in the hopeless cause of their unhappy client.
But ah! no eloquence of theirs, of any one's, could do away with the damning evidence against the accused lady.
The State's attorney, in a final address to the jury, pointed out this fact, and then sat down.
The venerable Judge Joseph Ruthven arose to sum up the evidence and charge the jury. We know that he believed in the innocence of the pure and noble young lady, whom he had known from her earliest infancy. Such a belief under such circumstances must have swayed the judgement and affected the action of the justest judge under the sun.
Judge Ruthven palpably leaned to the side of the prisoner. After summing up the evidence for the prosecution rather briefly and coldly, he urged upon the jury the value of a good name in the case of an accused party; the excellent name of the accused lady; the unreliability of circumstantial evidence; the fallibility even of the testimony of the dying, when such testimony was given in the excitement of terror and the agony of death; of how such testimony, however sincerely given and believed in, had often been utterly disproved by subsequent events; and finally, that if a single doubt, however slight, remained in their minds of the guilt of the prisoner, it was their bounden duty to give her the benefit of that doubt by a full acquittal. And so, praying Divine Providence to direct their counsels, he dismissed them to deliberate on their verdict.
The jury left the room in charge of a sheriff's officer.
And then the tongues of the spectators were loosened. The charge of the judge had given great offence.
"It amounts to a positive instruction to the jury to acquit the prisoner!" fiercely whispered one malcontent.
"And when the testimony has so clearly convicted her!" added another.
"Nothing but partiality! He and her father were old cronies," put in a third.
"A partial judge ought to be impeached!" growled a fourth.
And so on the disapprobation rumbled through the court-room in thunder, not loud, but deep.
And then all became still as death.
Meanwhile the judge sat calmly on the bench, the onlyevidence of his strongly suppressed anxiety was the extreme paleness of his venerable face. What was passing in his mind during this time of awful stillness and waiting, in which the earth seemed arrested in her orbit, the sun stopped in his course? The dread question, should he, with more than Roman courage, be obliged to pass sentence of death on that child of his old friend, that young high-born, refined, and beautiful woman, whom from the depths of his soul he believed to be perfectly innocent?
Meanwhile Sybil Berners, her face bloodless, her frame almost pulseless, breathless as with suspended animation, leaned upon her husband's breast and waited for the verdict that was to give her life or death.
Both pale as herself, her husband and her friend sat, the first on her right side and the second on her left, as they sit by the dying, supporting her as best they might, her husband's arm around her waist, her friend's hand clasping hers.
The hour wore slowly on. The room grew dark. But the judge did not adjourn the court. He thought, most likely, it was better for all concerned to end the agony that night if possible.
At length the lamps were lighted, and their beams fell upon the pallid group of friends, upon whom the doom of death seemed already to have descended; and further on, upon the "sea of heads" that now filled the court-room and—waited for the verdict; for the crowd had greatly increased since the commencement of the trial.
At length the hush of silence was stirred by a motion near the door of the jury-room.
Sybil's weary head still rested on her husband's bosom; he gathered her in a closer embrace, that she might not look up until she should be compelled to do so.
She was too inexperienced to know what that little stir that moved the stillness meant.
The door of the jury-room was thrown open by the deputy-sheriff, and the jury filed into the court, and stood in a group near the bench.
All hearts stood still. The face of the venerable judge turned a shade paler.
The clerk of arraigns arose, and addressing the jury, inquired:
"Gentlemen of the jury, have you agreed upon your verdict?"
"We have," solemnly answered the foreman, on the part of his colleagues.
"Prisoner, stand up and look upon the jury," proceeded the clerk, addressing Sybil.
"Rise, my darling, rise!" said the heart-broken husband of the lady, as he helped her to her feet.
Sybil stood up, still leaning on his arm.
"Look on those men there!" whispered Lyon Berners.
"Where? Where?" inquired Sybil, in perplexity, for the court-room was but dimly lighted, and her brain was half dazed with horror.
"There, my darling, there!" muttered Lyon Berners, pointing to the jury.
"Prisoner, look upon the jury!" repeated the clerk.
Sybil turned her glazing eyes towards the group.
"Jurymen, look upon the prisoner!" continued the clerk.
They looked, and some among them must have seen that the doom they were about to pronounce inverdict could never be carried into effect.
The clerk proceeded.
"How say you, gentlemen of the jury; is the prisoner at the bar guilty or not guilty of the felony laid to her charge?"
And in that deep and utter agony,Though then, than ever, most unfit to die,I fell upon my knees and prayed for death.—Maturin.
"Guilty!"
The word tolled like a knell through the air.
Silence like death followed.
Some one passed to the judge a glass of water. His hand shook so that he spilled it.
Then he arose, trembling so much that he leaned for support on the stand before him. Yet he did his duty—the last duty he was ever to do on that bench.
"Prisoner at the bar, stand up."
She was raised to her feet, and supported in the arms of her husband.
"Sybil Berners! What have you to say why sentence of death should not be pronounced against you?"
Nothing. She had not understood the question. She did not answer it. There is a point in suffering at which the soul becomes insensible of it. While waiting for the verdict, Sybil had gradually passed into an abnormal state, which, without being a dream, resembled one. Her spirit was snatched away from the present scene. She was in the village church, and not in the court-room. The Judge on the bench was her old pastor in his pulpit. He was preaching, she thought; but something ailed her head, for she could not understand the drift of his discourse. And the church was so crowded, that she felt half-suffocated in it.
Amid the breathless, pulseless silence, the doom of death was spoken.
Not one word of it all did Sybil comprehend. But shefelt as if the evening service was over, and the people were rising to leave the church.
"Come, Lyon," she breathed, with a deep sigh, "it is over at last, and oh! I am so tired! Take me home."
Take her home! Alas for the heart-broken husband! He would have given his own body to be burned to death, if by doing so he could have taken her home. But he knew that, in all human probability, she could never go home again.
"One moment, darling," he whispered, and sat her down again to await the action of the sheriff.
Mr. Fortescue soon came up.
"Mr. Berners," he said, in a broken voice, "I am an old man, and I had rather die than do my present duty."
"Oh, do what must be done, do it at once, do it yourself, for no one else would do it so kindly," answered Lyon Berners.
"You know where I must take her?"
"Certainly."
"Then draw her arm through your own and follow me. She will go more quietly with you than with me," said the sheriff.
They had spoken in a very low tone, in order to spare Sybil, though they scarcely needed to have taken the precaution; for she was paying no attention to anything that was passing around her. She sat leaning back, with a look of utter weariness and stupor on her beautiful, pale face.
He raised her up, drew her hand through his arm, and whispered:
"Come, my darling, we are going now."
This roused her a little. She looked around for her party, and saw Beatrix Pendleton sitting with her face buried in her handkerchief, as she had sat since the rendering of the verdict.
"Look, she is asleep. I don't wonder; it is very tiresome, and I'm almost asleep myself," murmured Sybil, wearily gazing on her friend.
At that moment Captain Pendleton came up.
"Wake her, Clement, and bring her after us. You will both come home and take supper with me," said Sybil, as she was about to be led away.
Captain Pendleton did not answer her, but gazed on her as if his heart was about to break.
"Don't look at me so, Clement. You must think I am sick; but I am not—only tired and stupid. I hope Tabby will have supper ready when we get home," said Sybil, with a faint smile, as they led her off.
Captain Pendleton followed quickly, and touched Lyon Berners on the shoulder.
They exchanged glances.
"Oh, Heaven! Is this so?" whispered the captain, with a glance towards Sybil.
"It is so," answered Lyon Berners.
"This affliction added to all the rest!"
"It is better, much better thus. She does not suffer now. Thank Heaven for this veil of insanity drawn between her and the horrors to come! Pray heaven that she may never come to her senses while she lives in this world," muttered Lyon Berners.
Captain Pendleton stepped back and gave his sister his arm.
"You will go with her to the prison?" he inquired.
"Yes, and stay with her there, if I may be permitted," answered Beatrix, who was weeping bitterly.
"My dear, my noble sister! how I admire and thank you!" fervently exclaimed Clement Pendleton, as he led her after Sybil.
A storm had been gathering all the afternoon. It had not been noticed by the people, whose attention had beenswallowed up in the absorbing interest of the trial. But now, as they reached the open doors, the storm burst in thunder on the air, and the rain fell in torrents.
Many of the people retreated into the court-room to wait until the weather should be clear, or they should be able to procure umbrellas.
But our unhappy party went boldly out into the rain.
Sybil's carriage had been waiting, as on the preceding evening, to take her home. It was to be employed now to take her somewhere else.
"I am glad of this storm," said Mr. Berners, after he had put his wife into her seat, and while he was holding the door open for Beatrix, whom her brother had just led up. "I am very glad of this storm."
"Why?" inquired Captain Pendleton.
"Because it will enable me to humor the delusion of my poor Sybil."
"How?"
"By persuading her that the storm makes it necessary for us to stop at the house of an acquaintance," hastily explained Lyon Berners, as he put Beatrix into the seat next Sybil.
Then he took the third seat and Mr. Fortescue, as the custodian of Sybil, took the fourth.
Captain Pendleton mounted the box beside the coachman, who had received his directions where to drive, but who could scarcely see his way, for weeping.
The storm came down in fury. The lightning glared, the thunder rolled; the rain swept the mountain sides like a flood.
"We shall never be able to reach Black Hall to-night, my darling. We must stop at some house," said Lyon Berners, artfully.
"Yes? that's bad," answered his wife, who with an evident effort roused herself to reply, and then sank back intoher seat, in an attitude of weariness, and began slowly to pick at the fringe of her parasol, in an absent-minded, quiet manner.
The county prison was at the lower end of the village, at the junction of the Black river and Bird creek. It was a plain, rude structure, built of the iron-gray stone dug from the quarries of the Black mountain. It did not look like a prison. But for the grated windows it might have been taken for a commodious country house. And but for its well-cultivated grounds and stone fence, it might have been taken for a store-house. It comprised within its four walls the home of the warden and his family, as well as the lodgings for the turnkeys, and the cells of the prisoners.
Old Father Martin, the warden, found his office almost a sinecure. There were never many inmates of the prison, at any period. And sometimes for months together it would be quite vacant, so that in rainy weather its corridors and cells would be the play-ground of the warden's grandchildren.
Now however, there were some ten or twelve petty offenders confined there, who were waiting trial for such comparatively small offences as disorderly conduct, assault, etc.
Sybil had never in her life seen even the outside of this prison.
So when the carriage drew up before the outer gate, and Mr. Berners alighted and handed her out, and said that they would be obliged to stop here at Mr. Martin's until the storm should be over, she silently acquiesced, and permitted herself to be led, under the shelter of the sheriff's umbrella, up to the door of the building.
At the sheriff's ring, it was opened by the turnkey in attendance.
The sheriff immediately led his prisoner into the warden's office.
They were followed by Mr. Berners and the two Pendletons.
"I was expecting of this here," said the warden, as he drew forward a chair for the lady.
Sybil sank into it, weary, stupefied, apathetic, and utterly unconscious of her real situation.
Beatrix Pendleton sat down by her side and took her hand. Lyon Berners hung over the back of her chair. The little Skye terrier, who had followed the party, jumped upon her lap and coiled itself up there. Sybil noticed no one, but sat curiously contemplating the tips of her gloved fingers.
Meanwhile the sheriff and the warden went off to a writing desk that stood in one corner of the office, and where the sheriff formally delivered up his charge into the keeping of the warden.
"You will find some decent place to put her in, I hope, Martin. You will extend to her every indulgence consistent with her safe custody," said the sheriff, when the business was concluded.
The old warden scratched his gray head, reflected for a minute, and then said:
"The cells is miserable, which I have represented the same to their worships time and again, to no purpose. But if you'll take the responsibility, and back me up into doing of it, I can lock her up in my daughter's bedroom, where she will be safe enough for one night; and to-morrow we can have a cell fixed up, if her friends will go to the expense."
"Certainly, do all that; and if you should be as kind and considerate of her as may be consistent with your duty, her friends will be sure to reward you handsomely," answered Mr. Fortescue.
"Well, I'd do that any way, I think, for any poor woman in such a depth of trouble, reward or no reward," replied the kind-hearted warden.
The two men then went up to the young prisoner.
"I will take you up to your room now, ma'am, if you please," said the warden.
This aroused Sybil. She looked up suddenly and said:
"I am afraid we are putting you to much inconvenience Mr.—Mr.—"
"Martin," added the sheriff.
"—Mr. Martin; but the suddenness of this thunder-*storm, you know. And we were all at church, and—"
She lost the connection of her ideas, ceased to speak, put her hand to her forehead in perplexity for a moment, and then relapsed into apathetic reverie.
"Good gracious!" exclaimed the old warden, in dismay. "Why, she's a losing of her mind, an't she?"
"Yes, thank Heaven!" answered Sybil's husband earnestly.
"But—but—in such a case they will never carry the sentence out?" inquired the warden, in an eager whisper.
"Yes, they will; but she will never know what hurts her," grimly replied Captain Pendleton.
The old warden sighed. And then he warned the visitors that it was time for them to go, as he wanted to lock up the prison for the night.
"Is it not possible that I remain with my wife to-night? You see her condition," said Lyon Berners, appealing to the sheriff and the warden, and pointing to poor Sybil, whose wildly dilated eyes were fixed upon vacancy, while her fingers idly played with the gray curls of the little Skye terrier on her lap.
"Mr. Berners, my heart bleeds at refusing you anything in this hour of bitter sorrow; but—" began the sheriff.
"I see! I see! You cannot grant my request! I should have known it and refrained from asking," interrupted Lyon Berners.
At this point Beatrix Pendleton, who had been sitting beside Sybil, deliberately took off her gloves, bonnet, and lace shawl, and laid them on a table near, saying quietly,
"I shall stay with my friend. Mr. Martin, I don't thinkyou will turn me out in the storm to-night. And, Mr. Sheriff, Iknowthat women-friends are often permitted to be in the cell with women prisoners."
"Miss Pendleton," said the sheriff, before the warden could speak, "there is not the slightest objection to your remaining with your friend, if you please to do so. Women in her sad position are always allowed a female companion in the cell. It is usually, however, a female warder."
"Thank you, Mr. Fortescue! I will be Sybil's warder, or her fellow-prisoner, as you please, that is, with Mr. Martin's consent. He has not spoken yet," said Beatrix, appealing to the warden.
"My dear young lady, I would no more turn you out in the storm, as you call it, then I would turn my own daughter out. Of course you will stay if you please, though, bless my heart, the trouble is usually to keep people here, not to send them away. They come unwillingly enough. They go away gladly," said the old man.
"My dear Beatrix, you do well! you do nobly!" whispered her brother, pressing her hand.
"Miss Pendleton, how shall I thank you? May the Lord, who makes up all our shortcomings, reward you infinitely!" said Lyon Berners, fervently pressing her hand.
"I think we had better end this interview now," whispered the sheriff.
Lyon Berners turned to look at his wife. She was still sitting in the same dreamy, abstracted, unconscious manner.
"Sybil, my darling, good-night," he said, stooping and kissing her.
"Why," she exclaimed, with a nervous start, "where are you going?"
"Listen, dear," said Lyon, gently. "Mr. Martin has got but one spare room, and that must be appropriated to you and Beatrix. Clement and myself will have to find accommodations somewhere in the village."
"Oh," she said. And then, "Yes." And so she relapsed into apathy.
Lyon Berners kissed her, and turned away to conceal the tears that rushed to his eyes.
Captain Pendleton pressed her hand in silence. And then they both took leave of Miss Pendleton, and went away with the sheriff.
Sybil and Beatrix were left alone with a warden in the office.
Mr. Martin had been the overseer of Pendleton Park in old Mr. Pendleton's time; and he owed his present position as warden of the county prison mainly to the influence of Captain Pendleton. So that he was well acquainted with Miss Pendleton, whom he had every grateful reason for serving.
He came to her now, saying apologetically:
"I am sorry I can't offer my old employer's daughter better accommodation; but I will give her the best room in the house."
"Thank you, Mr. Martin; but I wish to stay in the cell with my friend," answered Beatrix.
"My dear young lady, I thought you understood that you were to stay with her, but not in a cell; I thought you knew that you were to occupy a room together. But oh! now I recollect, it was only with the sheriff that I talked of it," explained the old man; and as he spoke the door opened, and a middle-aged woman appeared, and said:
"Father, the room is ready."
"Come, then, Miss Pendleton, follow us," said the warden, as he took Sybil's hand, drew it under his arm, and walked on before.
He led them up a flight of stairs to a good-sized and neatly furnished bed-chamber, with nothing about it to remind its inmates that they were in a prison.
Here the warden, after seeing that the windows werecarefully secured, left the friends together, taking the precaution to double lock and bolt the door upon them.
Beatrix turned to look at her companion. Sybil was sitting twirling her fingers, and gazing down on the little dog that lay upon her lap.
"Come, darling!" said Beatrix, tenderly, "let me help you to undress. That bed looks clean and comfortable. You must lie down on it and go to sleep."
Sybil made no answer, and no resistance. Beatrix undressed her, and then remembered that they had no personal conveniences for the night whatever, neither bed-gowns nor combs nor brushes; but the weather was warm, and so some of these necessaries might well be dispensed with until the morning.
She led Sybil to the bed, and urged her to lie down. But the force of habit was omnipotent; and in spite of her waning sanity, Sybil suddenly recollected a duty never omitted, and said:
"Let me say my prayers first."
So she knelt down.
Beatrix Pendleton waited and watched for some time, for so long a time, at last, that she suspected Sybil had fallen asleep. She went and looked at her attentively, and then called her by name, and touched her, and so finally discovered that she had, in the midst of her prayers, relapsed into that fearful lethargy that was undermining her reason.
"Come, Sybil, dear, get into bed," said Beatrix, taking her hand and lifting her up.
"Yes," said the docile creature, and immediately did as her friend directed her.
There was no surer or sadder symptoms in Sybil's insanity, than the perfect docility of her who had once been so difficult to manage.
She went quietly to bed.
Beatrix prepared to follow her.
But Miss Pendleton was faint from long fasting. Neither she nor Sybil had tasted anything since their luncheon at two o'clock that day, when the court had taken a recess. They had reached the prison sometime after supper had been served; and in the awful crisis of Sybil's fate, no one had thought of food. Sybil did not seem to require it; she lay in a quiet lethargy, like death. But Beatrix was half-famished when she went to bed.
Her hunger, however, was soon forgotten in the great anxiety of her mind; and the sharpest point of it was this:
What effect would the night's repose have on Sybil's state? Would it bring back her lost senses, and with them the consciousness of her awful condition? Beatrix prayed that it might not—prayed that the shield of insanity might still cover her from the surrounding and impending horrors of her position.
At length both the friends fell asleep, and slept until nearly nine o'clock the next morning.
Every senseHad been o'erstrung by pangs intense,And each frail fibre of her brain,(As bowstrings when, relaxed by rain,The erring arrow launch aside,)Sent forth her thoughts all wild and wide.—Byron.
They were awakened by the drawing of bolts and turning of locks outside their door, and by the voice of the warden, saying:
"Go in, Kitty, and see if they are up. I will stay outside and guard the door."
And then the same middle-aged widow whom they had seen on the previous night entered the room.
Beatrix being fully awakened, turned anxiously to look at her friend.
Sybil was lying also wide awake, but very quiet.
"What sort of a place is this, Beatrix?" she inquired, and then immediately relapsed into lethargy, as if she had forgotten her question.
"Thank Heaven!" fervently exclaimed Sybil's friend, "she is still shielded."
"Which of you two ladies is in for it?" inquired the warden's daughter, coming forward.
"We are both 'in for it,'" answered Beatrix, a little scornfully, "and one of us is about as guilty as the other."
"Oh, I didn't know that," muttered the woman, who took the lady's words in good faith. "I didn't know there was more than one concerned; but what I meant to ask was, which is Mrs. Berners? Because there is a trunk come for her, which father thinks it contains clothes and other necessaries that she may need at once."
"Very likely. Let your father push it through the door, and I will see to its contents. And oh! for Heaven's sake, my good woman, let us have some breakfast as soon as possible," entreated Miss Pendleton.
The woman promised to comply with her request, and left the room.
The trunk was pushed in, and the door closed, locked, and bolted again.
Beatrix went to examine the consignment. There was a letter directed to Mrs. Berners, unsealed and tied to the handle, together with the key of the trunk.
Beatrix took both off and carried them to her friend, saying "Here is the key of a box that has come for you, and here is a letter, dear Sybil, from your husband, I suppose; will you read it?"
Sybil opened the letter, gazed at it with dreamy eyes, and followed the lines with her glances, but without taking in their meaning.
Sad enough this would have seemed to Miss Pendleton at any other time; but now, every evidence of her friend's failing mind was welcome to her, and to all who loved the unhappy young wife.
"Shall I read it for you, dear?" inquired Beatrix, tenderly, taking the letter from her hand.
"Yes, read it," answered Sybil, rousing herself, for an instant, to some little interest in the matter, and then sinking back into indifference.
Beatrix read aloud. The letter was only an earnestly affectionate greeting from the husband to the wife, telling her that he had sent her a box of needful articles, and that he himself would come to see her as soon as the doors should be opened to visitors. It was a cautiously written letter, so worded as to humor her hallucination, in case she should still imagine herself to be in a country house instead of the county prison.
As Beatrix ended each sentence, she looked around to see if Sybil was listening.
Ah! no; after the first few lines had been read, her attention wandered, and at the end of the note she astonished the reader, by saying:
"I am very thirsty, Beatrix."
"Then, dear, let me help you to rise and dress; and you shall have some tea. They are rough people we are stopping with, so I requested them to bring our breakfast up here," said Miss Pendleton, artfully, and laying aside the note.
Sybil submitted to the services of her friend. And then for the first time Beatrix noticed that in this victim's case physical weakness was now added to mental infirmity. Body and mind were both failing together. "Well, so best," thought Sybil's true friend.
By the time they were both dressed, there was another sound of turning locks and drawing bolts, and then the warden's daughter brought in the tray of breakfast, while the warden himself stood outside on guard.
Notwithstanding the awful situation, both these young women were able to take a little breakfast—poor Sybil because she was quite insensible of the horrors of her position, and Miss Pendleton because, with all her sorrowful sympathy for her companion, she had the appetite of a healthy young woman who had been fasting some eighteen hours.
Soon after the breakfast was over and the service cleared away, Mr. Berners came. Again bolts and bars were drawn, and the husband was ushered in by the warden to see his wife.
Lyon Berners shook hands with Beatrix Pendleton, and then passed at once to Sybil, who sat in a state of reverie on the side of her bed.
"You have come for me at last, Lyon?" she said. "The people here are very kind, but I am very glad you have come, for I want to go home."
"Dear Sybil," he replied, embracing her, and humoring her delusion. "You are not well enough to go home yet; you must stay here a little longer."
"Yes," she said, looking up for a moment, and then relapsing into silence and reverie.
Mr. Berners exchanged a glance with Miss Pendleton.
At the same moment the warden put his head in at the door, and beckoned Mr. Berners to come out into the passage.
"Well," inquired the latter, when he was outside.
"Well, sir," said the warden, "you know she must go into, a regular cell to-day. I can't help it. I wish I could. I pity the poor lady! I do! I pity her, whether she did it or not! And I can't helpthateither! So please the Lord, I'll do all I can to comfort her and her friends, consistent with my duty to the higher powers. So come along, sir, if you please, and I'll show you a corridor where there is no other prisoner now confined, and you can choose the best cell for her yourself."
Lyon Berners bowed and followed his conductor across the broad passage and down another one which was at right angles with the first. Here all the cells were vacant. The warden unlocked several for inspection.
The last cell opened was at the north-east angle of the building. It was twice the size of the others, and had, beside its door, two narrow grated windows—one on the north, looking out upon the Black river, and the other on the east, upon Bird creek.
"Here, sir, now, is a large, cool, well-aired cell, where we used to confine as many as a half a dozen prisoners together, when we was full. But as you see, there is nobody at all in all this corridor. So we can put her in this, and if you like to go to the cost of having it scrubbed and white-washed, why, I'll have it done this morning. Likewise, if you would wish to put in a comfort or two, in way of furniture, there'll be no objection to that neither. There'll be no objection to nothing that don't interfere with her safe keeping, you understand, sir?"
"Yes, I understand and thank you. Pray, have every article of this furniture removed, have the room thoroughly ventilated and cleansed, and while you are doing that I will go up to Black Hall, and send down all that is necessary to make this room decent for my poor wife. Heaven grant that it may prove her death-room!" added the heart-broken husband to himself.
The warden promised compliance with all these requests, and then the two returned to Sybil's room.
"I must leave you, dear, now, for a few hours, but I will certainly be back at the end of that time," said Mr. Berners, caressing his enfeebled wife as he took leave of her.
In the course of that day, the large north-east cell was transformed into as clean and comfortable a bed-room as money and labor could make it. The floor was covered with straw matting, the windows shaded with white muslin curtains.
Besides the fresh bed and bedding, there was a small bureau, a washstand, a toilet set, book-table, writing-desk, dressing-case, and work-box; a guitar, with some music, and a small choice collection of books.
All these comforts were collected there as much for Miss Pendleton's sake as for Sybil's.
The room did not look in the least like a prison-cell, nor was there any legal necessity that it should.
It was late in the afternoon when Sybil and her devoted friend were transferred to the new quarters.
"What is this for?" inquired Sybil, rousing herself a little, when she found she was about to be removed.
"Oh, you know, dear, that we have been sleeping in the daughter's room, and keeping her out of it, and now she wants her own, and so they have fixed up another one for us," said Miss Pendleton, soothingly, as she drew her friend's arm within her own and led her on after the warden, who walked before them with a large bunch of keys in his hand.
"Why, here are all my things!" said Sybil, startled to unusual interest by the sight of her personal effects arranged in the new cell.
"Yes, dear," whispered Miss Pendleton, as she put Sybil gently down into the rocking-chair—"yes, dear. You know Lyon fears that it will be some time before you are able to go home, and these people are too poor to make you comfortable, so he sent these things for them to fix up this room for you."
"Beatrix," said Sybil, putting her hands up to her temples.
"What is it, dear?"
"My head is very bad."
"Does it ache?"
"No; but it is so queer; and I have had a horrid dream—oh! a horrid, ghastly dream; but I can't recall it."
"Don't try, my darling; you took cold in the storm last night, and you are not well now; so turn your thoughts away from your disagreeable dream, and fix them upon something else," said Beatrix soothingly, although at heart she was very much alarmed, as it was probable that the sight of her favorite little effects had started a train of associations that might bring her back to perfect sanity and to utter agony.
At that moment, too, there was a diversion. Lyon Berners entered the cell, bringing in a basket of fruit and flowers.
"From your own garden and conservatories, my dear Sybil. Until you are well enough to go home, you must have some of your home comforts brought here," he said, as he set the elegant basket down on a stand, and went and embraced her.
"Yes; thank you very much, dear Lyon. When do you think I will be well enough to go home?" she asked, and then, without giving the slightest attention to her husband's affectionate answer, she dropped at once into a deep and dreamy state of abstraction.
Miss Pendleton beckoned Mr. Berners to come to her at one of the windows.
"What is it?" inquired Lyon, anxiously.
"She came very near a consciousness of her position just now, when she first recognized her property, but the peril passed away. And now we must be very careful to foster this merciful insanity that shields her from misery. And as one precaution, I wish you would ask the warden to oil these rusty bolts and bars, and make them work noiselessly.She has never noticed that she is locked and bolted in, and I wish her never to notice it, or to suspect it."
"Thanks, a thousand thanks, dear Beatrix! I will follow your suggestions," said Mr. Berners, warmly grasping her hand.
Then the warden turned to the visitor, and told him that the hour had come for locking up the prison for the night.
Mr. Berners went back to his wife and took an affectionate leave of her.
She let him go, with even less of opposition than on the preceding evening, for it seemed as if her fitful rise towards sensibility had reacted in a deeper fall into apathy.
Lyon Berners returned to his desolate home. Among all who were affected by the condemnation of Sybil Berners, there was none who suffered such agony of mind as that which nearly drove her husband to frenzy. If Sybil's terrible trials and unspeakable sorrows had resulted in a mild and merciful insanity, that vailed her mind from any knowledge of the deep horrors of her position, Lyon's utter anguish of spirit had stung him to a state of desperation that incited the wildest schemes and the most violent remedies.
As he lay tossing in his sleepless bed each night, he felt tempted to go and seek out that band of outlaws, and to bribe them to the half of his fortune to make a night attack upon the prison, and forcibly rescue his beloved wife.
There was, however, a serious objection to this plan; for besides its unlawfulness and its uncertainty of success, it was impracticable, from the fact that no one—not even the most experienced thief-catchers—had been able to find the lost clue to the retreat of the robbers. Since their flight from the ruined house, four months previous, they had never been heard of.
Sometimes, as Sybil's husband lay groaning in anguish on his pillow, he was strongly tempted to procure some drugthat would give her a quick and easy death, and save her from the horrors to come.
But Lyon Berners resisted this dark temptation to commit a deadly sin.
More frequently still, when his agony seemed greater than he could bear, he would feel a desperate desire to put a period to his own wretched existence.
But then came the devoted spirit that whispered forhersake he must live and suffer, as long as she should have to live and suffer.
All these dark trials and temptations tortured Lyon Berners in those sleepless, awful nights he spent alone in his desolate home.
But in the morning, when he would go and visit Sybil in the prison, he not only exerted all his mental powers of self-control, but he called in the aid of powerful sedative drugs to produce the calmness of manner with which he wished to meet his wife.
Meanwhile, as the days passed, Sybil sank deeper and deeper into apathy.
Her hallucination was now complete. She imagined that, in company with her husband and their friends, she had been at church one Sabbath afternoon, when a tremendous storm of thunder, lightning, rain, and wind came up, and that they had all been obliged to take refuge in a country house for the night, and that she herself had been taken ill from the exposure, and had to remain there until she could get well enough to go home. As the days passed and the hallucination grew, she lost all count of time, and always thought that she had arrived "last Sunday," and was going home "to-morrow!"
Miss Pendleton was permitted to remain with her, and Mr. Berners was allowed to visit her every day.
So some weeks had passed, when one day a terrible event occurred.
It was early in the morning: the prison doors were just opened for the admission of visitors, and Lyon Berners had just entered the lower hall, on his way to the warden's office, to get that old man to conduct him to Sybil's cell, when he was overtaken and accosted by the sheriff:
"On your way to your wife, Mr. Berners? That is well. She will need you at this hour," said Mr. Fortescue, after the usual morning greeting.
"What is the matter?" inquired Lyon Berners hurriedly, and in great alarm.
"For Heaven's sake, compose yourself now! You will need all your self-possession, for her sake, as well as for your own. Come into the warden's office with me. He also must go with us to her cell."
In great distress of mind, Mr. Berners followed the sheriff into the warden's office.
Old Mr. Martin, who was at his desk, came to meet the visitors.
"One moment, Martin. I will see you in one moment. Just now, I wish to speak to Mr. Berners," said the sheriff, as he drew Lyon Berners aside.
"What is it now?" inquired Sybil's husband, in an agony of alarm for her sake.
"Can you not surmise?" compassionately suggested the sheriff.
"I—Oh, great Heaven!—I dare not!" he exclaimed, throwing up his hands and clasping his head.
"You must know that the petition sent up to the Governor for her pardon has been returned with an adverse decision."
"I feared it! Oh, heaven!"
"Oh, try to be firm! I must now tell you the worst. The petition did not come down alone—" The speaker paused an instant, and then added gravely and compassionately:
"There was another document came down with it—a document that I must read to her."
"The death warrant!"
Lyon Berners uttered these words with such a groan of anguish and despair as seemed to have rent his soul and body asunder as he reeled and caught at the window frame for support, and then dropped into a chair by its side.
"Mr. Berners, for her sake! for heaven's sake! bear up now! Martin, a glass of brandy here! quick!"
The warden who always kept a bottle on his desk, hurriedly filled a tumbler half full of brandy, and hastened up with it.
"Drink it! drink it all!" said the sheriff, putting the glass into Mr. Berners' hand.
Lyon Berners drank the strong and fiery spirit, feeling it no more than if it had been water.
A few moments passed, during which Mr. Berners struggled hard for self-control, while the warden in a low voice inquired:
"What is it?"
"The death warrant!"
As the sheriff whispered these awful words, the warden clasped his hands, saying fervently:
"Now may the Lord help them both!"
Then the sheriff turned to Mr. Berners, who had again sank upon a chair, and was still striving to recover himself, and he kindly inquired:
"Are you ready now to go with us to her cell? She will need your support in this trying hour."
"Heaven give me strength! Yes, I am ready!" said Mr. Berners.
And the ministers of fate went to take the death warrant to the cell of Sybil Berners.