One is my true and honorable wife,As dear to me as are the ruddy dropsThat visit my sad heart.—Shakespeare.
One is my true and honorable wife,As dear to me as are the ruddy dropsThat visit my sad heart.—Shakespeare.
One is my true and honorable wife,As dear to me as are the ruddy dropsThat visit my sad heart.
—Shakespeare.
In due time they reached the village and were driven at once to the office of the magistrate, Squire Estep, of Spring Hill Manor.
No rumor of the arrest had got abroad, and no crowd was collected about the office doors.
The sheriff alighted first, and was followed out by the accused and his two friends.
They entered the office, where just then no one was present except the magistrate, one clerk and two constables.
The three gentlemen bowed as they entered, and the venerable magistrate arose and acknowledged their presence by a nod and sat down again.
The sheriff laid the warrant on the table before the magistrate and, pointing to Mr. Alden Lytton, said:
"That is the prisoner, your worship."
One of the constables placed chairs, and the gentlemen seated themselves and waited.
"White," said Mr. Estep, addressing one of the constables, "go to the Reindeer and serve this upon the gentleman to whom it is directed, and whom you will find there."
The constable took the slip of paper from the speaker's hand, bowed and went out.
And the three gentlemen waited with what patience they might command, while the magistrate drummed upon the table with his fingers.
Presently the constable returned, ushering in two persons, in one of whom Alden Lytton recognized his great rival at the bar, Philip Desmond. The other, an elderly gentleman in a clergyman's dress, was a total stranger to him.
Both these gentlemen bowed to the magistrate and to the accused and his friends, and one of them—the clerical stranger—came up to Alden and, to his great amazement, said:
"I am very sorry, Mr. Lytton, in meeting you a secondtime, to see you here in this position; sorrier still that I am here to bear testimony against you."
While he was saying this the magistrate, who was engaged in searching among some documents, drew forth from them a paper which seemed to be a memorandum, which he from time to time consulted, as he addressed the accused and said:
"You are Mr. Alden Lytton, attorney at law, of the Richmond bar, I believe?"
"I am," answered Alden Lytton.
"Attend, if you please, to the reading of this," said the magistrate, as he commenced and read out aloud the warrant upon which the accused had been brought before him.
At the conclusion of the reading Alden Lytton bowed gravely and waited.
"Mr. Alden Lytton, you have heard that you are charged with having, on the fifteenth of February of this present year, feloniously intermarried with Emma Angela Cavendish, in and during the lifetime of your lawful wife, Mary Lytton, now living in this State. Such marriage, under such circumstances, being a felony, punishable with imprisonment and hard labor in the State Penitentiary for a term not less than —— or more than —— years. What have you to say to this charge?" inquired the magistrate.
Alden Lytton with some difficulty controlled his indignation as he answered:
"It is perfectly true that in last February I married Miss Cavendish, of Blue Cliffs. But it is a false and malicious slander that I ever at any time married any one else. It is only amazing to me, Mr. Magistrate, that you should have issued a warrant charging me with so base a crime. You could not possibly have had any grounds to justify such a proceeding."
"We shall see," answered, the magistrate. "You admit that you married Miss Cavendish on the fifteenth of last February?"
"Certainly I do."
"Then nothing remains but to prove or to disprove the statement that at the time of your marriage with Miss Cavendish, at Blue Cliffs, you had a lawful wife then living in the city of Richmond."
Alden Lytton flushed to the temples at hearing his true wife's pure and noble name brought into this dishonoring examination. He spoke sternly as he inquired:
"Upon what grounds do you make this charge? Where are your witnesses?"
"The Reverend Mr. Borden will please step forward," said the magistrate.
The strange clergyman came up to the table and stood there.
The magistrate administered the oath to this witness.
At the same moment Mr. Philip Desmond took his place at the table to conduct the examination.
"Your name is Adam Borden?"
"Yes, sir," answered the clerical witness.
"You are the rector of Saint Blank's Episcopal Church, Philadelphia?"
"Yes, sir."
"You know the accused?"
"Yes, sir. He is Mr. Alden Lytton," replied the rector, bowing gravely to the prisoner.
Alden acknowledged the courtesy by a nod, and then waited with more amazement and curiosity than anxiety to hear what sort of a case they would make out against him with the aid of this man, whom he never saw before, and yet who claimed to know him well.
"State, if you please, Mr. Borden, what you know of Mr. Lytton in regard to this case."
"In the month of September of last year Mr. Lytton came to my house in company with a lady to whom he wished to be married immediately. I conducted the pair into the church and married them there, in the presence of my sexton and his daughter. I registered the marriage in the church books and gave a certificate, signed by myself and the witnesses to the marriage. They then left the church together. I had never seen them before, and I have never seen them since until to-day, when I see and recognize Mr. Lytton, just as I should recognize his bride if I should see her."
"Where is she?" inquired the magistrate.
"Your worship, the lady can be produced at once, to be identified by the witness," said Philip Desmond.
And he wrote on a slip of paper and handed it to a constable, who silently left the room.
Meanwhile Alden Lytton waited with constantly increasing curiosity to find out to whom he had been unconsciously married in the month of September, and in the city of Philadelphia. It flashed upon him suddenly that he had been in Philadelphia about the middle of the last September, and in company with Mary Grey. But he felt certain that he had never gone out with her while there; and he waited withintensely curious interest to hear how they could possibly make out a case against him.
Presently the door opened and the constable returned, bringing with him a gracefully-moving woman, dressed in black and deeply veiled.
"Your worship, this is the true wife of the accused, produced here to be identified by the witness," said Mr. Desmond, taking the hand of the lady and leading her to the table.
"Will you be so good as to raise your veil, ma'am?" requested the magistrate.
The lady lifted the black veil and threw it behind her head, revealing the beautiful face of Mary Grey.
Alden Lytton had half expected to see her, yet he could not forbear the exclamation:
"Mrs. Grey!"
"Mrs. Lytton, if you please, sir! You have taken from me your love and your protection, but you can not take from me your name! That is still mine. You have taken from me my peace of heart, but you shall not take from me my name! When you address me again call me Mrs. Lytton, for that is my legal name!"
"It is false—infamously false!" began Alden Lytton, crimsoning with indignation.
But the magistrate stopped him, saying:
"Mr. Lytton, this is very unseemly. If this lady claims a relation to you that she can not prove she will do so at her own proper peril. Let us continue the examination and conduct it with decent order."
Alden Lytton bowed to the magistrate and said, with what calmness he could command:
"This woman—no, this libel upon womanhood, who is brought here to be identified as my wife, might have rather been summoned to bear testimony against me in any false charge she and her co-conspirators might have chosen to set up, since she is not, and never has been, my wife. Her presence here can not establish one single point in this infamous accusation. Yet I am anxious to know how she and her confederate—as I am forced to regard this witness—will attempt to do so. Let the examination proceed."
"Mr. Borden, will you look upon this lady?" respectfully demanded Mr. Desmond.
The reverend gentleman put on his spectacles and scrutinized the face of Mary Grey, who met his gaze, and then lowered her eyes.
"Can you identify her as the lady whom you united in marriage with Mr. Alden Lytton?" inquired Mr. Desmond.
"Yes, assuredly I can. She is the lady, then called Mary Grey, whom I united in marriage with that gentleman, then called Alden Lytton, and to whom I gave the marriage certificate, signed by myself and two witnesses. Those witnesses can be produced when wanted," answered the Rev. Mr. Borden, with much assurance.
"These witnesses are not needed just now. But I wish you to examine this certificate, Mr. Borden," said Mr. Desmond, putting a folded paper in the hands of the minister.
The reverend gentleman adjusted his spectacles and scrutinized it.
"Is that the certificate of marriage that you gave Mrs. Mary Lytton, the wife of Mr. Alden Lytton, on the day that you united them?" inquired Mr. Desmond.
"Yes, sir, it is," answered the minister.
"Are you quite sure?"
"Quite sure, sir. Why, I know the paper and the printed form, as well as my own autograph and the signatures of the two witnesses," declared the minister.
"That will do. You may sit down, sir," said Mr. Desmond.
"I beg your pardon. I would like to ask that witness a few questions before he retires," said Mr. Lytton.
"Of course that is your right, sir," said the magistrate.
Alden Lytton arose and confronted the witness, looking him full in the face.
"You are a minister of the gospel, I believe, Mr. Borden?" he inquired.
"Yes, sir. I am rector of Saint Blank's Episcopal Church in Philadelphia, as you yourself know very well, having there received my ministry on the day that you then declared to be 'the happiest of your life,'" replied the minister.
"As Heaven is my witness, I never saw your face before I met you in this office! Now then, reverend sir, please to look me in the eyes while you answer my next questions. Being upon your oath, you declare that on a certain day, in the month of last September, in your parish church, in the city of Philadelphia, you performed the marriage ceremony between Alden Lytton and Mary Grey?"
"I do most solemnly declare, upon my sacred oath, that I did so," answered Mr. Borden, meeting the searching gaze of the questioner without flinching.
"This is the most astounding effrontery! But attend further, sir, if you please. Being on your oath, you declare that I am the man and that female is the woman whom you joined in marriage, under the names of Alden Lytton and Mary Grey?"
"Onmy sacred oath I most solemnly declare that you are the man and she is the woman I then and there united together," unflinchingly replied the minister.
For a moment Alden Lytton was mute with amazement; and then he said:
"Let me look at that paper that is said to be a certificate of this marriage."
Mr. Desmond handed over the document.
Alden Lytton read it, and then recommenced his cross-examination of the minister.
"And this is the certificate you gave the pretended bride?" he inquired.
"That is the certificate I gave your wife, sir."
"And you persist in declaring, under oath, that you solemnized a marriage between myself, Alden Lytton, and this woman, Mary Grey, here present?"
"I do, most solemnly."
"Then, sir," said Alden Lytton, flushing to his temples with fierce indignation, "all I have further to say is this—that you have baselyperjuredyourself to assist and support an infamous conspiracy!"
"Sir—sir—Mr. Lytton!" said the magistrate, in trepidation. "This gentleman is a most highly respected preacher of the gospel, quite incapable of such a thing!"
"I do not care whether he be priest, bishop, pope or apostle! He has basely perjured himself in support of an infamous conspiracy!"
"Mr. Lytton—Mr. Lytton," said the magistrate, "if you have anything to bring forward to disprove this strange charge we shall be glad to hear it. But vituperation is not testimony."
"I know it," said Alden Lytton, trying hard to control his raging passion. "I know it, and I beg pardon of the magistrate. But this is a foul conspiracy against my peace, honor and liberty—and oh, great Heaven, against the honor of my dear, noble young wife! But this vile conspiracy shall surely be exposed, and when it is, by all my hopes of heaven, no charity, no mercy, no consideration in the universe shall prevent me from prosecuting and pursuing these conspirators to punishment with the utmost rigor of the law!"
"Mr. Lytton, have you anything to bring forward in disproof of the charges made against you?" inquired the magistrate.
"No, sir; not now, nor here. I must have time to look this monstrous falsehood in the face and prepare for its total destruction."
"Then, Mr. Lytton, I shall have to send your case to court for trial. Have you bail?"
"Yes, sir," spoke up Joseph Brent, coming forward before Alden Lytton could speak, "he has bail. I will enter into bonds for my esteemed young friend, Alden Lytton, to any amount you may please to name."
"The charge is one of the gravest; the position of the parties involved in it is high in the social scale; the evidence already elicited is of the most convincing and convicting character; every circumstance would seem to point to the expediency of evading the trial by flight, or any other means. In view of all the circumstances of the case I feel it my duty to demand a very heavy bail. I fix the bail, therefore, at the sum of twenty thousand dollars," said the magistrate.
"It might be twenty times twenty thousand dollars, and I would enter it for him. A man of honor, like Mr. Lytton, falsely accused of a base crime, does not fly from trial. On the contrary he demands it for his own vindication," said Joseph Brent, earnestly.
Alden Lytton turned and grasped his hand in silent acknowledgment of his noble friendship. Then, addressing the magistrate, he said:
"I am ready to enter into a recognizance with my esteemed friend here for my appearance at court to answer this charge—this charge as ridiculous as it is monstrous."
The magistrate nodded and directed his clerk to fill out the proper forms.
When these were completed and signed the accused was discharged from custody.
He bowed to the magistrate, and even to the others, and was about to leave the office, followed by Mr. Lyle and Mr. Brent, when Mary Grey darted swiftly and silently to his side and hissed in his ear:
"I swore that I would take you in the hour of your greatest triumph and strike you down to the dust in dishonor! I have done so! I will send you to the penitentiary yet—felon!"
"I think that you will find yourself there, madam, before many months have passed over your head. There are severe laws against forgery, perjury and conspiracy," answered Alden Lytton.
Outside of the office the three gentlemen consulted their watches. It was now six o'clock in the afternoon.
Then they looked about them.
They had come to Wendover in the deputy-sheriff's carriage. That had gone. And there was no conveyance waiting to take them to Blue Cliff Hall.
"We must go to the old Reindeer and hire their hack," said Mr. Lyle.
"Excuse me, Lyle; let us walk to your parsonage first. You must give me house-room there for a few weeks, for I do not wish to stop at the hotel to be stared at, and—I shall not return to Blue Cliffs, or enter the presence of my pure and noble young wife, until I shall be cleared from this foul charge," said Alden Lytton, firmly.
"Not return to Blue Cliffs? Why, Lytton, you will break your wife's heart if you keep her from you in this your day of sorrow!" exclaimed Mr. Lyle.
"Her heart is too heroic to be easily broken. And a little reflection will convince you that, under the peculiar circumstances of this accusation, it is expedient that I should absent myself from her and from her dwelling until I shall be cleared. Now if the charge against me were that of murder, or anything else but what it is, my wife might be by my side. But being what it is, you must see that I best consult her dignity and delicacy by abstaining from seeing her until after my acquittal. No, I shall neither see, speak, nor write to her while I suffer under this charge."
"I see now that you are perfectly right," said Mr. Lyle.
"Yes, that you are," added Mr. Brent, as the three walked out toward the minister's cottage.
"I only wish you to install me, Lyle, by explaining to your good old housekeeper that I am to be an inmate of the parsonage during your absence, so that she may not take my presence as an unjustifiable intrusion," said Alden Lytton.
"She would never do that in any case," answered Stephen Lyle.
"And when you have installed me I wish you and Brent to return to Blue Cliffs and rejoin your brides at once. And you, Lyle, must break this matter to my dear Emma as delicately and tenderly as you can. She does not need to be told that I am entirely guiltless of the crime that is laid to my charge; for she knows that I am incapable of committing such an one. Nor does she require to be assured of my undying love and faith. She is assured of that. But tell her to be of good cheer, to bear this temporary separation patiently, and to waithopefully our speedy meeting in happier days. Will you do this, my friend?"
"Most faithfully," answered Mr. Lyle.
"And then I wish you to start at once upon your wedding tours. They must not be further delayed on my account."
"Look here, Lytton," said Stephen Lyle, earnestly. "I speak for myself and also for Brent, who feels just as I do. We start upon no bridal tours until you are out of this trouble. We could not leave you in your trouble. And our girls, I am sure, would not leave your wife in her sorrow. So that is all over. What I have to propose is this: That I bring our Laura home here to-morrow. And that we remain here to keep you company, while Victor—I mean Brent—and Electra stay for the present at Blue Cliffs as the guests of Mrs. Alden Lytton."
"I hope you approve the plan. We talked it over and settled it all while we were in the magistrate's office attending the examination," added Joseph Brent.
They had by this time reached the gates of the pretty cottage.
Alden Lytton stopped, turned around and grasped a hand of each faithful friend. For a moment he could not speak for the strong emotion that choked him.
"God bless you!" he said, at length, in a half suffocated voice. "God bless you both! I have surely found one 'precious jewel' in the head of this 'toad'—the priceless jewel of your friendship!"
An angel guard—Chariots of fire, horses of fire encamp,To keep thee safe.—Mrs. Ellet.
An angel guard—Chariots of fire, horses of fire encamp,To keep thee safe.—Mrs. Ellet.
An angel guard—Chariots of fire, horses of fire encamp,To keep thee safe.
—Mrs. Ellet.
It was eleven o'clock that night when the Rev. Mr. Lyle and Mr. Brent reached Blue Cliffs on their return from Wendover.
Of course all the guests of the bridal reception had long since gone away. The house was closed and all the windows were dark except those of the library, where the gentlemen found the two brides and their hostess sitting up and awaiting their return.
"Where is Alden? Is he not with you?" anxiously inquired Emma, coming to meet them.
"Our friend might certainly have come back with us if he had chosen to do so; but he deemed it better to remain at Wendover to-night, and we agreed with him. He is at my house," answered Mr. Lyle.
"You have something painful to tell me. I beg you will tell it at once," said Emma, turning very pale, but controlling herself perfectly and speaking with calmness.
"Something ridiculous, if it were not so outrageous, I should say, dear Mrs. Lytton. Is there a light in the parlor?"
"Yes."
"Then come with me there and I will tell you all about it," answered Mr. Lyle, speaking cheerfully, as he offered his arm to Emma.
They left the room together and went to the parlor, where a lamp was burning low and shedding a dim light around.
Mr. Lyle led his hostess to a sofa, where he sat down beside her.
And then and there he told her the whole history of the charge that had been brought against her husband, as it came out upon the preliminary examination.
Emma listened in unspeakable grief, horror, amazement and mortification. Yet with all these strong emotions struggling in her bosom, she controlled herself so far as to preserve her outward composure and answer with calmness.
"And Mary Grey claims to behis wife? I should think the woman were raving mad, but for the plausible testimony she has managed to bring together. As it is, I am forced to look upon this in the same light that you do, as a base conspiracy, in which she has found some skillful confederates. Of course it must be only the embarrassment and mortification of a few days and then the whole plot must be exposed. Such a plot can not, certainly, bear a thorough investigation," she said.
But though she spoke so confidently, and believed all that she said, yet her face continued deathly pale and her hands were clutched closely together on her lap.
Then Mr. Lyle explained to her the delicate motives that governed her husband in deciding him to remain at the Wendover parsonage, and to absent himself entirely from Blue Cliffs and from her until this charge should be disproved.
Emma flushed and paled again, and clutched her hands a little closer, but made no comment yet. She seemed to wait for Mr. Lyle to proceed.
"He says, my child, and he speaks rightly, that if the accusation against him was of almost any other felony than whatit is, you should be with him through all he might have to endure. But the accusation being what it is every consideration for your dignity and delicacy constrains him to absent himself from you until his fair fame shall be cleared. He therefore implores you, by me, not to attempt to see him, or even to write to him, but to let all your communications with him be verbal ones, sent through me. And I, on my part, my child, promise to fulfill my duties to you both faithfully and loyally," said Mr. Lyle.
"I must comply," answered Emma, in a low, restrained voice, that would have faltered and broken had she not possessed and exercised such great power of self-control. "I must comply, although this is the very hardest requisition that my dear husband could make of me—to abandon him in this hour of his greatest need. I must comply, because I know that it is right. Our mutual honor demands this temporary separation—for of course it will be but temporary."
"Very temporary, and lightened by frequent news of each other through me," replied Mr. Lyle.
"But that woman, Mary Grey! The amazing wickedness of that woman!" said Emma, with a shudder, and almost under her breath.
"My dear," said the minister, gravely, "you knew Mrs. Grey intimately for several years. Had you really confidence in her during all that time?"
"N-no. I often doubted and suspected her. And I blamed myself for such doubts and suspicions, and compelled myself to think the best of her and do the best for her, for my father's sake—because he loved her. Oh, the astounding wickedness of that woman, as it has developed itself in this conspiracy against us! But she must have had confederates. The minister who professes to have married her to Mr. Lytton, and who gave her a marriage certificate to that effect, may he not have been a confederate of hers? May he not have taken a false oath—made a false statement and given a false certificate?"
"Oh, no, no, no, my child—a thousand times no! The character of the Reverend Mr. Borden is far above any such suspicion," answered Mr. Lyle.
"Then he must himself have been deceived. Some one must have personated Mr. Lytton at that ceremony—some one who has some resemblance to him—and utterly deceived the minister," said Emma. And she paused for a few moments, with her head upon her hand, as in hard, deep thought; and then a sudden flash of intelligence, like lightning, lit up her face, as she exclaimed: "I know who it was! I know all about it now! Oh, Mr. Lyle, I shall save my dear husband's honor from a breath of reproach, because I have found out all about it now!"
"My dear child—" began the good minister, who thought that she looked a little wild.
But Emma vehemently interrupted him.
"It was Craven Kyte who personated Mr. Lytton at that marriage! Oh, I am sure it was! I am as sure of it as I am of being alive at this time! Oh, Mr. Lyle, don't you remember the wonderful personal resemblance between Craven Kyte and Mr. Lytton? They were counterparts of each other, except in one small particular. Craven Kyte had a black mole on his chin. And he was deeply in love with Mary Grey, and she could have done whatever she pleased with him. She could have persuaded him to personate Alden Lytton at that marriage ceremony; and I am sure that she has done so. I feel a positive conviction that he is the man."
"The explanation of the mystery is a very plausible one indeed," gravely mused the minister, with his bearded chin in his hand.
"It is the true and only one," said Emma, emphatically.
"Where is the young man now? Has he been heard from yet?" inquired Mr. Lyle.
"No; I believe not. He is still missing. He has been missing ever since last September, when he went away for a holiday. That is another link in the chain of circumstantial evidence against him, for it was in September that this marriage was performed."
"This looks more and more likely," mused the minister.
"Mr. Lyle, this is what must be done immediately: Advertisements must be inserted in all the principal newspapers in the principal cities of the United States and Canada, offering great inducements to Craven Kyte, late of Wendover, to return to his home, or to communicate with his friends."
"Yes, that must be done immediately, even upon the bare chance of his being the man we want. But if hebethe man, there is little likelihood of his making his appearance, or even answering the advertisement. If he be the man he knows that he has committed a misdemeanor in personating Mr. Lytton under these circumstances. And he will not be likely to place himself within reach of justice."
"Then we must also supplement these advertisements with others, offering large rewards for any information as to thepresent residence of the missing man. And this must be done at once."
"Certainly, if it is done at all. The man must be found and produced in court, to be confronted with Mr. Borden beside Alden Lytton. My dear child, your woman's wit may have saved your husband."
"Heaven grant it!" said Emma, fervently.
Next Mr. Lyle informed her of the proposed arrangement by which the two newly-married pairs were to give up their bridal tour for the present, while two of them, himself and Laura, should go home to the Wendover parsonage to stay with Alden Lytton, and the other two, Joseph Brent and Electra, should remain at Blue Cliffs, in attendance upon Emma.
"Emma is not a queen, that she should require ladies and gentlemen in waiting; but she will be very much comforted by the presence of her dear friends, Joseph and Electra," said the young wife, with a sad smile, as she arose to return to her guests.
Later in the evening Laura and Electra were informed about the state of affairs.
Their amazement was unmeasured and unutterable.
But they at once set down the criminal conspiracy of Mary Grey against Mr. and Mrs. Lytton to its right motive—malignant hatred and revenge for scorned love.
The two young brides most willingly gave up their tours and consented to stay at home with their friends during the time of the trial.
The next morning, therefore, Mr. Lyle took his young wife and returned with her to the Wendover parsonage, where he comforted the soul of Alden Lytton by reporting to him all that had passed between himself and Emma.
"She keeps up bravely, heroically. She is worthy to be a hero's wife!" said the minister, warmly.
"She is—she is! She comes of a heroic race; therefore the deeper guilt of those who seek to bring dishonor upon her!" groaned Alden Lytton.
Then Mr. Lyle said:
"Her feminine intuition discovered what we men, with all our logic, would never have learned—that is to say, who it was that personatedyouat that false marriage."
"Indeed! Who was it?"
"Craven Kyte," answered Mr. Lyle.
And then he told Alden Lytton all that had been said between himself and Emma on that subject.
"I feel sure that her suspicions are correct," he added.
"I think it highly probable that they are. Now there are two or three things that must be done this morning. First, those advertisements for the missing man must be written out and distributed all over the country. Secondly, a messenger must be dispatched to Philadelphia to question the people at the Blank House as to whether any of them entered my room and saw me sleeping there during the hours of eleven a. m. and one p. m., on the fifteenth of September of last year, when I was said to have married that woman. And also to search the registers of that date of all the hotels in the city for the name of Craven Kyte."
"To get up evidence for the defense?"
"Certainly; to get up evidence for the defense."
"Have you thought of employing counsel?"
"Certainly. Berners and Denham are as good men as any I can find. I have sent a note to ask Berners to come here to see me to-day. While waiting for him you and I can write out those advertisements," said Alden Lytton.
These plans were all promptly carried out.
That same day an experienced detective was found and dispatched to Philadelphia to hunt up evidence for the defense.
And that evening advertisements were sent by mail, to be scattered all over the country.
But some days after this, Mary Grey, who was stopping at the Reindeer, saw one of these advertisements in a Richmond paper and smiled in triumph.
"They have scented out a part of the truth," she said. "They have more sharpness than I gave them credit for possessing. They have scented out a part of the truth, but they can not follow the scent. Ha, ha, ha! They may advertise from now till doomsday, but they will never get a response from him! Let them rake the Susquehanna if they can! Perhaps, deep in its mud, they may find what the fishes have left of him!" she said, with a sneer.
But even as she spoke these wicked words she shuddered with horror.
Meanwhile, every day Mr. Lytton and his counsel, Messrs. Berners and Denham, consulted together concerning the proper line of defense to be taken by them.
It is almost needless to say that Messrs. Berners and Denham felt perfectly sure of the absolute guiltlessness of their client, and quite sanguine in their expectations both of a full acquittal of the falsely-accused and of a thorough exposure and successful prosecution of the conspirators.
But as time passed and no answer came to the advertisements for the missing man both counsel and client began to grow anxious.
The detective who had been sent to Philadelphia to look up evidence for the defense returned to Wendover with such meager intelligence that the hopes of all concerned sank very low.
So overwhelming was the evidence against the accused that to gain an acquittal it was absolutely necessary either to prove an alibi or to find the man who had personated Mr. Lytton at the marriage ceremony.
But neither of these most important objects had been yet effected.
No one had been found in Philadelphia, or elsewhere, who had set eyes on Mr. Alden Lytton between the hours of eleven and one on the fifteenth of the last September, at which time his marriage with Mary Grey was alleged to have taken place.
And no one had answered the advertisements for Craven Kyte.
And what complicated this part of the case still more was the circumstance that Mr. Bastiennello, the senior partner of the firm in which poor Craven Kyte was once the youngest "Co.," was absent in Europe, where he had been on a visit to his relations for the last two months, so that he could not be consulted as to the probable whereabouts of his former partner.
Meanwhile Mr. Lyle and his young bride Laura did all that they possibly could to comfort and cheer their unfortunate brother and sister.
One or the other of them went every day to Blue Cliffs to carry to Emma the encouraging news of Alden's continued good health and spirits, and to bring back to him the glad tidings of Emma's heroic patience and cheerfulness.
And in this manner the tedious weeks passed slowly away and brought the day of the trial.
It was a glorious morning in June. All nature seemed exulting in the young summer's splendor.
And any stranger arriving at the town of Wendover that day would have supposed that the population of the whole surrounding country were taking advantage of the delightful weather to hold a gay festival there.
The whole town was full of visitors, come to the great trial.
Mr. Hezekiah Greenfield, of the Reindeer Hotel, was beside himself under the unusual press of business, and his waiters and hostlers were nearly crazy amid the confusion of arrivals and the conflicting claims made all at once upon their attention and services.
The scene around the court-house was even more tumultuous.
The court-house was a plain, oblong, two-story edifice, built of the red stone that abounded in the mountain quarries of that district. It stood in a large yard shaded with many trees and surrounded by a high stone wall.
In the rear end of this yard stood the county prison.
The court-yard was filled with curious people, who were pressing toward the doors of the court-house, trying to effect an entrance into the building, which was already crammed to suffocation.
In the minister's cottage parlor, at the same early hour, were assembled the Rev. Mr. Lyle, honest John Lytton and his shock-headed son, Charley, Joseph Brent, Alden Lytton, and his counsel, Messrs. Berners and Denham.
John Lytton had arrived only that morning. And on meeting his nephew had taken him by both hands, exclaiming:
"You know, Aldy, my boy, as I told you before, I don't believe the first word of all this. 'Cause it's impossible, you know, for any man of our race to do anything unbecoming of a Lytton and a gentleman. And I think a man's family ought to stand by him in a case like this. So I not only came myself, but I fotch Charley, and if I had had another son I would a-fotched him too. I don't know but I'd a fotched your aunt Kitty and the girls, only, as I said to them, a trial ofthis sort a'n't no proper place for ladies. What do you think yourself?"
"I quite agree with you, Uncle John. And I feel really very deeply touched by the proof of confidence and affection you give me in coming here yourself," said Alden, earnestly, pressing and shaking the honest hands that held his own.
And at that moment Mr. Lyle placed in Mr. Alden Lytton's hands a little note from Emma, saying:
"She gave it to me yesterday, with the request that I would hand it to you to-day."
Alden unfolded and read it.
It was only a brief note assuring him of her unwavering faith in Heaven and in himself, and her perfect confidence, notwithstanding the present dark aspect of affairs, in his speedy and honorable acquittal.
He pressed this little note to his lips and placed it near his heart.
And then Mr. Lyle told him that it wanted but a quarter to ten, the carriages were at the door, and it was time to start for the court-house.
Mr. Lytton nodded assent, and they all went out.
There were two carriages before the cottage gates.
Into the first went the Rev. Mr. Lyle, Mr. Alden Lytton, and his counsel, Messrs. Berners and Denham.
Into the second went Mr. John Lytton, his son Charley, and Mr. Joseph Brent.
The court-house was situated at the opposite end of the town from the parsonage, and was about a mile distant. The gentlemen of this party might easily have walked the distance, but preferred to ride, in order to avoid the curious gaze of strangers who had flocked into the town.
A rapid drive of twenty minutes' duration brought them to the court-house.
The Rev. Mr. Lyle alighted first, and called a constable to clear the way for the party to pass into the court-room.
The accused, Alden Lytton, was accommodated with a chair in front of the bench, and near him sat his relatives, John and Charles Lytton, his friends Mr. Lyle and Mr. Brent, and his counsel, Messrs. Berners and Denham.
Judge Burlington sat upon the bench to try the case.
After the tedious preliminaries were over the accused was arraigned with the usual formula, and—not without some natural scorn and indignation, for he was still too youthful to have learned much self-control—answered:
"Not guilty, of course!"
As if he would have added, "You know that quite as well as I myself and everybody else does."
Mr. Martindale, State's Attorney, opened the case for the prosecution with a few brief but very severe remarks upon the baseness of the crime with which the prisoner stood charged, and then called his first witness—
"The Reverend Adam Borden."
Mr. Borden took the stand and testified to having performed the marriage ceremony between Alden Lytton and Mary Grey on the morning of the fifteenth of the preceding September, at his own parish church, in the city of Philadelphia.
He was strictly cross-examined by Mr. Berners, but his testimony only came out the clearer from the ordeal.
John Martin, sexton of the church, and Sarah Martin, his daughter, were successively examined, and testified to having witnessed the marriage ceremony between the parties in question.
They also were cross-examined by Mr. Berners, without detriment to their testimony.
"Mrs. Mary Lytton" was then called upon to come forward for identification.
And Mary Grey, dressed in deep mourning and closely veiled, came up, leaning heavily on the arm of Mr. Philip Desmond, assistant counsel for the prosecution.
At the request of counsel she drew aside her veil, revealing a face so ghastly pale that all who gazed upon it shuddered.
Alden Lytton turned to look at her, in order to catch her eyes, but they were fixed upon the ground, and never once raised.
Even he, so deeply injured by her diabolical arts, turned away from her with shuddering pity.
"The woman is at once going mad and dying," he said to himself.
Mary Grey was then fully identified by the three witnesses as the woman who was, at the time and place specified, married to Mr. Alden Lytton.
But she had scarcely stood long enough to be sworn to, when her white face turned blue and she fell swooning into the arms of Philip Desmond.
She was borne out into the sheriff's room, amid the sympathetic murmurs of the audience.
Mr. Martindale then produced and read the marriage certificate, and recalled the Rev. Mr. Borden, who acknowledged it as his own document, presented to "Mrs. Mary Lytton" immediately after the marriage ceremony had been concluded.
The State's Attorney next produced certain letters, purporting to have been written by Mr. Alden Lytton to Mrs. Mary Grey during the period of his courtship.
These letters, he said, were important as corroborative evidence, and he begged leave to read them to the jury.
He then commenced with the correspondence from the earliest date.
And there in open court he read aloud, one after the other, all those fond, foolish, impassioned letters that the love-sick lad, Alden Lytton, had written to the artful woman who had beguiled him in the earliest days of their acquaintance, and before he had discovered her deep depravity.
This was the severest ordeal Alden Lytton had to bear. For he knew he had written these foolish letters in his romantic boyhood, and in his manhood he felt heartily ashamed of them. Underanycircumstances he would have been heartily ashamed of them. His ears tingled and his face burned to hear them read aloud to judge, jury and gaping crowd.
And then and there he registered a vow never, never, never to write another gushing love-letter so long as he should live in this world; no, not even to his own dear wife.
When the last terrible letter was finished he felt as much relieved as if he had been unbound from the rack.
But his relief was soon superseded by the utmost astonishment when Mr. Martindale took up another parcel, saying:
"The letters that I have just read, your honor, and gentlemen of the jury, were, as you have heard, written from the University of Charlottesville some years ago. Those that I am about to read to you were written from Wendover last year, in the few weeks preceding the marriage of the prisoner with Mary Grey."
And so saying, the State's Attorney proceeded to read, one after the other, all those forged letters which had been executed with inimitable skill by Mary Grey herself and mailed from Wendover by her unconscious confederate, Craven Kyte.
These counterfeits were even fonder, more foolish and more impassioned than the real ones, and every letter pressed speedy marriage, until the last one, which actually arranged the mode and manner of proceeding.
During the reading of the final letter Mr. Alden Lytton beckoned his counsel, who approached him.
"I acknowledge the first batch of folly written from Charlottesville, when I was a boy of eighteen or nineteen," said Alden, between a laugh and a blush.
"Every man has been a boy, and a fool, at least once in his life. I know I have; and I would much rather be hanged than have my letters read," laughingly replied Mr. Berners.
"But, by all my hopes of heaven, I never wrote one of those infernal letters of the last parcel!" added Mr. Lytton.
"I never supposed you did. It will, no doubt, be possible to prove them to be forgeries. If we can do that the whole prosecution breaks down," replied Mr. Berners.
"Theyareforgeries!" said Alden Lytton, indignantly.
But that was more easily said than established.
A score of witnesses, one after the other, were called, and swore to the hand writing of Mr. Alden Lytton in those letters.
Other witnesses of less importance followed—waiters and chambermaids from the Blank House, Philadelphia, who swore to the fact that Mr. Lytton and Mrs. Grey had taken rooms together at that house on the fourteenth of September and had left it on the afternoon of the fifteenth.
The prosecuting attorney said that he might call other witnesses who had seen the parties meet as by appointment at the railway station at Forestville and proceed thence to Richmond, and others again who had seen them together in the Richmond and Washington steamer; but he would forbear, for he felt convinced that the overwhelming amount of testimony already given was more than sufficient to establish the first marriage. The second and felonious marriage was a notorious fact; but for form's sake it must be proved before the jury.
And then, to their extreme disgust, the Rev. Stephen Lyle, Joseph Brent and John Lytton were successively called to testify that they had all been present and witnessed the marriage of the accused, Alden Lytton and Emma Angela Cavendish, on the fifteenth of the last February, at Blue Cliff Hall, in this county and State.
John Lytton, who was the last of the three put upon the stand, came very near being committed for contempt of court by saying:
"Yes, he had witnessed his nephew's, Mr. Alden Lytton's marriage with Miss Cavendish, which he had a perfect right to marry her, never having been married before. None of the Lyttonses were capable of any such burglarious, bigamarious conduct as they accused his nephew of. Everybodyknew the Lyttonses. The Lyttonses were none of your upstart judges"—this was aimed directly at the bench. "The Lyttonses was as old as the flood, for that matter!" and so forth, and so forth.
The witness was not committed for this offense, but merely reminded that all this was very irrelevant to the matter in question, and ordered to sit down.
He obeyed, growling at the indignities heaped upon the "Lyttonses" by "upstarts."
State's Attorney Martindale then arose in his place and opened his argument for the prosecution in a very able review of the evidence that had been given by the witnesses examined and the documents presented.
It was while he was still speaking that a little disturbance was heard at the lower end of the court-room.
All who heard it looked around to see what the matter was.
Presently a bailiff was seen pushing his way up through the crowd.
He came up to the counsel for the accused and handed a card to Mr. Denham.
That gentleman took it, looked at it, stared at it, changed color, and, without a word of explanation, abruptly rose and left his seat, and followed the note-bearer through the crowd and out of the court-room.
Mr. Berners and Mr. Lytton looked after him in surprise and curiosity.
State's Attorney Martindale, meanwhile, went on with his argument.
After an absence of about fifteen minutes Mr. Denham returned and resumed his seat beside his senior colleague, Mr. Berners.
He gave no explanation of his abrupt departure and absence, but sat there listening attentively to the speech of the prosecuting attorney and smiling to himself as in silent triumph.
Neither his senior colleague, Mr. Berners, nor his client, Mr. Lytton, interrupted his reflections, considering that it fell to his duty to follow Mr. Martindale's speech with an opening address for the defense.
At length Mr. Martindale brought his argument to a conclusion by a very brilliant peroration, and sat down, saying that there the prosecution would rest the case.
Mr. Denham, giving his client a reassuring pressure of the hand, and wearing the same strange smile of secret mirthand triumph on his face, arose for the defense. He began by saying:
"Your honor and gentlemen of the jury: The prosecution has favored us with some able speeches, and has produced a host of witnesses to prove the truth of a false and malicious charge brought against our client. We of the defense have no speech to make, and only one witness to call. Let Craven Kyte be put upon the stand and sworn."