Hand and Ring

"The reason I did not see and respond to the girl who came into the observatory on the morning of Mrs. Clemmens' murder is, that I was so absorbed in the discoveries I was making behind the high rack which shuts off one end of the room, that any appeal to me at that time must have passed unnoticed. I had come to Professor Darling's house, according to my usual custom on Tuesday mornings, to study astronomy with his daughter Helen. I had come reluctantly, for my mind was full of the secret intention I had formed of visiting Mrs. Clemmens in the afternoon, and I had no heart for study. But finding Miss Darling out, I felt a drawing toward the seclusion I knew I should find in the observatory, and mounting to it, I sat down by myself to think. The rest and quiet of the place were soothing to me, and I sat still a long time, but suddenly becoming impressed with the idea that it was growing late, I went to the window to consult the town-clock. But though its face could be plainly seen from the observatory, its hands could not, and I was about to withdraw from the window when I remembered the telescope, which Miss Darling and I had, in a moment of caprice a few days before, so arranged as to command a view of the town. Going to it, I peered through it at the clock." Stopping, she surveyed the District Attorney with breathless suspense. "It was just five minutes to twelve," she impressively whispered.

Mr. Ferris felt a shock.

"A critical moment!" he exclaimed. Then, with a certain intuition of what she was going to say next, inquired: "And what then, Miss Dare?"

"I was struck by a desire to see if I could detect Mrs. Clemmens' house from where I was, and shifting the telescope slightly, I looked through it again, and – "

"What did you see, Miss Dare?"

"I saw her dining-room door standing ajar and a man leaping headlong over the fence toward the bog."

The District Attorney started, looked at her with growing interest, and inquired:

"Did you recognize this man, Miss Dare?"

She nodded in great agitation.

"Who was he?"

"Craik Mansell."

"Miss Dare," ventured Mr. Ferris, after a moment, "you say this was five minutes to twelve?"

"Yes, sir," was the faint reply.

"Five minutes later than the time designated by the defence as a period manifestly too late for the prisoner to have left Mrs. Clemmens' house and arrived at the Quarry Station at twenty minutes past one?"

"Yes," she repeated, below her breath.

The District Attorney surveyed her earnestly, perceiving she had not only spoken the truth, but realized all which that truth implied, and drew back a few steps muttering ironically to himself:

"Ah, Orcutt! Orcutt!"

Breathlessly she watched him, breathlessly she followed him step by step like some white and haunting spirit.

"You believe, then, this fact will cost him his life?" came from her lips at last.

"Don't ask me that, Miss Dare. You and I have no concern with the consequences of this evidence."

"No concern?" she repeated, wildly. "You and I no concern? Ah!" she went on, with heart-piercing sarcasm, "I forgot that the sentiments of the heart have no place in judicial investigation. A criminal is but lawful prey, and it is every good citizen's duty to push him to his doom. No matter if one is bound to that criminal by the dearest ties which can unite two hearts; no matter if the trust he has bestowed upon you has been absolute and unquestioning, the law does not busy itself with that. The law says if you have a word at your command which can destroy this man, give utterance to it; and the law must be obeyed."

"But, Miss Dare – " the District Attorney hastily intervened, startled by the feverish gleam of her hitherto calm eye.

But she was not to be stopped, now that her misery had at last found words.

"You do not understand my position, perhaps," she continued. "You do not see that it has been my hand, and mine only, which, from the first, has slowly, remorselessly pushed this man back from the point of safety, till now, now, I am called upon to drag from his hand the one poor bending twig to which he clings, and upon which he relies to support him above the terrible gulf that yawns at his feet. You do not see – "

"Pardon me," interposed Mr. Ferris again, anxious, if possible, to restore her to herself. "I see enough to pity you profoundly. But you must allow me to remark that your hand is not the only one which has been instrumental in hurrying this young man to his doom. The detectives – "

"Sir," she interrupted in her turn, "can you, dare you say, that without my testimony he would have stood at any time in a really critical position? – or that he would stand in jeopardy of his life even now, if it were not for this fact I have to tell?"

Mr. Ferris was silent.

"Oh, I knew it, I knew it!" she cried. "There will be no doubt concerning whose testimony it was that convicted him, if he is sentenced by the court for this crime. Ah, ah, what an enviable position is mine! What an honorable deed I am called upon to perform! To tell the truth at the expense of the life most dear to you. It is a Roman virtue! I shall be held up as a model to my sex. All the world must shower plaudits upon the woman who, sooner than rob justice of its due, delivered her own lover over to the hangman."

Pausing in her passionate burst, she turned her hot, dry eyes in a sort of desperation upon his face.

"Do you know," she gurgled in his ear, "some women would kill themselves before they would do this deed."

Struck to his heart in spite of himself, Mr. Ferris looked at her in alarm – saw her standing there with her arms hanging down at her sides, but with her two hands clinched till they looked as if carved from marble – and drew near to her with the simple hurried question of:

"But you?"

"I?" she laughed again – a low, gurgling laugh, that yet had a tone in it that went to the other's heart and awoke strange sensations there. "Oh, I shall live to respond to your questions. Do not fear that I shall not be in the court-room to-morrow."

There was something in her look and manner that was new. It awed him, while it woke all his latent concern.

"Miss Dare," he began, "you can believe how painful all this has been to me, and how I would have spared you this misery if I could. But the responsibilities resting upon me are such – "

He did not go on; why should he? She was not listening. To be sure, she stood before him, seemingly attentive, but the eyes with which she met his were fixed upon other objects than any which could have been apparent to her in his face; and her form, which she had hitherto held upright, was shaking with long, uncontrollable shudders, which, to his excited imagination, threatened to lay her at his feet.

He at once started toward the door for help. But she was alive to his movements if not to his words. Stopping him with a gesture, she cried:

"No – no! do not call for any one; I wish to be alone; I have my duty to face, you know; my testimony to prepare." And rousing herself she cast a peculiar look about the room, like one suddenly introduced into a strange place, and then moving slowly toward the window, threw back the curtain and gazed without. "Night!" she murmured, "night!" and after a moment added, in a deep, unearthly voice that thrilled irresistibly upon Mr. Ferris' ear: "And a heaven full of stars!"

Her face, as she turned it upward, wore so strange a look, Mr. Ferris involuntarily left his position and crossed to her side. She was still murmuring to herself in seeming unconsciousness of his presence. "Stars!" she was repeating; "and above them God!" And the long shudders shook her frame again, and she dropped her head and seemed about to fall into her old abstraction when her eye encountered that of the District Attorney, and she hurriedly aroused herself.

"Pardon me," she exclaimed, with an ill-concealed irony, particularly impressive after her tone of the moment before, "have you any thing further to exact of me?"

"No," he made haste to reply; "only before I go I would entreat you to be calm – "

"And say the word I have to say to-morrow without a balk and without an unnecessary display of feeling," she coldly interpolated. "Thanks, Mr. Ferris, I understand you. But you need fear nothing from me. There will be no scene – at least on my part – when I rise before the court to give my testimony to-morrow. Since my hand must strike the fatal blow, it shall strike – firmly!" and her clenched fist fell heavily on her own breast, as if the blow she meditated must first strike there.

The District Attorney, more moved than he had deemed it possible for him to be, made her a low bow and withdrew slowly to the door.

"I leave you, then, till to-morrow," he said.

"Till to-morrow."

Long after he had passed out, the deep meaning which informed those two words haunted his memory and disturbed his heart. Till to-morrow! Alas, poor girl! and after to-morrow, what then?

XXXIV.

WHAT WAS HID BEHIND IMOGENE'S VEIL

Mark now, how a plain tale shall put you down. – Henry IV.

THE few minutes that elapsed before the formal opening of court the next morning were marked by great cheerfulness. The crisp frosty air had put everybody in a good-humor. Even the prisoner looked less sombre than before, and for the first time since the beginning of his trial, deigned to turn his eyes toward the bench where Imogene sat, with a look that, while it was not exactly kind, had certainly less disdain in it than before he saw his way to a possible acquittal on the theory advanced by his counsel.