"But do you think that Lettice is the woman to change her opinion of a man just because he is unfortunate, or to despise him as soon as he gets into trouble? I am perfectly sure she is not."

"We shall see," said Graham. "I give her credit for more sense. I don't think you recognize yet the sort of offence which Walcott has committed, so we may as well drop the subject for a time. I hope, however, that you will not do anything which might bring her home just now. Clearly she could not do any good, and even on your own showing it would be a needless vexation to her."

He went off to his study, and Clara set about her household tasks with a heavy heart.

The fact was that she could hardly doubt that Alan Walcott had injured his wife in a moment of desperation, when he was not fully responsible for his actions; but she certainly doubted the justice of any law which could condemn him as a murderer; or doom him to be an outcast amongst his fellowmen. Her sense of equity might have suited the Saturnian reign better than our matter-of-fact nineteenth century, in which the precise more or less of criminality in the soul of an accused man is not the only thing which has to be taken into consideration.

Was there ever a malefactor condemned to imprisonment or torment for whom the heart of some woman or other did not plead in mitigation of his sentence? Yet the man-made laws against which untutored hearts will now and again protest are often essentially merciful in comparison with the wild and hasty judgments that outrun the law--whether in mercy or in severity.

It was so in Alan's case. The popular opinion was evidently against him.

The great majority thought this case of attempted wife-murder too clear for argument, and too cold-blooded to warrant anything like sympathy for the accused. Alan's private affairs had been made public property for some time past, and he now suffered from a storm of hostility and prejudice against which it was impossible to contend. His story, or the world's story about him, had been current gossip for the last few months, as the reader has already seen; and a large number of people appeared to have fixed upon him as a type of the respectable and hypocritical sinner, prosperous, refined, moving in good society and enjoying a fair reputation, yet secretly hardened and corrupt. It was not often that the underhand crimes of such men were plainly exposed to view, and, when they were, an example ought to be made of the offender as a warning to his cla.s.s. Ever since Cora had gained a hearing in the police-court at Hammersmith, Alan was set down as a heartless libertine, who had grown tired of his wife, or, at any rate, as one who wanted to wash his hands of her, and throw the burden of maintaining her upon the rates. Thus it became quite a popular pastime to hound down "Poet Walcott."

This is how the outcry originally began. One or two newspapers with an ethical turn, which had borrowed from the pulpit a trick of improving the sensational events of the day for the edification of their readers, and which possessed a happy knack of writing about anything and anybody without perpetrating a libel or incurring a charge of contempt of court, had printed articles on "The Poet and the Pauper," "Divorce Superseded,"

and the like. Stirred up by these interesting homilies, a few shallow men and women, with too much time on their hands, began to write inept letters, some of which were printed; and then the editors, being accused of running after sensations, pointed to their correspondents as evidence of a public opinion which they could not control, and to which they were compelled to give utterance. They were, in fact, not dishonest but only self-deceived. They really persuaded themselves that they were responding to a general sentiment, though, such as it was, their own reports and articles had called it into existence. The "gentleman in court" who paid Cora's fine at Hammersmith began the outcry in its last and worst form, the editorials nursed and encouraged it, and the correspondents gave it its malignant character. All concerned in the business were equally convinced that they were actuated by the best possible motives.

The news that Walcott had stabbed his wife with a dagger did not take these charitable people by surprise, though it added fuel to the fire of their indignation. What else could be expected from a man who had first deserted and then starved the unfortunate woman whom he had taken to wife? It was only natural that he should try to get rid of her; but what a cruel wretch he was! Hanging would be too good for him if his poor victim should die.

It is unnecessary to say that a great deal of interest was displayed by the public, when the case came on for hearing at Bow Street; but no real facts were elicited beyond those which had already been in print. Two remands were taken, in the hope that Cora might recover sufficiently to give her evidence, but though she was at last declared to be out of danger, the house-surgeon at the hospital would not take the responsibility of saying that she could safely attend at the police-court. Ultimately, the magistrate having heard all the evidence that was forthcoming, and Alan's solicitor reserving his defence, the accused was committed to take his trial at the Central Criminal Court on a charge of wounding with intent to inflict grievous bodily harm.

Nevertheless, Alan was allowed to go out on bail. He had not cared to claim this privilege, and would almost have preferred to stay in prison.

His solicitor had made much of the necessity of preparing his defence, and of the indispensable conferences between himself and his client; but Alan had not the slightest hope of being acquitted. He told Mr. Larmer precisely how the whole thing had happened--how his wife had brought the dagger with her, how she had raised it in her hand, how he seized her wrist, and how he had never touched the weapon himself until he drew it from the wound as she lay on the floor.

"They won't believe me," he said. "You know what a prejudice there is against me, and you will never persuade a jury to take my word against hers. She will certainly say that I stabbed her with my own dagger; and it was my dagger once: it has my name upon it."

"That is an awkward fact. If only we could prove that she brought it with her, it would go a long way towards acquitting you."

"But we can't prove it. Then, you see, Mrs. Gorman says I had my hand on the weapon as she was falling."

"We can easily shake her in that."

"And Hipkins says that I admitted the crime--called myself a murderer."

"We can shake that too. You said, 'Am I a murderer?' It was an odd thing to say, but your nerves were unstrung. Men in such predicaments have been known to say a great deal more than that."

"I a.s.sure you Larmer, my mind is so confused about it that I cannot remember whether I said 'Am I' or 'I am.' I rather incline to think that I said 'I am a murderer;' for I believed her to be as good as dead at the time, and I certainly thought I had killed her."

"How could you think that? You are clear in your mind that you never touched the dagger."

"Yes, but I touched the hand that held the dagger."

Larmer looked at his friend and client in a dubious way, as though he could not feel quite sure of his sanity.

"My dear Walcott," he said, "you are out of tune--upset by all this miserable business; and no wonder. You say you touched the hand that held the dagger that stabbed the woman. We know you did; what then? What moved the fingers that touched the hand that held the dagger, etcetera?

Was it a good motive or a bad motive, tell me!"

"That is just what I can't tell you, for I don't know. Perhaps it was an instinct of self-defence; but I have no recollection of being afraid that she would stab me. I had a confused notion that she was going to stab herself; perhaps, I only got as far as thinking that the bodkin would be better out of her hand."

"This is a touch of your old subtlety. I do believe you could work yourself up to thinking that you actually wanted to hurt her!"

"Subtlety or no subtlety, these impressions are very acute in my own mind. I can see the whole of that scene as plainly as I see you at this moment. It comes before my eyes in a series of pictures, vivid and complete in every twist and turn; only the motives that guided me are blurred and confused. I grasped her wrist, and she struggled frantically to shake me off. Our faces were close together, and there was a horrible fascination in her eyes--the eyes of a madwoman at that moment, beyond all question."

"I am convinced that she is mad, and has been so for years," said Mr.

Larmer, positively.

"She was mad then, foaming at the mouth, and trying to bite me in her impotent fury. I could not hold her wrist firmly--she plunged here and there so violently that one or other of us was pretty sure to be hurt, unless I could force her to drop the murderous weapon. I was ashamed that I could not do it; but she had the strength of a demon, and I really wonder that she did not master me. Then the end came. Suddenly her resistance ceased. The desperate force with which I had been holding her hand must have been fully exerted at the very instant when her muscles relaxed--when the light went out of her eyes and the body staggered to the ground. It all happened at once. Did she faint? At any rate, my fingers never touched the dagger until after she was stabbed."

"It was a pure accident--as clear as can be; and the whole blame of it is on her own shoulders. She brought the weapon, she held it, she resisted you when you tried to prevent mischief. She, not you, had the disposition to injure, and you have not an atom of responsibility."

"That is your view, as a friend. It is not the view of the scandal-mongers outside. It will not be the view of the jury. And it is not my view."

"What do you mean?"

"I really do not know where my responsibility began or where it ended. I don't know if her strength failed her at the critical moment, or if it was simply overcome by mine--if, in fact, she was injured whilst resisting my violence. One thing I am sure of, and that is that my heart was full of hatred towards her. There was vengeance in my soul if not in my intention. Who is to discriminate between motives so near allied?

Your friendship may acquit me, Larmer, but your instincts as a lawyer cannot; and at any rate, I cannot acquit myself of having entertained the feeling out of which crimes of violence naturally spring. To all intents and purposes I am on exactly the same footing as many a man who has ended his life on the gallows."

"I suppose you think that tribulation is good for your soul. I cannot see any other ground on which you torment yourself in this way about things you have not done and acts you have never contemplated. I understand that you entrusted me with your defence!" Mr. Larmer was waxing impatient--almost indignant--at his client's tone.

"So I do, entirely. a.s.suredly I have no desire to go to prison."

"Then for goodness' sake don't talk to anyone else the nonsense you have been talking to me!"

"I am not likely. I have known you since we were boys together, and I wanted to relieve my mind. It seemed right that you should know precisely what is on my conscience in the matter."

"Well, you have told me, and the effect of it has been to convince me more than ever of your innocence. But that sort of thing would scarcely convince anybody else. Now take my advice, and think as little about the case as possible. You cannot do any good--you will only demoralize yourself still more. Everything depends on how the judge and jury may be disposed to regard our story. I shall give a brief to the best man that can be had, and then we shall have done all that lies in our power."

"I know I could not be in better hands. If anyone could get me off scot-free you are the man to do it, Larmer. But I don't expect it, and I am not sure that I care for it."

Then they parted, and Alan went to Surrey Street and cleared out his goods and chattels, very much to the relief of Mrs. Gorman, who a.s.sured Mr. Hipkins that she could not have slept comfortably at night with that outrageous man under the same roof.

He found in his desk the message which he had written to Lettice on the day of his crowning misfortune.

"Thank heaven I did not send it," he muttered to himself, as he tore it in pieces. "One week has made all the difference. Nothing could ever justify me in speaking to her again."

CHAPTER XXV.

MR. LARMER GIVES A BRIEF.

Mr. Larmer was not insensible to the notoriety which attached to him as solicitor for the defence in a case which was the talk of the town, and a topic of the sensational press. Not that it gave him any satisfaction to make capital out of the misfortunes of a friend; but he would have been something more than man and less than lawyer if he had despised the professional chance which had come in his way.

And in fact he did not despise it. There were one or two inexact statements in the reports of the proceedings at Bow Street--he had written to the papers and corrected them. Several caterers for the curiosity of the public hashed up as many scandals as they could find, and served them hot for the entertainment of their readers. It happened that these tales were all more or less to the discredit of Alan Walcott, and to print them before his trial was grossly unfair. Mr. Larmer wrote a few indignant words on this subject also, and, made about two in a thousand of the scandal-mongers ashamed of themselves. Not content with this he supplied a friend with one or two paragraphs relating to the case, which had the effect of stimulating the interest already aroused in it. By this plan he secured the insertion of a statement in the best of the society journals, which put the matter at issue in a fair and unprejudiced way, dwelling on such facts as the pending divorce-suit, the fining of Mrs. Walcott at Hammersmith, her molestation of her husband on various recent occasions, and her intrusion upon him in Alfred Place. This article, written with manifest knowledge of the circ.u.mstances, yet with much reserve and moderation, was a very serviceable diversion in Alan's favor, and did something to diminish the odium into which he had fallen.

Mr. Larmer would not have selected trial by ordeal in the columns of the newspapers as the best preparation for a trial before an English judge and jury; but the process was begun by others before he had a word to say in the matter, and his efforts were simply directed to making the most of the situation which had been created. A ma.s.s of prejudice had been introduced into the case by the worthy gentlemen who maintain that in these evil days the press is the one thing needful for moral and political salvation, and who never lose an opportunity of showing how easy it would be to govern a nation by leading articles, or to redeem humanity by a series of reports and interviews. Alan had given himself up for lost when he found himself in the toils of this prejudice; but Mr. Larmer saw a chance of turning it to good account both for his client and for himself, and not unnaturally took advantage of the awakened curiosity to put his friend's case clearly and vividly before the popular tribunal.

Alan nearly upset the calculation of the lawyer by his impatience of the interviewing tribe. Half-a-dozen of them found him out at different times, and would not take his no for an answer. At last worried by the pertinacity of one bolder and clumsier than all the rest, he took him by the shoulders and bundled him out of his room, and the insulted amba.s.sador, as he called himself, wrote to his employer a particularly spiteful account of his reception, with sundry embellishments perhaps more picturesque than strictly accurate.