"Wait," said the doctor. "I want someone to come and listen to what you have to say."

"Nay, nay; I'll tell no one but you."

"But you must!" said the doctor. "If you don't, your confession will be of no use. There must be witnesses."

"You mean that I couldn't save him from hanging if I only told it to you?"

"Yes, I mean that," replied the doctor.

"Who do you want to come up?" said the girl presently. "Nay, I don't care who comes now. I did it, and there'll soon be an end to it. Let 'em come, whoever they may be!"

In a few seconds Judge Bolitho and the other man came into the room.

The doctor whispered to the judge.

"There must be someone else," said the judge. "I am afraid my evidence would be valueless, although I want to be here. You see, I'm Paul's father."

"Wait a minute," said the doctor, and he ran quickly downstairs. "Mrs.

Cronkshaw," he said. "Come into the bedroom at once!"

The girl who lay upon the bed looked from one face to another, as if wondering what was happening.

"Give me some strengthening stuff," she said, "or I shall noan be able to speak."

While the doctor poured some liquid into a gla.s.s, the judge pa.s.sed round to the other side of the bed, while the lawyer--Crashawe by name--sat under the light with writing materials to hand. The woman who went by the name of Cronkshaw eagerly watched the proceedings, and looked like one vastly curious.

"It wur like this 'ere," said the dying girl. "Ned Wilson courted me, and he promised me that he'd marry me. He did it on the quiet, n.o.body knew, and I, like a fool, trusted him. Ay, but I wur fond on him. You see, well, I knowed I wur a good-looking la.s.s, but I wur always a bit rough, and it seemed wonderful to me that a great gentleman like he should have cared owt for me. And when we had met two or three times, and he told me that he loved me, I wur ready to worship the very ground he walked on! As I told you, he promised to marry me; ay, and it were his duty to do so, too, for I wur i' trouble. Then he tried to get me out of Brunford, but I wouldn't go. I tried to make him stand by his word. As you know, people said as 'ow he wur going to marry Miss Bolitho, but I wouldn't believe that. Ned had promised me fair. He swore to me by the G.o.d above us that he'd marry me. Then I saw in the Brunford paper it wur arranged that he should marry Miss Bolitho. For a day or two I think I wur mad, and he kept out o' the way o' me. Then I axed him about it, and he laughed at me. He said he wur only joking when he promised to marry me, and that a la.s.s like I couldn't expect him to throw away his life by marrying a mill girl. He offered me bra.s.s to leave the town--a good deal on it, too--but I wur noan going to be treated like that. I said, 'No.' Give me some more stuff, doctor."

The doctor raised the girl and placed another pillow under her head, while she eagerly drank what remained in the gla.s.s. The room was in intense silence, save for the scratch of the lawyer's pen, who was taking down what the girl was saying, word by word.

"I 'eerd as 'ow Paul Stepaside had come back from London," she went on, "and I thought to myself, 'He'd help me. I'll tell him all about it.

He's very clever, and he doesn't like Ned Wilson,' for by this time a fair hate got hold of me, and I thought to myself, 'I'll see him on the quiet.' I saw him go to his office that morning. I wur just walking across the mill yard; but as he wur talking with someone I just waited a bit. I didn't want no one to see me. Presently I see his mother come, I don't think onybody else saw her, because she came in by a side way, and as you know, Paul's office is shut off from the mill. So I waited around, and after a bit I saw his mother go out, and I said to myself, 'Now's my time.' So I went up a little pa.s.sage, and no one could see me; but just as I wur coming up close to the door he came out quickly. I think he wanted to speak to his mother about something.

Anyhow, he left th' office door open, and I said to myself, 'I'll go in there now, and wait till he comes back.' Well, I did; and I waited perhaps two minutes, but he didn't come. And then I seed the knife on th' table, and I got 'andlin' it, and all sorts of black thoughts came into my mind. And I said to myself, 'I'll say nowt to Mr. Stepaside at all.' I can't explain why it was, but I took 'old o' th' knife and come away. When I got home for dinner, I just wrote a letter to Ned Wilson, and I told him I must see him that night late. It wur something very particular. And I told him that, as it was the last time I should ask him to do onything for me, he mustn't refuse."

"Well," said the doctor. "What then?"

"Weel, I wur at the place I told him about, and he coom'd. It wur very late. You see I made the hour late, 'cause I know'd if it wur early, and he wur likely to be seen with me, he wouldn't come. So I made it late, and I told him, too, that if he didn't come I'm make everything known. I never said owt to anybody, but I kept t' knife with me. Give me some more stuff, doctor; I feel as though my head is all swimming!"

The doctor did as the girl desired, and made her pillow more comfortable.

"Ay, that's better," she said. "Weel, we met, and I begged him again, begged him as I thought I should never beg onybody to do anything--for I am a proud la.s.s--to marry me. But he wouldn't. He said he wur going to marry Miss Bolitho, if only out of spite to Paul Stepaside. So I said to him, 'What has Paul Stepaside to do with it?' And he laughed.

So then I axed him what I wur to do, and he told me that I might go to Manchester and get my living as best I could. And after that h.e.l.l got hold of me, but I kept quiet. And I said, 'Good-night, Ned,' and he said, 'Good-night, Emily. Be a sensible la.s.s.' And then he turned round to go back home, and then I up with the knife and stabbed him in the back. I thought my heart was going to leap into my mouth when I saw him fall on his face without a word and without a sound, and I never stayed a minute, but I run all the way home."

The scratch of the lawyer's pen continued some seconds after the girl had ceased speaking.

"That's all," she said. "I'm glad I've told you. A've been i' 'ell for mony a week, and, and--but there, it's all over now!"

"Just a minute," said the lawyer. "Let me read through what you have said."

"I can noan bear it; my head's swimmin' again!"

Dr. White administered another dose of powerful stimulant, and the girl breathed more easily.

"You can bear it now, Emily," he said kindly. "And you've been a brave la.s.s."

"I know I ought not to have killed him," said the girl, "but he treated me bad, and he said things to me which no man ought ever to say to ony la.s.s. But theer----"

The lawyer came close to the bed and read the girl's confession aloud.

"Ay, that's right," she said when he had finished. "It's all true, every word, so help me G.o.d!"

"Will you sign your name here?" said the lawyer.

They propped her up in bed, and a pen was placed in her hand. Judge Bolitho was afraid for the moment that she would never have strength enough to perform the task of writing her name; but the girl, almost by a superhuman effort, conquered her weakness. She seized the pen and wrote her name.

"Thank you," he said. "That will do."

The girl lay back on her pillow, panting for her very life. A minute later the doc.u.ment was witnessed by the others in the room.

Two hours later Emily Dodson was dead.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII

THE HOME-COMING

The warder came into Paul's cell bearing his breakfast.

"There," he said. "I've got something good for you this morning. How did you sleep?"

"Scarcely at all," replied Paul quietly. "You can take away this; I shall not eat it."

"Eat it, man; it is the best breakfast you've had for many a day, and it'll help you to go through with it."

"No," replied Paul quietly; "I'll go through it without that."

There was a sad, wistful look in his eye. He knew that the dread hour had nearly come, and that he must bid good-bye to everything. During the previous evening he had been in a state of great excitement. He had listened eagerly for the coming of Mary and his father, but they never came. In a numb sort of way he wondered why. He would like to have bidden them good-bye. He longed to hold Mary in his arms once more, and longed, too, to tell his father that he forgave him. For he had to confess to himself at last that he had done this. With death knocking at the gates of life, it seemed to him he could do no other.

His father had sinned, but he had done his best to atone. Of course, all was vain, and the tangled skein of life had not been straightened out. He felt that somehow life with him had begun wrong, and it had continued wrong to the end. Still, there was a quiet resignation in his heart which almost surprised him. At that moment he could have said with Tennyson, "And yet we trust that somehow good will be the final goal of ill." As for the future--well, he would soon solve its mystery. He did not want to die; rather, he longed to live--he had so much to live for in spite of everything. Of course, Mary could never be his wife, but he could love her and guard her and cherish her all the same. As for the rest----

He felt a kind of curiosity as to what the future would bring forth.

He looked at his hands, so strong, nervous, vigorous, and thought that in a few hours they would be inert, lifeless. That something which men call "life" would be gone. Where would he be? For the first time in his life he felt almost certain that the essential "he" would continue to be. Where, and under what circ.u.mstances, he wondered? Well, he should know soon.

A little later he was out under a dark, gloomy sky. He saw a great black cloud hanging in the heavens. Here and there was a patch of blue where the stars peeped out. It was bitterly cold, and he felt himself shivering. Others were there, too; strange, shadowy looking figures they appeared to be, but he took very little note of them. Only one man was perfectly clear to him; that was the chaplain, who wore a gown and carried a black book in his hand. It was his duty to read the Burial Service. He heard a bell tolling, but it did not affect him as he thought it would. Of course, it was the very refinement of torture, and ought not to be allowed. No man, whatever he had done, should be made to suffer in this way. But he did not care much. He was not afraid. In the dim light he saw that a scaffold had been erected--a gaunt, ghastly thing, the very symbol of despair and shame and death.

He wondered what took place next. He supposed there would be certain formulae to go through. The parson would utter a homily as well as read the miserable Burial Service.

"What's going to happen next?" he said to the warder; and he spoke rather as a spectator than as the one who was the chief figure in this terrible scene.

But before the man had time to reply there was a strange confusion.