There Miss Hoighty lifted her handkerchief again to her face, and burst modestly into tears behind it.
It was certainly hard to hold her responsible for what had happened. I answered as kindly as I could, and I attempted to speak to Major Fitz-David in her defense. He knew what terrible anxieties were oppressing me at that moment; and, considerately refusing to hear a word, he took the task of consoling his young prima donna entirely on himself. What he said to her I neither heard nor cared to hear: he spoke in a whisper. It ended in his pacifying Miss Hoighty, by kissing her hand, and leading her (as he might have led a duchess) out of the room.
'I hope that foolish girl has not annoyed you—at such a time as this,' he said, very earnestly, when he returned to the sofa. 'I can't tell you how grieved I am at what has happened. I was careful to warn you, as you may remember. Still, if I could only have foreseen—'
I let him proceed no further. No human forethought could have provided against what had happened. Besides, dreadful as the discovery had been, I would rather have made it, and suffered under it, as I was suffering now, than have been kept in the dark. I told him this. And then I turned to the one subject that was now of any interest to me—the subject of my unhappy husband.
'How did he come to this house?' I asked.
'He came here with Mr. Benjamin shortly after I returned,' the Major replied.
'Long after I was taken ill?'
'No. I had just sent for the doctor—feeling seriously alarmed about you.'
'What brought him here? Did he return to the hotel and miss me?'
'Yes. He returned earlier than he had anticipated, and he felt uneasy at not finding you at the hotel.'
'Did he suspect me of being with you? Did he come here from the hotel?'
'No. He appears to have gone first to Mr. Benjamin to inquire about you. What he heard from your old friend I cannot say. I only know that Mr. Benjamin accompanied him when he came here.'
This brief explanation was quite enough for me—I understood what had happened. Eustace would easily frighten simple old Benjamin about my absence from the hotel; and, once alarmed, Benjamin would be persuaded without difficulty to repeat the few words which had passed between us on the subject of Major Fitz-David. My husband's presence in the Major's house was perfectly explained. But his extraordinary conduct in leaving the room at the very time when I was just recovering my senses still remained to be accounted for. Major Fitz-David looked seriously embarrassed when I put the question to him.
'I hardly know how to explain it to you,' he said. 'Eustace has surprised and disappointed me.'
He spoke very gravely. His looks told me more than his words: his looks alarmed me.
'Eustace has not quarreled with you?' I said.
'Oh no!'
'He understands that you have not broken your promise to him?'
'Certainly. My young vocalist (Miss Hoighty) told the doctor exactly what had happened; and the doctor in her presence repeated the statement to your husband.'
'Did the doctor see the Trial?'
'Neither the doctor nor Mr. Benjamin has seen the Trial. I have locked it up; and I have carefully kept the terrible story of your connection with the prisoner a secret from all of them. Mr. Benjamin evidently has his suspicions. But the doctor has no idea, and Miss Hoighty has no idea, of the true cause of your fainting fit. They both believe that you are subject to serious nervous attacks, and that your husband's name is really Woodville. All that the truest friend could do to spare Eustace I have done. He persists, nevertheless, in blaming me for letting you enter my house. And worse, far worse than this, he persists in declaring the event of to-day has fatally estranged you from him. 'There is an end of our married life,' he said to me, 'now she knows that I am the man who was tried at Edinburgh for poisoning my wife!''
I rose from the sofa in horror.
'Good God!' I cried, 'does Eustace suppose that I doubt his innocence?'
'He denies that it is possible for you or for anybody to believe in his innocence,' the Major replied.
'Help me to the door,' I said. 'Where is he? I must and will see him!'
I dropped back exhausted on the sofa as I said the words. Major Fitz-David poured out a glass of wine from the bottle on the table, and insisted on my drinking it.
'You shall see him,' said the Major. 'I promise you that. The doctor has forbidden him to leave the house until you have seen him. Only wait a little! My poor, dear lady, wait, if it is only for a few minutes, until you are stronger.'
I had no choice but to obey him. Oh, those miserable, helpless minutes on the sofa! I cannot write of them without shuddering at the recollection—even at this distance of time.
'Bring him here!' I said. 'Pray, pray bring him here!'
'Who is to persuade him to come back?' asked the Major, sadly. 'How can I, how can anybody, prevail with a man—a madman I had almost said!—who could leave you at the moment when you first opened your eyes on him? I saw Eustace alone in the next room while the doctor was in attendance on you. I tried to shake his obstinate distrust of your belief in his innocence and of my belief in his innocence by every argument and every appeal that an old friend could address to him. He had but one answer to give me. Reason as I might, and plead as I might, he still persisted in referring me to the Scotch Verdict.'
'The Scotch Verdict?' I repeated. 'What is that?'
The Major looked surprised at the question.
'Have you really never heard of the Trial?' he said.
'Never.'
