The sight of his witnesses was almost welcome. They were a dissenting minister, and a neat, portly, respectable widow, the owner of a fancy shop, and both knew Mr. Mauleverer as a popular lecturer upon philanthropical subjects, who came periodically to Bristol, and made himself very acceptable. Their faith in him was genuine, and he had even interested them in the F.U.E.E. and the ladies that patronized it. The widow was tearfully indignant about the persecution that had been got up against him, and evidently intended to return with him in triumph, and endow him with the fancy shop if he would condescend so far. The minister too, spoke highly of his gifts and graces, but neither of them could carry back their testimony to his character for more than three years.
Mr. Grey looked at his watch, Harry Beauchamp was restless, and Alison felt almost faint with suspense; but at last the tramp of feet was heard in the passage. Colonel Keith came first, and leaning over Alison’s chair, said, “Lady Temple will wait for me at the inn. It will soon be all right.”
At that moment a tall figure in mourning entered, attended by a policeman. For the first time, Mauleverer’s coolness gave way, though not his readiness, and, turning to Mr. Grey, he exclaimed, “Sir, you do not intend to be misled by the malignity of a person of this description.”
“Worse than a murderess!” gasped the scandalized widow Dench. “Well, I never!”
Mr. Grey was obliged to be peremptory, in order to obtain silence, and enforce that, let the new witness be what she might, her evidence must be heard.
She had come in with the habitual village curtsey to Mr. Beauchamp, and putting back her veil, disclosed to Alison the piteous sight of the well-remembered features, once so bright with intelligence and innocence, and now sunk and haggard with the worst sorrows of womanhood. Her large glittering eyes did not seem to recognise Alison, but they glared upon Mauleverer with a strange terrible fixedness, as if unable to see anyone else. To Alison the sight was inexpressibly painful, and she shrank back, as it were, in dread of meeting the eyes once so responsive to her own.
Mr. Grey asked the woman the name of the person before her, and looking at him with the same fearful steadiness, she pronounced it to be Richard Maddox, though he had of late called himself Mauleverer.
The man quailed for a moment, then collecting himself, said, “I now understand the incredible ingratitude and malignity that have pointed out against me these hitherto unaccountable slanders. It is a punishment for insufficient inquiry into character. But you, sir, in common justice, will protect me from the aspersions of one who wishes to drag me down in her justly merited fall.”
“Sentenced for three years! To take her examination!” muttered Mrs. Dench, and with some difficulty these exclamations were silenced, and Maria Hatherton called on for her evidence.
Concise, but terrible in its clear brevity, was the story of the agent tampering with her, the nursemaid, until she had given him access to the private rooms, where he had turned over the papers. On the following day, Mr. Williams had been inquiring for his seal-ring, but she herself had not seen it again till some months after, when she had left her place, and was living in lodgings provided for her by Maddox, when she had found the ring in the drawer of his desk; her suspicion had then been first excited by his displeasure at her proposing to him to return it, thinking it merely there by accident, and she had afterwards observed him endeavouring to copy fragments of Mr. Williams’s writing. These he had crushed up and thrown aside, but she had preserved them, owning that she did not know what might come of them, and the family had been very kind to her.
The seal and the scraps of paper were here produced by the policeman who had them in charge. The seal perfectly coincided with that which had closed the letter to Harry Beauchamp, and was, moreover, identified by both Alison and Colonel Keith. It was noticeable, too, that one of these fragments was the beginning of a note to Mr. Beauchamp, as “Dear H.” and this, though not Edward’s most usual style of addressing his friend, was repeated in the demand for the £300.
“Sir,” said the accused, “of course I have no intention of intimating that a gentleman like the Honourable Colonel Keith has been in any collusion with this unhappy woman, but it must be obvious to you that his wish to exonerate his friend has induced him to give too easy credence to this person’s malignant attempts to fasten upon one whom she might have had reason to regard as a benefactor the odium of the transactions that she acknowledges to have taken place between herself and this Maddox, thereto incited, no doubt, by some resemblance which must be strong, since it has likewise deceived Mr. Beauchamp.”
Mr. Grey looked perplexed and vexed, and asked Mr. Beauchamp if he could suggest any other person able to identify Maddox. He frowned, said there must have been workmen at the factory, but knew not where they were, looked at Colin Keith, asked Alison if she or her sister had ever seen Maddox, then declared he could lay his hands on no one but Dr. Long at Belfast.
Mauleverer vehemently exclaimed against the injustice of detaining him till a witness could be summoned from that distance. Mr. Grey evidently had his doubts, and began to
