I left him still talking to Mr. Fox, and later received this account of the interview which followed between them and Dr. Perry.
"Is this girl telling the truth?" asked District Attorney Fox, as soon as the three were closeted and each could speak his own mind. "Doctor, what do you think?"
"I do not question her veracity in the least. A woman who for purely moral reasons could defy pain and risk the loss of a beauty universally acknowledged as transcendent, would never stoop to falsehood even in her desire to save a brother's life. I have every confidence in her. Fox, and I think you may safely have the same."
"You believe that she burnt herself—intentionally?"
"I wouldn't disbelieve it—you may think me sentimental; I knew and loved her father—for any fortune you might name."
"Say that you never knew her father; say that you had no more interest in the girl or the case, than the jurors have? What then–?
"I should believe her for humanity's sake; for the sake of the happiness it gives one to find something true and strong in this sordid work-a-day world—a jewel in a dust-heap. Oh, I'm a sentimentalist, I acknowledge."
Mr. Fox turned to Sweetwater. "And you?"
"Mr. Fox, have you those tongs?"
"Yes, I forgot; they were brought to my office, with the other exhibits. I attached no importance to them, and you will probably find them just where I thrust them into the box marked 'Cumb.'"
They were in the district attorney's office, and Sweetwater at once rose and brought forward the tongs.
"There is my answer," he said pointing significantly at one of the legs.
The district attorney turned pale, and motioned Sweetwater to carry them back. He sat silent for a moment, and then showed that he was a man.
"Miss Cumberland has my respect," said he.
Sweetwater came back to his place.
Dr. Perry waited.
Finally Mr. Fox turned to him and put the anticipated question:
"You are satisfied with your autopsy? Miss Cumberland's death was due to strangulation and not to the poison she took?"
"That was what I swore to, and what I should have to swear to again if you placed me back on the stand. The poison, taken with her great excitement, robbed her of consciousness, but there was too little of it, or it was too old and weakened to cause death. She would probably have revived, in time; possibly did revive. But the clutch of those fingers was fatal; she could not survive it. It costs me more than you can ever understand to say this, but questions like yours must be answered. I should not be an honest man otherwise."
Sweetwater made a movement. Mr. Fox turned and looked at him critically.
"Speak out," said he.
But Sweetwater had nothing to say.
Neither had Dr. Perry. The oppression of an unsolved problem, involving lives of whose value each formed a different estimate, was upon them all; possibly heaviest upon the district attorney, the most serious portion of whose work lay still before him.
To the relief of all, Carmel was physically stronger than we expected when she came to retake the stand in the afternoon. But she had lost a little of her courage. Her expectation of clearing her brother at a word had left her, and with it the excitation of hope. Yet she made a noble picture as she sat there, meeting, without a blush, but with an air of sweet humility impossible to describe, the curious, all-devouring glances of the multitude, some of them anxious to repeat the experience of the morning; some of them new to the court, to her, and the cause for which she stood.
Mr. Fox kept nobody waiting. With a gentleness such as he seldom showed to any witness for the defence, he resumed his cross-examination by propounding the following question:
"Miss Cumberland, in your account of the final interview you had with your sister, you alluded to a story you had once read together. Will you tell us the name of this story?"
"It was called 'A Legend of Francis the First.' It was not a novel, but a little tale she found in some old magazine. It had a great effect upon us; I have never forgotten it."
"Can you relate this tale to us in a few words?"
"I will try. It was very simple; it merely told how a young girl marred her beauty to escape the attentions of the great king, and what respect he always showed her after that, even calling her sister."
Was the thrill in her voice or in my own heart, or in the story—emphasised as it was by her undeniable attempt upon her own beauty? As that last word fell so softly, yet with such tender suggestion, a sensation of sympathy passed between us for the first time; and I knew, from the purity of her look and the fearlessness of this covert appeal to one she could not address openly, that the doubts I had cherished of her up to this very moment were an outrage and that were it possible or seemly, I should be bowed down in the dust at her feet—in reality, as I was in spirit.
Others may have shared my feeling; for the glances which flew from her face to mine were laden with an appreciation of the situation, which for the moment drove the prisoner from the minds of all, and centred attention on this tragedy of souls, bared in so cruel a way to the curiosity of the crowd. I could not bear it. The triumph of my heart battled with the shame of my fault, and I might have been tempted into some act of manifest imprudence, if Mr. Fox had not cut my misery short by recalling attention to the witness, with a question of the most vital importance.
"While you were holding your sister's hands in what you supposed to be her final moments, did you observe whether or not she still wore on her finger the curious ring given her by Mr. Ranelagh, and known as her engagement ring?"
"Yes—I not only saw it, but felt it. It was the only one she wore on her left hand."
The district attorney paused. This was an admission unexpected, perhaps, by himself, which it was desirable to have sink into the minds of the jury. The ring had not been removed by Adelaide herself; it was still on her finger as the last hour drew nigh. An awful fact, if established—telling seriously against Arthur. Involuntarily I glanced his way. He was looking at me. The mutual glance struck fire. What I thought, he thought—but possibly with a difference. The moment was surcharged with emotion for all but the witness herself. She was calm; perhaps she did not understand the significance of the occasion.
Mr. Fox pressed his advantage.
"And when you rose from the lounge and crossed your sister's hands?"
"It was still there; I put that hand uppermost."
"And left the ring on?"
"Oh, yes—oh, yes." Her whole attitude and face were full of protest.
"So that, to the best of your belief, it was still on your sister's finger when you left the room?"
"Certainly, sir, certainly."
There was alarm in her tone now, she was beginning to see that her testimony was not as entirely helpful to Arthur as she had been led to expect. In her helplessness, she cast a glance of entreaty at her brother's counsel. But he was busily occupied with pencil and paper, and she received no encouragement unless it was from his studiously composed manner and general air of unconcern. She did not know—nor did I know then—what uneasiness such an air may cover.
Mr. Fox had followed her glances, and perhaps understood his adversary better than she did; for he drew himself up with an appearance of satisfaction as he asked very quietly:
"What material did you use in lighting the fire on the club-house hearth?"
"Wood from the box, and a little kindling I found there."