The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Legacy of Cain, by Wilkie Collins
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Title: The Legacy of Cain
Author: Wilkie Collins
Release Date: October 15, 2008 [EBook #1975]
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LEGACY OF CAIN ***
Produced by James Rusk, and David Widger
THE LEGACY OF CAIN
By Wilkie Collins
To
MRS. HENRY POWELL BARTLEY:
Permit me to add your name to my name, in publishing this novel. The pen which has written my books cannot be more agreeably employed than in acknowledging what I owe to the pen which has skillfully and patiently helped me, by copying my manuscripts for the printer.
WILKIE COLLINS.
Wimpole Street, 6th December, 1888.
Contents
THE LEGACY OF CAIN.
First Period: 1858-1859. EVENTS IN THE PRISON, RELATED BY THE GOVERNOR.
CHAPTER I. THE GOVERNOR EXPLAINS.
CHAPTER II. THE MURDERESS ASKS QUESTIONS.
CHAPTER III. THE CHILD APPEARS.
CHAPTER IV. THE MINISTER SAYS YES.
CHAPTER V. MISS CHANCE ASSERTS HERSELF.
CHAPTER VI. THE DOCTOR DOUBTS.
CHAPTER VII. THE MURDERESS CONSULTS THE AUTHORITIES.
CHAPTER VIII. THE MINISTER SAYS GOOD-BY.
CHAPTER IX. THE GOVERNOR RECEIVES A VISIT.
CHAPTER X. MISS CHANCE REAPPEARS.
Second Period: 1875. THE GIRLS AND THE JOURNALS.
CHAPTER XI. HELENA'S DIARY.
CHAPTER XII. EUNICE'S DIARY.
CHAPTER XIII. EUNICE'S DIARY.
CHAPTER XIV. HELENA'S DIARY.
CHAPTER XV. HELENA'S DIARY.
CHAPTER XVI. HELENA'S DIARY.
CHAPTER XVII. HELENA'S DIARY.
CHAPTER XVIII. EUNICE'S DIARY.
CHAPTER XIX. EUNICE'S DIARY.
CHAPTER XX. EUNICE'S DIARY.
CHAPTER XXI. HELENA'S DIARY.
CHAPTER XXII. EUNICE'S DIARY.
CHAPTER XXIII. EUNICE'S DIARY.
CHAPTER XXIV. EUNICE'S DIARY.
CHAPTER XXV. HELENA'S DIARY.
CHAPTER XXVI. HELENA'S DIARY.
CHAPTER XXVII. EUNICE'S DIARY.
CHAPTER XXVIII. HELENA'S DIARY.
CHAPTER XXIX. HELENA'S DIARY.
CHAPTER XXX. EUNICE'S DIARY.
CHAPTER XXXI. EUNICE'S DIARY.
CHAPTER XXXII. THE MIDDLE-AGED LADY.
CHAPTER XXXIII. THE MINISTER'S MISFORTUNE.
CHAPTER XXXIV. THE LIVELY OLD MAID.
CHAPTER XXXV. THE FUTURE LOOKS GLOOMY.
CHAPTER XXXVI. THE WANDERING MIND.
CHAPTER XXXVII. THE SHAMELESS SISTER.
CHAPTER XXXVIII. THE GIRLS' AGES.
CHAPTER XXXIX. THE ADOPTED CHILD
CHAPTER XL. THE BRUISED HEART.
CHAPTER XLI. THE WHISPERING VOICE.
CHAPTER XLII. THE QUAINT PHILOSOPHER.
CHAPTER XLIII. THE MASTERFUL MASSEUSE.
CHAPTER XLIV. THE RESURRECTION OF THE PAST.
CHAPTER XLV. THE FATAL PORTRAIT.
CHAPTER XLVI. THE CUMBERSOME LADIES.
CHAPTER XLVII. THE JOURNEY TO THE FARM.
CHAPTER XLVIII. THE DECISION OF EUNICE.
CHAPTER XLIX. THE GOVERNOR ON HIS GUARD.
CHAPTER L. THE NEWS FROM THE FARM.
CHAPTER LI. THE TRIUMPH OF MRS. TENBRUGGEN.
Third period: 1876. HELENA'S DIARY RESUMED.
CHAPTER LII. HELENA'S DIARY RESUMED.
CHAPTER LIII. HELENA'S DIARY RESUMED.
CHAPTER LIV. HELENA'S DIARY RESUMED.
CHAPTER LV. HELENA'S DIARY RESUMED.
CHAPTER LVI. HELENA'S DIARY RESUMED.
CHAPTER LVII. HELENA'S DIARY RESUMED.
CHAPTER LVIII. DANGER.
CHAPTER LIX. DEFENSE.
CHAPTER LX. DISCOVERY.
CHAPTER LXI. ATROCITY.
CHAPTER LXII. THE SENTENCE PRONOUNCED.
CHAPTER LXIII. THE OBSTACLE REMOVED.
CHAPTER LXIV. THE TRUTH TRIUMPHANT.
POSTSCRIPT.
THE LEGACY OF CAIN.
First Period: 1858-1859. EVENTS IN THE PRISON, RELATED BY THE GOVERNOR.
CHAPTER I. THE GOVERNOR EXPLAINS.
At the request of a person who has claims on me that I must not disown, I consent to look back through a long interval of years and to describe events which took place within the walls of an English prison during the earlier period of my appointment as Governor.
Viewing my task by the light which later experience casts on it, I think I shall act wisely by exercising some control over the freedom of my pen.
I propose to pass over in silence the name of the town in which is situated the prison once confided to my care. I shall observe a similar discretion in alluding to individuals—some dead, some living, at the present time.
Being obliged to write of a woman who deservedly suffered the extreme penalty of the law, I think she will be sufficiently identified if I call her The Prisoner. Of the four persons present on the evening before her execution three may be distinguished one from the other by allusion to their vocations in life. I here introduce them as The Chaplain, The Minister, and The Doctor. The fourth was a young woman. She has no claim on my consideration; and, when she is mentioned, her name may appear. If these reserves excite suspicion, I declare beforehand that they influence in no way the sense of responsibility which commands an honest man to speak the truth.
CHAPTER II. THE MURDERESS ASKS QUESTIONS.
The first of the events which I must now relate was the conviction of The Prisoner for the murder of her husband.
They had lived together in matrimony for little more than two years. The husband, a gentleman by birth and education, had mortally offended his relations in marrying a woman of an inferior rank of life. He was fast declining into a state of poverty, through his own reckless extravagance, at the time when he met with his death at his wife's hand.
Without attempting to excuse him, he deserved, to my mind, some tribute of regret. It is not to be denied that he was profligate in his habits and violent in his temper. But it is equally true that he was affectionate in the domestic circle, and, when moved by wisely applied remonstrance, sincerely penitent for sins committed under temptation that overpowered him. If his wife had killed him in a fit of jealous rage—under provocation, be it remembered, which the witnesses proved—she might have been convicted of manslaughter, and might have received a light sentence. But the evidence so undeniably revealed deliberate and merciless premeditation, that the only defense attempted by her counsel was madness, and the only alternative left to a righteous jury was a verdict which condemned the woman to death. Those mischievous members of the community, whose topsy-turvy sympathies feel for the living criminal and forget the dead victim, attempted to save her by means of high-flown petitions and contemptible correspondence in the newspapers. But the Judge held firm; and the Home Secretary held firm. They were entirely right; and the public were scandalously wrong.