Anne Part 69

"It _is_ Anne," continued Isabel, too much absorbed to notice Rachel's manner. "But older, and a thousand times handsomer. Rachel, that girl is beautiful!"

Anne's eyes were downcast. She feared to see Heathcote, and she did not even know in what part of the room he was placed. She remained thus while she was identified by Bagshot and Simpson, while she gave her name, and went through the preliminary forms; when at last she did raise her eyes, she looked only at the lawyers who addressed her.

And now the ordeal opened. All, or almost all, of that which she had told Gregory Dexter she was now required to repeat here, before this crowded, listening court-room, this sea of faces, these watching lawyers, the judge, and the dreaded jury. She had never been in a court-room before. For one moment, when she first looked up, her courage failed, and those who were watching her saw that it had failed. Then toward whom did her frightened glance turn as if for aid?

"Rachel, it is Gregory Dexter," said Isabel, again grasping her companion's arm excitedly.

"Pray, Isabel, be more quiet," answered Mrs. Bannert. But her own heart throbbed quickly for a moment as she recognized the man who had told her what he thought of her plainly in crude and plebeian Saxon phraseology.

Anne was now speaking. Bagshot's testimony was read to her phrase by phrase. Phrase by phrase she corroborated its truthfulness, but added what had preceded and followed. In this manner all the overheard sentences were repeated amid close attention, the interest increasing with every word.

But still it was evident that all were waiting; the att.i.tude was plainly one of alert expectancy.

For what were they waiting? For the confession of love, to whose "extraordinary words" the New York journals had called attention.

At last it came. An old lawyer read the sentences aloud, slowly, markedly; while the fall of a feather could have been heard in the crowded room, and all eyes were fastened pitilessly upon the defenseless girl; for she seemed at that moment utterly forsaken and defenseless.

"'You say that I can not love,'" slowly read the lawyer, in his clear, dry voice; "'that it is not in my nature. You know nothing about it. You have thought me a child; I am a child no longer. I love Ward Heathcote, your husband, with my whole heart. It was a delight to me simply to be near him, to hear his voice. When he spoke my name, all my being went toward him. I loved him--loved him--so deeply that everything else on the face of the earth is as nothing to me compared with it. I would have been gladly your servant, yes, _yours_, only to be in the same house with him, though I were of no more account in his eyes than the dog on the mat before his door.'"

There was an instant of dead silence after these last pa.s.sionate words had fallen strangely from the old lawyer's thin lips. Then, "Are these your words?" he asked.

"They are," replied Anne.

In that supreme moment her glance, vaguely turned away from the questioner, met the direct gaze of the prisoner. Until now she had not seen him. It was but an instant that their eyes held each other, but in that instant the thronged court-room faded from her sight, and her face, which, while the lawyer read, had been white and still as marble, was now, though still colorless, so transfigured, so uplifted, so beautiful in its pure sacrifice, that men leaned forward to see her more closely, to print, as it were, that exquisite image upon their memories forever.

Then the crowd took its breath again audibly; the sight was over. Anne had sunk down and covered her face with her hands, and Miss Teller, much agitated, was sending her a gla.s.s of water.

Even the law is human sometimes, and there was now a short delay.

So far, while the testimony of the new witness had been dramatic, and in its interest absorbing, it had not proved much, or shaken to any great extent the theory of the prosecution. On the contrary, more than ever now were people inclined to believe that this lovely young girl was in reality the wife's rival. Men whispered to each other, significantly, "Heathcote knew what he was about. That is the most beautiful girl I ever saw in my life; and nothing can alter _that_."

"But now the tide turned. The examination proceeded, and the two unfinished sentences which Bagshot had repeated were read. Anne corrected them.

"'You can not conquer hate,'" read the lawyer.

"Mrs. Heathcote did not say that," began Anne; but her voice was still tremulous, and she paused a moment in order to control it.

"We wish to remark here," said one of Miss Teller's lawyers, "that while the witness named Minerva Bagshot is possessed of an extraordinary memory, and while she has also repeated what she overheard with a correctness and honesty which are indeed remarkable in a person who would deliberately open a door and _listen_, in this instance her careful and conscientious ears will be found to have been mistaken."

He was not allowed to say more. But as he had said all he wished to say, he bore his enforced silence with equanimity.

"Mrs. Heathcote wished me to come and live with her," continued Anne.

"She said, not what Mrs. Bagshot has reported, but, 'You can not conquer _fate_.' And then she added, 'We two _must_ be together, Anne; we are bound by a tie which can not be severed, even though we may wish it. You must bear with me, and I must suffer you. It is our fate.'"

This produced an effect; it directly contradicted the impression made by Bagshot's phrase, namely, that the two women had parted in anger and hate, the wife especially being in a mood of desperation. True, it was but Anne's word against Bagshot's, and the strange tendency toward believing the worst, which is often seen at criminal trials, inclined most minds toward the elder woman's story. Still, the lawyers for the defense were hopeful.

The last sentence, or portion of a sentence, was now read: "'If he had lived, one of us must have died.'"

It had been decided that Anne should here give all that Helen had said, without omission, as she had given it to Dexter.

"Yes," she answered; "Mrs. Heathcote used those words. But it was in the following connection. When we had said good-by, and I had promised to come again after the funeral, she went with me toward the door. 'If he had lived,' she said, 'one of us must have died.' Then she paused an instant, and her voice sank. 'Changed or died,' she added. 'And as we are not the kind of women who change, it would have ended in the wearing out of the life of one of us--the one who loved the most. And people would have called it by some other name, and that would have been the end. But now it is _he_ who has been taken, and--oh! I can not bear it--I can not, can not bear it!'"

She repeated these words of Helen's with such realistic power that tears came to many eyes. Rachel Bannert for the first time veiled her face.

All the feeling in her, such as it was, was concentrated upon Heathcote, and Helen's bitter cry of grief, repeated by Anne, had been the secret cry of her own heart every minute since danger first menaced him.

Anne's words had produced a sensation; still, they were but her unsupported words.

But now something else was brought forward; proof which, so far as it went, at least, was tangible. Anne was testifying that, before she went away, Helen had taken from her own neck a locket and given it to her as a token of renewed affection; and the locket was produced. The defense would prove by Bagshot herself that this locket on its chain was round her mistress's neck on the morning of that day, and Mrs. Heathcote must therefore have removed it herself and given it to the present witness, since the latter could hardly have taken it from her by force without being overheard, the door being so very conveniently ajar.

And now the next proof was produced, the hurried note written to Anne by Helen, after the tidings of her husband's safety had been received.

After the writing had been identified as Helen's, the note was read.

"DEAR ANNE,--Ward is safe. It was a mistake. I have just received a dispatch. He is wounded, but not dangerously, and I write this on my way to the train, for I am going to him; that is, if I can get through. All is different now. I trust you. But I love him too much not to try and make him love _me_ the most, if I possibly can.

HELEN."

This was evidence clear and decided. It was no longer Anne's word, but Helen's own. Whatever else the listeners continued to believe, they must give up the idea that the wife and this young girl had parted in anger and hate; for if the locket as proof could be evaded, the note could not.

But this was not all. An excitement more marked than any save that produced when Anne acknowledged the confession arose in the court-room when the lawyers for the defense announced that they would now bring forward a second letter--a letter written by Mrs. Heathcote to the witness in the inn at Timloesville on the evening of her death--her last letter, what might be called her last utterance on earth. It had been shown that Mrs. Heathcote was seen writing; it would be proved that a letter was given to a colored lad employed in the hotel soon after Captain Heathcote left the room, and that this lad ran across the street to the post-office and dropped it into the mail-box. Not being able to read, he had not made out the address.

When the handwriting of this letter also had been identified, it was, amid eager attention, read aloud. The feeling was as if the dead wife herself were speaking to them from the grave.

"TIMLOESVILLE, _June 10, half past 8_ P.M.

"DEAR ANNE,--I sent you a few lines from New York, written on my way to the train, but now that I have time, I feel that something more is due to you. I found Ward at a little hospital, his right arm injured, but not seriously. He will not be able to use it readily for some time; it is in a sling. But he is so much better that they have allowed us to start homeward. We are travelling slowly--more, however, on my account than his. I long to have the journey over.

"Dear Anne, I have thought over all our conversation--all that you told me, all that I replied. I am so inexpressibly happy to-night, as I sit here writing, that I can and will do you justice, and tell all the truth--the part that I have hitherto withheld. And that is, Anne, that your influence over him _was_ for good, and that your pain and effort have not been thrown away. You asked him to bear his part in life bravely, and he has borne it; you asked him to come back to me, and he did come back. If you were any other woman on earth, I would never confess this--confess that I owe to _you_ my happiness of last winter, when he changed, even in his letters, to greater kindness; confess that it was your influence which made him, when he came home later, so much more watchful and gentle in his care of, his manner toward, me. I noticed the change on the first instant, the first letter, and it made my heart bound. If it had been possible, I should have gone to him then, but it was not. He had rejoined his regiment, and I could only watch for his letters like a girl of sixteen. When he did come home, I counted every hour of that short visit as so much happiness greater than I had ever known before. For I had always loved him, and _now_ he loved me.

"Do not contradict me; he does love me. At least he is so dear to me, and so kind and tender, that I do not know whether he does or not, but am content. You are a better, n.o.bler woman; yet _I_ have the happiness.

"He does not know that I have seen you, and I shall never tell him. He does not know that I know what an effort he has made. But every kind act and tone goes to my heart. For I _did_ deceive him, Anne; and if it had not been for that deception, probably he would not now be my husband--he would be free.

"Yet good has come out of evil this time, perhaps on account of my deep love. No wife was ever so thankfully happy as I am to-night, and on my knees I have thanked my Creator for giving me that which makes my life one long joy.

"He has come in, and is sitting opposite, reading. He does not know to whom I am writing--does not dream what I am saying. And he must never know: I can not rise to _that_.

"No, Anne, we must not meet, at least for the present. It is better so, and you yourself will feel that it is. But when I reach home I will write again, and _then_ you will answer.

"Always, with warm love, your friend,

HELEN."