Tried for Her Life Part 42

Lyon Berners warmly expressed his thanks, and sank into the seat.

"You look very ill, Mr. Berners; you look as if you had not slept for many nights. That will not do. Let me be your physician for once, as well as your lawyer. Let me advise you to take opium at night. You _must_ sleep, you see."

"Thanks; but I think my malady beyond the help of medicine, Mr. Worth, unless it were something that should send me into the eternal sleep,"

said Lyon Berners, mournfully.

"Come, come; take courage! We have every reason to believe that this medical examination will result in such a report as, sent up to the governor with the new pet.i.tion, will insure her release. And then you will carry out your purpose of going with her to some foreign country.

Gay France, beautiful Italy, cla.s.sic Greece, good old England, are all before you where to choose," said Ishmael Worth, cheerfully.

Then they spoke of the three physicians who were to conduct the examination: Dr. Bright, who had once had charge of the State Insane Asylum, but who had recently retired to his plantation in this neighborhood; Dr. Hart, who was the oldest and most skilful pract.i.tioner in the county, having attended more families, and first introduced more children to their friends and relations, than any other man in the place; and lastly, Dr. Wiseman, the village druggist, who had taken his degree, and was also physician to the county prison.

"Dr. Hart has attended Sybil's family for nearly half a century; he has known Sybil from her earliest infancy; his visit will not alarm her, though, for that matter, nothing alarms her now, not even--" He did not finish the sentence; he could not bear to utter the words that would have completed it.

Soon after he arose and took his leave. And he pa.s.sed the day and night as he had pa.s.sed the last and many previous days and nights.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE EXAMINATION.

Alas how is it with you?

That you do bend your eyes on vacancy.

And----SHAKESPEARE.

The next morning he was early as usual at the prison, and as usual he had to wait until the doors were opened.

The news of the impending medical examination of the prisoner had been conveyed to the warden on the preceding afternoon. The prisoner and her companion had been notified of it this morning, so that when Lyon Berners was admitted to the cell he found the place in perfect order, and Sybil and Beatrix carefully dressed as if for company.

"See! we are all ready to receive our visitors, Lyon. And oh! I am so glad to be at home again, and to give a dinner party! Like old times!

Before we went on our wedding tour, Lyon!"

These were the first words Sybil addressed to her husband, as he entered the room.

Lyon Berners drew her to his bosom, pressed a kiss on her lips, and then signed to Miss Pendleton to follow him to the window.

"What does all this mean, dearest Beatrix?" he inquired.

"If means that her insanity is increasing. She awoke this morning, perhaps with some dream of home still lingering in her mind; at all events, with the impression that she was at Black Hall. I have not combated the pleasant delusion; indeed I have rather fostered it."

"You were right, dear friend. You know of this intended visit of the physicians?"

"Oh, yes; and so does she, only she fancies that they are to be her guests at a dinner party."

As Beatrix thus spoke, there was a sound of approaching footsteps in the corridor, and the cell door was again opened to admit Dr. Hart.

The good physician shook hands with Mr. Berners, who stood nearest the door, and whispering hastily:

"I wish to speak with you apart presently," he pa.s.sed on to meet Sybil, who, with the courtesy of a hostess, was coming forward to welcome him.

He shook hands with her pleasantly, and inquired after her health.

"Oh, thanks! I am very well since I got home. I took cold. Where did I take cold?" she said, with an air of perplexity, as she pa.s.sed her thin white hand through her silken black tresses.

"You have been travelling, then?" said the doctor, to try her memory.

"Yes; travelling."

"And saw many interesting sights, no doubt?"

"I--yes; there were caves--the Mammoth Cave, you see; and s.h.i.+ps in the harbor; and--and--" A look of doubt and pain pa.s.sed over her, and she became silent.

"And many, many more attractive or instructive objects met your sight, no doubt?"

"Yes; we were in England just before the Conquest, and I saw Harold the Saxon and Edith the Fair. But 'Fair' was 'foul' then--so foul that the Spirit of Fire consumed her. Oh!--"

She paused, and an expression of horrible anguish convulsed her beautiful face.

"But you are at home now, my child," said the doctor soothingly, laying his hand upon her head.

"Oh, yes," she answered, with a sigh of deep relief as her countenance cleared up; "at home now, thank Heaven! And oh, it is so good to be at home, and to see my friends once more. And then again, you know--"

Whatever she was going to say was lost in the chaos of her mind. She sighed wearily enough now, and relapsed into profound reverie.

The doctor took advantage of her abstraction to leave her side, and beckon to Mr. Berners to follow him to the farthest corner of the cell, so as to be out of hearing of the two ladies.

"What do you think of her case?" anxiously inquired Sybil's husband, as soon as he found himself apart with the physician.

"She is deranged of course. Any child could tell you that. But, Mr.

Berners, I called you apart to tell you that myself and my colleagues, Bright and Wiseman, determined to visit our patient singly, and to make a separate examination of her. Now, for certain reasons, and among them, because I am a family pract.i.tioner, we all agreed that I should pay her the first visit. And now, Mr. Berners, I must ask you to go and find out if there is an experienced matron about the house; and if so, to bring her here immediately."

Lyon Berners bowed and went out, but soon returned with the warden's widowed daughter.

"Here is Mrs. Mossop, doctor," he said, introducing the matron.

"How do you do, madam? And now, Mr. Berners, I must further request that you will take Miss Pendleton out and leave Mrs. Mossop and myself alone with our patient," said the doctor.

Mr. Berners gave Miss Pendleton his arm and led her from the room.

One of the under-turnkeys locked the door and stood on guard before it.

Mr. Berners and Miss Pendleton walked up and down the corridor in restless anxiety.

"My brother was here to see me yesterday afternoon, Lyon," she said.

But Mr. Berners, absorbed in anxiety for his wife, scarcely heard the young lady's words, and certainly did not reply to them.