The Law and the Lady

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That person was--my husband.

And the letter thus addressed--if the plainest circumstantial
evidence could be trusted--was identical with the letter which
Miserrimus Dexter had suppressed until the Trial was over, and
had then destroyed by tearing it up.

These were the discoveries that had been made at the time when
Benjamin wrote to me. He had been on the point of posting his
letter, when Mr. Playmore had suggested that he should keep it by
him for a few days longer, on the chance of having more still to
tell me.

"We are indebted to her for these results," the lawyer had said.
"But for her resolution; and her influence over Miserrimus
Dexter, we should never have discovered what the dust-heap was
hiding from us--we should never have seen so much as a glimmering
of the truth. She has the first claim to the fullest information.
Let her have it."

The letter had been accordingly kept back for three days. That
interval being at an end, it was hurriedly resumed and concluded
in terms which indescribably alarmed me.

"The chemist is advancing rapidly with his part of the work"
(Benjamin wrote); "and I have succeeded in putting together a
separate portion of the torn writing which makes sense.
Comparison of what he has accomplished with what I have
accomplished has led to startling conclusions. Unless Mr.
Playmore and I are entirely wrong (and God grant we may be so!),
there is a serious necessity for your keeping the reconstruction
of the letter strictly secret from everybody about you. The
disclosures suggested by what has come to light are so
heartrending and so dreadful that I cannot bring myself to write
about them until I am absolutely obliged to do so. Please forgive
me for disturbing you with this news. We are bound, sooner or
later, to consult with you in the matter; and we think it right
to prepare your mind for what may be to come."

To this there was added a postscript in Mr. Playmore's
handwriting:

"Pray observe strictly the caution which Mr. Benjamin impresses
on you. And bear this in mind, as a warning from _me:_ If we
succeed in reconstructing the entire letter, the last person
living who ought (in my opinion) to be allowed to see it is--your
husband."

CHAPTER XLVI.

THE CRISIS DEFERRED.

"TAKE care, Valeria!" said Mrs. Macallan. "I ask you no
questions; I only caution you for your own sake. Eustace has
noticed what I have noticed--Eustace has seen a change in you.
Take care!"

So my mother-in-law spoke to me later in the day, when we
happened to be alone. I had done my best to conceal all traces of
the effect produced on me by the strange and terrible news from
Gleninch. But who could read what I had read, who could feel what
I now felt, and still maintain an undisturbed serenity of look
and manner? If I had been the vilest hypocrite living, I doubt
even then if my face could have kept my secret while my mind was
full of Benjamin's letter.

Having spoken her word of caution, Mrs. Macallan made no further
advance to me. I dare say she was right. Still, it seemed hard to
be left, without a word of advice or of sympathy, to decide for
myself what it was my duty to my husband to do next.

To show him Benjamin's narrative, in his state of health, and in
the face of the warning addressed to me, was simply out of the
question. At the same time, it was equally impossible, after I
had already betrayed myself, to keep him entirely in the dark. I
thought over it anxiously in the night. When the morning came, I
decided to appeal to my husband's confidence in me.

I went straight to the point in these terms:

"Eustace, your mother said yesterday that you noticed a change in
me when I came back from my drive. Is she right?"

"Quite right, Valeria," he answered--speaking in lower tones than
usual, and not looking at me.

"We have no concealments from each other now," I answered. "I
ought to tell you, and do tell you, that I found a letter from
England waiting at the banker's which has caused me some
agitation and alarm. Will you leave it to me to choose my own
time for speaking more plainly? And will you believe, love, that
I am really doing my duty toward you, as a good wife, in making
this request?"

I paused. He made no answer: I could see that he was secretly
struggling with himself. Had I ventured too far? Had I
overestimated the strength of my influence? My heart beat fast,
my voice faltered--but I summoned courage enough to take his
hand, and to make a last appeal to him. "Eustace," I said; "don't
you know me yet well enough to trust me?"

He turned toward me for the first time. I saw a last vanishing
trace of doubt in his eyes as they looked into mine.

"You promise, sooner or later, to tell me the whole truth?" he
said

"I promise with all my heart!"

"I trust you, Valeria!"

His brightening eyes told me that he really meant what he said.
We sealed our compact with a kiss. Pardon me for mentioning these
trifles--I am still writing (if you will kindly remember it) of
our new honeymoon.

By that day's post I answered Benjamin's letter, telling him
what I had done, and entreating him, if he and Mr. Playmore
approved of my conduct, to keep me informed of any future
discoveries which they might make at Gleninch.

After an interval---an endless interval, as it seemed to me--of
ten days more, I received a second letter from my old friend,
with another postscript added by Mr. Playmore.

"We are advancing steadily and successfully with the putting
together of the letter," Benjamin wrote. "The one new discovery
which we have made is of serious importance to your husband. We
have reconstructed certain sentences declaring, in the plainest
words, that the arsenic which Eustace procured was purchased at
the request of his wife, and was in her possession at Gleninch.
This, remember, is in the handwriting of the wife, and is signed
by the wife--as we have also found out. Unfortunately, I am
obliged to add that the objection to taking your husband into our
confidence, mentioned when I last wrote, still remains in
force--in greater force, I may say, than ever. The more we make
out of the letter, the more inclined we are (if we only studied
our own feelings) to throw it back into the dust-heap, in mercy
to the memory of the unhappy writer. I shall keep this open for a
day or two. If there is more news to tell you by that time you
will hear of it from Mr. Playmore."

Mr. Playmore's postscript followed, dated three days later.

"The concluding part of the late Mrs. Macallan's letter to her
husband," the lawyer wrote, "has proved accidentally to be the
first part which we have succeeded in piecing together. With the
exception of a few gaps still left, here and there, the writing
of the closing paragraphs has been perfectly reconstructed. I
have neither the time nor the inclination to write to you on this
sad subject in any detail. In a fortnight more, at the longest,
we shall, I hope, send you a copy of the letter, complete from
the first line to the last. Meanwhile, it is my duty to tell you
that there is one bright side to this otherwise deplorable and
shocking document. Legally speaking, as well as morally speaking,
it absolutely vindicates your husband's innocence. And it may be
lawfully used for this purpose--if he can reconcile it to his
conscience, and to the mercy due to the memory of the dead, to
permit the public exposure of the letter in Court. Understand me,
he cannot be tried again on what we call the criminal charge--for
certain technical reasons with which I need not trouble you. But,
if the facts which were involved at the criminal trial can also
be shown to be involved in a civil action (and in this case they
can), the entire matter may be made the subject of a new legal
inquiry; and the verdict of a second jury, completely vindicating
your husband, may thus be obtained. Keep this information to
yourself for the present. Preserve the position which you have so
sensibly adopted toward Eustace until you have read the restored
letter. When you have done this, my own idea is that you will
shrink, in pity to _him,_ from letting him see it. How he is to
be kept in ignorance of what we have discovered is another
question, the discussion of which must be deferred until we can
consult together. Until that time comes, I can only repeat my
advice--wait till the next news reaches you from Gleninch."

I waited. What I suffered, what Eustace thought of me, does not
matter. Nothing matters now but the facts.

In less than a fortnight more the task of restoring the letter
was completed. Excepting certain instances, in which the morsels
of the torn paper had been irretrievably lost--and in which it
had been necessary to complete the sense in harmony with the
writer's intention--the whole letter had been put together; and
the promised copy of it was forwarded to me in Paris.

Before you, too, read that dreadful letter, do me one favor. Let
me briefly remind you of the circumstances under which Eustace
Macallan married his first wife.

Remember that the poor creature fell in love with him without
awakening any corresponding affection on his side. Remember that
he separated himself from her, and did all he could to avoid her,
when he found this out. Remember that she presented herself at
his residence in London without a word of warning; that he did
his best to save her reputation; that he failed, through no fault
of his own; and that he ended, rashly ended in a moment of
despair, by marrying her, to silence the scandal that must
otherwise have blighted her life as a woman for the rest of her
days. Bear all this in mind (it is the sworn testimony of
respectable witnesses); and pray do not forget--however foolishly
and blamably he may have written about her in the secret pages of
his Diary--that he was proved to have done his best to conceal
from his wife the aversion which the poor soul inspired in him;
and that he was (in the opinion of those who could best judge
him) at least a courteous and a considerate husband, if he could
be no more.

And now take the letter. It asks but one favor of you: it asks to
be read by the light of Christ's teaching--"Judge not, that ye be
not judged."

CHAPTER XLVII.

THE WIFE'S CONFESSION.

"GLENINCH, October 19, 18--.

"MY HUSBAND--

"I have something very painful to tell you about one of your
oldest friends.

"You have never encouraged me to come to you with any confidences
of mine. If you had allowed me to be as familiar with you as some
wives are with their husbands, I should have spoken to you
personally instead of writing. As it is, I don't know how you
might receive what I have to say to you if I said it by word of
mouth. So I write.

"The man against whom I warn you is still a guest in this
house--Miserrimus Dexter. No falser or wickeder creature walks
the earth. Don't throw my letter aside! I have waited to say this
until I could find proof that might satisfy you. I have got the
proof.

"You may remember that I ventured to express some disapproval
when you first told me you had asked this man to visit us. If you
had allowed me time to explain myself, I might have been bold
enough to give you a good reason for the aversion I felt toward
your friend. But you would not wait. You hastily (and most
unjustly) accused me of feeling prejudiced against the miserable
creature on account of his deformity. No other feeling than
compassion for deformed persons has ever entered my mind. I have,
indeed, alm ost a fellow-feeling for them; being that next worst
thing myself to a deformity--a plain woman. I objected to Mr.
Dexter as your guest because he had asked me to be his wife in
past days, and because I had reason to fear that he still
regarded me (after my marriage) with a guilty and a horrible
love. Was it not my duty, as a good wife, to object to his being
your guest at Gleninch? And was it not your duty, as a good
husband, to encourage me to say more?

"Well, Mr. Dexter has been your guest for many weeks; and Mr.
Dexter has dared to speak to me again of his love. He has
insulted me, and insulted you, by declaring that _he_ adores me
and that _you_ hate me. He has promised me a life of unalloyed
happiness, in a foreign country with my lover; and he has
prophesied for me a life of unendurable misery at home with my
husband.

"Why did I not make my complaint to you, and have this monster
dismissed from the house at once and forever?

"Are you sure you would have believed me if I had complained, and
if your bosom friend had denied all intention of insulting me? I
heard you once say (when you were not aware that I was within
hearing) that the vainest women were always the ugly women. You
might have accused _me_ of vanity. Who knows?

"But I have no desire to shelter myself under this excuse. I am a
jealous, unhappy creature; always doubtful of your affection for
me; always fearing that another woman has got my place in your
heart. Miserrimus Dexter has practiced on this weakness of mine.
He has declared he can prove to me (if I will permit him) that I
am, in your secret heart, an object of loathing to you; that you
shrink from touching me; that you curse the hour when you were
foolish enough to make me your wife. I have struggled as long as
I could against the temptation to let him produce his proofs. It
was a terrible temptation to a woman who was far from feeling
sure of the sincerity of your affection for her; and it has ended
in getting the better of my resistance. I wickedly concealed the
disgust which the wretch inspired in me; I wickedly gave him
leave to explain himself; I wickedly permitted this enemy of
yours and of mine to take me into his confidence. And why?
Because I loved you, and you only; and because Miserrimus
Dexter's proposal did, after all, echo a doubt of you that had
long been gnawing secretly at my heart.

"Forgive me, Eustace! This is my first sin against you. It shall
be my last.

"I will not spare myself; I will write a full confession of what
I said to him and of what he said to me. You may make me suffer
for it when you know what I have done; but you will at least be
warned in time; you will see your false friend in his true light.

"I said to him, 'How can you prove to me that my husband hates me
in secret?'

"He answered, 'I can prove it under his own handwriting; you
shall see it in his Diary.'

"I said, 'His Diary has a lock; and the drawer in which he keeps
it has a lock. How can you get at the Diary and the drawer?'

"He answered, 'I have my own way of getting at both of them,
without the slightest risk of being discovered by your husband.
All you have to do is to give me the opportunity of seeing you
privately. I will engage, in return, to bring the open Diary with
me to your room.'

"I said, 'How can I give you the opportunity? What do you mean?'

'He pointed to the key in the door of communication between my
room and the little study.

"He said, 'With my infirmity, I may not be able to profit by the
first opportunity of visiting you here unobserved. I must be able
to choose my own time and my own way of getting to you secretly.
Let me take this key, leaving the door locked. When the key is
missed, if _you_ say it doesn't matter--if _you_ point out that
the door is locked, and tell the servants not to trouble
themselves about finding the key--there will be no disturbance in
the house; and I shall be in secure possession of a means of
communication with you which no one will suspect. Will you do
this?'

"I have done it.

"Yes! I have become the accomplice of this double-faced villain.
I have degraded myself and outraged you by making an appointment
to pry into your Diary. I know how base my conduct is. I can make
no excuse. I can only repeat that I love you, and that I am
sorely afraid you don't love me. And Miserrimus Dexter offers to
end my doubts by showing me the most secret thoughts of your
heart, in your own writing.

"He is to be with me, for this purpose (while you are out), some
time in the course of the next two hours I shall decline to be
satisfied with only once looking at your Diary; and I shall make
an appointment with him to bring it to me again at the same time
to-morrow. Before then you will receive these lines by the hand
of my nurse. Go out as usual after reading them; but return
privately, and unlock the table-drawer in which you keep your
book. You will find it gone. Post yourself quietly in the little
study; and you will discover the Diary (when Miserrimus Dexter
leaves me) in the hands of your friend.*

-----------------------------------
* Note by Mr. Playmore:

The greatest difficulties of reconstruction occurred in this
first portion of the torn letter. In the fourth paragraph from
the beginning we have been obliged to supply lost words in no
less than three places. In the ninth, tenth, and seventeenth
paragraphs the same proceeding was, in a greater or less degree,
found to be necessary. In all these cases the utmost pains have
been taken to supply the deficiency in exact accordance with what
appeared to be the meaning of the writer, as indicated in the
existing pieces of the manuscript.
-----------------------------------

"October 20.

"I have read your Diary.

"At last I know what you really think of me. I have read what
Miserrimus Dexter promised I should read--the confession of your
loathing for me, in your own handwriting.

"You will not receive what I wrote to you yesterday at the time
or in the manner which I had proposed. Long as my letter is, I
have still (after reading your Diary) some more words to add.
After I have closed and sealed the envelope, and addressed it to
you, I shall put it under my pillow. It will be found there when
I am laid out for the grave--and then, Eustace (when it is too
late for hope or help), my letter will be given to you.

"Yes: I have had enough of my life. Yes: I mean to die.

"I have already sacrificed everything but my life to my love for
you. Now I know that my love is not returned, the last sacrifice
left is easy. My death will set you free to marry Mrs. Beauly.

"You don't know what it cost me to control my hatred of her, and
to beg her to pay her visit here, without minding my illness. I
could never have done it if I had not been so fond of you, and so
fearful of irritating you against me by showing my jealousy. And
how did you reward me? Let your Diary answer: 'I tenderly
embraced her this very morning; and I hope, poor soul, she did
not discover the effort that it cost me.'

"Well, I have discovered it now. I know that you privately think
your life with me 'a purgatory.' I know that you have
compassionately hidden from me the 'sense of shrinking that comes
over you when you are obliged to submit to my caresses.' I am
nothing but an obstacle--an 'utterly distasteful'
obstacle--between you and the woman whom you love so dearly that
you 'adore the earth which she touches with her foot.' Be it so!
I will stand in your way no longer. It is no sacrifice and no
merit on my part. Life is unendurable to me, now I know that the
man whom I love with all my heart and soul secretly shrinks from
me whenever I touch him.

"I have got the means of death close at hand.

"The arsenic that I twice asked you to buy for me is in my
dressing-case. I deceived you when I mentioned some commonplace
domestic reasons for wanting it. My true reason was to try if I
could not improve my ugly complexion--not from any vain feeling
of mine: only to make myself look better and more lovable in your
eyes. I have taken some of it for that purpose; but I have got
plenty left to kill myself with. The poison will have its use at
last. It might have failed to improve my complexion--it will not
fail to relieve you of your ugly wife.

"Don't let me be examined after death. Show this letter to the
doctor who attends me. It will tell him that I have committed
suicide; it will prevent any innocent persons from being
suspected of poisoning me. I want nobody to be blamed or
punished. I shall remove the chemist's label, and carefully empty
the bottle containing the poison, so that he may not suffer on my
account.

"I must wait here, and rest a little while--then take up my
letter again. It is far too long already. But these are my
farewell words. I may surely dwell a little on my last talk with
you!

"October 21. Two o'clock in the morning.

"I sent you out of the room yesterday when you came in to ask how
I had passed the night. And I spoke of you shamefully, Eustace,
after you had gone, to the hired nurse who attends on me. Forgive
me. I am almost beside myself now. You know why.

"Half-past three.

"Oh, my husband, I have done the deed which will relieve you of
the wife whom you hate! I have taken the poison--all of it that
was left in the paper packet, which was the first that I found.
If this is not enough to kill me, I have more left in the bottle.

"Ten minutes past five.

"You have just gone, after giving me my composing draught. My
courage failed me at the sight of you. I thought to myself, 'If
he look at me kindly, I will confess what I have done, and let
him save my life.' You never looked at me at all. You only looked
at the medicine. I let you go without saying a word.

"Half-past five.

"I begin to feel the first effects of the poison. The nurse is
asleep at the foot of my bed. I won't call for assistance; I
won't wake her. I will die.

"Half-past nine.

"The agony was beyond my endurance--I awoke the nurse. I have
seen the doctor.

"Nobody suspects anything. Strange to say, the pain has left me;
I have evidently taken too little of the poison. I must open the
bottle which contains the larger quantity. Fortunately, you are
not near me--my resolution to die, or, rather, my loathing of
life, remains as bitterly unaltered as ever. To make sure of my
courage, I have forbidden the nurse to send for you. She has just
gone downstairs by my orders. I am free to get the poison out of
my dressing-case.

"Ten minutes to ten.

"I had just time to hide the bottle (after the nurse had left me)
when you came into my room.

"I had another moment of weakness when I saw you. I determined to
give myself a last chance of life. That is to say, I determined
to offer you a last opportunity of treating me kindly. I asked
you to get me a cup of tea. If, in paying me this little
attention, you only encouraged me by one fond word or one fond
look, I resolved not to take the second dose of poison.

"You obeyed my wishes, but you were not kind. You gave me my tea,
Eustace, as if you were giving a drink to your dog. And then you
wondered in a languid way (thinking, I suppose, of Mrs. Beauly
all the time), at my dropping the cup in handing it back to you.
I really could not help it; my hand _would_ tremble. In my place,
your hand might have trembled too--with the arsenic under the
bedclothes. You politely hoped, before you went away? that the
tea would do me good--and, oh God, you could not even look at me
when you said that! You looked at the broken bits of the tea-cup.

"The instant you were out of the room I took the poison--a double
dose this time.

"I have a little request to make here, while I think of it.

"After removing the label from the bottle, and putting it back,
clean, in my dressing-case, it struck me that I had failed to
take the same precaution (in the early morning) with the empty
paper-packet, bearing on it the name of the other chemist. I
threw it aside on the counterpane of the bed, among some other
loose papers. my ill-tempered nurse complained of the litter, and
crumpled them all up and put them away somewhere. I hope the
chemist will not suffer through my carelessness. Pray bear it in
mind to say that he is not to blame.

"Dexter--something reminds me of Miserrimus Dexter. He has put
your Diary back again in the drawer, and he presses me for an
answer to his proposals. Has this false wretch any conscience? If
he has, even he will suffer--when my death answers him.

"The nurse has been in my room again. I have sent her away. I
have told her I want to be alone.

"How is the time going? I cannot find my watch. Is the pain
coming back again and paralyzing me? I don't feel it keenly yet.

"It may come back, though, at any moment. I have still to close
my letter and to address it to you. And, besides, I must save up
my strength to hide it under the pillow, so that nobody may find
it until after my death.

"Farewell, my dear. I wish I had been a prettier woman. A more
loving woman (toward you) I could not be. Even now I dread the
sight of your dear face. Even now, if I allowed myself the luxury
of looking at you, I don't know that you might not charm me into
confessing what I have done--before it is too late to save me.

"But you are not here. Better as it is! better as it is!

"Once more, farewell! Be happier than you have been with me. I
love you, Eustace--I forgive you. When you have nothing else to
think about, think sometimes, as kindly as you can, of your poor,
ugly

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