The Shadow of a Sin

"Why did she come?" some one near heard him murmur. "I would have died for her."

Then, amid profound and breathless silence, there entered the witness-box a graceful girlish figure, on which all eyes were immediately bent. She raised her veil, and a thrill of admiration went through that thronged assembly as the beautiful, colorless face, so lovely, so pure, so full of earnest purpose, was turned to the judge. She did not seem to notice the hundreds of admiring, wondering eyes – it was as though she stood before the judge alone.

"Do not speak, Hyacinth," said the prisoner, vehemently; and in a low voice he added: "I can bear it all – do not speak."

"Silence!" spoke the judge, sternly. "This is a court of justice; we must have no suppression of the truth."

"Your name is Hyacinth Vaughan?" was the first question asked.

"My name is Hyacinth Vaughan," was the reply; and the voice that spoke was so sweet, so sad, so musical, that people bent forward to listen more eagerly. Sergeant Burton looked at the beautiful, pallid, high-bred face.

"You were in the company of the accused on the night of Wednesday, the 12th of June?"

"Yes," she said.

"Will you state what happened?" asked the sergeant, blandly.

Hyacinth looked at the judge: her lips opened, and then closed, as though she would fain speak, but could not. It was an interval of intense excitement in court.

"Will you tell us why you were in his company, Miss Vaughan, and whither you went?" said the sergeant.

"My lord," she said – for it was at the judge she looked always – of the presence of the jury she seemed totally ignorant – "I will tell you all about it. I went away with Mr. Lennox – to go to London – to be married there."

"Unknown to your friends?" asked the judge.

"Unknown to anyone."

Here Hyacinth paused, and the lips that had been speaking turned deathly white.

"Tell us about it in your own way, Miss Vaughan," said the judge – the sight of that tortured young face moved him to deepest pity – "do not be afraid."

Then the fear seemed to die away from her: in all that vast assembly she saw no face but that of the judge looking steadily and intently at her own.

"My lord," she said, "I was very dull at home; everyone was kind to me, but there was no one there of my own age, and I was very dull. I made Mr. Lennox's acquaintance, and liked him very much – I thought I loved him – and when he asked me to run away from home and marry him I was quite willing."

"But what need was there to run away?" asked the judge, kindly. He knew the question pained her, for her lips quivered and her whole face changed.

"In our folly there were reasons that seemed to us to make it imperative," she replied. "My friends had other views for me, and I was to start for the Continent on Friday, the fourteenth of June. It seemed certain to us that unless we were married at once we should never be married at all."

"I understand," put in the judge, kindly; "go on with your story."

"I did not think much about it, my lord," continued Hyacinth, – "that is, about the right and the wrong of it – I thought only of the romance; and we agreed to go up to London by the train that passed Oakton soon after midnight. I left my home and met Mr. Lennox at the end of my grandparents' grounds; we went to the station together. I kept out of sight while he took tickets for both of us at the booking-office."

"The clerk at Oakton station will prove that the accused purchased two tickets," interrupted Sergeant Burton. The judge nodded, and the young girl continued:

"We got into the train and went as far as Leybridge. There the train stopped. Mr. Lennox told me that the mail train we were to meet had been delayed by an accident, and that we should have to wait some hours at the station. The morning was breaking then, and we were alarmed lest someone should come to the station who might recognize me. Mr. Lennox suggested that, as the morning was bright and pleasant, we should go through the fields, and I gladly consented."

All this time the clear, sweet young voice sounded like music in the warmth and silence of the summer air.

"We reached the field called Lime Meadow, and stood there, leaning over the stile, when I thought I saw something under a hedge. We went to see. It was a woman who had been sleeping there. My lord, she looked very faint, very wild and weak. We spoke to her. She told us that her name was Anna Barratt, and that she was married, but that she was very unhappy. She was going with her husband to Liverpool. She told us her story, my lord, and it frightened me. She told us that she had once been a bright happy girl at home, and that against her mother's advice she had eloped with the man who had sought her hand, and married him. Her words struck me like a sharp blow. She said it was better to break one's heart at home than to run away from it. Mr. Lennox was very sorry for her; and, when I saw her poor bruised hand lying on the grass, I bound it up. My lord, I asked Mr. Lennox for his handkerchief, and I wrapped it around her hand."

There was such a murmur of excitement in the court that the speaker was obliged to pause.

"Go on, Miss Vaughan," said the judge. Still looking at him, and him only, she continued:

"Mr. Lennox gave her some money. She told us that her husband beat her; that he had bruised her hand, and that she was quite sure he would come back to murder her. Then Mr. Lennox told her, that if she feared that, to get up and come away; he gave her two sovereigns and told her to go to London. He wrote down his address on a piece of folded paper, and told her if she would either come or write to that address, his mother would befriend her. She asked Heaven to bless us, my lord, and turned away her head, as though she were tired. We walked on, and did not see her again."

And again Hyacinth paused, while those in court seemed to hang upon the words that came from her lips.

"Then, my lord," she continued, "I began to think of what she had said – that it was better to break one's heart at home than to run away from it. All at once the folly and wickedness of what I was about to do appeared to me. I began to cry, and begged of Mr. Lennox to take me home."

"A very common termination to an elopement," observed the judge.

"Mr. Lennox was very kind to me," continued the earnest voice. "When he saw that I really wanted to go home, he took me back to Oakton, and left me in the grounds where we had met so short a time before. My lord, I swear to you most solemnly that this is the whole truth."

"Will you explain to us," inquired the prosecution, "why, knowing all this, you have allowed matters to proceed so far against the accused? Why did you not come forward earlier, and reveal the truth?"

"My lord," she said, still looking at the quiet face of the judge, "I knew nothing of the case until twenty-four hours ago. I started with my grandparents on the Friday morning for the Continent, and have been living at Bergheim since. I knew of the trial only the night before last, and I came hither at once."

"You came alone; and immediately?"

"Yes," she replied. "I have lost everything by so coming. I can never go back among my kindred again. I shall never be forgiven."

There was a brief pause. The foreman of the jury gave a written paper to the usher to be handed to the judge – a paper which intimated that the jury did not think it necessary to go on with the case, feeling convinced, from the evidence of Miss Vaughan, that Mr. Lennox was perfectly innocent of the crime imputed to his charge. The judge read the paper carefully, and then, looking at the witness, said:

"Miss Vaughan, you committed a great error – an error perhaps in some degree excusable from your youth. But you have atoned for it more nobly than error was ever atoned for before. At the risk of losing all most dear to you, and of exposing yourself to the comments of the world, you have come forward to save Mr. Lennox. I, for one, must express my admiration of your conduct. Your evidence has acquitted the prisoner – the jury have intimated that there is no need to proceed with the case."

Then arose cheers that could not be silenced. In vain the judge held up his hand in warning and the usher cried "Silence!"

"Heaven bless her," cried the women, with weeping eyes.

"She is a heroine!" the men said, with flushed faces.

There was a general commotion; and when it had subsided she had disappeared. Those who had watched her to the last said that when the judge, in his stately manner, praised her, her face flushed and her lips quivered; then it grew deathly pale again, and she glided away.

CHAPTER XXI

The famous trial was over; the "sensation" was at an end. The accused Claude Lennox stood once more free among his fellow-men. Loud cheers greeted him, loud acclamations followed him. He was the popular idol. His friends surrounded him. "Bravo, Claude, old friend! I thought it would come right. We knew you were innocent. But what a terrible thing circumstantial evidence is!" Claude stood in the midst of a large circle of well-wishers. Colonel Lennox, whose anger had all vanished when he found his nephew in real danger, stood by his side. He seemed to have grown older and grayer.

"It was a narrow escape for you, Claude," he said, and his voice trembled and his limbs shook.

"My thanks are due to Heaven," said the young man, reverently. "Humanly speaking, I owe my life to that brave girl who has risked everything to save me. Oh, uncle, where is she? We are talking idly here when I owe my life to her; and I know all she has suffered and lost to save me."

They went back hurriedly to the court, but there was no trace of Hyacinth. People stood in little groups in the street, and of every group she was the subject of conversation.

"I shall never forget her," said one woman, "if I live to be a hundred years old. They may talk of heroines if they like, but I never heard of one braver than she has been."

"Did you hear that, uncle?" cried Claude. "How they admire her! She is noble, good, and true. I know what it has cost her to come forward; I know what a home she has had – her people all so rigid, so cold, so formal. How am I to thank her?"