THE MAMS OF LOVE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XL, Issue 12269, 13 May 1903, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE MAMS OF LOVE.

BY KATHARINE WYNNE, Author of •' Silken Bonds." " The Mystery of Moreton Honse," " An Impossible Thing." Etc., Etc., Etc. CHAPTER XXXlV.—(Continued.) . "Then I understand," continued Bight, " that you deliberately kept your knowledge to yourself." " You are certainly at liberty to understand it, if you can," retorted Trevalgan, equally sharp. There was a snigger, which the judge instantly and' severely repressed. "Of course, you know that you thereby rendered yourself an accessory after the fact?" $ " I do." "Are you merely acquainted with the prisoner, or is there any more intimate connection between you." " She is engaged to be married to me." "You offered her marriage at the time she was hiding in London, under an alias, from a charge of murder?" " No; I proposed to her after she had surrendered." The answer was a mistake, although he did not • see it till too late. Bight's last half-dozen questions had been leading up to it. "Which means that, until then, you believed her guilty?" "I am ashanjpd to say that I did doubt her," said Trevalgan. "It was to convince m&: of her -innocence that she is standing in the dock now."

A murmur like that of a summer sea upon the shore showed the public's approval and sympathy, and Trevalgan left the witnessbox and resumed his seat beside Willis. He had made alarming admissions unavoidably, but the favourable impression Paula's beauty and romantic love-story had aroused at first-had been more deepened by his evidence. This was not Treneglos, visibly, and Robert's spirits* rose. They soon sank again when Pete was called. The boy had to be led to the witness-box; he looked dazed, as pale as death. The prosecution knew its witness, evidently, and treated him tenderly, putting his answers into his mouth.

"You are the younger brother of the deceased'"

Pete clung on to the wood before him with both hands, and flung a scared look round the Court.

" Yes, sir." "Did you leave your brother and the prisoner alone in the parlour after the marriage?"

" Yes, sir."

" And the next time you entered the room it was in answer to your mother's summons, and he was lying on the floor stabbed?" " There was blood — whispered the lad, with, a ghastly look. "It made me sick. I went away." "That'll do, my lad," said Bight, gently. " You can step down." Counsel spoke in an undertone to judge and jury; be was understood to explain that witness was of weak intellect.

Pete did not appear to heed; he resumed his seat beside hie mother, and the case went on.

A police-inspector— man who had interviewed Trevalgan at the bungalow, while Paula was hidden behind the screen— his evidence then; and some of the farmservants were called to prove Paula's bad feeling toward the man she was to marry, and to corroborate the testimony of Mrs. Hendra and Pete.

By this time it was the luncheon-hour; there was an adjournment, and Robert was allowed to see Paula. " My love!" "Oh, Robert!" she sighed. He drew her head down to his shoulder, and smoothed her hair, and clasped her close to him.

"Robert .... the end ..«,■. is coming .... so soon!" ' " The jury is with us. Courage, courage, dear love."

"My God, I shall die before it comes! To wait, Robert, to wait!" "If I could bear all—if I could take your share, too!" " But you can't!" she cried, shrilly, in a sudden uncontrollable frenzy of terror and despair. " Nobody can help me, nobody ! Robert, I can't go back to the Court! I can't stand it. I shall go mad! If it had all come at once, and finished at once, when my courage was new, but the waiting has made me a coward! Robert, save me, help me! What shall I do?"

"Oh, God!" moaned the man, with his head flung back, and his distended eyes upturned in agony. "Oh, God!" And he could do nothing for her. He could not even give himself in her place. To Lave her in his hands, terrified, hunted, like this, and to be powerless! It was a horrible scene. The woman's nerves had broken down with a vengeance. She clung to him when they came to take her back into the Court and screamed, and tore herself to pieces and him as well. Willis led Trevalgan away, more dead than alive, and, as they took their places, the final speech for the defence began. It was a clever speech; it suggested the possibility of the murderer watching through the window and entering silently to do his deadly work; it scouted the idea that Hendra had called upon his wife other than as a dying man would call to the woman he loved; it dilated upon the natural terror of a young girl accused point-blank of a terrible crime.

"A man," said Sir Chanes, " would have known better than to run away,- even an older woman would have known that such an action must bear the worst construction ; but they aiust remember this was a young girl they had to deal with—a girl wholly ignorant of the world and of the law. Like a frightened doe, her instinct was to escape, and she had escaped— hide herself in London until a man she trusted had shown her her mistake, and induced her to take this step, in order to cleat the shadow, £«mj he? name., Was the .ca&.

fidenre she thereby placed in the justice mid insight of her fellow-countrymen, misplacedV" inquired Sir Charles, pathetically„ and he ventured to believe that the human© and intelligent jury before him would nob be misled by circumstantial evidence, bub would restore this, noble woman, who stood here on her own accord, to the liberty she had relinquished and to the arms of the mau she loved.

The sentiment, was just enough, and not) 100 much, and a juryman blew his nose and Trevalgan's heart gave a hopeful jump. Then Right got on his feel again, and threw cold water on hi:, learned friend's hypothesis and sentiment, and placed the matter in the cold light of common sense.

He harped upon the fact that there was no one else interested in Hendra's death — this woman alone cared whether lie lived or died that day. As for her surrender, his examination of Doctor Trevalgan had proved that it was not till she was in love with this man, and forced to appear innocent in his eyes, that she had given herself up. His learned friend enlarged also upon her innocence and simplicity. Was there anything unsophisticated in the May she had contrived tt elud. the ■police so long? Was not her successful escape rather the work of a woman of coolness and ability than of Uk "frightened doe." so ably sketched by his learned friend? The prisoner's actions did no*' tally with this suppositious character, and he must ask the jury to dismiss false sentiment front the case altogether, and look alone at the damning facts which pointed to this woman as the murderess of he t husband.

The judge's summing-up vr« brief, and impartial enough. Trevalgan was in agony ;j he dared not look at Paula; he looked aft the jury instead. Those twelve commonplace British tradesmen held the life of the woman he loved in their hands.

They were not going to retire; their opinion, were already formed and undivid* ed!

They muttered among themselves for & moment, and then the foreman rose. Guilty lie said, with a strong re- i commendation to mercy on account of her. youth and the great provocation received." A dry sob broke from Trevalgan's lips„ the light went out before his eyes, Lis head swam,

lie felt Willis' hand on his arm, bidding him to rise, and then he heard the judge's voice:

". . . . to be hanged by the neck; till you be dead. May God have mercy on. your soul! The jury's recommendation will bo reported to the Home Secretary, and his reply communicated to you in due course." There was a sound like a sod of wind iui Court—the expelling of many withheld breaths, and almost immediately the scrape and shuffle of rising feet. It was over; she had paid the price of her love, indeed! He looked toward her then, and stretched out a trembling hand with God knows what emotion tearing his breast, but she did not, see him: she had fainted.

Her sentence would probably be commuted to penal servitude for life; at best that would mean twenty years—twenty years! She would be a middle-aged woman when she came out, heart-sick, broken, weary, and he would nc longer be a. young man,' but, on the spot, lie swore an inward vow of fidelity; whenever she came, whatever she had become, she would find him waiting —true.

They had carried her out, and tho judge was leaving the Court, when, suddenly, therewas an interruption which stayed the exodus with a. magic hand. " It's a lie! She didn't kill Jim! I did!'" Pete was standing up in the body of the Court; the lad's face was deathly white, his eyes wild, his shrill voice, higher-pitched even than usual in his excitement, rang out like a clarion note.

In a moment unutterable excitement pre* vailed*.

Mrs. Hendra seized him by the sleeve and endeavoured to drag him away.;.; ' "Don't listen tr him, gentlemen!" she cried. "He is not right in his head; he don't know what he's saying!" " I do know what I'm a-sayin' of!" shriek-' ed the lad, hysterically, passion overcoming, fear. " I tell you, I killed Jim! I won'fei have her hanged for me. He was a heaffy to her and me, and I hated him, and 1 came back after she had left him and stuck the knife in 'im when he wasn't expectin' it.,, I liked her, and I wasn't goin' to have 'er made miserable for him; nobody was ever kind to me like she was. And I doan* care.. I'm glad I did it; I'd do it again!" When Paula regained her senses she was in the bare waiting-room adjoining the Court, and Robert was holding brandy ta her lips, and Cecil was bathing her fore-, head and chafing her hands. . The girl gave a heart-rending moan; she( had not heard the half-witted lad's con-, fession; the last voice that had reached her} ears had been that ox the judge's,, passing sentence. .

"Oh, Robert!" she wailed. "I shall' never see you again." ■~ For answer the man clasped her in hbi amis; his chest was heaving the lightl of God's heaven shone in his eyes. i "Yes," he cried, "we shall meet again,) once only, for we shall meet to part no more! My love, my dear wife, smile, kiss me, throw your arms round my neck and" say with me: ' Thank God!' The murderer has confessed; in a day or two you will tr ( free."

fcShe wept hysterically then, with inco-' herent phrases of gratitude and relief, and laughed as well, like a thing half-mad, and' he soothed her with kisses and cresses,, i and tender words as broken as her own. ' i And Cecil and Frank went to the window and turned their backs, and held each other's hands, and Cecil cried a quiet, little cry of her own against her lover's sleeve. As soon as the necessary formalities had been complied with Paula was released, and Mrs. Ghevenix insisted that she should come to her until the wedding. Her visit was only a short one, however. Robert declined to. wait any longer for his wife; they had had enough waiting-, he said, and Paula was not likely to refuse her consent.

Whereupon Mr. Villars hinted at a gross injustice to himself. "I don't see why Robert should have twe adoring women to look after him, and me none," he complained, and Cecil, out' of a sheer sense of justice, was obliged to remedy the grievance.

Wherefore, it happened that -within three weeks ot the momentous trial two couple* were married quietly on the same day afc the same church, in the presence of a few friends and relations alone, and immediately afterwards Mr. and Mrs. Villars proceeded to India, for a short time, and Doctor and Mrs. Trevalgan tc the South.

The one dash of bitterness in Paula's cup of happiness was regret for the fate of the unhappy Pete. But even that was removed by and by.

From the date of the trial the lad's mental condition had revealed itself so plainly that ihe had been certified as irresponsible at; once, and sentenced to be confined " during Her Majesty's pleasure." A week later he died.

Paula and Robert were at Cannes when' the news came to them.

If he had lived he would only have been a burden to himself and others; it was a merciful dispensation in every way; she knew, the* both knew, that it vrss so. Nevertheless, the woman's eyes were a little misty, and she nest-led her hand into Robert's in a way he understood. " Poor lad," she said, moved; " after all he did it for me, and he didn't know how wrong it was." Her head sank on his shoulder with a sigh of restful content.

" It's all over now, Robert." " Yes, all over, dearest," he said, pressing his cheek to hers. "We have had our share of shadows. Please God, wo shall only have the sunshine now." [the Era] On Saturday, May 16, the first instalment of a new and fascinating serial will appear in these columns, entitled "HIS ONLY. DAUGHTER," by that populav writer* Charles Garvice. Do not miss the opening chapters in the New: Zealand