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The Dead Alive
by
“Don’t you see that I am ashamed to look you in the face?” she said, in low, broken tones. “Let me go.”
I still persisted in trying to soothe her. I drew her to the window-seat. I said I would wait until she was able to speak to me.
She dropped on the seat, and wrung her hands on her lap. Her downcast eyes still obstinately avoided meeting mine.
“Oh!” she said to herself, “what madness possessed me? Is it possible that I ever disgraced myself by loving Ambrose Meadowcroft?” She shuddered as the idea found its way to expression on her lips. The tears rolled slowly over her cheeks. “Don’t despise me, Mr. Lefrank!” she said, faintly.
I tried, honestly tried, to put the confession before her in its least unfavorable light.
“His resolution has given way,” I said. “He has done this, despairing of proving his innocence, in terror of the scaffold.”
She rose, with an angry stamp of her foot. She turned her face on me with the deep-red flush of shame in it, and the big tears glistening in her eyes.
“No more of him!” she said, sternly. “If he is not a murderer, what else is he? A liar and a coward! In which of his characters does he disgrace me most? I have done with him forever! I will never speak to him again!” She pushed me furiously away from her; advanced a few steps toward her own door; stopped, and came back to me. The generous nature of the girl spoke in her next words. “I am not ungrateful to you, friend Lefrank. A woman in my place is only a woman; and, when she is shamed as I am, she feels it very bitterly. Give me your hand! God bless you!”
She put my hand to her lips before I was aware of her, and kissed it, and ran back into her room.
I sat down on the place which she had occupied. She had looked at me for one moment when she kissed my hand. I forgot Ambrose and his confession; I forgot the coming trial; I forgot my professional duties and my English friends. There I sat, in a fool’s elysium of my own making, with absolutely nothing in my mind but the picture of Naomi’s face at the moment when she had last looked at me!
I have already mentioned that I was in love with her. I merely add this to satisfy you that I tell the truth.
CHAPTER XI. THE PEBBLE AND THE WINDOW.
MISS MEADOWCROFT and I were the only representatives of the family at the farm who attended the trial. We went separately to Narrabee. Excepting the ordinary greetings at morning and night, Miss Meadowcroft had not said one word to me since the time when I had told her that I did not believe John Jago to be a living man.
I have purposely abstained from encumbering my narrative with legal details. I now propose to state the nature of the defense in the briefest outline only.
We insisted on making both the prisoners plead not guilty. This done, we took an objection to the legality of the proceedings at starting. We appealed to the old English law, that there should be no conviction for murder until the body of the murdered person was found, or proof of its destruction obtained beyond a doubt. We denied that sufficient proof had been obtained in the case now before the court.
The judges consulted, and decided that the trial should go on.
We took our next objection when the confessions were produced in evidence. We declared that they had been extorted by terror, or by undue influence; and we pointed out certain minor particulars in which the two confessions failed to corroborate each other. For the rest, our defense on this occasion was, as to essentials, what our defense had been at the inquiry before the magistrate. Once more the judges consulted, and once more they overruled our objection. The confessions were admitted in evidence. On their side, the prosecution produced one new witness in support of their case. It is needless to waste time in recapitulating his evidence. He contradicted himself gravely on cross-examination. We showed plainly, and after investigation proved, that he was not to be believed on his oath.