Page:Lippincotts Monthly Magazine-39.djvu/86

76 At this announcement, John, whose face had lightened a little during the previous few moments, suddenly turned white, and leaned heavily against the back of his chair.

"Yes, I know that," returned Sinfire, quietly.

"How do you account for it?"

"As I was on my way back to the barn, I saw a rabbit crossing the path, and I fired at it. It was the impulse of a moment, and I was sorry, directly afterwards, that I had killed the poor creature."

"It was an impulse that may have fatal consequences for you, madam," rejoined the lawyer, while a low muttering of discordant feeling ran through the room.—"Your honor," he continued, "we have treated this lady with every consideration, and she has been allowed to take her own course in the story she has told. We had witnesses ready to speak to several points, but the cynical frankness which has characterized the greater part of the narrative to which you have just listened renders their confirmation superfluous; while as for the conclusion of the tale, so manifestly artificial and out of keeping with the rest, it will not, I think, carry any weight of conviction with it. We have been told that the witness had a motive for enmity and hatred against the deceased, reaching back to a period antecedent to her appearance in this community; and her presentation of herself before us as the offspring of an unconsecrated union, and therefore without recognized social status, justifies the inference that in whatever may have happened between her and the deceased he was not the only or the chief one to blame. Be that as it may, she conceived a malignant purpose against him "

Why should I concern myself to reproduce the fluent rigmarole uttered by this solemn legal fool? He spoke according to his light, but his light was darkness. He ended by proposing that Sinfire should be committed for trial, without further ceremony, on the charge of the wilful and premeditated murder of Henry Mainwaring; and it would doubtless have been so ordered, if I had not arisen and stated that I was prepared to make a deposition of the gravest importance, which would put a very different construction upon what had just been heard. The judge accorded me permission to give my evidence in my own way. In accordance with what I had resolved upon the night before, I requested to be sworn; and when the oath had been administered, this is what I said:

"I do not pretend to explain why the lady who has just testified has wilfully laid herself open to a charge of which she is as innocent as I am myself. It is my business only to prove that she is innocent of it; and that I shall do beyond any doubt. As to the account she gives