Page:The Mystery of a Hansom Cab.djvu/84

80 a man when he is down; but if one-half of the world does act in such a brutal manner, the other consoles the prostrate individual with half-pence. So, taking things as a whole, though the weight of public opinion was dead against the innocence of Fitzgerald, still he had his friends and sympathizers, who stood up for him and declared that he had been wrongly accused.

The opinions of these kindly individuals were told to Madge, and she was much comforted thereby. Other people thought him innocent, and she was firmly convinced that they were right. If the whole of Melbourne had unanimously condemned Brian she would have still believed in his innocence. But then women are so singularly illogical—the world may be against a man, but the woman who loves him will stand boldly forth as his champion. No matter how low, how vile a man may be, if a woman loves him she exalts him to the rank of a demi-god, and refuses to see the clay feet of her idol. When all others forsake she clings to him, when all others frown she smiles on him, and when he dies she reverences his memory as that of a saint and a martyr. Young men of the present day are very fond of running down women, and think it a manly thing to sneer at them for their failings; but God help the man who, in time of trouble, has not a woman to stand by his side with cheering words and loving smiles to help him in the battle of life. And so Madge Frettlby, true woman as she was, had nailed her colors to the mast, and refused to surrender to any one, whatever arguments they brought against her. He was innocent, and his innocence would be proved, for she had an intuitive feeling that he would be saved at the eleventh hour. How, she knew not; but she was certain that it would be so. She would have gone and seen Brian in prison, but that her father absolutely forbade her doing so, and she was dependent upon Calton for all the news respecting him, and any message which she wished conveyed.

Calton was very much annoyed at Brian's persistent refusal to set up the defense of an alibi, and, as he felt sure that the young man could do so, he was anxious to find out the reason why he would not do so.

"If it's for the sake of a woman," he said to Brian, "I don't care who she is, it's absurdly Quixotic.