It was written for her by the English consul at the French town in which she lived. he informed me that she had been a widow for some years past; and he summoned me instantly to her bedside if I wished to see her again before she died.
I was just in time to find her living. She was past speaking to me but, thank God, she understood what I meant when I kissed her and asked her to forgive me. Towards evening the poor soul passed away quietly, with her head resting on my breast.
The consul had written down what she had wanted to say to me. I leave the persons who may read this to judge what my feelings were when I discovered that my sister's husband was the wretch who had assisted the escape of Dina Coomb, and who had thus been the means of condemning an innocent man to death on the scaffold.
On one of those visits on business to England of which I have already spoken , he had met a little girl sitting under a hedge at the side of the high road, lost, footsore, and frightened, and had spoken to her. She owned that she had run away from home after a most severe beating. She showed the marks. A worthy man would have put her under the protection of the nearest magistrate.
My rascally brother-in-law noticed her valuable watch, and, suspecting that she might be connected with wealthy people, he encouraged her to talk. When he was well assured of her expectations, and of the use to which he might put them in her friendless situation, he offered to adopt her, and he took her away with him to France.
My sister, having no child of her own took a liking to Dina, and readily believed what her husband chose to tell her. For three years the girl lived with them. She cared little for the good woman who was always kind to her, but she was most unreasonably fond of the villain who had kidnapped her.
After his death this runaway creature -- then aged fifteen -- was missing again. She left a farewell letter to my sister, saying that she had found another friend: and from that time forth nothing more had been heard of her, for years on years. This had weighed on my sister's mind, and this was what she had wanted to tell me on her deathbed. Knowing nothing of the trial, she was aware that Dina belonged to the neighbourhood of Betminster, and she thought in her ignorance that I might communicate with Dina's friends, if such persons existed.
On my return to England I thought it a duty to show to the Mayor of Betminster what the consul had written from my sister's dictation. He read it and heard what I had to tell him. Then he reckoned up the years that had passed. says he, 'The girl must be of age by this time: I shall cause inquiries to be made in London.'
In a week more we did hear of Dina Coomb. She had returned to her own country, with a French husband at her heels, had proved her claim, and had got her money.
*This terrible miscarriage of justice happened before the time when trials were reported in the newspapers, and led to one valuable result: Since that time it has been a first and foremost condition of a trial for murder that the body of the slain person shall have been discovered and identified. -- W. C.