Enough, and more than enough, remained to make the case for the prosecution complete. The magistrates committed Helena Gracedieu for trial at the next assizes.
I arrived in the town, as well as I can remember, about a week after the trial had taken place.
Found guilty, the prisoner had been recommended to mercy by the jury--partly in consideration of her youth; partly as an expression of sympathy and respect for her unhappy father. The judge (a father himself) passed a lenient sentence. She was condemned to imprisonment for two years. The careful matron of the jail had provided herself with a bottle of smelling-salts, in the fear that there might be need for it when Helena heard her sentence pronounced. Not the slightest sign of agitation appeared in her face or her manner. She lied to the last; asserting her innocence in a firm voice, and returning from the dock to the prison without requiring assistance from anybody.
Relating these particulars to me, in a state of ungovernable excitement, good Miss Jillgall ended with a little confession of her own, which operated as a relief to my overburdened mind after what I had just heard.
"I wouldn't own it," she said, "to anybody but a dear friend. One thing, in the dreadful disgrace that has fallen on us, I am quite at a loss to account for. Think of Mr. Gracedieu's daughter being one of those criminal creatures on whom it was once your terrible duty to turn the key! Why didn't she commit suicide?"
"My dear lady, no thoroughly wicked creature ever yet committed suicide. Self-destruction, when it is not an act of madness, implies some acuteness of feeling--sensibility to remorse or to shame, or perhaps a distorted idea of making atonement. There is no such thing as remorse or shame, or hope of making atonement, in Helena's nature."
"But when she comes out of prison, what will she do?"
"Don't alarm yourself, my good friend. She will do very well."
"Oh, hush! hush! Poetical justice, Mr. Governor!"
"Poetical fiddlesticks, Miss Jillgall."
CHAPTER LXIII.
THE OBSTACLE REMOVED.
When the subject of the trial was happily dismissed, my first inquiry related to Eunice. The reply was made with an ominous accompaniment of sighs and sad looks. Eunice had gone back to her duties as governess at the farm. Hearing this, I asked naturally what had become of Philip.
Melancholy news, again, was the news that I now heard.
Mr. Dunboyne the elder had died suddenly, at his house in Ireland, while Philip was on his way home. When the funeral ceremony had come to an end, the will was read. It had been made only a few days before the testator's death; and the clause which left all his property to his son was preceded by expressions of paternal affection, at a time when Philip was in sore need of consolation. After alluding to a letter, received from his son, the old man added: "I always loved him, without caring to confess it; I detest scenes of sentiment, kissings, embracings, tears, and that sort of thing. But Philip has yielded to my wishes, and has broken off a marriage which would have made him, as well as me, wretched for life. After this, I may speak my mind from my grave, and may tell my boy that I loved him. If the wish is likely to be of any use, I will add (on the chance)--God bless him."
"Does Philip submit to separation from Eunice?" I asked. "Does he stay in Ireland?"
"Not he, poor fellow! He will be here to-morrow or next day. When I last wrote," Miss Jillgall continued, "I told him I hoped to see you again soon. If you can't help us (I mean with Eunice) that unlucky young man will do some desperate thing. He will join those madmen at large who disturb poor savages in Africa, or go nowhere to find nothing in the Arctic regions.
"Whatever I can do, Miss Jillgall, shall be gladly done. Is it really possible that Eunice refuses to marry him, after having saved his life?"
"A little patience, please, Mr. Governor; let Philip tell his own story. If I try to do it, I shall only cry--and we have had tears enough lately, in this house."
Further consultation being thus deferred, I went upstairs to the Minister's room.
He was sitting by the window, in his favorite armchair, absorbed in knitting! The person who attended on him, a good-natured, patient fellow, had been a sailor in his younger days, and had taught Mr. Gracedieu how to use the needles. "You see it amuses him," the man said, kindly. "Don't notice his mistakes, he thinks there isn't such another in the world for knitting as himself. You can see, sir, how he sticks to it." He was so absorbed over his employment that I had to speak to him twice, before I could induce him to look at me. The utter ruin of his intellect did not appear to have exercised any disastrous influence over his bodily health. On the contrary, he had grown fatter since I had last seen him; his complexion had lost the pallor that I remembered-- there was color in his cheeks.
"Don't you remember your old friend?" I said. He smiled, and nodded, and repeated the words:
"Yes, yes, my old friend." It was only too plain that he had not the least recollection of me. "His memory is gone," the man said. "When he puts away his knitting, at night, I have to find it for him in the morning. But, there! he's happy--enjoys his victuals, likes sitting out in the garden and watching the birds. There's been a deal of trouble in the family, sir; and it has all passed over him like a wet sponge over a slate." The old sailor was right. If that wreck of a man had been capable of feeling and thinking, his daughter's disgrace would have broken his heart. In a world of sin and sorrow, is peaceable imbecility always to be pitied? I have known men who would have answered, without hesitation: "It is to be envied." And where (some persons might say) was the poor Minister's reward for the act of mercy which had saved Eunice in her infancy? Where it ought to be! A man who worthily performs a good action finds his reward in the action itself.
At breakfast, on the next day, the talk touched on those passages in Helena's diary, which had been produced in court as evidence against her.
I expressed a wish to see what revelation of a depraved nature the entries in the diary might present; and my curiosity was gratified. At a fitter time, I may find an opportunity of alluding to the impression produced on me by the diary. In the meanwhile, the event of Philip's return claims notice in the first place.
The poor fellow was so glad to see me that he shook hands as heartily as if we had known each other from the time when he was a boy.
"Do you remember how kindly you spoke to me when I called on you in London?" he asked. "If I have repeated those words once--but perhaps you don't remember them? You said: 'If I was as young as you are, I should not despair.' Well! I have said that to myself over and over again, for a hundred times at least. Eunice will listen to you, sir, when she will listen to nobody else. This is the first happy moment I have had for weeks past."
I suppose I must have looked glad to hear that.