Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth

“ You’d never go and die and leave me an orphan after all these years at my time of life! Oh, hoo! hoo! hoo!” whimpered the old lady, in the piteous grief of age; for though the younger, she was in mind and body much the feebler of the two.
“There, there, there, now, Abby, my dear, don’t cry. I didn’t mean it. I won’t die! I’ll live to take care of you and your boy! Didn’t I promise your dear father, on his death-bed, as I would bear up for the sake o’ the child?—and haven’t I beared up? Good Lord, yes! how many years! Years of t’iling and striving and struggling for life! ”

“ But, mother, let me talk to you a little of Norham,” prayed Alma.
“In my youth, and in my country, young ladies never talked of their lovers, but blushed when others named them. I know not, however, but that a few years of time and a few miles of space may alter customs,” said Mrs. Elverton, ironically.
“I know not, mamma; but if anywhere young women blush to hear their lovers named, it must be because they are happy in their loves; for if it were otherwise it seems to me that their cheeks would pale, not redden.”
“And yours should blanch to marble, girl, at the name of love or marriage!” ”

“ I pity only, that poor, sweet girl, who cannot get out; who is waiting only for death to release her from prison. But she shall not die! by all my hopes of heaven, she shall not!” hissed Annella through her clenched teeth, while the same fearful expression sat upon her tightly-drawn lips, and gleamed from her contracted eyes.
“She would not die, if you, kind girl, by any effort or any sacrifice, could save her; or if I could do so; but oh, Annella, everything has been tried in vain! human power can do no more!” groaned Malcolm. ”

“ No, Eudora, it is not from justice, but from the cruelest injustice—from murder, from martyrdom that I would snatch you!”
“Yet still think once more. You grant that I am innocent. Conscious of that innocence, ought I not to have courage enough to meet the trial, and faith enough to trust in God for deliverance?” inquired the girl gravely.
“Trust in God, by all means, through all things, and to any extent: but exercise that trust by wisely embracing the means He has provided for your escape rather than by madly remaining to meet swift and certain destruction.” ”

“ But, Alma, not even our betrothal will warrant you in remaining out here with me after sunset. Alma, I tell you this, that your own mother should have told you, because, dear one, I would not take the very least advantage of your inexperience. Therefore, dear Alma, never in future yield even to my persuasions to detain you out here after sunset. Thus, you see, while my better spirit is in the ascendant, I would warn you, arm you even against myself!”
“You are the soul of honor! If I had not known it before, I should know it now! Good-night,” said Alma, in a low voice. ”

“ Listen, most unhappy girl! You are here a prisoner, charged with the most atrocious crime that ever cursed humanity; that charge is supported by a mass of evidence that would crush an archangel! To-morrow morning you will be removed from this room to the common gaol. Next week the assizes will be held; you will be brought to trial; you will be overwhelmed beneath an avalanche of evidence! and then—oh, Heaven, Eudora! but two short weeks will elapse between the sentence of the judge and the execution of the prisoner! In less than one little month from this you will be murdered—martyred! ”

“ Two or three hours passed, in which Eudora, lying still upon her narrow prison bed in the dull anguish of despair, felt as if her heart was slowly and painfully dying, but without the hope of ultimate death.
Everyone who has suffered the extremity of suspense, grief, or despair, knows the dread sensation of this dying life or living death. It is that which even in youth, in health, and in a few hours, has power to wrinkle the brow, whiten the hair, and disorganize the heart. ”

“ She put her arm around his bowed head, drew it upon her bosom, and held it gently there while she murmured:
“Dear Malcolm, this wrings your heart cruelly, I know. You could endure it with fortitude if it were yourself instead of me. It is for my fate alone that you grieve; and your grief is the only thing that troubles me. But do not weep so bitterly; remember that in a few short hours all my earthly troubles will be over. And if it is the manner of my death that appals you, remember that hundreds as young, as delicate, and as innocent as your Eudora, have endured as dark a doom. ”

“ I am not so utterly bewildered by my own woe but that I may be able to comfort you. Tell me what trouble you are in, and if I cannot help you very long myself, because I may have to die next Wednesday, I can leave you to one who will be a brother to you for my sake.”
“Oh, Miss Leaton, Miss Leaton, say no more! Every word you speak goes through my heart like a spear!” cried Annella, breaking into harder sobs.
“No, no, don’t say so! I wish only to do you good. Tell me the nature of the difficulty you are in,” said Eudora, gently caressing the weeping girl. ”

“ Every one was kind to the orphan; indeed it would have been impossible for any one to have been otherwise to so gentle a creature, but it was with a superficial kindness that did not seem to recognize her deeper need of sympathy. No one had seemed to remember that the stranger girl had under her black bodice a sensitive heart, to be wounded by neglect or delighted by affection—no one but him; and he, too, so handsome, so accomplished, and so distinguished, that he might have been excused for slighting her. At least, so thought Eudora. ”

“ But to all his exhortations the unhappy girl responded:
“Oh, sir, this one little hope is the only vital nerve that quivers in my bosom; kill it, and you destroy me, even before the appointed death-day! Oh, Mr. Goodall, leave me this little hope!”
“But, my poor child,” said the young minister, gazing with the deepest compassion upon the almost infantile face of the girl, “it is false, delusive expectation, that is luring you on to certain and everlasting destruction of soul as well as body, by keeping you from that full confession and repentance which is your only chance of salvation.” ”

“ Her features were of the purest Grecian type, her complexion was exquisitely fair, with the faintest rose-tint flushing cheeks and lips. Her hair was of a pale gold color; her eyebrows and eyelashes, of a darker hue, shaded deep blue eyes full of pensive thought. Hers was a beauty that might have gladdened a family circle and adorned society. But alas for Alma! Her young life passed in a worse than conventual seclusion.
Scarcely any form of existence in this world could be so lonely and monotonous as that of this fair girl at Edenlawn—Edenlawn, a paradise to look at, a purgatory to live in! ”

“ Alma, when, eighteen years ago, Hollis Elverton rushed into my presence, and, in frenzied despair, told me that we must part then, there, and forever, I, too, in the extremity of my anguish and terror, demanded and wrung from him the why—the WHY that doomed me to that living death of widowhood.”
“And he told you. My father kept no secret from the wife of his bosom,” said the young girl.
“He told me. Alma, there are things that kill the soul in the body and turn the body into stone! ”

“ Good people like you and Mr. Anderson, who would not strain a point of conscience to save a friend, may think it bitter; I think it just; but then I’m not good, you know. I’m only devoted—mind, body, and estate, for life, death, and eternity—to my friends, or rather for my friend, for I feel only for one.”
“I believe you, Miss Wilder; you have not even the slightest pity for the anguish I suffer on Eudora’s account,” said Malcolm, bitterly. ”

“ That your birth was a curse to Hollis Elverton—a curse to me, and deeper still, a curse to you! That your love lighting upon any human being would be the darkest misfortune that could fall upon them! That your marriage with any man would be the direst catastrophe that could blight him—”
Her dreadful words were interrupted by a wild, half-suppressed shriek from Alma, who buried her face in her open hands for a moment, and then raising her head, cried:
“Mother, I must be marble!—yes, marble! I cannot be flesh and blood as others, or your words would kill me!” ”

“ Is my statement confirmed by the coroner’s inquest? What is your opinion now?” inquired the doctor of Malcolm Montrose, who had been a pale and agonized spectator of the scene.
“My opinion is what it ever has been and ever will be—that Eudora Leaton is innocent; innocent as one of God’s holy angels; and upon that issue I stake my every earthly and every heavenly good, my every temporal and every eternal hope, my life, honor, and soul!” ”

“ Another instant and the mysterious figure, who had plunged into the darkness of the cell, issued forth, and dropped a light, soft burden upon Malcolm’s breast, whispering fiercely:
“She is saved! Fly for your life and hers; look not behind you!”
Oh, Heaven! it was Annella’s voice! And she had kept her word!
But he felt that there was not an instant to lose. Pressing the light form of the girl close in his arm, he ran along through the darkness and the suffocating smoke, through the lobby, and down the stairs, and out into the free air. ”

“ But I did not come for nothing, Eudora, I said you should not perish, and you shall not, as Heaven hears me,” added Annella, in a low whisper, as she glanced jealously over her shoulder at Mrs. Barton, who was squeezing herself tightly into the farthest corner of the little cell, to be as far off as her office would permit.
“What is that woman waiting here for? It is very rude. Why does she not go away and leave us together?” inquired Annella, in a whisper.
“Dear, it is her duty to remain. I am not permitted to be left alone for an instant.” ”

“ I know nothing of your grandfather! and never, in this world, in Hades, or in Heaven, will I see, speak to, or acknowledge Lord Elverton again! Never! so save me, Heaven, in my utmost strait!”
“Oh, sir, he is your father! do not speak of him so bitterly!” faltered Alma.
“Girl! I told you a few moments since that there were misfortunes so monstrous as to be nameless; so shameful as to be contagious; so fatal as to be cureless except by death! ”

“ Often, as with closed eyes and laboring lungs she lay upon the narrow bed of her prison-cell, she thought that her fainting heart must stop, and her gasping breath cease forever. Often she hoped that they might. And thus, indeed, her light of life might have been smothered beneath its weight of anguish, but for the tender care of those few devoted friends who cherished the dying flame.
Malcolm Montrose, Counsellor Fenton, Mr. Anderson and Mrs. Barton, all endeavored in every possible way to comfort, cheer, sustain and strengthen Eudora. ”

“ It should never have been asked or given; the trial is too great for human nature to bear; a woman, even a fragile girl, has strength given her to endure that which it would kill or craze the man who loves her to witness; therefore you must not see me die.”
“But, dear Eudora—”
“Now, hear me out before you interrupt me. I have released you from that promise, but there is another which I wish you to make me—only one, dear Malcolm; for though there are several requests that I wish to make of you, there is but one promise by which I mean to bind your faith.” ”

“ And how did Eudora pass the few anxious days of imprisonment preceding her trial?
Oh, Heaven! how much the human heart may bear, and yet live on! Who can compute the amount of sorrow, humiliation and terror that formed the great weight of anguish that pressed her young heart almost to death?
Deep, poignant grief for the loss of her nearest and dearest kindred; burning shame at the infamous charge under which she suffered, and shuddering horrors at the awful doom that darkly lowered over her. ”

“ Alma, moral certainty is not legal evidence! I repeat, I know Eudora Leaton to be innocent, and I know who is guilty; but I have no means as yet to prove the guilt of the one or the innocence of the other. But, Alma, you are the well-wisher of the accused girl?”
“Oh, yes; oh, yes.”
“And you will take my word for her innocence?”
“Oh, yes! it is easy to have faith in what we wish to believe.” ”

“ She had better go and hide herself under the earth, for if she shows herself above ground, she is sure to be caught! Anybody would know her from that description the minute they clapped their eyes on her! I should, I’m sure, for I think I see her now, with her sharp, wicked black eyes, and sly leer and vicious looks!” said the landlady, gazing straight into the face of Eudora without the slightest suspicion of her identity with the fugitive; for good Mrs. Corder had an ideal portrait of the supposed criminal in her mind’s eye that formed a complete blind to her discovery of Eudora. ”

“ Barton lifted the swooning girl, and laid her upon the bed, and applied such restoratives as she kept at hand for her recovery. It was a long time before the deadly swoon could be broken by the pungent stimulants that were used. But at length Eudora, with a shiver, opened her eyes. Alas! return to consciousness was only return to thought, to memory, and to agonizing terror. Sobs, shrieks, and spasms that could not be controlled, expressed the anguish, despair, and wild affright that shook her life and reason to their foundations. ”

“ To whom but to that Indian cobra, Eudora Leaton? Eudora Leaton, a name destined to become notorious with those of Borgia, Brinvilliers and Lafarge!”
“You feel certain of her guilt, then?”
“Certain? Yes! Would it were not so! would that there were a rational doubt of it! For if there were I should dare to hope that, though the old House should become extinct, it need not die in blood and shame!” said Norham Montrose, bitterly.
“Then why not entertain that hope! There is nothing but circumstantial evidence against Eudora Leaton, and such evidence is proverbially fallacious.” ”

“ The beautiful Asiatic girl soon won her way into every heart in the household. No one could meet the soft, appealing gaze of her large, dark, Oriental eyes, or hear the plaintive tones of her low, deep, sweet voice, without feeling powerfully drawn towards her. No one could be with her long without seeing that the angel form was tenanted by an angel spirit, too.
Eudora became the darling of the household. And yet, from all events that quickly followed, it would seem that the previsions of the Princess Pezzilini had been true. ”

“ Eudora, no longer conscious of the hundreds of eyes fixed upon her, had half risen from her seat, thrown her veil quite back, and bent her white face towards the jury, in an agony of suspense, terrible to behold. The hand which, in rising, she had rested upon the side of the dock, was firmly grasped by Malcolm, who stood with his eyes fixed upon the face of the foreman in fierce anxiety. There was a breathless pause. And then the clerk of the arraigns arose, and demanded of the foreman of the jury whether they had agreed upon their verdict. ”