Annuitant

“ Complete innocence is never so jealous or so resentful as is the half-innocence in which lurks a hint of self-accusation, a suspicion of actual guilt. He had stood ready, with a kind of fierce and proud submission, to accept such blame as could be rightly laid at his door, but this very attitude of partial contrition flamed into anger the moment the scale was tipped too far in his disfavour. ”

“ I not only promise you protection to your innocency but justice against those offenders, assuring you likewise that I shall be so mindful of you that, if I live, you shall neither be a loser in, nor repent you for the services you have done me. ”

“ When I take you home with me, Innocent,” said Frederick solemnly, “you{234} will learn a lesson which I have learnt too late, that it is a fatal thing to connect one’s self with people of a different class from one’s own, who cannot understand one, whose life is a contradiction to all one feels and wishes. I don’t speak, of course, of my wife; that is my own affair; whatever I may have to put up with I say nothing on that score to any one. But, Innocent, a man of honour has many things to bear which women never know.” ”

“ You may excuse it to yourself, because you have an end in view which seems to justify the means; but the excuse will not avail you with others. You have said that in a conflict with one so cunning and unscrupulous as our noble son-in-law, you are compelled to fight him with his own weapons—to meet trick with trick, manoevre with manoeuvre; but take my word for it, you would more easily defeat him by straight-forward means. Be ruled by me in this one instance. Abandon a scheme which must inevitably lead to consequences I shudder to contemplate; and let this fabricated confession be destroyed. ”

“ This morning I was the reeve of the forest, and as such obliged to assume the shape of a rascally attorney. I felt it a degradation, I assure you. Nor was I better pleased when you compelled me to put on the likeness of old Roger Nowell; for, whatever you may think, I am not so entirely destitute of personal vanity as to prefer either of their figures to my own. However, I showed no disinclination to oblige you. You are strangely unreasonable to-day. Is it my lord's fault if your desire of vengeance expires in its fruition—if, when you have accomplished an object, you no longer care for it? ”

“ She cried aloud, but the noise drowned her cry; she struggled under the intolerable sense of anguish, the burden of the pang which she could not get free from, could not shake off. So many pangs come in youth which are imaginary, which can be thrown off, as the first impression fades; but when for the first time there comes something which fixes like the vulture, which will not be got rid of!—Innocent writhed under it, holding up her feeble hands in an appeal beyond words—an appeal which was hopeless and which was vain. ”

“ But it is observable, they choose the most Ignorant to Judge the most able Men in the Gown, whether to Disgrace ’em the more for their Fault, or, as they alledge, ‘That Justice should be so clear, that the very Plow-men, and those who understand the least, should discern it without the help of Oratory.’ It is likewise affirm’d, That the Judges tremble when they pronounce a Sentence, fearing lest it turn against themselves, to the loss of their Lives or Estates, should they commit the least Fault therein, either wilfully, or through Inadvertency. ”

“ To be held by my oath, an oath I was satisfied she would wish kept even at this crisis, yet knowing all the while she was drifting away into some evil that you, if you knew who she was, would give your life to avert from your honor if not from her innocent head! To see you cold, indifferent, absorbed in other things, while she, who would have perished any day for your happiness, was losing her life perhaps in the clutches of those horrible villains! ”

“ Frederick had brought down, as in duty bound, a few scandalous anecdotes from the fountain-head of gossip—anecdotes circumstantialized by date and name, but probably as false as was the taste that desired them. He made, indeed, a few demurs at repeating these wonderful pieces of history before Innocent, which were speedily silenced by his wife.
“Innocent is paying no attention. She never listens to what any one says,” cried Amanda, “and, besides, no one thinks of that sort of old-fashioned nonsense nowadays. ”

“ For all the complications of sentiment, the horror of publicity, the man’s humiliation at having his domestic privacy intruded upon, at having his marriage discussed, his wife’s name bandied about from one vulgar mouth to another, every circumstance of his life laid bare, had no existence for Innocent. She had felt the actual horrors of loneliness, vague alarm, sickening personal terror, made stronger by ignorance. ”

“ Sometimes he would be seized with sullen anger against the absent woman, a bitter rancour, almost a desire for revenge, as if she had mystified and duped him in order to give herself to another. Then again he would feel that he did not long for her, did not love her any more, had never loved her. ”

“ Direct annulment is the operation of a person distinct from the vower which, by affecting immediately the vower’s act, recalls the vow and makes it of no force. Hence, this kind of annulment may be exercised by all those who have such private authority over the will of the vower as to be able either to confirm or to cancel his acts. Private authority over the will of another is contained in the paternal power of the father over his children, in the domestic power of the husband over his wife, and in the governing power of a religious superior over his subjects. ”

“ There is none so innocent but may be wrongfully accused, sith innocency itself in our Lord and Master was accused and condemned as an enemy to the State and no friend to Cæsar. The servant must not look to be more free from wrongs than his Master was. But happy is that man by whom the truth is tried in judgment and innocency cleared.
“I durst not presume, being branded with the odious name of traitor, to offer my petition to my Sovereign (to whom, as God is witness, I wish long life and all happiness as to my own soul) . ”

“ In this life the old miser never knew that his first judgment had been the just one, but the doubt which seems always to have haunted him—whether he had not helped to condemn the innocent—was the reason of his bequest to the convict’s wife, and explained much of the mysterious wording of the will. ”

“ A long-drawn, sobbing breath of spent excitement, so universal as to reach to a subdued but distinct sound, came from the crowd. The witness stood for a moment leaning upon the front of the box, seeing nothing but a mist of white faces—her brain whirling, her mind confused, with the shock. It did not occur to her—how should it?—that her reluctance, her paleness, her misery, were all so many additions to the force of her testimony. What more terrible witness could have appeared against Innocent than one out of whom this terrible testimony had to be dragged as from the bottom of her heart? ”

“ Do you think detection to a man so lost to honor would wound as deeply as the sights which make his daily watch a torment? Or that a blow would be as hard to bear as the knowledge that his own act has placed you where you are and made him what he is? Silent contempt is the law now, so let this insult pass, unclench your hand and turn that defiant face to me, while I console you for submission with a kiss. ”

“ I have no thought of turning aside the sword of justice, but shall court its sharpest edge, hoping by a full avowal of my offences, in some degree to atone for them. My only regret is, that I shall leave my child unprotected, and that my fate will bring dishonour upon her. ”

“ Miss Stuart, I am not sure. I am convinced of your innocence, but the only theory of guilt that I can conceive of is so difficult, so almost impossible of proof, and so lacking in plausibility, that it seems hopeless. If determination and desperate effort can do it, you shall be exonerated. But there are many circumstances not in your favor. These I shall overcome, eventually. But, to be honest, until I can get a clue or a link of some sort to join my purely imaginative theory to some tangible fact, I can do little. ”

“ Something disturbed his calm, I cannot tell what—some crease in his pillow, some twist of the coverlet, or something, perhaps, in the news of the day which Innocent had been reading. His mind took that evil turn which makes a man ready to be irritated by every trifle, to think of everything that is uncomfortable, and to say many things which are not pleasant to hear. All of us, I suppose, take this ill turn sometimes in the afternoon when the tide of being runs low, and every trifling contradiction becomes a wrong and injury to us. ”

“ I have often heard that women carried their feeling for their own family a very long way; but to prefer this girl and her folly to the interests of your future husband—to ask me to commit myself—— Are you mad, Nelly? Why, my interests are yours—my character is yours. You should beg me rather to keep out of it—you should keep out of it yourself, for my sake. What is Innocent to us?—a silly, creature, half idiot, an ungrateful little minx, fond of nobody but Frederick, and, I daresay, capable of striking a bold stroke for him, as she seems to say she has done. ”

“ Alison turned to Jerome, and her thin carmine lips were wreathed in a feline smile. She offered him her hand.
“Good-by, Jerry,” said she. “We've had an awfully close shave from ruining our lives.”
Jerome felt his head whirling. “I believe you're right, Alison.”
“You don't ask to see my dispatch?”
“Why should I, when I refused to show you mine?”
“Well, you might as well know what it says. I'm apt to need your help. An annulment is not like a divorce. Collusion doesn't matter. It's like the canceling of any civil contract by mutual agreement of the parties of the first and second parts. ”

“ She makes my aunt, and every one, unhappy. Him, too—sometimes he looks as if he were miserable. People who make everybody miserable,” the girl continued, very gravely, “ought not to be allowed to live.”
“My dear child,” he said, half laughing, “that is a terrible doctrine. In that way none of us would be safe.”
“You don’t make any one miserable,” said Innocent. “Few that I have ever seen do. But she does. And Frederick——”
“I don’t wish to say anything to you against your cousin,” said Vane, very gravely; “but Innocent, you must not think too highly of Frederick Eastwood. ”

“ To Heaven I leave the vindication of my innocence. Its justice is sure, though sometimes slow, and the hour of retribution often arrives when least expected. Much as I have suffered—much as I may still suffer, I think my own situation preferable to theirs who have set their snares around me. The injurer must ever feel greater pangs than the injured—the pangs of guilt and remorse. I shall return to my obscurity, happy in the consciousness that it is not a shelter from shame, but a refuge from cruelty I seek. ”

“ I shall not punish you for it till I am perfectly sure, nor ask any thing more about it. I shall leave it for you to settle with your own conscience. If you are guilty, come to me at any hour of the day or night and confess it, and I will forgive and help you to amend. ”

“ But it is clear that we cannot trust ourselves to correct another while we are enraged. The intensity of our anger is proportional to the degree of annoyance which we have experienced, but it happens quite frequently that a great annoyance may be caused by a slight fault, just as, conversely, [Pg 4] the greatest fault may cause us only slight annoyance, or may even contribute to our pleasure. We should administer serious punishment where the fault is serious, and slight punishment where the fault is slight. ”

“ Hence it must be granted that the condition of resignation and its gesture can have no significance for our own important problem, the problem of guilt, inasmuch as the innocent as well as the guilty may become resigned, or may reach the limit at which he permits everything to pass without his interference. In the essence and expression of resignation there is the abandonment of everything or of some particular thing, and in court, what is abandoned is the hope to show innocence, and as the latter may be real as well as merely pleaded, this gesture is a definite sign in certain cases. ”

“ If those imperfect exponents of his faith whom we have noted among ourselves fail to flower, for a climax, in any proportionate way, we make out that they are embarrassed not so much by any force they possess as by a force—a force of temperament—that they lack. The anomaly I speak of presents itself thus as the dilemma in which Signor D’Annunzio’s consistency has inexorably landed him; and the disfigurement breaks out, strikingly enough, in the very forefront of his picture, at the point where he has most lavished his colour. ”

“ It is true that your return may be hoped for, because the king is convinced of your innocence. I assure you, Sir, that when I am at Court. I will do all that you justly expect from a person who esteems you to the last degree, and who passionately desires the special comfort both of yourself and of your flock. ”

“ Hardened and impenitent sinner! the measure of your iniquity is full: the 321 price of crime has been paid: here shall your spirit dwell for ever, and for ever. You have dreamed away life’s joyous hour, nor made atonement for error, nor denied yourself aught that the fair earth presented you. ”