The Legacy of Cain | Page 3

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Etext by James Rusk ([email protected]) Italics are indicated by the
underscore character

The Legacy of Cain
by Wilkie Collins

To
MRS. HENRY POWELL BARTLEY:
Permit me to add your name to my name, in publishing this novel. The
pen which has written my books cannot be more agreeably employed
than in acknowledging what I owe to the pen which has skillfully and
patiently helped me, by copying my manuscripts for the printer.
WILKIE COLLINS.
Wimpole Street, 6th December, 1888.
--------
THE LEGACY OF CAIN.
First Period: 1858-1859.
EVENTS IN THE PRISON, RELATED BY THE GOVERNOR.
----

CHAPTER I.
THE GOVERNOR EXPLAINS.
At the request of a person who has claims on me that I must not disown,
I consent to look back through a long interval of years and to describe
events which took place within the walls of an English prison during
the earlier period of my appointment as Governor.
Viewing my task by the light which later experience casts on it, I think
I shall act wisely by exercising some control over the freedom of my
pen.
I propose to pass over in silence the name of the town in which is
situated the prison once confided to my care. I shall observe a similar
discretion in alluding to individuals--some dead, some living, at the
present time.
Being obliged to write of a woman who deservedly suffered the
extreme penalty of the law, I think she will be sufficiently identified if I
call her The Prisoner. Of the four persons present on the evening before
her execution three may be distinguished one from the other by allusion
to their vocations in life. I here introduce them as The Chaplain, The
Minister, and The Doctor. The fourth was a young woman. She has no
claim on my consideration; and, when she is mentioned, her name may
appear. If these reserves excite suspicion, I declare beforehand that they
influence in no way the sense of responsibility which commands an
honest man to speak the truth.
CHAPTER II.
THE MURDERESS ASKS QUESTIONS.
The first of the events which I must now relate was the conviction of
The Prisoner for the murder of her husband.
They had lived together in matrimony for little more than two years.
The husband, a gentleman by birth and education, had mortally

offended his relations in marrying a woman of an inferior rank of life.
He was fast declining into a state of poverty, through his own reckless
extravagance, at the time when he met with his death at his wife's hand.
Without attempting to excuse him, he deserved, to my mind, some
tribute of regret. It is not to be denied that he was profligate in his
habits and violent in his temper. But it is equally true that he was
affectionate in the domestic circle, and, when moved