The Living Link | Page 9

heart as all the facts in that dread tragedy were slowly revealed one by one.
Coming to this task with a mind convinced at the outset of her father's innocence, she met
with not one circumstance that could shake that conviction for a moment. In her own
strong feeling she was incapable of understanding how any one could honestly think
otherwise. The testimony of adverse witnesses seemed to her perjury, the arguments of
the lawyers fiendish malignity, the last summing up of the judge bitter prejudice, and the
verdict of the jury a mockery of justice.
* * * * *

CHAPTER III.
THE MOMENTOUS RESOLVE.
Early on the following morning Miss Plympton called on Edith, and was shocked to see
the changes that had been made in her by that one night. She did not regard so much the
pallor of her face, the languor of her manner, and her unelastic step, but rather the new
expression that appeared upon her countenance, the thoughtfulness of her brow, the deep
and earnest abstraction of her gaze. In that one night she seemed to have stepped from
girlhood to maturity. It was as though she had lived through the intervening experience.
Years had been crowded into hours. She was no longer a school-girl--she was a woman.
Miss Plympton soon retired, with the promise to come again when Edith should feel
stronger. Breakfast was sent up, and taken away untasted, and at noon Miss Plympton
once more made her appearance.
"I have been thinking about many things," said Edith, after some preliminary remarks,
"and have been trying to recall what I can of my own remembrance of papa. I was only

eight years old, but I have a pretty distinct recollection of him, and it has been
strengthened by his portrait, which I always have had. Of my mother I have a most vivid
remembrance, and I have never forgotten one single circumstance connected with her last
illness. I remember your arrival, and my departure from home after all was over. But
there is one thing which I should like very much to ask you about. Did none of my
mother's relatives come to see her during this time?"
"Your mother's relatives acted very badly indeed, dear. From the first they were carried
away by the common belief in your dear father's guilt. Some of them came flying to your
mother. She was very ill at the time, and these relatives brought her the first news which
she received. It was a severe blow. They were hard-hearted or thoughtless enough to
denounce your father to her, and she in her weak state tried to defend him. All this
produced so deplorable an effect that she sank rapidly. Her relatives left her in this
condition. She tried to be carried to your dear father in his prison, but could not bear the
journey. They took her as far as the gates, but she fainted there, and had to be taken back
to the house. So then she gave up. She knew that she was going to die, and wrote to me
imploring me to come to her. She wished to intrust you to me. I took you from her
arms--"
Miss Plympton paused, and Edith was silent for some time.
"So," said she, in a scarce audible voice, "darling mamma died of a broken heart?"
Miss Plympton, said nothing. A long silence followed.
"Had my father no friends," asked Edith, "or no relatives?"
"He had no relatives," said Miss Plympton, "but an only sister. She married a Captain
Dudleigh, now Sir Lionel Dudleigh. But it was a very unhappy marriage, for they
separated. I never knew the cause; and Captain Dudleigh took it so much to heart that he
went abroad. He could not have heard of your father's misfortunes till all was over and it
was too late. But in any case I do not see what he could have done, unless he had
contrived to shake your father's resolve. As to his wife, I have never heard of her
movements, and I think she must have died long ago. Neither she nor her husband is
mentioned at the trial. If they had been in England, it seems to me that they would have
come forward as witnesses in some way; so I think they were both out of the country. Sir
Lionel is alive yet, I think, but he has always lived out of the world. I believe his family
troubles destroyed his happiness, and made him somewhat misanthropical. I have
sometimes thought in former years that he might make inquiries about you, but he has
never done so to my knowledge, though perhaps he has tried without being able to hear
where you were. After all, he would scarcely know