The Malefactor | Page 6

was of course accepted. It was exactly what she was
there for. She was in the act of taking the check, when she saw her
husband and Lumley. Her reputation was at stake. Her subsequent

course of action and evidence becomes obvious. The check
unexplained was ruin. She explained it!
"Of the struggle, and of the exact means by which Sir William received
his injuries, I know nothing. There is the evidence! It may or may not
be true. The most serious part of the case, so far as Lady Ruth was
concerned, lay in the facts as to her husband's removal from the White
Lodge. In an unconscious state he was driven almost twelve miles at a
walking pace. No stimulants were administered, and though they
passed two doctors' houses no stop was made. A doctor was not sent for
until half an hour after they reached home, and even then they seemed
to have chosen the one who lived furthest away. The conclusion is
obvious enough to anyone who knows the facts of the case. Sir William
was not meant to live!
"Wingrave's trial was a famous one. He had no friends and few
sympathizers, and he insisted upon defending himself. His cross
examination of the man who had been his friend created something like
a sensation. Amongst other things, he elicited the fact that Lumley,
after first seeing the two together, had gone and fetched Sir William. It
was a terrible half hour for Lumley, and when he left the box, amongst
the averted faces of his friends, the sweat was pouring down his face. I
can seem him now, as though it were yesterday. Then Lady Ruth
followed. She was quietly dressed; the effect she produced was
excellent. She told her story. She hinted at the insult. She spoke of the
check. She had imagined no harm in accepting Wingrave's invitation to
tea. Men and women of the hunt, who were on friendly terms, treated
one another as comrades. She spoke of the blow. She had seen it
delivered, and so on. And all the time, I sat within a few feet of
Wingrave, and I knew that in the black box before him were burning
love letters from this woman, to the man whose code of honor would
ever have protected her husband from disgrace; and I knew that I was
listening to the thing which you, Aynesworth, and many of your fellow
story writers, have so wisely and so ignorantly dilated upon--the
vengeance of a woman denied. Only I heard the words themselves, cold,
earnest words, fall one by one from her lips like a sentence of
doom--and there was life in the thing, life and death! When she had

finished, the whole court was in a state of tension. Everyone was
leaning forward. It would be the most piquant, the most wonderful
cross examination every heard--the woman lying to save her honor and
to achieve her vengeance; the man on trial for his life. Wingrave stood
up. Lady Ruth raised her veil, and looked at him from the witness box.
There was the most intense silence I ever realized. Who could tell the
things which flashed from one to the other across the dark well of the
court; who could measure the fierce, silent scorn which seemed to blaze
from his eyes, as he held her there--his slave until he chose to give the
signal for release? At last he looked away towards the judge, and the
woman fell forward in the box gasping, a crumpled up, nerveless heap
of humanity.
"'My lord,' he said, 'I have no questions to ask this witness!'
"Everyone staggered. Wingrave's few friends were horrified. After that
there was, of course, no hope for him. He got fifteen years' penal
servitude."
Like an echo from that pent-up murmur of feeling which had rippled
through the crowded court many years ago, his little group of auditors
almost gasped as Lovell left his place and strolled down the room.
Aynesworth laid his hand upon his shoulder.
"All the time," he said, "you were looking at that calendar! Why?"
Lovell once more faced them. He was standing with his back to a round
table, strewn with papers and magazines.
"It was the date," he said, "and the fact that I must leave England within
a few hours, which forced this story from me. Tomorrow Wingrave will
be free! Listen, Aynesworth," he continued, turning towards him, "and
the rest of you who fancy that it is I who am leaving a humdrum city
for the world of tragedies! I leave you the legacy of a greater one than
all Asia will yield to me! Lady Ruth is married to Lumley, and they
hold today in London a very distinguished social position. Tomorrow
Wingrave takes