CHAPTER XXXV

JUDGES

In the room was the same faint, luminous glow which had been noticeable in the hall and on the stairs. There could have been no more eloquent testimony of her condition than the fact that she accepted its presence as a matter of course; that it never seemed to occur to her that there was something about it which required elucidation; still less that a few shrewd, well-directed inquiries might result in a very simple explanation. She stood on the threshold, all dishevelled, bent, weeping; always before her eyes the things which she alone could see, stricken with a mad agony of fear by the horror of the sight.

She came a little farther towards the room, staring towards the bed. When she had taken a step or two it seemed as if her legs refused to uphold her any longer. Down she sank on to her knees again; again she covered her face with her hands, as if by such means she could shut off from herself the hideous imaginings of her haunted brain.

"Don't! don't! don't!" she wailed.

While still she remained in that attitude of humility and penitence there came a voice which called her by what had once been her name.

"Isabel Burney!"

That she heard it there could be no doubt. At the sound of it she shivered more than ever. But it may be that she was in doubt whether it was a material voice, or whether it was a fresh manifestation of those too-well remembered tones, which kept calling to her all the time. For it is possible that a disordered mind may be conscious that there is a difference between the real and the imaginary without being capable of satisfactorily perceiving what it is. She did not answer. It came again, not loud, yet distinct and dominating.

"Isabel Burney."

This time she repeated her former wail, with renewed force of entreaty.

"Don't! don't!"

If it was intended for a cry of appeal to be left alone, it went unheeded. The voice returned, asking what was emphatically a leading question.

"Did you murder Cuthbert Grahame?"

She made not the slightest attempt to shirk the very weighty responsibility which attended the reply to such a question. An affirmative was bursting from her lips almost before it was asked.

"Yes! yes! yes!"

"How did you murder him?"

Again the wail--

"Don't! don't! don't!"

"How did you murder him?"

The wail became hysterical cries.

"Oh! oh! oh!"

But the voice persisted.

"How did you murder him?"

Confused words came stumbling from her lips, as if they were being forcibly extracted.

"The pillows--dragged---from under--he choked."

"You dragged the pillows from under him, so that his head fell down, and he was choked."

"Yes."

"Why did you murder him?"

Here again the answer came rapidly and clearly.

"Because I didn't want him to destroy the will which I had tricked him into signing."

"How did you trick him?"

"He made me draw up a will which left all his property to Margaret Wallace."

"And then?"

"I drew up a will in which he left everything to me."

"And then?"

"I covered it with a sheet of paper, and got him to sign it, thinking that he was signing the other."

"Did he know what you had done?"

"Yes; I killed him before he could tell any one else and have the will destroyed."

The voice was still. There was silence, broken by the sound of some one moving. The room was filled with a bright light. The voice came again.

"Isabel Burney!"

The woman on her knees, dropping her hands, looked round. By a lighted lamp which rested on a writing-table stood Margaret Wallace. Whether Mrs. Lamb realised that she was looking at the girl herself, or supposed that she was confronted by a materialised phantom, has never been certainly known. She stared at her surlily, unblinkingly, affrightedly, as one might stare at some unpleasing object in a dream. The girl repeated the questions which had already been answered. As one listened the last remnants of doubt vanished as to whose was the voice which had already made itself so prominent.

"Did you trick Cuthbert Grahame into signing a will in which he left all that he had to you, when he supposed himself to be signing one in which he left it all to me?"

There was a momentary hesitation, then the answer, spoken sullenly, half beneath her breath, yet plain enough.

"Yes; I did."

"And did you then kill him because you feared discovery of what you had done?"

"Yes; I did."

There was another movement on the other side of the room. When Mrs. Lamb looked round she found herself looking at Dr. Twelves, who put a question to her on his own account.

"So you lied to me when you said those pillows must have slipped--you knew better. As I suspected, you dragged them away--you female fiend!"

His invective went unnoticed; there came the rather monotonous refrain--

"Yes; I did".

There were other movements proceeding from all parts of the room. On one side of her were Andrew McTavish and his partner, Mr. Brown. Mr. McTavish was evidently very angry.

"And you lied to us when you pretended that you suspected us of robbing you! You knew all along that the only robbery you yourself had committed--you impudent swindler!"

He only received the same reply--

"Yes; I did".

Dr. Twelves wagged his finger at her, gruesomely.

"You shall hang for it, Isabel Burney--you shall hang by the neck until you're dead!"

Mr. McTavish cried--

"At any rate, you shall be sent to penal servitude for the fraud you have committed on us!"

She showed no signs of resentment, as only a very short time before she undoubtedly would have done, when her resentment would probably have taken a sufficiently active turn. From her demeanour it was difficult to determine if she comprehended what was being said to her. She gazed stolidly about the room. Near a window stood Nannie Foreshaw, leaning on a stick, holding with one hand the curtain from behind which she had just emerged. At sight of her she shrank backwards, as if she would withdraw herself as far as she could. Before the door, as if he would bar her retreat, was Harry Talfourd. When she saw him she seemed to be moved more than she had been by any of the others; she turned aside, with a low cry, and covered her face. Possibly, in some tangled fashion, she remembered how, so recently, she had played to him the _rôle_ of the great lady, the benefactress; how willing she had been to be something more to him than that; and she was vaguely conscious of what a contrast she was exhibiting to him now.

Margaret had been seated at a table writing. Now, rising, she turned to the woman who was still on her knees upon the floor.

"I have set down upon this sheet of paper a short confession of your guilt. If you will sign it you shall not hang; you shall not be sent to prison. You shall receive your only punishment from your own conscience. I think that is to condemn you to the greater punishment. I will read to you what I have written."

She read aloud from the paper which she took in her hand:--

"'I confess that Cuthbert Grahame instructed me to draw up a will in which he left all that he had in the world to Margaret Wallace; that, without his knowledge, I substituted for it another form of will, according to which he left his property to me, and that I induced him to sign this fraudulent form by means of a trick. I also confess that I murdered Cuthbert Grahame in order to avoid an exposure of the trick by means of which I had induced him to sign the substituted fraudulent form of will.' If you will attach your name to this confession you shall receive no punishment beyond that which you award yourself--that will be a sufficient one. Come here and sign."

As if automatically, Mrs. Lamb rose to her feet, moved towards the table, seated herself on the chair which Margaret had occupied, accepted the pen which the girl offered, and wrote her name in full on the sheet of paper which was set before her. When she had signed, leaning back, she looked from one to the other. They waited for her to speak, expecting perhaps some burst of tardy anger. Then, on a sudden, without a word or a movement, she slid from the chair on to the floor. When they gathered round her she lay still.