What was Hid Behind Imogene’s Veil.

Mark now, how a plain tale shall put you down.

Henry iv.

THE few minutes that elapsed before the formal opening of court the next morning were marked by great cheerfulness. The crisp frosty air had put everybody in a good-humor. Even the prisoner looked less sombre than before, and for the first time since the beginning of his trial, deigned to turn his eyes toward the bench where Imogene sat, with a look that, while it was not exactly kind, had certainly less disdain in it than before he saw his way to a possible acquittal on the theory advanced by his counsel.

But this look, though his first, did not prove to be his last. Something in the attitude of the woman he gazed at — or was it the mystery of the heavy black veil that enveloped her features? — woke a strange doubt in his mind. Beckoning to Mr. Orcutt, he communicated with him in a low tone.

“Can it be possible,” asked he, “that any thing new could have transpired since last night to give encouragement to the prosecution?”

The lawyer, startled, glanced hastily about him and shook his head.

“No,” he cried; “impossible! What could have transpired?”

“Look at Mr. Ferris,” whispered the prisoner, “and then at the witness who wears a veil.”

With an unaccountable feeling of reluctance, Mr. Orcutt hastily complied. His first glance at the District Attorney made him thoughtful. He recognized the look which his opponent wore; he had seen it many a time before this, and knew what it indicated. As for Imogene, who could tell what went on in that determined breast? The close black veil revealed nothing. Mr. Orcutt impatiently turned back to his client.

“I think you alarm yourself unnecessarily,” he whispered. “Ferris means to fight, but what of that? He wouldn’t be fit for his position if he didn’t struggle to the last gasp even for a failing cause.”

Yet in saying this his lip took its sternest line, and from the glitter of his eye and the close contraction of his brow it looked as if he were polishing his own weapons for the conflict he thus unexpectedly saw before him.

Meantime, across the court-room, another whispered conference was going on.

“Hickory, where have you been ever since last night? I have not been able to find you anywhere.”

“I was on duty; I had a bird to look after.”

“A bird?”

“Yes, a wild bird; one who is none too fond of its cage; a desperate one who might find means to force aside its bars and fly away.”

“What do you mean, Hickory? What nonsense is this?”

“Look at Miss Dare and perhaps you will understand.”

“Miss Dare?”

“Yes.”

Horace’s eyes opened in secret alarm.

“Do you mean ——”

“I mean that I spent the whole night in tramping up and down in front of her window. And a dismal task it was too. Her lamp burned till daylight.”

Here the court was called to order and Byrd had only opportunity to ask:

“Why does she wear a veil?”

To which the other whisperingly retorted:

“Why did she spend the whole night in packing up her worldly goods and writing a letter to the Congregational minister to be sent after the adjournment of court to-day?”

“Did she do that?”

“She did.”

“Hickory, don’t you know — haven’t you been told what she is expected to say or do here to-day?”

“No.”

“You only guess?”

“No, I don’t guess.”

“You fear, then?”

“Fear! Well, that’s a big word to a fellow like me. I don’t know as I fear any thing; I’m curious, that is all.”

Mr. Byrd drew back, looked over at Imogene, and involuntarily shook his head. What was in the mind of this mysterious woman? What direful purpose or shadow of doom lay behind the veil that separated her from the curiosity and perhaps the sympathy of the surrounding crowd? It was in vain to question; he could only wait in secret anxiety for the revelations which the next few minutes might bring.

The defence having rested the night before, the first action of the Judge on the opening of the court was to demand whether the prosecution had any rebuttal testimony to offer.

Mr. Ferris instantly rose.

“Miss Dare, will you retake the stand,” said he.

Immediately Mr. Orcutt, who up to the last moment had felt his case as secure as if it had indeed been founded on a rock, bounded to his feet, white as the witness herself.

“I object!” he cried. “The witness thus recalled by the counsel of the prosecution has had ample opportunity to lay before the court all the evidence in her possession. I submit it to the court whether my learned opponent should not have exhausted his witness before he rested his case.”

“Mr. Ferris,” asked the Judge, turning to the District Attorney, “do you recall this witness for the purpose of introducing fresh testimony in support of your case or merely to disprove the defence?”

“Your honor,” was the District Attorney’s reply, “I ought to say in fairness to my adversary and to the court, that since the case was closed a fact has come to my knowledge of so startling and conclusive a nature that I feel bound to lay it before the jury. From this witness alone can we hope to glean this fact; and as I had no information on which to base a question concerning it in her former examination, I beg the privilege of reopening my case to that extent.”

“Then the evidence you desire to submit is not in rebuttal?” queried the Judge.

“I do not like to say that,” rejoined the District Attorney, adroitly. “I think it may bear directly upon the question whether the prisoner could catch the train at Monteith Quarry if he left the widow’s house after the murder. If the evidence I am about to offer be true, he certainly could.”

Thoroughly alarmed now and filled with the dismay which a mysterious threat is always calculated to produce, Mr. Orcutt darted a wild look of inquiry at Imogene, and finding her immovable behind her thick veil, turned about and confronted the District Attorney with a most sarcastic smile upon his blanched and trembling lips.

“Does my learned friend suppose the court will receive any such ambiguous explanation as this? If the testimony sought from this witness is by way of rebuttal, let him say so; but if it is not, let him be frank enough to admit it, that I may in turn present my objections to the introduction of any irrelevant evidence at this time.”

“The testimony I propose to present through this witness is in the way of rebuttal,” returned Mr Ferris, severely. “The argument advanced by the defence, that the prisoner could not have left Mrs. Clemmens’ house at ten minutes before twelve and arrived at Monteith Quarry Station at twenty minutes past one, is not a tenable one, and I purpose to prove it by this witness.”

Mr. Orcutt’s look of anxiety changed to one of mingled amazement and incredulity.

“By this witness! You have chosen a peculiar one for the purpose,” he ironically exclaimed, more and more shaken from his self-possession by the quiet bearing of his opponent, and the silent air of waiting which marked the stately figure of her whom, as he had hitherto believed, he thoroughly comprehended. “Your Honor,” he continued, “I withdraw my objections; I should really like to hear how Miss Dare or any lady can give evidence on this point.”

And he sank back into his seat with a look at his client in which professional bravado strangely struggled with something even deeper than alarm.

“This must be an exciting moment to the prisoner,” whispered Hickory to Byrd.

“So, so. But mark his control, will you? He is less cut up than Orcutt.”

“Look at his eyes, though. If any thing could pierce that veil of hers, you would think such a glance might.”

“Ah, he is trying his influence over her at last.”

“But it is too late.”

Meantime the District Attorney had signified again to Miss Dare his desire that she should take the stand. Slowly, and like a person in a dream, she arose, unloosed her veil, dragged it from before her set features, and stepped mechanically forward to the place assigned her. What was there in the face thus revealed that called down an instantaneous silence upon the court, and made the momentary pause that ensued memorable in the minds of all present? It was not that she was so pale, though her close-fitting black dress, totally unrelieved by any suspicion of white, was of a kind to bring out any startling change in her complexion; nor was there visible in her bearing any trace of the feverish excitement which had characterized it the evening before; yet of all the eyes that were fixed upon her — and there were many in that crowd whose only look a moment before had been one of heartless curiosity — there were none which were not filled with compassion and more or less dread.

Meanwhile, she remained like a statue on the spot where she had taken her stand, and her eyes, which in her former examination had met the court with the unflinching gaze of an automaton, were lowered till the lashes swept her cheek.

“Miss Dare,” asked the District Attorney, as soon as he could recover from his own secret emotions of pity and regret, “will you tell us where you were at the hour of noon on the morning Mrs. Clemmens was murdered?”

Before she could answer, before in fact her stiff and icy lips could part, Mr. Orcutt had risen impetuously to his feet, like a man bound to contend every step of the way with the unknown danger that menaced him.

“I object!” he cried, in the changed voice of a deeply disturbed man, while those who had an interest in the prisoner at this juncture, could not but notice that he, too, showed signs of suppressed feeling, and for the first time since the beginning of the trial, absolutely found his self-command insufficient to keep down the rush of color that swept up to his swarthy cheek.

“The question,” continued Mr. Orcutt, “is not to elicit testimony in rebuttal.”

“Will my learned friend allow the witness to give her answer, instead of assuming what it is to be?”

“I will not,” retorted his adversary. “A child could see that such a question is not admissible at this stage of the case.”

“I am sure my learned friend would not wish me to associate him with any such type of inexperience?” suggested Mr. Ferris, grimly.

But the sarcasm, which at one time would have called forth a stinging retort from Mr. Orcutt, passed unheeded. The great lawyer was fighting for his life, for his heart’s life, for the love and hand of Imogene — a recompense which at this moment her own unconsidered action, or the constraining power of a conscience of whose might he had already received such heart-rending manifestation, seemed about to snatch from his grasp forever. Turning to the Judge, he said:

“I will not delay the case by bandying words with my esteemed friend, but appeal at once to the Court as to whether the whereabouts of Miss Dare on that fatal morning can have any thing to do with the defence we have proved.”

“Your Honor,” commenced the District Attorney, calmly following the lead of his adversary, “I am ready to stake my reputation on the declaration that this witness is in possession of a fact that overturns the whole fabric of the defence. If the particular question I have made use of, in my endeavor to elicit this fact, is displeasing to my friend, I will venture upon another less ambiguous, if more direct and perhaps leading.” And turning again to the witness, Mr. Ferris calmly inquired:

“Did you or did you not see the prisoner on the morning of the assault, at a time distinctly known by you to be after ten minutes to twelve?”

It was out. The line of attack meditated by Mr. Ferris was patent to everybody. A murmur of surprise and interest swept through the court-room, while Mr. Orcutt, who in spite of his vague fears was any thing but prepared for a thrust of this vital nature, started and cast short demanding looks from Imogene to Mansell, as if he would ask them what fact this was which through ignorance or presumption they had conspired to keep from him. The startled look which he surprised on the stern face of the prisoner, showed him there was every thing to fear in her reply, and bounding again to his feet, he was about to make some further attempt to stave off the impending calamity, when the rich voice of Imogene was heard saying:

“Gentlemen, if you will allow me to tell my story unhindered, I think I shall soonest satisfy both the District Attorney and the counsel for the prisoner.”

And raising her eyes with a slow and heavy movement from the floor, she fixed them in a meaning way upon the latter.

At once convinced that he had been unnecessarily alarmed, Mr. Orcutt sank back into his seat, and Imogene slowly proceeded.

She commenced in a forced tone and with a sudden quick shudder that made her words come hesitatingly and with strange breaks: “I have been asked — two questions by Mr. Ferris — I prefer — to answer the first. He asked me — where I was at the hour Mrs. Clemmens was murdered.”

She paused so long one had time to count her breaths as they came in gasps to her white lips.

“I have no further desire to hide from you the truth. I was with Mrs. Clemmens in her own house.”

At this acknowledgment so astonishing, and besides so totally different from the one he had been led to expect, Mr. Ferris started as if a thunder-bolt had fallen at his feet.

“In Mrs. Clemmens’ house!” he repeated, amid the excited hum of a hundred murmuring voices. “Did you say, in Mrs. Clemmens’ house?”

“Yes,” she returned, with a wild, ironical smile that at once assured Mr. Ferris of his helplessness. “I am on oath now, and I assert that on the day and at the hour Mrs. Clemmens was murdered, I was in her house and in her dining-room. I had come there secretly,” she proceeded, with a sudden feverish fluency that robbed Mr. Ferris of speech, and in fact held all her auditors spell-bound. “I had been spending an hour or so at Professor Darling’s, whose house in West Side is, as many here know, at the very end of Summer Avenue, and close to the woods that run along back of Mrs. Clemmens’ cottage. I had been sitting alone in the observatory, which is at the top of one of the towers, but being suddenly seized with a desire to see the widow and make that promised attempt at persuading her to reconsider her decision in regard to the money her — her — the prisoner wanted, I came down, and unknown to any one in the house, stole away to the woods and so to the widow’s cottage. It was noon when I got there, or very near it, for her company, if she had had any, was gone, and she was engaged in setting the clock where ——”

Why did she pause? The District Attorney, utterly stupefied by his surprise, had made no sign; neither had Mr. Orcutt. Indeed, it looked as if the latter could not have moved, much less spoken, even if he had desired it. Thought, feeling, life itself, seemed to be at a standstill within him as he sat with a face like clay, waiting for words whose import he perhaps saw foreshadowed in her wild and terrible mien. But though his aspect was enough to stop her, it was not upon him she was gazing when the words tripped on her lips. It was upon the prisoner, on the man who up to this time had borne himself with such iron-like composure and reserve, but who now, with every sign of feeling and alarm, had started forward and stood surveying her, with his hand uplifted in the authoritative manner of a master.

The next instant he sank back, feeling the eye of the Judge upon him; but the signal had been made, and many in that court-room looked to see Imogene falter or break down. But she, although fascinated, perhaps moved, by this hint of feeling from one who had hitherto met all the exigencies of the hour with a steady and firm composure, did not continue silent at his bidding. On the contrary, her purpose, whatever it was, seemed to acquire new force, for turning from him with a strange, unearthly glare on her face, she fixed her glances on the jury and went steadily on.

“I have said,” she began, “that Mrs. Clemmens was winding her clock. When I came in she stepped down, and a short and angry colloquy commenced between us. She did not like my coming there. She did not appreciate my interest in her nephew. She made me furious, frenzied, mad. I— I turned away — then I came back. She was standing with her face lifted toward her clock, as though she no longer heeded or remembered my presence. I— I don’t know what came to me; whether it was hatred or love that maddened my brain — but ——”

She did not finish; she did not need to. The look she gave, the attitude she took, the appalling gesture which she made, supplied the place of language. In an instant Mr. Ferris, Mr. Orcutt............