e
canary, that would not pick from her hand, the hat she hated, the bowl
which held only bread and milk when she wanted meat or cake. Adelaide
had kept them all, locked behind glass and in full view of the child's
eyes night and day, that the shame of those past destructive moments
might guard her from their repetition and help her to understand her
temper and herself. I had always thought it cruel of Adelaide, one of
the evidences of the flint-like streak which ran through her otherwise
generous and upright nature. But its awful prophecy was what affected me
most now; for destruction had fallen on something more tender than aught
that cabinet held.

Adelaide's heart! And Carmel acknowledged it--acknowledged that it
should be there, with what else she had trampled upon and crushed in her
white heat of rage. I could not doubt her guilt, after this. Whatever
peace her forgetfulness had brought--whatever innocent longing after
Adelaide--the wild cry of those first few hours, ere yet the impressions
of her awful experience had succumbed to disease, revealed her secret and
showed the workings of her conscience. It had not been understood; it had
passed as an awesome episode. But for me, since hearing of it, she stood
evermore convicted out of her own mouth--that lovely mouth which angels
might kiss in her hours of joyous serenity; but from whose caress friends
would fly, when the passion reigned in her heart and she must break,
crush, kill, or go mad.

XXIII

AT TEN INSTEAD OF TWELVE

Forget the world around you. Meantime friendship
Shall keep strict vigils for you, anxious, active,
Only be manageable when that friendship
Points you the road to full accomplishment.

_Coleridge_.

"I don't care a rush what you do to me. If you are so besotted by your
prejudices that you refuse to see the nose before your face; if you don't
believe your own officer who swore he saw Ranelagh's hands upon my
sister's throat, then this world is all a jumble and it makes very little
difference to me whether I'm alive or dead."

When these words of Arthur Cumberland were repeated to me, I echoed them
in my inmost soul. I, too, cared very little whether I lived or died.

The grand jury reeled off its cases and finally took up ours. To the last
I hoped--sincerely I think--that I should be the man to suffer
indictment. But I hoped in vain. A true bill was brought against Arthur,
and his trial was set for the eighteenth of January.