My first remembrance when I began to recover my senses was theremembrance of Pain--agonizing pain, as if every nerve in my bodywere being twisted and torn out of me. My whole being writhed andquivered under the dumb and dreadful protest of Nature againstthe effort to recall me to life. I would have given worlds to beable to cry out--to entreat the unseen creatures about me to giveme back to death. How long that speechless agony held me I neverknew. In a longer or shorter time there stole over me slowly asleepy sense of relief. I heard my own labored breathing. I feltmy hands moving fee bly and mechanically, like the hands of ababy. I faintly opened my eyes and looked round me--as if I hadpassed through the ordeal of death, and had awakened to newsenses in a new world.

The first person I saw was a man--a stranger. He moved quietlyout of my sight; beckoning, as he disappeared, to some otherperson in the room.

Slowly and unwillingly the other person advanced to the sofa onwhich I lay. A faint cry of joy escaped me; I tried to hold outmy feeble hands. The other person who was approaching me was myhusband!

I looked at him eagerly. He never looked at me in return. Withhis eyes on the ground, with a strange appearance of confusionand distress in his face, he too moved away out of my sight. Theunknown man whom I had first noticed followed him out of theroom. I called after him faintly, "Eustace!" He never answered;he never returned. With an effort I moved my head on the pillow,so as to look round on the other side of the sofa. Anotherfamiliar face appeared before me as if in a dream. My good oldBenjamin was sitting watching me, with the tears in his eyes.

He rose and took my hand silently, in his simple, kindly way.

"Where is Eustace?" I asked. "Why has he gone away and left me?"

I was still miserably weak. My eyes wandered mechanically roundthe room as I put the question. I saw Major Fitz-David, I saw thetable on which the singing girl had opened the book to show it tome. I saw the girl herself, sitting alone in a corner, with herhandkerchief to her eyes as if she were crying. In one mysteriousmoment my memory recovered its powers. The recollection of thatfatal title-page came back to me in all its horror. The onefeeling that it roused in me now was a longing to see myhusband--to throw myself into his arms, and tell him how firmly Ibelieved in his innocence, how truly and dearly I loved him. Iseized on Benjamin with feeble, trembling hands. "Bring him backto me!" I cried, wildly. "Where is he? Help me to get up!"

A strange voice answered, firmly and kindly: "Compose yourself,madam. Mr. Woodville is waiting until you have recovered, in aroom close by."

I looked at him, and recognized the stranger who had followed myhusband out of the room. Why had he returned alone? Why wasEustace not with me, like the rest of them? I tried to raisemyself, and get on my feet. The stranger gently pressed me backagain on the pillow. I attempted to resist him--quite uselessly,of course. His firm hand held me as gently as ever in my place.

"You must rest a little," he said. "You must take some wine. Ifyou exert yourself now you will faint again."

Old Benjamin stooped over me, and whispered a word ofexplanation.

"It's the doctor, my dear. You must do as he tells you."

The doctor! They had called the doctor in to help them! I begandimly to understand that my fainting fit must have presentedsymptoms far more serious than the fainting fits of women ingeneral. I appealed to the doctor, in a helpless, querulous way,to account to me for my husband's extraordinary absence.

"Why did you let him leave the room?" I asked. "If I can't go tohim, why don't you bring him here to me?"

The doctor appeared to be at a loss how to reply to me. He lookedat Benjamin, and said, "Will you speak to Mrs. Woodville?"

Benjamin, in his turn, looked at Major Fitz-David, and said,"Will _you?_" The Major signed to them both to leave us. Theyrose together, and went into the front room, pulling the door toafter them in its grooves. As they left us, the girl who had sostrangely revealed my husband's secret to me rose in her cornerand approached the sofa.

"I suppose I had better go too?" she said, addressing MajorFitz-David.

"If you please," the Major answered.

He spoke (as I thought) rather coldly. She tossed her head, andturned her back on him in high indignation. "I must say a wordfor myself!" cried this strange creature, with a hystericaloutbreak of energy. "I must say a word, or I shall burst!"

With that extraordinary preface, she suddenly turned my way andpoured out a perfect torrent of words on me.

"You hear how the Major speaks to me?" she began. "He blamesme--poor Me--for everything that has happened. I am as innocentas the new-born babe. I acted for the best. I thought you wantedthe book. I don't know now what made you faint dead away when Iopened it. And the Major blames Me! As if it was my fault! I amnot one of the fainting sort myself; but I feel it, I can tellyou. Yes! I feel it, though I don't faint about it. I come ofrespectable parents--I do. My name is Hoighty--Miss Hoighty. Ihave my own self-respect; and it's wounded. I say my self-respectis wounded, when I find myself blamed without deserving it. Youdeserve it, if anybody does. Didn't you tell me you were lookingfor a book? And didn't I present it to you promiscuously, withthe best intentions? I think you might say so yourself, now thedoctor has brought you to again. I think you might speak up for apoor girl who is worked to death with singing and languages andwhat not--a poor girl who has nobody else to speak for her. I amas respectable as you are, if you come to that. My name isHoighty. My parents are in business, and my mamma has seen betterdays, and mixed in the best of company."

There Miss Hoighty lifted her handkerchief again to her face, andburst modestly into tears behind it.

It was certainly hard to hold her responsible for what hadhappened. I answered as kindly as I could, and I attempted tospeak to Major Fitz-David in her defense. He knew what terribleanxieties were oppressing me at that moment; and, consideratelyrefusing to hear a word, he took the task of consoling his youngprima donna entirely on himself. What he said to her I neitherheard nor cared to hear: he spoke in a whisper. It ended in hispacifying Miss Hoighty, by kissing her hand, and leading her (ashe might have led a duchess) out of the room.

"I hope that foolish girl has not annoyed you--at such a time asthis," he said, very earnestly, when he returned to the sofa. "Ican't tell you how grieved I am at what has happened. I wascareful to warn you, as you may remember. Still, if I could onlyhave foreseen--"

I let him proceed no further. No human forethought could haveprovided against what had happened. Besides, dreadful as thediscovery had been, I would rather have made it, and sufferedunder it, as I was suffering now, than have been kept in thedark. I told him this. And then I turned to the one subject thatwas now of any interest to me--the subject of my unhappy husband.

"How did he come to this house?" I asked.

He came here with Mr. Benjamin shortly after I returned," theMajor replied.

"Long after I was taken ill?"

"No. I had just sent for the doctor--feeling seriously alarmedabout you."

"What brought him here? Did he return to the hotel and miss me?"

"Yes. He returned earlier than he had anticipated, and he feltuneasy at not finding you at the hotel."

"Did he suspect me of being with you? Did he come here from thehotel?"

"No. He appears to have gone first to Mr. Benjamin to inquireabout you. What he heard from your old friend I cannot say. Ionly know that Mr. Benjamin accompanied him when he came here."

This brief explanation was quite enough for me--I understood whathad happened. Eustace would easily frighten simple old Benjaminabout my absence from the hotel; and, once alarmed, Benjaminwould be persuaded without difficulty to repeat the few wordswhich had passed between us on the subject of Major Fitz-David.My husband's presence in the Major's house was perfectlyexplained. But his extraordinary conduct in leaving the room atthe very time when I was just recovering my senses still remainedto be accounted for. Major Fitz-David looked seriouslyembarrassed when I put the question to him.

"I hardly know how to explain it to you," he said. "Eustace hassurprised and disappointed me."

He spoke very gravely. His looks told me more than his words: hislooks alarmed me.

"Eustace has not quarreled with you?" I said.

"Oh no!"

"He understands that you have not broken your promise to him?"

"Certainly. My youn g vocalist (Miss Hoighty) told the doctorexactly what had happened; and the doctor in her presencerepeated the statement to your husband."

"Did the doctor see the Trial?"

"Neither the doctor nor Mr. Benjamin has seen the Trial. I havelocked it up; and I have carefully kept the terrible story ofyour connection with the prisoner a secret from all of them. Mr.Benjamin evidently has his suspicions. But the doctor has noidea, and Miss Hoighty has no idea, of the true cause of yourfainting fit. They both believe that you are subject to seriousnervous attacks, and that your husband's name is reallyWoodville. All that the truest friend could do to spare Eustace Ihave done. He persists, nevertheless, in blaming me for lettingyou enter my house. And worse, far worse than this, he persistsin declaring the event of to-day has fatally estranged you fromhim. 'There is an end of our married life,' he said to me, 'nowshe knows that I am the man who was tried at Edinburgh forpoisoning my wife!"'

I rose from the sofa in horror.

"Good God!" I cried, "does Eustace suppose that I doubt hisinnocence?"

"He denies that it is possible for you or for anybody to believein his innocence," the Major replied.

"Help me to the door," I said. "Where is he? I must and will seehim!"

I dropped back exhausted on the sofa as I said the words. MajorFitz-David poured out a glass of wine from the bottle on thetable, and insisted on my drinking it.

"You shall see him," said the Major. "I promise you that. Thedoctor has forbidden him to leave the house until you have seenhim. Only wait a little! My poor, dear lady, wait, if it is onlyfor a few minutes, until you are stronger."

I had no choice but to obey him. Oh, those miserable, helplessminutes on the sofa! I cannot write of them without shuddering atthe recollection--even at this distance of time.

"Bring him here!" I said. "Pray, pray bring him here!"

"Who is to persuade him to come back?" asked the Major, sadly."How can I, how can anybody, prevail with a man--a madman I hadalmost said!--who could leave you at the moment when you firstopened your eyes on him? I saw Eustace alone in the next roomwhile the doctor was in attendance on you. I tried to shake hisobstinate distrust of your belief in his innocence and of mybelief in his innocence by every argument and every appeal thatan old friend could address to him. He had but one answer to giveme. Reason as I might, and plead as I might, he still persistedin referring me to the Scotch Verdict."

"The Scotch Verdict?" I repeated. "What is that?"

The Major looked surprised at the question.

"Have you really never heard of the Trial?" he said.

"Never."

"I thought it strange," he went on, "when you told me you hadfound out your husband's true name, that the discovery appearedto have suggested no painful association to your mind. It is notmore than three years since all England was talking of yourhusband. One can hardly wonder at his taking refuge, poor fellow,in an assumed name. Where could you have been at the time?"

"Did you say it was three years ago?" I asked.

"Yes."

"I think I can explain my strange ignorance of what was so wellknown to every one else. Three years since my father was alive. Iwas living with him in a country-house in Italy--up in themountains, near Sienna. We never saw an English newspaper or metwith an English traveler for weeks and weeks together. It is justpossible that there might have been some reference made to theTrial in my father's letters from England. If there were, henever told me of it. Or, if he did mention the case, I felt nointerest in it, and forgot it again directly. Tell me--what hasthe Verdict to do with my husband's horrible doubt of us? Eustaceis a free man. The Verdict was Not Guilty, of course?"

Major Fitz-David shook his head sadly.

"Eustace was tried in Scotland," he said. "There is a verdictallowed by the Scotch law, which (so far as I know) is notpermitted by the laws of any other civilized country on the faceof the earth. When the jury are in doubt whether to condemn oracquit the prisoner brought before them, they are permitted, inScotland, to express that doubt by a form of compromise. If thereis not evidence enough, on the one hand, to justify them infinding a prisoner guilty, and not evidence enough, on the otherhand, to thoroughly convince them that a prisoner is innocent,they extricate themselves from the difficulty by finding averdict of Not Proven."

"Was that the Verdict when Eustace was tried?" I asked.

"Yes."

"The jury were not quite satisfied that my husband was guilty?and not quite satisfied that my husband was innocent? Is thatwhat the Scotch Verdict means?"

"That is what the Scotch Verdict means. For three years thatdoubt about him in the minds of the jury who tried him has stoodon public record."

Oh, my poor darling! my innocent martyr! I understood it at last.The false name in which he had married me; the terrible words hehad spoken when he had warned me to respect his secret; the stillmore terrible doubt that he felt of me at that moment--it was allintelligible to my sympathies, it was all clear to myunderstanding, now. I got up again from the sofa, strong in adaring resolution which the Scotch Verdict had suddenly kindledin me--a resolution at once too sacred and too desperate to beconfided, in the first instance, to any other than my husband'sear.

"Take me to Eustace!" I cried. "I am strong enough to bearanything now."

After one searching look at me, the Major silently offered me hisarm, and led me out of the room.