"I am not examining you," said Mr.Philip."I am only ****** a certain statement, the truth of which you can admit or deny before my brother.""Before your brother, sir!" I repeated."Am I suspected of anything wrong?""There is a suspicion that Mr.James Smith has been murdered,"was the answer I received to that question.
My flesh began to creep all over from head to foot.
"I am shocked--I am horrified to say," Mr.Philip went on, "that the suspicion affects your mistress in the first place, and you in the second."I shall not attempt to describe what I felt when he said that.No words of mine, no words of anybody's, could give an idea of it.
What other men would have done in my situation I don't know.Istood before Mr.Philip, staring straight at him, without speaking, without moving, almost without breathing.If he or any other man had struck me at that moment, I do not believe I should have felt the blow.
"Both my brother and myself," said Mr.Philip, "have such unfeigned respect for your mistress, such sympathy for her under these frightful circumstances, and such an implicit belief in her capability of proving her innocence, that we are desirous of sparing her in this dreadful emergency as much as possible.For those reasons, I have undertaken to come here with the persons appointed to execute my brother's warrant--""Warrant, sir!" I said, getting command of my voice as he pronounced that word--"a warrant against my mistress!""Against her and against you," said Mr.Philip."The suspicious circumstances have been sworn to by a competent witness, who has declared on oath that your mistress is guilty, and that you are an accomplice.""What witness, sir?"
"Your mistress's quadroon maid, who came to my brother this morning, and who has made her deposition in due form.""And who is as false as hell," I cried out passionately, "in every word she says against my mistress and against me.""I hope--no, I will go further, and say I believe she is false,"said Mr.Philip."But her perjury must he proved, and the necessary examination must take place.My carriage is going back to my brother's, and you will go in it, in charge of one of my men, who has the warrant to take you in custody.I shall remain here with the man who is waiting in the hall; and before any steps are taken to execute the other warrant, I shall send for the doctor to ascertain when your mistress can be removed.""Oh, my poor mistress!" I said, "this will be the death of her, sir.""I will take care that the shock shall strike her as tenderly as possible," said Mr.Philip."I am here for that express purpose.
She has my deepest sympathy and respect, and shall have every help and alleviation that I can afford her."The hearing him say that, and the seeing how sincerely he meant what he said, was the first gleam of comfort in the dreadful affliction that had befallen us.I felt this; I felt a burning anger against the wretch who had done her best to ruin my mistress's fair name and mine, but in every other respect I was like a man who had been stunned, and whose faculties had not perfectly recovered from the shock.Mr.Philip was obliged to remind me that time was of importance, and that I had better give myself up immediately, on the merciful terms which his kindness offered to me.I acknowledged that, and wished him good morning.
But a mist seemed to come over my eyes as I turned round to go away--a mist that prevented me from finding my way to the door.
Mr.Philip opened it for me, and said a friendly word or two which I could hardly hear.The man waiting outside took me to his companion in the carriage at the door, and I was driven away, a prisoner for the first time in my life.
On our way to the justice's, what little thinking faculty I had left in me was all occupied in the attempt to trace a motive for the inconceivable treachery and falsehood of which Josephine had been guilty.
Her words, her looks, and her manner, on that unfortunate day when my mistress so far forget herself as to strike, her, came back diml y to my memory, and led to the inference that part of the motive, at least, of which I was in search, might be referred to what had happened on that occasion.But was this the only reason for her devilish vengeance against my mistress? And, even if it were so, what fancied injuries had I done her? Why should Ibe included in the false accusation? In the dazed state of my faculties at that time, I was quite incapable of seeking the answer to these questions.My mind was clouded all over, and Igave up the attempt to clear it in despair.
I was brought before Mr.Robert Nicholson that day, and the fiend of a quadroon was examined in my presence.The first sight of her face, with its wicked self-possession, with its smooth leering triumph, so sickened me that I turned my head away and never looked at her a second time throughout the proceedings.The answers she gave amounted to a mere repetition of the deposition to which she had already sworn.I listened to her with the most breathless attention, and was thunderstruck at the inconceivable artfulness with which she had mixed up truth and falsehood in her charge against my mistress and me.
This was, in substance, what she now stated in my presence: