"Then draw her arm through your own and follow me. She will go more quietly with you than with me," said the sheriff.
They had spoken in a very low tone, in order to spare Sybil, though they scarcely needed to have taken the precaution; for she was paying no attention to anything that was pa.s.sing around her. She sat leaning back, with a look of utter weariness and stupor on her beautiful, pale face.
He raised her up, drew her hand through his arm, and whispered:
"Come, my darling, we are going now."
This roused her a little. She looked around for her party, and saw Beatrix Pendleton sitting with her face buried in her handkerchief, as she had sat since the rendering of the verdict.
"Look, she is asleep. I don"t wonder; it is very tiresome, and I"m almost asleep myself," murmured Sybil, wearily gazing on her friend.
At that moment Captain Pendleton came up.
"Wake her, Clement, and bring her after us. You will both come home and take supper with me," said Sybil, as she was about to be led away.
Captain Pendleton did not answer her, but gazed on her as if his heart was about to break.
"Don"t look at me so, Clement. You must think I am sick; but I am not--only tired and stupid. I hope Tabby will have supper ready when we get home," said Sybil, with a faint smile, as they led her off.
Captain Pendleton followed quickly, and touched Lyon Berners on the shoulder.
They exchanged glances.
"Oh, Heaven! Is this so?" whispered the captain, with a glance towards Sybil.
"It is so," answered Lyon Berners.
"This affliction added to all the rest!"
"It is better, much better thus. She does not suffer now. Thank Heaven for this veil of insanity drawn between her and the horrors to come!
Pray heaven that she may never come to her senses while she lives in this world," muttered Lyon Berners.
Captain Pendleton stepped back and gave his sister his arm.
"You will go with her to the prison?" he inquired.
"Yes, and stay with her there, if I may be permitted," answered Beatrix, who was weeping bitterly.
"My dear, my n.o.ble sister! how I admire and thank you!" fervently exclaimed Clement Pendleton, as he led her after Sybil.
A storm had been gathering all the afternoon. It had not been noticed by the people, whose attention had been swallowed up in the absorbing interest of the trial. But now, as they reached the open doors, the storm burst in thunder on the air, and the rain fell in torrents.
Many of the people retreated into the court-room to wait until the weather should be clear, or they should be able to procure umbrellas.
But our unhappy party went boldly out into the rain.
Sybil"s carriage had been waiting, as on the preceding evening, to take her home. It was to be employed now to take her somewhere else.
"I am glad of this storm," said Mr. Berners, after he had put his wife into her seat, and while he was holding the door open for Beatrix, whom her brother had just led up. "I am very glad of this storm."
"Why?" inquired Captain Pendleton.
"Because it will enable me to humor the delusion of my poor Sybil."
"How?"
"By persuading her that the storm makes it necessary for us to stop at the house of an acquaintance," hastily explained Lyon Berners, as he put Beatrix into the seat next Sybil.
Then he took the third seat and Mr. Fortescue, as the custodian of Sybil, took the fourth.
Captain Pendleton mounted the box beside the coachman, who had received his directions where to drive, but who could scarcely see his way, for weeping.
The storm came down in fury. The lightning glared, the thunder rolled; the rain swept the mountain sides like a flood.
"We shall never be able to reach Black Hall to-night, my darling. We must stop at some house," said Lyon Berners, artfully.
"Yes? that"s bad," answered his wife, who with an evident effort roused herself to reply, and then sank back into her seat, in an att.i.tude of weariness, and began slowly to pick at the fringe of her parasol, in an absent-minded, quiet manner.
The county prison was at the lower end of the village, at the junction of the Black river and Bird creek. It was a plain, rude structure, built of the iron-gray stone dug from the quarries of the Black mountain. It did not look like a prison. But for the grated windows it might have been taken for a commodious country house. And but for its well-cultivated grounds and stone fence, it might have been taken for a store-house. It comprised within its four walls the home of the warden and his family, as well as the lodgings for the turnkeys, and the cells of the prisoners.
Old Father Martin, the warden, found his office almost a sinecure. There were never many inmates of the prison, at any period. And sometimes for months together it would be quite vacant, so that in rainy weather its corridors and cells would be the play-ground of the warden"s grandchildren.
Now however, there were some ten or twelve petty offenders confined there, who were waiting trial for such comparatively small offences as disorderly conduct, a.s.sault, etc.
Sybil had never in her life seen even the outside of this prison.
So when the carriage drew up before the outer gate, and Mr. Berners alighted and handed her out, and said that they would be obliged to stop here at Mr. Martin"s until the storm should be over, she silently acquiesced, and permitted herself to be led, under the shelter of the sheriff"s umbrella, up to the door of the building.
At the sheriff"s ring, it was opened by the turnkey in attendance.
The sheriff immediately led his prisoner into the warden"s office.
They were followed by Mr. Berners and the two Pendletons.
"I was expecting of this here," said the warden, as he drew forward a chair for the lady.
Sybil sank into it, weary, stupefied, apathetic, and utterly unconscious of her real situation.
Beatrix Pendleton sat down by her side and took her hand. Lyon Berners hung over the back of her chair. The little Skye terrier, who had followed the party, jumped upon her lap and coiled itself up there.
Sybil noticed no one, but sat curiously contemplating the tips of her gloved fingers.
Meanwhile the sheriff and the warden went off to a writing desk that stood in one corner of the office, and where the sheriff formally delivered up his charge into the keeping of the warden.
"You will find some decent place to put her in, I hope, Martin. You will extend to her every indulgence consistent with her safe custody," said the sheriff, when the business was concluded.
The old warden scratched his gray head, reflected for a minute, and then said:
"The cells is miserable, which I have represented the same to their worships time and again, to no purpose. But if you"ll take the responsibility, and back me up into doing of it, I can lock her up in my daughter"s bedroom, where she will be safe enough for one night; and to-morrow we can have a cell fixed up, if her friends will go to the expense."