While she was doing it, he scratched a line to Mr. Freshfield, asking him to send the required information to the inclosed address.
She thanked Mr. Hennessy with the tears in her eyes.
"I dare not ask you whether you think him guilty," she said.
Hennessy shook his head with an air of good-natured rebuke.
"You must not cross-examine counsel," said he. "But, if it will be any comfort to you, I'll say this much, there was just a shadow of doubt, and Tollemache certainly let a chance slip. If I had defended your friend, I would have insisted on a postponement of the trial until this Arthur Wardlaw" (looking at his note-book) "could be examined, either in court or otherwise, if he was really dying. Is he dead, do you know?"
"No."
"I thought not. Sick witnesses are often at death's door; but I never knew one pass the threshold. Ha! ha! The trial ought to have been postponed till he got well. If a judge refused me a postponement in such a case, I would make him so odious to the jury that the prisoner would get a verdict in spite of his teeth."
"Then you think he was badly defended?"
"No; that is saying a great deal more than I could justify. But there are counsel who trust too much to their powers of reasoning, and underrate a chink in the evidence pro or con. Practice, and a few back-falls, cure them of that."
Mr. Hennessy uttered this general observation with a certain change of tone, which showed he thought he had said as much or more than his visitor had any right to expect from him; and she therefore left him, repeating her thanks. She went home, pondering on every word he had said, and entered it all in her journal, with the remark: "How strange! the first doubt of Robert's guilt comes to me from the lawyer who caused him to be found guilty. He calls it the shadow of a doubt."
That very evening, Mr. Freshfield had the courtesy to send her by messenger the name and address of the solicitor who had defended Robert Penfold, Lovejoy & James, Lincoln's Inn Fields. She called on them, and sent in her card. She was kept waiting a long time in the outer office, and felt ashamed, and sick at heart, seated among young clerks. At last she was admitted, and told Mr. Lovejoy she and her father, General Rolleston, were much interested in a late client of his, Mr. Robert Penfold; and would he be kind enough to let her see the brief for the defense?
"Are you a relation of the Penfolds, madam?"
"No, sir," said Helen blushing.
"Humph!" said Lovejoy. He touched a hand-bell. A clerk appeared.
"Ask Mr. Upton to come to me." Mr. Upton, the managing clerk, came in due course, and Mr. Lovejoy asked him:
"Who instructed us in the Queen _v._ Penfold?"
"It was Mr. Michael Penfold, sir." Mr. Lovejoy then told Helen that she must just get a line from Mr. Michael Penfold, and then the papers should be submitted to her.
"Yes; but, sir," said Helen, "Mr. Penfold is in Scotland."
"Well, but you can write to him."
"No; I don't know in what part of Scotland he is."
"Then you are not very intimate with him."
"No, sir; my acquaintance is with Mr. Robert Penfold."
"Have you a line from _him?"_
"I have no _written_ authority from him; but will you not take my word that I act by his desire?"
"My dear madam," said the lawyer, "we go by rule. There are certain forms to be observed in these things. I am sure your own good sense will tell you it would be cruel and improper of me to submit those papers without an order from Robert or Michael Penfold. Pray consider this as a delay, not a refusal."
"Yes, sir," said Helen; "but I meet with nothing but delays, and my heart is breaking under them."
The solicitor looked sorry, but would not act irregularly. She went home sighing, and condemned to wait the return of Michael Penfold.
The cab door was opened for her by a seedy man she fancied she had seen before.
Baffled thus, and crippled in every movement she made, however slight, in favor of Robert Penfold, she was seduced on the other hand into all the innocent pleasures of the town. Her adventure had transpired somehow or other, and all General Rolleston's acquaintances hunted him up; and both father and daughter were courted by people of ton as lions. A shipwrecked beauty is not offered to society every day. Even her own sex raved about her, and about the chain of beautiful pearls she had picked up somehow on her desolate island. She always wore them; they linked her to that sacred purpose she seemed to be forgetting. Her father drew her with him into the vortex, hiding from her that he embarked in it principally for her sake, and she went down the current with him out of filial duty. Thus unfathomable difficulties thrust her back from her up-hill task. And the world, with soft but powerful hand, drew her away to it. Arthur brought her a choice bouquet, or sent her a choice bouquet, every evening, but otherwise did not intrude much upon her; and though she was sure he would assist her, if she asked him, gratitude and delicacy forbade her to call him again to her assistance. She preferred to await the return of Michael Penfold. She had written to him at the office to tell him she had news of his son, and begged him to give her instant notice of his return from Scotland.
Day after day passed, and he did not write to her. She began to chafe, and then to pine. Her father saw, and came to a conclusion that her marriage with Arthur ought to be hastened. He resolved to act quietly but firmly toward that end.
