“LeFevre. And would you care to elucidate, Mr. Sidmouth?”
“As I have stated, these are personal matters. It should be a violation of every conception of honour, did I canvass such things before the common crowd.”
“I see.” From his expression, Mr. Carpenter clearly did not see. “And will you state your movements during the course of Sunday evening last?”
“I was away from home.”
“This panel is aware of that. And were you riding your black stallion”—at this, the coroner peered narrowly at his papers—“the unfortunately-named Satan?”
“I was.” From Mr. Sidmouth's expression, it pained him to let slip even so small a sentence.
“In the company of the surgeon's assistant, Mr. William Dagliesh?”
“Yes.”
“Mr. Sidmouth,” the coroner ejaculated, in evident exasperation, “if we are to have any hope of placing your guilt in doubt, you must give us some means of proving your innocence! Will you not tell us your movements on the night in question?”
There was an instant's silence, and Sidmouth's eyes met mine with a sudden flaring of intensity, so that I felt my heart lurch; then his gaze moved beyond me, to the back of the room. I knew whose face he sought; and turned, despite myself, to look for it.
Seraphine had risen, as slow as a spectre rising from the grave. “Tell them, Geoffrey,” she said—though her voice was so caught in her throat, the sense of it may not have reached him. “Tell them,” she cried, in a firmer accent, and clutched at a chair for support.
“You know that I cannot,” he rejoined. His voice was infinitely gende—the very quiet of despair, I thought. “Sit down, my dear, before you fall.”
“Is there something you wish to say to this panel, madam?” the coroner asked, rising to gaze at the mademoiselle. She nodded briefly, unable to look at her cousin.
“Say nothing, Seraphine!” Sidmouth interposed with sudden fierceness. “There can be no cause for such sacrifice. I will not allow it! Say nothing—? beg of you—that you will not recall years hence, with vast regret!”
“Oh, Geoffrey—” she said, in a breaking wail, and swayed as I watched. In an instant, Sidmouth had sprung from his place, and coursed down the aisle to her aid; but Dobbin's men were before him, and barred his path, in evident alarm that he meant to flee. He was seized, and maddened by the seizure, as Seraphine crumpled to the ground in a faint; and the room was in an uproar in an instant. Between Sidmouth's efforts to fight loose of his captors, and the shouts of those around him, even Mr. Carpenter's gavel rang out unheeded in the tumult.
At last the gentleman was subdued, and the lady borne from the room into the street, the better to revive her; and the jury dismissed, for the consideration of the case. In but a few minutes they had returned, with hanging heads, and avowed their belief that Captain Fielding had died at Geoffrey Sidmouth's hands. And so the master of High Down was taken away, half-mad with anxiety for his cousin's state, and thrown once more into the foetidness of Lyme's small gaol.
Miss CRAWFORD AIONE CXHJID LOOK TRIUMPHANT, AS THE assembled crowd filed away. She was afforded no congratulations; and indeed, most of Lyme's worthies avoided her like a manifestation of the plague; but she had seen enough to confirm her wildest conjectures. From Seraphine's behaviour, could anyone doubt that she was the cause of all the Captain's grief? Or that her cousin bore her such love, as would counsel killing to preserve it?
1 The Assizes are preliminary sessions held locally throughout the United Kingdom, in which a suspect is charged, indicted, and remanded for trial. In Austen's time they were held quarterly. —Editor's note.
21 September 1804, cont
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SUCH EVIDENCE OF SIDMOUTH'S GUILT COULD NOT BUT BE convincing. I should have felt the merit of its claims more forcibly, however, had I not perceived that some other consideration had silenced his friends and himself, and that the better part of Sidmouth's struggle throughout the proceedings, had been to prevent a matter coming to light, that should assuredly have cleared him of the murder, but at a personal cost he was mysteriously unwilling to endure. Proof of innocence through revelation, was an avenue closed to us; proof of another's guilt must, therefore, be the avenue pursued. I did not stop to ask why I felt myself to be the chosen pursuer; it was a matter that did not admit