LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume IX, Issue 1219, 30 January 1878, Page 3

LITERATURE.

HALF A MINUTE LATE. London Society. ( Continued .) Could he have liberated the fluttering, 4 Yes’ even yet if he had refused to take her answer ? Perhaps ; but something prevented him. It was now the gigantic ghost of that halfminute—a half-minute no more, no more even an hour, a day, a year-but a whole life, fortune, Letty, and all. The details might be absurd, but massed together they had swelled into a mountain, and the absurdities were the mocking grins of its gnomes. ‘ Only half a minute ! ’ Only destiny. Tint one effect of such combined assaults ,>f Fate upon a weak man is to moke, him weaker; upon a strong man to make hun stronger. They are the testa of manhood and of will. The -loss of Letty might be unbearable, but it had to be borne. The world must still go on, though for Harold all buying and mTselling, all hunger and no food. Something must be done He had said so a thousand times for Letty’s sake; now he must say it once for all, and for his own. But even his pressing need did not keep him from calling at the hospital the next day with the girl’s miniature and ring. She ecu d see him now. Ho sat down by her bedside and looked for a moment into tne sweet pure eyes, wondering what he should say to them. They were very different from Letty’s eyes. He could not imagine them looking coldly up m a beaten lover—he could imagine them lighting up with sympathetic joy o> softening into comfort. He longed to know by what name to call her. But, meanwhile, how should he tell her that she was alone in the world V

He looked .at her gravely and laid the ring before her. ‘lt is well with her now,’ he said. He took her hand that she might not feel all alone, and turned away his face that she might weep freely. The tears came, and th'.n sire tolibed bitterly ; but her hand clung to his as if it had bueu a child’s, and with a touch as innocent. The tears came into his own eyes.

‘I will see you again,’ was a]« eke ho said tober. He felt he was giving her strength by being tin re : and soon she would, have to face the world ill Mono. ‘\\ hat is her name ?’ he asked a nurse.

‘ Alice Despard.’ *Will she get well?’ he asked the surge™-

‘ Who can tell ?’ But he looked—' No.’ & * * * *

Harold returned to his lodgings well-nigh heart broken. The lost half minute had lost him fortune, love, hope almost, and had killed the sweetest face and voice lie had ever seen or I card.

But when he reached home, his room was occupied —by n policeman and a companion in plain clothes. The latter said, before he could ask their business.

‘ You are Harold Maynard. lam a con stable. And 1 arrest you on a charge of wilful murder.’

‘ What in Heaven’s name do you mean ?’ ‘I he murder of Jane Leopard. And you’d bettor cons along quietly, aa yon must, and n b say a worn. ’

Harold Maynard—and wilful murder? ’J Jliuk of youisclf, you who read this, and couple your own name with two such words if you can. And then you will conceive the effect of such a- charge upon such a man, who was as incapable, of such a crime, even in imagination, as you.

And jet who shall say after this that the evidence of circumstance* may not bear with crushing force against the most innocent of men ?

The surgeon called in by the police had found that i lie woman in Knagg’s house in I’owys place, Jane Despard by name, had been suffocated, not by nature, but by man, who does everything so much mo v e artistically than she. "Suspicion at first fell naturally upon the landlord. But he in the first place volunteered an ineffectual search of the premises, and, while i till in custody, gave certain information, that put a different complexion on affairs. A gentleman had come from St. Martin's H capital wuile the poor lady lav dying. That gentleman was easily identified, by inquiries at the hospital, as Harold Maynard. Very slight inquiries were enough to make manifest that Harold Maynard was a very poor man, with the position of a gen'lcman to keep up. wi’.h many debts, no employment, and no means. He had been s.-een at the hospital in posses aion of a missing wedding-ring—that m itself was nothing At his lodgings was found a miniature, the property of" the murdered woman. That was not much more. But

The detective in plain clothes, who was sharp enough, had taken the trouble to dissect the miniature, And between the portrait and the back he found Hank of England r 'cites to the amount of two thousand pounds ! M-> - a enough for murder and to spare in the eyes of the law. Cut bono ?

And he who possessed the miniature, and had never delivered it out of his own hands, had been alone with the murdered woman daring ample time for murder and robbery. If he had come with a ohantaMotmotive, with what motive had he carried away two thousand pounds ? Temptation makes the thief, not the thief die temptation—as all the world knows.

It was a very triumph of deteotivhm. Why should a sane man rob a dead woman of a miniature that could be nothing to him if ha did not know what lay behind ? And the n 'tes were old notes-a hoard well irgh as old as the miniature must have been. There was no dillioulty in finding them : no secret trick : the only thing was to have the idea. And even as the idea had at once struck the detective, so surely it must have struck Harold Maynard. And so lie was in the cell of the policestation, with a consciousness of innocence and a conviction that the proofs against him were overwhelming. He had a night’s leisure to think over all things. Why was he charged with murder? Because, omitting minor steps, he had been alone with the dyi) g Mrs Despsrd, Why had he been there? Because he had run over a girl in the street mist. Why had lie run over her? Because he had been driving over just that part of the road where she was crossing. Why so? Because he had been decayed by a block. And why delayed? Because he had not arrived at the spot just half a minute before. And why not? Because he had started half a minute late from his own door. Why ? because half a minute bad passed between bis touching his bedroom bell-rope and giving it a pull. And finally, why ? Because some unknown journalist had written a paradoxical article in an evening newspaper. Messieurs et 'mrsdumes, such things are happening every day and all day long. Are there any little tilings in the world ? Are there any great things ?

* Alas, how easily things go wrong ! A sigh too much, or a kiss too-long. There follows a mist and a weeping rain— But too often has that been quoted and misquoted Half a minute late, indeed! Waif a second, half the tick of a watch, and half that again. Life is made up of such things. Sighs and kisses are Erobdiguagiau in comparison to the straws that do the undone w>uk of Archimedes’ lever and move the world. I would prove in the twinkling of an eye that the oak grows from tho acorn, and the fore t from a grain of mustard seed. Hot all our lost half minutes end in murder. But they may, ay, and do, cud in worse —in blunders never to be redeemed, in life long estrangements, in mi-sed opportunities, in all the thousand ills that souls are heirs to. Half minutes have lost battles, and overthrown empires, and missed trains. But these reflections, though philosophical enough in their way, ami though he had leisure to make them, in no wise helped Harold Maynard. What was his defence to be?

He might feel sure enough in his own mind that Knaggs, Hie professi mal resurrectionist. was more likely to make sure of a body, during the absence of Alice, than he to make sure of a hundred thousand pounds. But nothing was found on Knaggs while two thousand pounds were found upon him. The world is never tired of asking Cui /who 1 The world mostly mistranslates it, indeed, but that is the way of the world. And here it applied only too well. In short, thee was but one person in the whole world who believed in liar-Id Maynard and that was she who of all people in the world had most reason to disbelieve in him, and to feel the need for revenge—upon the guilty, if possible, but in any case upon somebody. Stories of murders will find their way everywhere, even among people -who never road ; even iuto the wards of hospitals. Letty might forget that she had ever eared for a murderer iu a deep flirtation with Tom Winter, who may have had his own reasons for so generously banish ing a dangerous rival to Hong-Kong, Mr Hespard might set down murder ns the natural and necessary outcome or hi ing late

lor dinner—-a less heinous oflV-m e. but tar more fertile of general discomfort than murder. But Ar.ce, on her eick-bcd, with a glorious contempt for logic and the law of evidence, refused with an obstinacy only equally by Hetty's to understand how so kind a man could bo a murder, r—and of her own mother ; it was only too horribly impossible She gave no reason for the faith that was in her : her instinct told her to believe, and she believed. And after all, is not that the only sort of belief worth having ? 'Defend us from those who believe iu us only when they have good cause; give us those who insist on believing in us because they love us, right or wrong. That sort of belief seldom errs.

Alice had burned with fever ; now she burned with anxiety. She had been mourning for the dead; now fear for the living well-nigh swallowed up her mourning, t'die clutched at every feather of news. The new fever bad a strange effect upon her health.

I will not say that the surgeon who had given her over was disappointed to find his predictions falsified, but ha must for ever after have had less faith in his own opinion. From the moment she heard of the charge against Harold Maynard, her pulse began to beat less quickly, her heart more strongly, and a ce tain unsuspected elasticity of nature gave her a rebound from her illness. Her cheeks were no longer pale, but the colour of health began to glow into them. And so it w'ent with her till she was discharged—cured, ard without a penny iu the world. And yet she did net believe herself to bo the rightful and defrauded heiress to two thousand pounds. If she had, she must have thought her hero a this', and if a thief the murderer of her own mother ; and she refused to believe anything of the kind, or rather was incapable of believing.

At last the day arrived when Harold Maynard - gentleman, of no occupation : an ill -omened designation—was to be brought up at Bow street, before the magistrate, charged with the murder of cue Jane Despard. Despard is not a particularly common name, though, oddly enough it occurs twice in this history, ns that of a rich Oh in a merchant and of a poor lodger in Powys place. It would therefore have been natural enough for its owner not to have been present on the bench during the examination. Men, as a rule, are not fond of having their names aired under such conditions. But pointing morals is a favourite pastime, however unwilling modest people may be to adorn tales. He who fust thought of the idle apprentice and his virtuous contrast could have found no better illustration of the virtue of punctuality. Cld Despard could see it all before him laid cut like a map from the beginning. There was Tom Idle before him in the dock, and beside him on the bench John Goodchild in the person of Tom inter. Of course Letty was not there : but that was in cons quetice of a sacrifice of ca-iosn'-y to the proprieties. Perhaps she migho appear under a veil when the trial came, but she could hardly take part with self-respect in the vulgarities of a police court: and besides, her father would allow her. All this happened but a short time ago, as a few fairly long memories for these harried times will call to mind. But the passion for remands, for exhausting the funds of prisoners in preliminary investigations, and for turning a simple matter of business into a display of vanity and mutual admiration all round, had not come fully into fashion. It was quite possible that the examination of Harold Maynard might last no more than than three weeks : some people said three days : a few even though one day would be enough, as the prisoner was without counsel. But that remained to be seen. A clever prisoner, who v. .Tlied to take full advantage of his situation, might give a good deal of trouble and delay, though without the advantage of legal training. Harold Maynard felt his position there as an innocent man would - that is to say, he was overwhelmed with the shame popularly supposed to be one of the punishments peculiar to guilt by those who know nothing about the matter. Fear of death is a mere nothing to such shame, when the warm blood boils against the injustice of circumstances, not of man He w r as alive to the actual peril iu w hich he was standing, though not so much as to his name being bruited about as a murderer; to what Letty, the lost, would think of him ; and last, but by no means least, how Alice would see her mother’s murderer in the man who had been planning even in the midst of his own difficulties, how he could in some way make up to her for the many cruelties of destiny. But as he was waiting and watching, with no more than j nst one shadowy t uch of a halter round his neck, tiie ticking of the deck grew louder and louder, till it seemed to become visible as well as audib’e The half minutes could bo seen. But they all seemed to obey and follow' one arch half minute, that appeared to grin at him from the clock face with a diabolical grin. He had raised that, and no other, and it had haunted him and was destroying him. He might have lost any other half minute in the universe with impunity—this alone had been fatally gifted, and this alone he had made his enemy. And it had grown and grown till it had filled up the whole measure of all life aud death, and bade fair to open the gate of eternity. The evidence, in spite of all that could be done, did not take long. Indeed the witnesses were few —the surgeon, the defective, and one or two others. Mr Knaggs was not iu court, but the prisoners own statement as to admitting his presence in Powys place at the time alleged, made up for the tvant of that witness. It seemed likely that the examination of the prisoner would be concluded in a sing’e day. And it was actually approaching conclusion and committal, when—--4 May I say something ?’ said a sweet young voice from behind the dock. ‘ Certainly. ’ ITr he continued.)