CHAPTER XIX.
THE REAL MURDERER
For some seconds I sat there, leaning back in my chair and gazingclose at that incredible, that accusing document. I knew it couldn'tlie: I knew it must be the very handiwork of unerring Nature. Thenslowly a recollection began to grow up in my mind. I knew of my ownmemory it was really true. I remembered it so, now, as in a glass,darkly. I remembered having stood, with the pistol in my hand,pointing it straight at the breast of the man with the long whitebeard whom they called my father. A new mental picture rose upbefore me like a vision. I remembered it all as something that oncereally occurred to me.
Yet I remembered it, as I had long remembered the next scene in theseries, merely as so much isolated and unrelated fact, withoutconnection of any sort to link it to the events that preceded orfollowed it. It was _I_ who shot my father! I realised that now witha horrid gulp. But what on earth did I ever shoot him for?
And I had hunted down Jack for the crime I had committed myself! Ihad threatened to give him up for my own dreadful parricide!
After a minute, I rose, and staggered feebly to the door. I saw thepath of duty clear as daylight before me.
"Where are you going?" Jack faltered out, watching me close withanxious eyes, lest I should stumble or faint.
And I answered aloud, in a hollow voice:
"To the police-station, of course,--to give myself into custody forthe murder of my father."
When I thought it was Jack, though I loved him better than I lovedmy own life, I would have given him up to justice as a sacred duty.Now I knew it was myself, how could I possibly do otherwise? Howcould I love my own life better than I loved dear Jack's, who hadgiven up everything to save me and protect me?
With a wild bound of horror, Jack sprang upon me at once. He seizedme bodily in his arms. He carried me back into the room withirresistible strength. I fought against him in vain. He laid me onthe sofa. He bent over me like a whirlwind and smothered me with hotkisses.
"My darling," he cried, "my darling, then this shock hasn't killedyou! It hasn't stunned you like the last! You're still your own dearself! You've still strength to think and plan exactly what one wouldexpect from you. Oh! Una, my Una, you must wait and hear all. Whenyou've learned HOW it happened, you won't wish to act so rashly."
I struggled to free myself, though his arms were hard and close likea strong man's around me.
"Let me go, Jack!" I cried feebly, trying to tear myself from hisgrasp. "I love you better than I love my own life. If I would havegiven YOU up, how much more must I give up myself, now I know it wasI who really did it!"
He held me down by main force. He pinned me to the sofa. I supposeit's because I'm a woman, and weak, and all that--but I liked eventhen to feel how strong and how big he was, and how feeble I wasmyself, like a child in his arms. And I resisted on purpose, just tofeel him hold me. Somehow, I couldn't realize, after all, that I wasindeed a murderess. It didn't seem possible. I couldn't believe itwas in me.
"Jack," I said slowly, giving way at last, and letting him hold medown with his small strong hands and slender iron wrist, "tell me,if you will, how I came to do it. I'll sit here quite still, if onlyyou'll tell me. Am I really a murderess?"
Jack recoiled like one shot.
"YOU a murderess, my spotless Una!" he exclaimed, all aghast. "Ifanyone else on earth but you had just asked such a thing in mypresence, I'd have leapt at the fellow's throat, and held him downtill I choked him!"
"But I did it!" I cried wildly. "I remember now, I did it. It allcomes back to me at last. I fired at him, just so. I aimed theloaded pistol point-blank at his heart, I can hear the din in myears. I can see the flash at the muzzle. And then I flung down thepistol--like this--at my feet: and darkness came on; and I forgoteverything. Why, Dr. Marten knew that much! I remember now, he toldme he'd formed a very strong impression, from the nature of thewound and the position of the various objects on the floor of theroom, who it was that did it! He must have seen it was _I_ who flungdown the pistol."
Jack gazed at me in suspense.
"He's a very good friend of yours, then," he murmured, "that Dr.Marten. For he never said a word of all that at the inquest."
"But I must give myself up!" I cried, in a fever of penitence forwhat that other woman who once was ME had done. "Oh, Jack, do letme! It's hateful to know I'm a murderess and to go unpunished. It'shateful to draw back from the fate I'd have imposed on another. I'dlike to be hanged for it. I want to be hanged. It's the onlypossible way to appease one's conscience."
And yet, though I said it, I felt all the time it wasn't really I,but that other strange girl who once lived at The Grange and lookedexactly like me. I remember it, to be sure; but it was in my OtherState: and, so far as my moral responsibility was concerned, myOther State and I were two different people.
For I knew in my heart I couldn't commit a murder.
Jack rose without a word, and fetched me in some brandy.
"Drink this," he said calmly, in his authoritative medical tone;"drink this before you say another sentence."
And, obedient to his order, I took it up and drank it.
Then he sat down beside me, and took my hand in his, and with verygentle words began to reason and argue with me.
He was glad I'd struggled, he said, because that broke the firstforce of the terrible shock for me. Action was always good for onein any great crisis. It gave an outlet for the pent-up emotions, toosuddenly let loose with explosive force, and kept them from turninginward and doing serious harm, as mine had done on that horriblenight of the accident. He called it always the accident, I noticed,and never the murder. That gave me fresh hope. Could I really afterall have fired unintentionally? But no; when I came to lookinward,--to look backward on my past state,--I was conscious all thetime of some strong and fierce resentment smouldering deep in myheart at the exact moment of firing. However it might have happened,I was angry with the man with the long white beard: I fired at himhastily, it is true, but with malice prepense and deliberate intentto wound and hurt him.
Jack went on, however, undeterred, in a low and quiet voice,soothing my hand with his as he spoke, and very kind and gentle. Myspirit rebelled at the thought that I could ever for one moment haveimagined him a murderer. I said so in one wild burst. Jack held myhand, and still reasoned with me. I like a man's reasoning; it's socalm and impartial. It seems to overcome one by its mere display ofstrength. If I'd changed my mind once, Jack said, I might change itagain, when further evidence on the point was again forthcoming. Imustn't give myself up to the police till I understood much more. IfI did, I would commit a very grave mistake. There were reasons thathad led to the firing of the shot. Very grave reasons too. Couldn'tI restore and reconstruct them, now I knew the last stage of theterrible history? If possible, he'd rather I should arrive at themby myself than that he should tell me.
I cast my mind back all in vain.
"No, Jack," I said trustfully. "I can't remember anything one bitlike that. I can remember forward, sometimes, but never backwards. Ican remember now how I flung down the pistol, and how the servantsburst in. But not a word, not an item, of what went before. That'sall a pure blank to me."
And then I went on to tell him in very brief outline how the firstthing I could recollect in all my life was the Australian scene withthe big blue-gum-trees; and how that had been recalled to me by thepicture at Jane's; and how one scene in that way had graduallysuggested another; and how I could often think ahead from a givenfact but never go back behind it and discover what led up to it.
Jack drew his hand over his chin and reflected silently.
"That's odd," he said, after a pause. "Yet very comprehensible. Imight almost have thought of that before: might have arrived at iton general principles. Psychologically and physiologically it'sexactly what one would have expected from the nature of memory. Andyet it never occurred to me. Set up the train of thought in theorder in which it originally presented itself, and the links mayreadily restor
e themselves in successive series. Try to trace itbackward in the inverse order, and the process is very much moredifficult and involved.--Well, we'll try things just so with you,Una. We'll begin by reconstructing your first life as far as we canfrom the very outset, with the aid of these stray hints of yours;and then we'll see whether we can get you to remember all your pastup to the day of the accident more easily."
I gazed up at him with gratitude.
"Oh, Jack," I said, trembling, "in spite of this shock, I believe Ican do it now. I believe I can remember. The scales are falling frommy eyes. I'm becoming myself again. What you've said and what you'veshown me seems to have broken down a veil. I feel as if I couldreconstruct all now, when once the key's suggested to me."
He smiled at me encouragingly. Oh, how could I ever have doubtedhim?
"That's right, darling," he answered. "I should have expected asmuch, indeed. For now for the very first time since the accidentyou've got really at the other side of the great blank in yourmemory."
I felt so happy, though I knew I was a murderess. I didn't mind nowwhether I was hanged or not. To love Jack and be loved by him wasquite enough for me. When he called me "darling," I was in theseventh heavens. It sounded so familiar. I knew he must have calledme so, often and often before, in the dim dead past that was justbeginning to recur to me.