By goom! All t' preachers i' Lancashire will have this affair for a text!"

In another part of the court the two ladies who had been discussing Paul on the previous day were now discussing his father.

"Did you ever dream of such a thing?"

"Well," was the reply. "When I come to think of it, there is a resemblance between them."

"How can you say that? The prisoner is tall, dark; he has black hair and black eyes, while Judge Bolitho is florid and has light hair."

"No; but their features are the same. Do you know, after all, there's something in blood. No one can help seeing that Stepaside is a gentleman."

"Why, I thought you said before that his common blood showed itself."

"My dear, you misunderstood me. See the way he has risen in the world.

I am told that Judge Bolitho comes from one of the oldest families in the West of England, and family tells, my dear, family tells!"

"But just think of it! Would you have believed that a proud man like Judge Bolitho would have stood up and made such a revelation to a gaping crowd like this?"

"Conscience, my dear, conscience!"

"Yes; but what about his conscience during the years? I tell you we've not seen the end of this business yet. Can't you see the complications?"

"Do you know, I've often been tempted to invite Stepaside to my house.

I wish I had now; he must be an interesting man."

"They'll never hang him after this. Do you think so?"

"I don't know. If these things had come to light a few days ago, before the trial commenced, they might have hushed it up; but I don't see how they can now."

"But wasn't it tremendously exciting. I wouldn't have missed it for anything. I felt a shiver down my back all the time the judge was speaking. What a splendid scene for a play!"

And so they continued talking. The real deep issues of the case were as nothing. To them it was an event which interested them beyond words. It fed their love for excitement, and promised to be a subject of conversation for many days to come.

Meanwhile the barristers had gathered together in excited groups. They discussed the matter in an entirely different way. To them the case was everything, and they fastened upon all the legal difficulties which might arise. More than one wondered, too, whether out of such a maelstrom of events work would not be bound to fall to them.

"Who will be appointed judge, I wonder?" said one.

"Oh, Brans...o...b.., I expect."

"I wonder whether Stepaside had some inkling of the truth. Perhaps that was the reason he refused to engage counsel."

"Do you think Stepaside knew all the time?"

"There's no knowing; he's such a secretive fellow. Did you notice the expression on his face all day yesterday when he looked at the judge?

And this morning I couldn't help noticing it. I tell you, Stepaside knew a great deal more than we imagined, and he's had something up his sleeve the whole time. There'll be an interesting _denouement_ to all this."

"Will he be hanged, think you?"

"Ask me another! As far as circ.u.mstantial evidence goes, the man's dead already, unless he has something to fire forth at the last."

"I see now," said another. "That was the reason Bolitho was so excited last night. Don't you remember how he trembled when that note was brought to him, and how he left the room like a man in a dream? That's it. There was some hint of this in the letter he received. Then he went out and made certain."

"But how could he do that?"

"Who knows? The fact remains that he didn't know till last night. He said as much just now. Anyone can see he didn't have a wink of sleep last night."

"Yes, that was plain enough. He must have suffered the torments of the d.a.m.ned!"

"All the same, it was a plucky thing to do! Would you have done it if you had been in his place?"

"A man doesn't know what he would do under such circ.u.mstances. All the same, we can't help admiring him. You see, Bolitho always had a strain of religion in him, and although he was as hard as nails in many respects, he possessed the remains of an old conscience."

Slowly the court emptied itself, and the people found their way into the street, still eagerly discussing every phase of the question, still asking and answering questions.

"I tell thee what," a rough collier was heard to say. "G.o.d Almighty's been to work, and when G.o.d Almighty gets to work wonderful things happen! When I get back to Brunford I'm going to our minister straight away and ask him to call a meeting for prayer. We mun pray, I tell you. We mun!"

During this time Paul was led back to his cell. The warders would far rather have remained in the court and talked the matter over with the others, but still the influence of discipline was upon them, and they had to do their duty. As a consequence, Paul was soon away from the noise of the excited crowd, and a few minutes later was alone in his cell. As may be imagined, if the scene that morning had caused such excitement among the spectators, it had aroused his nature to the very depths. Everything was so unexpected, so unthought of. In all his calculations Paul had never thought of this. He had wondered in what way Judge Bolitho, whenever the truth became known to him, would meet the difficulties which arose, but he had never dreamt he would stand up in a crowded court like that and make such a confession. Paul knew him to be a proud man, knew, too, that he was sensitive to the least approach of shame, knew that he valued the name he owned--one of the oldest in England. One part of the judge's speech remained in his memory. He repeated the words over again and again to himself as if trying to understand their inwardness: "In a sense there is no need that I should make this explanation in this way, but I do it because my conscience binds me to do so and because I wish, here and now, to ask my son's forgiveness."

In spite of himself he was moved. He realised what it must have cost the judge to utter such words; realised, too, the battle which he had fought during the night, before he had decided to make such a statement. "Because I wish, here and now, to ask my son's forgiveness."

Even yet he hated his father, and fought against the kinder feelings which surged up in his heart. He could not forget the dastardly deed which the man had committed before he was born: the base betrayal, the almost baser desertion, and those long years when his mother suffered in silence and solitude. For himself he did not care so much, but his mother he loved with all the strength of his nature. And a few lachrymose words could not atone for the misery of a lifetime. Still, they had their effect upon him. He called to mind, too, the look in the judge's eyes as he left the court, the simple words he had spoken: "Paul, my son, can you forgive me?"

He wanted to forgive him. A thousand forces which he could not understand seemed to be pleading with him. All the same, his heart remained adamant. The shadow of the gallows was still upon him, the weary weeks he had been lying in a dark cell, covered with ignominy and shame. His portrait had appeared in almost every scurrilous rag in the country. His name and history had been debated among those who always fastened upon every foul bit of garbage they could find. And in a way Paul traced everything to this man, Judge Bolitho; why, he did not know, but he could not help it.

Still, the happenings of that morning impressed him. They seemed to change his intellectual and spiritual whereabouts. They broke the hard crust of his nature. They appealed to him in a way which he thought impossible, and he wondered with a great wonder.

Everything was bewildering, staggering! Where was his mother? he wondered, and, more than all, where was Mary? The thought of the relationship between them almost drove him mad. He could not bear to think that he and Mary were children of the same father. It outraged something in his heart and mocked the dreams which he still dared to dream. Somehow, the battle for his own life which he had determined to fight more pa.s.sionately than ever had sunk in the background now. It was not the only issue at stake. Other forces were liberated, other interests overwhelmed him.

Still, as he sat there, brooding and planning and dreaming, one thing became clear to his mind and heart--he would not die! He would not betray his mother, but he would fight for his own life. He was a prisoner, and he had refused, and would still refuse, to engage counsel to defend him or lawyers to gather evidence. He knew too well the danger of that. No, no, whatever happened to him, no breath of suspicion should fall upon his mother; but he would fight for his own life step by step, inch by inch. He would tear the circ.u.mstantial evidence to pieces. He would convince the jury that it was impossible to condemn him. Whatever else must be done, that must be done--he owed it to Mary.

Directly he thought of her his heart grew warm and tender. She believed in him. She had declared her faith in his innocence in spite of circ.u.mstantial evidence. She had laughed at it; she would laugh at it; and he would prove himself worthy of her faith. That at length became the dominant thought in his mind, the great motive power of his life.

Outside, the city of Manchester was stirred to its depths. Like lightning the news had pa.s.sed from one lip to another of what had taken place that morning, while the reporters rushed to their various offices to transcribe their notes and to prepare copy for the papers. In an almost incredibly quick time the evening newspapers appeared. Newsboys were rushing through the streets shouting excitedly, and there was a mad scramble among the people to buy. The printing presses could not turn them out fast enough; the machinery was insufficient to meet the demands of the excited crowd. "Great murder trial!" shouted the boys.

"Wonderful revelations!" "Judge Bolitho confesses that he is the prisoner's father!" "Tremendous excitement in court! Many women fainted!" and so on and so on. Factories became emptied as if by magic. At every corner crowds gathered. Business was at a standstill.

The members of the Manchester Exchange had forgotten to think of the rise or fall of cotton. Everything was swallowed up in the news of the day.

Every telegraph office, too, was filled with eager people, and the means of communication from one part of the country to another was taxed to its utmost. Some few months before the Prime Minister of the country had come to Manchester to speak on a question which was exciting not only England but the whole Empire, but even then the telegraph wires had never been so congested with news as on that morning. In a little over an hour after the judge had left the court the London papers were full of it. Stirring headlines were on the placards of all the evening papers, and people bought them with almost the same avidity as they had bought them in Manchester. In a sense there seemed no reason why so much interest should have been aroused, but in another there was. Such a confession on the part of the judge was almost unprecedented, and as both Judge Bolitho and Paul Stepaside were so largely in the public eye, their sayings and doings seemed of the utmost importance. There was something romantic in it, too. A father sitting in judgment upon his own son, and not knowing until a few hours before that he was his son!

But Judge Bolitho was unconscious of all this. He never thought of it.

When he left the court that morning he retired for a few minutes into the judge's room; but he could not remain there--he was too excited, too overwhelmed. He must do something. For now that he had made his confession the whole case appeared to him in a different way from what it had appeared to the public. They, in their wonder at the revelation of the facts which Judge Bolitho had made known, had almost ceased to think of the possible doom of the prisoner. But that became of supreme importance to him. In a way which no man can explain, his heart had gone out to his son. Nature had a.s.serted itself. Years had become as nothing, past events seemed to lose their force, in the thought that Paul Stepaside was his son; and he feared for his future, he was in danger of his life. When the new judge was appointed, whoever it might be, he knew that he would consider this case impartially on the evidence given. Young Edward Wilson was murdered, there could be no doubt about that, and all the evidence pointed to Paul Stepaside.

When he reached the street he got into a cab, and was driven to his hotel, and there he thought out the whole case again. On the previous night, during the long hours when he was sleepless, it was a difficult battle he had to fight. It was then for him to make known his son to the world. Perhaps it had been a quixotic, almost a mad thing to do; but, although the suffering it entailed was horrible, he could not help doing it. He had fought a long battle over what he conceived to be his duty, and duty had won. Now that was over, and he had done his duty, the other problem faced him: how could he save his son? But again his mind refused to work. Nothing seemed clear and definite to him. The great feeling in his heart was hunger for his boy. He wanted to be by his side--nay, he wanted to kneel at his feet, to plead with him, to beg for his love.

He had not been long in his room before a look of determination came into his eyes. He had yielded to the overmastering feeling in his heart, and a few minutes later he was in the street again, on his way to Strangeways Gaol.

CHAPTER XXIV