The Trial [125]
his heart; but I think you would find more support and comfort in a man of Mr. Wilmot's age and experience, and that Mr. Reeve would have more trust in him; but it shall be exactly as will be most comforting to you.' 'If Mr. Wilmot would be so good, then' said Leonard, meekly. 'Indeed, I want help to bear it patiently! I don't know how to die; and yet it seemed not near so hard a year ago, when they thought I did not notice, and I heard Ave go away crying, and my mother murmuring, again and again, "Thy will be done!"--the last time I heard her voice. Oh, well that she has not to say it now!' 'Well that her son can say it!' 'I want to be able to say it,' said the boy, fervently; 'but this seems so hard--life is so sweet.' Then, after a minute's thought: 'Dr. May, that morning, when I awoke, and asked you for them--papa and mamma--you knelt down and said the Lord's Prayer. Won't you now?' And when those words had been said, and they both stood up again, Leonard added: 'It always seems to mean more and more! But oh, Dr. May! that forgiving--I can't ask any one but you if--' and he paused. 'If you forgive, my poor boy! Nay, are not your very silence and forbearance signs of practical forgiveness? Besides, I have always observed that you have never used one of the epithets that I can't think of him without.' 'Some feelings are too strong for common words of abuse,' said Leonard, almost smiling; 'but I hope I may be helped to put away what is wrong. --Oh, must you go?' 'I fear I must, my dear; I have a patient to see again, on my way back, and one that will be the worse for waiting.' 'Henry has not been able to practise. I want to ask one thing, Dr. May, before you go. Could not you persuade them, since home is poisoned to them, at any rate to go at once? It would be better for my sisters than being here--when--and they would only remember that last Sunday at home.' 'Do you shrink from another meeting with Averil?' His face was forced into calmness. 'I will do without it, if it would hurt her.' 'It may for the time, but to be withheld would give her a worse heart-ache through life.' 'Oh, thank you!' cried Leonard, his face lighting up; 'it is something still to hope for.' 'Nay, I've not given you up yet,' said the Doctor, trying for a cheerful smile. 'I've got a prescription that will bring you through yet--London advice, you know. I've great faith in the consulting surgeon at the Home Office.' By the help of that smile and augury, the Doctor got away, terribly beaten down, but living on his fragment of hope; though obliged to perceive that every one who merely saw the newspaper report in black and white, without coming into personal contact with the prisoner, could not understand how the slightest question of the justice of the verdict could arise. Even Mr. Wilmot was so convinced by the papers, that the Doctor almost repented of the mission to which he had invited him, and would, if he could, have revoked what had been said. But the vicar of Stoneborough, painful as was the duty, felt his post to be by the side of his unhappy young parishioner, equally whether the gaol chaplain or Dr. May were right, and if he had to bring him to confession, or to strengthen him to 'endure grief, suffering wrongfully.' And after the first interview, no more doubts on that score were expressed; but the vicar's tone of pitying reverence in speaking of the prisoner was like that of his friends in the High Street. Tom May spared neither time nor pains in beating up for signatures for the petition, but he had a more defined hope, namely, that of detecting something that might throw the suspicion into the right quarter. The least contradiction of the evidence might raise a doubt that would save Leonard's life, and bring the true criminal in peril of the fate he so richly deserved. The Vintry Mill was the lion of the neighbourhood, and the crowds of visitors had been a reason for its new master's vacating it, and going into lodgings in Whitford; so that Tom, when he found it convenient to forget his contempt of the gazers and curiosity