Chapter XXXIV: The Prison

Innocently and ignorantly Nina had walked into a terrible trap on the night when she re-entered her home at Selwyn Heights. Before the day dawned information of her return was lodged with the authorities. Her arrest followed quickly, just as she was about to make her escape.

Her youth, her beauty, her wealth were all powerless to save her now. The yawning doors of a prison received her within their gloomy embrace, she who had been cradled among the roses and lillies of life now became the inmate of a prison cell.

It was hard, it was bitter, it was cruel, but she had no redress. Shivering, trembling, dazed with fear and terror, she was led away like a lamb to the sacrifice. Her friends were half-mad with grief and dread.

Upon the dastardly wretch who had betrayed her presence at Selwyn Heights, Miss Drusilla Strangemore called down the deepest vengeance of heaven.

But the identity of the traitor was wrapped in impenetrable mystery. She called around her the whole small staff of servants at Selwyn Heights, and after delivering a scathing exordium that she hoped would scorch the conscience of the guilty party, she called upon each one individually to confess the truth.

If the occasion had not been so solemn the scene would have been ludicrous, so fierce and animated were Miss Strangemore’s gestures, and so vehement her injunctions that the truth and nothing but the truth be told.

But one after another, solemnly, indignantly, even with tears in their eyes, the little group protested innocence of the alleged fault, and swore anew unswerving love and fidelity to their young and hapless mistress.

The old maid was in despair at the result of her inquiries.

“But you know it was one of you, _certainly_,” she said, at last. “And I shall keep such a close watch upon you all that I’ll be bound to catch the guilty one at last. So whichever one of you it was that played the part of Judas, I want you to go away from Selwyn Heights and never darken these doors again!”

But no one offered to go, and no one went. Each and all were indignant at her suspicions.

“Miss Strangemore ought to know us better than to think that we could betray our sweet young mistress,” they said. “Why, we’ve been here ever since she was a little girl, and we love every hair of her head better than our own.”

So the mystery remained a mystery still, although Miss Drusilla sternly flouted Kitty’s belief in the innocence of the servants.

“It stands to reason that it was one of them, Kitty. There was no one else that knew she was here and alive.”

“Oh, Miss Strangemore, I can’t go to think that one of them servants that loved her as much as you and I did, could have turned against her. I’d sooner think it was that horrible ghost that done it all,” protested the maid.

Miss Drusilla tried to transfix her with the lightning of her eyes.

“What ghost?” she inquired, coldly, and Kitty answered, firmly:

“Mrs. St. Alban’s ghost, ma’am, that Miss Nina saw that night as well as myself.”

“Do you want me to think you’re a fool, Kitty, believing in ghosts in this practical nineteenth century?” exclaimed the old maid, severely.

Kitty remained unshaken in her belief, despite the fulminations of the old lady.

“I’m sorry for any one to think hard of me and call me names, but all the same I know that Mrs. St. Alban’s spirit _did_ come back every night almost to Selwyn Heights,” she said. “Almost every one of the servants heard it and caught glimpses of it, and at first they said it was Miss Nina because it always went into her room. So I said if my dear dead mistress walks it’s because she has something on her mind she wants to reveal, and so I slept in her dressing-room that night so that she might find me waiting for her, ready to hear the secret that troubled her spirit.”

Miss Drusilla gave an audible sniff, but Kitty continued, undauntedly:

“Well, I did sleep on the sofa in her dressing-room with the doors open, and sure enough she came. Thinks I to myself, poor darling, I’ve caught you, and I lay still and watched her with little creeping chills running down my back. It seemed strange to see a ghost light a candle, and unlock a jewel case with a key that had been missing so long. And then when she pulled out the shining jewels and talked aloud in dear Miss Nina’s voice it seemed stranger to me than ever and quite natural, too, so that presently the chill stopped creeping down my back, and I began to want to touch my pretty darling. I stole softly into the room and put both arms tightly around her, and then I found out that it was not a ghost but my mistress, living, and breathing, and struggling desperately to get away from me. But I held her tight and lighted the candle that she had put out. It was just at that moment that the door opened wide, and Mrs. St. Alban, natural as life in her white dress and loose hair, looked in at us.”

“Pooh, it was only your fancy. The door was not fastened tight, and a gust of wind tore it open,” exclaimed the spinster. “Then you imagined all the rest.”

“But Miss Nina saw it, too, and she was not frightened and did not imagine it, for she did not know that that wicked woman was dead,” Kitty replied.

“It was her fancy, nevertheless. She was thinking about the woman that had caused her so much trouble, and so it was easy for her to fancy that she saw her,” declared Miss Drusilla, who was determined not to give in to Kitty’s notion. To do her justice she really believed that the alleged ghost was merely a figment of imaginations stimulated too high by the recent tragedy.

But the maid

“Convinced against her will
Was of the same opinion still.”

“Miss Drusilla, you may think what you please, ma’am, but I’m sure I’m right,” she said, respectfully. “And if such a thing could be, I’d believe that that dreadful woman came back every night to watch for my poor darling, Miss Nina, and that _she_ caused her arrest that awful morning.”

“Your ghosts would seem at least to be very practical beings, Kitty,” said the spinster, with a faint glimmer of amusement.

“Yes ma’am, and isn’t it strange that since that night no one has seen nor heard the ghost? Doesn’t it seem like she could not rest until she had worked evil to my mistress, and that now she rests quiet in her grave at last?” said Kitty, with something like awe, and the old maid finding her so “set in her way” desisted in disgust from the attempt to convert her into a reasonable creature.

“‘Ignorance is the mother of superstition,’” she enunciated, loftily, and so dropped the subject.

She went to Baltimore, sought out the Fieldings, told them her story, and heard theirs. They were agonized over the dreadful fate that had overtaken the lovely, and hapless young girl. Too late they repented the silence they had kept out of their great love and sympathy.

“Better to have told her the hard truth than that this should have happened,” said the doctor.

“But who would have dreamed of her returning to Selwyn Heights, the place of all others we supposed she would wish to avoid?” wept Minnie Fielding.

When Miss Drusilla told her the truth----that Nina had ventured home to procure money to give to her kind friends, they were full of remorse and despair. They understood all, then. They knew that their innocent, kindly meant words had been overheard by the invalid girl. Those words had driven her away, hurried her to her wretched fate.

Gentle Mrs. Fielding wept and sobbed inconsolably.

“I will devote my life to her service,” said the doctor, soothing his sobbing wife. “You will need a man to help you and advise you in your dreadful position, Miss Strangemore. Pray command me in any and every way.”

“I don’t think much of men usually,” the spinster replied, candidly. “It was a man that brought all this trouble upon Nina, and I like the sex that much less for his fault. But I believe that you are as good a man as there is, Doctor Fielding, and since I must have a man’s help, I will accept your offer.”

The doctor who had understood from his wife some of Miss Strangemore’s peculiarities, only smiled at this characteristic acceptance of his offer.

“I thank you for your kindly spoken compliment, and will endeavor to deserve it,” he said. “And now we must set straight to work in behalf of our poor young friend. I suppose the first thing will be to procure a good lawyer.”

“The best that can be had,” assented Miss Drusilla. “She has plenty of money, and you may spend it like water to secure her acquittal.”