The magic word worked its accustomed miracle. Everyone smiled, and Wiley, seeing before him a jury of flivver owners, went on:
"And do you mean to tell me, Mr. Ussolof, that in the speediest car built in America you could not keep a foreign-built car going at thirty miles an hour in sight? Oh, Mr. Ussolof, you don't do us justice. We build better cars than that!"
The jury smiled, the spectators laughed, the gavel fell for order, and Mr. Wiley sat down. He had told Lydia that a jury, like an audience, loves those who make them laugh, and he sat down with an air of success. But Lydia, watching them more closely, was not so sure. As O'Bannon rose she noted the extreme gravity of his manner, his look at the jury, which seemed to say, "A man's life—a woman's liberty at stake, and you allow a mountebank to make you laugh!" It was only a look, but Lydia saw that they regained their seriousness like a lot of schoolboys when the head master enters.
"Call Alma Wooley," said O'Bannon.
Alma Wooley, the last witness for the People, was the girl to whom Drummond had been engaged. A little figure in the deepest mourning mounted the stand, so pale that she looked as if a strong ray would shine clear through her, and though her eyes were dry, her voice had the liquid sound that comes with much crying. Many of the jury had known her when she worked in her father's shop. She testified that her name was Alma Wooley, her age nineteen, that she lived with her father.
"Miss Wooley," said O'Bannon, "you were sent for to go to the hospital on the eleventh of this March, were you not?"
An almost inaudible "Yes, sir," was the answer.
"You saw Drummond before he died?"
She bent her head.
"How long were you with him?"