They had not been out quite an hour, but the interval seemed terribly long to those they left behind.
When they came in one by one, with drooping heads and set faces, the verdict was read before it was heard. Only the prisoner still held out, with that obstinate unbelief in the worst which is a part of strong natures. Only the prisoner and the prisoner’s counsel. He manifested no sorrow and no surprise. Prescott put his stoical calmness down to over-exhaustion, others of the Bar attributed it to his confidence in the point reserved. The public hardly noticed him. Their eyes were fixed upon the dock.
The clerk of arraigns stood up, and went as best he could through the tedious process of calling each juryman by name. Then followed the routine question, followed by the awful word, heavy with issues of death, pealing forth through the hushed, agitated hall:
‘Guilty!’
The prisoner neither moved nor answered, as the clerk formally summoned her to declare if there were any reasons why sentence should not be passed upon her. Some of the women whispered that she had gone mad, or that she was going to faint. The judge covered his wig with the sombre square of silk.
Suddenly she looked up, cast her eyes rapidly round the court, and fixing them full on Prescott, who was attentively watching her, she exclaimed:
‘I am not guilty.’
‘Eleanor Margaret Owen, the jury, after a long and patient hearing, and after taking time for careful deliberation, have found you guilty of the crime of wilful murder. What motive inspired you to commit such a crime I cannot say, and it may, perhaps, never be known. It only remains for me to discharge my very painful duty, which I do by declaring that the sentence of the court upon you is——’
The details followed. The words are too familiar to need setting forth. They sounded in unconscious ears. Eleanor Owen had fainted at last, and was carried helpless and lifeless away from the scene of her long martyrdom.