The tempest rose just then, and, to Ada's almost frenzied mind, it seemed as if every swell of the wind answered back, "too late—too late!" She shuddered, and cowered down by the woman, as if a death sentence were ringing over her.
When Jacob returned, he found the two women sitting together, upon the steps. Ada rose to her feet, and, without speaking, began rapidly to mount them. Jacob followed.
"Where are you going! Not there, I hope—not there!"
"Yes, there!"
She rushed forward, her frozen garments crackling and shedding ice-drops as she moved. All the high-bred dignity of her mien was gone; all the richness of her toilet drenched away. The woman who followed her scarcely looked more poverty stricken—did not look so utterly desolate. She opened the court-room door, and crept in. All the audience was gone. Empty benches flung their long, gloomy shadows athwart the room. Dim lamps flared across the wall, leaving patches of blackness in the angles and around every object that could catch and break the weak gleams of light. The judge was upon his seat, pale and still as a statue of marble. Weary with excitement and the protracted trial, he sat there in the gloomy midnight, waiting for the death-word, face to face with that old man, whose life lay in the breath on his lip. Constantly his eyes turned upon the prisoner, and always they were met with a glance that penetrated his heart to the core. A light, overhead, fell upon the old man's temple, silvering the broad, high forehead, gleaming through the white locks and glancing downward, shedding faint rays upon his beard and bosom. I have seen a picture of Rembrandt's, so like my idea of the old man, that it has haunted me ever since. The calm, deep-set eyes, the holy strength slumbering within them—the expanse of forehead, the whole head, were so perfectly the embodiment of my thought, that it startled me. That which I saw in the picture, it was, which penetrated to the heart of the judge, as he gazed upon the living man.
A group of police-officers hung about the door; some asleep, with their caps down over their eyes, others yawning and stretched at full length upon the benches, making the scene more gloomy by the contrast of their indifference with the anguish that surrounded them.
Away, in the darkest corner, was another group of persons—three females and a man. No word, no whisper passed among them. It scarcely seemed as if they drew breath; but as you looked that way, the glitter of wild eyes struck you with a sort of terror; and if the least sound arose, the shadows around those women changed sharply, as if they felt something of the anguish which made their principals start. Ada Leicester crept noiselessly along the darkened wall, followed by the prison woman, and sat down a little way from the rest. No one seemed to regard her, and there she remained in the gloom, motionless as the figures upon which her dull eyes were now and then turned. Thus an hour went by; all within the court room was silent as death; without was the storm, wailing and sobbing around the windows, shaking them angrily, like evil spirits striving to break in, then rushing off with a hoarse disappointed howl. This terrible contrast—the stillness within—the wild tumult without—made even the officers cower closer together, and filled the other persons present with intense awe. It seemed as if heaven and earth had combined in hurling denunciations against that hapless old man. It was after midnight, and for an instant there was a hush in the storm—a hush in the vast building. Then came the sharp closing of a door, the tramp of heavy feet, and twelve figures glided, one after another, into the court-room. They ranged themselves in a dark line along the jury-box, and stood motionless, their cloaks huddled around them, like folds of a thunder-cloud, their faces white as marble.
The judge arose, leaning heavily with one hand upon the desk before him. His lips moved, but it was not till a second effort that they gave forth a sound; but when it did come, his voice broke through the room like a trumpet.
"Prisoner, stand up and look upon the jury!"
The old man arose, and turning meekly around, lifted his eyes to the twelve jurors. * * *