The warmth with which she uttered the first two names, the coldness with which she uttered mine! Was it intentional, or just the natural expression of her feelings? Whatever prompted this distinction in tone, the effect was to signal me out as definitely as though a brand had left its scorching mark upon my forehead.
And I innocent!
Why I did not leap to my feet I do not know. I thought I did, shouting a wild disclaimer. If men stared and women shrieked that was nothing to me. All that I cared for was Orpha sitting there listening to this hellish accusation. So maddened was I, so dead to all human conditions that I doubt if I should have been surprised had the ghostly figure of my uncle evolved itself from air and taken its place on the witness-stand in revolt against this horror. Anything was possible, but to let the world—by which I meant Orpha—believe this thing for a moment.
All this tumult in brain and heart, and my body quiet, fixed, with not a muscle so much as quivering. By what force was I thus withheld? Possibly by some hypnotic influence exerted by Mr. Jackson, for when I looked in his direction I found him gazing very earnestly in mine. I smiled. It must have been a very dreary smile and ironic in the extreme; for my heart was filled with bitterness and could express itself in no other way.
The decided shake of the head which he gave me in return had its effect, however, and digging my nails into my palm, I listened to what followed with all the stoicism the situation called for.
I was still in a state of rigid self-control when I heard my name spoken loudly and with command and woke to the fact that Wealthy had been dismissed from the stand and that I was to be the next witness.
Was I ready for it? I must be; and to test my strength, I cast one straight look at Orpha. She had lifted her veil and met my gaze fairly. Had there been guilt in my heart—
But I could pass her without shame; and sustained by this fact, I took my place on the stand with a calmness I had hardly expected to show in the face of this prejudiced throng.
XXXI
As my story, sometimes elicited by questions and sometimes allowed to take the form of an uninterrupted narrative, differed in no essential from the one already given in these pages, I see no reason for recapitulating it here any more than I did the one I told days before to the Inspector. Fixed in my determination to be honest in all I said but not to say any more than was required, I was able to hear unmoved the low murmurs which now and then rose from the center of the room as I made some unexpected reply or revealed, as I could not help doing, the strength of the tie which united me to my deceased uncle. No one believed in that and consequently attributed any assertion of the kind to hypocrisy; and with this I had to contend from the beginning to the end, softened perhaps a little towards the last, but still active enough to make my position a very trying one.