"No," Mrs. Bobby reflected, "they won't acquit her for her beauty." But aloud she talked cheerfully, giving the Neighborhood news—what there was of it, skimming the cream of her letters from friends at gayer places—profoundly uninteresting just then, and mocking the scene about them with its frivolous incongruity—but what matter. Anything to keep going the ball of conversation! But at last, in spite of herself, there came a pause.
It was intensely hot. The sun beat down upon the rough uneven stones which paved the prison court, it baked the wall against which the two women leaned. Before their eyes there rose up sharply the walls of the men's prison, and beyond a fragment of the Court-house, with which the Bridge of Sighs formed a connecting link, invisible from where they sat. A little way off, in a small circle of shade, a group of women prisoners gathered silent, inert. A great stillness brooded over the place, broken only by the buzzing of flies and the noises in the street, which sounded dreamily as if it were many miles away. A man was crying "Strawberries, fresh strawberries!" and his voice floated in to the prison, bringing with it a tantalizing suggestion of coolness and freedom and green fields.
Involuntarily Elizabeth made a gesture of weariness, and raised to her parched lips the great bunch of roses, fresh from the country, which Mrs. Bobby had brought. They already hung their heads.
"I suppose," the girl said dreamily, her eyes half shut, "our flowers must be all out at the Homestead. It always looks so pretty there now, before the heat has lasted too long. I can see it—the river with the sails on it, and the fields covered with daisies—they must be out now—ah, and the wild-roses!"—She drew a long breath. "Oh, I am sick sometimes for a sight of it all," she broke out with sudden vehemence. "I'd give anything to lie down in the grass with the trees over me, and the cool wind in my face, and so—sleep"—Her voice sank away, she made a weary gesture. "I'm so tired," she said, "I'd like to sleep forever."
"My dear child." Mrs. Bobby caught her breath, a mist of tears in her eyes. "Don't you ever sleep here?"—she asked tentatively after a moment, and Elizabeth answered in the same dreary way, unconscious, apparently, that she was departing from her usual reserve.
"No, I don't sleep often," she said, "especially since the nights have been so hot. But when I do"—she paused and stared reflectively before her, while the shadow in her eyes grew deeper. "There's a dream that haunts me now," she said at last, "whenever I fall asleep. I dream about my trial, and—it always goes against me. I stand there all alone, the judge pronounces sentence, and I—I try to speak, I try to tell them that I'm innocent, but—the words won't come—I wake up half strangled"—she broke off shuddering. "Ah, you can't imagine how horrible it is," she said, "worse even than—lying awake."
Mrs. Bobby was silent for a moment, but when she spoke her voice was steady. "It's a horrible dream," she said, "but it's impossible—quite impossible that it should come true. You won't be left alone, we shall all stand by you, you will be acquitted surely—surely"—in spite of herself, her voice suddenly faltered, in a way that belied her words.
"You think so?" Elizabeth said, quickly. "You hope so. But—if you should be mistaken?" She put out her hand and grasped Mrs. Bobby's wrist. "Tell me the worst," she said. "I'd rather know it. Is there much danger, do you—in your heart of hearts, do you think that I shall be acquitted?" Involuntarily her grasp tightened, her strained, dilated eyes searched her friend's face with a look that seemed to compel only the truth—to tolerate no evasions. And Eleanor Van Antwerp, with all her courage, could not meet it. She turned her face away with a little sob.
Elizabeth sat rigid for a moment, waiting for the answer that did not come; then her fingers relaxed their hold, she took her hand away and sank back against the wall.
There was a long silence. The noon-day sun crept towards them, dazzling the eyes, a few flies buzzed aimlessly about. Upon Eleanor Van Antwerp's mind the prison court, as she saw it then, baking in the noon-day heat—the group of women huddled together, the rags of some, the tawdry finery of others, the look of dogged misery on their coarse faces—the whole scene impressed itself, calling up always in after years a sense of powerless despair.