"Did he try to——"
"No. He was quite nice about it, really. I suppose he had to try and make it out different, somehow. He left off directly our counsel objected, and the old Judge said I had given my evidence very well and clearly. I don't think he really believed that I was making it all up."
"You didn't hear what anybody else said?"
"Not a word. Except when I was in the witness-box myself, I might just as well have been at home."
"I wonder what the papers said about you. I wish we could see them."
What those of the papers had said which gave their readers a description as well as a report of what had occurred, was that Miss Joan Clinton had appeared in the witness-box in a simple but becoming costume, which some of them described, and given her evidence clearly and modestly. Some of them said that she was pretty, and one, with a special appeal to the nonconformist conscience, said that it was a pity to see a young lady who from her appearance could not long since have left the schoolroom, and who looked and spoke as if she had been well brought up, involved in the sordid life of what was known as the higher circles, brought to light by these proceedings. The Squire had read this comment with a snort of indignation. But for the quarter from which it came he would have recognised it as coinciding with his own frequently expressed opinion. As it was, he considered it an impertinent reflection upon himself and his order.
When Dick came up to see him that evening he did not insist that the subject should not be mentioned again. He asked him why he had not come in on his way from the station. "There has been nobody to tell me a thing," he said with some irritation. "I only know what I have read in the papers. Upon my word, the woman's brazen insolence! Was that why they dropped the charge of stealing the necklace, Dick?"
"The other was dead certain," said Dick.
"Ah, that's what I thought. But people don't think—er——"
"He did give her pearls," said Dick, with a matter-of-course air of inner knowledge. "And plenty of people have seen her wearing them, though she never seems to have worn them in London."