She hoped that he had and that he had not. She recalled with the most poignant sorrow the few days of their union, their hours of intimacy, his kisses, her secret realisation of her power over him, and of his passion. She wanted to scream:
"That man there is as innocent as any of you, and soon the whole world will know it! He never committed any crime except that of loving me too much. He could not do without me, and so I was his ruin. It is horrible that he should be here in this hell. He must be set free at once. The Home Secretary knows he is innocent, but they are so slow. How can anyone bear that he should stop here one instant longer?"
But she made no sound. The tremendous force of an ancient and organised society kept her lips closed and her feet in a line with the others. She thought in despair:
"We are getting nearer, and I cannot meet him. I shall drop." She glanced at Edwin, as if for help, but Edwin was looking straight ahead.
Then a warder, stopping, ejaculated with the harsh brevity of a drill-serjeant:
"Halt!"
The file halted.
"Right turn!"
The six captives turned, with their faces close against the wall of the corridor, obedient, humiliated, spiritless, limp, stooping. Their backs presented the most ridiculous aspect; all the calculated grotesquerie of the surpassingly ugly prison uniform was accentuated as they stood thus, a row of living scarecrows, who knew that they had not the right even to look upon free men. Every one of them except George Cannon had large protuberant ears that completed the monstrosity of their appearance.
The official gave his new acquaintances a satisfied glance, as if saying: