There was no one in the kitchen. In the inner room one sister sat in the arm-chair. It was Mademoiselle Henriette, cold and stiff. Her dead hands were stained with earth.
At the back of the cottage they came on a freshly-formed mound, and stuck on the top of it a piece of slate, such as children erect over a thrush's grave.
On it was scratched—
Ci-Git
Lucille,
Jadis si Belle;
Dont dix-neuf Jeunes Hommes, Planteurs de
Saint Domingue.
ont demande la Main.
Mais La Petite ne Voulait Pas.
R.I.P.
This is the story of Loose-heels, otherwise Lucille's.
STATEMENT OF GABRIEL FOOT, HIGHWAYMAN.
The jury re-entered the court after half an hour's consultation.
It all comes back to me as vividly as though I stood in the dock at this very moment. The dense fog that hung over the well of the court; the barristers' wigs that bobbed up through it, and were drowned again in that seething cauldron; the rays of the guttering candles (for the murder-trial had lasted far into the evening) that loomed through it and wore a sickly halo; the red robes and red face of my lord judge opposite that stared through it and outshone the candles; the black crowd around, seen mistily; the voice of the usher calling "Silence!"; the shuffling of the jurymen's feet; the pallor on their faces as I leant forward and tried to read the verdict on them; the very smell of the place, compounded of fog, gaol-fever, the close air, and the dinners eaten earlier in the day by the crowd—all this strikes home upon me as sharply as it then did, after the numb apathy of waiting.
As the jury huddled into their places I stole a look at my counsel. He paused for a moment from his task of trimming a quill, shot a quick glance at the foreman's face, and then went on cutting as coolly as ever.
"Gentlemen of the jury"—it was the judge's voice—"are you agreed upon your verdict?"