They themselves were far too simple and too stupid to be dangerously criminal. And so the evidence quickly lost its interest for Louisa. She herself, with the fragmentary statements which she heard, could more easily surmise the life history of Paul Baker than could the doting mother, who retailed complacently every mark on the skin and on the body of her son, and knew nothing whatever—less than nothing—of his thoughts, his schemes, of the evil that was in him, and the ambition which led to his end.
And now the last of the Baker contingent was dismissed. Jane Smith, the sweetheart of the murdered man, was the last to leave the coroner's table. She did so in a flood of tears, in which the others promptly and incontinently joined.
The coroner, somewhat impatient with them all, for their vague notions on the most important bearings of the case had severely tried him, adjourned the inquiry until the morrow.
He ordered the jury to be present at a quarter before ten, and gave the signal for general withdrawal.
After which every one went home.
CHAPTER XXXI
AND THERE ARE PEOPLE WHO DO NOT CARE
For the first time in the whole course of her life Louisa Harris felt that convention must be flouted and social duties could not be fulfilled.
When the coroner, rising from his seat, gave the signal for general exodus, she had felt her father's firm hand grasping her arm, and leading her out of the fog-ridden, stuffy room into the cold, gray passages outside.
The herd of cackling geese were crowding round her. Heavens above, how they cackled and gossiped! It seemed as if the very floodgates of a noisy, bubbling stream had been torn asunder, and a whirlpool of chattering women been let loose upon the earth.