"She is very young."
"Ay—a girl-wife. 'Tis her whom the accused tried to murder, so that he might offer her blood in sacrifice to the devil."
But this statement obtained little credence now.
"The accused does not look like a wizard, or an emissary of the devil," commented the ladies.
"Yet the girl is there to testify against him."
"That is because she must hate him so. She is the wife of the man whom the accused hath dispossessed. They say she dearly loves her husband, yet did the accused try and steal her from him."
"She will make a handsome Countess of Stowmaries anon," quoth Lord Rochester with his wonted cynicism, and speaking in the ear of his royal master, "What think you, sire?"
"Odd's fish!" retorted Charles Stuart. "If she proved as big a liar as these damnable informers then is there no virtue writ plainly on any woman's face."
There certainly was something infinitely pathetic in the appearance of father and daughter: he in his clothes of deep black, and with the tears of anxiety and perturbation rolling slowly down his cheeks. She fragile and slender, with pale, delicate face and eyes wherein girlish timidity still fought against a woman's resolve.
No wonder that for the moment every unkind comment was hushed. The Countess of Stowmaries—as she was already universally called—seemed to command respect as well as sympathy. With a great show of kindness, the Lord Chief Justice himself spoke directly to the two witnesses, asking their names and quality, as was required for form's sake.