“I will do so, your Honor,” in the basso profundo of deep respect.
Mink, agitated, trembling with the sudden shock, leaned forward and looked with burning eyes at Alethea. How was she discrediting the testimony she had given for him? How was she jeopardizing his fate?
She was almost overcome for a moment. Her nerves were shaken; she was appalled by the sudden revolution her simple disclosure had wrought. Her lips trembled, her eyes filled, but she made a gallant struggle for self-control, and answered in a steady voice the attorney-general’s next question.
“Did the boy wear a hat, or was he bare-headed?”
There was suppressed excitement in the audience, for Tad’s hat and coat, recovered from the river, had been shown to the jury while she was in the ante-room with the other witnesses.
“I didn’t notice,—’twar so suddint”
“How was he dressed?”
“I didn’t see,” faltered Alethea.
“What did you see?”