"Overruled." I believe I snapped; the rumble on the left is the noise of calf-bound law books revolving in the grave. "The Court has not received the impression that the witness is claiming any professional standing in psychiatry. The remark you object to, Mr. Hunter, was a general one, to be sure; but she was speaking of matters that are either common knowledge or ought to be. I must rule that the defense is within its rights to let her follow this line, to help clarify her testimony on matters of fact." And where in the pluperfect hell do I dig up a precedent on that one?
"Exception."
"Yes. You may complete what you were saying, Miss Nolan."
"If the interest in living is gone—I mean the simple wish to stay alive and see what will happen next—then I think there's real danger of a suicide. And as the Judge said, Mr. Warner, I guess that's pretty much common knowledge. Callista herself was certainly aware of it, from her reading, her general education. Well, that remark about discovering any purpose in existence—I caught Callista up on that, I remember. I reminded her that we make and choose our own purposes—" (Watch it, Red!)—"so far as we know them." She understood the danger, probably, the risk of touching on any questions that, for most of the jury, were settled on Sunday morning and decently ignored the rest of the week. "She—thought about that, I'm sure, and for a while I think she came part way out of her depression. Not all the way."
"Summing up then, Miss Nolan: knowing her as you do, and seeing her, I suppose, every week-day during last July—you're convinced that most of that time she was behaving like one in the grip of a serious depression with the possibility of suicide?"
"I don't have any doubt of it, Mr. Warner—now. I ought not to have been in doubt at the time. If anyone is guilty in this case it's myself, because I ought to have stayed with her just about every minute until she won her way out of that mood. Then there would have been no chance for the horrible accident that makes it possible to charge her with—"
"Objection!"
"Objection sustained." She looked up with understanding and no reproach. The man in private applauded her doubtless intentional violation of rules, while the Judge must condemn. "The witness's answer will have to be stricken." It comes to me, I did not add that the jury is to disregard it. That all right, Red?
"Miss Nolan, I understand you weren't present at a certain picnic in Shanesville last August 7th. Did you know about it at the time?"
"Yes. I closed the studio that afternoon—the weather was impossibly hot. Cal said her mother was having one of her picnics, and thought she might go. Cal didn't ordinarily care for that sort of thing, but I—oh, I guess I just told her to run along and have a good time."