"Gentlemen——"
The Recorder's charge to the jury followed, a charge clear, undeclamatory, without literature or bias, in which they were instructed regarding the law and left to determine the facts.
The jury filed out. The Recorder evaporated. Annandale sauntered away. Into adjacent corridors the great room emptied itself.
Orr, stationing associates on guard, went over to Sylvia, urging her to go.
But Sylvia refused at first to budge. The jury, she declared, would be back in five minutes.
"It may be five hours," said Orr. "You had far better go home. No? Well then I will take you to my offices and have something brought in."
"Is it far?" Sylvia warily asked. But presently she assented, stipulating however that Annandale should be brought there the moment he was freed.
Orr tossed his head. "That may not be for years, until after an appeal. I have not an idea what the jury will do. But I know one thing: the last of the lot, the twelfth, looked at me during my summing up with something that was a cross between a sneer and a scowl."
"Yes," Mrs. Waldron interjected, "I noticed him. But it seemed to me that he was not listening. It seemed to me that he was in pain. But do, Sylvia, let us go. It is cruel of you. I am starving."
In Orr's neighborly offices shortly the lady was fed. Sylvia too ate something. Orr himself would have bolted a bite, but he had to hurry away, though promising as he did so everything that Sylvia asked, promising to stand on his head if she wished it.