Indeed, the central figure there, the presiding judge, Lord Chief Baron Elverton, was, by his imposing presence, no less than his august office and his mysterious family history, calculated to attract and rivet attention.
He was now but sixty years of age, though looking seventy-five or eighty. His once large, massive, and erect form was now bowed, shrunken and emaciated: his fine, high, noble features were faded, sunken, and sharpened; his once luxuriant auburn hair and beard were now thin and white as snow; his countenance, though expressive of intellectual pride and conscious power, was impressed with the ineffaceable marks of deep suffering modified by patient benignity.
But what was the nature of that suffering? Was it inconsolable sorrow for some heavy misfortune earth could never repair? Or was it inextinguishable remorse for some deep sin that Heaven could not pardon?
No one ever knew, or even surmised. But, as the spectators looked upon that care-worn face, they spoke together in whispers, of that strange, terrible, unexplained episode in his family history; the sudden, fearful midnight flight of his son; the total estrangement between himself and his daughter-in-law, and the rigid seclusion of his young grand-daughter; and, for the hundredth time, wondered whatever could be at the bottom of those mysteries. For the moment, even the impending trial was forgotten in this discussion of the family secrets of Lord Elverton.
But the attention of the assembly was soon recalled to its first subject.
The prisoner was ordered to be brought into court.
And once more every eye was turned and fixed in unwinking vigilance upon the door by which she was expected to enter.
And all this eager curiosity in the crowd was only to see one poor, frightened, trembling girl brought up to trial for life or death.
They had not long to wait for their spectacle.
The doors were thrown open, and the young prisoner was led in between the deputy-sheriff and the female turnkey.