“All will be well, dearest Eudora. The judge believes you innocent,” whispered Malcolm to the prisoner.
“All is in the hands of God,” breathed the poor, pale girl, in a dying voice, for her very life seemed ebbing away under the high pressure of this terrible trial.
In other parts of the crowded court-room the charge of the judge was not quite so highly approved.
“Ah! Oh? Umph! The most one-sided charge I ever heard in all the days of my life,” exclaimed Sir Ira Brunton, indignantly, wiping his flushed forehead as if he himself had just made a long speech. “It actually forestalls the verdict of the jury; it positively amounts to an acquittal. It is the most unjust, barefaced, abominable abuse of office I ever knew in my life. The man is unfit to sit upon the bench. He should be impeached. He must be getting into his dotage.”
“Lor! Do you think so? Why I thought it was an excellent discourse—as good as a sermon. And as for being in his dotage, why how you do talk, boy. He is younger than you,” said old Mrs. Stilton.
“God bless Lord Elverton,” exclaimed Annella, fervently; “and when he himself shall appear at the last judgment-bar, may God judge him as mercifully as he has judged that poor girl.”
“You know nothing of the matter, Miss!” exclaimed the admiral, angrily. “But hush! I do believe the jury are coming in. What a little time they have taken. But oh, of course their going out was only a form, since the charge of the judge was tantamount to an instruction to bring in a verdict of acquittal.”
The jury, marshaled by the bailiffs, were already in court. All eyes were immediately turned in eager anxiety towards them, to read, if possible, in their expression the nature of the verdict they were about to render.
The faces of those twelve men were pale, stern, and downcast. It seemed ominous to the prisoner, and every eye was instantly directed towards her to observe the effect of all this upon her manner.
Eudora, no longer conscious of the hundreds of eyes fixed upon her, had half risen from her seat, thrown her veil quite back, and bent her white face towards the jury, in an agony of suspense, terrible to behold. The hand which, in rising, she had rested upon the side of the dock, was firmly grasped by Malcolm, who stood with his eyes fixed upon the face of the foreman in fierce anxiety. There was a breathless pause. And then the clerk of the arraigns arose, and demanded of the foreman of the jury whether they had agreed upon their verdict.