But this was not, of course, the official view, which was the view he was bound to take. He coughed severely, and gave her a keen look.
“Don’t you think,” he said, “that you were bound, in the interests of justice, to be more frank?”
“Oh, sir, does one help the interests of justice against one’s friends?”
“One ought to,” was the prompt reply.
“And then, too, nobody asked me any questions implying any doubts of her. They took it for granted that I was the thief, the jury did, and everybody. You remember that, don’t you?”
Yes, Sir Neville did remember that. And looking at the candid and sweet face in front of him, he wondered how his brother magistrates had been such asses, and he forgot that he had been one of those asses himself.
“Well,” he said, in a more pompous manner than ever, “you really gave your evidence so very badly, with such an apparent absence of straightforwardness, that there was some excuse for their mistake.”
“It was because I was so miserable, sir, more miserable than anybody, because in a sort of way I knew the truth.”
“You should have let the jury know it, too.”
“Sir, if it had been only the thefts I would have done so,” answered she, earnestly. “I was in so much trouble with my suspicions that I had asked one of my friends”—her blush betrayed her—“to come and see me, that I might ask his advice about it. But before I had time to tell him what I was afraid of, the murder happened. And then I didn’t dare.”