She arose unsteadily, with a face as white as marble.
“Gentlemen, have you agreed upon a verdict?” said the clerk to the jury.
It was so still in court that the flutter of two fans made a great noise.
“We have,” said Foreman Richards boldly.
The prisoner was gripping the rail in front of the dock as if her standing up depended upon its keeping its place.
“Lizzie Andrew Borden,” said the clerk, “hold up your right hand. Jurors, look upon the prisoner. Prisoner, look upon the foreman.”
Every juryman stood at right-about-face, staring at the woman. There was such a gentle, kindly light beaming in every eye that no one questioned the verdict that was to be uttered. But God save every woman from the feelings that Lizzie Borden showed in the return look she cast upon that jury! It was what is pictured as the rolling gaze of a dying person. She seemed not to have the power to move her eyes directly where she was told to, and they swung all around in her head. They looked at the ceiling; they looked at everything, but they saw nothing. It was a horrible, a pitiful sight, to see her then.
“What say you, Mr. Foreman?” said the gentle old clerk.
“Not guilty!” shouted Mr. Richards.
At the words the wretched woman fell quicker than ever an ox fell in the stockyards of Chicago. Her forehead crashed against the heavy walnut rail so as to shake the reporter of the Sun who sat next to her, twelve feet away, leaning on the rail. It seemed that she must be stunned, but she was not. Quickly, with an unconscious movement, she flung up both arms, threw them over the rail, and pressed them under her face so that it rested on them. What followed was mere mockery, but it was the well-governed order of the court and had to be gone through with.