The answer was given slowly and distinctly with his face full to the jury.
Oh, how my heart sank as I heard his words! I felt it was useless, but I tried to soften them by explanation.
“Mr. Warren, tell the jury why you have no regret for the man’s death.”
“Because I saw him do foul murder which no law would reach. Because I looked in the creature’s face and saw in it something far lower than the lowest brute, and I killed him in the same spirit as I would kill any dangerous beast.”
I suppose I should have foreseen the awful hush which followed and prevented it with a flood of questions no matter how futile or meaningless. But at that moment, and in this place reeking with the breath of falsehood, his answer rang forth so true and brave that I closed the case without another word and began my summing up to the jury.
Dearest, I cannot now remember a single phrase I uttered. Twelve men sat before me, but I could only see one face, and to that face I spoke. Again and again the District Attorney interrupted, claiming that what I said was outside the record, but I paid no heed. Behind me the crowd was restless, and, once or twice, I think, the Justice rapped for order with his gavel on the desk, but I never paused. This man’s life was dearer to me than life itself, yet, in that moment of supreme effort, I failed.
Yes, I know it now, I utterly failed. But I did not realise it, dearest, even when I heard the pitiful feebleness of my argument exposed in the cool and cutting words of the District Attorney. Why could I not have seen the fatal weakness of my plea before it mocked me through the maddening calmness of the Judge’s charge, to echo all these weary hours from every nook and corner of this dreadful room!
Why did I not insist that he have some able counsel! To think that I—his closest friend, did not do for him what some hired advocate could have done! His blood is on my hands—the hands he grasped as the jurors filed from the Court Room—and I did not hide my head in shame.
How gloomy this place is. I shudder at its every shadow, and the very air is poison. They’re lighting more gas jets now. That’s better. I could not have stood it much longer.
I can at least be quiet in my humiliation. They shall not startle me again, and I will write on calmly.