This agitation on her part was not however perceived by either the Bow Street officer or Miss Mordaunt; for the former had a habit of fixing his eyes on the knob of his ash stick when he was engrossed in a professional topic; and the latter was drinking in with greedy ears the description of the supposed highwayman, whom she was quite astonished to hear represented as so very discrepant from her idea of what a midnight desperado must be.
The arrival of the carriage was, under the circumstances, quite a relief to Georgiana; and, without uttering another objection, she allowed Mr. Dykes to have his own way in the matter.
That experienced officer rang the bell as coolly as if the house was his own, and desired that the man-servant and lady's-maid, who were in attendance on their mistress the preceding night, would prepare to accompany him to Bow Street.
Mason and Charlotte speedily obeyed this request, and the chariot, instead of taking the ladies up Bond Street, conveyed them, the two servants, and Mr. Dykes, to the police-office.
On their arrival, Mr. Dykes conducted his witnesses into a private room, and, after an absence of about five minutes, returned with the intelligence that the night charges were just disposed of, and that the prisoner was about to be placed in the dock.
A shudder passed through Georgiana's frame; but, with a desperate effort to compose herself, she followed Mr. Dykes into the court, Miss Mordaunt and the two servants remaining in the private room until they should be summoned individually to give their testimony.
As Georgiana was a lady of rank and fortune she was not treated as a humble witness would have been, but was accommodated with a chair, Mr. Dykes assuring her, in a confidential whisper, that she need not stand up to give her evidence.
The body of the court was crowded with a motley assembly of spectators, the news that a highwayman was about to be examined having spread like wildfire throughout the neighbourhood.
Scarcely was Georgiana seated, when a sensation on the part of the crowd enabled her to judge that the accused was being brought in; and as Tom Rain leapt nimbly into the dock, she cast a rapid glance towards him—a glance in which terror was combined with indescribable disgust and aversion.
The accused affected not to notice her, but lounged in a very easy and familiar fashion over the front of the dock; surveying, first Sir Walter Ferguson, and then the clerk, with a complacency which would have almost induced an uninitiated stranger to imagine that they were the prisoners and he was the magistrate.