"Well"--a fraction of its certainty had gone out of the shrill voice,--"it was like this. We meets in the passage, and she says to me: 'Bill ain't fit to be no woman's 'usband. I wish to Gawd 'e was dead. I shan't never know a moment's 'appiness till he is dead.'"
"And had the accused previously made, in your presence, similar statements?"
"Yuss. Time and again."
"Thank you. That will be all."
Hector Brunton sat down; but before Ronnie could rise to cross-examine, the judge had intervened.
"You say," said the judge, referring to his notes, "that on the night before the crime was committed, at about half-past nine o'clock, you saw the accused go into Robert Fielding's room. Was she--to your personal knowledge--in the habit of making such visits?"
"Yuss, m'lord."
"You're prepared to swear that?"
"Yuss, m'lord."
"Very well." Deliberately, Mr. Justice Heber wrote down the answer. "Now, on the night of July 4, you're prepared to swear that you actually saw the accused"--the legal voice was stern--"go into Robert Fielding's room; and you are also prepared to swear that by the time you went to bed, she had not come out."