The woman stood up; not unhandsome in a hard, bold way, except for her black eye.
"Madam," said the judge, "is what the prisoner has told us, in so far as it concerns you, true?"
"Every word of it."
"The man Ruddy Boyd used violence to make you go with him?"
"He twisted my arm and cramped my little finger till I couldn't bear the pain."
"You are, I take it, the prisoner's wife?"
The color mounted slowly into the woman's cheeks. She hesitated, choked upon her words. The prisoner sprang to his feet.
"Your honor," he cried, "in a question of life or death like this Jenny and me we speaks the truth, and nothin' but the truth. She's not my wife. But I'm goin' to marry her, and make an honest woman of her—at the foot of the gallows, if you decide that way. No, sir; she was Ruddy Boyd's wife."
There was a dead silence, broken by the sounds of the horses and cows munching their fodder. The foreman of the jury uncoiled slowly.
"Your honor," he drawled, "I can find it in my heart to pass over the exact married status of the lady, but I cannot find it in my heart to pass over without explanation the black eye which the prisoner confesses to have given her."