"Oh, he has sold her!" said Mr. Jekyl. "She is at Alexandria, now, in Beaton & Burns' establishment."
"And her children, too?"
"Yes, the lot. I claim some little merit for that, myself. Tom is a fellow of rather strong passions, and he was terribly angry for the trouble she had made. I don't know what he would have done to her, if I hadn't talked to him. But I showed him some debts that couldn't be put off any longer without too much of a sacrifice; and, on the whole, I persuaded him to let her be sold. I have tried to exert a good influence over him, in a quiet way," said Mr. Jekyl. "Now, if you want to get the woman, like enough she may not be sold, as yet."
Clayton, having thus ascertained the points which he wished to know, proceeded immediately to Alexandria. When he was there, he found a considerable excitement.
"A slave-woman," it was said, "who was to have been sent off in a coffle the next day, had murdered her two children."
The moment that Clayton heard the news, he felt an instinctive certainty that this woman was Cora Gordon. He went to the magistrate's court, where the investigation was being held, and found it surrounded by a crowd so dense that it was with difficulty he forced his way in. At the bar he saw seated a woman dressed in black, whose face, haggard and wan, showed yet traces of former beauty. The splendid dark eyes had a peculiar and fierce expression. The thin lines of the face were settled into an immovable fixedness of calm determination. There was even an air of grave, solemn triumph on her countenance. She appeared to regard the formalities of the court with the utmost indifference. At last she spoke, in a clear, thrilling, distinct voice,—
"If gentlemen will allow me to speak, I'll save them the trouble of that examination of witnesses. It's going a long way round to find out a very little thing."
There was an immediate movement of curiosity in the whole throng, and the officer said.—
"You are permitted to speak."
She rose deliberately, untied her bonnet-strings, looked round the whole court, with a peculiar but calm expression of mingled triumph and power.